Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Sending an SOS to Congress: Save Our Science!

Episode Date: June 5, 2006

Planetary Society Executive Director Lou Friedman talks about the Save Our Science campaign's recent trip to Washington.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sending an urgent SOS to Congress, this week on Planetary Radio. Hi everyone, welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan. That SOS came from thousands of people who want to save our science, specifically by avoiding the deep cuts in space science funding proposed by NASA, with

the money going to the space shuttle for completion of the International Space Station. We'll hear from the man heading the SOS campaign. Planetary Society Executive Director Lou Friedman recently returned from Washington, where he and other prominent spokespeople laid out their case for members of Congress and their staffs.

Helping to make that case were Bill Nye and filmmaker James Cameron. Bruce Betts will drop by later with a look at the night sky. He'll also note this week's historic significance for hot little sister planet Venus, just before he delivers the new trivia contest. Here are some of the stories making Space News this week, beginning with the International Space Station. All three of the current tenants took a walk around the neighborhood last week, a long one. During a six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk, they did a bunch of general upkeep and repair and retrieved a canister that is part of an experiment that exposed microorganisms to the, shall we say, harsh space environment?

No word yet on what has been learned from the little critters. Back on Terra Firma, NASA announced that it has awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin for support of the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory mission. The aerospace company will provide an Atlas V rocket that will boost the big rover to the red planet. Once there, the MSL will look for the building blocks of life, as it travels much further than spirit and opportunity. And speaking of those two highly accomplished little ladies,

you'll find a comprehensive update on their missions at planetary.org. Now that Spirit has settled in for the winter on a spot called Low Ridge, that's near McCool Hill, you know, in the Columbia Hills area of Gusev Crater. Anyway, from this new perch, the rover is examining its surroundings in greater detail than ever before attempted. After all, it's not going anywhere for a good long while. Meanwhile, Opportunity was rolling right along during most of May, covering about 100 meters a week. Kept up that pace till May 29th, when it once more found itself mired in a meridiani sand dune.

mired in a meridiani sand dune. So the science team is using this temporary break to do much the same kind of detailed survey Spirit is doing on the other side of the planet. They'll keep it up at least until the engineers get the rover unstuck, as they are confident they will. Emily Lactuala is up next. She mailed us a great postcard of Old Faithful's cousin on Neptune's moon, Triton.

I'll be right back with Lou Friedman. Hi, I'm Emily Lakdawalla with questions and answers. A listener asked, what causes the geysers on Neptune's moon, Triton? Triton was one of the many surprising worlds that Voyager 2 surveyed on its grand tour of the solar system. Icy worlds at Neptune's distance from the sun have surface temperatures only 40 Kelvin above absolute zero, so you'd expect them to be cold and dead. But Triton presented a very smooth surface with ridges and spots and without many craters, similar to Jupiter's moon Europa. Most astonishing, though, was the discovery of towering geysers of black gas

spewing 8 kilometers into the sky in Triton's southern hemisphere, making the icy world only the third in the solar system, after Earth and Jupiter's moon Io, to be caught in the throes of geologic activity. Saturn's moon Enceladus is now the fourth on that list. So what can possibly cause geologic activity on a world so cold? Stay tuned to Planetary Radio to find out. The last decade or so has seen advances in space science that have thrilled thousands of scientists

and tens of millions of laypeople. Robotic adventures throughout our solar system have inspired an entire generation of young people to study science and engineering. Could the American effort be coming to an end, or at the very least, a period of hibernation? With a 30-year commitment to space science and exploration, the Planetary Society decided to act. Its SOS, or Save Our Science campaign, has received international coverage and is raising eyebrows in the nation's capital. The Society's executive director and co-founder, Lou Friedman, leads the effort to reverse NASA's budget recommendations to Congress.

He has been on the road more than he has been at home in the last couple of weeks. We asked Lou for an update just as he was about to board yet another plane. Lou, I'm glad you could take a minute before you leave for Europe to give us a status report on the SOS campaign. It's not that long ago that you're back from Washington, D.C. That's right, Matt. It was just a little more than a week ago that we had a rather intense day of lobbying, and I use the word proudly because I think it was the best part of lobbying, trying to

influence Congress to do something which we consider very positive, basically to save our science, to save NASA space science from really large budget cuts that the administration is planning over the next several years. We had James Cameron, the director of Titanic and a noted now IMAX documentary maker with his Aliens of the Deep, back with us. And we're really grateful to Jim for joining the Society's efforts and being part of our overall effort to restore NASA science and to get an Europa mission started. Bill Nye, the science guy, our vice president, Dr. Heidi Hamelin, noted planetary scientist, was with us, of course myself, and we had a room full of congressional staff.

We made a strong pitch on the whole program, and it was noted that Congressman John Culberson, a Republican from Texas who feels he's a champion of the Europa mission, came in and joined us and gave a stirring talk about his support, felt he was lobbying us rather than us lobbying him. He's on the House Appropriations Committee. So that was quite important. the House Appropriations Committee. So that was quite important, and we gave him a copy of our petition to Congress with thousands of members having signed a petition to restore NASA space science, and we presented that to both the House and Senate Appropriations Committee.

I heard that the presentation of the briefing that this team gave was quite popular among the congressional staffers. It was very popular. A lot of them were conditioned by the fact that they saw our ad in the Washington Post earlier that day, a really stunning ad that says, don't trash space science showing pictures of the planets in the trash can, because that's actually what's going to happen if this budget goes through. And I know listeners of our radio program can see it on our website at planetary.org.

We met with Senator Barbara Mikulski. In fact, rather extraordinarily, she invited Jim Cameron, Bill Nye, and myself to a private meeting in her office. And she showed the ad to us and said it was just really great. In fact, she autographed it and said, to the Planetary Society, thanks for being in the right orbit. That's clever. She's a strong supporter of space science. In fact, I would call her the leader in the U.S. Senate in favor of space science,

and we're going to need her support. She's the ranking minority of the Senate Appropriations Committee. I guess we can mention that she has the John Hopkins APL in her district, so there's that interest in this for her as well. She's also serving her constituents, but clearly she's someone who keeps track of what's happening in space science. Well, she has more than APL. She has, of course, NASA Goddard and, of course, many other government facilities

in the state of Maryland, National Institutes of course, NASA Goddard and, of course, many other government facilities in the state of Maryland, National Institutes of Health, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as NASA centers and the Applied Physics Lab. So, of course, she does have a strong constituent interest. And what I liked very much and appreciated, we were three Californians who were visiting her, What I liked very much and appreciated, we were three Californians who were visiting her, and there was not a hint of the, well, the only hint, I would say, of state bias was that she was very nice in extolling the virtues of Maryland crab cakes. How has the media reaction been?

The space media, I think, has been somewhat startled by our campaign. Usually it's the aerospace industry and some of the more vested interests in the professional community that are campaigning in this sort of diffuse science interest, which I think many of them expected not to raise too many protests, I think has caught them a little off guard. too many protests, I think has caught them a little off guard. Even the NASA administrator has reacted somewhat defensively about it. In his heart, he's a strong supporter of robotic space exploration and space science.

He's made cuts that he thinks he has no other choice about. Of course, we think differently. But he's reacted very negatively to the fact that the science community is, I'm surprised that he thinks this way, but he thinks the science community should be more accepting of these budget cuts. Which, I guess, in his defense, he says, don't worry as soon as we can, as soon as the shuttle is back flying and we finish the ISS, we're going to restore funding to science.

Well, that's a common thread. In fact, that goes right back to the days the Planetary Society was formed. We heard that in 1980 when the shuttle was getting built. Don't worry. It'll be soon cheap access to space, and you'll get lots of missions. What happened, of course, was that the planetary exploration stopped in the 1980s. There were no missions that were launched or approved in that time period. And it took a good 15 years of recovery. Many of your listeners will probably remember the U.S. Mars program after Viking stopped for some 15 years until the mid-1990s before it was restored again.

It's always easy to say, let us solve this problem, we'll get back to you later. But nothing goes that smoothly. And I think if we can't have a balanced program, and worse than that, we'll lose the public support. I think that's what NASA and the administration doesn't understand. The public support for NASA in the last 10 years has been built around things like Hubble and the Mars Exploration Rover and Cassini-Huygens and deep impact and discovering planets around other stars. These are the things that has carried the public interest in space exploration. And if they now say, let's put it aside while we build some more rockets,

they're going to lose that public momentum they have. What is the status? Where are we with this effort now? And are we talking as Congress is getting close to taking action or not taking action? Well, the House Appropriations Committee will mark up in just a couple of weeks, here in mid-June, and that will be the first major step. If we can get some funding restored for science, that'll be a victory, but it won't be the final one. And I don't know how that's going to come out.

As I say, there are strong interests in the other directions. The Senate markup for appropriations probably won't be until late January. Senator Mikulski has a strategy which we're very supportive of. Basically, it's trying to get some new funds for the emergency on the space shuttle that would relieve the need for NASA to rob science in order to pay for the shuttle. And then probably after the Senate marks up, it'll still be another month, maybe into September or even October, before the House-Senate differences are resolved and a final bill is produced.

Planetary Society Executive Director Lou Friedman. We'll hear more from Lou about the Save Our Science campaign and other topics when Planetary Radio returns. This is Buzz Aldrin. When I walked on the moon, I knew it was just the beginning of humankind's great adventure in the solar system. Radio returns. and comets. We sponsor the search for life on other worlds, and we're building the first ever solar sail. We didn't just build it. We attempted to put that first solar sail in orbit, and we're going to try again. You can read about all our exciting projects and get the latest space exploration news in depth at the Society's exciting and informative website, planetary.org. You can also preview our full-color magazine, The Planetary Report.

It's just one of our many member benefits. Want to learn more? Call us at 1-877-PLANETS. That's toll-free, 1-877-752-6387. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan. Our guest is the Planetary Society's Executive Director, Lou Friedman. Lou recently led a team into the halls of Congress to talk about the Save Our Science campaign, the Society's effort to avoid drastic cuts in funding for space science.

The money saved would go to the soon-to-be-retired space shuttle to help it complete the International Space Station. Lew was just describing Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski's proposal to make an emergency appropriation for the shuttle that could save scores of science missions and projects. Mikulski, I guess, talked to you about these emergency funds, and apparently something similar was done after the Challenger accident? That's right. So extraordinarily large amounts of money had to be required to get the shuttle back to flight,

and after the Challenger accident, emergency funds were given to NASA for that purpose. That was not done after the Columbia accident. And when NASA presented the budget this year, they said, we're taking money from science in order to pay for the shuttle, which not only represents, as far as we're concerned, an investment in the past, something that's already committed for retirement, but opens up the doors to continued raids on science over the years if this is going to continue. So the appropriateness of coming up with an emergency supplement, if we want the shuttle to return to flight, seems to me correct and right on.

And I think Senator Mikulski's strategy puts it right to the administration. Do we want the shuttle to fly again? Then provide the funds for it. If you don't provide the funds for it, then don't rate science in order to do it. So I guess people can continue to track this issue at planetary.org. We're going to stay on top of it. We've gathered a lot of support. Our ads in the Washington Post were signed by three Nobel Prize winners. We've had broad support among not just scientists but the public.

I think there's a great deal of understanding. And I've got to say one other thing about this misunderstanding we are from human space flight we're not opposed to human space flight we are for the new vision for space exploration we just believe it has to be conducted with a strong science program as was originally proposed now you can't start picking apart the vision for space exploration and say, well, we'll just build the rockets now and cut out science. That would be a terrible mistake.

Lou, we've got two or three minutes left. I'd like to hear about some of the other things you're up to. Before we talk about why you're going to Europe, another recent trip that you made was to New Mexico. Yes, I came back from Washington, had one day at work, and went to New Mexico to observe a Japanese test of a lunar penetrator. They've been trying for years to develop penetrators. The United States actually built penetrators for Mars, but they didn't succeed on the 1999 mission. Nobody knows why those penetrators were lost.

The Russia tried to penetrate us also from Mars, but they failed on launch, the Mars 96 mission. Japanese are trying to develop them for the moon on a mission called Lunar A. They've had some development problems, but these tests that they just did at the Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico seem to have worked well. problems but these tests that they just did it for the sandia national laboratory in new mexico seems to have worked well they they were just conducted this week uh... preliminary results indicate that all the instruments survived the impact into the into the surface penetrators buried underneath the ground they were but it was still able to

communicate and uh... does seem like all the instruments are working the full results of that penetrator test will take probably a few weeks to analyze when the Japanese test team gets back home and is able to analyze the results. But it would be a great milestone. You know, the penetrator is the only really novel method that's being proposed among all the nations planning missions to the moon. So we're wishing them great success in this effort, and they're our close colleagues.

It's part of our building an international constituency for space exploration. Almost mind-boggling to think that electronics could be built that could withstand that kind of an impact, but we hope they've pulled it off. Tell us about this trip to Europe that you are leaving on in about, what, five minutes? Yeah, it's the same point, Matt. I'm going to Europe to discuss international cooperation and lunar exploration with five nations going to the moon and Europe having a spacecraft there now with the vision for space exploration needing a stronger base of international support. Planetary Society is a nongovernmental organization,

can move between the space agencies and the governments and make suggestions that are somewhat out of the box and try and bring some efforts together. The other thing we're trying to do, of course, is just to work with all of these nations, be part of their missions, build up our membership in other countries. And so I guess the challenge, I think, for all of us at the Planetary Society is to not just develop an American constituency for space exploration,

but a worldwide constituency so that synergistically a lot of things, great things can be done at the moon and Mars and Europa and searching for planets around other stars. These are all international efforts. Well, Lou, have an enjoyable and productive trip. Well, thank you, Matt. And as always, thank members of the Planetary Society for listening to your show, the ever

growing number of members and even reaching out now to non-members of the Society who are listening to this show, and hopefully we'll all be enjoying the fruits of some of these missions. Thanks, Lou. Lou Friedman is executive director and co-founder of the Planetary Society and the leader of the SOS, the Save Our Science campaign, that recently made its appearance in Washington, D.C. We'll be right back with Bruce Betts in this week's edition of What's Up after this return visit by Emily.

I'm Emily Lakdawalla, back with Q&A. What causes Triton's geysers? It's called a solid-state greenhouse. Scientists noticed that the geysers seemed to be concentrated in one band of latitudes in the southern hemisphere, the same latitudes at which the sun would be overhead to an observer on Triton's surface. This correlation strongly points to solar heating as the culprit. But at Neptune's distance from the sun, solar heating is 900 times weaker than on Earth, and almost all of Triton's volatile materials, its water, methane,

carbon dioxide, and nitrogen, are frozen solid. It may be that the frozen nitrogen takes the form of transparent crystalline ice that acts much like the glass in solar panels. The nitrogen ice allows the weak sun to pass through it to darker materials underneath. The darker materials absorb the sunlight and re-radiate it in infrared wavelengths that are blocked by the nitrogen ice, trapping the heat. The subsurface materials are heated to the point where they sublimate to gas. That gas exerts tremendous pressure, which, sooner or later, pushes open a crack to the surface through which the gas erupts in a geyser. Triton probably looks a lot like Pluto. We'll

have to wait and see if Pluto also has geysers. Got a question about the universe? Send it to us at planetaryradio at planetary dot org. And now here's Matt with more Planetary Radio. We've got Bruce Betts on the phone this week. He's the director of projects for the Planetary Society, and he is here to tell us about the night sky, got a new trivia contest, and probably a whole bunch of other stuff that might be fun to listen to. Bruce, welcome. Thank you very much.

Yeah, I hope it's fun. Night sky, got a bunch of planets. Even Mercury's poking its head up low in the west, northwest after sunset, getting a little bit higher. Each evening, it's still a tough day, but if you look just after sunset, it's still pretty bright. It's far to the lower left of Capella, for those of you playing the Stellar Chart game. You can also check out very easily up above it Mars and Saturn.

They are growing closer and closer together. They will be coming closest together, having a so-called conjunction on June the 17th. And that you can also see low in the west shortly after sunset. and that you can also see low in the west shortly after sunset, and you can contrast the kind of reddish-orangish of Mars with the kind of yellowish of Saturn. And over on the other side of the sky, you've got the brightest object up there. Can't miss it in the evening. It is Jupiter, brightest star-like object in the evening sky.

And in the morning sky, it has to yield to Venus, which is even brighter than Jupiter, as it will have want to do. You can see that over in the east in the predawn sky. Move on to this week in space history. It was kind of a Venus week. I mean, there were a lot of different things that happened. 1989, Voyager 2 began taking observations of Neptune. We also had several launches, particularly of Soviet landers in history, including Venera 9, the first lander to successfully return a picture from the surface of Venus.

And how appropriate, how appropriate, Matt, that Venus Express, the European Space Agency mission, the first mission to Venus in several years, is just starting to take its science data now, just starting its science mapping orbit. You know, you mentioned Venera 9. I knew you were going to bring that up today. And I looked it up, very handily displayed at planetary.org. It has that typical Soviet Russian look to a probe. Now, this is not a put-down because they have an incredibly successful record with their probes, but it just looks kind of like it's assembled from stuff they found

in a military surplus store or from boiler parts, and it's huge. This thing is big. It looks like it's made of cast iron. Yes, they definitely had a different style and flair, and to their credit, as you say, they're the only ones who have successfully landed on the surface, partly by using these things that are basically tanks flown to the surface of Venus. Exactly. They are funny when you're used to looking at a lot of the different American kind of spindly-looking landers, and you get the Soviet serious lander.

Really, a lot of our guys, you know, also extremely successful, but they look like the Russian probes that kick sand in their face. Yeah, they'd have to start on a workout program. We better go on. That's why we focused on Mars, I guess. Anyway, before I come up with

more bad jokes, I'll leave those for later in the show and move on to... Oh, musical. I know, kind of wacky, kind of crazy. Hey, speaking of U.S. landers, the Viking landers, their 30th anniversary is coming up pretty soon in July. Did you know, Matt, that originally Viking Lander 1's landing date was selected to be July 4th, 1976, of course, the bicentennial of the United States.

But when they got to Mars, started taking pictures with the orbiters, they got a little surprised that their landing site wasn't the nice, smooth, fun place they thought it was going to be. So they backed off and picked a different landing site where Viking 1 did successfully come down on July 20th. You asked me if I knew, and I will tell you, yes, I did, because as a kid I found a way to sneak into JPL for that landing. So, yes, I was following the story. I was doing it as a college reporter and had no business being there, but security was lax. So you didn't, like, cut the fence and run on. You actually at least made up a story about being a radio person.

Yeah, actually, well, I was at a real radio station, all of 10 watts worth, but it was great to be there. And, you know, July 20th, no slacker for a good space day. No, indeed. The seventh anniversary of the first human signing on the moon. Can't fool me. Well, actually, you can. That wasn't a challenge. So moving on to the trivia contest, we asked you,

who was the third space agency or country to have a spacecraft orbit the moon. Of course, the Americans and the Soviets were going crazy doing such things in the 60s. But who is the third? How did we do, Matt? Many, many entries. I don't think we had any that were incorrect, but different facts provided by different people. Our winner this week is Michael Capps. Michael Capps, I can't really tell you where he's from because it's an APO. So Michael, very likely serving in the United States military.

Maybe we'll hear from him and he'll let us know. But Michael got it right. He said Japan put what was originally called the Muses A spacecraft into orbit around the moon. It was renamed Hyten. Do you know, am I pronouncing that correctly? I hope I am. Sure, that's exactly right. Thank you.

We do have some listeners in Japan. Feel free to correct us. But I'll say Domo Arigato, just the same. So, Michael, we're going to send you out a Planetary Radio t-shirt for getting this in to us. We thank you for entering. We thank all of you for entering the contest. And here's another opportunity from Bruce. For the following question, remember you can go to planetary.org slash radio,

find out how to enter our trivia contest and win the fabulous Planetary Radio T-shirt. We all know Yuri Gagarin was the first Soviet in space. Who was the second one? Who was the second Soviet cosmonaut in space? Go to planetary.org slash radio. What do you think, Matt? I think they want to get that name to us by 2 p.m. on Monday, June 12th, and one of them is going to win a Planetary Radio t-shirt.

I'd put money on it. Well, I wouldn't put, I wouldn't send, they'll win a t-shirt. Okay. That's the important part. Yeah. All right. We done here, Matt? I think we are.

All right, everybody. Go out there. Look up at the night sky and think about flowers in the sun. Thank you, and good night. Better go at night. He's Bruce Betts. He's the director of projects for the Planetary Society. And he does join us every week here for What's Up.

Moments later, Bruce told me he had specifically envisioned a hibiscus flower in the sun. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California. We'll be back next week with another jaunt around the solar system. Maybe we'll even dip our toes in the Milky Way. Have a great week, everyone. Thank you.