Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Remembering Ray

Episode Date: June 11, 2012

We look back to the Planetary Society's 2003 birthday party for Ray Bradbury, with tributes from distinguished fans and eloquent words from the master himself.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Remembering Ray, this week on Planetary Radio. Welcome to the travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society. Ray Bradbury threaded in and out of my life for many, many years. It began with reading his short stories when I was a kid. Then I began running into Ray, but the best may have come when I began sharing him with his fans through this show and other media. Today, we'll look back through the eyes of others who loved him, and we'll hear a bit of the 83rd birthday party the Planetary

Society threw for Ray back in 2003. We'll begin after we hear from Emily Lakdawalla and Bill Nye. Emily, Skype is acting strangely, so I've got you on, well, it's still a telephone connection via Skype. Tell us what's going on. I mean, first of all, something that may not be covered at least by yourself in the blog a lot, but although you have at least one entry from Jay Pasikoff, was the Venus transit. This event, you know, I'm sad that I haven't had time to write everything up,

but I took my daughters up to Griffith Observatory to watch the event. There were a huge number of astronomers out there with telescopes. I learned, actually, that probably half of them were observatory staff with their own telescopes. And one of them was a huge fan of the blog, and so he was delighted to see me as I was to see him. He had a really nice setup with a projection of the image of the sun through the telescope onto a fairly large screen. So it was pretty easy. A large crowd of us gathered around to watch first contact. And he counted down as Venus got close to the Sun, and then we didn't see anything

at first, but then somebody finally spotted where the dot was as it began to cross the disk of the Sun, and that was pretty cool. I enjoyed blowing people's minds by telling them about how Venus, the Sun was three times farther away from us than Venus was, so that dot of that planet, which is the same size as Earth, roughly, was actually three times bigger than it should have been with respect to the Sun in terms of its exact size. You may be even sorrier that I ended up sick that day because I was headed up there with my telescope and changed my mind because it just didn't make sense. But I had a great time watching from my driveway.

I do have to say it was one of those absolutely spectacular days that makes you so happy you live in Southern California. It was stunningly blue sky, a nice fresh breeze from the sea in the upper 70s. It was great. Sorry, rest of the world. We just have to rub it in now and then. Tell us briefly about your conversation that people can watch with Dan Durda. Well, I met up with Dan Durda at Space Fest last week,

and he is both an asteroid researcher and a space artist, and so we had a wide-ranging conversation about asteroids and near-Earth object impact threat mitigation and suborbital research flights, and then on to space art, and he actually talked to me a little bit about all of the different digital computer tools that he uses to create his space art, and it's really quite fascinating. It was a really fun conversation that I hope to repeat. And that conversation, you can get to it from the Planetary Society blog. It's an entry from Emily on the 7th of June, 2012.

Just go to planetary.org and click on Emily's blog. Thanks, Emily. I hope we have Skype working again next week. Thank you, Matt. Look forward to it. She is the Science and Technology Coordinator for the Planetary Society and a contributing editor to Sky and Telescope magazine. And also, I think every other week, the host of the Google Plus Science Hour, this time with Dan Derda. Coming up next is Bill Nye. Bill, this is quite

a trip you're on. I was in Montreal earlier this week, and I received the Ralph Coates Rowe Medal for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. And it turns out there's like this informal conspiracy of old professors, colleagues, space people, who apparently have been interviewed by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers looking for a worthy candidate. And I've been picked. It was quite a thing, Matt. It was quite a thing for me. So these guys, no one will tell me, did you contribute?

No, no, I don't think about it. It's like getting an Emmy for mechanical engineering. Anyway, along that line, this week I'll be at the Soften panel at the International Space University conference in Melbourne, Florida, just south of Cape Canaveral, where Florida Institute of Technology is. I'm going to talk about some of the same stuff that I talked about with the mechanical engineers, and that is there's a control algorithm that's ideal for spacecraft that I think people should embrace, and it's based on one of my old professor's ideas, that's all.

Wow, that was a long way around, wasn't it? It's very exciting. It'll be Scott Hubbard, who's on the board of the Planetary Society, Maria Zuber, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Pete Warden, the guy who runs NASA Ames now. Hey, you know, Matt, you know what I ought to do? I should ask everybody in the audience if they have a ride, a rocket, going to medium Earth orbit.

Hmm. That way we can get light sail flying. Actually, you can ask this audience, too. That's what I'll do. Yeah. Well, I hope that somebody out there has a rocket with a space for a few extra kilograms on it, and we have a light sail

that's looking for that ride. Well, good luck. I hope somebody answers us in the affirmative. Yeah, we'll see. Thanks, Matt. Bill Nye is the CEO of the Planetary Society. He's on the road. He's coming back middle of this week, so perhaps we'll be talking to him at home next time

around here on Planetary Radio. Next up, a Ray Bradbury retrospective. We wanted to make Ray Bradbury's 83rd birthday very special. It came in August of 2003, just as Earth was passing closer to Mars than it would for many, many years. That opportunity was too good to pass up. Not all of Ray's admirers could make it to Pasadena for the celebration, but that didn't stop them from sending their greetings. Happy birthday, Ray. This is Chris McKay up at NASA Ames. I've always been a big fan of your

writing. I'm a big fan of Mars. I'm also happy to see, of course, that the planet is coming in this month to celebrate your birthday as well. Maybe someday we'll have humans on Mars, and they'll look back and be able to wave to us on these times when Mars comes close to Earth. Anyway, happy birthday. Thoughts of Mars and water and life and humans going there. Filmmaker Peter Hyams was a special guest at Ray Bradbury's 2003

birthday party. He was putting the finishing touches on A Sound of Thunder based on one of Ray's stories. Hyams brought with him messages from many of Ray's other fans. I would first like to thank the Planetary Society, not only for arranging this tribute to our national

treasure, but also for making the whole notion of space exploration so exciting and so accessible to so many people. I would like to read a few of these greetings. They're from people you might have heard of. Warmer's birthday wishes and light speed to a true American icon, a visionary, and a genius. You are the rarest of gems, Ray,

and it has been one of my great privileges to know you, Buzz Aldrin. Isn't it fitting that Mars should be so close to Earth for your 83rd birthday? You've been an inspiration to us all. Happy birthday, George Lucas. Some time ago, I had the good fortune to be seated next to Ray Bradbury on a flight from Los Angeles to Texas. I have never flown so high since or been so lucky since. What a ride. You are a joy and a genius. You are my kind of guy, and I love you, Angie Dickinson. Now, on a less celestial note, whatever people see or find in any planet, they will never find or see a better pair of legs than Angie Dickinson.

You showed us that Mars is not only a place for science, but a place of wonder and of dreams that would call to our hearts even after we Earthlings become the Martians. Happy birthday, Ray. Michael and Denise Okuda from Star Trek. Even in this time of everyday wonders, I still dream of the silver rockets of my youth, kept eternally alive in the imagination by your wondrous prose. Thank you for opening that window in my mind. My best wishes to you for a happy birthday and the continued birth of your glorious dreams, James Cameron.

Fahrenheit 451 is a temperature which will burn flesh. However, it's not nearly as hot as its author. Ray, what did you do on this plane ride? You have engulfed us with oh so many other classics but Ray you're not just an author you are an institution. I love Bradbury the man, the artist, the visionary sand is a fledgling sci-fi author. I am so very proud to have lived in your shadow Nichelle Nichols. Happy birthday to our dear good friend Ray, a true creative genius. Love, Charlton and Lydia Heston. The many writers you've inspired are indeed your children. And though the first human to land on Mars might not be named Nathaniel York,

that person will be your child too. Happy birthday, Judy and Gar Reeve Stevens. You have always been a ray of light and a hope in a world often absent of imagination. You challenge our linear thinking, and for those of us who have lived out of the box, what first got us there can often be traced to your long and short works of science fiction and fantasy.

Happy birthday. Love, Steven Spielberg. Lastly is mine, which was, Ray, you are the master. You are the source. I have had no greater honor or privilege than spending time with you and bringing your breathtaking imagination to the screen. Keep eating steak and drinking wine for lunch. It seems to work. Happy birthday. eating steak and drinking wine for lunch, it seems to work. Happy birthday.

Director Peter Hyams. Author Kim Stanley Robinson was another guest at that 2003 birthday party for Ray Bradbury. By coincidence, I suppose, I was born in the same town that he was, Waukegan, Illinois. It's always been an important fact to me as an American science fiction writer. I've always felt a strong affinity for his work. So I've made attempts to meet him before, but in fact, I mean, I've seen him speak before. He's been wonderful, but I've never had the chance to actually say hello. And recently wrote an introduction to the Martian Chronicles

and realized again what a wonderful book that was. So between Waukegan and Southern California and Mars, I feel like he's some kind of a spiritual godfather, and I want to meet him, so this is my chance. What was your first Bradbury experience? I think it was the reading of a short story about Ernest Hemingway, a beautiful, interesting, and disturbing story in which Hemingway was wishing that he had actually been killed

in the plane crash that he almost died in in Africa in 56 so that he wouldn't become suicidal in 61. An odd entry to Bradbury compared to some, but it just was how I first stumbled across him as a high school student. And then I started reading his short stories. And like many, like most American science fiction writers, I've read a great deal of his work. You heard some tributes from some of your colleagues tonight, at least recorded ones, and there are others that are on the big card that was made for Ray. And yet, some people say, well, yeah, he writes science fiction, but he also does more than that. And you're kind of in that boat, too, I would say, with Years of Rice and Salt. Well, I think the important thing is that he does do more than that. And you're kind of in that boat too, I would say, with Years of Rice and Salt.

Well, I think the important thing is that he does do more than that and has always been accepted as a major figure in American literature and then has gone out and been the ambassador to the world for American science fiction. He's never renounced it. He's always embraced it. He's always talked about its importance. There are a number of writers not of his stature who, having been accepted by the larger literary world, have then renounced science fiction, and he's never been one of those. So there's a natural affection amongst the science fiction writers that have come after him for his advocacy of our genre, the

way that he always has stood up for us. You've got to love him for that. I love him for that. You got to say hi to him just a moment ago? Yes, I did. It was great. It's clear that he did indeed read my little introduction to the Martian Chronicles so that he knew who I was. I wasn't really expecting that he had read my work, but since this was directly relevant, it was something so that he knew who I was. It was fun to be able to tell him about my birthplace being the same as his

because it brought another connection in to talk about because I actually came from the next town to the north, which was Zion, Illinois, a kind of religious utopia. And he knew all about that, and it was wonderful, actually, to hear his fairly detailed knowledge of a town that nobody else in the world knows about. So it's nice. Author Kim Stanley Robinson at the Planetary Society's birthday party for Ray Bradbury back in 2003.

Still to come are more tributes and the words of Bradbury himself. This is Planetary Radio. I'm Robert Picardo. I traveled across the galaxy as the doctor in Star Trek Voyager. Planetary Radio. 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 andDS. 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. I'm Matt Kaplan. We are celebrating the life and work of Ray Bradbury through the wishes sent to him by friends and admirers celebrating Ray's 83rd birthday in August of 2003. Here's another great author. Ray, it's your fellow graduate from L.A. High School, Los Angeles High School, David Bren, along with Stephen Barnes, also from L.A. High, wishing our fellow alumnus all the best wishes on his wonderful, wonderful birthday.

You're the guy who made this century happen, Ray. You're the guy who inspired us. I'm known as a bit of an optimist. In fact, I'm known as a preacher of optimism in an age of cynicism. And you just make me look like a dour cynic. I have never seen a stem-winding speech like the one you always give about what a treason it is to this wonderful era and to our grandchildren to give up or to think that these are bad times. You're the guy, you're the guy who's held forth that these are times worth defending and that the future is worthwhile. And God bless you, and you keep at it. Science fiction author David Brin. David will

join us to talk about his new book, Existence, in a few weeks. Let's listen to Ray Bradbury now, but not until we finish singing to him on the occasion of his 83rd birthday in August of 2003. Thank you. This is great. You know, when I think back when I was in high school and I read my first Edgar Rice Burroughs books, The Warlord of Mars and Thuvia of Mars and all the other Martian books of Edgar Rice Burroughs,

and I saw the drawings of Scaparralli and the photographs from Lowe Observatory. And I wrote my first story, which was a sequel to The Warlords of Mars by Burroughs. So you see before you someone who started out for Mars a long time ago. So it's a very special evening.

And I saw a French magazine today. They sent me an article. And the headline over my face was, I never came back from Mars. I just never came back. I just never came back because Edgar Rice Burroughs taught me how to go out on the lawns of summer and hold my hands up and say, Mars, take me home. And Mars took me home. And I've been there forever. So this evening is a wonderful celebration to me. My good friend Sam Weller is here tonight

and he's doing a book about my life and he asked me the other day how I'd like to be remembered in connection with Mars because a lot's going to happen the next few years. I'd like to quote first I've written a new book of essays which will come out next year, and the title of which is Remembering the Future, Predicting the Past. Remembering the Future, Predicting the Past. Also, Too Soon from the Cave, Too Far from the Stars. We're the in-between generation. We're in between the cave and the stars where we're going to live in the next 10,000 years. So we got a lot to forgive ourselves for.

We've done a lot of things wrong, but we've done a lot of things right. When I was a child, I thought maybe we'd land on the moon when I was an old man. Well, it didn't work that way. I was in my 40s. And what a night that was. And what we're going to be doing in the next few years with our Martian landers and our final landing on Mars with real people to call back to us across space is going to exhilarate all of mankind. What we need now is a substitute for war. We're engaged in a dozen wars all over the world right now in various countries. and there has to be some way of elevating our spirit and saying that mankind is special and wonderful and space travel is the way we do it

and all the peoples of the world in a real effort will do this and we'll be going to Mars with all of the people, not just a few, in the next 10, 20, 30 years. I wish I could stick around to be part of it. But the thing I dream is this, that some night, 100 nights, 100 years from now, there will be a boy on Mars reading late at night with a flashlight under the covers. And he'll look out at the Martian landscape, which will be bleak and rocky and red and not very romantic.

But when he turns out the light, it lies with a copy of my book, I hope, The Martian Chronicles. The Martian winds outside will stir, and the ghosts that are in my book will rouse up, and my creatures, even though they never lived, will be on Mars, and that's the dream I have, and that's the reason I'm here tonight. Thank you very much. I'm here tonight. Thank you very much. Thank you. Planetary.org. Bruce Betts is next, but first we'll get one more birthday greeting from a fan

of the great author and human being we lost earlier this month. Hi, Mr. Bradbury. I'm Gigi Fernandez, a 16-year-old junior at St. Joseph High School in Lakewood, California. Next month, I'll be on stage with other students performing dramatized versions of four of your wonderful stories. Thank you so much for the magic you've brought into our world and happy birthday from all of us. Time for What's Up on Planetary Radio. Bruce Betts is here. He's the director of projects for the Planetary Society. Bonjour. Bonjour.

Which is just a foreshadowing of our trivia question today. How are you? I see what you're doing there. That's so clever. I'm good. But as always, you're in charge of all French pronunciation. I'll do my best. You know, I'm not allowed to speak it at home, which is just as well because I really can't.

You watch The Transit, right? Of course I watch The Transit. I was a tweeting fiend. Yes, went to Caltech and watched it there. And you, and you, staying home sick, watching with your telescope at home. Oh, well, it was just as beautiful from my driveway. No, but I'm glad you think so. All right, all right.

What else is up? I'm just kidding. It was just as beautiful there. It was really groovy. And for anyone who missed it or just can't wait, don't forget Mercury Transit 2016. Be there. Yes. And 2117, as you told us last week for the next Venus one. Speaking of which, let's focus on Mercury now. Low in the West, but getting a little higher over the next week or so, is Mercury shortly after sunset. You may be able to see it getting a little bit higher.

And in fact, it kind of lines up with the Gemini stars, Castor and Pollux, a little later in June. And there's even a Mercury or moon Mercury, Castor and Pollux rough line. But again, very low on the horizon in the west shortly after sunset. That line would be on June 21st. Easier to see and higher up in the evening sky is Mars, which is reddish, and it is to the right of Saturn and Spica. And so they're all forming a very rough line. Mostly Mars is just over the right. Saturn and Spica, Spica being the blue star,

bright star of Virgo. And those three will be getting closer and closer as the summer goes along, making for some groovy conjunctions in several weeks. Pre-dawn, if you're up, Jupiter and Venus creeping in there over the next days and weeks. Very low in the east in the pre-dawn. Jupiter is the higher one, so if you see one bright star-like object, it's probably Jupiter. But Venus will be getting up there following its fabulous transit. We move on to this week in space history. Two 45th anniversaries, not coincidentally, both launched this week. Venera 4, the Soviet Venus probe, launched this week. It ended 4, the Soviet Venus probe, launched this week and ended up providing

the first in situ measurements or measurements in another planet's atmosphere and sending them to Earth. It was designed as a lander, theoretically. Didn't make that part, but did find out that the Venus atmosphere was a lot weirder than we thought. And also more information on Venus atmosphere provided by the U.S. Mariner 5

launched this week and did a successful Venus flyby. Random space fact! Bye doggies! So one thing that's always bugged me in astronomy nomenclature because it's designed to confuse a planetary nebula. this isn't a nebula a bunch of gas in this case ionized gas it emits light it's an emission nebula it's an expanding

glowing shell of ionized gas has nothing to do with planets ejected during the very late stages, red giant type stages of low to medium mass stars as they kind of belch gas outwards. It's a little bit more technical than belching, but that's the concept. Late in our life, it doesn't have to do with planets, but we call it a planetary nebula because an astronomer in the late 1700s thought these objects, this cloudy object in his telescope looked similar in appearance to uranus and we've been stuck with it ever since we'll get back to who we can blame for that a little bit later in the show look i foreshadowed too all right we go

on to the trivia contest see and get all french on us. We asked you, what is the name of the scale that is commonly used to rate the visual appearance and brightness of the moon during total lunar eclipses? What is the name of Brighton, Ontario, the D'Angers scale, named after André-Louis D'Angers, not surprisingly, because he came up with it. And it's this, as you said a couple of weeks ago, it's this five-point scale that tells you how the viewing is when you're looking at the moon. Yeah, and it's telling you about the eclipse and because of how dark or how not dark and how red viewing is when you're looking at the moon. Yeah, and it's telling you about the eclipse and because of how dark or how not dark and how red it is, it gives an idea of how much. It's actually an indication of the Earth's atmosphere as much as anything because it gives an idea of how much light is passing through the Earth's atmosphere.

So, Randy, we're going to send you a Planetary Radio t-shirt. He came up with his own scale, the bottom scale, which is a three-point scale, cloudy, mostly cloudy, and OMG. I also liked William Stewart had this terrific alternative scale

that I had never heard of, the Dijon scale, which is not to be confused, of course, with the Jambon scale, which is a measure of the pinkness of pork products. Yeah, that's really very different. Pigs in space. Okay.

All right. What's next? Next trivia contest having nothing to my knowledge to do with pigs in space. Pigs in space! But now I had to say it. Who was that astronomer who in the late 1700s named planetary nebula planetary nebula and we've been stuck with it ever since? Who was

it? Go to planetary.org slash radio. Find out how to enter. We'll give you until the 18th of this month, June 18 at 2 p.m. Pacific time to get us your answer. All right, everybody go out there, look up at the night sky and think about dust, both in space and what I seem to be breathing in right now. Thank you so much. Thank you. Good night. He's Bruce Betts, the Dusty Director of Projects for the Planetary Society,

who joins us every week here for 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. Ray, clear skies on Barsoom. Thank you.