Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Space, Rockets, and a Senatorial Encounter in Huntsville, Alabama

Episode Date: August 29, 2018

Host Mat Kaplan begins a two-episode visit to Huntsville and the Marshall Space Flight Center, recorded this week at the US Space and Rocket Center with astronaut Don Thomas, 94-year-old Apollo engineer Alex McCool, and Alabama Senator Doug Jones.  Bruce Betts sets us on a search for the nearest black hole in this week’s What’s Up space trivia contest. Learn and hear more at: http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/2018/0829-2018-huntsville-doug-jones.htmlLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Meet me at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center with Senator Doug Jones, 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. I'd always wanted to visit Huntsville, Alabama. I finally made it down there a couple of weeks ago. The experience was even more thrilling and lightning and humbling than I had hoped for. We will tour the history-making Marshall Space Flight Center next week, but our trip begins this week at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, not far from Marshall. I'd have visited the center regardless, but its good people also loaned me their conference room for the conversation with Alabama's new senator that you'll hear later in today's episode. It's a hard place to miss,

even when you're still a mile or two away along Interstate 565. It's the life-size Saturn V model, standing 36 stories tall, that takes your breath away. I was greeted by Pat Ammons, the center's director of communications. We had barely made it through the entrance when... I was just walking into the Space and Rocket Center with some of the staff here, and an astronaut comes the other way, Don Thomas. It's great to be with you today, Matt. I hear that you come here from Ohio. I actually live in Baltimore. I grew up in Ohio, but I currently live in Baltimore. But we have, there's seven or eight astronauts, you know, that come here every summer. And we talk to the students, we talk to teachers and other adults as they pass through the Space and Rocket

Center. You could rest on your laurels, four trips on the shuttle and a lot of other work. Why is this important to you? When an astronaut leaves the astronaut program, they struggle with what do you do next? How can you top a career like going in space? So you struggle with what to do next. For me, I had a passion for education and talking with students. I really enjoyed doing that, and I found I had a passion for it. So when I left NASA, I decided I'm going to get a job in education. I worked at a university for eight years and did some university speaking, but they mainly hired

me to do outreach programs, going out to elementary, middle, and high schools. And I would visit 80 schools a year. So I have a passion for that. It's really important for me to help that next generation. I wanted to be an astronaut ever since I was six years old. I got inspired watching Alan Shepard launch into space on May 5th, 1961. I saw that and I said, I want to do that. I know that power of inspiration. And that's what I hope to do here at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. I hope that I can inspire that next generation of astronauts. I want them sitting out there hearing about my adventures and I want them to say I want to do that. I want to be that first person on Mars and that's the the thrill I get out of this is hopefully

inspiring that next generation and what I wait for in my life is the phone call from somebody who says I just got back from Mars. You came to my school 25 years ago. I heard you talk and you inspired me to do that. If I ever get a call like that, I'm going to drop the mic and say, okay, game over. That's it for me. That wouldn't be bad, would it? That's a good way to end it. Yeah. Would you believe that a gentleman I was just talking to a few minutes ago, he and I were comparing our notes because we're almost the same age, watching Alan Shepard as little kids and how that inspired us and how we'd still like to go where you've been. It was Doug Jones, senator from Alabama.

Okay, yeah, this is something you talk to many people in our generation, and we all wanted to be astronauts since we were little. It's a really powerful, inspirational program. Young students today have that same passion that I had 60 years ago. No different. And I travel around the world. We have students from, I don't know, 50 countries, 60 countries visit the Space and Rocket Center every summer here. And you see that same passion anywhere you travel around planet Earth. Space is a fascinating area. It's touching the unknown. It's a magical world where

everything floats up there. So it's a natural one of curiosity for young students and young students are all about discovery and exploration and that's what we do in space. So I'm just thankful to be a part of it and I'm never surprised when when people say yeah, they want to do that also or do it too. What's special about this center? I mean, you probably could have gone to a number of places around the country and put in your time. You know, I've been coming here for about 11 years since I left NASA. I come here every summer, three, four, five, six times, and I do some other programs with the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. This is an amazing place. The first time

I came here, I did programs for the students. I thought wow that was really great. I really enjoyed it. The more you come back here the more you get sucked into the mission because you see how it changes students. You know have students that come here they may be a little shy or unsure of themselves. They leave here after a week with new confidence and new friends. Many of the students will come here and they would share with me that their kids at school make fun of them because they want to go to Mars. And I share with them, I said, hey, when I was in high school, I would tell my friends, I want to go to the moon. You know, I want to walk on the moon. I want to be an astronaut.

And they would laugh at me. I said, do not be afraid of that. Let them laugh at you. You make it to Mars. That's what this place does. This is one truly of inspiration and exciting young students. They will become our next generation of astronauts, scientists, and engineers. And even if they don't work for NASA in the future, they'll be in some field of science or engineering. So this is really, I see it as a real magical place. The mission here is so critical for our country, for the state of Alabama, for our entire country and our future, especially in space exploration. And it's refreshing for me.

I see that same enthusiasm, the same twinkle in their eye. I recognize it. I said, I used to have that same twinkle. I think you still do. I might have it. I don't know. But I'm glad we can still get that next generation excited. It's still a powerful program.

Thank you, Don, for this and for going from exploration to inspiration. You're very welcome. I'm honored to be here with you today, Matt. Thank you. Pat, I have to thank you because on very short notice, you've enabled me to have, well, you're one of the people who's enabled me to have a great time here in Huntsville. And now we are standing in the center. And this has just been spectacular. Oh, it's been to space, space exploration, both in the early days of the Apollo era all

the way through the shuttle and now with the Space Launch System being managed right here at Marshall Space Flight Center. So we are always thrilled for the opportunity to share the great work that we're doing here and let people know that space exploration doesn't take place just at Kennedy Space Center and Johnson Space Center which is where people go when the cameras come on all the nuts and bolts work of the space exploration is done here in Huntsville both in the uh both with NASA and also the commercial sector so it's a thrill to get to share that so right now we're standing in the Davidson Center for Space Exploration which is a building that

is devoted in large part to the Apollo program and the work that was done here in Huntsville on that beginning in 1950 when the Von Braun team arrived in Huntsville. This was a very small agricultural community when they arrived, about 14,000 people. And they came here because Redstone Arsenal was being decommissioned. It had been used as a chemical base back in World War II. So as it was being decommissioned, it was about the time that the Army Ballistic Missile Command was looking to relocate.

And, of course, the rocket team, the paperclip team that had come over from Germany, had gone originally to Fort Bliss, Texas, and they were looking to relocate them. And it happened that this land land which a great deal of land situated right on the Tennessee River was available so the team moved here they immediately fell in love with the area because it reminds them with its low green hills and a very friendly community of Germany in a lot of ways and El Paso Texas definitely did not remind them of Germany in a lot of ways. And El Paso, Texas definitely did not remind them of Germany. And you said paperclip. That was the effort by the U.S. in the closing days of the war and after the war to try and gather as many of these German scientists and engineers as possible, right? Because the Soviets were trying to do the same thing. Absolutely. They were looking for them just as

hard as we were looking for them. And the Von Braun team made the decision to seek out the American teams. As a matter of fact, part of our collection, it's not currently on display, is the very bicycle that Magnus Von Braun, who was Warner Von Braun's younger brother, rode down the mountain to intercept the American troops and say, hey, kind of like, hey, guys, we're up here. So they surrendered to the Americans. And I really think that just truly changed the course of history because if it had gone the other way,

if the Russians had gotten to them, if the Soviets had gotten to them first, it's hard to know what would have happened. We might not have gotten that gigantic rocket that is standing right outside this building, the Saturn V. Okay, so what you're looking outside the building is a replica. Yeah. We're going to run...

Close enough. I'm cheating a little bit. You're cheating a little bit, but it's the only full-scale replica of a Saturn V you'll see in the whole world. So when you see it vertically, you're driving down the interstate, driving past our property. I hope we've never caused any car wrecks, but I think it stuns people. It's 363 feet tall, and to see that on display in all of its vertical glory is really astounding. What you haven't seen, what we're going to see that on display in all of its vertical glory is really astounding. What you haven't seen, what we're going to see in just a second, we're going to round the corner and you're going to see the National Historic Landmark Saturn V rocket, which we have on display in the hall right around the corner from us.

But we're starting out here in the lobby of the Davidson Center because I want to point to this small plane. This doesn't look like an Apollo command module. No, it looks kind of like a bat, a wooden bat in some ways. And canvas wings. Canvas wings. This is a small vehicle that was patented in 1908 by a local inventor named William Lafayette Quick. It speaks to a lot of things. It speaks to the early and ongoing inventive nature of our community here. But it also speaks to the extraordinary steps we've taken in such a very short time. And I think it's always important to remember that as you walk around this corner, because as soon as we round this corner here, we're going to see the big Saturn V rocket.

The real thing. The real thing. This is the dynamic test article that was used here to here in Huntsville in 1965 to test the integrity of this of this vehicle and Alex McCool who's one of the engineers who worked on that will tell you a lot more about that but I just want to tell you from a visitor's experience and someone who's not necessarily scientific myself that this is just one of the most extraordinary sights you can see when you round this corner. And to realize that it was only 61 years from when that vehicle out there was patented

and just barely lifted off the ground before it came crashing down to when we landed on the moon. And that is just an incredible story of a human achievement. And I think one of the greatest things that the human mind has ever been able to do. This is stupendous. Stupendous. Now we're at the business end. There are those five huge F-1 engines, the biggest liquid-fueled rocket engines ever made. Ever made. It's still the most powerful. And when they tested this in 1965, this very vehicle in 1965, when they fired off all five of those engines, it registered as an earthquake as far away as Birmingham. And that's 90 miles to the south of us.

It broke windows and cracked foundations, created all kinds of havoc, which is why we don't test giant engines here in Huntsville, Alabama anymore. Town got too big. Now all of that work, of course, is done at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Like the Grand Canyon, I don't think I can capture this in a photo that will really impart how gigantic it is. Photos nor video do this justice because it's one of the most extraordinary things. From all ages, I've seen astronauts who've flown in space. I've seen children from all different walks of life walk around that corner and see this in front of them and literally their mouths drop open

and they go, wow. And what's really extraordinary, and I'll let Alex take you on that journey, is when you get to the other end of this building, you're going to see the Apollo 16 capsule, the command module. And if you stand there and you look inside that tiny little command module and you turn back around and you look down the full length of this rocket, it's truly an astounding experience to just imagine what it was like and the bravery it took to climb inside that capsule

and launch to a place we'd never gone before. Just a word about the center itself and your mission here. And the fact that this is, and I'm not here to do a commercial for you, but what the heck, this is a must-see. I think it's a must-see. And I think, you know, for one thing, I think it's important for people to understand some of that early days of space exploration, but also to realize we're not done yet. And one of the things that is really important about this, we're a commission of the state of Alabama,

and our whole purpose is to educate and inform both about the history, the present, and the future. purpose is to educate and inform both about the history, the present and the future. One of the things we have on display here is an exhibit that talks about the work that's currently being done on the International Space Station. But also another very important thing that we do here is we're home to space camp. And a lot of times people use that term in a generic sense, but it's not generic. And in fact, it is a real thing. And we've been doing that since 1930 since 1982 in Huntsville so this is 36 year long strong program we've got a team standing right behind us actually and these are families who are part of

taking part in a American girl at space camp experience because we partnered with NASA and American girl to create a character who became the 2018 Girl of the Year. And her story is about a young girl who wants to be the first girl on Mars. And the first thing she does as part of that journey is to go to space camp, which is all about exploring opportunities and realizing that you can be part of something much bigger than yourself that is part of being a great team player and learning how to work to the best of your abilities. And we've been doing that at Space Camp for a really long time and have a very successful program. And we have lots of folks who come

from all over the country and all over the world who attend our programs. A lot to see here. I look forward to seeing as much of it as I can. And I guess we should go meet Alex McCool. Absolutely. Let me introduce you to the man who is truly a legendary figure in space exploration. And I'm so glad you're going to have an opportunity to meet him. So I'm going to turn you over to Alex McCool. Thank you, Pat. Hello, Alex. You're Matthew. I am. Okay. It's a pleasure and an honor to meet you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That introduction Hello, Alex. You're Matthew. I am. Okay. It's a pleasure and an honor to meet you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. That introduction to 94-year-old Alex McCool was no more than a tease.

McCool worked with Wernher von Braun from the 1950s, eventually leading NASA's development of the rocket engines that would take us to the moon. Stick around for highlights of a personal tour of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center led by Alex. But I had another reason for being at the moon. Stick around for highlights of a personal tour of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center led by Alex. But I had another reason for being at the center. It was to sit down with the man who had invited me to finally visit Huntsville when I met him in Washington, D.C. You've probably heard of Senator Doug Jones. The Alabama Democrat was elected to replace Jeff Sessions when Sessions left the Senate to become U.S. Attorney General. I was in D.C. last May for the Humans to Mars Summit and to help celebrate the

formation of the Planetary Science Caucus, a gathering of senators and representatives, Democrats and Republicans, united by their belief in the importance of space exploration. When Senator Jones learned I had never been to the Marshall Space Flight Center, he insisted that I make the trip, which was just fine with me. So three months later... Senator, thank you for this. Welcome to Planetary Radio. Thank you. I appreciate being here. It's great to be back in this facility. I love this facility here. It's awesome at the Space and Rocket Center. You know, I only learned at lunch today, where you were the keynote speaker for this big Huntsville Chamber event,

that you used to be a board member here. Absolutely. During the days of my U.S. Attorney days, I was on the board not only here at the Space and Rocket Center, but I was the board's representative to Space Camp at the time. So I had an incredible experience here with this facility, getting to meet some old astronauts. I mean, it just was an incredible time. I heard you say up at the lectern today that you were, or maybe are, an astronaut wannabe. Oh, I continue to be. I will be until the day I die. Now, I was six or seven years old when Alan Shepard first went up in the original Mercury 7 astronauts that were just heroes of the day.

In those days, you know, you would stop at school and you would watch the blast-offs and the splash-downs and through the Gemini and Apollo projects. It was just the most fascinating time for me. And I'd always, always just dreamed of going into space, just continually fascinated. My grandfather and I, especially, we dreamed for that day when we would land on the moon and put a man on the moon. And unfortunately, he passed away like six weeks before the Apollo and Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. It's just been a part of my DNA ever since I was little. I happen to know that you and I are almost exactly the same age. So I'm not surprised to hear that you were excited about that. You know, I think everyone that grew up in that era just dreamed of being an astronaut and going to space. It was not the

science fiction books that we had as kids. It was real. I mean, we saw it and we saw it evolve. Where Shepard and Grissom would just go up and down. And then all of a sudden, John Glenn went around just three times, just three times. And then by the time you got to the Gemini with two and there's the spacewalks and Apollo, I just, you know, look, I can go back and relive it, every one of them. I shouldn't take the time to do this, but do you remember where you were when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon? Oh, absolutely. I was sitting in front of a TV set at home. I'd taken off. I was a lifeguard

at the pool in 1969 and I left so that I could watch. I actually kept all the newspapers during the time. I remember that grainy black and white image of him stepping onto the lunar surface, just like it was yesterday. And I literally saved every Birmingham newspaper from the time they lifted off until the time they splashed down. I still have them in my collection today. I got a couple of those too. And I was shooting off the surface of our black and white TV with my father's super eight cameras. I have that film. So I don't have a way to look at it, but I have that film. I mentioned to you before we started recording, I spent some time on your website a few days ago and then again last night. So here you've been in this office, not for long now, going on nine months. You sound like a man with a mission.

Well, we've been very active. You know, I take it very seriously. I mean, I started out my career in the Senate with Senator Heflin from Alabama. Right out of law school, I worked for one year on judiciary. And so this is a place that I always dreamed of coming back to. And to be in his seat is just really surreal for me. And so, you know, we didn't have a lot of time between election on December 12th and getting sworn in on January 3rd. So we spent a lot of effort putting together a great staff, an experienced staff who was able to just dive right in.

We're on committees that are important to the people of Alabama. And so it gave me some real opportunities to get to to know other senators to get involved with them in some bipartisan way on some of these bills uh and just and just not shy away i'm not one to to you know just be too too cautious i want to be somewhat but i'm not too cautious if i see something i like and i think it's good for alabama and others i want to move on it and so that's what we've done we've we've co-sponsored over 100 bills right now. You know, some of those will get into law. Most of them will not. They're long-term goals. Some of them we're doing for messaging. But it's an exciting time, very exciting. The committees that you're on, none of them are, strictly speaking, space or science related.

But you did jump into this new Planetary Science Caucus, which, full disclosure, the Planetary Society has helped to form. Seems to me, in some ways at least, to be a kind of unique gathering, particularly for anyone in either the Senate or the House, because it is bicameral and bipartisan, a place where people in the kind of job you have come together with so many other issues that it's hard for them to get together. Sure. I mean, it touches on so many things that when you talk about this particular caucus, because you can go anywhere from space travel and the solar system all the way down to just STEM education and the importance of teaching kids science and technology and everything else. It touches on so many things, but at the end of the day, for me,

it was just simply a matter of just being an old astronaut wannabe that I could not let this particular caucus go unnoticed and without joining in. So I'm just happy to be there. My boss, the science guy, Bill Nye, he says space brings out the best in us and brings us together. Have you seen that? I mean, there's so many issues dividing us right now. Oh, look, I said today in that speech that you may have heard this, that, you know, it seems in the history of our country that we seem to come together more in terms of when there's a loss, whether it's a tragedy, whether it's 9-11, whether it's the space shuttle disasters or something.

But the space program and NASA in the 60s and 70s was such a source of national pride for everyone. It didn't matter who you were, where you were, how old you were, what race you were, what religion you were. This was the thing that really, you know, would draw people together and was something that we were so proud of. And we were doing it so, and nobody else was doing it. The Russians weren't even really close to us. I'd like to capture that again. And that's why I think there's such an interest in going back into space. I think it would be really good for the country to start having these manned space flights again because it is something that people can rally around.

Everybody is interested in this. Everybody is fascinated by it. There's good evidence of that in what your body, the Senate, has been up to because of the funding for NASA, which a lot of us who are, you know, space fans, space geeks, think is a pretty good turn of events. Yeah, no, you know, this year I was fortunate enough to be in there. I tell some of my colleagues they should have done the budget before I got there because I didn't get there until January and it should have been done in the fall. But be that as it may, we had a budget bill that appropriated some $20

billion for NASA, which was about, I think, $1.6 billion more than what the president had authorized. There is such, I think, an interest, and as you said, a bipartisan, bicameral way to really make NASA, I say make, continue to have NASA as the leading authority, the leading authority, the leading, whether it's a space and space travel or just the science that surrounds the study of our universe. So you're a true believer, but there's good politics in this as well for you. I mean, here we are in Huntsville. I spent the morning. You think there's good politics for me being from Alabama here in Huntsville. I spent the morning... Really? You think there's good politics for me being from Alabama here in Huntsville? Gosh, I need to make a note to staff about that. Yeah. We are close to

Marshall Space Flight Center. I had a fantastic morning there today, not just talking about the Space Launch System, although I'd like to hear what you think about that and the ongoing support for it, but the whole breadth of things that they do there, I mean, the science they support on the ISS. And we talked to a guy with the Fermi mission that is uncovering secrets of the cosmos. Support for NASA obviously is something that is good for your constituents. Sure. And no, it absolutely is. It has provided such an economic engine for this whole North Alabama area. And it has going back to 1960 when they founded the Marshall Flight Center here.

And Wernher von Braun, and we're sitting at his conference table today. I'm still just amazed. At this table. At this table that this was Wernher von Braun's conference table that so much was done and accomplished just around this table. that this was Wernher von Braun's conference table, that so much was done and accomplished just around this table, I just get goosebumps thinking about it. It is important. It's an economic important. You know, it's a twofer for me. It's great for the economy.

It's great for Alabama. And it is good politics. There's no question about that. But this is also a matter of the heart. It really, truly is. I could be from anywhere. And if I had the same personality and the same growing up, I'd still be right there. I'd still be a member of this caucus. I'd still be pushing as much as I could.

When I was headed into Marshall today and the Redstone Arsenal, I was impressed because there were so many cars. It was like, you know, being on a throughway, a tollway up in New York or something, lining up at that gate there to show off her badges. Obviously, there are thousands of people who've got good jobs. Yeah, no, it's the arsenal itself. Redstone Arsenal has grown just dramatically over the last 20 or 30 years. And it's not just NASA. A lot of people, when they think of Redstone Arsenal, they think of NASA. And you can still see the old test centers out there, the engine test areas that they had for the Saturn V and other things. But it's really more than NASA. It's the Army, you know, it's

the Army Missile Command. It is, the FBI has got a huge presence out here now. So there are so many things in the contractors that are doing the work with NASA and with the Army and with the FBI are also establishing their facilities on the arsenal. So it has just grown, and it is such a, as I said, it's an economic engine for this area. You mentioned the STEM benefits of investments in NASA, and I assume by extension in other science. I'm sure you know that the administration, in its budget, tried to do away for a second time, I think, with the education division in NASA. I'm guessing that you thought that was a bad idea. I think that was a bad idea. There was so many things in the president's budget that I thought

was a bad idea, and that was a big part of it. And I don't think there was an appetite with Congress for doing something like that. Every member of Congress, every U.S. senator has people that depend on those things. It's important for their districts. It's important for their states. There were a lot of things about the president's budget that was just, I think, I've said this before, that was just DOA. And that was one of them. I just don't think Congress would ever let that happen right now. NIH funding, all manner of science funding is

important. And I think people forget sometimes how many of the things that we take for granted today really had their genesis like in the space program. You know, if you don't promote that research and development, you don't know where you're going to be in five years, 10 years, or whatever. It's not all private research. It's also government-funded research. five years, ten years, or whatever. It's not all private research. It's also government-funded research. Do you think NASA is doing a good enough job of explaining to people what they bring to American society and American industry? You know, that's a tough question, and the answer to that is probably not, but I don't know if it's—I'm not sure they really have to do that completely. I think it's the things that, you know, the things that they need to show folks of why it's important to go into space,

why it's important to send an unmanned vehicle to Mars and to have that vehicle, that rover, just walk across the rocks and crevices in Mars. They do a really good job, I think, of promoting that. And at the right times, they do a very good job of trying to tell the how they are ingrained in the fabric of our society but it's so ingrained we would have to double and triple their budgets just to do that education component because they do so much that I think that they have to pick and choose and they're doing a pretty good job of that I think and they've got so many things in the works. You know, as the space station is getting older and trying to figure out how to phase that down so that we can do the next phase

of our exploration of the solar system. I am so glad you went in that direction because there are a variety of opinions now about what should happen with the International Space Station. There are people who want to keep it going long past what was expected to be its lifetime. And of course, that's going to cost a great deal, something of concern to the Planetary Society, I know, because, you know, we figured we got other places to go in the solar system. I mean, where do you find the balance there? I think it's tough. You know, initially, when there were some discussions when I first got to the Senate about selling off the space station is not a good word, but privatizing some of the space station. Commercializing.

Commercializing. And as an old NASA lover from the 60s and 70s, my initial reaction was, no, hell no, we can't do that. I mean, that's the source of pride that we talked about a minute ago. But then I came up here and I started doing a deep dive on what it's caused, where things are, and how it is, while still can be useful, as you said, there are so many other things and technology has advanced so far that we need to be focusing on that it seemed to me to make a little sense that we start doing some things and letting private businesses if they want to to use what's up there let them do that so i have i've started to come around a little bit more because the one thing that i want to make sure is that we have the resources and the ability to go forward and not just keep the status quo

and and there's just so much you can do with a space station that is as old as the International Space Station. And there is so much going on in private industry. I mean, everybody knows the SpaceXes and Blue Origins, but I was surprised to see how many hundreds of companies are based right here because of what's going on here in Huntsville, and something like 50 or so of the Fortune 500 companies based here. That's amazing.

Obviously, again, very good for this region. It's the economic engine that drives this place. And every one of those companies are not just engaged in what's happening now. They're engaged in what's happening tomorrow and the next day and the next year. And they're looking ahead. And that's why this facility at Redstone Arsenal, the Marshall Space Flight Center, is so important. And it is a place where all of those folks can come in one strategic location. They collaborate, even though some of them compete against each other in a lot of different fields.

They come here and they collaborate because it's not just it's science and it's also national security. There's so much that goes on here. It's just extraordinary. Your colleague on the other side of the aisle, Ted Cruz of Texas, I've heard him say twice now, make no mistake, we are going to Mars. In other words, humans on Mars. Do you agree?

Do you think that's the right direction? Yeah, I think we're headed that way. I don't know when or how necessarily, but I think we're headed that way. I think that the public and the Congress, I think they're yearning to see that again. And I think the more, you know, the public's really funny. We're now so social and entertainment driven and TV and movies and social media and all. And the more you see on these, the more Star Wars movies you see, the more entertainment that you see that talks about this. You know, that was driving things back in the 60s and 70s.

I think it keeps people's interest up. They see those things now, and they're not seem to be as far-fetched as they were when Star Wars first came out in the 1970s and so I think that I think Ted's right I agree with him and I hope that he and I both live to see it me too all of us I'm going to come back to where we started you said you were an astronaut wannabe you still want to go absolutely I tell these folks up here every time I meet with somebody from NASA, I just say, well, look, you know, I said this when I was a U.S. attorney and NASA was one of my clients that, you know, as a lawyer, I'm supposed to learn everything about it. And I can't really do that unless I go up in the space shuttle. I've told folks now every time I meet with the NASA folks, I said, I assume you're saving me a

seat, you know, and we can go. I mean, you know, John Glenn went up, my colleague Bill Nelson went up at one point. There's no reason why Doug Jones can't go up. I just got one suggestion or request for you, because if you go, I think you ought to have a friendly reporter along with you. Oh, it's got to be documented for sure. I mean, it wouldn't be the same if you were just to go out without a, you know, somebody that does a podcast, for instance, you know, that could do one from space. You catch my drift. Absolutely. It's pretty easy to catch, Matt. Thank you, Senator.

My pleasure. Thank you. Senator Doug Jones of Alabama talking with me at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville. I told you we'd get back to Alex McCool. The more than hour and a half I would spend with Alex is one of the most memorable times I've had with any guest of Planetary Radio in 16 years. What you're about to hear is less than 20% of the walking oral history session I had with this true pioneer and hero of human space exploration. I had with this true pioneer and hero of human space exploration. He started not long after World War II,

even before he met and went to work for Wernher von Braun. This was long before the creation of NASA, when the U.S. Army was developing missiles based on the V-2 technology von Braun had developed for Nazi Germany. Now, Alex spends many days at the Space and Rocket Center, turning the Apollo program and more into living history for visitors young and old. You can hear my entire conversation with Alex through a link on this week's show page at planetary.org slash radio. We only have time now for a few minutes of highlights. I won't interrupt what I hope you'll agree is a real treat. So we've just sat down on a bench with Alex McCool, who you just told me you worked on

both the F-1, the engines that we are sitting under, and the solid rocket boosters. The firecracker sitting behind you here was called a Redstone. We're going to talk more about rocketry, and I'm going to give you a rocketry 101. That's what I worked in, propulsion. Propulsion, okay. I don't know anything about avionics, guidance systems. I bet you know a little. No, not much.

I'll tell you the truth. But what I'm going to do is first give you a little history, a little background. I don't know how much this is, and if I'm wasting your time, okay, you do like this. I'll let you know. Go ahead. I want to hear some stories. First, give you a little history, and I'm going to give you Rocketry 101. Okay, people say it's rocket science. It ain't rocket science. 99% of it is engineering. Nuts and bolts, pumps, valves, lines, you name it. You make my engineer friends happy. Yeah, there you go. Well, that's what I studied, engineering.

So now we're looking in the F1. This is the F1. Without the skirt, it comes down to the turbine exhaust manifold. That's the turbine exhaust manifold. And I'll show you where it comes out up there because it's got a gas generator. Now, both these pumps are mounted on the same shaft as the turbine so it's all turning the same speed you got me there yeah it was simpler to do that and what we're looking at is up inside look inside here man see that that's the injector what you're looking at see all the holes hundreds and

hundreds of hundreds of holes yep see them now the baffles in there. Now what happens, you set up high frequency vibration coming back to you and it destroys itself in milliseconds. I'm going to show you that in a movie. In the 1960s, we were having this problem, blowing them up. Nobody got hurt, but it brought us to our knees. At that time, I set up an ad hoc team. Now, this is the 1960s. We're still using slide rule. You couldn't model this on a computer. No, that's right.

See, we didn't even have computers then. We were using slide rule. But to this day, we didn't understand it. So they came up with this configuration. But we'd been taking different ones and blowing engines up, blowing engines up. It just couldn't get it. It spent over $ up, blowing the engines up. It just, look, couldn't get it. Spent over $40 million in the 1960s. Okay, you with me on that? You bet. All right, so they came up with this configuration. Can you see those baffles? Look at those baffles.

Yeah. Baffles are just on the face of the injector, and they got holes in them to keep cool with kerosene. Now, the chamber pressure, this is 1,000 psi, still 5,000 degrees temperature, same principle, same thing, cooling the nozzle. See that manifold there? Yeah. You go back up to cool it. This right here is a turbine exhaust.

I'll show you where it comes in here. Cool the skirt. See this skirt right here? Look down here, Matthew. See this skirt? Yeah. It's just gas cooled. We don't refly the engines or anything we don't worry about not like shuttle so we put put that thing on test stand single-engine testing put an insulated bomb in there a lot of high frequency vibration magnet accelerometers temperature you name it high speed

cameras tested that thing set the bomb up, stable. Pressure's all stable, everything looked good. Said, let's fly it. Nobody to this day has shown me an analysis that tells us what happened. The only thing I can figure out, it attenuates or dampens if you set up some kind of combustion process someplace, it starts going this way the vibration these kind of attenuates or dampens it see i don't know that it's just my thing it sounds like almost like

waves interfering with each other canceling each other out that's what it's doing with these baffles so that's what we flew this thing brought us to our knees and i'm telling you we really we were hurting back then congress Congress looking over our shoulder cheering us on. That's the worst problem we had. We're getting ready to watch static firing of all five engines, 1965. First time. I am glad to report that all systems are go here at Marshall Space Flight Center. I'm standing on the roof of the blockhouse some 250 yards from the test stand. But beneath me, engineers are in the final countdown phase for the first static test of all five first stage engines

on the Saturn V, the rocket that will someday carry astronauts to the moon. This facility here in Huntsville has been the nerve center of the race to test the rockets. Wernher von Braun and his team, along with engineers from Rocketdyne, have been designing and testing the F1 engine for years, trying to solve the problems caused by scaling up to such a huge and powerful engine. Violent vibrations caused by the igniting fuel ripped apart the engine,

setting the program... Milliseconds. But now, in order to meet President Kennedy's deadline, it has been decided to test all five together, two months ahead of schedule. A failure during this test could end our hopes of getting to the moon by the end of this decade. Attention all personnel. Attention all personnel. Clear the test stand area. Clear the test stand area. Looks like the test conductor, Robert Sadler, has checked with his guys on their consoles to confirm all systems are go. Automatic countdown sequence has started. T minus seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, ignition. One. Ignition.

On. Engine shutdown confirmed. Wow! America's space program is on track. President Kennedy's goal of going to the moon in this decade is now possible. The test stands about 10 miles from where you're standing, okay? Second loudest noise on the planet. Nuclear explosion would be louder. We broke a lot of windows around here, and we learned when the clouds are low, the sound would come back down.

Certain days we didn't test. We had low clouds. But I wanted you to see that. 53 years ago, were you there? Yeah, yeah, always. That's Apollo 16 Command Module. It's been to the moon. The real thing.

Apollo 1 was sitting on a pad. Apollo 1, on the first rocket I showed you, Apollo Saturn 1B, wasn't Saturn 5, okay? They have a fire. Now, the way they get them in there, and they fast it from the outside, this is 1967. Anyway, they had pure oxygen, 16 psi, shortage workmanship, just like Apollo 13. You said you'd bring up workmanship again. And I know, they were walking on cables, right, and wearing away insulation. That's right, that's right. So anyway, we lost the crew on Apollo 1. Well, of course, I just got through reading the book by Harrison

Storms. It's his biography. Very interesting if you get a copy to read. It was written in 1991. Storms was a king guy of the Space Division or North American Aviation. Well, he took a beating on that when we lost to Crew 3. Dr. Floyd Thompson was the director of Langley Research Center for the investigation. Of course, Congress got into it, second-guessing and all this other stuff. So Apollo 1 was a critical point at that time, 1967, when that happened. You didn't work on the command module, of course. You were working at the other end of the rocket.

But it must have been awful to hear about this and to know it was. What was even worse, the second stage, we called the S2T for test, okay? Like what you saw a test there, which they were trying to get out the factory to Mississippi Test Facility. I was in Downey, staying there in Apollo Motel, by the way, working the plant. Okay, can you see this? That's the actual piece. It comes up. That's the skin outside, and this is part of the

structure. It's called the Y ring. Now try to visualize that thing's 33 feet diameter. See that dome? Okay, big dome. The guys are going in there working, okay, doing stuff, instrumentation or whatever else. And we found out they had had pens condoms tools the file fell down here and we got just two guys working the ship we didn't have nasa's at fault wasn't north america we didn't have a system when you go in there you write down what you take what you're going to leave when you come back out like your glass you had to have tethers on them. You didn't take no badge, and they're just what you needed. Well, we found all that crap on there, see? Workmanship.

But NASA hadn't put in place where you're going in doing these things. Now, what they did, they x-rayed this all the way around so the guys, the workers there could see what's important, not be dropping crap down inside. So what I'm trying to say, workmanship is what got us with Apollo 13, what got us on one. Now let me go back in history. We didn't talk about it.

Von Braun and Walt Disney, personal friends. I asked some people to come here, and they doubt, is it a Disney hoax? And some of them don't want to believe it. I said, look at me and I. I said, man, I got my hand on my heart. I knew those guys. Twelve men walked on the moon. Four still alive. That's what I tell them.

Because I had, it's been about three or four weeks now, this one lady said, well, you made a believer out of me. Good. Well, I don't know. I don't remember where they were from. Not many things upset me more than people who think we didn't do this. To deny that this country made that accomplishment in the 1960s, it's just so sad. Yeah, that's right.

Don't want to accept it. Well, there's always these naysayers. There's always people who just don't believe, don't believe. Look at the problem we're having today in today's society. Now, having said that, Matt, here's another thing I've been asked. Hey, now, what do you get out of all this? What do you get out of all this? I said, number one is leadership. What I saw is leadership. He's the one that committed us, and I told you about earlier, to go to the moon. Then he had recommendations from Von Braun, leadership.

He was our boss, okay, and his influence with NASA and everything. It's leadership being able to do something. It's no different than Elon Musk. These guys are leaders. They're doing it. They're willing to step out and do it. You were at the center of all of this happening for so long, part of this group that achieved this thing

that humans had been dreaming of for so many years, and there aren't that many of you left now. No, a lot of them. My brother, I say, he worked for say, he passed away February a year ago. But most of them, all the German team, all of them, dead. They're all gone. A lot of the other people, in fact, we lost another one just last week. Jack Connor was involved in all the testing.

But most of the old-timers, they're gone. But you must be enormously proud to have been a part of all this. That's why I come here, Matthew. That's why, you know, to meet people. You know, I've met people from all over the world. I guess I better go, but I want to thank you, not just for doing this, and I'm going to make a recording of this and send it here to the center. Okay. Because basically this is, you you know what we call oral history but I mostly want

to thank you for because I was a I was a kid in 1969 and I was so thrilled and I you know what is for me why do it and give me longevity I remember date and a lot of this stuff. No, seriously. I went to the gym this morning. I go to the gym. I went to the gym four days this week. Alex McCool, rocket engineer extraordinaire, sharing his and our history at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Time for What's Up on Planetary Radio. Bruce Betts is the chief scientist of the Planetary Society, the sponsor, the producer of this program. He is standing by to tell us about the night sky, as he has every week.

We're coming up on the 16th anniversary. Wow. Wow. Sweet 16. But you knew that. And never been... Kissed. Yeah.

You can say it. It's okay. Planetary Radio Sweet 16 Party. I like it. So in the sky, we got those planets. And this week, you can look for super bright Venus low in the west after sunset. And it's hanging out in the next week or two near the bluish star Spica in the constellation Virgo. So I'll make a nice pairing.

Spica is a bright star, but it's still almost 100 times dimmer than Venus, but it still should be quite apparent. So check out Venus and Spica in the west in the early evening, and then move across to the southwest. You'll see bright Jupiter, and then further to the south and east, yellowish Saturn, and then all the way farther over in the southeast. Still, really bright Mars, looking all reddish and stuff. Check it out. We move on to this week in space history.

It was 1979 that Pioneer 11 became the first spacecraft to fly by Saturn. 1979 that Pioneer 11 became the first spacecraft to fly by Saturn. The Voyagers wanted to get well-deserved attention, but we don't want to ignore Pioneers 10 and 11 because, after all, they were there first. Exactly. They were, how do you say, pioneers. Pioneers, yes. Pioneers, man.

And now we move on to random space fact so i'm gonna return us to the variable star algol and we talked about some of its fun nicknames including demon star in a trivia contest a few weeks ago it's it's interesting and weird and if you're looking for a more observational challenge uh you can check out its dimming. It's not that hard to see, but what's interesting is it dims by a factor of three in brightness about every three days. It dims for a period of about 10 hours and dims because it's an eclipsing binary, two stars orbiting around each other. It's lined up such that one goes in front of the other. And when the dimmer one goes in front of the brighter one, then it drops in brightness. So if you want a challenge, check out Algol.

Again, not hard to see, but you need to watch it multiple days or at least the right timing to check out this dimming. It's in the constellation Perseus, which is between Cassiopeia and the bright star Capella. That's excellent. Thank you. All right, we move on to the trivia contest. We were talking about the Parker Solar Probe, and I asked you how many Venus flybys are planned for the Parker Solar Probe to adjust its orbit so it gets closer to the sun. How'd we do, Matt?

I'm going to start with Carolyn Ozamek or Ozamek's response. She's in Florida. Just because I love her enthusiasm. There will be seven. Read it. Seven. Yes, I repeat. Seven wonderful, glorious, data-accumulating, orbit-altering, mind-bogglingly hot, sensational, fabulous flybys of Venus by the Parker Solar Probe.

That is enthusiasm. It really is. Thank you, Carolyn. I'm ashamed to say you didn't win after that lovely answer. No, it was Paul Lowell in Apex, North Carolina, a first-time winner, who also came up with seven flybys and adds, keep up the great work, guys. Seven flybys to get Parker Solar Probe into the right orbit to do that crazy stuff it's going to do with the sun. Crazy, crazy ads. Remember, kids, it's hard to get to the sun.

Paul, you're going to get a Planetary Radio t-shirt, a 200-point itelescope.net account. And we did have one more of those download codes for Distant Suns VR, Distant Suns Virtual Reality, which is available for iOS devices, you iPhone, iPad types out there. And it's this very cool astronomy or observatory, not observatory, but it's a planetarium software, basically, you know, the kind you can hold up and it tells you what you're looking at. But they've added this virtual reality mode. I say they, it's really he, since it's one guy who's been developing

and evolving distant suns for many, many years. So congratulations, Paul. Jeremy Engman in Mount Juliet, I believe in Tennessee, he mentions that by the end, the Parker Solar Probe will be going 430,000 miles per hour. So I should have done the conversion. What is that? 600, 650 kilometers per hour. That's so fast. It'll be the fastest space probe ever, at least relative to the sun. Amazing. Mark Little, we hear from him all the time in London, Terry County, Northern Ireland. He says, is there anything more sci-fi in the development of the Parker Solar Probe

than NASA growing sapphire crystal tubes to suspend wiring made from niobium or niobium to cope with the heat. Just wow. I actually use that on my back porch. Do you? And the sapphire looks so pretty too. It's so pretty. Phil Naranjo in Seattle, Washington, he said, I bet PSP's magnetometers will make some amazing recordings of the solar magnetosphere, solar winds, atmosphere plasma, right? Would love to hear more about NASA's plans to help us hear the sun, which I thought was very interesting. I bet he's right about this. I bet there will be some cosmic music coming out of that magnetometer. What do you think? Does that sound likely? Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where it's not

sound per se, but they can convert and do convert it into sound as another way to appreciate the data. And yeah, they have all sorts of fields and particles and fields instruments that they'll be able to do that with if they so choose. Finally, this from Richard Nielsen in Brunswick East. That's a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. I love this. It'll be nice to give Venus back that kinetic energy that we borrowed for Cassini-Huygens. That's the main reason they're flying the mission. It's only fair. It really is. Okay. We're ready to move on.

This one, I think we'll have a clear answer, but you know, it's, it's a little hard to see. What is the closest black hole that we know of? Let me throw that in. That we're pretty sure is there.

You mean not the one that's coming our way and is roughly at the orbit of Pluto right now? Not that one. That one does not count. We're not supposed to talk about that one, are we? I forgot. You might cause panic. He's just kidding, folks. How do they enter? Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. You have until the 5th.

That's Wednesday, September 5th at 8 a.m. Pacific time to get us the answer to this one. And how about a Planetary Radio t-shirt, which you can check out at chopshopstore.com, where the Planetary Society store is, and a 200-point itelescope.net astronomy account for that worldwide network of telescopes. I heard from two listeners this week who have been trying it out and have gotten some really cool images

that they've shared from iTelescope. You can, too, if you win the contest. Of course, you can always buy an account on iTelescope. It's non-profit. Okay, I'm done. All right, everybody, go out there, look up the night sky, and think about how much you like Saturn's rings and all the other rings in your life. Thank you, and good night.

One ring to rule them all. He's Bruce Betts, the chief scientist for the Planetary Society, among other things, and he joins us every week here for What's Up. Join me next week at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and is made possible by its rocket-loving members. Mary Liz Bender is our associate producer. Josh Doyle composed our theme, which was arranged and performed by Peter Schlosser.

I'm Matt Kaplan, Ad Astra.