Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - The High Frontier: A New Documentary About Gerard K. O’Neill

Episode Date: April 14, 2021

Physicist and space pioneer Gerard K. O’Neil gathered a community of followers as he led planning for vast, magnificent human settlements in space. Guests Dylan Taylor, Will Henry and Ryan Stuit have produced an inspiring, feature-length tribute to O’Neill that stars space luminaries including Jeff Bezos, Frank White, Lori Garver, Rick Tumlinson, and many others. Then Bruce Betts and Mat Kaplan are joined by a special listener guest on What’s Up. Hear and discover more at https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/high-frontier-film-dylan-taylorSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The High Frontier, a new documentary about Gerard K. O'Neill, 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. Is his name new to you? As a fan of space exploration and development, it shouldn't be. Like Jeff Bezos and many other luminaries, space entrepreneur and investor Dylan Taylor considers himself one of Jerry's kids. Dylan is executive producer of The High Frontier, the untold story of Gerard K. O'Neill premiering on April 17th. I've seen it, and I'm thrilled to welcome Dylan, producer Will Henry, and director Ryan Stewart to our show. Move over, Bruce, the Planetary Society's chief scientist, and I will welcome the winning bidder for the chance to join us in this week's What's

Up segment. She is a delight, as you'll hear. Oh well, an anomaly cropped up during final prep for Sunday's flight of the Mars helicopter, Ingenuity. That first hover has now been delayed a few more days, but the little whirlybird is said to be in fine shape. The April 9 edition of the Down Lake shares some good news. The Europa Clipper spacecraft has passed its critical design review. This means assembly and testing can move forward. With the additional recent announcement that it won't have to be launched by a giant Space Launch System rocket,

the probe could now head for the ocean moon of Jupiter as soon as 2024. Have you seen the great artwork created for last week's conversation with STS-1 pilot Bob Crippen? It, and a nicely cleaned up transcript of my interview with Bob and a fisheye view of Bob and John Young in Columbia's cockpit are also at planetary.org slash downlake. And did you know that there are 10 people on the

International Space Station as I prepare this week's show? Probably a good thing that it won't stay that crowded for long. Imagine the line for the cupola, or the bathroom. He was like Steve Jobs before Steve Jobs. It was just a feeling of the future had arrived and we can be part of it. When you create that kind of an image of the future for people, then it's like a blueprint. The episode of human life being confined to Earth is coming to an end. Industries and colonies in space may sound incredible, but we who are working toward

them know that most of the building blocks are already in place. You've seen a whole generation inspired by this idea that it is bigger than us. And it's this generation's job to build that road to space. And we should do it now. It's a revolution into which we can all throw ourselves and all of our energies with full hearts. the father of new space, the new era of commercial space development that is most prominently represented by SpaceX, though there are many other success stories. Dylan himself represents one of those stories. He is chairman and CEO of Voyager Space Holdings

and has been an early-stage investor in many emerging space ventures. He also writes about this new age and founded Space for Humanity, a non-profit organization that wants to democratize space exploration and use space to solve problems we face down here. It's no wonder Dylan now considers himself one of Jerry's kids. That's Jerry with a G, as in Gerard K. O'Neill. I discovered O'Neill and his brilliant, groundbreaking work nearly 45 years ago. He wrote his seminal book, The High Frontier, in 1976. In it, he and his associates laid out ambitious plans for a space settlement, a city in space, probably at L5, one of the Lagrange points where gravity is almost perfectly balanced and spacecraft can remain indefinitely.

Decades later, O'Neill's work continues to inspire and drive many leaders of space development. It troubled Dylan and other fans that O'Neill isn't better appreciated, so he and several talented filmmakers have created this moving documentary about Jerry. It premieres April 17th, after which it'll be available for many sources. I recently connected with Dylan, producer Will Henry, and director Ryan Stewart for the conversation you're about to hear. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me on Planetary Radio, and thank you for this long overdue and very inspiring film. Welcome to the show,

Dylan, Will, and Ryan. Thank you. Thanks, Matt. Thank you very much. Yeah, thanks for having us. I have been a fan of Gerard K. O'Neill since I bought, way back in 1977, a copy of the brilliant NASA study called Space Settlements that built on Jerry's work and that he was part of, that he contributed to. That led me to his book, which is what inspired at least the title of your film, if not the entire film. The book was The High Frontier, Human Colonies in Space. I've been a fan ever since. But being a fan of Jerry's seems to apply to pretty much everyone else heard in your terrific film. And that's quite a crowd of amazing men and women. Dylan, I'm going to start with you.

How did you first learn about Jerry O'Neill? Oh, boy. Thinking back, it was probably conversations with some of the luminaries in the industry, specifically Frank White, Rick Tomlinson. I also became curious hearing a little bit of the lore behind Jeff Bezos' valedictorian speech in high school and his journey to Princeton. So I think it was probably all of those things circulating in my mind probably, you know, maybe eight or nine years ago when I really started getting deep into Jerry's legacy. Do you now consider yourself one

of Jerry's kids, even if you consider yourself one of Jerry's kids, even if you weren't one of those who was lucky enough to work directly for him? Yeah, I think so. Maybe one of Jerry's grandkids, perhaps. I'm not super young, but I am more connected to people who were inspired by Jerry. And of course, I never met Jerry. In making the film, I had the honor to get to know the family, which has just been a joy. But yeah, I would say second-generation Jerry's kid is probably the best way to describe it.

Will, Ryan, how did you hear first about Jerry O'Neill? Was that because of your introduction to Dylan? Yeah, there's some connective glue with all of us here. And it's really through Rick Tomlinson, who you had mentioned. He's kind of the glue in a lot of this community, the voice of the new space movement, at least in my world. He introduced me to Jerry O'Neill way back when. And I read it and I just kind of put it on the shelf and thought it was interesting. But it never occurred to me that we would be making a documentary years later until I really got involved in the little new space movement that was happening on the Mojave Deserts and out in Texas.

And seeing what Richard Branson was doing with Scaled Composites and that company. But no one was covering this in the media. Failed Composites and that company. But no one was covering this in the media. So I was going to all these little space conferences to find out more and got hooked up with Rick Tomlinson. And I have a little media company. So I was just filming stuff and going around doing interviews and playing with all these kids with rockets out in the desert.

That came full circle, I think, with Will and Dylan, who were looking for a perfect fit to help them along with the final touches on this film that Dylan had already and Will had already really come a long way with. They had shot all the interviews mostly and just needed someone to kind of tie the pieces together. And I should say that's Ryan that you just heard. Sounds like your experience, Ryan, kind of parallels mine. What about you, Will? How did you come to this? Yeah, you know, it's Ryan that you just heard. Sounds like your experience, Ryan, kind of parallels mine. What about you, Will? How did you come to this? Yeah, you know, it's funny. I learned about Jerry directly from Dylan when I was hired on this movie.

And when I was hired on the movie, I immediately went and bought every book Jerry wrote and read all of them. It's weird, though, because I really should have known Jerry for a number of reasons. But most importantly was that I was neighbors with Tasha O'Neill for 17 years in Princeton, about two blocks away, and never knew. And I should have even known the family and everything, and I didn't. And then it just came full circle about 20 years later. That is amazing.

And Tasha O'Neill, of course, Jerry O'Neill's widow, is a major voice heard in this film. Absolutely wonderful contributor to the film. I may come back to her and the role of the rest of the family as well. Dylan, one of the things that struck me, which had not before, is that in watching the film, I saw so many parallels to co-founder of the Planetary Society, Carl Sagan. Both of them brilliant, both very charismatic, both cared deeply about public understanding of science, and they suffered among their peers because of their public outreach efforts, and both of them taken from us far too

soon. Do you see all that? Indeed. No, I see it. I see it exactly the way you described it. And maybe just to punctuate that point, a little known fact that we cover it in the film is Jerry really should have and probably would have won the Nobel Prize in physics, but for two instances. One is the, you know, heaven forbid, moniker of science popularizer, which you're alluding to. And the second, of course, is you have to be alive to win the Nobel Prize. But he legitimately would have. He is the inventor, little known fact, but important fact, the inventor of the particle accelerator, which if you look at all the innovations in physics of the last 40 or 50 years, many of which are high-energy physics, which are derivative of particle accelerators. We have Freeman Dyson in the film. Thank goodness we were able to get Freeman on the film before he sadly passed. And he insisted, by the way, of being on camera, insisted because he loved Jerry.

Freeman's one of those gentlemen, he worked with Albert Einstein, he's been around the smartest people on planet Earth, and his affection for Jerry and his respect for Jerry, I think really comes through in the film. But I think that's a testament to the type of impact Jerry had. But yeah, back to your original point, I do see parallels with Carl Sagan, no question about it. I am so glad that you brought up Freeman Dyson. I was fortunate enough to get him a couple of times on this show. The second time, the last time, not long before we lost him, I had no idea that I should have, they were both at Princeton, that he was a colleague, a friend, and an admirer of Gerard K. O'Neill.

Very similar minds in some ways, wouldn't you say? I would. I would. And they were colleagues, of course, at Princeton. But Freeman's a very clear thinker. And I think that was one of Jerry's gifts. Jerry was able to see the field, if you will. He would have been a great general or executive of any sort, because he had a very clear mind. and he could see things sort of emerging and had the ability to sort of see things as they were, but as they were going to be.

And that's a rare gift. That's a rare gift indeed. Should we think of Jerry O'Neill as the father of the commercial space era, what some people call new space? In my mind, Matt, yes, for a couple of reasons. One is he was the first original new space entrepreneur pivoting from science fiction, science speculation, to forming his own business. Sadly, the business didn't turn out the way he expected it to. We covered that in the film as well. It had a bit to do with his illness. But he was sort of the original Branson, Bezos, Elon, if you will.

But he was also a communicator and inspirer, the highest order. So I think if you look at the legacy of the people in the industry today and you say, how did they get inspired by space? I think two-thirds, if not more, would directly trace their inspiration to Jerry or Jerry's disciples. So yeah, I would say he was seminal in this movement, no question. And such an inventor, the start of satellites and solar power, predicting cars, electric cars, cities in space, it encompassed so much more than the science and the engineering. I mean, he considered the cultural and artistic and political and certainly the economic aspects because they were going to have to be self-sustaining in so many ways.

I was so impressed with his comprehensive approach to this massive question of figuring out how were we going to make humans, not just space faring, but space living, a space living species. Dylan? Again, I think if you look at what he left as his legacy in terms of the written word in his plans and the Space Studies Institute and things of that nature, it all holds together incredibly well. It's incredibly thoughtful. It's grounded in science. It's grounded in physics. It's ambitious to be sure, but it's not, you know, it's not just wild speculation. He actually has a blueprint. And back to Bezos again, so the story goes in his high school valedictorian speech, he had just read The High Frontier, the book, and basically said,

look, I've read this book. I'm going to implement it. I'm going to go make a bunch of money in some industry. I'm not sure how. And then I'm going to circle back and implement this book. And of course, that's pretty much what he is doing or has done. That's what's substantial about Jerry is everything is thoughtful. Everything is grounded in what is possible, but yet it's right at the edge. It's pushing the edge of what is conceivable. And I think that's the best kind of leadership in science and technology is it's grounded in what is real, but it's also at the leading edge of what's possible. And I think Jerry really threaded that needle well. We hear people talking about this in the film and his approach. I come back to Rick Tomlinson,

who's listed as an associate producer on the film and is heard across the film. There really is kind of, Ryan, as you said, nobody who is more articulate or passionate regarding the future that we can build for, that maybe humanity should build itself in space. And Dylan, I think I said earlier, but did this kind of come out of discussions with Rick, this film? It did, it did.

Rick's a good friend. We speak frequently, typically on weekends. I'm typically on a hike or a walk somewhere and we'll talk for a couple hours. So he was sort of educating me on the early years of the Jerry movement, you know, the L5 Society and SSI and all that legacy. And this was probably originally maybe six or seven years ago, Matt. And we were very deep into it. And I was asking a million questions. I got off the phone and I reflected to myself.

I said, what a pity. I said, that is such a phenomenal story and such a phenomenal human being. How is it, me being a lifelong passionate space nut, that I'm just now learning about all these different things? Elon had just sort of cracked the nut on rocket reusability and was getting a lot of fame and fortune for that, as he should. But I was reflecting on, you know, he's standing on the shoulders of other giants and those stories are left untold. And so that was sort of the impetus. I had two things that I wanted to do with the film specifically. One is to honor Jerry and tell his story. But secondly, really for posterity, you know, I think 100 years from now, 200 years from now, people are going to look back at this period of time and say, this is when commercial space really was born.

And I think it'd be a pity if it started, if the story started with Jeff and Elon, I think that's a missed opportunity. If the story started with Jeff and Elon, I think that's a missed opportunity. So I really, for posterity, wanted to make sure that the record at least reflected Jerry's role, which has been very, very significant. So Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, both heard in the film, both saluting Jerry O'Neill as the pioneer that he was in all of this. SSI, one of you mentioned earlier, Space Studies Institute, still going strong. The L5 Society, which now we know as, after a merger with the National Space Institute, as the National Space Society. Didn't Jerry have a role also in the creation of the L5 Society? I want to get the history right here, because I know it's a little bit more complicated than what I read in paper. But I know that the early,

the founders of L5 really got their start because they started turning Jerry's personal newsletter that he would send out one by one in the mail. They started sending it out in the L5 Society newsletter, and they both immediately carbonated because of that. I know that he was deeply involved. I don't think he was someone who was a part of founding L5. I know he really tried to avoid the cult of personality of being the cult of Jerry. He didn't want that. He didn't want to succeed for 20 years and then be an icon of some earlier day. He wanted them to do their thing and let them kind of spread the word for him. We mentioned Jerry's widow, Tasha, who's heard quite a bit in the film,

but the whole family is in there. In fact, you were invited into Tasha's home, what was her and Jerry's home. What was the reaction from the family when you first approached them with this idea of creating a film to honor him and spread his ideas? Yeah, I'll start with the response on that, Matt, and really credit to Will for really building a deep relationship with the family. They love Will, they love Ryan, they love the people involved with the film. I don't recall, I think it might have been Frank White that connected me originally with Tasha. One of the most wonderful humans I've had the pleasure to meet. When we told her what our project was and why we were doing it, she couldn't have been more generous, providing unbelievable access to materials. I mean,

that's just by way of example, Jerry had an unpublished autobiography that no one could do existed that Tasha shared with us, really just for context on what was going through Jerry's mind. Family photos, family film, you know, camcorder footage, access to all the family members. Oftentimes we would run ideas by Tasha. We would run possible interviewees by Tasha to get her reaction. Tasha honored Jeff Bezos at a dinner and was able to sort of prime him on the film. Jeff and Blue Origin later signed off on the footage that we used in the film. So it all really tied together. I mean, this film would not have been made without Tasha O'Neill. She's a remarkable woman. If you haven't had a chance to get to know her, I highly recommend it.

She's a joy. She really is. Will, you want to add to that? Yeah, there's so much to add, really. I think, and I just have to say again, this movie would not have happened without Tasha O'Neill and her generosity and everything that she helped us through along the way of finding these little nuggets of diamonds that we would find about Jerry's life and these little things that people have never seen before. I think people will be astounded. I feel like everyone thinks they have all these little bits that people haven't seen about Jerry, but once they see the movie, they'll see that we had them all. And, um, and the way it really kind of played out was that we were initially linked with Tasha, obviously she started sending me some old footage, some old images.

And that's when I saw her address and realized we were neighbors. And I called her that night. We talked about Princeton, I think, for six hours, which is where we both were living at the time. But what we followed that up with was reaching out to each family member and saying, hey, we're doing this movie.

And there was a little bit of convincing of like, would you also send us some stuff? We'd love to include it in this piece that will be the legacy piece for jerry o'neill and it took time it took years to really gain the trust of everybody and it was not the intention to ultimately bring them all back together i know at the beginning that's not something they wanted to do i mean if it was about my family i'm not sure i would have. Over the time of creating the film and building the relationships and realizing how cosmic and perfect the people making the movie to do the story were the perfect people to do it. They realized, you know what, let's do this. Let's all get back together and talk about Jerry, talk about what it was like growing up with him.

It took us a long time to get there, but it was entirely worth it. I couldn't agree more. I mean, they contribute so much at the personal level to the film talking about him. I can readily understand why it took years to put this together. Also, because you pull together, good Lord, what, hundreds and hundreds of elements, these little bits of footage and stills and documents. There must have been a mountain of clearances you had to work your way through. Yeah. The fun part for me was doing all the scanning and the art stuff. The not so fun part was for Will doing the clearances. Yeah, it took an entire year to clear everything. I think we had, I would say, hundreds of clearances we had to do for this. And it was an enormous amount of work.

But yeah, I mean, it was a team effort. It was just a couple of us trying to just knock down every door we could get. And I think of all the stuff we wanted, we thought we wouldn't get half of it. And we got everything but I think one. And we didn't need it. All right. So I have to ask, can you say what that one piece was that you couldn't get? No, because, but I'll tell you after the call. Okay. That's fair. Sorry, listeners. Let me just

assure everybody listening to this. It truly is amazing what you were able to pull together. A quick break, and then I'll be back with Dylan Taylor, Will Henry and Ryan Stewart with much more about their new film The High Frontier. 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 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. As a kid, when I first started to learn about Gerard K. O'Neill,

it was the illustrations. It was the beautiful artwork, the artist concepts of these ideas that he had worked out from an engineering and scientific standpoint that were made so real by artists like Don Davis, who appears in the film. And I was also amazed and awfully pleased to see in your interview with Don Davis, he actually said that he contacted Jerry and said, how can I help? I would have thought it would have gone the other way. Yeah, that's kind of the theme of the whole film, really, is that artists and people from all different communities could just come to him and he would just open his arms and let them share their ideas. And wouldn't he be thrilled today

with the technology we have now for digital art and exploring 3D fly-throughs of your concepts? Which is one of the reasons why we pushed hard to do the opening sequence in the film, building that Jerry O'Neill settlement fly-through. He would have loved to have seen that. This is one of the things that I'm most grateful for in the film, because you took those illustrations that I and so many other people are familiar with. And you made them you brought them alive. And you took us inside them. Was that part of the plan right from the start of making the film? Definitely, I we will and I will all of us, we definitely knew that the art was a big part of Jerry's vision and how he expressed it to everybody. And it still is. You see his work in cartoons from Japan and all over

the place in random places where maybe they don't even know where it originated from. But it all stems from this group of artists back in the late 60s and 70s that were making these great concepts. As the finance guy, Matt, I might slightly disagree. We suffered from some scope creep over the course of the film, but it was a labor of love. And everything that we did in post-production, and there was a lot, was in the spirit of how do we honor Jerry and how do we enhance? We knew we had a great film. We wanted it to be a marvelous film. And so we wanted to put all these other additional items on it to really make it a significant film that people could watch 30 years from today and look

at and say, wow, not only is that a well-made film, it honors Jerry. And so we really, we put our effort into it, but yeah, it was, it was a labor of love and it was actually also quite expensive to make. I won't, I won't tell you what, what it cost. Well, thanks for opening the wallet to make it happen. But we had to, you know, we had to inspire the younger generation, not just, not just the choir that, you know. That's all. You know what they say, the choir needs to be preached to as well. Let's talk about some of the people that appear in the film, because it's this amazing panoply in your cast, essentially.

One of them, Dylan, you already mentioned, Frank White, who may be heard as much in the film as anybody except for Gerard K. O'Neill in that historic footage that you use, and maybe Tosh O'Neill. He is another hero of mine. Sounds like he is for you, too. He is. You know, Frank is a prince. He is such a kind and gentle soul.

And his legacy, you know, I think is underestimated, certainly with coining the term the overview effect. You know, Frank will be the first person to say this. He's said this to me many times privately. I think he's also said it publicly is that the overview effect would not have been written if it wasn't for Jerry O'Neill. And he specifically ties it to the impact that Jerry had on him, the things that were running through his mind when that term came to mind. So yeah, no, Frank is terrific. I have the honor of being his publisher now. I would just commend to you Frank's books. I mean, he's written several books in addition to The Overview Effect. And he

really is, for those of you who don't know, Rhodes Scholar, Harvard educated, as smart as they come, Rhodes Scholar, Harvard educated, as smart as they come, but really deeply grounded in a, almost like a spiritual nature to Frank that transcends, transcends his humanity. I mean, he really, he really is a figure that, you know, I don't know what the right term is, but he's one of those individuals that when you spend time with him, you can't help but be impacted. You can't help but be impacted by Frank. And he's a remarkable human. He really is. A gentle, wonderful soul, as well as all of those things that you said. Will, who else do you think really stands out in the film? Well, you know, I think for me, obviously,

the family is a major standout. For me personally, I wish we could have made the entire movie about Loretta Whitesides, you know, because she's just, she's such an incredible person. And I know, I don't believe she ever got to meet or work with Jerry directly, but her entire life has been influenced by, by Jerry and she's got incredible things to say about him. Also, John Spencer, he's not in it for the longest period, but he is one of the original designers of the International Space Station. The way that he was influenced by him really hit me like nobody else.

John's going to build that hotel in space someday. Right. Just by way of boasting, I'm one of the founders of Yuri's Night. As some listeners have heard, I was gathering with people like then Loretta Hidalgo, before she became Loretta Whitesides, George Whitesides, and some of the other founders in classrooms at Caltech when they were all grad students. And I would drive over from the Planetary Society because we wanted to throw this party for space. And I got to produce the webcast. And of course, we are just past Yuri the duo between Isaac Asimov and Jerry. Oh, yeah. There's such characters in between the two of them.

They're both brilliant in their own ways. It's humorous and it's educational. You could tell they were such great friends. I love that part of the film. Dylan, I think of people like Jeffrey Manber, the head of NanoRacks, doing great work up there on the International Space Station, kind of a parallel to the work that you do outside of when you're making movies. He also seemed like an ideal person to speak up in this film.

Oh, for sure. Yeah, I mean, Jeff is a legend in the industry. And I also think he credits a lot of his space career to Jerry. He's a true believer. And of course, Jeff's written several books and is a real thought leader in the industry. But also, Matt, I just want to, you know, we gave a lot of thought to having a diverse view of the industry as well. That's really important to me. and some of the next generation. We mentioned Loretta, but we had Rachel Lyons in the film, executive director of Space for Humanity. We had Letitia Garriott,

who's a total rock star and close friend and very influential in the industry. And so I appreciate the fact we had those voices in the film as well. And that was intentional. We wanted to show the face of new space today and how that's evolving. And also people doing great work that were inspired by

people who were inspired by Jerry, that second generation point that we made earlier. Lori Garver. I mean, people think Lori is this hard driving NASA executive, which she is, but she is a true believer. She loves Jerry. When I reached out to her about being on camera for the film, she's like, I will be there immediately with bells on. You tell me where, when, wouldn't miss it. Peter Diamandis, same thing. Peter, there's no busier person on planet earth than Peter Diamandis. He made this a priority. We were just honored. Everyone we reached out to essentially did backflips to try to be in the film. Again, it wasn't because of the filmmakers. It was because of Jerry. They wanted to honor Jerry. So I just want to really underline also the young voices in the film,

because that was intentional as well. And those really are the next generation superstars. Peter Diamandis, of course, founder of the XPRIZE Foundation, Singularity University. Lori Garver, former deputy administrator at NASA, both have been heard on this show as responsible as anyone for the success of NASA's commercial space efforts. Looking to the far end of the generational scale, it looked to me like maybe you got one of the last interviews with the great Ray Bradbury. It's kind of an interesting story. I had interviewed Ray previous to this film actually being made for an award that he was getting. And he was at the point where he couldn't travel at that time. So I was actually brought into his house and we did a good couple hours just talking

to him in his house about his literary works and his view on space, what was going on at the time. SpaceX was just coming up into the news then. So I had this great amount of footage of Ray Bradbury, and I thought, he's speaking the language. It's perfect for this film. Let's work it in there. That's what happened.

I have the honor of being the keeper of a lock of Ray's hair at the Planetary Society because he trusted us many years ago, made us promise that we would someday get that lock of hair to Mars. Hasn't happened yet, but there is a tie in here to what happened after we lost Gerard K. O'Neill. You mentioned in the film, and I was not aware of this, that he did make it off Earth, or at least his ashes did, in some pretty good company. Dylan or Will? Yeah, through Celestis Memorial Flights, which is run by Charles Chaper, who's also in the film. He went into space, I believe it was in the mid-90s, orbited the Earth for about 10 years. He was with Timothy Leary, and I believe it was Gene Roddenberry, and then I believe one or two others, names are escaping me. Just a lovely, romantic finish, I think, for a man who worked so hard to get all of us up there. There's one more thing I should have brought up earlier, which I'm also grateful to you for. And that is the moments in the film that you devote

to a rocket ship that was called DCX, which was way ahead of its time. Dylan, could you talk about it a bit? I can. And actually, I'll ask Ryan and Will to chime in as well. But yeah, I mean, I think, again, in the spirit of trying to trace lineage and trying to show sort of the emergence of the industry today and kind of tracing it back, you know, that was a good example. As you know, I won't give too much away for the film because we want people to watch it. But with this whole notion of the double Falcon Heavy, landing. We were trying to use the symbolism to show how the industry was evolving

and how original innovation had manifested itself in today's technology. So that was a bit of the thread we were trying to pick up on. So I'll push it over to Ryan. Well, I found out about the program through Rick Tomlinson. He had a little, what's it called,

in-space productions back in the early 90s. And he was covering all of that development. And I had seen footage of that. And of course that ties in with what was happening with Elon. But no one knows that that goes way back to the 90s. So I thought that was a really great parallel there. And again, it just was so inspiring to see all these little companies out in the desert doing these things that no one was covering.

So it's great to have a medium where we can show them the light of day and bring it to fruition here. No question. I'm going to bring up Rick Tomlinson one more time here at the end of our conversation. He says during your film that it's our job to make more of Jerry's kids. Dylan, is that at least partly what you hope to do with this film? Yeah, without question, Matt. I mean, we want to inspire people to not only take the torch, if you will, and carry it further down the field, but also to be original thinkers, put their own mark on the industry. And I think Jerry was one of those unique individuals that approached things from a first principle standpoint. And that's in part why his legacy is so rich. One other point I'll just quickly make, Matt, is we had so much material on Jerry,

and I mentioned the unpublished biography and pictures and his whole life story about wanting to be an astronaut, which we just scratched the surface on in the film, that we wrote a companion book to go with the film. Will titled it, I think it's apropos, it's called Humanizing Space, which has, of course, the double meaning. But I would commend that book as well, because it really gets deeper into Jerry's personality and kind of what made Jerry tick. It talks more about his upbringing, his family life at home, his first marriage, which is a painful topic. But I think it's definitely worth people checking out. If you love Jerry and you really want to understand how he became the man he later became, I think the book fills in a lot of those gaps.

I'm sorry, I wasn't aware of the book. Is it available now, Will? And is there anything else you want to say about it? We will be releasing it within the week of the release of the film as well. So on the week of the 18th.

Will, now that we have whetted everyone's appetites for the film, if not the book, how can they see it? Sure. So we will be having a live premiere on SpaceChannel.com. That will be on April 17th, 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific. We will then be releasing the film online the following day. That will be on Amazon. That will be on Google, Microsoft,

iTunes, and Vudu. Yeah, we will be having a few books that will be coming out around the same time. One is the companion book Dylan just mentioned, Humanizing Space. We will also be having a special edition, The High Frontier, which is pretty much like the movie version of the book. They'll have some unique info about the movie on it as well. So we'll have that on our site. We have a website that you can go visit, which is the high frontier movie.com. We also have high frontier merch.com,

which is where you can get all this awesome merch, like the coffee cup. You won't see it on the podcast, but the one I'm using here. It's lovely. Yeah. And then we have a ton of merch on there as well. And you can find the book on there as well. And then we have links to all of Jerry's books, audio books, as well as

the companion book on there as well. And we will put a link up to a number of these things that Willis just mentioned on this week's episode page, planetary.org slash radio. Gentlemen, I think we're done talking about the film, but Dylan, just to come back to you for a moment, as I said, you are far more than a filmmaker when it comes to pushing humanity up into space and making us commercially and otherwise viable up there. This seems to drive so much of your life. The film almost seems like it's a sidelight. Well, yeah, I'm definitely not a traditional filmmaker. I mean, the day job is running Voyager, which is really a multinational space exploration company. You know, the way my brain works, Matt, is I'm a believer in Jerry's vision, right?

So I try to say, what are my skills? What does the industry need? And what can I do? What part can I play to help accentuate and accelerate Jerry's vision? So I think most of my strengths and experience lie in the commercial business sector. So I think that's where I can make the biggest impact. We probably will make another film or two. It's like remodeling your house a bit.

I have a little bit of scar tissue getting this film done. I think I'll let it subside before we make the next film. But just credit again to Ryan and Will and Tasha. Really, those three are seminal. And maybe Rick Tomlinson as well. Those four, I think without those four, this film would not exist. So I just want to extend my gratitude to those four individuals. Gentlemen, I want to thank you and them for making this film happen. It is a delight, and I highly recommend it. And as you heard, even if you were hearing this after April 17th, those of you, many of you in our radio audience, you still have plenty of opportunities to see the film we've been talking about, which is The High Frontier, the untold story of Gerard K. O'Neill. Dylan, Will, Ryan, thank you very much for being on

Planetary Radio. Thank you so much. Executive producer Dylan Taylor, producer Will Henry, and director Ryan Stewart. Bruce and our special What's Up guest are seconds away. Time again for What's Up on Planetary Radio. We are graced once again by the presence of the chief scientist of the Planetary Society. That is Bruce Betts. And Bruce, welcome. I think you have a special guest to welcome as well. I do. We welcome Jewel Cry, who supported the Planetary Society through our recent auction and has won the privilege to be on Planetary Radio. And Jewel is an orchestra teacher, and we welcome her and thank her. Hi, Jewel. Hello. Thank you for having me, guys. I'm super excited to be here. I'm an

orchestra teacher at Andrus High School in El Paso, Texas. And it is just such a joy to be able to do this with you guys. I've been listening to the Planetary Radio for at least a year. I started during COVID. And to just be here and see you guys and do this is super great. Well, we're excited to have you. And you're in your orchestra room. Wait, it's what, lunchtime there?

Yes, it is. I'm here in my orchestra room. Wait, it's what, lunchtime there? Yes, it is. I'm here in my orchestra room. So this is my classroom where I teach. I have my chocolate milk and chicken sandwich from the cafeteria. I've got it right here. And you may hear the sound of a bell ringing behind me or above me, I suppose. But yeah, this is where I do my recording. And I'm fortunate to have good recording equipment because as a music teacher,

you know, with the pandemic, we've had to do everything online. You sound terrific. And I sure hope that we get one of those bells because it wouldn't be high school without it. Right. What's your mascot? So we are the Andrus Eagles. All right. Go Eagles.

Thank you. Almost as good as the Narbonne Gauchos. Marauders. Jewel, you participated in other parts of Planet Fest, right? I mean, the auction was kind of toward the end, our big spectacular finish for that Planet Fest weekend. But did you get to go to some of the sessions? I did.

I think I've lost track of all the sessions I've gone to, actually. I know there was a couple I saw where Bruce was talking. I got to see the one with Dr. Katie Mack. That was great. Goodness, there was just so many, so many wonderful things to see and so many great people too in the chats. I got to talk to some folks, reach out to them via, I think, Hoova. Yes. So it was absolutely wonderful. And then from there, I had I heard about the day of action through Planet Fest and also through your radio show. So I ended up doing day of action as well, which was super fun. Casey Dreyer in PlanetFest, you remember Jill who said that he started a new romantic relationship because of meeting somebody, Jenny, at PlanetFest? Yes. Jenny has now responded. Jenny in Colorado wanted to thank us for reading Jill's comment about PlanetFest on air and to provide some follow-up. She says, those feelings are reciprocated. I met the person of my dreams at PlanetFest 21 as well. Yay, space love. That is so wonderful. I actually, I think I reached out to Jenny about D&D over in one of the chats as well. So congrats, Jenny. That's great. Wait, I may have talked to Jenny about D&D.

I have to talk to you about D&D as well, Bruce. I hear that you are actually, you play fourth edition. I did play fourth edition. Now I'm playing fifth edition and I've played second edition. So I've been all over the board. What about you? I'm currently involved in two fifth edition games. I play a dragonborn cleric in one and a dwarf fighter in another. And they're absolutely, absolutely a blast. Do I have to get into D&D now? Yes.

You know, Planetary Society D&D group. Can you imagine how great that would be? It would be. We'll mention that to our community person. And before this becomes a completely different kind of podcast. Yes, let's get back on track. I apologize. Let's do that. Bruce, what's up? Well, there are planets. They're still there. We've got Mars getting lower in the southwest in the early evening, looking reddish, also still getting dimmer as it gets farther from us,

but forming a nice triangle in the sky with similarly reddish Aldebaran and Taurus and very bright Betelgeuse in Orion. And on the 16th, so a couple days after this comes out, the moon will be hanging out with the three of them, looking quite lovely. Pre-dawn, getting higher up, easier to see in the east, very bright Jupiter and yellowish Saturn to its upper right. Let's move on to this week in space history. We had Apollo 13 in 1970, fortunately made it back and landed on Earth this week. And two years later, Apollo 16 launched and landed on the moon.

And three years ago in 2018, the TESS spacecraft launched, TESS, the exoplanet hunting spacecraft that you just did an interview a couple weeks ago about. Indeed. We're ready to move on now to that portion of the show that I think, Jewel, if you could maybe get Bruce to deliver for us. Bruce, I would be absolutely pleased to ask you for a random space fact, please. Even Rolls-Royce. Very nice. Okay, I'll give you, I'll even give you one that's sort of personal.

All right, it's not that personal. As Ingenuity, the little helicopter, attempts the first controlled powered flight on another planet, that is, if you don't count sky cranes, we recall the little-remembered NASA Mars airplane program. A late 1999 NASA administrator mandated effort to fly a Mars airplane for the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' first flight in December 2003. You all remember the Mars airplane, right? Langley was chosen to lead the effort and the esteemed Dr.

Bruce Betts was chosen as the NASA program scientist. That's super cool. Oh, and then it was canceled after about a year because they never gave it nearly enough funding. But a lot of talented people worked on it and it resurfaced as a finalist in a Mars scout selection, but obviously it was never selected. So there you go. Mars airplane, weird trivia. I just saw, I haven't read it yet, an article looking back to the time that NASA thought about sending an airplane to Mars. And I'd forgotten about your connection to it, Bruce. Sorry that didn't happen. Such a cool project.

That's wonderful to hear about. And hopefully in the future we'll be able to get something like that going again. You know, we have the helicopter now. It'd be cool to see what else we can get moving up there. Indeed. And who knows, by the time some people hear this, maybe that helicopter will have made that first powered rotorcraft flight on another world. Let's go on to the contest.

I asked you to name all the people who flew in space while serving in the U.S. Congress. So sitting senators and representatives. How'd we do, Matt? I will let our poet laureate, Dave Fairchild in Kansas, answer this one for us. Jake Garn went to space in 1985, flew aboard the shuttle with its booster hyperdrive. Not really. Next year, Nelson went from Florida with success. Both were listed on the crew as payload specialists.

John Glenn also flew in 1998. He became the oldest man to fly in space to date. So three we see have been to space of note. Must have made it fun for them when casting Senate votes. Nice rhymes. Senator Jake Garn and Senator John Glenn and Representative Bill Nelson currently in consideration for a NASA administrator. Just nominated by Joe Biden. Here's our winner. My goodness. He first, as far as I can tell, entered the contest seven years ago. More than seven years ago.

This is his first win. Ian Jackson, congratulations. He's in Germany. Jake Garn, Bill Nelson, and of course, John Glenn. Ian, we're going to send you a copy of the Backyard Astronomer's Field Guide, How to Find the Best Objects the Night Sky Has to Offer. It's by David Dickinson. Fine little book about exploring the night sky.

More than one listener suggested we send some current representatives on a one-way mission. They shall go unnamed. We got this nice submission from Pavel, Pavel Kamesha in Belarus, a regular. He says, maybe it's a good idea to send new presidents, ministers, officials of any country to space for a week or two for a transforming experience. Speaking of the overview effect that we had come up in the interview or just a few minutes ago on the show. I sincerely think that Earth can become a much better place due to this. Mr. Musk, what do you think? Ad Astra, says Pavel. Nice, nice suggestion, Pavel. I think maybe it ought to be a requirement. Finally, from our other regular poet, Gene Lewin in the state of Washington. Mr. Smith, he went to Washington, but on Earth,

he stayed in place. But there were three who, while on the job, actually went into space. These astronautical senators were uniquely quite adept to have a seat on a space shuttle and one up the Capitol steps. John Glenn was from the Buckeye State, Jake Garn from Utah's home of bees, and Bill Nelson, a native Floridian, the NASA administrator nominee. Nice work, Gene. Congratulations to everybody. Thank you for entering. Bruce, I think we're ready for another one. Keeping the theme, what was the first successful flight on another planet? That would be besides Earth. Successful flight, here are the necessary caveats. That would be besides Earth.

Successful flight. Here are the necessary caveats. It's going to be obviously an unpowered flight. And do not count parachutes or heat shields or other things designed primarily to land on a surface. So for a successful flight on another planet, go to planetary.org slash radio contest. Jewel, you want to take a stab at it? No. Good, because you ruined my contest. Well, I don't want to be wrong on Planetary Radio.

We do it all the time. Yeah, it's a regular thing for us. Jewel, you can enter if you get that entry to us by April 21st at 8 a.m. Pacific time. Here is the prize. I can show it to the two of you because you've got video. This is the coolest thing. This is from a professor, Henrik Hargitay. He has developed, look at that. What does it look like? It looks like one of those cute travel atlases you can get for some portion of Earth, right? Except it's for Mars, and it is beautifully illustrated. portion of Earth, right? Except it's for Mars, and it is beautifully illustrated. Professor Hargitay has offered these. We're going to offer several of these over the next few weeks. Now, the reason this is going to come directly from Professor Hargitay is that he will enclose for you, if he knows where you live, and he will because he's going to mail it to you. Look at this little overlay he gave me with the state of California.

It is done to scale so that you could put it over the maps in the book and compare it to the scale of something that you know well. It is just the coolest little book. And I will note that it was published in cooperation with the European Science Foundation in Strasbourg. So that's it. The Mars Pocket Atlas. It could be yours if you win this time around.

Bruce, I think we're done other than thanking Jewel for joining us today and for her support. Thank you again, Jewel. And everybody go out there, look up the night sky and think about, I don't know. What do you think, Jewel? look up the night sky and think about, I don't know. What do you think, Jewel? Why don't you guys think about any senators, representatives you'd like to send up to space and back? Thank you, and good night. Kind of you to give them a round trip, Jewel, and since that was nonpartisan,

we'll make sure that is a part of this week's What's Up with the Chief chief scientist of the Planetary Society, Bruce Betts and Jewel Cry, the winner of the auction that allowed her to join us on this week's What's Up. Jewel, where were the bells? All I heard was a door slamming. I actually don't know. And I'm wondering if maybe there's testing this afternoon that I didn't know about and need to check my schedule to make sure I'm not supposed to be overseeing it like last week. Yeah, that's actually really strange. Finally.

See, I knew there was a reason we had to hang out. That wasn't much of a bell. Do you know what note? You're an orchestra teacher. Do you know what note that was? It is a slightly out of tune B flat. I'm not sure if that's how it comes across on your end, but when we're tuning,

so orchestra instruments tune to a 440 hertz A. So when that's on and we're tuning, it sounds horrendous. Best close maybe ever for a What's Up segment. Thank you, Jewel Cry cry for joining us and thank you bruce thank you for having me this is a absolute blast planetary radio is produced by the planetary society in pasadena california and is made possible by its inspired members don't settle for anything less than joining them at planetary.org slash join.

Mark Gilverde is our associate producer. Josh Doyle composed our theme, which is arranged and performed by Peter Schlosser. Ad Astra.