Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Sharing a Passion for Mars at the Humans to Mars Summit

Episode Date: May 29, 2019

This year’s Humans to Mars Summit in Washington DC once again ended with a panel of Martian all-stars talking about their hopes for a future that includes the Red Planet. Planetary Radio host Mat Kaplan leads the inspiring and entertaining discussion. Emily Lakdawalla shows us the beautiful, sunlit clouds of Mars, while this week’s What’s Up segment gives Mat the job of singing the answer to our latest space trivia quiz.  You can learn more about all of this week’s topics at:  http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/2019/0529-2019-2019-h2m-closing-panel.htmlLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sharing the passion for Mars, this week on Planetary Radio. Welcome, I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society, with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. The Humans to Mars Summit, returned to the U.S. Capitol in mid-May, will share the closing panel of Martian all-stars and their inspiring words. Then you get to hear me sing, sort of, in this week's What's Up segment with Bruce Betts. Astronomers always wish each other clear skies, but Planetary Society senior editor Emily Lakdawalla reminds us that there's a lot to be said for other fluffy objects in the sky, no matter where that sky is. Welcome back, Emily. You know, one of the prettiest sights we get to witness here on Earth,

at least in my humble opinion. It's so interesting to learn that there is a direct parallel to this on Mars, and that in both cases, this phenomenon has a name that I've never heard before. Yes, we're talking about noctilucent clouds. And you can figure out what that means by looking at the word roots. So noctis, night, and lucent, light. So these are clouds that shine even after sunset because they're so high in elevation that to them, the sun is still up. You can see them in certain seasons. It's especially helpful to have long sunsets. So at northern latitudes and far southern latitudes, you're more likely to see them. It also helps to have

very high altitude water making these wispy cirrus clouds. They just light up like these ethereal feathery constructions. They're just gorgeous. And Curiosity has been seeing and even filming them on Mars in the last couple of weeks. These are really stunning videos. I know we throw that word around a lot here, but then there's a lot of stunning stuff on and also above Mars. Tell us about these animations. Well, what we're looking at are photos taken with the nav cam camera on Curiosity. That's the widest angle camera that it can routinely point to the sky. And so it gives you this view of the landscape. The landscape is quite dark because it's after sunset. And then above it, you see these wispy clouds with a bright area of the sky just off to the left edge where the sun has most

recently set. The clouds move across the sky in several images, and you can actually see darkness catching up on them from the right as you watch the animation. It's really lovely. Hats off again to some of your amateur image processing colleagues who got this stuff to us. One of them, he took these three images, and it's absolutely smooth. It's great work here. That's the magic of tweening. There's lots of software out there that'll do that for you. That'll take images that were several images taken over time and kind of morph them into each other. It doesn't work well for everything, but for this application, it's perfect. And the images just, they tween so smoothly and you get this sense of time passing and

the clouds drifting along. And you close with a topper. And that is the same thing, but in color, which was not easy to do. Well, no, because the color was painted in. It had to be made up. This camera is not a color camera. It's not capable of taking color images. And the color camera on the rover doesn't have as wide a field of view. So you couldn't get a view like this from Mastcam. Justin Cowart, he took images,

he looked at images that were taken by color cameras to show what the sunset would look like in color. And he painted those colors in to give us a sense of what it would have looked like if we were standing there. Check these out, folks. It is a brand new blog entry from Emily Lakdawalla, these out, folks. It is a brand new blog entry from Emily Lakdawalla, senior editor of the Planetary Society. And they are, of course, at planetary.org. Its title is Curiosity Gazes Upon Noctilucent Clouds Over Gale Crater. Thank you, Emily. Thank you, Matt. She is also the editor-in-chief of the Planetary Report with a new edition of that available online in just a few weeks. So that's something else to watch for on planetary.org from our planetary evangelist.

Each year, Explore Mars gathers space exploration leaders and pioneers in Washington, D.C. for the organization's Humans to Mars Summit. It has been my honor and great pleasure to participate for several years. I host the live webcast that fills the time during breaks in the program, but also contains all of the fascinating sessions. You can enjoy it on the Explore Mars website. We've got a link on this week's show page at planetary.org slash radio. In addition to the webcast, I generally get to moderate a couple of discussions on the summit stage. Like last year, the very last of these sessions brought a big group up to answer a key question or two.

What's remarkable is the diversity of this panel, not just in the human sense, but in the expertise they offered. As you'll hear, they are united in their passion for Mars, and that includes the Moon, if it makes sense to go there first. By the way, a pretty good case was made for just that during the summit. Here is essentially all of that great conversation held on May 16, 2019, at the close of this year's proceedings. It began with an introduction by Explore Mars President Emerita, Artemis Westenberg. For a number of years now, this conference has benefited from Matt Kaplan's know-how and enthusiasm in how to engage us, and this last panel, I believe, will be no exception. Matt will lead us on a quest of what our next step must be to keep Mars on everyone's mind, whether it be the folks on the Hill,

the scientists and engineers in NASA, at space companies, universities, as well as about every other person in the USA and actually on the planet. Matt, lead the way. Thank you Artemis. How many of you were here last year and were stuck around for the Why Mars segment, we're going to attempt to do the exact same thing. So really, it is in the format of maybe this time two rather than one lightning rounds. Before we get that underway and throw that first question at our distinguished panel, and by the way, Artemis over there is going to have the last word as Emerita president of Explore Mars. Let me go down the line here.

You know Sonia Gavankar because she's been up there co-hosting the webcast with me for the last two days. It's been loads of fun, and I've been so excited to be learning from you all and to wrap it all up into this conversation right now. Director of Public Affairs, Public Relations, I'm sorry, at the museum right here in town. Next, Jim Garvin, participant in this little shindig last year, Chief Scientist of the Goddard Space Flight Center, former Chief Scientist of all of NASA, and it would probably be quicker to mention the list of, give you the list of missions he has not been involved in

and to tell you all the ones he's had a part of. You're part of the InSight team right now, right? Oh, InSight. Back on Mars, our newest Martian. Next to him is Kelly Girardi, aerospace professional, popular science communicator. You saw her on the Social Media Planet panel. She has flown. Social Media Planet. Let's have that next. That sounds good.

Social Media Planet. Everybody has their smartphones out all the time. All the time. Who has flown multiple microgravity research campaigns as a payload specialist and as a human test subject, which I wish we had time to talk about that. She's a scientist, astronaut candidate with Project Possum, the first crewed suborbital research program. So hoping to get up there pretty soon, I bet. Hoping, waiting for my ride. All right. Next in line, you've heard from Joe Cassidy several times of Aerojet Rocketdyne, the gold sponsor of the

Humans to Mars Summit, by the way. He is that company's executive director of space. He is also the executive VP of this organization, Explore Mars. He has published nearly 50 papers on advanced space propulsion. You're going to need that if we're going to make it to Mars. Alison Renaud, next to him, was with NASA HQ, is now an independent consultant and motivational speaker, working with nations around the world. You mentioned Croatia to us during one of the breaks out there. Countries that want space programs because they know how they're going to benefit their citizens.

I also learned from her website, which is alisonrenault.com, that her 2016 Harvard master's thesis was titled Moon or Mars, What is the Next Logical Step for NASA? I don't know what you concluded, but if it was the moon, somebody was listening. And I also learned that you've got 11 wonderful science literate children. Right. Which may be the greatest accomplishment we've heard today. Last but far from least, Artemis Westenberg is President Emerita of Explore Mars. Moving on now

to create Explore Mars Europe. Hooray. Hooray. All right, everybody, let's get into it. We're going to start, Jim, because you are right next door there. We're going to start with you. The first of the questions that we want to ask is for each of you to tell us, in as brief a period as possible, the two most important lessons that you're going to take home from this

year's summit. Jim? Well, I think the first lesson is really a global one that transcends just this summit. And it's simply this. Mars is so much more than a destination. To me, it's a state of mind. And so as we look at the real Mars, as we get close to it for these Ansel Adams-esque images from Curiosity, look at what you see. You see the beauty of the place, but it's more than the place. Hidden in the rockscapes, in the stories, is a magical mystery tour of what really Mars is like. And that's one of the reasons why this conference, this meeting, the meetings we've had for the last eight or nine are so important. They make Mars a state of our minds. We're going. And the last, and my final one, is that the moon is not a digression

from Mars. It's an essential element of our experience to make Mars that state of mind. As we go anywhere, we learn how to go somewhere, that somewhere being Mars. For me, I think the moon is really a very special element in the path to Mars. It's part of the Earth-Moon system, so we've got to go somewhere before we go there. And I just remind you one thing. Five hundred years ago, a bunch of ships sailed around this planet and made their first orbit, and they stopped somewhere before they went. And so I think the moon is a key element in our path to Mars. And I can't wait till these women get to go there.

Bravo, Jim. All right. He set the standard. Kelly, it's your turn. Okay. I'm going to do one major takeaway. And for me, it's perception right now. I think what we're seeing while this conference is going out, if you look at the partisan politics that are affecting space right now, and if we have to be really clear about what we're up against, you know, we have a program, a roadmap that can get us to Mars, we have, you know, Artemis, we're gonna go to the moon, we're gonna send a woman, we're gonna have, you know, a pathway to Mars. This is the stuff that should unite a nation and already we're in a political storm that makes it, we'll

hope it's likely that it happens but you know it may not and the thing that we have to understand is that part of this is a failure of our political system part of this is a failure of our industry you know I think we've been riding the wave of space is cool for a little bit too long and letting all of this excitement speak for itself and if we're not equipping folks with the mental frameworks and the mental models to understand why it's not only exciting but also essential then we're creating fair-weather fans where the subtext is it's cool but it's frivolous or worse it's the pet project of an old boys club right we need to we need to make sure that we're not only lobbying Congress

but we're lobbying the public and then my final thought is I think we need to do a better job of equipping our politicians with good, satisfying answers to their constituents who are going to be asking, why are you prioritizing this when funding for my programs are being cut, when Flint still doesn't have clean water, when 20% of the children in the United States have food insecurity? We know that space is an investment in our future. We need to do better about communicating that to everyone. Bravo. All right.

You've set a good tone. Joe, you're up. All right. My lesson learned is the word and. Heard it a couple of times already. It's not the moon or Mars. It's not commercial or NASA. We're going to all be part of this.

So the word is and. And for a lot of folks, I think they're surprised by this, but we've been looking at the moon as a part of this path to Mars for quite a while. And one of the things I've been most impressed with since the almost 10 years now that I've been involved with the folks at Explore Mars is how they bring communities together. We started off at a point where some of the Mars advocates were saying we need to de-orbit the ISS, bring it down, and use all that money to go to Mars. The first conference we held was called ISS and Mars.

We put those communities together, and today those two communities are working very effectively with each other to achieve that goal of going to Mars. And that's exactly what we're doing now with the lunar advocates and the Mars advocates. And I wasn't kidding the other day when I said we got together at AM6, and we like each other. We go drink beer together. So we're going to go to Mars. We're going to go there through the moon, and we'll all do it. We go drink beer together. So we're going to go to Mars. We're going to go there through the moon and we'll all do it. We'll all be part of it. International, commercial, academia, NASA, big companies like mine, small companies like some of yours. It's all inclusive.

Remember that. Excellent. I got one more, Ann. Robots and humans. And humans. Absolutely. Absolutely, Matt. Very good. And microbes. They go everywhere. With the robots robots and humans. And humans, absolutely. And microbes. They go everywhere, with the robots and the humans. I want to make sure we remember. Allison. Well, it is true, I have 11 children. I'm trying to do my best to put people in the workforce, space workforce. My oldest is a nuclear

engineer. My fifth actually is the HR director for Elon Musk. My seventh is pre-med pediatric space medicine. And number 11 just won the engineering award at her school. So I think it's important that we invest in our own families as well. And I've really enjoyed the conference a lot and I've taken a lot of notes. One thing that I was thinking is Dr. John Logsdon always brings up, will we ever have another Kennedy moment? And I don't know if we'll have a Kennedy moment. There's a Greek word that I love that's called a kairos moment. And a kairos moment is, Webster says, is a time when conditions

are right for the accomplishment of a crucial action. And this is what I see listening to all of our panels and all of our speakers, is we have kind of a hyper convergence suddenly in time where we have political will. I wrote down here we have a great technological foundation, a lot of research. We have billionaires. We have entrepreneurs who are very committed. We have international partnerships. I worked in international at headquarters, and I saw the expansion of partnerships from the UAE to a lot of smaller nations, emerging space nations,

coming on board, bringing their expertise. I see, as he was saying, large corporations, as well as the smaller ones that we need in the supply chain. And mostly what I see, as he was saying, large corporations as well as the smaller ones that we need in the supply chain. And mostly what I see as I travel the world and speak around the world is I see NASA T-shirts everywhere. And even in Africa, I see children dressing up like astronauts, hoping one day that their continent will produce the first African astronaut. We see movies, we see Netflix, we see television shows and documentaries.

So the public is very ripe as well. So all this coming together in one big picture, I think as a space force together, we have a choice to make. We can either do strike three or we can hit it out of the ballpark. As my boss, the science guy says, the best brand the United States has is NASA, which means the best brand is space, really. Artemis, you get to wrap up this one. Well, for me, what I take from this conference, seventh, and having had conferences since 2011, I think what I learned is that what I feared that Mars would be an all-American party is not going to come

to pass. It is indeed going to be an international party, and it might be Europe, and it might be many more, and that's fine fine because humanity should go back to the moon and onto Mars and not just, you know, a group on this continent. So that's what I take from here and it is heartening, really, really helping me also to transition to my next job. So thank you. Okay.

My takeaway, the progress that is being made on all the various fronts, all of which are huge challenges and must be met if we're going to first put humans back on the moon very soon and then reach Mars. There was so much evidence across the conference today that this is happening, folks. I mean, from what we're going to eat to what we're going to live in and how we're going to get there. It really is happening. And it's very encouraging. That's just the first of our two lightning rounds during the closing

Humans to Mars panel discussion. There's much more ahead. Stay with us. Forty years ago, my professor, Carl Sagan, shared his dream of exploring the cosmos with solar sails. The Planetary Society's LightSail 2 will soon become the first small spacecraft to be propelled only by the light of the sun. I'm Bill Nye, and I'll be there as a rocket carries our craft into orbit. Tens of thousands of members have made this day possible. Already part of our LightSail team? Thank you. It's never too late to join us.

Learn how at planetary.org slash join. All right, our second question is, how do we take the momentum that we have all felt that brought all of us here today, because we feel it, how do we take that out into the world from the summit and communicate it to others? Can I start? Of course, please. here today because we feel it. How do we take that out into the world from the summit and communicate it to others? Can I start? Of course, please. So I hear a lot of we should, we should, we should remember, and I feel like we're shooting on ourselves a little bit. We are there. We have

been talking about this for decades. We have achieved a lot. We're looking back now 50 years and being re-inspired, but a lot of this progress has happened. We're on the cusp of making the big leap. So instead of saying we should, I think we should change the conversation to we will and when we do. I think that's where we are now. Hear, hear. I'm glad you jumped in.

You're welcome. That's perfect. Jim. So I think the momentum is everywhere every second. Come on, we have a rover driving in day 2400 and something. We've done 60,000 orbits of a planet called Mars, it's a state of mind, that seriously is like we do for Earth.

So it's not a question of momentum, it's a question of applying the momentum in a positive way, like a lot of the colleagues here said, to actually making it happen. And I would just say one thing. We need to keep that momentum going so we can do a robotic round trip and show everyone we're ready. And that robotic round trip will make all the women and men happy. I hope it makes all the commercial interests happy.

It'll make we scientists happy because we want Mars stuff here. It's going to tell us what we need to be ready for when we get to this world because Mars is not the moon. So we better be ready for her. Yeah. Kelly. Yeah, and just as an addition to my last point, I think we really need to walk the walk of space for all.

Because if we're communicating that, we better make sure that folks are seeing themselves represented in our industry. That means no more all-male panels, ever, period. Don't speak on one. Don't have one. You know, this is great representation. You know, it is, but we can do better. You know, look, we have a long way to go, but it's critical, because if we're going

to convince the public that this is worthy and that we need to go, like colleagues have said, the technology is there. We can do this. Now we need to convince everyone else that it's worth it. And it's not just a small elite group of us who are going to benefit from that, that it really is an investment in the species and not just an all white male conversation. Joe. So I've got a challenge for all of you. It's on you. I agreed with Sonia that we should or NASA should do this.

NASA should do that better. Those big companies should do that better. Nope. Look in the mirror. Go home tonight. You are the space evangelists. You are the ones who tell the story. Every one of us, every day, get out there, tell that story, tell people about what you do, be proud of it, talk about the progress that's

being made. Get online, get on Twitter. Every day, I get the weather from Mars on Twitter every day. I can tell you what the temperature was at Curiosity today. I can tell you what the wind speed was. Just get a couple of those facts and blow people away. My Lyft driver on the way over told me he wanted to be an astronaut when he was growing up, when I told him what I did. Don't be ashamed. Don't think that people will think you're weird. We can do this. And the more we do that, the more that story gets out there and the more support we're going to get and people will believe that we're still doing a space program that was the one thing when we stopped flying the shuttle i had a lot of people come up

to me and say oh you work with nasa i didn't think we had a space program anymore don't let that happen to paraphrase the guy who put us on course for the moon the first time ask not what space can do for you ask what you can do for space. Well said. Allison. One of the things on Kelly's panel that I really enjoyed was how important it is to share your story or share stories with those people that you interact with every single day. There's a lot of us, a lot of the public, like I used to be, is all I cared about was, am I going to put food on the table tonight? Am I going to get my kids to soccer practice on time? Am I going to be, is all I cared about was, am I gonna put food on the table tonight? Am I gonna get my kids to soccer practice on time?

Am I going to get them up and get them to school on time? And so you don't think space is important and you have to break it down and explain to them. I coach Olympic hopefuls in the sport of gymnastics for the last 20 years. I have about 500 students. And one of the things I pass on to my kids, it's not about medals, it's not

about just training and working hard, but what you're doing is physics. Gymnastics is physics. You know, mass times velocity equals force. That's how the vault works. And they're fighting gravity. And we, you know, like to help them relate. Everything they're doing relates to space, relates to science, relates to physics. So I would just encourage each and every one of you to tell your story, to share it with your friends, your family, because they really don't understand. We're a small fringe community, and it's very, very important that we get the story out and keep the public momentum extremely strong. Thank you. Artemis? If I look into this room, and I know there were more of you over the last three days,

I have a simple assignment for you. For yes, I agree with Joe, and I agree with all the others. We are the space ambassadors. But that's kind of scary, because yes, people will think you're geeky or weird or whatever. Make it simple. Summer is coming. Organize a street barbecue in your neighborhood. And I'm not propagating that you all need to eat meat. It could be only vegetables.

What I'm saying is gather your neighbors and talk to them about this. Talk about what you do. I'm sure that all of you are just as enthusiastic about space as I am, so you probably can talk easily about whatever brings you to this passion of space. Use that. That's what I want you to do.

Simple step, because it's like carrying forwards. If each and every one of you can inspire one more, then we've grown the numbers. And I bet if you do a street barbecue or some sort of gathering like that, you will probably inspire two. So yes, do it. Make it simple for yourself. Do this step, and there will be more next year on this conference, but much more important, you will probably have made friends in the neighborhood

that you will meet wherever you go, going shopping. It makes for great conversation, and you will grow the base of getting humans truly to Mars. Thank you, Artemis. They have met their assignment. I think they all deserve As, maybe A plus, don't you? Could we give them a hand right now? And we'll now continue the conversation and we will save a few minutes for questions or

maybe you want to share what you're taking away from the conference and how we continue the momentum. My suggestion for how we continue it is not mine, it's my boss's, the science guy, who says share the passion, beauty, and joy, the PB&J of science and space. That's what's going to grab people, especially young people who are already scientists. Sonia, you want to get us into a little bit more discussion? Sure. I would love to wrap this up a little bit in the terms of storytelling and talking about your story and the idea that

somehow we lose a fascination of space after we outgrow our elementary years. I went to Space Academy. I had terrible eyes and my family was like, you are not good at math. You may want to be interested in journalism. And that's what I'm really good at so I'm really good at storytelling but so are you your level of experience and from where you stand gives you a platform from where you speak it will re-inspire people for that love of space that they had so the idea that we lose it can't really be true if uber drivers are like if this was just a rocket ship, I would drive it too. People want to know how they fit into this larger picture. They're excited when they hear that we got Velcro

and Tang from the space program. What are you doing that you're working on that we are going to be using ourselves in our pocket that applies directly to the space program? What can people be doing in their everyday lives that can help you in your job that brings us all together? So the idea that it's the we against them or they're not gonna understand, sure, we're not gonna understand the intricacies of rocket surgery, as I like to say sometimes. We're not gonna understand that maybe,

but we're into it and we want to know how it works and we want to know the way that you do your job, because it will help us do our jobs better as well. Rocket surgery, I love that. Rocket surgery? That's a good one. You've never heard that before? I've never heard that.

You can have it. That is yours. I do rock surgery. Anything that any of the others of you would like to add? And it doesn't have to be on the questions that we've already covered. Jim? As a follow-up to what Sonia said, we talk about citizen science and all these other engagements.

How about a citizen cause toward getting women and men to Mars, beyond just the science? Because it really is an inclusive activity. The art of doing it will last forever. We have the art from the moon and from being in the shuttle. And the art of the engineering of doing it comes at all levels. It's organic.

And so that crowd sourced engineering solution to that small problem that will make those women and men who go better faster, not necessarily cheaper, I would hope it is, but is part of the equation. So that kind of engagement I think is real important because what I find is most people don't realize, hint, we live in space now. Right, right, right, right. Spaceship Earth.

Yeah, we're flying through it right now. We really are. And bring somebody along with you. I think what we were saying about when somebody is inspired and somebody shows interest or you see a young person in your job who may be a minority or different than your upbringing, bring them along with you. Be a conscious advocate for that. I think that Humans to Mars and this conference really has made an effort to make sure, and

I'm sure this is Artemis is doing, to make sure that there is representations of different types of people and different ways of thinking of what we all do. I think you have to be conscious of it. Well said. Picking up on Jim's theme there and Sonia, too. One of the things I've said to people before is the reason we go into space is because, as you said, we live in space. And we kind of live in a rough neighborhood because there's rocks out there that come in, and there's the sun which throws stuff out at us. And so we do things like Parker Solar Probe

because we need to learn about that thing. We run the risk of if we just sit here on Earth and say, you know, all the problems are right down here at the terrestrial level on the surface, that one of those things out there is going to end us. And pretty soon, we're going to send the DART mission out there to smack a little rock and see if we can knock it off course a little bit. That's right.

And Jim was talking this morning about that metallization on that braze joint, which happens to be in the thruster that's going to send that thing to hit DART. So we're working that right now, and it's a real problem. You all know the old joke, right? Why did the dinosaurs all die? They didn't have a space program. A collective one. Yeah, we better have one.

We better have one. Following on that, just one, you know, closing thoughts from me is, like, something everyone in this room can do. Like, fight like hell to keep space bipartisan. Like, fight like hell to keep space bipartisan. People are going to be attacking it now through the next election, through the next four years after that election, regardless of the outcome, regardless of all of our individual political beliefs. Hold politicians accountable.

Don't let space become the red herring for partisan politics. We have to keep everyone accountable. And that's all of us in this room can remind folks. When we see it on Twitter, call it out, say, hey, this is valid. Yeah, maybe we don't need to raid Pell Grants. However, it's worth doing, let's find another solution. So really just keeping that momentum coming because that's what will tear us apart.

Yeah, and there's one thing I would like to add. There's this slogan of NASA of the 60s, failure is not an option. I get so angry when I hear that. Is that the way you raised your kids? Probably not. The thing is, failure is always an option. Not trying is not. And that's what we need to tell the audience all around the world and in America. It's not an option not to try. Yeah, we might fail, but we will have tried. Yeah, WD-40 is pretty great. WD-39 wasn't. Duct tape has worked many times. I've seen it on that great shuttle.

Yeah, including in the Martian. Right. Yeah. That's what you need on Mars is duct tape, potatoes, and air. Air. Let's go ahead and open it up to the audience. We still have a couple of microphones out there in the aisles if anybody wants to get in

on this. Then we will let Artemis close this 2019 H2M Summit out. Hi, sir. You're up. Yes, I'm Dr. Edmund Mashi. I'm going to ask a very stupid question. I'm sorry. What's the difference between science, religion, and politics?

Oh. Who wants that? Yes. He won't close us out with the big thinking. Yeah. Wow. Tim? Well, science is just innate curiosity with explanation as part of the end game.

So it's just, you know, why did the Nationals lose in baseball? Well, that's a curious question. They didn't today, but if they had. And so it's fulfilling that curiosity, using rules that we develop as we go. And those rules help us predict things that we care about, like will that bridge stand up as I drive? You know, can we make enough food for the people?

Whatever. So that's science. Politics is how people work together, or not. And that's all that others comment on. And religion is a state of faith in mind that comes from the individual and how they choose to embody it. One could say going into space is religion. I don't think so. I think it's an inevitable consequence of human destiny. Since we live there, we might as well see the neighborhood. So I hope that's a little piece of it. But it could be a spiritual experience.

It could be. Oh, absolutely. That was incredible. It has been. It should be. That was very well done. Did anybody else want to get in on that one? Yeah, please.

I think Jim covered it. Yeah, no. Maybe I should let you speak. Third rail. That is a TED Talk that you should do. Let's go over here. Hi. Hi, my name is Bailey.

I was not personally part of the Apollo era, but I'm very excited to be part of the Artemis era. What do you guys think is the most important thing for us as the public to get the Apollo era energy into this new era? Anybody want to tackle that? Recapture that thrill. If I just maybe say one thing,

Apollo was a very unique experience because we went from zero to 100 in breakneck speed. And now, that energy's already there. We have, we're at 100. Just not with women and men at Mars, necessarily.

So it's for you guys to capture that energy. It's just mining it and using it to, as one colleague said, we will do it because it is in our DNA. We're all DNA-bearing organisms. I think we are. But anyway, so I think that's for you. We have the inertia.

We have the stuff. Let's go do it. I also think if you look historically at news coverage, there were three major networks, there were three channels that were telling the story of space. They were very excited about it and they were given access to this incredible race that they could cover that had

a beginning, a middle, and an end. It is a very noisy environment now. There's a lot of noise when you look at Facebook and social media and Twitter. There's a lot of things to look at. It's just noisier, but people are still just as excited. So if you can hone down a little bit into what you're looking at, what you're following, I think you'll find that same enthusiasm is out there. And I'll tie it to something that Jim Mazur said earlier this

morning, and that's back to the constancy of purpose. With the noisy environment, like Sonia was saying, it's easy to go off in 10 different directions. And if we keep focused down that middle path, there's slight variations. You can tack here and there, like if you're sailing a sailboat, but you want to keep going in one firm direction. So that's another thing, I think, for all of us. Again, my charge to you is you're the ambassadors, go do this, but make sure people stay, understand that we're moving. We are making progress and, and you can access that information. That's the other nice thing about this new world. The information's all out there. Jim's stuff's out there on, you know, you can go find it about his Mars rocks and stuff. He'll show you on his phone at the reception. You want to see, we have. And a personal bugaboo.

Don't let anybody tell you that NASA and the space program ended with the last space shuttle flight. Yeah, absolutely. We have been doing marvelous things right on through from that to today, and the best is still ahead. Yeah. Okay, we have maybe time for, we'll do two more because there are two of you in line there. And then we'll let Artemis wrap things up.

Hi. I hope NASA hasn't ended. I'm Lynn Rothschild at NASA Ames, and I hope I still get a paycheck. You're going to deliver some of that synthetic biology. Absolutely. So two observations. First of all, I've decided that we are the Apollo generation, not the baby boomers. And I was shocked to discover this morning that hashtag hadn't even

been taken. So come on, we're the Apollo generation. But the other observation is, after sitting at this meeting and back to back with the Women in Technology Summit in Copenhagen, the message that comes through over and over, including with this panel, is the critical thing in many of our lives, we're having parents who are supportive. And if you don't have parents who see science and engineering and space as a viable career path, it doesn't matter probably how much you scream and cry, you're going to be put on a trajectory towards finance or medicine or law or whatever. And so we need to have more supportive parents who say, yeah, that's cool. And the kids have got to see that this is a viable career opportunity. Well said. Thank you, Lynn. Well said.

All right. We will go right on to the last audience question of the 2019 HTM. That's powerful. I love the excitement we've got for 2044 and 2033. I want to ask you all about 2045. Where do you see us on Mars in 2045? Where are we on the moon? Where are we in Leo? Are we anywhere else in the solar system and why? Great question.

I mean, we can go right down the line. I'm just going to turn my head. In 2045, I have a six-year-old who absolutely wants to be an astronaut. He had this great moment over spring break where he was in the cockpit of the commuter jet flying us to spring break, and the pilot said, so you're going to grow up to be an astronaut? And he goes, no, I'm going to be. He said, are you going to grow up to be a pilot? And he said, no, I'm going to be an astronaut.

And so he had made that leap. He's already there. He said, are you going to grow up to be a pilot? He said, no, I'm going to be an astronaut. He had made that leap. He's already there. I think he's going to be FaceTiming me from Mars, and I'm going to be standing at the airport waiting to board my commuter jet to one of the planets. Just be prepared for a long conversation with a lot of pauses if you're talking to him on Mars. More power to him.

I think, great comment. First, I think how we are there doesn't even matter. It's that we feel we're there. And if it's a virtual presence, where we're there every second, not just with the weather, but walking down the holodeck on Mars and feeling as if it's part of our lives,

entertainment, edutainment, or science-tainment, whatever, I think that's a real possibility. Secondly, I think Mars will have delivered the goods. We will realize from Mars we're not alone, and that that microbial universe, which is everywhere, is manifested there in some way that I can't predict. Next, the next few years are going to be unbelievable. We will open our eyes to the universe with James Webb

that will inspire us to go far beyond Mars. We won't be talking a few light years. We will be seeing this universe through the lens of Mars and that's going to make things great. I hope there's tons of women and men on Mars and some dogs making music so we're all having fun because that's

part of our culture and that we all feel we're part of it. When I think of the future similar to Sonia, I also think of my child. I have a little girl. Her name is Delta V because, you know, she runs deep. Right, but I, you know, when she was three months old, I brought her to the Falcon Heavy launch, the first one,

and just seeing and hearing the sound barrier break over her head, similar to, I think, what Bailey mentioned about being part of this next generation. You know, I look at the things mentioned about being part of this next generation. You know, I look at the things that she's going to see in these coming decades. It's the democratization of access to space. It's the expansion of Earth's economic sphere.

It's the promise and the hope of our entire globe being lifted into a more civilized way of life, and I want that for her, and that drives me in the industry. What a great start in life. Joe, 2045 okay robert uh so we've been been at the moon for 20 years in 2045 so by now we're up and running we're producing propellant we're shipping it up to evolved uh gateway-like propellant depots that are in

different nrho orbits around the moon and we're using that as our jumping off point to go out to mars and based on what hoppy's laid out I think we could have about six or seven missions by that point to get to Mars. So we've built our little Antarctic-like research station out at Mars, and we're shipping crews out every two years, every synodic period. Somebody else is going out to Mars. That's where I think we're going to be. Love it.

It's like a whole benchmark. It's... But no robotic colony. Well, the robots can do their thing, too. I'm sorry. I'm a human guy. I want to live in that world. Allison? 2045.

I don't know if I'll be here then. So that's why I keep looking backwards to the generation below us. I want to thank... I'm part of the board, and we made a decision to bring the girls from Afghanistan. And Elon Musk came through for us to do that.

And it's these people that are going to be making the difference. Those girls really made this conference worthwhile. And I think they touched our hearts in a very special way. All the challenges they face to do what they've done and we want to thank you all for being here. But I was thinking to myself, how can I tie all my gymnasts back in Oklahoma City to these girls in Afghanistan? How can I inspire all of them? And I found out that these girls want to go to Six Flags, these girls from here, Six Flags of America.

And so what I did was I got on the phone last night and I talked to kind of my Olympic head coach and I said, find our very best gymnasts between the ages of 10 and 15 and tell them, these girls from Afghanistan who are trying to change the world through space and science, they can either go train, or they can find a way to get these girls there. And they chose to take action. They left their practice, and 10 minutes later, these kids between the ages of 10 and 15,

and there only were about 12 of them, raised $1,000 that quick. And it's the kids that are going to inspire the kids. And we need to remember that we have to continue, as she said, to invest in our own kids and in those kids before us and put the time and the money and the effort

to inspire them to go to Mars and beyond. What do you have for that, Dave? Yeah. You'll be there, man. You'll be around. All right. I don't just want boots on Mars. I want a shoe store on Mars.

Nice. And like Jim, maybe even beyond, I want to know that we are not alone in this universe because that just seems, as somebody said, like an awful lot of wasted space. I want to know that life is as much a part of what the universe is about as any other physical property. Artemis, you get the last word on that question, and you get to take us out of this grand gathering. Well, 2045, we've been on Mars for 12 years. We've learned to do it the hard way. It will be hard. It will not be easy, but we've learned to persevere and we will have learned to really trust each other and depend on each other. So in 2045, I believe we will have

a better society here on Earth because we will learn from what we see there. Our vanguard that's on Mars will teach us that it is possible to live with each other, that it is possible to respect each other, that borders are actually something you put on a paper map on your desk, but then in reality, they're not really there, because we're all human beings. That's what I believe. Nice. Well done.

Wonderful. For our entire panel, thank you for staying with us to the end. I hope you agree that it was worth it. About this conference and about what we're going to do next. I've said in this conference and in the YMARS panel of last year's conference, I'm in this to create a better, more equal, more humane society. Now that I'm setting up Explore Mars Europe, I realize that part of creating the more equal society is squarely sitting in my own hands. Janet Ivey, a woman, as the new president, is not a happenstance. Henriette van Noorl, as my compatriot, is not just luck.

Maria Antonietta Perino, as president of Explore Mars Europe, is not coincidence. Men are, of course, part of the European organization. But young women will be just as numerous, or more numerous, making up this new branch of our brand of putting humans on Mars. But next starts right here, now. Artemis and Artemis will lead humanity out of Earth's gravity well. Women will lead the way.

We are, all of us, the Artemis generation. That's my word for you. Thank you. Time for What's Up on Planetary Radio. The chief scientist of the Planetary Society is here once again, as he always is, for this segment of the show. That's Bruce Betts. Welcome. Hi, Matt. That was very enthusiastic.

I'm ready to hear about the night sky, and it has been a really pretty night sky down here in the San Diego area. It's been mostly cloudy up here in the Pasadena area, but had some clear nights recently, a little bit. Saw Jupiter. It looks wonderful looking the east in the early evening even now, certainly by mid-evening. It's the brightest star-like object out there right now with Venus hiding. You can check out Mars also, but it looks kind of dim and reddish and very low down in the west shortly after sunset. And then in the middle of the night, we've got Saturn coming up in the east looking kind of yellowish. I think I need a little Jovian fix. Maybe I'll drag the telescope out tonight.

You should. Even without a telescope, it's really bright. I don't know if you knew that. Maybe I'll get lazy and just use the binoculars. Find those moons. That's a little tidbit. If you can get some binoculars

and hold them steady, but certainly a small telescope, you'll see the four Galilean moons, or as many are not hiding, looking like little dots of light. All right, on to this week in space history. 100 years since the solar eclipse that was used to test the general theory of relativity, and unfortunately found it to be correct. Did you say unfortunately? Oh, totally. You don't like that. It's complicated. I still try to pass it off as Einstein's practical joke on everyone, but I keep testing things. I keep finding it's right, but it's really complicated when you get into the equations. I don't really enjoy it.

Could you do something about that? I could try. Mostly I'm glad I was a liberal arts major. I will say that next week our guest, Jay Pasikoff, the great astronomer and historian of astronomy, is going to mention that fact as well, because he also was celebrating that 100th anniversary. I mean, you know, he is a famous eclipse chaser. Yeah.

And of course, that is one of the ways to help work these things out. That's what happened 100 years ago, right? Yep. All right. We move on to... It was kind of a snake oil quality to that. So pulsars, as you know, are a kind of neutron star that spins and has beams of light. That light, whatever wavelength, passes by the Earth.

We see it as like a lighthouse. We see a beacon from the spinning. From that, the fastest pulsar spins that we've detected, the fastest spins at 716 times per second. This is something with the mass of a star, the size of a city, 716 times per second, hurts my brain almost as much as general relativity. I just think of the note that somebody put down when they found the first one, LGM for little green men, because they figured it had to be intelligence, but no such luck. Is that fortunate or unfortunate? All right, let's go to trivia. All right, let's go to trivia.

I asked you about how wide an area was observed to have changed due to the Hayabusa 2 SCI impact into the asteroid Ryugu when they shot it with a projectile. How do we do, Matt? Entrance a bit depressed this time because I think it was a little bit of work to figure it out. A lot of people came up with the answer 20 meters, but we should point out that that 20 meters, which I think is also what you got, that's not actually the size of the main crater, right? That's why it was phrased as area observed to have changed. Taken directly from a Jason Davis article about the Hayabusa 2's SCI on the Planetary Society website, by the way. Jason Davis, our colleague, writing regularly for the Planetary Society blog. So 20 meters or 66 feet approximately, and that is the answer that we got. Get this, from Mel Powell.

is the answer that we got. Get this, from Mel Powell. Mel, who gets quoted all the time because he's always sending us funny stuff for the show. But in the four years that I think he has been entering the contest, this is his first win there in Sherman Oaks,

California. Congratulations, Mel. Cruelty of random.org. It's really true. Mel, you're going to get yourself a Planetary Society kick asteroid, rubber asteroid, and a 200-point itelescope.net astronomy account. More about those in a moment. Paul Hoover, in my old hometown of Long Beach, California, he said, okay, so pi r squared

20 meters, that'd be 314 square meters in area. Remember, that's not all, just the main crater. Laura Dodd, another person we hear from a lot. This is a California-heavy program this week. She's in Eureka, way up north. I should have written a haiku for Hayabusa, too, but the smell of dinner has made me very aware of the crater in my own belly. Hunger trumps poetry. Fortunately, that wasn't the case for our poet laureate, Dave, in Shawnee, Kansas. Dave Fairchild. I have to sing this one. Are you ready? I look forward to it. Hayabusa went to space and visited Ryugu, shot a copper impactor and made a great big boo-boo. Hayabusa, take a pick. DCAM 3 is handy.

Of the crater that you made, a 20-meter dandy. Wow. Bravo to Dave and to you. That was... Oh, thank you. That was spectacular. I'm so glad to get some credit from you for that with my wonderful rendition. Finally, this from Darren Ritchie in Renton, Washington, a 20 meter wide crater, apparently much larger than expected. Bruce Willis, are you taking notes? Always. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure he's out there.

He wouldn't miss an episode. We're ready, I believe, for yet another question. What is the brightest pulsar as seen from Earth at radio wavelengths? Radio, Matt, radio. Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. All right. And you have this time until June 5. That's Wednesday, June 5th at 8 a.m. Pacific time to get us this answer.

Not only will someone out there chosen by random.org win a Planetary Society rubber asteroid and an itelescope.net account. It's an account worth a couple hundred bucks American from that nonprofit worldwide network of telescopes. I have this embarrassing wealth of books that we have received lately, most of which I will not, you know, have time to talk to the authors about. A lot of them are about the upcoming Apollo anniversary. Well, the Apollo 11 anniversary, as you have pointed out, we've had a bunch of ongoing Apollo anniversaries, right? Yes. Well, here is a book by James Donovan,

which Mike Collins, the command module pilot for Apollo 11, said this is the best book on Apollo that I have read. Shoot for the Moon from James Donovan. We're going to throw that in for the winner of this week's contest, this brand new one that Bruce has just laid on you. Shoot for the Moon, the Space Race, and the Extraordinary Voyage of Apollo 11. All right, everybody, go out there, look up in the night sky, and think about Matt singing your favorite poem.

Thank you, and good night. Yeah. I'm going to be inundated now, I'm sure, by a singable poetry. Paul Simon, you'll go to the top of the list if you send one. That's Bruce Betts. He's the chief scientist of 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 is made possible by our members, who'd like to be some of those humans who go to Mars.

Mary-Louise Bender is our associate producer. Josh Doyle composed our theme, which was arranged and performed by Peter Schlosser. I'm Matt Kaplan, at Astro.