Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - The Great American Eclipse—Be Part of It!

Episode Date: March 15, 2017

It’s coming! Will you be in the path of totality? Astronomers Without Borders President Mike Simmons says be there if you can.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Shining a light on the upcoming total solar eclipse, 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. Astronomers Without Borders is one of my favorite organizations. favorite organizations. AWB's President Mike Simmons visits with news of a new project that will share more than the wonders of the night sky as we look forward to the great American eclipse. Bill Nye shares a message for the President of the United States, while Bruce Betts will take us to Venus and Mars in another What's Up visit. With Emily Lochte-Wallace still on sabbatical, we'll go first to Casey Dreyer, the Planetary Society's Director of Space Policy. Casey, good to have you on the regular edition of Planetary Radio again to tell us about this legislation that just passed the House of

Representatives. It's kind of a milestone, isn't it? Well, it's a milestone in the sense that we haven't had a Space Authorization Act for NASA in almost seven years. So in that sense, yes, Congress has finally passed what's called an authorization bill. It sets policy direction for NASA and it sets funding guidelines, but it itself does not give money to NASA. That is the fundamental, often kind of confused part about these bills. It sets policy. And in that sense, that's a great bill because it directs NASA to continue the efforts to send humans to Mars. It tells NASA you need to create a strategic framework for showing us and the world how you intend to get humans to Mars in 2033.

This is the stuff that we've been encouraging NASA to do for almost two years now. Very nice to see in legislation. is the stuff that we've been encouraging NASA to do for almost two years now. Very nice to see in legislation. And we talk a good deal more about this, the difference between this and passing a budget, in the most recent edition of the Space Policy Edition, which you can find at planetary.org slash radio. And it's very possible that by the time you hear this, Casey will have also written more about this legislation passing in a new blog post at planetary.org. Casey, as we speak, this has not been signed. Is there any reason to doubt that it will be? It passed by unanimous consent in both houses of Congress. This is not a

controversial bill. There is no reason to think the president would not sign this bill. So it's very possible it could happen at any moment, whether in between now and the time we publish this online or later this week. It's very likely I would be I think a lot of people would be very surprised if this didn't get signed into law. Does it say things that you like to see? It does say things I like to see. I was very I love legislation like that. I know, as I said, it codifies NASA's human exploration direction. This should be going beyond low Earth orbit. It is very much of a stay the course bill. It's basically assigned to the administration from Congress to say, we love the space launch system.

We love Orion. Keep those going. And now, by policy, NASA has to for one year. That's the extent of this bill. to for one year. That's the extent of this bill. It also gives out some really nice, basically the equivalent of congressional shout outs to the Mars 2020 rover, the James Webb Space Telescope, WFIRST, and the Europa Clipper mission. And there's nothing legally binding in those, but it's basically saying, hey, we're Congress, we're fans of these missions, pick a fight with us if you want to cancel them. All right, Casey, thank you for that overview. As we said, you can find more at planetary.org.

And in the last edition of the Space Policy Edition, which we'll be doing again for the first Friday in April. Well, I look forward to talking to you and Jason Callahan again soon. Absolutely, Matt, this is weird. Only two minutes? How do I go into my in-depth descriptions of every aspect of every budget?

We'll have to save it all for next episode. It'll be great, I promise. And you will, you will. That's Casey Dreyer. He's the director of space policy for the Planetary Society. And we hear him periodically here on the weekly version

and all the time on that monthly space policy edition. Mr. President, I'm Bill Nye, CEO of the Planetary Society, the world's largest non-governmental space interest organization. We're a non-partisan organization funded by over 50,000 members, people around the world with different political beliefs who are united in their support for space science and exploration. Ever since it was created, NASA has had bipartisan support.

You have the opportunity to provide clear direction to our nation's space program. The advances and discoveries made on your watch could be historic. As you consider NASA's direction and its new leadership team, the Planetary Society's Board of Directors and I would like to offer five recommendations for the United States space program during your tenure. Those were just a few seconds from the opening lines of a statement just made by the CEO of the Planetary Society, Bill Nye, the science guy, directed to the President of the United States. We have the CEO with us. Hi, Bill. Hi, Matt. Well, what we do whenever there's a new administration, and I act like this happens every two weeks or something, we have a recommendation to the president about space policy. And the big thing we want him to do, we want the administration to do, whoever he hires to be the next administrator, is set a date for getting humans in orbit around Mars, or if you want, include set a date for

getting humans landing on the surface of Mars. And let's not cancel any programs that are already rolling along. Keep everything going and then have this Mars date focus everybody, the future missions, the future rockets, future capsules, and habitats so that we are able to achieve this. Because as you may recall, the Planetary Society sponsored or convened a meeting where we showed that there is an executable, affordable way to get humans in orbit around Mars in 2033. Now, if Lockheed Martin wants to speed it up in 2028, hey, man, we're there. And whoa, man, we are there for you. Set a date. Stay the course with the existing programs. Don't go tipping over apple carts. These are easy things to say, but they take just a little bit of a focus

that so far the world's largest space agency has not had. So we're hopefully hopeful. Space brings out the best in us. NASA is the best brand the United States has. Let's set a date. Let's stay on budget and let's make discoveries that will change the course of human history, including the careful, thoughtful search for life before humans go walking around and breathing on Mars. search for life before humans go walking around and breathing on Mars. This message from Bill Nye to the President, you can hear it at Planetary, hear it and see it actually at planetary.org. We will keep you informed as developments develop. It's an interesting time. But Bill, thanks for your work and thanks for the time today. Thank you, Matt. Millions who may have never looked through a telescope will crowd into that roughly 30-kilometer or 18-mile-wide ribbon to see the sun entirely blotted out by our moon.

The monumental significance of this event hasn't been lost on science educators. One of them is Mike Simmons. Mike is president of Astronomers Without Borders, the nonprofit that spreads the love of astronomy and science across our planet. When I saw that AWB had been awarded a grant by Google, I knew I needed to get Mike back on the show. Mike, welcome back to Planetary Radio. It is always a pleasure to talk to you and also to congratulate you in this case on this wonderful new project funded by, of all organizations, Google.

Thanks, Matt. It's always a pleasure to be on your program, so I'm glad to be here, and thanks for the good wishes on that, too. You know, Google is a great partner. This is part of their STEM education effort involving the eclipse, which they're very much into, so they're a natural partner for this, and I'm delighted to be working with them. They couldn't have picked a better organization. Tell us about Astronomers Without Borders. Remind us of the mission. Well, the mission really is to connect people through the fascination with astronomy.

You know, we're all looking at the same sky. We share the same sky. We're often looking at the same objects. Wherever we are around the planet. We share this fascination and even the same hobby. You can find people looking at the sky through binoculars or telescopes or naked eye every place on the planet. It's part of everybody's culture and all the way back through time. So that's what we use. Now, in the end, what we do is to create programs that bring people together to share what they're doing in their countries.

It may be the same activity, but they do it in different ways because of cultural differences. And that way we learn about each other and get a little bit more empathy for each other. as fellow passengers on spaceship Earth, who are really just like us, happen to be on another part of this little piece of rock going around the solar system. I sure see evidence of that, because we hear from planetary radio listeners who are fans of the sky, fans of space, everywhere on the planet. You've actually been to a lot of these places. What are some of the more interesting and exotic places you've brought this message of astronomy to? I have a tendency to go to some of those more interesting places, at least to me.

A little bit off the beaten path. So my vacations end up being in really kind of more unusual places. One of the places that I've been as much as any other place on earth is Iran. It's a country I really love. I love the people there, extremely active astronomy community. And it was really connecting Americans and Iranians who were doing the same thing that led to the founding of Astronomers Without Borders in the first place place because I found it was so different than what we knew about over here. That's really where it worked well. It's just a wonderful place that I love to visit. Lots of history through time and so on.

You're giving a lot of people the opportunity to look through a telescope for the first time. We all love to talk about that first experience we had. Do you see that same thing happening no matter what culture you are visiting, no matter what nation you're in? It's always the same. I mean, this is really universal. People are here on this little planet, and when we look out and see something else, it's an amazing response. Everybody knows that the moon's out there. Nobody knows that that bright light up there is Jupiter or Saturn. They look through a telescope for the first time and see the rings

of Saturn. This is something that has nothing to do with the different cultures or anything else. It's just innate. They are suddenly seen out into the universe for the first time, getting a sense of their place in the universe for the first time, getting a sense of their place in the universe for the same time. This is a really human experience. There's no difference between us when we have an experience like that. Also a unifying experience. It is very unifying experience. You know, you've probably had this experience as well well that when people come to the telescope they they may be shy about it or not sure but whatever they are before they look when they take their eye from the eyepiece they're different it changes them their response is completely different so we're

we're all used to authority figures or various others. Everybody turns into the curious kid that they still have inside of them, who they sort of keep under control. That goes away. So tell us how this new Google project is going to help you do even more. Well, one of the things that people say about total solar eclipses, it's absolutely true, is it can be a life-changing experience. It's an incredible experience. I've been to seven total eclipses around the world, including my first trip to Iran, which is how I discovered that great country.

It's an inspiration. It raises a lot of questions. What was that? What is going on here? And everybody recognizes it as an inspiration for learning more about STEM fields, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This eclipse that's coming up this year in the United States is a historic one because it's going to be seen by more people than any other eclipse in history. People will come from all over the world. There are lots and lots of organizations from small

astronomy clubs to NASA who have efforts for this to get out the word, tell people to try and get into the path of totality, sharing information and resources to help people experience the eclipse. information and resources to help people experience the eclipse. What we're doing is different. The eclipse is the inspiration for doing STEM education. And I'm not sure that there are other organizations who are carrying it beyond the eclipse. The biggest effort is to make sure people are aware of it and they take advantage of it. But we're actually developing a curriculum that will be used after the eclipse using sunlight and some other kinds of lights to study all kinds of stem fields. Not just about astronomy, but biology and geology, energy, weather, climate, all of these

things. They all start with the sun. Yeah, life itself, you said, I think. Life itself, absolutely, yeah. So the eclipse is really just the starting point for this project. This is your jumping off point. That's the way this is developed. And you know, getting into the schools ahead of time is going to be a problem because they're out for summer. But we are contacting nature centers and libraries and museums and boys and girls clubs. And the Girl Scouts have a big program. We'll talk to the Boy Scouts as well and all these organizations. And in the end, it's turned out that the eclipse is the inspiration for doing this, but it's separate from the eclipse itself. This is being developed in a modular way where schools and other educators can pick and choose the things they really want to do. And we'll be able to transfer this to other places, to other countries

who can take advantage of what has been developed here as a result of the eclipse. In fact, I think you told me this is sort of what you think of as a regional project. Yeah, well, you know, generally the rule is that this has to be, something has to be available to everybody around the world when we do our programs, either online or they can have a local event like a star party that's part of the big star party. And in this case, it's just one country here, only 330 million people. So it's a small one for us, but you know, it's an important one. What is actually going to

happen if I'm part of a school, maybe to your round school? In some cases, you might get lucky that way. I don't know if the kids will feel that way. What will be in it for the teachers and the students at that school if they take part in this? This is based on spectroscopy. I mentioned it's light, but if you want to use light to look at things, you need to look at the fingerprints. And that's what a spectroscope does. It spreads the light out and shows you the dark lines that represent the conditions in the sun, for example, what it's made of, what the temperature is, all of these different things. And we have a small spectroscope that we are now selling and distributing that was developed by the Solar Dynamics Observatory Orbiting Solar Telescope Outreach Office under a NASA grant. Now their grant is over and we have taken that over as

far as producing it. There are all kinds of lesson plans and curricula. So we're going to use that as the basis for this examination of light and how it is related to everything around us. Astronomers Without Borders President Mike Simmons. Stick around, Mike has more to tell us about AWB and its work. This is Planetary Radio. Where did we come from? Are we alone in the cosmos? These are the questions at the core of our existence. And the secrets of the universe are out there, waiting to be discovered. But to find them, we have to go into space. We have to explore. This endeavor unites us. Space exploration truly brings out the best in us, This endeavor unites us. Space exploration truly brings out the best in us. Encouraging people from all walks of life to work together to achieve a common goal.

To know the cosmos and our place within it. This is why the Planetary Society exists. Our mission is to give you the power to advance space science and exploration. With your support, we sponsor innovative space technologies, inspire curious minds, and advocate for our future in space. We are the Planetary Society. Join us. Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan. The Great American Eclipse arrives on August 21st. Hotel rooms in and near the path of totality are already mostly sold out.

Properties 50 and more miles outside the path are asking for triple their normal rates and more. But a little price gouging shouldn't stop you from at least trying to get to that narrow avenue of wonder. For Mike Simmons, the eclipse is as much a starting point as a destination. Mike leads Astronomers Without Borders, which just received a generous grant from Google that will encourage and empower schools, informal science institutions, students, and adults who've had their appetite for astronomy whetted by the eclipse. There are a lot of teachers who listen to this show. I'm married to one of them.

Me too. Good. We all know that, first of all, it's a lot of work. Second, if you're designing curriculum from the outside to be integrated into existing science curricula in a school district, that can be a big challenge in itself. Is that something you're addressing? Yeah, it really is a big challenge because you and I both know that if you approach teachers and offer them something free that's extra work, they're not going to have time to do it. So that is a big part of the issue. This is something that's going to be

voluntary. And as I said, there will be different units they can fit into what they're doing. For other less formal educational institutions like clubs or libraries that do these activities, that will be easier for them. education, science standards and things like that. But there are a lot more ways to reach the kids in the formal education in the schools itself. And that's one of the things that's also making our project a little bit different is we're reaching out to a lot more of these informal educational places. And I don't think I mentioned that what we're focusing on in particular is schools and other institutions in underserved communities, the places that are not schools and other institutions in underserved communities, the places that are not ordinarily in the mainstream and getting the resources that everybody else is. They're not tied in, clued into what's available and so on. So we'll be making an effort in particular to reach them. So you're going to give them the curriculum, you're going to give them a spectroscope. Are

they going to get a telescope out of this? Is that part of the deal? Well, there's no telescope out. And in fact, we don't, we're not funded to give away all of the resources. The physical items, eclipse glasses, and the spectroscope itself are not part of the grant because that would be huge. And we wouldn't know how much that we'd be able to reach. So what we're doing again is another unusual aspect of this, which is we're going to make it possible for the schools and other organizations to raise the money through our resources. So we'll have a crowdfunding platform. It's called Peer to Peer. It's like when you raise money for Leukemia Foundation by running a race or something like that.

Flyers, instructions, everything to reach out to the local community and raise the funds if the school doesn't have it. We'll also raise some money for schools that don't have a way of doing that. But it's basically, we'll be hands-on guiding them through this. I call this distributed fundraising, you know, because the schools that have the ability to raise funds in their local community, we can spread this out and they can get a little bit throughout the country instead of trying to get one huge pot and do this all centrally. So if I'm a teacher or if I'm a principal and I hear this, I know it's still kind of early maybe to talk about this, but how would I get in on this? How do I learn more?

Well, we do have a page for it on the Astronomers Without Borders website. And right now there's just basic information, not really even as much as I've told you, and a sign-up for a newsletter for updates. We are a little ways away yet from really launching this in earnest. The way it will work is we'll be on that page, there will be an application. You just fill it out and then we'll get back in touch with you. So we'll make it as simple as we possibly can. But the grant from Google covers all the things that we will do to make it as easy as possible,

to provide everything, including real-time support for all of these things. And it's simple. AstronomersWithoutBorders.org, right? That's right, yeah. Yeah, and we'll put up that link and other relevant links on the show page that you can find at planetary.org slash radio. Mike, this is just one of the projects that I've learned about that is looking to this tremendous event on August 21st, the eclipse, to stimulate interest in science and astronomy and beyond in

this country and beyond. Are you glad to see the excitement building toward this event? Well, it's fantastic. I knew there was going to be a huge push for this, but nobody really knew what to expect. I mean, those of us who are eclipse jays have been looking forward to this event for 20 years. The effort is really tremendous. The big worry for everybody is that people will not know about it and will miss it, or they won't understand how amazing this is. And I think there's a great effort going on now at awareness, publicity, and education about this eclipse. Yeah, and Planetary Society, I'll put in a plug, we are working with the National Park Service to put together a booklet that will be distributed to kids who visit the parks.

Now, unfortunately, the path of totality is fairly narrow, and I'm going to guess that you, like the other eclipse chasers that I've talked to, who say exactly the same thing, that it can be a life-changing experience, will tell people, get yourself to totality. But if you can't, it's still something to enjoy? Yeah, sure. The partial eclipses are really very interesting, and the whole country is going to have a fairly deep partial. I think it's a minimum of about 60%, which is significant. Those people who have a deeper eclipse, which is most of the country, will get some very interesting effects from it. Those who have a very deep eclipse, like 90% or more, and figure that they're getting 90%

of the main thing, they really need to hop on the bus and get into totality because a 90% partial eclipse is 0% of totality. You're really missing the main event, as interesting as it is. One famous eclipse chaser says that almost seeing a total eclipse is like almost winning the lottery. I think I know who you're talking about. Who is that? That's Fred Espenak. Yeah, yeah, I've seen that quote. They better make their plans soon, though,

because as you know, I'm going to be at Southern Illinois University for a weekend of eclipse celebration there, which I am incredibly excited about, not just because I'll be sharing it with about 10,000 other people in the stadium there, but because this will be my first one, my first total eclipse, and I can't wait to have my life changed. Well, my first eclipse was in 1979, and I was working at Griffith Observatory and telling people what to expect from the eclipse.

After I saw it, I realized I was misinforming them. So what I tell people now is I can't even tell you what it's like. It's just not one of those things you can describe. It's sort of like describing taste to an alien who's never eaten food. So it's just something that happens to you and you'll have to see for yourself. You can prepare all you want, but it's going to be different. And each one is different also. So it really is an amazing experience. Well, you have to see for yourself. Looking forward to it. What else do

you want to tell us about what you and AWB are up to right now? Well, we have a lot of different things that go on in Astronomers Without Borders these days. One of the things that's really interesting to me, because I never saw it coming and I have very little to do with it, which is great, which is our astro arts program. And that involves astronomers who do art, but mostly artists who do astronomy and space things. And there's a lot of connection between the creative arts and science. In fact, as a retired research scientist, I always felt that was a very creative field as well. And it's just different ways of looking at science and the universe, just different ways of perceiving it and describing it. But otherwise, you know, we all agree it's pretty much the same thing. Love that turning STEM into STEAM, adding that A for art.

And we talk to those artists and astronomers who do art on a regular basis. One of my colleagues at the office had this great T-shirt on yesterday, and it was a Venn diagram. It had a circle for science and a circle for art and a big intersection in the middle called creativity. Oh, that's perfect. That's exactly the way I see it. creativity. Oh, that's perfect. That's exactly the way I see it. And, you know, one of our Astro Artists of the Month recently was Nicole Stott, who's a retired astronaut who's been on the ISS. She did the first oil painting in space. And we talked about that. She's an engineer by training, but we both see that as sort of the same thing. I'm not going to try and draw anything,

but I appreciate what they do. And it's a different thing. The other thing that's important for us right now is Global Astronomy Month. That is in April, and it is a whole month of activities around the world, ways that people can get involved in many different kinds of programs. It's all about sharing in community. That's the biggest annual celebration of astronomy that's worldwide. And it is a follow-up to the 100 Hours of Astronomy Cornerstone Project in the International Year of Astronomy 2009, which was the biggest event ever. And we've expanded it to many different things. So I'd encourage people to go check out Global Astronomy Month on the AWB webpage. You know, see if there's a way to get involved.

Mike, you are a busy guy. Thank you for taking a few minutes to share some of this with us. And once again, congratulations on this new Google-funded project, which is going to allow you to share this love of the night sky and the sun and science much, much more broadly, at least in this country, even though I know you're doing this all over the world. Thanks very much, man. It's always great to be with you. I love your program. Keep up the good work at Planetary, of course. We'll sure try. Thank you, Mike. That's Mike Simmons, the president of Astronomers Without Borders. That title pretty much says it all. AstronomersWithoutBorders.org.

We're going to talk to an astronomer, the one we talk to every week on this show. It's Bruce Betts, because it's time for What's Up. It's time for What's Up on Planetary Radio. Bruce Betts is the Director of Science and Technology for the Planetary Society, who takes a few minutes out of his busy hours and days, weeks, with a light sail meeting coming up momentarily here. Not momentarily, but in a few days, a few days after people hear this.

And we'll be reporting on it. It's time we provided a light sail status report next week. So what's going to happen? We are doing a pre-ship review. So basically we get everyone in the same room and go through all the systems and make sure we're either content with buttoning up the spacecraft and getting it ready to ship or decide exactly what additional things we want to do to it before shipping. Great. And I've proven once again that I love asking you questions that I didn't tell you I was going to ask you. Yeah, that's what makes it more fun, Matt.

Tell us about the night sky, Bruce. Exciting things in the night sky. Venus, you know, it's been hanging there for weeks and months. I've been annoying you every what's up going, hey, look at Venus low in the West in the early evening. It is dropping almost like a cartoon, uh, over the last next week or two. Well, okay. Not quite that fast, but it will be dropping lower and lower as it moves in its orbit between us and the sun. And so by in a couple of couple weeks it'll actually be in between us and the sun check it out in the early evening it'll still be super bright uh interestingly enough and in another in a couple weeks mercury will be rising much much dimmer than venus but will also be visible low in the west in the early evening and mars will keep hanging out above both of those looking dimmer and reddish

early evening west got jupiter now coming and reddish early evening west. Got Jupiter now coming up in the early evening in the east and high in the south by the mid evening. And Saturn up high in the east in the pre-dawn. Busy sky. On to this week in space history. It was 1958 that Vanguard 1 was launched, one of the early spacecraft. Its claim to fame is that it is the oldest spacecraft still in orbit around the Earth. I just love hearing that. And it's going to be up there for, I think I've read, thousands of years. Long enough that we probably don't need to care. That's right. It's beyond my expiration date.

All right, we move on to random space fact. That was a nice traditional reading of the opening for this segment. Jupiter's magnetosphere, so the effective area of its magnetic field, is huge. It tapers down on the far side of Jupiter because the solar wind with charged particles is pushing it. It extends more than a billion, a billion kilometers behind Jupiter, so to speak, downwind from the solar wind. It goes as far as Saturn's orbit. That is just amazing.

And yeah, one of the reasons it's such a dangerous place to visit. All right, we move on to the trivia contest. Several spacecraft or landing sites are named in memoriam on Mars. I asked you, what is the name of Viking 1, the Viking 1 Memorial Station? How'd we do, Matt? Well, my favorite memorial station, as you might guess, is the Carl Sagan Memorial Station. But this one is also named after a very distinguished fellow. We got this name from Victor Dima in Shefford, Quebec, or Quebec, if you prefer.

He said it's the Thomas A. Mutch Memorial Station. It is indeed. One of the science team who passed away during the mission. Sadly, he disappeared in the Himalayas. He was on a trek in the mountains and just was never heard from again. And so they very fittingly named this spacecraft landing site after him. They did indeed. We got this from Mel Powell in exotic Sherman Oaks, California. He said it's hard to make a joke when we're talking about a memorial station, but it's good to know that from Viking 1 and its team, we learned much.

Oh, let that go. We also heard from a whole bunch of people who have actually seen the plaque that is at the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., that names that site as the Thomas Mutch Memorial Station by the Viking 1 model that they have there. And not surprisingly, we have a poem from Dave Fairchild. Viking 1 was landed on the planet known as Mars. Along with Viking 2, they were the NASA superstars. Viking 1 is now renamed as Thomas Mutch Memorial, stranded where, from Earth at least, it's extraterritorial.

I think you'll like this one even better. Once again, Bruce gives us a trivia question that in researching the answer leads down so many interesting rabbit holes. Dr. Betts. Oh, wait, the best is yet to come. Dr. Betts, slayer of productivity. Proud, I think.

Who can I thank for that? Matt Minter in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. I'm going to be in Illinois at Southern Illinois University in about a month for a pre-eclipse event. What do you got for next time? Everyone can make all the jokes they want because I'm, I'm going entertainment.

Uh, I know you enjoy it when I do that sometimes. I do. In men in black, where was one of agent J's teachers from? He thought she was from Venus, but he was wrong. Now,

is this from the original movie or from one of the sequels? It's from the original movie because it's when Agent J is finding out about the whole secret world of aliens and he makes a flippant comment that I thought one of my teachers was from Venus. Alright, you have until March 22nd that's Wednesday, March 22nd at 8 a.m. Pacific time to give us this bit of movie trivia. I love that movie. That is such a good film. How do they enter? Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. And with that, I think we've wrapped up another edition of What's Up. All right, everybody, go out there, look up in the night sky, and think about

what your fortune and your fortune cookie should say. Thank you, and good night. I just get him for the lottery numbers. He's Bruce Betts. He's the Director of Science and Technology for the Planetary Society, who joins us every week here for What's Up. I will once again be part of the Humans to Mars Summit at George Washington University, May 8th through the 11th. Our friends at Explore Mars have put together an utterly amazing lineup of presenters and guests. If you're going to be within reach of Washington, D.C. and want to learn more,

there are details at h2m.exploremars.org. That's h2m.exploremars.org. That's h2m.exploremars.org. And you can save 15% on registration with the code TPSMARS. We'll also put the link on this week's show page at planetary.org slash radio. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and is made possible by its totally awesome members. Daniel Gunn is our associate producer. Josh Doyle composed our theme, which was arranged and performed by Peter Schlosser.

I'm Matt Kaplan. Clear skies.