Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - The Honorable Adam Schiff: Another Congressional Space Enthusiast

Episode Date: November 15, 2017

Congressman Adam Schiff’s California district includes the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is as enthusiastic a fan of the final frontier as you are likely to find under the capitol dome in Washington D.C.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Congressman Adam Schiff, Space Geek, this week on Planetary Radio. Welcome, I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. The Honorable Adam Schiff joins us to talk about his fascination with space. He'll also give us his vision for the future of NASA. And we'll talk about commercial space development. And space is an opening for bipartisan collaboration in the United States. Did you hear about our interstellar visitor? The fast-moving rock dominates Bruce Bett's attention in this week's What's Up segment.

Planetary Society digital editor Jason Davis is back from a visit to the Mirror Lab at the University of Arizona campus in his hometown of Tucson. The work of that facility is an essential step in the creation of what will soon become the largest and most powerful telescope on planet Earth. Jason, welcome back to the show. I want to start by saying how intensely envious I am because I would love to go to that lab process the weekend before and they spin cast these things. So they essentially build the mirror in a giant oven and then spin the oven. And as the glass melts, it kind of flattens out into the parabolic shape that you need for the telescope mirror. So we got to go, uh, as part of this media tour, uh, go see the, uh, the actual casting process going on, and it's really neat to see. I am going to make it there at some point because I keep passing up invitations.

Tell me, what's it like? Could you feel the heat from this massive oven? No, you couldn't really feel it. They have exhaust ports on the top, so I suspect that the warmth of it really isn't radiating out to where you're standing. But you do kind of get to walk right up to it. You know, it's spinning. I can't remember the revolution rate, but it starts off very hot and kind of peaks very quickly at several thousand degrees and then starts cooling gradually and actually takes about three months to cool. So that thing will be right now and continuing to cool down for a couple more months.

No, it isn't a very hot environment where it is. They managed to kind of keep it all insulated inside the oven. It's still quite an impressive technological trick. What's the outlook? When is this big scope going to see first light? Yeah, just like a lot of other large projects, the completion date has slipped a little bit. But right now they're looking at 2023 when the telescope will partially come online. So they'll have a few mirrors in place, not all of them.

And they should be able to start getting some preliminary science results then and kind of testing it out. What are you most looking forward to that they'll be pointing this at? Yeah, so definitely exoplanets. I mean, when these scientists talk about some of the things they'll be able to do with it, actually looking at an exoplanet next to a star and being able to parse out the signs of what is actually the composition of their atmospheres. And that to me is just kind of mind blowing. We can do that now to a certain extent, but only with certain planets, especially the really large ones, I think are the easiest that they're able to do this with. But we're talking about actual earth size exoplanets in the habitable zone right next to a star from our perspective. So

it really excites me that, you know, this thing might come online and then report back to us, hey, we're seeing signs of photosynthesis or something like that in another planet's atmosphere. So really cool. It's a date. You and me, 2023 in the Atacama or high above it, for the opening of this, what will be, at least for a little bit, by far the largest telescope on this planet. Thank you very much. That's Jason Davis, digital editor for the Planetary Society.

The piece we were just talking about is a November 10, 2017 blog entry that you can find at planetary.org. As listeners to our monthly Space Policy Edition know so well, most of the really important decisions made about the future of American space exploration are made in Washington, D.C. Congressman Adam Schiff is the Democrat who has represented California's 28th District for 17 years. It's not by chance that he has been one of those at the center of space policy creation, though he is deeply involved with other efforts, including his service as ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Center of Space Policy Creation. Though he is deeply involved with other efforts, including his service as ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,

you're about to hear that a good part of his heart and soul belong to science and space. The Congressman joined me from his Washington office a few days ago for a somewhat staticky Skype conversation. Congressman Adam Schiff, thank you very much for joining us on Planetary Radio. It's terrific to be with you. Your official bio talks about your enthusiasm for science and for space exploration. I wonder, is it fair? Is it going too far to call you a bit of a space and science geek? No, that doesn't go too far at all.

And interestingly, I'm currently on the leave from the Appropriations Committee, but I'm the senior most member on the subcommittee that funds NASA. And the chairman, John Culberson, is equally, if not a greater space nerd than I am. So you get two space nerds in a key committee position. And I think it started probably for me in middle school or high school. I just had a keen interest in science, but particularly in space science. And that grew in college. I had a wonderful physics professor at Stanford. It was the one course that I had in college that every day I'd walk out, I felt like I

needed to grab people off the street and tell them what I had just learned because it was so mind-shattering. It's the only class I had in college where I can remember individual lectures. I remember learning about Hubble's constant the first time, and I remember how the professor described it and how if you looked about you and you would be tempted to conclude that we're at the center of the universe because everything was moving away from us. But it was more like having spots on a balloon that you're inflating. Everything is moving away from everything else. But by figuring out the rate of acceleration of distant objects, you could figure out where those all came from, where the

Big Bang took place and when. And that was just like a revelation that I thought was so interesting and so fascinating. And that has stayed with me for life. And for years, every time I would meet with people from Caltech or JPL, I would talk about this class and how I really need to tell this professor what a lasting impact his class had. But it meant going down into the basement and digging through boxes to find out who this professor was because I didn't remember his name. I finally did it. I'll have you know, two years ago, I finally did it. I found his name as a professor named William Little. He's now an emeritus professor at Stanford. And I wrote him a very long email about how much I continue to think about his class and what lasting impact it's had and how, you know, he gave me some of the rudiments I need to be able to represent such brilliant people in my district at Caltech and JPL and the Planetary Society.

And then I waited for the reply and it never came, not for an entire year. And then I finally got a reply from him that began with an apology saying that he never checks the Stanford email anymore. But he finally did. And he was he was very moved to get my letter. I would guess that he's probably pretty proud to have had that kind of influence over someone who now has no small influence over the science and space policy of the United States. You must be particularly pleased to have the Jet Propulsion Lab within your district. Oh, I really am. And every time I meet with the brilliant people there, I continue.

I view it as a part of my lifelong learning Ph.D. program. So I can ask them about something that has just been discovered. You know, the the work of LIGO, for example, which I find totally fascinating. Or maybe I've read an article on dark matter or dark energy, which are two of my favorite topics. And I'll get to quiz them about, you know, how can this be and what does this tell us? And does this mean Einstein was right? Does it mean he was wrong? Does it mean that something he later thought was wrong turned out to be right? So it's such a treat to represent them and to hear about the fantastic

work they're doing. I'll tell you one other area that I'm really fascinated by, and that is the issue of quantum entanglement, which I think is inherently so interesting, but also given my Intel responsibilities, the idea of being able to communicate from one place to another without anything appearing to go from one place to the other means that you can't have something intercepted or decrypted. It would be the ultimate form of clandestine communication. So it has a very practical interest, but just the whole idea of it, that you could have somehow information communicated faster than the speed of light, I think it's incredibly interesting. Who would have guessed that what Einstein called spooky action at a distance would someday have strategic importance for nations like ours and apparently China,

which is doing a lot of work in that area? Yes, I mean, you know, the practical impacts could be significant. But just the whole degree to which it challenges the way we understand things and limits that we thought were fixed. I love things that provoke our thought that way. Back to JPL. We just celebrated and to some degree mourned the loss, the planned loss of the Cassini spacecraft after all those years of exploring Saturn. We had, I don't know if you heard, we had a tremendous turnout, standing room only,

in Caltech's biggest auditorium to celebrate the end of that mission. We did it in conjunction with KPCC, the local public radio station. That kind of enthusiasm that people have, and the long string of successes that JPL has enjoyed, how does that fit into what you see as the overall success of the United States in space exploration? Well, it's so exhilarating to watch these missions. Some have the vantage point of seeing them launched and then their ultimate fiery end.

And then there are many of us who have come to understand and appreciate what they're doing sort of mid-flight and have treasured the images that have come back and discoveries that have come back. And it gives a great sense of pride that we were a part of this, that we were able to accomplish these incredible scientific feats. It's also some of the most profoundly positive diplomacy we have around the world. I remember years ago being in Pakistan, and there's not much that we do, frankly, that is viewed with favor by Pakistanis.

Frankly, that is viewed with favor by Pakistanis. But it was at the time of the Phoenix program, and people were riveted. It was the top of the news. It was the front page of the newspapers in Pakistan. And I remember thinking that this is one of the completely unmitigated positives that the U.S. has to offer, unrivaled excellence in science and space exploration and things of keen interest all over the U.S. has to offer, unrivaled excellence in science and space exploration, and things of keen interest all over the world. It's great diplomacy, and that's, I think, an underappreciated facet of our space program.

What are your thoughts about at least the near-term future? We'll stick with robotic exploration for the time being. Of course, we've got the 2020 rover still being pieced together at JPL. But there are some other major projects like the James Webb Space Telescope and others. You know, I think prospects are good. We're very lucky to have deep bipartisan support for space exploration, for robotic exploration. We have great champions like my friend John Culberson that are so important in the era when non-defense discretionary spending

is constantly under assault. NASA has pretty well survived the budget turmoil of the last five or 10 years. That's a remarkable tribute to the degree to which on both sides of the aisle, people just love and respect this work and value it and recognize all the economic innovation that comes out of it and the degree to which that helped power our economy, as well as lifting our understanding of our place

in the universe. So I think the future is bright. I have to say I was deeply discouraged during the last administration to hear our administrators say that basically we were no longer going to be in the flagship mission business. I don't think we should ever diminish our sights and decide that, no, we're not capable of doing the big things anymore. Yes, we have to be cost conscious. things anymore. Yes, we have to be cost conscious. But I think NASA should be all about doing those things that are hard and undoable by the private sector working alone because the financial incentives are not enough in the private sector. So I want to continue to see NASA doing big things, proposing big things, learning new big things. And at the same time, well, we launch a great many more cost-effective or smaller scale missions. Stay with us. There's much more ahead as my conversation with California Congressman Adam Schiff continues. This is Planetary Radio.

Hi, this is Casey Dreyer, the Director of Space Policy here at the Planetary Society, and I wanted to let you know that right now Congress is debating the future of NASA's budget. The House has proposed to increase NASA's budget and also increase planetary science in 2018. The Senate, however, has proposed to cut both. You can make your voice heard right now. We've made it easy to learn more if you go to planetary.org slash petition 2017. Thank you. Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan, returning to my recent Skype conversation with the Honorable Adam Schiff, Congressman for California's 28th District. That district

includes the Jet Propulsion Laboratory just outside Pasadena, California. There are many congressional representatives whose districts are homes to NASA or other space facilities and interests. One is a conservative Republican who represents much of Houston, home to the Johnson Space Center. You've mentioned your colleague John Culberson twice now, and he's also been a guest on this show. My guess is that outside of space, the two of you may not agree on too many issues. Am I naive to think that space provides a little bit of a bridge that may offer a little bit of hope for a country that is so seriously divided right now. Absolutely. And, you know, John and my friendship is a perfect illustration of that. We came to Congress

together. We got to know each other. Our families got to know each other. We found that we had this common interest in both history and science, and in particular space science. And we continue to marvel at, notwithstanding the fact we have very serious policy disagreements about other things, how much we have in common. We were laughing a couple of years ago when my wife and I were in New York and one of our favorite outings is to the Strand bookstore. I seldom get much beyond the first couple dozen feet because they have all these wonderful staff recommendations. So I spent about an hour, only about 10 feet from the door. But on the third floor, there's a rare book collection, which I'm not in the price range where I can afford, but I like to kind of look about anyway. So we take the elevator up to the third floor and the door's open. And who do I find but John

Culverson, who has a similar love of the Strand bookstore and whatnot. So I think that part of getting things done and being effective in Congress is looking for those areas of common agreement and common interest and focusing on those rather than spending all your time focusing on the areas that divide. And to our great good fortune, there are people on both sides of the aisle who are really committed to space science and pushing the boundaries of our knowledge. We just saw the first meeting of the reorganized National Space Council. We heard some people, Vice President Pence, the leader of that council among them, Talk about the United States having lost its lead in space. And I wonder if you think there's anything to that. Well, to the degree that we began to dim our horizons in terms of doing the big missions and we decided it was more cost effective if we didn't do them, if we let the European Space Agency or maybe worked in partnership, but we gave up a leadership role. You know, that did concern me. I don't know in particular what the vice president was speaking about. You know, the administration, I will say,

has in not just in science, but really almost in every endeavor, sought to diminish the accomplishments of the previous administration and has tried to eradicate the legacy of the prior administration. So whether this was merely along those lines of the vice president saying how terrible things were before the new administration came into office, I don't know. But as I mentioned, came into office, I don't know. But as I mentioned, I have been concerned that we were not making the investment that we needed to, that we were lowering our sights as a result of budgetary pressures. And I just don't want to see us ever decide that we as a nation are not capable of doing the kind of things that we have in the past. We heard a lot of support in that first meeting of the National Space Council and, of course, elsewhere for the developments in what's commonly known as commercial space,

both from the old line aerospace companies and from the so-called new space companies. And I wonder what your thoughts are about that and the successes and the setbacks that we've seen? You know, I think the private sector has a great deal to offer. And what has been done commercially over the last several years, I think, is really fantastic. And some of the developments have been quite phenomenal. And some of these new upstarts have really shaken up the competition in, I think, a productive way. We had, I think, too few companies operating in this area, too little competition, and that's changing. And given the barriers to entry over cost, it's quite a marvel that we have as many new entrants in the market as we have.

So that's all positive. It also, I think, frees NASA to do the really big and hard things. And so that may be a very good division of labor. I want to make sure, though, that we're not going to cannibalize the public aspects of NASA because they're not as well represented in the lobbyist corps as private industry. And there's always a danger of that. So we need there to be firm advocates for the public role and the public commission in this. I think a good test of sort of the role of the public sector versus the private sector goes back to something Lincoln said about the role of government as being government ought to do what the private individual cannot do on their own or as well. And I think there's a great deal that the private sector cannot do alone or as well, that it really needs the public investment. And getting to some

of these hard to reach places like Europa, for example, is a good illustration of what the government should be focused on and sample return these high priorities in the decadal survey that are just not economic and wouldn't pencil out as a commercial venture. As we speak, your colleague Jim Bridenstine, I think, seems to be headed toward becoming the next administrator of NASA. You know, whether it's him or some other individual, what advice would you give to the person who becomes the head of that internationally renowned agency? I suppose I would, first of all, congratulate them on having the opportunity to administer one of the crown jewels in terms of all of our public agencies. And if they don't come out of the industry or the agency

to really get to know the workforce and spend time with people on the ground and those that are running the labs and those that are doing the work and understand the tremendous service they're providing the country and how to be a good advocate for them. And of course, to focus on advocate for them, and of course, to focus on the big picture, where we want to be 10 years from now and how we get there. And I guess the other thing I would say is a good jumping off point for the prioritization of NASA's work is looking at those decadal surveys. Look at what the experts have to say about where the priorities should be and let that guide you to developing a workable plan to get us to those places and get us those answers to those really intriguing questions. The big mission on the horizon, at least the big robotic mission that we haven't talked about yet, is, of course, one that your friend and colleague, John Culberson, has fought hard for. And that's the mission known as the Europa Clipper, I think, officially now.

I think he's also pushed for a Europa Lander, which there has been some legislative push for. Is that also one that you're looking forward to? And if so, why? Yes, absolutely. You know, I think what is so intriguing to people all over the earth is to figure out, are we alone? Or is there life elsewhere out there? Europa is one of the best candidates for us to find evidence of life elsewhere. And I think it's intriguing to people. It's a new destination. And we always have to keep in mind the need to continue to intrigue the public about what we might find to satisfy the intellectual curiosity

of the American people. I think Mars sample return is very important scientifically, but I do think people are looking for new horizons and they want to go beyond Mars. And Europa, I think, offers a really attractive new destination. Titan as well. And I think the fact that scientists think that these are some of the best candidates for finding life and for making scientific breakthroughs and the fact that they're the most intriguing to the public are a good guide of where we ought to go. How important is it that we leave human footsteps on Mars, as we have on the Moon, and actually might be returning to leave them again on the Moon? I think it's very important. And, you know, I know that people suggest, why do we continue to push these really hard

human missions when it's more cost-effective, less risky to use robots? Part of this, though, is not just about what's most effective or efficient. Part of this is also about the human spirit of discovery and wanting to go places that we haven't been. So I think part of what helps us drive support for this is the idea that one day people will be walking on that little light in the night sky. So gathering the information necessary to make that happen, I think, is part of the journey to continue to push the frontiers of our knowledge. And I know it's of great interest and excitement to people, and it's a job worth doing. Ever want to get up there yourself? Not necessarily to Mars or the Moon, but let's say low Earth orbit. I mean, you've had a few colleagues achieve that. You know, this is amazing to me,

and maybe it's a sign of how much things have changed in Congress. It's amazing to me that you had people in Congress who were not astronauts, but were the chairs of various committees get to go to space. That's the ultimate congressional trip, I suppose. I don't think those days are ever coming back, and I don't think I'll ever be able to afford one of the private trips. But, you know, walking across the street to the Smithsonian and seeing that tiny capsule that John Glenn was in, if I didn't have claustrophobia before, gave me enough just looking at it, where I'm not sure that I'd want to climb inside something like that. It's wonderful meeting people who do and

being able to talk with them about sitting on top of that candle when it's lit. I remember asking one astronaut about their experiences when the launches are scrubbed and what's that like? And how do you know when it's not going to get scrubbed? And he said, well, when they light the solid fuel, you know you're going somewhere. Boy, that's true. Congressman, thank you very much for joining us on Planetary Radio and for your enthusiastic support of space exploration and the sciences. And I'm sure that's something that's going to remain a high priority for you,

not just because you have JPL in the district, but because of your obvious personal enthusiasm. Absolutely. And thanks so much for all the great work of the Planetary Society and helping to keep public interest and public support for NASA and all of its fantastic missions alive and well. Really appreciate your good work as well. That is much appreciated. We've been talking with Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, who represents California's 28th district. He's in his, I believe, the ninth term there? Yes. Yeah. Long time representing that district, which includes, as you've heard, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the sort of capital city for robotic exploration of our solar system and beyond.

And he's been talking to us from his office in the capital of the United States, Washington, D.C. It's time for What's Up on Planetary Radio. Bruce Betts is the Director of Science and Technology for the Planetary Society, who has been doing this with me now, I think we are at the 15th anniversary. Happy anniversary. Happy anniversary. Technically, we are about 10 to 12 days before the anniversary. You always keep better track than me.

No, I just looked it up recently because I realized we were coming up on it. So congratulations, Matt, on an outstanding show for 15 years. Thank you. We heard from a listener, and I'm sorry I don't have his name, who said that he's seen so many really great podcasts come and go and he's glad that they can count on us.

Let's hope that he can continue to do that for much longer and that the two of us will be doing this segment for much longer. Tell us about that beautiful night sky. All right. In the evening sky, we've got Saturn looking yellowish in the southwest, but it's the pre-dawn where things are still popping.

Venus and Jupiter, if you pick this up right after it comes out, you might still see Venus and Jupiter low in the pre-dawn east. Venus is going to set head towards the sun as seen from Earth, but Jupiter will keep getting higher over the coming weeks. So bright Jupiter will be coming up in the pre-dawn east, and we've got Mars above it looking reddish. Mars over the next few weeks with its reddish color will be headed closer in the sky to the bluish star Spica. So they'll make a fun pair over the next few weeks and Jupiter will keep coming up and getting closer to Mars as time goes on. My compliments to everybody who saw that beautiful conjunction, which took place this

morning as we speak, right? I, of course, was fast asleep in bed. I was hoping to see it through my eyelids and through the house and through my pillow, but it didn't happen. But I hope other people saw it because I'm sure it was lovely. I'm sure they'll let us know, too. On to this week in space history is 1969. A Twallow, a Twallow 12, no, Apollo 12 executed the second landing of humans on the moon. One year later, 1970, this week, Lunokhod 1 became the first wheeled vehicle to operate on another world. CZ for you, Dave.

Yeah. All right. We move on to random space fact or not random space fact. I don't know why it was Scottish. Were you watching Outlander maybe? I mean, that's a regular thing on Sunday nights at my house. Yeah, and they were doing a scene from Hamlet. It was odd.

Oh, wait. I think I dreamed that as well. Never mind. So we're going to talk later about the interesting naming that's gone on with the first known example of an interstellar asteroid, Wom-Wom-Wom. Let me tell you a little bit about it. It appeared to come roughly from the direction of the star Vega a few weeks ago when it was discovered in the constellation Lyra. It had a hyperbolic excess velocity of 26 kilometers per second with respect to the sun. Once it heads away from the

sun, it'll slow down to that 26 kilometers per second. It reached a peak speed of 87.7 kilometers per second as it zipped by at perihelion, closest point to the sun. And the direction it came from is close to the so-called solar apex, which is the direction within, not within the galaxy as a whole, but within our local group of stars, the direction the sun is moving. So it's the mosquito hitting your windshield from our movement through the local group of stars. So that is also very consistent with an interstellar object. So very consistent with an interstellar object. Let's go on to finding out how many of our listeners, and which listener in particular, got the name right for that new object. All right. The question was, what is the designation of the first observed interstellar asteroid detected coming through our solar system in October 2017?

They kind of renamed it halfway through the contest. 2017. They kind of renamed it halfway through the contest. So we'll be happy to take the, and it already had been renamed once. So we'll at least take the second and third names as correct, depending on when you entered. The International Astronomical Union, the IAU, did a pretty much unprecedented approval of a name in terms of how quickly they did it. It usually takes months or years for objects to be named. This took weeks. How did we do, Matt, with all of those caveats? We got a very nice response.

And this bit of condolences or sympathy from Dana Lynn Barnett in Haifa, Israel. Pretty sneaky of the IAU to change the designation during the trivia contest. Why do they have it in for us? I know. What's up with that? Our winner, and he was one of the people, one of the many, who came up with what ended up as the middle name, the second of three names for this object.

It's Dean Brammer, a first-time winner, I think, Hagerstown, Maryland, although we've heard from him before. He says, loves the show, keep up the great work. And he said that at least for a few days, the name of that object was A-2017U1. Was he correct for a while? That was correct for a while. Congratulations, Dean. You are going to be receiving a Planetary Society t-shirt designed and sold by Chop Shop. That's chopshopstore.com, where the Society has a store of its own, and a 200-point itelescope.net astronomy account. More about that in a moment. We had a bunch of other good stuff, of course. Michael Sarche in Seattle, Washington, he had that middle answer as well. He wanted us to give kudos to astronomer Rob Warrick, who was the first to recognize that moving object in the nightly Pan-STARRS sky survey on October 19th.

Mel Powell, a regular listener, wants to know which extrasolar planetary system is throwing rocks at us. This is not okay. People have been trying to figure that out, but it's a little tough to nail it down exactly. Finally, Nathan Hunter from Portland, Oregon, and I love this. He said his first thought when he heard about it was Rama, the Arthur C. Clarke sort of world ship from Rendezvous with Rama. but it's about 100 times too small at somewhere between 160 meters and 16 kilometers. But good guess though, Nathan, maybe next one of these will be right out of Arthur's imagination.

Just want to clarify that they did indeed, the IAU renamed it One Eye, Eye being a new designation indicating an interstellar object as opposed to a use for asteroids that were first found as C comets. And then they gave it the Hawaiian use the Hawaiian language to create the name. Wamua. Wamua. Wamua. I'm sorry. I just really enjoy that.

Sounds like my 18 month old grandchild. Your daughter named your grandchild Wamama? No, no, but he calls her something like that. Oh, that makes so much more sense. Kind of means reaching out for first advance. It's kind of like the first scout coming to scout our solar system. But as far as we know, it's just a rock. It's not Rama. Well, if it changes its course, maybe there'll be a new classification of FS, flying saucer. Oh, no, don't go starting that again.

Speaking of wah-wah-wah, what is the orbital eccentricity of the interstellar asteroid 1I? Wah-wah-wah. Orbital eccentricity defines orbital conic section type orbits. Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. And you have until the 22nd, Wednesday, November 22nd, the day before Thanksgiving here in the USA at 8 a.m. Pacific time to get us your answer to this one and win yourself a Planetary Society t-shirt, that really beautiful Venn diagram design from chopshopstore.com, and a 200-point itelescope.net account. That's worth a couple hundred dollars, American, and can be used on

that international non-profit network of telescopes all over our planet. All right, everybody, go out there, look up at the night sky, and think about what George Harrison song most reminds you of? Well, moi, moi. Thank you, and good night. All things must pass the sun. Well played, sir. Thank you, sir. That's Bruce Betts. He is the Director of Science and Technology for the Planetary Society,

who joins us every week here for What's Up. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and is made possible by its bipartisan 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!