Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Psyche and Eclipse Company blast off

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

On October 13, 2023, NASA's Psyche mission's principal investigator, Lindy Elkins-Tanton, watched her team's spacecraft blast off on its voyage to explore a metallic asteroid. She joins Planetary Radio this week for an emotional retelling of that day. Then Jesse Tomlinson and Stephen Watkins from the Eclipse Company tell us about their partnership with The Planetary Society and the launch of their new eclipse map for the upcoming 2024 total solar eclipse in North America. Stick around for What's Up with Bruce Betts, the chief scientist of The Planetary Society, as we muse about the space moments that spark wonder. Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2023-psyche-and-eclipse-company See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From the launch of a mission to a new eclipse map, this week on Planetary Radio. I'm Sarah Al-Ahmed of the Planetary Society, with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. After decades of work, the Psyche mission's principal investigator, Lindy Elkins-Tanton, got to watch her team's spacecraft blast off on its voyage to explore a metallic asteroid. She joins us this week for an emotional retelling of that day in October 2023. Then, Jesse Tomlinson and Stephen Watkins from the Eclipse Company tell us about their partnership with the Planetary Society and the launch of their new eclipse map for the upcoming 2024 total solar eclipse in North America. We'll close out with What's Up with Bruce Betts, the chief scientist

of the Planetary Society. Bruce and I are going to muse a little bit about the space moments that we think spark the most wonder. If you love Planetary Radio and want to stay informed about the latest space discoveries, make sure you hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcasting platform. By subscribing, you'll never miss an episode filled with new and awe-inspiring ways to know the cosmos and your place within it. If you've been a fan of Planetary Radio for a while, you'll probably remember our next guest, Lindy Elkins-Tanton. She's a Foundation and Regents Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. She's also the Principal Investigator for NASA's Psyche Mission, which launched on October 13,

2023. Lindy has shared so much of herself with us over the years, not just detailing the Psyche Mission, but about her own life. Her conversation with Planetary Radio's previous host, Matt Kaplan, about her book, which is called A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman, makes me emotional every time I hear it. But today she's back for a very special reason. After years of tireless effort and passion from her and her team, NASA's Psyche mission is finally in space. It's on its way to explore the metallic asteroid also called Psyche, which might just be the exposed core of a protoplanet from the early solar system. But for Lindy, it's the culmination of so much more. It's the realization of a dream hard won through perseverance and teamwork. Hey, Lindy.

Hey, good to see you. Good to see you again. And thanks for coming back on the show. Thanks. I really appreciate it. Yeah, the last time we talked, I remember saying near the end, after this launch, I wanted to invite you back on because what a moment. You've been working on this for so many years. How does it feel to finally have your spacecraft out into space? Beginning to feel like it's a new normal. I had a countdown clock running on my desktop, and now it's a count up clock because it did work that way. I'm beginning countdown clock running on my desktop, and now it's a count-up clock because

it did work that way. I'm beginning to feel like I'm catching up on sleep a bit. The spacecraft is performing so well, and we had such a roller coaster of challenges to overcome, including at the last minute before launch. And so this feels like some surreal new kind of world. Yeah. Right. What happened on launch day that made that so complicated? Launch day itself was the most perfect and beautiful launch day ever. But two weeks before launch, we discovered we had a problem with our coal gas thrusters that they were going to overheat. And this was just a couple of geniuses who I'm indebted to forever at JPL who just thought, you know, I don't feel totally comfortable with this. Let's look into it. And it turned out we, you know, had been given the wrong data,

which we based all of our operations on for years. And when they took their own data, it was a different story. So suddenly, and this was the day I arrived in Florida, thinking I had kind of let my guard down, which is always a mistake. Like I was like, okay, we're just going to coast into launch. It's going to be a series of parties and this amazing experience. And then suddenly it was just like red alert because this could be mission ending. If they overheated, we would no longer be able to turn our spacecraft and we probably would never know what failed on the thrusters. What a nightmare. 100 150 people like all hands on deck every kind of alarm blaring you could imagine 2 a.m i'm on webex calls with 70 people and i've just never i like honest to god this was a master class and how teams work best because it just could not have been handled better and um found a solution and we did have to move the launch you know seven days incredible like really solved it and and that was amazing and And then we

thought, great, okay, we're gonna launch on the 12th. And we get on the weather call by we, I mean, Henry Stone, the project manager, and Ben Weiss, the deputy PI, and myself standing outside under the eaves of this building where we're having our team party, we had to go outside to take this call. The heavens open, it's pouring rain. And we're listening on the call. And it's the super expert weather person from the Space Force side saying, it's not looking good for the 12th. We're expecting tornadoes. And we're like, of course, of course, we're expecting tornadoes. Of course we are. Actually, Ben Weiss and I just started cracking up because it just could not have been more perfect. So we were just faded from the beginning to launch on Friday the 13th. And that day was the most perfect launch day ever. So that's

you could imagine the kind of exhaustion and like hilarity we were entering into that launch day with. I hope you still got to have some of your parties though. We had the parties anyway, because you can't really reorganize, you know, you have, you have whatever five or coming and, you know, it's just, you're going to have the party anyway. So it's like a pre-launch party. So on launch morning, I got up really early because I got to sit on console. And the console that I got to sit on, there were 10 different rooms of people doing operations for the spacecraft. A bunch of them were at Kennedy Space Center. And then there's the big operations room at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. And we're all on headsets listening to the voice net. And we're

all watching the consoles. And so my console was in hangar AE on the Space Force side. So I get up long before dawn, it's totally pitch black, and come up to the gate to go into the Space Force side. And I've got, you know, my, I've got my badge, and, you know, I'm ready to go in. And they were there were so many people coming on for launch that they had actually opened two lanes so that we could get onto the base and they're checking all the badges. And then the base and Kennedy are both just miles and miles

of swampy Florida wilderness jungle interspersed with occasional gigantic launch complexes. And there's no streetlights. You're driving up this two-lane road in the absolute pitch dark, and then there's a little lighted sign by the side of the road that just says, Go Psyche. It's just one of these wonderful moments. It was a big, big deal.

So many people making this happen. And then, I don't know, 10, 10 or 11,000 people came to see the launch as well. So sitting in that console at Hangar AE and listening to the countdown, following it in my launch book. And that was just an amazing experience. That's got to be so cool to see the people locally cheering for your mission. Because I got that sense. I've only been to one launch or rather attempted launch at a Kennedy space center, but just seeing all of the shop windows with their signs for the missions and all the people showing up, there's something really cool about the community around that space

center. I love that. And we have so much support for this mission from around the world too. That was just a thrill to know that so many people were participating you know so we're going through and this is a big deal launch for SpaceX because it's their first NASA deep space mission launch and just the eighth Falcon Heavy so they really wanted to go well and we had great working relationship with SpaceX and so all these teams from different organizations came together into one and the countdown is going so smoothly. And the big higher ups from NASA who were in the room with me were like, this feels good, this is going to happen. And we're going through the book. And for a while, you know,

there's just periods of silence because there's actually no problems and nothing to work and everything's working. And then at 10 minutes before launch, after doing the countdown now for hours, suddenly there's a problem. And I wasn't sure, I knew it wasn't good, but I didn't know how bad it was. So I turned to one of the JPL leadership who was sitting to my left, and he just swore, which he never does. And so and then I thought, oh, my gosh. And so we all had collective like 500 people had a heart attack for two minutes, until it was resolved at launch minus eight minutes. And then it proceeded. What a roller coaster. Oh, my gosh.

Right. I mean, it was good to just be afraid for a minute because things were going very smoothly. And then the rocket worked perfectly. And as soon as it was launched, we all ran out of the building and just watched it with our eyes. And we looked up in the sky and we saw the rocket and we watched the booster separate. And then we watched them land. And they're very close to us over there at Hangar AE and the sonic booms and that like rumbling, crackling sonic booms that are just, I love that. People get excited about Formula One race cars, but let me tell you, go to a Falcon Heavy launch.

And then there's no going back. It's just amazing. And then I had to figure out how to drive myself over to the press center because I and some of the JPL management and our project manager, our deputy principal investigator, all these people were like 10 of us are supposed to meet at this conference room in the press center because they don't want us to meet any press until we've kind of reached mission success, which is that we've got telemetry and we're locked on and the solar panels are power positive and we're thermally stable. Like these are a bunch of things that are, we don't even separate from the rocket till 62 minutes after launch. And it could

be even another two hours before those things are accomplished. So we don't want any confusing, like partial messages. And so I did figure out how to drive over there through the 500 cars that were leaving from all the people watching on the causeway and stuff, but it was very well done. And I just took out my cell phone and hit record for one of these voice memos and just kind of poured out everything that I was feeling at that moment, which I haven't listened to again yet. I got to figure, I don't know what I said. So that'll be interesting. That's a beautiful thing to record and keep, you know, that you'll get to reflect on that moment in the future. And our listeners have been on this journey with you for literally years, not just about the psyche mission,

but about your personal life, your personal journey, everything you've overcome. So seeing you in this moment and knowing that you have that record, I feel like that's so special. And you're going to have to, you're going to have to listen to it at some point. I have no, I am. And I've been also keeping a notebook because I knew I wouldn't remember all the incredible things that happened during the super intense, insane month that I was living in Florida. And my husband moved down with me. He's like, no, you're going to need me to grocery shop. Like this is going to be great. And so we supported each other. We were each having like work stuff going on. And we had a little Airbnb with a pond behind it and we'd kayak through the mangroves. I mean, it was just so many things. I wrote like 70 pages of all of these experiences

because I do, I feel that. And also, you know, like I wrote about in my memoir, there was a moment right during step one where I had cancer and I had to go through chemotherapy and I had a huge amount of nerve damage. And for a while I was even having trouble walking and I'd like huge muscle spasms and like the body not working. And so now, not only has my rocket launched, which is amazing, but in the past year, I've actually totally regained my health. And so I now am pain free and I can jog and like, it's amazing. So it's like this stellar moment. I just turned 58, which I freaking can't believe. But I'm like, this is a really good moment. So I can't forget about it. This seems like a book all on its own. I feel like it could be like, I don't know. It's an intense emotional experience. That's for sure.

Yeah. So we show up at the press center and we had to sneak around the back and come in the secret door so we could end up in this closed conference room and not run into all the press in the front. And so we're all in there and a couple of the guys have hooked into the psyche ops and they're getting the data down and they're like, wait, we're pyropositive. We're like, wait a minute. First, we all watched the separation on the screen, and everybody could see that, right? It was broadcast via SpaceX's onboard cameras to everybody in the world, and you can watch it on the replay of the launch commentary. And we'd asked them to give us no angular momentum, no spin at tip-off. We wanted the

spacecraft to be going absolutely straight with no spin so that off. We wanted the spacecraft to be going absolutely straight with no spin so that we could right away get down to opening the solar arrays. And we all watched and we're like, our heads are tipping, like, is it spinning? Is it rotating? But it wasn't. It was just perfect. It just soared away. And we knew there was some chances that the low gain antennas would get picked up by the deep space network. And suddenly we're like, oh my gosh, that was a little bit of telemetry. Wait a minute, what are we getting? And then the solar arrays deploy, we're getting power. The spacecraft de-tumbles, it uses those cold gas thrusters, it all works. The cold gas thrusters are not overheating. We couldn't even believe it. They

were so cool and perfect. And so then the head of the press group, this wonderful woman from JPL, she's used to there being contingencies like anomalies and issues after launch. And she didn't want us to have to be solving them while hangry after being on console for like five, six hours. And so she went out to get us sandwiches thinking it was going to be hours more. And while she was gone, we hit all of the things needed for mission success. And so we locked on, we had telemetry, the spacecraft was healthy, it was thermally stable, it was power positive. She came back with the sandwiches and we're like, yay! Victory sandwich. Yeah, we couldn't even believe. We kept looking at each other and going like, pinch me, I can't

believe how well this is going. And then we took a million loopy pictures. And that was launch day. It was amazing. It really sounds like the team came together and really heroed up and totally, totally nailed it. That's amazing. I really feel that way. And now, you know, 15 days out, there are little things that we're working, which is so expected and nothing that's very worrying. And all the major processes that we've been planning to do so far in initial checkout have worked beautifully. And so, you know, in spacecraft speak, as you know, when everything is working perfectly, it's called nominal, which just I still don't understand where

that comes from. Maybe you do because it makes no... I don't know where that started. I do love making nominal jokes around the house, though. We do that all the time, too. How are you today, James? I'm nominal. Yeah, meaning perfect, you know, absolutely perfect. And so the next day after launch, we reached that coveted state of cis-nominal, systems nominal. And it's just been great. So today, in fact, as we're talking, we're switching from the low gain to the high gain antenna.

We're finally far enough away that that amount of energy won't damage either the spacecraft or the deep space network, because apparently that would happen if we turned on the high gain antenna closer to Earth, which is also fascinating to me. That is fascinating. Yeah. So we're right in the middle of turning the spacecraft for that when I came to talk to you. And so soon we'll have six times the data rate, which is great. That's really cool. What do the next years look like for your team?

Because it won't actually reach asteroid Psyche until 2029. So you have a little bit of time here to sit around and ponder life. Oh my gosh, yes. I'm super looking forward to that. Because, you know, ever since really, I mean, I mean, there've been challenges before that, but it was really the advent of COVID basically, almost four years ago that we started into crisis mode. And it's basically been continuous crisis mode for this team for the last three and three quarter years, which is a long time to be living in that state.

So we're all looking forward to some sort of return to normalcy. We've got about 100 days of initial checkout all scheduled. We're doing operations Monday, Wednesday, and Friday so that Tuesday and Thursday we can do data analysis and clean up stuff and not be pushed too hard. And Deep Space Optical Comms is going to start having its opportunities. And we just opened its cover last week. And so we're ready to do the initial checkout for that instrument next week. So that's going to be great for the team. And then the Mars flyby, and we'll be doing a lot of science planning. But I think a very much more human rate of work for the next number of years. And I did just set up a software countdown clock to

Psyche Arrival. And we don't know exactly the day that we'll be going into orbit because it depends on a lot of things with electric propulsion, but give or take 2,100 days to go. The countdown begins all over again. I'm just channeling Battlestar Galactica in my brain. Less stressful. Exactly. Yes, yes, but in a good way. Yeah. It's beautiful. Are we going to actually get images from the spacecraft during the Mars flyby? You know, we are going to be calibrating all the instruments, but it's going to be a pretty distant flyby, so it's not clear how exciting that's going to be. And we had at one point hoped to get a look back at the Earth and the Moon, but honestly, we screamed away from the Earth and the Moon so fast that by the time we

could have turned on the cameras and turned around, you couldn't have seen anything. So, yeah. It's almost like those Falcon Heavy rockets really got some launch to them. No kidding. Wow. Yeah, a lot of C3 just flung us out there because we haven't not turned on our propulsive thrusters yet. And we won't until after the initial checkout, and we'll be testing them and stuff. So this is all just fleeing from the rocket. So while people are kind of in this moment, it's going to be a few years before the mission gets there. How can the public still keep engaged with this mission, get updates or interact with it? Because I know there's been so many wonderful interaction moments,

the Psyche Inspired program. What can people get into nowadays? Yeah, well, there's going to be Psyche Inspired the whole time. So look for new student art coming absolutely all the time. I just looked at the plans for the next class of artists for their first artwork. And so all of that will appear on our psyche.asu.edu website. And then there are some great sites to keep up with things. There's one that shows where Psyche is right now and how many light seconds one-way communications is and stuff like that. And I've been posting them on my X feed. I still am not used to calling it that, my Twitter feed. And I guess we need to put some of those links up on our ASU website as well. And there's a NASA website. And so there's lots of ways to keep up and we'll be going back. We had a little bit of a hiatus just because

people had so much work to do, but we want to go back to having team members write little blogs about what they're doing and their personal experience. And so I hope there'll be lots of ways for people to stay connected. I'm so happy for you and your team. You've totally done it. This mission is on the way, and now you get to have some much needed rest. So I hope you all have a lot of chilled down time. Look up in the sky at night, see the stars and think my spacecraft is out there. We did it. Oh, it's unbelievable to see that and think that. Yeah. Jim Bell said it really well. Like a wild animal, we've released it into its native habitat. Now it's really happy. It's doing everything right. That's beautiful. I thought so too. Well, thanks for joining me,

Lindy, and for taking the time. I know you're super busy. I hope you get back to all your adventures at JPL and that the high gain antenna, everything goes well. Thanks for your interest and support and the chance to talk about that crazy launch day. Thanks, Lindy. I'm so happy that I get to share that conversation with you. I've been looking forward to that for quite a while, but it's also a great reminder that every time you support a space mission, you're bolstering the dreams of thousands of people around the world, and you really never know whose life you might touch. We turn from that moment of awe to another, the upcoming total solar eclipse on April 8th, 2024.

It's going to pass over Mexico, the United States of America, and Canada. If you never experienced a total solar eclipse before, I urge you to do so in the strongest way possible. I really can't express to you what it's like. You just have to experience it for yourself. It's a moment that could change your life, which I think our next guest would agree with. Stephen Watkins and Jesse Tomlinson are the founders of The Eclipse Company. By trade, they're software engineers. But they had a moment of awe when they experienced the total solar eclipse that passed over their

hometown on August 21, 2017, and it set them on a journey to share the next big American eclipse with as many people as possible. They teamed up with the Planetary Society to create a beautiful, user-friendly eclipse map with all kinds of fun science details. It's designed to help the public locate an optimal viewing spot for the upcoming eclipse. This will be the last total solar eclipse to pass over the United States for the next 20 years. So this is going to be a moment. Thanks for joining me, Jesse and Steve. Yeah, glad to be here. Thanks for inviting us. Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for collaborating with us on this really cool eclipse map. I cannot tell you

how useful this would have been for me at points in my past. So I'm really glad it exists. Why did you feel it was so important to create this eclipse map? I think in 2017, we had the, I guess, fortune to live in the path of totality for that solar eclipse that happened. We both were living in Greenville, South Carolina, and that city happened to be in the path. And it was such a life-changing experience for me. And it's such a great moment. And I think about what led up to that, that let me experience that. And I feel like I got lucky as far as knowing it and just understanding the significance and being ready for it. And also just the weather, we got lucky with the weather, but it's something about all the people that I talked to afterwards that I said, did you see the eclipse?

And they said, yes, but they were talking about a very different experience than I had. There was just clearly still a huge gap in the understanding for the public of what a total eclipse was and how that was very different from a partial eclipse. So really wanted to do something to help really just raise more awareness and help people be more prepared to get the most out of the eclipse that was coming here in 24. Did you want to add anything, Steve?

Yeah, no, I totally agree with Jesse. Again, I was in South Carolina as well and got to experience totality for the first time. And it was a special moment, really powerful. I didn't even fully understand what I was getting into at the time, like I think a lot of other people. And I knew that in 2024, there's going to be another total eclipse. And yeah, I wanted to create a tool to help prepare people for the next one, to try to raise awareness and empower planning to help people understand where the path is and help remove obstacles toward getting people into that path. It's funny because I've dedicated my entire life to learning about space and sharing it with other people, but I had a similar experience in that it wasn't until I was there staring up at the total solar eclipse in 2017 that I really understood what it was. It felt like no amount of people telling you how cool this thing is really expresses how cool it is. It's absolutely bonkers. Yeah. I tell people it's the one thing

that really lives up to the hype. So many things in our world today are just so over-exaggerated. People talking about the coffee shop they just went to was life-changing or just everything is just so over the top as far as our language goes. But when people talk about totality or total solar eclipses, they use that language. And I think a lot of times it just blends in with everything else that's happening online and in our language today. So it's hard, but it does, it lives up to the hype. I love that on your website, you brought up the overview effect, which is that feeling that astronauts feel, that profound feeling of connection that they get when they look down at the earth from space.

And, you know, we're probably not going to go to space, us personally, but I think watching a total solar eclipse is about as close as I can get. How did the eclipse make you guys feel? It's honestly one of the best days of my life that I remember. I had such a great group of people around me and my family was with me. We were in our backyard in South Carolina and just had a bunch of friends over. And it was just, it was, it's hard to explain it, but like everyone had such a different reaction to it. I have a video from one of my friends that you can just hear the audio. It's not a good video, but the audio is really crazy.

Just hear people screaming. Some people are just speechless. I was really just more overwhelmed. I wasn't screaming. I was just like, I don't know how to explain it, but it just overwhelmed me. And just taking it all in, because it's not just what you see up in the sky. It's like all around you. Just there's things happening on the ground and on the sky to the sides. And how you feel, the temperature temperature and all these various things.

It's just too much almost happening at the same time. And yeah, I think I was more just overwhelmed by it. Yeah. Relatable. Yeah. How about you, Steve? Yeah, I agree. I think overwhelmed is a good word for it.

I agree. I think overwhelmed is a good word for it. There's actually a TED Talk done by David Barron, who I think does a great job of putting to words some of these complex emotions that you feel when in a total eclipse. It's just a powerful moment. It's difficult to describe. Yes. Yeah, it's true. It can make you feel just like a new level of connection, like with the universe and kind of insignificant, kind of humbling in a way, like dissolving the ego. And just that profound sense of connection, I think is a very powerful thing that we don't necessarily get all the time in life. For me, it was this weird moment of just kind of like looking up at the moon and realizing that's a whole rock hanging over my head. It's not just a beautiful, shiny object I sometimes look at at night. The physicality of its presence blocking out the sun was just absolutely startling. Absolutely startling. We were just in Texas, Uvalde County, to see the annular solar eclipse.

And at this viewing event we were at, there was a local university researcher who was doing this thing called Project Awe with these portable EEG machines, I think they are, that measure your brainwaves. He asked for volunteers and I volunteered. And basically during the annular eclipse, during that ring of fire moment, he was trying to see if different things happen on your brainwaves and different scans. And they're trying to measure all. And it's such an interesting project to try to figure that out. It was like, what is happening in our mind when we experience all? And this is something Steve and I have talked a lot about over the past year about with what we're doing with this eclipse thing is trying to connect people to these moments of awe. Because you mentioned the overview effect and how that can make us feel more connected

during the total eclipse is such a strong one. But there are other ones. And I mean, I think they're all important. There's all these different moments of all that we can experience on earth. And it's just, I think they're important for humanity to get out there and find them. Yeah. It seems like we live in a more, I guess, a society that tends to be more individualistic a lot of times. And so a lot of times you lose that, I think, like this sense of collectivism, this sense of connection. And so a lot of times you lose that, I think, like this sense of collectivism, this sense of connection. And I think these moments, these natural moments are a great reminder for humanity

to like, we're in this together. There's a unifying, important aspect, I think, to this. So I think it's more than just like a specific moment of time. I think it's like an important thing for humanity to look up and reflect and have that collective moment. And eclipses are a great way to do that because all you got to do is get to that path of totality. But therein lies the complexity. I had a situation during the 2017 eclipse where I had been planning to drive to Oregon, but luckily they were having wildfires and the smoke made it impossible for me to go to my location to actually see that event. So two days before the eclipse, I rented a car, packed all my friends in my car and drove to a completely different state. And just planning

that was so complex that I think if I had a tool like your eclipse map, that would have made it so much easier. So how can people use this map to select their viewing location for the upcoming eclipse in 2024? Yeah, it can really get overwhelming quickly. Once you'd make that decision, you hear the hype and you were like, yeah, I want to see this. I mean, travel planning in general can be stressful. It is for me, at least. This just has all these extra layers of complexity than a normal trip. You have to be in a certain location at a specific six minutes, five minutes to make it all worth it.

And so, yeah, it's stressful. What we're trying to do is be very practical with the information that we show, but also try to make it really simple as far as an approachableness to the product. Because there's so much science behind this, that can just be another wave of overwhelmingness for a user. So we approach it more from a travel aspect, actually. And looking at the map, you start to first see generally where you want to kind of observe from and so we try to layer in some subtle cloud cover data so again

like you were saying with the clouds in oregon or the smoke in that case we try to you know that's going to be a big factor in april is cloud cover that's a pretty stormy time of year in North America. And the clouds can really be a factor. So a lot of people are trying to plan general region for Texas and Mexico for being the least risky areas. Any area really can be clear on that day, but there's just historically better areas. So we try to highlight that in an approachable way. After that, then it's more about the specifics. Once you say, I want to go to Texas,

then now it becomes more about the actual town you're going to stay in. And so we try to highlight the first thing maybe is more exactly where in the path. So the closer you get to the middle, that center of the path, the higher your totality time will be we we try to highlight that time and try to get someone to maybe pick one of those cities that's on the center line as being the best and then we bring out events and parks and other points of interest that might be things that people are wanting to go see around that area. And so that's going to get them a better sense of the more of the specific area that they want to look at. And we try to help with lodging too, because that's going to become

the next big problem is finding lodging. We work with our lodging partner to try to help surface some availability around that area and try to help with lodging. So, yeah, it's trying to bring together all the different concerns that you would need to think about when you're planning a trip. And I think maybe my favorite part of the whole thing is really showing the phenomena that you get to see at any given location. There are a lot. If you get into the path, I think we have 15 on there listed. So being able to highlight those in the path and the phenomena that you can see even outside the path.

We'll be right back after this short break. Greetings, Bill Nye here, CEO of the Planetary Society. Thanks to you, our LightSail program is our greatest shared accomplishment. Our LightSail 2 spacecraft was in space for more than three years, from June 2019 to November 2022, and successfully used sunlight to change its orbit around Earth. Because of your support, our members demonstrated that highly maneuverable solar sailing is possible. Now it's time for the next chapter in the Light Sail's continuing mission. We need to educate the world about the possibilities of solar sailing by sharing the remarkable story of Light Sail with scientists, engineers, and space enthusiasts around the world.

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There are many apps and maps online that'll allow you to look up where you can go see the eclipse, but I think all these additional elements allowing you to find out what local events are going on, whether or not there's a park nearby, what kind of lodging really takes us to the next level. Because particularly, how are you supposed to find the event that you want to go to? That's a really hard thing. And I'm wondering if people know of an event that's going on that they want to put up on your map, is it possible for them to contact you to get that on there? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. On our website, we have a form that you can fill out to get your event on there. There's a lot of websites out there already. Communities doing some cool stuff, already have their websites up.

We're adding more and more to the site every day. And really these communities are doing so much. They're planning, you know, they've been planning for over a year. Honestly, a lot of these communities have been to get ready for all the tourism that's coming. So they're doing great stuff and they're doing a lot of planning. And we want to really just highlight that and have all the visitors that are coming to

our site be able to connect with those communities. They're bringing into their community, they're setting up new areas for lodging that don't exist on any map right now. They're creating new parking lots that don't exist and it's just really cool to see that these communities are really just going all out to try to get as many people into this as possible. So we're trying to highlight those communities. They're doing great work. So we're adding more and more to that, to the map every day. It sounds like a lot of effort to keep that all updated. Are you guys also keeping the idea of weather on the day involved? Like, will your weather patterns be changing on the map in real time? That seems complex. Yeah, that's the plan is to make it more real time as the day approaches. Right now, it's obviously looking at historical cloud cover information,

but we'd love to switch that to actually forecasted models as the day approaches. Well, you had a little bit of a test with the annular eclipse that happened just recently here in the Americas. How did that day go for you as a first kind of testing ground for this map? I think it went better than I expected. I was telling the guy running this project all thing, I was wearing the EEG thing, that any of the spikes that he saw on mine for being really excited might have been because of how well some of our tests were going. We have some time, you know, the times of different events happening and down to the second, and they were like spot on. And I think we were expecting to

have to adjust a lot of that from the calculations we were running. They were spot on. So I was kind of excited about that. The weather, the weather in Texas for this annular event was actually more of the more risky side of the path. It was a lot better chances out in like Nevada, Utah, Arizona areas. We knew that there was risk and there were clouds that day. And we were a little bit worried that we weren't going to see anything, but it was actually just the right amount of cloud level that we could see through the clouds. The clouds acted like this like natural filter where if we had the glasses on, we couldn't see anything, but with them off, we could actually see. And I know that goes against all the safety warnings, but my eyes are still good. So it was actually amazing to see it with your eyes, the ring of fire.

And a lot of the eclipse experts who were there were saying this was one of the best viewing events that we've ever seen because of that weird, perfect balance of clouds, which is a weird thing to say for an eclipse. But yeah, it was special. It was really cool. And of course, we should take a moment to advocate for eclipse safety. Definitely wear your eclipse glasses out there. But there are there are these moments where the lighting conditions coming through the clouds are just the right way so that you can actually see that with your eyes. And I think that's part of why totality for a total solar eclipse is so magnificent, because when you're actually in that moment of full totality, you can

you can take off your eclipse glasses and just look at it with your eyes, which is a really special moment, but you got to time it right. You don't want to burn your retina. So you're prepping for this. It's going to be a beautiful moment for all of us. Did you use your map to figure out where you're both going to be going for the next eclipse in April? Well, we are definitely planning to go to Eclipsorama, hosted by the Planetary Society. So I don't know where else we would be, you know? I'm so glad. I'm going to be there too.

So we'll high five in real time. But I think that's what's so special about it. Already people out there are creating these events. Our Eclipsorama event, I think it's going to be really fun. But anywhere people get an opportunity to hang out together and witness this moment, I think, even if you're just in a field somewhere, especially if you're with other people, it makes it extra special. Yeah. We were on our way to that Uvalde area. We were in Gardner State Park. We were driving. We actually drove through the Hill Countries there in Fredericksburg where Eclipsorama is happening.

And that's the first time I had ever been out to that area. And it's so beautiful. I didn't know that Texas terrain was that diverse from the east to the central to the west, all very different. And that central Texas area is just so nice. We got to see the night sky just as dark as you can imagine. We could see the Milky Way galaxy with our eyes and it was incredible. So I'm looking forward to seeing that night sky again.

I feel like I'm really happy that, you know, we have modern day technology, but every time I think about light pollution and the fact that it's kind of robbed us of that night sky, it's definitely tragic for me. So it's a good moment to get out of the city, go find a good place to view this during the daytime, but also take a moment to look up at night because those stars will startle you. Yes. And actually, we actually spent a lot of time getting light

pollution data onto our map. It's a little bit of a hidden feature, but if you flip from the clouds to the light pollution, you can see in that path of totality where the light pollution is. Because during totality, one of the phenomena is that you can see planets and some stars. And a lot of cities that you're in will have these automatic lights that come on when it gets dark.

Believe it or not, light pollution can be a factor during totality, especially for photographers who really wanna get a great shot during totality with planets in the background and stuff. That's a factor. It's a great thing to point out and to plan for, because can you imagine setting everything up just right only to realize that your photo didn't turn out right because you had too much light pollution in your area. And those planets coming out during the daytime during totality are absolutely spectacular. I had this little kid next to me during the 2017 eclipse, who was just staring up there pointing out the planets and just screaming their names out. He

was so excited to see them during the daytime. And of course, we had a great timer going on to let us know how long we had during the eclipse so that we could take these moments to look at these other things. And you provide a good timer on your website that allows people to calculate exactly how long they have, which is really location dependent. So that's a useful feature. How did you go from planning out making this eclipse map to collaborating with the Planetary Society? How did you guys connect with us? Yeah. So we happened to be at the same workshop, I believe it was Rochester, New York, that workshop. And we were sharing the work that we were doing, the map, the tool,

and we followed up, sent out an email asking for feedback essentially on the tool, on the map, how we can make it better. And the Planetary Society really liked it, really connected with our product. And from then on out, we just spurred a great partnership, great relationship. And it's really cool to have another way to share the science of the eclipse in a way that isn't overwhelming, because I really love the way it's kind of integrated subtly into your map. Where can people find these little science tidbits that we've helped create? The science tidbits we have on our website on the learn section. If you go to the eclipse.company, there's a learned link. And we have various like small snippets on our site that link out to greater content on the Planetary Society

to learn about various aspects of the eclipse. Yeah, it's a great resource for sure to learn more information about the eclipse. Yeah, two of my favorites there are phenomena checklists that we have per location. There's a great article that kind of goes into detail on every single one of those. That was one of the things that helped me in 2017 was understanding each thing to be ready for so that I could fully appreciate it. And I think that planning ahead of time really will pay off during the event. And the other one is that eclipse terminology to learn, because that is something most people do not know the difference between

totality, annularity, and all these very obscure terms that most people that are into this now, it's just, it's commonplace. But the Uber driver that I'm talking to and the person down the street, they don't know any of this stuff. It's really useful to just learn those terms. Yeah, it's almost embarrassing to me how long I went through life before anyone ever said the word syzygy to me and then having no idea what they were talking about. So these kinds of eclipse lists are definitely useful.

And allowing people to recognize these phenomena that they're going to be seeing ahead of time will really help you plan for it. Because it might be a bit weird when you're standing under a tree during an annular solar eclipse and the pinhole projections through the leaves start making these weird things on the ground. There are so many strange little things that happen, like the sound of the animals just kind of disappearing or the drop in the temperature or the way the wind kicks up after the temperature change after the eclipse. There's just so much going on there. Yes. Eclipse wind. Yeah, it's a weird thing. Do you know about the shadow bands? I haven't seen them myself, but what a rare and weird phenomenon. Would you be willing to explain it? Shadow bands are the craziest one of all the phenomena, I think. So they're not at every eclipse

and they're not at every location at every eclipse but to see them properly you need some high contrast a large white sheet king size sheet or larger to be able to see it but just maybe 30 seconds before totality starts in 30 seconds after you get these weird you mentioned the shadows that happen through the tree leaves and the pinhole camera style thing. There's all sorts of weird shadow stuff that happens leading up to it. And this is kind of the culminating shadow moment, which they've described them as snake-like shadows and they're moving and they're waving. I don't know. It's almost like, I guess the way I describe it is the way that shadows look on the bottom

of a pool. If you're swimming underwater where the, it's just weird, wavy light and shadow moving back and forth. And it kind of intensifies as you get closer to totality and they get stronger and clearer leading up to it. And then after, I believe they rotate like 90 degrees and they go the other way. And it's a very weird, weird thing. There's stories about this happening long ago and children screaming because they were so scared of the shadow snakes and all this stuff. So

it's a weird one. It sounds weird. It is weird. So try to see it. That's what was so weird about being there in that moment. It's like, all of the stories that people have created through all of history, trying to explain what was going on there, completely made sense. Because even as a scientist with a degree, totally understanding what was going on, it was eerie and beautiful in a way I cannot describe. So without the tools to understand what was happening, I can imagine that would be really freaky. Well, I'm glad that everyone's going to get a chance to play with this map and plan for the eclipse that's coming up. Where can people actually access this map online? So they can access the map at the eclipse.company. That's our URL. And we have various links through

the Planetary Society's articles that they've written. Yeah, that's where they can access. And I'll leave a link to it on the page for this episode of Planetary Radio, so that anybody who wants to look at it can go to our website, go to their website, get in there, really find your place where you're going to be able to experience this. Because I'm telling you, you don't want to miss it. You want to drag your friends your your pets just get everyone you can to go witness this because we're not going to have another total solar eclipse in this part of the united states in 20 years so it's going to be quite a while before we get another opportunity

to do this who are you guys going to be dragging out with you? The list is honestly growing every day of people trying to get out. Yeah. As many as possible. That's for sure. I've been working right now to get as many of my friends ready to get those tickets for Eclipsorama because planning is going fast and anybody out there who's thinking about doing this should probably find their hotel, find their lodging, make their plan as soon as possible, because already those hotel rooms are filling up. So this is your moment. Go look at that Eclipse app. Go look at the Eclipse map. Get ready for it because you will not want to miss this. That's right.

Well, thanks for joining me, Jesse and Steve. And I hope so many more people get an opportunity to really grapple with this moment in history because of what you've created, because it can be complex and it can be a daunting thing to plan for. But I think this beautiful tool that you've created is really going to make it accessible for a whole lot of people. So personal thank you from me to you and from the Planetary Society for collaborating with us on this. Yeah. Thanks, Sarah. Appreciate it. Cool. Thank you. Thanks for having us. We're less than six months out from the upcoming 2024 total solar eclipse,

so it's definitely time to make plans. And if you don't live in North America, no worries. If you're patient enough, a total solar eclipse will come your way eventually. You can check out the Planetary Society's guide to future total solar eclipses on our website at planetary.org. No matter where you live on this planet, really, seriously, go out there and try to witness one of these things. It will be an unforgettable moment that you'll be talking about for years to come. Now let's check in with Bruce Betts, the chief scientist of the Planetary Society, for What's Up. Hey, Bruce. Hello.

How is life going? Oh, it's spiffy keen. I feel like my life is always enhanced by the fact that I'm constantly just bombarded with cool space stuff all the time. And after hearing about Lindy Elkins Tanton's experience with the Psyche launch and the beautiful story behind how our Eclipse Map app partnership came together, I wanted to ask you, what are the space moments that you feel like produce the most awe in you or things that you think people should go see at least once in their lifetime? Well, for me personally, it's recording planetary radio with you first. I mean, number one. But there are other things, surprisingly enough, and one of them is Total Solar Eclipse is super awesome.

Partial is really cool. Launches, of course, as you mentioned. What about you, Sarah, or have you already talked about that on the show? No, there's a lot of things that I feel like are, it's funny, it seems like they're very simple, but people don't get to experience them enough. We talked a little bit about light pollution and the conversation about eclipses. And I think that the fundamental thing that I want to encourage people to try to do is get out of the city, go see that Milky Way galaxy up over your head, or go see a meteor shower, that kind of thing. Yeah.

Because every once in a while, I take friends out to dark sky sites to go camping. Usually, we just want to go chill and jam guitar around a campfire somewhere. But then they get out, they look up at the night sky, and they'll just straight burst into tears because they've never seen it before. So that's a cool moment. But also, if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, go to the Southern Hemisphere and check out their sky. Because just that little change in perspective not only offers you the opportunity to see the moon in a different respect or see the Magellanic clouds, but see whole stars and constellations that you've literally never gotten a chance to see before. We make a lot of jokes on the show about the fact that every time you go to a launch, it doesn't necessarily work. So have you actually gotten

to see a space launch in person that went up and was successful? Yes. Once. Once? Which one was it? That was the only one that I went to see that I didn't have either a professional reason or a VIP type invite. It's an exaggeration of VIP, but it was the only one that just went as like a drove over and watched it from a distance from Orlando in the middle of the night. And a space shuttle launch that occurred. And it was quite lovely, quite successful, quite profound launch. It was right before dawn, so the sun came up behind it and cast a shadow across the sky from the rocket trail. So it was a good one. But I've been to many a launch that delayed.

I mean, fortunately, I've never been to one that had a true failure. I just get the launch of boards due to weather or due to mechanical things. You know, you went with me to one of the launches that was delayed, and eventually you just got to go home. And then they feel it's okay to launch. So. Right. The trick is that you just have to be in chill mode. You know, you just need to be not working in order for it to work. So one of these days we should go to a rocket launch, but you should not be working.

Yeah. I don't know if I can do that, but I can try. I wanted to read this comment that we got from one of our Planetary Society members, Robert Johannesson, who was talking about our previous episode about Lou Friedman's book about searching for life in the universe, Lou Friedman being the co-founder of the Planetary Society. And I thought this was really cool. Robert not only loves the search for life, but actually created a Drake equation app that you can download on the App Store. I thought that was so cool. Like that's dedication. That is cool.

And I downloaded it and played around with it a little. It was a good way to explain how that equation works and how each of these different things that can impact the search for life in the universe kind of dial that knob a little bit. Or a lot. It's quite useful. It's a strange equation since we don't know what most of the parameters are, but that's why you fiddle with them and see how it varies. But part of the reason I wanted to read that comment and share that was not only because learning more about the Drake equation is awesome, but primarily because they left a PS that said specifically, hi, Bruce. So they wanted to say hello to you. Well, hi, that's really cool. And that's cool that you got that app. I'll look for that.

And really, though, if anybody wants to say hi to Bruce or to me or to send us any of your thoughts and questions, please do so because I love reading all your messages. They really brighten my day and make us feel like we're actually doing a good thing for this world. Cool. So what is our random space fact? Are you looking for brains right now, Bruce? Brains. Uh-oh. No, I just, you know, we're near Halloween in the U.S., and so I just thought I didn't know I was a zombie,

but thanks for pointing that out. Apparently I am. So anyway, fortunately my fact is far more fun than my zombie. That has to do with Venus. You probably are aware. You may have heard that the surface of Venus is hot. Have you heard this, Sarah? Have you heard this?

Have you seen this? Very hot. I could tell you that, but I'm sure we've talked about it before. 700 plus Kelvin, almost 500 C, almost 900 Fahrenheit. But what's interesting is it's almost isothermal, and the surface temperature doesn't change particularly over time because there's so much atmospheric blanketing of the surface and greenhouse effect and clouds that reflect anyway. But my real point is where you do get a variation is with altitude, just like you do on Earth.

Earth, and the highest point on Venus, Maxwell-Montes, is the coolest point on the surface, at least usually, with a temperature that's 80 kelvins or Celsius, over 100 Fahrenheit lower than the average surface of Venus. And it also, interestingly, has about half the atmospheric pressure. And you may wonder, because I did, how's that compared to Mount Everest? Mount Everest compared to sea level is about 30% of the atmospheric pressure at sea level, which I was surprised it's that low. But what do I know? It's Earth. All right, there you go. That's it, Sarah. You're blown away. I am, though. That is really cool to think about.

Now I'm wondering about all the different things that might be affected by that. Classically, people say that lead melts on the surface of Venus, but I don't know off the top of my head what the melting point of lead is. So could you take your bucket of molten lead to the top of the planet or to the top of Maxima Montes? We'll have to look it up. All right, let's take this out. All right, everybody, go out there, look up the night sky and think about what you could use a highlighter on right now that would make you happy. Possibly someone you're with. Thank you and good night. someone you're with. Thank you and good night.

We've reached the end of this week's episode of Planetary Radio, but we'll be back next week with the authors of the new book, A City on Mars. Can we settle space? Should we settle space? And have we really thought this through? A little spicy. I love it. You can help others discover the passion, beauty, and joy of space science and exploration by leaving a review and a rating on platforms like Apple Podcasts. Your feedback not only brightens our day, but also helps other curious minds find their place in space through Planetary Radio. You can also send us your space thoughts, questions, and poetry at our email at planetaryradioatplanetary.org. Or if you're a Planetary Society member, leave a comment in the Planetary Radio space

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