Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - The SpaceUp Unconference and A Free Online Astronomy Class

Episode Date: January 23, 2012

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We've got a free astronomy class and an unconference for you this week on Planetary Radio. Welcome to the travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society, a doubleheader today as we visit with planners of the third annual SpaceUp unconference in San Diego. They'd love for you to attend, but they are also making it easier for you to find a SpaceUp gathering near you or to start your own. Don't know what an unconference is? You will in a few minutes. Then we'll find out how we will soon be able to participate in a 14-week online intro to astronomy course taught by our own Bruce Betts. You know him as my partner in the What's Up segment that closes every episode of Planetary Radio, and you may also know that he is the Planetary

Society's Director of Projects, but Dr. Betts is also very much a Caltech-trained astronomer and planetary scientist, and he'll be sharing his love of the solar system and beyond with anyone who wants to watch. Bill Nye will also drop by to tell us a story about Stephen Hawking. Emily Lakdawalla is ready right now to take us back to the earliest days of a pioneering mission to Jupiter. Emily, I think we should talk this week about a terrific find that takes us back to a mission that really succeeded reading this stuff, it seems, in spite of itself. Yeah, we're talking about the Galileo mission to Jupiter that these newsletters that were unearthed by Patrick Wiggins, who scanned them for me, covered a period from 1981 to 1997. It's kind of hard to believe that 1981 is more than 30 years ago now, which was the time it took to get Galileo from the drawing board to launch, which is just an incredible period of time. 16 years, so many false starts, so many redesigns of the mission.

They actually nearly had to rebuild the spacecraft before they managed to finally launch it. Was this because we lost a space shuttle? Yeah, I mean, part of the problem is because of the loss of the Challenger. And up until then, NASA had been determined to launch most of its missions, most of its interplanetary missions from the space shuttle. But once the Challenger disaster happened, they no longer wanted to put a Centaur and all of its huge amount of propellant inside the payload bay of a shuttle. So they totally scrapped the Centaur, the shuttle Centaur program, which is what was needed to send spacecraft like Galileo and Ulysses on interplanetary trajectories. So those missions had to really be redesigned after that disaster happened. But Challenger was not Galileo's only

problem. Galileo had so many other problems that Challenger was just one of them. And I haven't reached that point, but I'm sure this goes right up through the famous antenna not unfurling. But you're posting these in batches, and I'm sure that's going to come up. Yeah, it'll come up much later because one of the things that happened with the shuttle cancellation is that they had to go on a trajectory that took them past Venus before they went past Jupiter. And it's so much hotter there, it was actually unsafe for that deployable antenna at that distance from the sun. So they had to keep it stowed until way after launch. So they had no idea that that problem was coming until years later. Fascinating insight into

history. And I suppose these only ended because we suddenly had this new means of distribution called the World Wide Web. Just one other thing that I thought we would mention. You crafty person, you, you've got to tell us about these spacecraft that you're creating. Well, I was in the middle of a webcast and needed a model of the Dawn spacecraft, and I could do nothing but make a tiny little paper cube that looked pretty terrible. And I started wondering what I could do to make some better demonstration. And one thing led to another, and I realized that a medium that I hadn't used for about 20 years called plastic canvas. It's kind of like needlepoint in three dimensions. And now I've gone nuts. I've made dawn, I've made new horizons, I've made grail, and I'm almost done with messenger. And it is a January 17 entry in the Planetary Society blog. Take a look. I've

actually gotten a hold of them. I think you should be selling these, of course, but maybe that'll come later when we cut a deal with some manufacturer in China. Emily, thanks so much. Thank you, Matt. Emily Lakdawalla is the Science and Technology Coordinator for the Planetary Society, a contributing editor to Sky and Telescope magazine, and you can now catch her, maybe not this week, but the following week and most weeks, Thursday mornings in Pacific Time, 10 a.m. Pacific Time, on the Space Hangout, hosted by Fraser Cain in Google+.

Time now for a quick conversation with Bill Nye. Bill, I'm really glad that you wanted to comment on this January 20th blog entry by our colleague Charlene Anderson, where she made this terrific accidental discovery online. Oh, yes, the Cosmos Award. So last year, well, it was 2010, the Planetary Society, I was still vice president at that time. Our chairman, Dan Gerassi, Jim Bell, Lou Friedman, we all went to London, went up to Cambridge, and we gave Dr. Hawking this Cosmos Award, which... Dr. Hawking.

Would that be Stephen Hawking? Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's the one. Yes. Brief history of time and so on. And he was delighted. We had a great time.

The guy really enjoys his foie gras. And he does. We literally talked about the cosmos and the possibility of unlocking the next secret of the universe and so on. And it was very gratifying for everybody. I think Dr. Hawking enjoyed it. And of course, the planetary side was honored to be part of his legacy. And sure enough, the London Museum of Science features our trophy there. And it's display of what are called Stephen Hawking's curios, things that he's accumulated over the years.

So it was great. And Charlene really did discover this by accident. She's a regular reader of Alan Boyle's blog. He's the MSNBC science reporter, science correspondent. And she's scrolling through this. And there in this purple display is our little rendering of Saturn. Yeah, it's great. And, you know, the Planetary Society goes way back with Saturn.

You ask young people, kids, you know, what's your favorite planet? Saturn. And so it's iconic. It's a beautiful thing. And so it's part of space exploration, part of this thing that engages everyone in the world. Well, take a look, folks. As I said, January 20th entry in the Planetary Society blog, the same place you normally find all those great entries by Emily.

We will find Bill on this program again next week. Yeah, I'll be at Arecibo, the radio telescope in Puerto Rico. It's going to be a great week. Very exciting. Thanks very much, Bill. Thank you. Bill Nye is the chief executive officer, the head man at the Planetary Society, as well as being the science and planetary guy, and he joins us every week with his commentary.

Are you thrilled by space exploration and development? Do you like the idea of hanging out with a bunch of men and women who feel that same excitement? Or do you feel frustration about the end of the space shuttle program, driven crazy by the lack of enthusiasm for our push into the final frontier? Well, first of all, we're glad to have you in the Planetary Radio audience, but we have another suggestion. Get yourself to a SpaceUp Unconference. The next one is in San Diego, California, over the first weekend in February.

I had a terrific time at last year's gathering. You can listen to the show I got out of it. It was our episode for the week of February 14, 2011. Software engineer, author, and citizen scientist Chris Radcliffe got it all started. He'll be joined by Mary Michael Scherrier, who is working on the creation of a SpaceUp Foundation. Mary Michael is Communications Director for the Space Frontier Foundation, which is always well represented at SpaceUp. She'll tell us how this new foundation is going to make it easier for you to hold your own unconference. Chris, Mary Michael, welcome to

Planetary Radio. Thank you so much. Chris, let's start with you. Since you've got the most immediate event coming up, third time around for this San Diego edition of the SpaceUp Unconference, why do you keep coming back? What's great about this? Well, what's great is that I really love the format personally. I started hosting these just because I want to go to them. It's a great way to get the local folks from the area, in this case Southern California, together. Everybody who has an interest in space, who's building something in space, who's doing anything space-related, and the conversations are just amazing. I was there last year.

Got a great radio show out of it if people want to go back and listen to that in the archives. Really had a terrific time, largely because of exactly what you've said. It is such a terrific group of people. This is really a new space crowd, isn't it? Yes, absolutely. It's a lot of the people who are actively doing new things in space. the people who are actively doing new things in space. And this particular format, the conference format, tends to attract the doers, the people who are making things. It tends, I guess, to be largely people who have some affiliation with the industry, if

I can call it that, with space development. But it's certainly not limited to them, is it? No, not at all. In fact, we tend to have a mix of people who are more on, say, the NASA side, the planetary scientists, that kind of thing, the people who are the rocket nerds working out in Mojave on rocket ships, that kind of thing. We have teachers and also there are students who come. They sometimes provide the greatest questions and topics because they're coming at it usually from a new perspective. And then we have folks like me who are really just, I'm a follower, a fan. I'm a booster of all these activities.

What can people expect to do and hear if they attend? Well, the interesting thing about an unconference is that what you do and what you talk about is all decided by the people who are there. So the big thing is that you invite everybody to be in one place at one time. You make sure that it's an awesome group, like I said, and then you let them determine what's going to go on. There are a few things that happen traditionally at Space Ups. There's often the T-minus-five talks, which go on usually in the evening or maybe to open a Space Up. And those are little five-minute lightning talks that get a concept out there. And it's a little bit like karaoke. It comes on fast, and usually both the people talking and the crowd really get into it.

Not everybody's going to be able to make it to San Diego, of course, and the good news is I guess the space op concept is beginning to spread. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, we've got San Diego and Houston is having its second space up. You can actually register for that right now. That's going to be at the end of February. This spring, we've got San Francisco and Washington, D.C. They're going to have space ups.

In summer, L.A. is going to have their second. That was a big one last year. And then later on this year, we'll have cities like Boston and Minneapolis. And then there's going to be a spaceUp Europe for the first time. Wow. Mary Michael, in the very limited time we have, I want to get you into this because this is apparently what you're all about. I guess you're going to be there in San Diego. But what is this new SpaceUp Foundation that you're helping to get underway? Yeah, it's something Chris asked me to help launch. And the foundation is going to be something that provides resources and tools for new space ups to be born in different cities and help the current ones put on their events a little bit easier. get funding, and all of that is, it's a little tough, especially if you're not used to running an event. So the SpaceUp Foundation is going to provide nonprofit bank accounts for SpaceUps and

a little bit of seed money to get started, and pretty much any other help they need, but without impinging at all on the uniqueness of each individual SpaceUp. If you are ready to go and you don't need us at all, then we'll just sit back and watch the show. How can people in the middle of nowhere find out more about getting their own SpaceUp unconference underway? Well, it's really easy. You can go to spaceup.org to get information, or you can send an email straight up to me at info at spaceup.org. at info at spaceup.org. And pretty much what I do is you ask your questions about how to launch a SpaceUp, and I send you a big, long email about how to get started. Chris, we're just about out of time. Again, is it the same website for people to find out more about the SpaceUp

conferences that are already planned, like the one in San Diego? Yeah, absolutely. If you go to spaceup.org and you click on Space Up Near You, we have a list of all the ones that are coming up or being planned. And at the bottom, there's how to make sure that one comes near you. Excellent. We will put that link up right where you can hear this show at planetary.org slash radio, along with some other relevant links. Bet you can also just Google Space Up Unconference and you'll go straight to it. Chris, Mary-Michael, thank you so much. And I look forward to seeing you at least one of those two days at the next San Diego SpaceUp Unconference. Awesome. Great. Thanks so much. Chris Radcliffe

is a software engineer for Measured Voices. Mary-Michael Scherrier is the communications director for the Space Frontier Foundation, an organization that has been heard from on this radio show a few times in the past. They will both be at the San Diego Space Up on Conference, the third one, coming up on February 4th and 5th. Check it out. You can join the fun. And we're going to check in, have some fun with our friend Bruce Betts. A special visit this time, not just for What's Up, but so that he can tell us how you can get in on his basic astronomy class, which is going to be online soon.

I'm Sally Ride. After becoming the first American woman in space, I dedicated myself to supporting space exploration and the education and inspiration of our youth. That's why I formed Sally Ride Science, and that's why I support the Planetary Society. The Society works with space agencies around the world and gets people directly involved with real space missions. It takes a lot to create exciting projects like the first solar sail, informative publications like an award-winning magazine, and many other outreach efforts like this radio show. Help make space exploration and inspiration happen. Here's how you can join us. You can learn more about the Planetary Society at our website,

planetary.org slash radio, or by calling 1-800-9-WORLDS. Planetary Radio listeners who aren't yet members can join and receive a Planetary Radio t-shirt. Members receive the internationally acclaimed Planetary Report magazine. That's planetary.org slash radio. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. Time for more of Planetary Radio.

I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society. And here, wait a minute, what are you doing here now? You're Bruce Fetz. I'm sorry, you're the one who claimed you wanted to talk to me. It's true, I'm just pulling a little showbiz gag. He's Bruce Betts, the director of projects for the Planetary Society, who will be talking to us about What's Up and our really, really neato contest. But that's going to come in just a couple of minutes because we have one other thing to talk about. And that's the fact that you're going to be back in the virtual classroom.

I am. I'm going back into the virtual classroom after several years absence, teaching Introduction to Astronomy and the Solar System at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Thank you for getting it right for my former employer's sake up the road there, Long Beach. And we wouldn't be talking about this. I mean, we'd mention it because it's pretty cool. But what's really cool is that our listeners and others, anybody, can participate. You can indeed. It is going to be going out live over the Internet. And also the classes will be archived on the Internet so you can participate live. But, yeah, it'll be open to anyone out there, not for credit to anyone,

but in terms of if you want to tune in. And if you tune in to the live showings, which will be on Wednesdays from 3 o'clock to 4.30 Pacific time, between February 8th, that's the first class, and May 9th, that's the last class. You can even call in with questions. They've got an 800 number, or you can connect via the internet, via their website. You can submit electronic questions. It will pop up on my screen in front of me, and I can get confused by them and misread them. I have to practice my heckler voice. Okay, now I'll do that when we're offline, because I'm definitely going to tune in. Now, regular folks like me, we can't take it for

credit, but you're doing this for some young people, right? I am. People at the university can take it, but also this is part of a special program there called Young Scholars. And it offers college courses to, you have to be in California, unfortunately. But California high school juniors and seniors are eligible to take this class remotely and do it for credit. And they actually show it in Southern California. They show it on many of the cable companies carry the class as well as it going out over the Internet. I remember watching a little bit of this the last time you did it. It's a lot of fun. It's really great.

I mean, how would you describe the course? It's a general survey? It's a general survey course. So it's really because of my background, not surprisingly, I will focus on the solar system. So most of the lectures will cover our solar system. We'll take a tour. system. So most of the lectures will cover our solar system. We'll take a tour. We'll visit each of the planetary systems, out into the Kuiper Belt and the trans-Neptunian objects. But we'll also start the course after doing a tour. We'll talk a little bit about telescopes, how they work,

talk as I do here about easy things to look for in the night sky. And we'll also go a little bit into broader things, stars and how they work and galaxies and Big Bang and all that good stuff. So it's an introduction to astronomy with a heavy emphasis introduction to planetary science and the solar system. So it's appropriate for certainly high school, but certainly undergraduate college people who just have general interest. certainly undergraduate, college people who just have general interest. Do you want me to come in and do a lecture about string theory, the multiverse? That would be great. Dark energy. Thank you.

Thank you. Talk about all the things we truly don't understand because I get perplexed by those. I'll bring Stephen Hawking. No, you can come on and talk in the show. It would be fun to do that sometime, wouldn't it? Yeah. Maybe we can record a planetary radio show. It'd be fun to do that sometime, wouldn't it? Yeah. Well, maybe we can record a planetary radio episode. That would be fun.

Do it right there. Throw the trivia question out or a trivia question. I've got an hour and a half to fill in these lectures. I probably will steal some of, not probably, I will steal some of your planetary radio guests and use them for portions of the lectures. I'm going to try to call in experts over the Skype line, as you like to say. Excellent, yes. So it'll be broad. We'll also have course materials available online, and it'll be good.

And by the way, if you are just watching for fun, you don't actually have to take the tests or do the homework. Although I found, interestingly, when I did this before, people actually wanted them online. So we posted those on the Planetary Society website. That's just sick. So we'll try to do that this time as well. We'll have it on the Planetary Society site. And they'll be mentioned on the site. Should I mention some websites where people can find us?

Very quickly, yeah. And then also we'll put real links in the Planetary Radio page. But we've got the basic sites for the course are DHTV. That's domingushillstv.csudh.edu. And it'll be on there under distance learning. Or you can search for Young Scholars Program or go to youngscholars.tv, and I know they're still filling out the sites. You may not have all the information.

But February 8th, 3 p.m., first class, 3 p.m. Pacific. Very cool. I will be there. Thank you. Now, just as a preview of the wonders to come in your course, tell us about the night sky. In the night sky, there is blackness and light. I thought I'd do it in kind of an epic Greek poetic form the entire course. And that was yay, not Y-A-Y, but Y-E-A.

Oh, very nice. Okay. Very nice. No, but seriously, folks, in the night sky, gotta mention them every week because they're so cool looking, Venus and Jupiter, in the evening sky over in the west in the early evening, super bright.

And if you can check them out this week, the moon will make for a lovely view next to them. It'll be near Venus on the 26th. It'll be near Jupiter on the 30th, making for that cool little conjunction kind of view. We also have Mars coming up around 11pm looking reddish, coming up in the east getting brighter as we approach its

opposition in early March, and Saturn coming up later in the night and up high in the south in the pre-dawn. We move on to this week in space history. It was a week truly of triumph and tragedy, for example. In triumph, we had the Opportunity landing so very many years ago in 2004. And in tragedy, we had the Apollo 1 fire, killing three astronauts on the launch pad during a test.

Yeah. Vroom, vroom, space rat. Which is exactly how you'll deliver all your lectures. Yes, I will. Yeah, I don't know. At lectures, I may have to appear more like a respectful, respected human being. Nah. Nah, seems unlikely.

Hey, the mass energy of the universe. So, you know, what's in the universe? 72% dark energy. 23% dark matter, and about 5% normal matter, which of course means that only now do you fully realize the power of the dark side of the universe. I should have realized that was coming. I was waiting for the fiber percentage, but oddly, no trans fats.

All right, we got this big contest. All right, big contest. So the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Wheel Treads have written in them, in Mars code, the letters JPL for Jet Propulsion Laboratory. We asked you if you were to put a message on MSL Curiosity wheel treads, what would be imprinted in the sands of Mars with three letters, what would you put there and what would it stand for? And we did great. Yeah, a lot of nice responses. Thank you to everyone.

As always, we won't be able to talk about all of these, just not enough time. But there were some terrific runners up, I guess you would say. Yes, indeed. But we have prizes for our top three, decided with complete impartiality and objectivity by Bruce and me. Actually, I liked Ed Lupin's a lot because he couldn't think of anything funny, so he did IGN. I got nothing. Humans were here from Adrian Zyga. Leave No Trace. That came from Ron Bask, LNT. I kind of like that.

You liked this one a lot, Cindy Thompson. I did, Cindy Thompson with LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, which also is part of one of the themes presented by LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, LOL, of Brighton, Ontario, Canada, a Planetary Radio t-shirt, largely because he came up with multiple entries and because he sucked up. Exactly. First one, RSF, Random Space Facts. PSR, Planetary Society Rocks. Now, of course, the boss would have us do that. But I'm going with BMW.

Bruce and Matt Weekly. I think that's... All of those deserve to be imprinted all over Mars. So, Randy, big T-shirt. Not necessarily a big one. Maybe a medium. You tell us. One of those is going out to Randy Bottom.

Then from Bjorn Getta, Susan Noe in Carrollton, Texas. Another regular listener, HIC. Hell, it's cold. They do that. They have to send it along with your voice during that interpretation. I would be so pleased. That would just be a big kick for me. They don't even have to pay me.

Here is our winner. Our winner for this big contest, Bjorn Getta. And he came up with this, which is a sentimental favorite for me. R.W.H. I'm giving everyone out there a chance to guess. Time's up. Ray was here, as in Ray Bradbury. Now, the honorable mention here, oh,

I should say that Bjorn, that means that Bjorn is going to get the Livio kit. These great folks at Livio, who now and then give us a nice prize to give away, the Livio kit is their Bluetooth internet radio car kit for the iPhone. It may work with other devices as well now that I think of it, but this is this really cool thing I showed you a couple of weeks ago. It's on the stock. It's got nice buttons on it, and it goes right into your cigarette lighter, and it, by Bluetooth, connects with your iPhone and then transmits into your FM radio in the car. And then you can download the Livio

application, which I think has like 45,000 internet radio streams. But it's more than that. Yes, it's a hands-free Bluetooth phone. So it's a really cool, cool accessory for your car. And Bjorn, congratulations. We're going to have the Livio folks send that out to you. I do have an honorable mention from my late father, which you liked a lot. I did. It's actually my personal favorite. Well, thank you. Here it is, KWH.

Kilowatt hours. No. Wait, no, no. Kilroy was here. Kilroy was here, in reference to things that were the oddball phrase that was left all over the world by at least American GIs during World War II. Absolutely. So that's it.

What have you got for us for next time? I always enjoy this. It takes a sick acronym brain to come up with this. Two of the categories of objects for what makes up dark matter are machos and wimps. What do macho and wimp stand for in this context? Go to planetary.org slash radio, find out how to enter. And you have until the 30th of January at 2 p.m. Pacific time to get us that answer. Anyway, let us know what they actually stand for,

and everyone go out there, look up at the night sky, and think about sticky notes, where you'd put them. Thank you, and good night. I'd put one right on Curiosity where the camera can see it and it would say Kilroy was here. He's Bruce Betts, the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society. He joins us every week here for What's Up and soon in his class online from Cal State Dominguez Hills. The European Space Agency's Planck spacecraft reaches a milestone. That's next week on Planetary Radio, which is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and made possible by the Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation,

and by the members of the Planetary Society. Clear skies. Thank you.