Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Society President Wes Huntress and a Little Guy Named Biff""

Episode Date: June 9, 2003

Society President Wes Huntress and a Little Guy Named Biff""Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is Planetary Radio. It's not every day you get to have conversations with a former NASA Associate Administrator and a little robot, or more accurately, an astrobot about to leave for Mars. Welcome back everyone, I'm Matt Kaplan. Dr. Wes Huntress is the NASA official turned president of the Planetary Society. He also directs the geophysical lab at the Carnegie Institution in Washington. And we'll hear from Bruce Betts, not once but twice, including a special report from the Kennedy Space Center, where he'll reveal the just-announced names of the two Mars Exploration

Rovers. Bruce also met the nine-year-old girl who came up with those winning names. That's at the end of today's show. Before that, Bruce and I will meet that astrobot. Biff Starling is a Lego minifigure representation who sits atop a Planetary Society DVD containing four million names, all about to leave for the planet Mars on one of those rovers. I hear he's quite a little character. First, though, here's that conversation with Wes Huntress. He sat down with us at Planetary Society headquarters last week. Dr. Huntress, thanks very much for being part of Planetary Radio this week.

Oh, it's a delight to be here. What brings you to Southern California? Oh, I come to the West Coast about every six to eight weeks, generally to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where I'm still a visiting scientist, so I kind of get to play in my original pond out here. And you have an even greater history, a longer history of JPL in this region, right? Yeah, I started in 1968 with the launch and landing of Surveyor 7 on the moon. That's what attracted me to JPL.

I left in 1988 after we sold the Cassini mission and went to NASA headquarters and exercised a different level of responsibility for planetary exploration for about 10 years before joining the Carnegie Institution. And eventually at NASA, ending up as Associate Administrator. Right. Associate Administrator for Space Science. And before that, I was the Director of the Planetary Exploration Division in 1990. So for about eight years, I was responsible for this nation's planetary exploration program. That's quite a burden, I would imagine. A burden, but also an enormous pleasure.

And the reason for that, of course, is you're in a position to influence very strongly what the nation does in planetary exploration. Do you miss NASA? I miss the ability to guide the nation's space science program. And I miss the discussions with Congress, the administration, and inside the agency on all of this. What I don't miss is the debilitating schedule that you have to go through. Eight years was enough. And you are, as you said, still a practicing scientist. I mean, you are the director of the Geophysical Lab at the Carnegie Institution, not the Institute, in Washington. So you're still very much a planetary scientist.

Yes, absolutely. And one of the things I'm doing at the Geophysical Lab, of course, is to increase the amount of planetary science that we do at the lab, which has historically, for its first 100 years, been focused mainly on the Earth. And we will, of course, get to the fact that you are also president of the Planetary Society, but maybe we'll talk about science for a few more minutes. Correct me if I'm wrong. I talk to a lot of planetary scientists.

A lot of them are geologists who 10, 15, 20 years ago, not very far back, would be wandering around in a desert or on a mountain or something. And a lot of these folks are now calling themselves planetary scientists. Is this sort of a sea change in geophysics? And a lot of these folks are now calling themselves planetary scientists. Is this sort of a sea change in geophysics? I mean, we're still looking at Earth, but in a way we're learning about Earth by learning about our solar system neighbors. It always helps to understand something in the context of a wider sea of things. And that's what's happening, I think, in the geosciences.

Of course, we can study the Earth in great depth, but to understand the Earth as a planet, we have to consider it in the context of the other planets, especially if you want to understand how this planet originated and how it evolved and the magic transition from an early geochemical surface to a biological one. And so that's why you see so much more interest in planetary science, because in fact, we can conduct more planetary science. We're doing more missions. We're doing

more sophisticated science at these bodies. And even the biologists are getting interested now. I suppose it's pretty obvious that we have far, far more still to learn than we have learned about the solar system and the bodies in it. Oh, absolutely. And every mission we send, no matter what the target, we constantly learn more than we'd expected, and we are constantly surprised, and that's what makes the reason for having

follow-up missions. So there's plenty of excitement with every mission. Oh, absolutely. And of course, this is a special year because we have so many spacecraft on their way to Mars in this opportunity. Let's talk about that. As we speak, because we're recording this the previous week, it is possible that one of the Mars Exploration rovers has been sent on its way to Mars. We do know that Mars Express is already on its way there. Mars is getting a lot of attention this year. Does it deserve it?

Oh, certainly. Absolutely. Mars, of course, has kind of occupied the imagination of man throughout the whole century. Our missions have only increased that interest and rekindled now the idea that there may have once been life on that planet and perhaps even life now. And this year, 2003, is a specially unique opportunity because the amount of energy it takes to get there is so low. So that's why we have so many spacecraft going there from so many nations. And we've got, as of today anyway, we've got two on the way, one Japanese, one European.

The Japanese being Nozomi. Nozomi. We have two to launch from the United States, the two rovers. And we have two in orbit there already. And so it's going to be an exciting time come December, January. Mars is certainly not the only target worth looking at in the solar system. There is a lot going on out there. Galileo about to finish a very successful mission.

Cassini about to really get started at Saturn. And now talk of Pluto. Well, I mean, these are all things that excite me a lot. One of the things I think we have to appreciate is that the solar system is our backyard. There's not just one planet like you pointed out. There are many of them, and each of them has their own uniqueness. One of the things we discovered when we first started this enterprise back in the 60s and early 70s was that every single one of these bodies, including their moons, are very different.

They're not the same. And so it's wonderful to have these missions going out. Of course, Cassini-Huygens, that spacecraft, gets to Saturn on July 1, 2004. As that spacecraft gets to Saturn on July 1, 2004, that's going to be mind-boggling in what it returns about Titan and Saturn and its rings. And there's a lot more to come. Is this a particularly exciting time to be a planetary scientist? Oh, absolutely.

I was a planetary scientist in the 1980s. Throughout that entire decade, there was not a single launch of a planetary spacecraft. And we just had to wait for the occasional flyby of Voyager at one of those planets, as wonderful as they were. Now, after the resurgence in the 90s, we're launching planetary spacecraft every year just about. And so the amount of activity in the solar system has increased enormously. It's an exciting time, yes. We're talking with Dr. Wes Huntress. He is the director of the geophysical lab at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, but he is also the president of the Planetary Society.

And I wonder if maybe after we take a break, we could come back and talk a little bit about what that new role means to you. You've been president for how long now? About a year and a half. I'll have my second anniversary in September. So your feet are thoroughly wet, I would say. Yeah, I'm right up to my knees. Well, let's find out what you've learned over that period.

And your other thoughts about what the society is up to after we take this break. Planetary Radio will be back in just a moment. 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. That's why I'm a member of the Planetary Society, the world's largest space interest group. The Planetary Society is helping to explore Mars. We're tracking near-Earth asteroids and comets.

We sponsor the search for life on other worlds, and we're building the first-ever solar sail. You can learn about these adventures and exciting new discoveries from space exploration in The Planetary Report. The Planetary Report is the Society's full-color magazine. It's just one of many member benefits. You can learn more by calling 1-877-PLANETS. That's toll-free, 1-877-752-6387.

And you can catch up on space exploration news and developments at our exciting and informative website, PlanetarySociety.org. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. Back with Dr. Wes Huntress. He is visiting Pasadena, as he often does, and has stopped in at the headquarters of the Planetary Society, where he has now served as president for almost a year and a half, you said, I believe. Right.

We should talk about that a little bit. You stepped into some pretty good, pretty big shoes, I should say. Oh, certainly. And they are shoes that can't be filled, essentially. So I just kind of have to walk in my own. You know, I'm a founding member of the Planetary Society, and Carl Sagan was one of my colleagues. of the Planetary Society.

And Carl Sagan was one of my colleagues. Bruce Murray was one of my bosses in my youth at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. And Lou Friedman was a colleague. And so I've been a supporter of the Society ever since. Of course, during my time at NASA headquarters, the Planetary Society was key in bringing the message to Congress and the administration about what we wanted to do. And now I'm very proud to be able to be the president of it and have been asked, in fact, by the society to be president.

Does that role of advocacy continue to be an important part of what the society does? It's absolutely crucial. It's critical because the decision makers in Congress need to know that the public supports this planetary exploration enterprise. And the Planetary Society is the key society which brings that message to these folks other than their own constituents. What are the other parts of the society's mission that you're most interested in? The other part is actually engaging the public in the planetary exploration enterprise. The society does that very well, and the opportunity to draw more people in and get them engaged

is increasing with the communications revolution, the use of the web, for example. I recall the days of Mars Pathfinder, when the society was instrumental in bringing those images back to the public in near real time, and that was instrumental in getting the nation excited about that mission. I always think, of course, during that mission and the society's role on the side in it, of that glorious moment when scientists came to PlanetFest and got a standing ovation. It doesn't happen often enough in our society. Well, and something else that I think is important to understand is, you know,

scientists, because it takes so much of their life to build these instruments that go to the planets, have always been rather close held when it comes to the data and information. And this mission was the first time that we insisted that the data, as soon as it got back to JPL, was split into two channels, and one went to the scientists and the other went immediately to the public. It is, as we talked about before the break, a big year for planetary exploration, particularly for Mars, a big year for the society as well,

because there are many wonderful events that we'll be talking about on this radio show and on the website in the coming months, a lot happening in the next six months, roughly, six or seven. But it's also a challenging time. I mean, it's a challenging time for most nonprofit organizations as well. Is part of your job as president helping to make sure that the society can continue to do everything it does in its mission? Well, yes. In fact, that's one of my roles.

One of my roles is sort of as a cheerleader as well. Lou Friedman is the executive director. He has to do all the hard work. And one of my functions is to try to help to guide the society into those arenas that will, in fact, bring the most value to the public and get the public more on board for support of planetary exploration. And that's what these events are all about, engaging the public, getting them to support this enterprise because they find excitement in it, even in challenging times in the economy, because we need something uplifting when things are down.

And that's exactly what this enterprise is about. I was going to say maybe especially in challenging times. How about the research side, the research that the society backs, NEO grants, I'm thinking of, Near-Earth Object Study grants, SETI support, and so on. In fact, SETI itself is probably worth talking about, since that's often something that the Planetary Society is connected with. Well, I think it's important for the Society to support this kind of research where it can. SETI is a good example because the federal government abandoned support of SETI, but it is a kind of enterprise that has, although high risk, the potential for the payoff is

enormous. It doesn't take a lot of money. And so this is an arena in which the society can help. And so in projects such as this, I think it's our role where our members support it. It's been about a year and a half. I'm going to guess that you probably have some thoughts, a vision, as it has been put by some, for what the society should be up to in the foreseeable, well, the near future. Yeah, I think there's two areas that we need to be especially mindful of. One is to continue to support and advocate for the planetary exploration enterprise, the robotic exploration of the planets that will ultimately lead the agency

into sending humans to these places. And that's the second area that the society needs to increase its efforts in, and that is to try to get this nation, this world, to move beyond Earth orbit and to send humans outward and to establish a permanent presence in the solar system. I'm glad you brought that up because elsewhere on the Planetary Society website, people can hear, read about a forum that the Planetary Society just sponsored a couple of weeks ago with a couple of other very prominent agencies. And some of the conclusions paralleled what you've just said.

Well, exactly. And that workshop was part of this new initiative we're undertaking to try to support human exploration beyond Earth orbit. The Society supports planetary exploration, whether by robots or whether by humans. The Society's problem has been that the human exploration enterprise has been stuck in low Earth orbit since 1972, and we'd like to see it move beyond that.

We think it's time that it move beyond that, and this country needs to develop a vision for where it wants to go beyond Earth orbit. When would you like to see humans walking on Mars? Within the next 50 years. I'm sure we'd all like to see it sooner, but I'm somewhat of a pragmatist having served in Washington, D.C., and it's a very expensive enterprise. It's an enterprise that will have to garner support from the public

and from our representatives. So I think it will take anywhere from 30 to 50 years to do it, and I think we should approach this idea of sending humans to Mars in a systematic fashion so that we do it a step at a time and in a way in which it will be a lasting enterprise instead of just a one-off event like Apollo was. Any other major goals, things you would love to see happen in this solar system? I would like us to find evidence of past or present life on Mars somewhere.

I think that's a very worthwhile goal. It will really open up humans' minds about their place in the universe. The other is finding an Earth-like planet around another star somewhere. Dr. Wes Huntress has been our special guest on this week's edition of Planetary Radio. He is the president of the Planetary Society, also the director of the Geophysical Lab at the Carnegie Institution in Washington. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you.

Time again for What's Up with Bruce Betts, and we are going to move very quickly through the regular stuff here because we have a special guest who's going to join us at the end of this What's Up. So, Bruce, what's up? Well, easy planet in the night sky to see will be Jupiter in the west, brightest thing up there, and in the morning sky, Mars, appearing in the southeast, bright and reddish. This week in space history, June 14, 1967, Mariner 5 launched. It headed off towards Venus. Random space fact!

The Mars Exploration Rovers each carry a RAT. That's right, a RAT, a rock abrasion tool that will be used to drill into the surface of rocks to clear off the crud on top so they can study the interior of the rock. Very nice acronym. RATs in space. We all knew they would get there. Rats in space! On our trivia contest from last week,

what was the first successful mission to fly by Venus, and how many missions had tried unsuccessfully to reach Venus before then? The answer, Mariner 2 was the first mission to successfully fly by Venus, the U.S. spacecraft. Four missions, both Soviet and American, had been tried before that and failed. And here's our winner. He's one of our regulars, so I'm really happy to announce Tyler Ramberg. Tyler Ramberg got the answer right.

That was, of course, Mariner 2 and four previous unsuccessful attempts. And we love having Tyler as the winner of this 3D Mars poster because, Thank you. contest, but we sure like it. But it is preferred. And we're not going to go on to the new Trivia Conscious yet, because our special guest on What's Up is going to help us with that. We mentioned at the beginning of the show that for the first time ever, we are putting on the radio, well, his name is Biff Starling. And Biff, I think, is on the line with us now from Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral. Biff, are you with us? Dude, I'm here. Canaveral. Biff, are you with us? Dude, I'm here. How you doing?

Biff, it is such a pleasure. I'm great, and we are happy to have you on as part of What's Up. And Biff, I am told that you are the first ever astrobot. Well, not exactly, but I'm the first ever astrobot that's going to fly in space. Right now I'm locked up in this Delta 2 launch vehicle thing. It is seriously dark in here, dude. But it's going to be cool when it launches. I don't know whether you heard, but there's actually going to be another astrobot

that's going to launch first. But there was this terrible zucchini accident, so they kind of pulled me in at the last minute. And then I've also got this other astrobot who knows a lot of stuff named Sandy Moondust, and she'll be launching on the second Mars Exploration Rover. Now, have you always aspired to be an astrobot, to travel into space? No, not exactly. I actually wanted to be a leisure bot so I could sit around on the couch and watch episodes of Junk wars which by the way i love

but i ended up accidentally signing up for this astrobot thing and they like me well we do like you biff we really like you and and i guess we're going to be hearing more from you both on the planetary society website and maybe here on planetary? That would be most righteous. Yes, you're going to hear from me and from my good buddy dudette, Sandy Moondust, and we're going to be giving our diaries from space, like from space, dude, on the Planetary Society website. You can go to redrivergoestomars.org

slash astrobots. Biff, I wonder if you could help us out. We always, at this point in the show, have our trivia contest. We have a lot of listeners who try and enter the contest and win a prize. Would you maybe provide the trivia question for the coming week? Hang on a minute, dude. I've almost got a high score on Space Invaders. Yeah!

Okay. All right. Okay. Trivia question. Yeah! Okay, alright Okay, trivia question I right now sit atop a Delta 2 7925 Not to be confused with the 7925 Heavy

Which Sandy will be on How tall is this rocket? To the nearest meter That's right, Delta 2, 7925 Do it! Go to planetary.org 2, 79, 25. Do it. Go to planetary.org. Follow those links. Sign up.

Figure it out. I'm way up here. Of course, I can't tell because did I mention it's dark? Dude, do you know where my flashlight is? No, I can't say I do, Biff. Okay, thanks. Biff, look, we got to go. Thanks very much for joining us.

And maybe, maybe we'll talk to you again. Oh, please. Asta, dude. Yeah, Asta. Wow, that was interesting. That really was. I don't know. I guess he is up there, and so I guess we'll be talking to him again.

I guess. I met Sandy, and she's actually very serious. This is her life goal. She's really been helping Biff out a lot. I've heard she's very down to earth, if you'll pardon the expression. She is, at least for another three weeks or so. Well, that's it. We're out of time for What's Up. All right. Well, look up in the night sky and think about little tiny robot minifigures going to Mars. Thank you. Good night.

Bruce Betts is the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society, and he's a very up-close-and-personal friend of the astrobots, who we'll be hearing more about over the next few months on their way to Mars. At the outset of today's program, I promised that we would hear from Bruce again with a bit of an update from the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida. And, Bruce, is that where we find you? It is indeed. Hi, Matt. I'm here in Cape Canaveral. Sunday, June 8th, and they have scrubbed the launch for today because of unstable weather conditions.

Well, that's too bad, because we were hoping that we'd actually have in the background the rocket carrying the Mars Exploration Rover audible to our audience, but they'll have to get that from... Well, there you go, folks. Bruce's impression. That's what it would have sounded like. Well, you're not entirely news-free for this report, there you go, folks. Bruce's impression. That's what it would have sounded like. Well, you're not entirely news-free for this report, are you? It's true. I am not news-free. The announcement this morning made by NASA of the names of the two rovers,

instead of the Mars Exploration Rovers, they are now known as Spirit and Opportunity. rovers. They are now known as Spirit and Opportunity. These came out of a contest that the LEGO Company and the Planetary Society ran for NASA with over 10,000 entries from K-12 students who wrote essays to justify their entries. And the winner was Sophie Collis, a 9-year-old third grader from Scottsdale, Arizona who I've had the pleasure to meet her and her family here over this weekend. And they are truly charming, a nice benefit to the story

and what we and the Lego Company and NASA have been working on for many months, trying to come down to names for these rovers. So was she and her family pretty excited to be there? Very excited and stunned. I don't know. Sophie seems to be taking everything pretty well in stride, at least from the outside. But talking quite a bit to her mom, definitely surprised and amazed and still feeling surreal about this. They've only known for a few days. Well, I'm sorry that we won't be able to get that launch from you. But with any luck, it will happen in the next, what, day or two? Yes, hopefully, although things look like the

weather will be similar tomorrow, but they'll give it a try. But I think they're predicting Tuesday more likely. If it doesn't make it tomorrow, the weather is more likely to be good. And Tuesday is no problem for the trajectory that's needed to get the MER there on time? Right, no problem. They've got through roughly, I apologize for the exact date, but June 19th or 20th, right around then, that they can get MER-A off and still make it to Mars. So they've got many days, and so they're just waiting out the weather at the moment. Well, Bruce, thanks very much, and hurry on back home to Pasadena. We'll talk to you for

the next regular edition of What's Up. Sounds good. Bruce Betts, recorded Sunday, June 8, at the Kennedy Space Center. Again, you can see more about the astrobots, Biff and Sandy, at planetary.org, where you'll find Biff's first diary entry, along with much more about the Mars Exploration Rovers' spirit and opportunity. You'll also see little Sophie Collis, the nine-year-old who named those big rovers. We'll be with you again next week with another edition of Planetary Radio. Thanks for joining us.