Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Welcoming a New Leader, and China on the Final Frontier

Episode Date: December 9, 2020

Carl Sagan was first in the job. Now it has been handed to Caltech planetary scientist Bethany Ehlmann. We’ll talk with the Planetary Society’s new president about her Moon mission and more. Society CEO Bill Nye and president emeritus Jim Bell also join in. Then we welcome back China space program expert Andrew Jones for an update on the nation’s lunar sample return effort and a survey of many other missions and developments. The new Planetary Society baseball cap will go with a great new book about the Apollo program to the winner of a new space trivia contest. Discover more at https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/1209-2020-ehlmann-transition-nye-bell-andrew-jonesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcoming a new leader and an update on China's exploration of the final frontier, this week on Planetary Radio. Welcome indeed. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society, with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. We've got a double feature for you, beginning with congratulations for planetary scientist Bethany Ellman of Caltech. She has had quite a week. First, NASA gave Bethany and her team the go-ahead for the Lunar Trailblazer mission,

followed by her peers on the Planetary Society Board of Directors electing her as the organization's sixth president. President Emeritus Jim Bell and Society CEO Bill Nye will join us. Then we'll enjoy the return of Andrew Jones. The timing couldn't be better, as China celebrates the success, at least so far, of its Chang'e 5 lunar sample return mission. That's where our conversation with Andrew will start, but you may be surprised to hear how very busy China is staying out there beyond low Earth orbit. Want to win one of those new Planetary Society baseball caps? How about we throw in a great new book about the Apollo program? First, you'll have to pass through Bruce Bett's new What's Up Space Trivia contest. Congrats are also in order for the

Japanese space agency JAXA and its Hayabusa2 team. After a more than six-year trek, the spacecraft successfully returned material from asteroid Ryugu on Saturday, December 5. You can discover more about the mission at planetary.org. The latest edition of our weekly newsletter also covers another SpaceX Dragon capsule's journey to the International Space Station. It's the first flight of a new version of the cargo ship based on the Crew Dragon spacecraft. Don't forget you can have the downlink delivered free to your inbox each week. The PlanRad ratings and reviews continue to roll in and I continue to be very grateful.

Help us out by leaving your thoughts and stars on Apple Podcasts. Here's some space trivia. Do you know who served as the Planetary Society's first president? It was our co-founder, Carl Sagan, followed by his friend and fellow co-founder, Bruce Murray. Then came former NASA Associate Administrator Wes Huntress. Next was none other than Neil deGrasse Tyson. And for the last 12 years, we've been ably led and served by Arizona State University professor, planetary scientist,

and best-selling author Jim Bell. Jim and CEO Bill Nye joined me a couple of days ago to welcome and praise Caltech's Bethany Ellman. Our online conversation also gave us the opportunity to ask Bethany about her upcoming robotic mission that will tell us much more about the water on that forbidding globe called the moon. Bethany, Jim, Bill, welcome all of you to Planetary Radio. Not the first time any of you have been heard on the show, but I don't think we've ever had something like this to talk about before. Bill, there was a

board meeting of the Planetary Society last Friday. Tell us what happened. Is there significant action at the top of that meeting? Oh my goodness. We elected a new president. And I know many of our listeners are just so excited. A new president. Yeah, a new president. So it's required by the bylaws. My beloved colleague, Jim Bell, has been president for 12 years. And now he has handed the reins to Bethany Ellman, planetary scientist, Caltech professor, and now principal investigator on a mission. And I am just delighted because Bethany is going to step into this role and make it her own. As you may know, I served as vice president for a number of years. It's just fun. It's just a cool thing, a wonderful thing to be an officer of the board

of directors. Over to you. Bethany, congratulations on becoming only the sixth president of the Board of Directors. Over to you. Bethany, congratulations on becoming only the sixth president of the Society in our 41 years. Thank you. It's a great legacy, the set of presidents of the Society. So it's an honor to be in this slot. And I've got some huge shoes to fill. But fortunately, space continues to be exciting here at the beginning of the 21st century. So I'm confident that we've got some great work ahead as a society. Well, you are in your other life helping to keep it exciting. And we'll talk about that mission in a few minutes that Bill brought up. But Jim Bell, I want to go to you and what this means to you handing this off to Bethany. Hey, Matt. Thanks for having us all on the show. And wow, yeah, it was a very

exciting day on Friday. And as Bill mentioned, I've been president of the board since 2008. And what an amazing ride. And we've grown so much and so many things have happened and we've had new people on the board and new initiatives and amazing projects. And it's been spectacular. But everybody knows that the key to success and sustainability and growth of organizations or countries is changes in leadership. And it was time. It was really time to hand the reins over, as Bill said, to give some responsibility to a new generation and a new amazing, amazing colleague, the award-winning Bethany Ellman. And everybody just noticed, Jim, when you were delivering your remarks in the board meeting,

and everybody, it's the Coronaverse we're living in. And we were conducting this meeting electronically, virtually. Jim got choked up. He got verklempt. I got a little verklempt. It was quite moving. I did. And it's been just an amazing, amazing time working with the society as part of the leadership team. And I'm staying on the board.

You don't get to leave. The board would still have me. And I love being on the board. I love helping with the strategic direction of the society. And it's just going to be even more fun to be doing that under Bethany's leadership. Which is a delight because Jim has such a wealth of experience. I mean, those of you on the line who have been long-term society members know that, you know, these last 12 years have been very exciting in terms of the breadth and the scope and the number of members and launching LightSail 2 and getting through all the ups and downs of that to this great mission in space that we crowdfunded. I mean, it's been a tremendous experience to have joined the board and watched Jim's leadership.

And so I'm very glad he's staying on because we'll need his advice going forward. Thank you, my colleague. Bethany, I think, I'm not sure if it was the last time we saw each other in person, but it was one of the last times, at least, was at Arizona State University in a conference room with Jim leading a discussion about Mastcam-Z, those wonderful stereo cameras, which will be the main eyes of the Perseverance rover. And you were there. And it just makes me think of how the two of you know each other professionally far beyond your relationship within the Planetary Society. Yeah, that's right. I met Jim when I was still an undergraduate student. And we got connected because we were both working on the Spirit and Opportunity missions. Of course, our roles were

rather different with Jim leading the pan cams, the camera systems of the two rovers. And then I was really fortunate. I was an undergrad tagging along with the deputy principal investigator, Ray Arvidsson from Washington University. I got to work out there at JPL at the end of my senior year, work on the rovers, which was the opportunity of a lifetime and really is quite a bit of the reason I'm here. And it was really exciting to work on that team with all these senior scientists and really see how planetary exploration gets done. And Matt, she really is an amazing planetary scientist. Bethany is involved in so many projects across the solar system, not just Mars, the moon and asteroids, et cetera. As part of the legacy of the leadership of the

society is to have a really strong involvement and representation from the professional planetary science community. And Bethany, ever since we met, her trajectory has been going up, up, up. And so it's great to be working together with her on MASSCAM-Z. She's part of the camera team for MASSCAM-Z, and it'll be great working together under her leadership on the board. Bethany, not to speak for you, but you could easily say takes one to know one. Bill, these are two very accomplished planetary scientists. Matt, this is what I tell everybody about the Planetary Society. We are the real deal. With respect to my colleagues out in the world who just want to go to Mars on a rocket. These are people that

actually study actual planets for reals. Ever since the beginning, since Carl Bruce Murray, who was the head of JPL during the heyday of the Voyager and Viking missions, ever since the beginning of the society, we have had professional planetary scientists comprising the board. And it's fantastic. I'm honored to know you. So everybody, if you're a member, just understand that the place is in excellent hands. And when they're talking about the, when Jim and Bethany are talking about the last few years, you know, the society was financially not doing as well as you would hope. That is to say, it looked like we were going to go out of business several years ago, but we made a bunch of changes. We hired the right people. We got Bethany on the

board with Jim. And now the future is really bright. And as Bethany pointed out, the future of planetary exploration, the next couple of decades is really exciting. So everybody, if you're a member, thank you for your support. And our new president, Dr. Bethany Ellman, is going to be fantastic. And don't worry, Jim Bell remains on the board. Thanks. I think the Eagles put it best. You can check out anytime you like.

board. I think the Eagles put it best. You can check out anytime you like. Bethany, before we go, I promised the audience that we would get to hear a little bit about this other good news you got last week. Tell us about Lunar Trailblazer. That's right. Last week was a big week. One of the other aspects of my job that's just a ton of fun is the hat I get to play as a planetary scientist who actually leads a planetary science mission. And I'm the principal investigator of the Lunar Trailblazer mission, which is a small satellite ride along mission that will study the moon's water cycle and figure out where there is water, ice that robotic missions can explore, that astronauts can use, and why the heck there is water on the sunlit side of the moon, which was one of the big surprises of the 2000s when that was measured. So the big news last week was that after a year of hard work on preliminary design, some trials and tribulations that our team worked and worked their way through some technical challenges. And we made it through and we were confirmed at NASA headquarters by the

Associate Administrator Thomas Zurbuchen. And so that news came out as well. So with that, it's onward to the moon. And we're in fact today placing some of the orders to purchase some of our components to get building on our instruments and that satellite for which will be delivered at the end of 2022. Beth, I just I thought you said the water cycle on the moon. Yeah, that's right. If I may. What? What? The moon is wet. Haven't you heard, Bill? I have heard. In fact, it was a guy, a grad student under you, Dr. Bell, that was really into lunar ice. Matt. Matt Siegler? Yes, Matt Siegler. Yes, undergraduate. Undergraduate. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was. Yeah. He then went and worked with Dave

Page at UCLA. And now he's like Professor Matt, right? Now he's Professor Matt. Yeah, these kids grow up, Bill. They just grow up. It's crazy. It's crazy. Bethany, it was only a couple of weeks ago that we had Casey Honnable on the show talking about this data that has come from SOFIA, that big infrared telescope in the side of a 747 that also told us more about water on the moon. Is your mission,

is it complementary to that? Very much, Matt. So we know the moon is wet. And by wet, I don't mean liquid water sloshing around on the moon. What I mean is that we know that there's ice in at least some of the regions at the poles. And then the funny thing is we also know that the H2O or OH molecule is on certain parts of the sunlit side of the moon. Now, the question is for that that OH H2O molecule, like what the heck is it really? Is it, you know, should we envision it water molecules hopping around maybe as a function of temperature? Maybe some of them eventually are escaping off to space. Some of them hop their way down to the cold traps. Is it the implanted solar wind hydrogen, H, bonding with the O's in mineral? Or is it something else? Is it H2O, the molecule, trapped? Maybe it came out of the lunar interior in volcanic degassing long ago, and so it's water actually from the interior of the moon.

We don't really know. Now what Casey and the SOFIA team did is they stared with the SOFIA observatory, which mostly gets out of Earth's atmosphere and the water in Earth's atmosphere. They stared at a little portion of the moon. And for that portion, their data are most consistent with it being the H2O molecule trapped in a crystalline rock. So what Lunar Trailblazer will do is make maps over a much larger area of the moon, see if that signature varies as a function of the type of rock, the time of day, and will really add many more pieces to the puzzle that Casey and team did a great job of unraveling with the SOFIA data. My goodness. So there's at least three ways that you could have is hydroxyl, right? OH. Yeah, OH. That's amazing. Yeah. So you guys, I am so old. How old are you? How old are you? How old are you? When I worked on 747s, I worked on that airplane.

United Airlines ordered a 747 that was short, the SP, special performance, and that was ideally suited to this mission of mounting a telescope on the side of a 747 with this giant wind deflector. And it works. Anyway, you guys, this is so cool. This is so cool. By the science guy, you are helping make the planes that made the SOFIA observatory happen. I like it.

Pretty much. This is so cool. Bethany, not welcome aboard, but welcome to your position as president. Thank you so much for accepting the job. And Jim, thank you to your position as president. Thank you so much for accepting the job. And Jim, thank you for your years of service. And I'm delighted that you're standing on the board with us. Jim, before you go, update on Perseverance, still trucking along toward the red planet, right? You mean that rover that's landing in 72 days, 22 hours, 15 minutes and 13 seconds on February, 2021, 72 days from now.

Yes, everything's going well. All the instruments have been checked out and cruised successfully. Including the microphone. Including the microphone, including the Mastcam Z's cameras. And now, you know, we're going through a whole bunch of practice tests, practice operations tests and simulation of problems, and watching the team recover from potential problems, etc., etc. So we have a lot to do to get ready, but also everyone's just super excited. The rover's in great health, spacecraft's in great shape, and it's really just going to be up to the entry, descent, and landing engineers now to get us safely down to the surface.

It's really just going to be up to the entry, descent, and landing engineers now to get us safely down to the surface. Speaking of which, when do you guys and gals start living on Mars time? We start on landing. We're living on a combination of Mars time and COVID time. Most of the team will not be at JPL like we normally are. There'll be a small team of engineers, JPL engineers, working at JPL, socially distancing as appropriate. But most of the science team, the instrument teams, will be at our home institutions or our homes trying to start the mission virtually. And so we've been practicing that in some of our operations tests as well. It's going to be a very bizarre and new experience

with lots of challenges. But we're working on the tools and capabilities and sociological interactions that will allow us to do that. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to be working on Jim's mass cams, the camera team from the guest bedroom in my home. I mean, how crazy is that? Operating things on Mars from your guest bedroom. Yeah. Sign of the times. It really is. It's amazing. And we all rely on this technology that enables us to communicate like this.

And it really derived from the space program. You could make that argument. Anyway, you guys, thank you, Bethany. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Dr. Elman, Dr. Bell, for your presidential leadership. And thank you, Matt, for having Thank you, Dr. Elman, Dr. Bell, for your presidential leadership. And thank you, Matt, for having us on the show. It's a delight to have the three of you back.

And I'm sure this won't be the last time for any of you. Bill Nye, Jim Bell, and the new president of the Planetary Society, Bethany Elman. Thanks for your service, folks, and for your leadership. Thanks, Matt. Thanks, Bill. Thanks, Bethany. Thanks, Matt. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Caltech planetary scientist Bethany Ellman is the new president of the Planetary Society,

taking over that position from Jim Bell of Arizona State University. And Bill Nye is chief executive officer of the society. Andrew Jones is standing by with his great report on China's busy space program. He'll join me after this break. Hi, this is Jennifer Vaughn, the Planetary Society's Chief Operating Officer. 2020 has been a year like no other. It challenged us, changed us, and helped us grow. Now we look forward to a 2021 with many reasons for hope. Help us create a great start for this promising new year at planetary.org slash planetary fund. When you invest in the planetary fund, your year-end gift will be matched up to $100,000 thanks to a generous member.

Your support will enable us to explore worlds, defend Earth, and find life elsewhere across the cosmos. us to explore worlds, defend Earth, and find life elsewhere across the cosmos. Please learn more and then donate today at planetary.org slash planetary fund. Thank you. Andrew, great pleasure to welcome you back. And we have so much to talk about, specifically about the Chinese space program and their many accomplishments in just the last few months. You are in Finland, of course. That's where you and your family live. And so, of course, you have a sauna. And, of course, it is the quietest spot in the house.

And that's where you are talking to us from. I hope the heat is not turned on. No, the heat is not turned on. I'm dressed appropriately. I don't have a beer. And I'm not hitting myself with birch branches. So, no worries. But it does give me a birch branches. So no worries. But it does give me a bit of peace.

So that's good. Well, let's use that temporary island of peace, because I know you have small children there as well, to talk about all this. Beginning, of course, with what is getting the most attention right now. And that has to be this mission, which is just about ready to return to Earth. What's up with Chang'e 5? And I'll note that, you know, we're talking a couple of days before this show is published. So it's up to date as we know it to be right now. That's right. So this mission is really fast in terms of lunar missions.

So we had the launch on November 23 on a Long March 5 from Wenchang, which is China's new coastal spaceport. So that was quite spectacular in itself. The failure of that rocket back in July 2017 meant that we're only now getting around to China 5. So yeah, three-year delay, but it's been very much worth the wait. I'll say. From there, I mean, we've seen a lot of very stunning footage. So the early part of the mission is about four and a half days to the moon. So we didn't see anything for these trajectory correction maneuvers

or the insertion into lunar orbit. But from there, we've seen kind of almost sci-fi kind of images, which have been fantastic. So we had the separation of the lander from the Chang'e 5 orbiter. Then we had this descent onto the moon, which is really just worth watching quite a few times, actually, because you get to see so many different things going on. You see the spacecraft kind of decelerating a bit

as it moves across the Oceanus Procellarum, the target area. You see the spacecraft turn vertical. So you have the landing camera now facing straight down onto the moon. And you see two different phases where the lander adjusts itself to some degree. And as it's going down, you see all these craters which become bigger and then so big you can't see them anymore. New craters arising. It's almost like a fractal scene going on there.

Then you see a final kind of hovering phase where the spacecraft chooses where it's going to land in this hazard avoidance mode, and then finally it sets down. And because the moon just all looks the same, you're not actually sure when it's going to land down until you see these kind of blast marks coming out. And, you know, finally the soft landing. So, I mean, that was quite something. Absolutely spectacular. You are so right. see these kind of blast marks coming out and um you know finally the soft landing so i mean that

was that was quite something absolutely spectacular you you're so right so we were kind of hoping to see this live and there was a stream up from china but that went dead about 10 or 20 minutes before we were expecting the start of the descent so disappointment there but then this footage well first the confirmation of success came and then we got to see footage of the landing. And from there, it's been a bit more open. We had a live streaming of the sampling operations. basically have one lunar day to get everything done, even less than that, given the sunlight conditions and so on. So they, within a couple of hours, started sampling. We got to see the drill going down into the regolith to collect these pristine samples from below the surface. And then also got to see this robotic arm, which they have with a double-ended scoop, which would be taking material from the surface.

So we got to see those things in action. And it was taking about 50 minutes, I think, to kind of scoop and deliver some material into this canister. And we got to see all of this live with some commentary and some good explanations of what was going on, which was being kind of translated live by someone from China Central Television. That was great. The ascent vehicle taking off from on top of the lander is really something to see,

as is this ascent vehicle then meeting up with the orbiter. That footage is, again, quite fantastic. And that was the first robotic lunar orbit rendezvous and docking. So that was quite a step. And that was something, both the liftoff from the moon and this docking was something that China hasn't done before. The robotic lunar orbit rendezvous had never been done before by any country.

So these were big steps for China in terms of engineering and so on. But also these have implications for further exploration, both robotically, because they're looking at going to a near-Earth asteroid in the next few years, also potentially a Mars sample. This kind of mission profile that Chang'e 5 has is similar in a sense to the Apollo missions. So this is also part of taking the first steps towards eventually putting Chinese astronauts on the moon. So this was all really, really big, not just for getting the samples home, but also looking to the future. From here, the samples have been transferred

from the ascent vehicle into the re-entry capsule, which was attached to the orbiter. The ascent vehicle's been kind of detached or jettisoned from the orbiter. So that's all still now in lunar orbit the ascent vehicle still has propellant so they're looking at an extended mission for this and the orbiter is waiting for the optimum window for it to make its trans-earth injection and come back because they're looking to make a precise landing in inner Mongolia which is where the the astronauts in the Shenzhou missions also land. So they have to time that just right to come back at the right time and skip off the atmosphere once

and then come down and finally land in Inner Mongolia. So we're waiting for the timing of that. So it's looking like that's going to be late Saturday US time. But I mean, there's always surprises. So, you know, it might happen earlier, but that's certainly what it's looking like. And that would be the 23-day mission, which they've stated at the outset. What a tremendous success, at least so far, for China. And I love the comparison to Apollo, because basically, I mean, this is the Apollo mission profile. If you substitute robots and a sample of lunar regolith for Armstrong and Aldrin, you're looking at exactly how that took place. And it seems that you are implying, and I've read elsewhere, that China sees this just as the United States did over 50 years ago as the way to get people to and from the moon. Absolutely. China actually, they put out an early mission architecture for getting astronauts to the moon, and they listed some of the spacecraft and the capabilities which they

need and which they have already. In May, they launched the Long March 5B, which is designed to launch the modules for their space station, which they'll start doing next year in 2021. But the payload, the test payload they had for this, which in terms of mass was comparable to one of these space station modules, was a prototype for a new spacecraft for deep space exploration. Upgraded shielding for radiation also shielding for a high speed re-entry coming back from the moon and this test went went really well so adding life support systems and so on they might be able to fly this in the next few years so this test was kind of similar to the orion eft1 flight which was back in 2014 and i guess the question might be now which one of those ships flies first it might be orion or it might be this new chinese craft but yeah this this is

another indication if you like that china is quite serious about sending astronauts to the moon and there was also they're working on a new rocket which would be specifically for launching this spacecraft kind of based on the long march 5 but looking more like a version of the falcon heavy so this is something that they're studying seriously now so there's all these different aspects they're putting together all the all the different pieces this isn't something which they've officially approved, a crude project to put astronauts on the moon, but that could come either next year when they release the next new five-year plan or then in the five years after. But we're going to see some updates on this,

and this is definitely something that we should be taking seriously. The other thing I should say from Channel 5, actually, and I think this is already in the Bruce Murray Library, the panorama. They've released a couple of panoramas, and these are huge images. I mean, and the zoom you can get. You can zoom in on the leg of one of the Channel 5 lander legs,

and you can see how it's kind of impacted in granular detail with the regolith zoom all around. It's really worth taking a look at. I did not know that. I mean, I've seen a fair number of the videos of the mission, but here in our own library at planetary.org, the Bruce Murray Space Image Library, we'll put up links to a lot of what you're talking about on this week's show page, planetary.org slash radio.

Even as Chang'e 5 heads toward that return to Earth and Mongolia, as you said, there is other activity on the moon underway right now by China. What's happening with the other Chang'e spacecraft? Yeah, it's quite something to note that China has for the moment, I think it was eight spacecraft which are operational on or around the moon. Almost forget that. China's first landing was in 2013 with Chang'e 3. So that lander is basically retired, but that still wakes up. Its radioisotope units are still working.

So it has one payload left, which is an ultraviolet telescope. I think that's been somewhat diminished by cosmic ray strikes and so on but still that's a in terms of you know longevity tests that's still impressive seven years on on the far side of the moon we saw the first ever soft landing on the far side january 2019 the spacecraft are both still doing well all eight of the main science payloads are still working. And I think this year we've had quite a lot of science coming out of Chanro 4. The ground penetrating radar, which they have with two different frequencies,

they've taken a look down through the first tens of meters and found quite differentiated layering, which suggests that there's been quite a lot of thermal activity at different times and also with a different frequency going down to hundreds of meters scientists are getting a good look at the the local history there there was a german payload on there which has been recording the radiation dosage and that's of great interest to you know future human landings and the projects which various countries have planned

for the next few years. Lots of analyses of rock composition and so on and what that tells about the local area in Von Karman Crater. So there's lots going on with that. I think actually Lunar Day 25 should start pretty much as this show goes out on the Wednesday. So, yeah, that's still going strong as well. The Relay Satellite, which they launched to facilitate this mission on the lunar far side because the far side never faces the Earth. Chuechiao, that's still running well.

They have the Chang'e 5 test service module, kind of like the orbiter for for channel 5 that carried a re-entry module which tested this kind of skip re-entry which channel 5 is going to use but the the orbiter module still in operation around the moon it's quite a flotilla yeah so those missions might be extended and they might do something interesting with those just like they did with this channel 5 test mission which as emily Luck-Diwala pointed out, when they sent the service module to Earth-Moon Lagrange Point 2 back in 2014, she realized that that might be because they're planning a landing on the Lunar Far Side. So that was the first clue of what they had coming down the pipeline, and it turned out to be true. So it's going to be

worth watching. Great call by our former colleague. Let's turn to another mission. I don't know that there's that much to say about it right now, but I did read that Tianwen-1 is well along on its trip to Mars with its compatriots also making this trip during this cycle, the Perseverance rover, of course, and Hope mission from the United Arab Emirates. Is there anything to add about how Tianwen-1 is doing with that, another very ambitious mission with an orbiter and a lander rover? The last update that I can remember was, I think it was mid-November. It was just a quick update saying that Tianwen-1 had traveled about 300 million kilometers and was about just over 60 million kilometers away from the Earth. So everything's

going well with that. They tested a few payloads at that time. Everything seems to be going well. Subsystems are all fine. On October the 1st, which was China's National Day, they pulled this little experiment where they detached a small sensor from the spacecraft, which had a camera on each side. So you get to see basically what they wanted to do was have this jettison away and take pictures of the spacecraft and show the Chinese national flag. So this was a bit of techno-nationalism, which is very much an international language. You get to see an image of the spacecraft in deep space, which is quite cool. And also you get to see the sensor kind of tumbling away into deep space. That's, again, something worth taking a look at. Yeah, there must have been people at NASA kicking themselves for not thinking of that. Of course,

they did turn on the microphone on Perseverance and pick up a little bit of hum from the spacecraft itself. I guess in space, no one can hear you being envious. Let's turn to looking farther out in our solar system and even beyond. What is this other mission proposal for the outer solar system from China? China has an exploration roadmap for space. One thing which they've had on the horizon in terms of their plans for a while is a mission to Jupiter. So this is still at the early stages because this won't be launching until around 2030. However, looking at the proposals, and we've seen a couple of proposals come out in some degree of detail, this could be a very, very interesting mission. So how are we doing, you know, in terms of humanity for landing on planetary bodies that aren't the moon?

Well, okay, if you count Mars, and you have to go back awfully far for Venus, and then, of course, Huygens' success at Titan, and asteroids and so on. But there's an awful lot more out there that scientists would love to be studying up close and personal. Indeed. So two proposals I've seen for this mission. First, the Jupiter Callisto Orbiter and the Jupiter System Observer. These are based on Chang'e heritage technology. China's kind of still at the stage where they are building the science for their missions based on what engineering they have. So they're not designing something like the mission to Titan with dragonflies, sorry, but still looking to push out a bit further. These proposals are joint collaboration between Chinese and European scientists. So the idea would be that this

mission complements Juno and Europe's JUICE mission, which is coming up much sooner than I thought, actually. One of these proposals would be focusing more on the different Jovian satellites and the different size and mass and competition and so on, and try to gain insights into how the Jupiter system evolved altogether. Also, Jupiter Trojans might come into this at some point so the the mission might have some kind of further flight beyond jupiter but again this is this is quite hazy the idea would be to put down a lander on callisto which would be somewhere around about 2036 so this is going to be a long way out callisto is outside of the main

radiation belts of of jupiter so that that makes things a bit a lot easier in terms of having a spacecraft which can survive in the jupiter system the idea would be to check for the subsurface ocean which is thought to be there um the differentiation, see the layering or lack thereof for Callisto, which is a very interesting moon in this regard, and the exosphere and lots of other aspects like the oxygen, which is purported to be in this exosphere. This is very early stage, and I'll be writing up the details that we know. I would say that looking at the people who are involved in this, this is a very, very impressive proposal with some very prestigious people involved. So there's a good chance we might see something like these missions.

It's just more and more evidence of how ambitious they are and how quickly things are moving, even looking at a landing in 2036. things are moving even looking at a landing in 2036 yeah and i should say like china's kind of the no a newcomer to space exploration but if you look at the name for the mission which they're proposing it would be gander who is a chinese astronomer born in the fourth century bce and they claim that he actually made the first observations of the Galilean, what would become called the Galilean moons. So the idea would be that you can actually see the Galilean moons with your own naked eye if you occlude Jupiter. So that's a bit controversial. The claim itself is a bit controversial. But there's some documentation and evidence that you know maybe this did or did not

happen going a long way back china made big contributions to astronomy a long time ago they're trying to kind of reflect that in the name of the mission so that's something that we we might see absolutely fascinating keep an eye on planetary.org for this new piece by andrew and i will watch for that as well i i can't wait to see what you'll have dug up. Last time you visited with us, we talked about an interstellar mission, so-called, by China that is at least being considered. What's the latest on that? Remind us. The idea for that was to launch two small probes towards separate ends of the solar system. So one heading towards the head of the heliosphere would be the one towards the tail. cosmic rays and dust and the heliopause and take a range of measurements which would be following on from from what the voyagers have done they're all going to have flybys and there would probably be images and so on taken one of them was going to think have an impact on a flyby of neptune which would have been of great interest and be something really, really spectacular perhaps. However,

I'm not sure if that's happening that this proposal, which hasn't been accepted as far as I know, but it's a very strong candidate. If you look at the people who are involved with the mission and the, the fact that they're talking about it so much, it looks like some form of this mission is going to go ahead, but they're looking at the trajectories for the the two probes what they are looking at is visiting some kuiper belt objects

on their way out one would head towards um quahua i learned from actually you know researching this was quahua has a moon called way what so. So that would be one. And the other target would have been something which slips my mind. So... Don't worry. Quarar is plenty ambitious enough. That's a real wow. They're certainly looking at maximizing what they can get out of this in science terms. I also, Andrew, read just this morning about a mission I had not previously heard of. Of course, you had, not surprisingly. GCAM, Gravitational Wave Electromagnetic Counterpart All Sky Monitored,

which may take the 2020 award for most tortured space acronym. What's going on here? What do they have in mind? This actually might launch in the next few days. I should say they, because what this is is two small satellites. I think they're around about 140 kilograms each. The idea is to launch so that one will be on one side of the Earth and the other will be orbiting on the other side. So the idea would be that you get a complete field of view coverage of the sky.

And what they're going to do is be picking up gamma ray and X-ray bursts. The point of this mission is to cover the sky and then using actually China's navigation constellation Beidou, detect, say, a gamma ray burst and then be able to feed messages down to the ground. detect say a gamma ray burst and then be able to feed messages down to the ground and by picking up two readings from the same gamma ray burst give a good localization of where it came from and then other telescopes on the ground would be able then to point at that sky that area of sky and find out if these events are related to gravitational wave events. So basically they're looking at colliding neutron stars and black holes and really massive explosive events going on in the universe and try to help the, this kind of multi messenger astronomy, which we have going now. My understanding is that they will give kind of a new sensitivity doesn't exist

at the moment to, to the, moment to the search for the gravitational, sorry, the electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational waves. So this is something they put together really fast. So we had the, was it 2017, with the first gravitational wave detection. So this mission has been put together really fast. This was an institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Institute of High-Engine Physics. They've been doing lots of missions and experiments related to X-ray and gamma ray detectors. So they were well-placed to kind of put a mission together fast and get these satellites up there.

So that's something we might see in the next few days. But being China, we're not quite sure when it's happening or if we'll get more notice at all. So something to watch. There'll be a lot of news about it when it goes up, if it goes up successfully. So interesting. And really pure space science here. I mean, maybe bring some additional prestige to China, but it does seem like this is really part of wanting to know how the universe works, which is, after all, why so much of this stuff happens, the building of LIGO and other space science efforts.

Absolutely. China's only just in the last few years started its pure space science missions. But I think we had four in the last few years, was looking at dark matter, quantum communication satellite, which was also testing entanglement and all kinds of Einsteinian theories and so on. From there, they've actually approved a new round of missions. And this was one of the smaller missions,

which was kind of fast-tracked. But yeah, over the next few years, we're going to see a lot of very interesting space science missions. So that's another area in which China is now emerging. We only have a few moments left, but I wonder if you could say something, because you follow this as well, about what is happening in the space industry in China, commercial developments there, or at least semi-commercial developments, might be a better way to put it.

A lot happening, including, you had mentioned to me as we were preparing for this, some mysterious space plane. And I wonder, is this more like a dream chaser or an X-37? Well, I was hoping you could tell me because we really don't know much about it. Yeah, we had a few clues. I think three, four years ago, CASC, which is the main space contractor for China, they mentioned they were going to try to launch something around 2020, which would be reusable and have the features of both a spacecraft and an aircraft. mission patch come out on social media chinese social media this year which referenced the long march 2f which is used to launch astronauts however there was no shenzhou missions coming up because the space station modules aren't weren't ready to go up so i thought okay what could this be then there were modifications which we could see going on um using satellite images the modifications going on to the joequan Satellite Launch Center,

which is in the Gobi Desert. Putting all of this together, like, okay, they're going to try something soon. There was a release of airspace closure notices. This was the kind of the launch pad at Jiuquan, which is for this Long March 2F. So, you know, we kind of knew what was was going on but there's been complete secrecy around this we know this basically went up for a few days it released a satellite which is probably just a test of having a space plane which can release payloads and so on and then it came back down and we haven't heard anything about it since so no images but this is um something they're

talking about lowering the cost of access to space for astronauts and for payloads. So this is, again, another area in which China is making big strides forward and definitely needs to be watched. I'm going to call it as an X-37-like for the moment with all this secrecy. And on the more commercial side, do you see evidence that China intends to compete with the SpaceX's of the world? Well, no, that's a big question. In 2014, China made a kind of a change in its policy, allowing private capital into the space sector and allowed companies and individuals to kind of break off and start making their own companies that is i think quite clearly a reaction to what's going on in the u.s in launch with regards to spacex and then say looking at

planet labs and so on and remote sensing and communications next year we will see some interesting tests from two two launch companies one landpace and the other would be iSpace. And they're both developing liquid methane, liquid oxygen launch vehicles, which will be reusable. So vertical takeoff, vertical landing using variable thrust engines so they can land just like a Falcon 9. This is a very interesting development, and they've done it relatively quickly. I think Landspace will be going expendable first, but iSpace, they will be doing some hop tests,

first a few meters, then a kilometer, then 100 kilometers. So again, another area in which there's so much going on, lots of innovation, lots of things which could have a big impact on the space industry. Andrew, I am so grateful that we have you to look to for all of this because there is so much going on in China, the Middle Kingdom. I look forward to checking in with you again. I suspect we will once again have much more to talk about. But thank you for all of this. Thanks for having me. once again, have much more to talk about.

But thank you for all of this. Thanks for having me. It's quite startling to actually look back over what's happened over the last year and try to take it all in, in all these different spheres of activity and look at the advances made. So yeah, it's really helpful. It's great to talk about this.

It sure is. Andrew Jones is a contributing editor to the Planetary Society. He also writes for space.com and Space News, a couple of other great sources. And as we mentioned, he's a Finland-based freelance journalist who covers the China Space Program. You can read his tweets at at AJ underscore FI. Season's greetings. Bill Nye here. The holidays are racing toward us. We've got the perfect present for the space enthusiast in your life. A gift membership to the Planetary Society

will make her or him part of everything we do, like flying our own light sail spacecraft, two of them, advocating for space exploration, keeping our planet from getting hit by an asteroid, and this show. Sure, you'd like to give them a ticket to the moon or Mars, but I promise you this is the next best thing. Memberships start at $50 a year or just $4 a month. We've got discounts for students, educators, and seniors. Visit us at planetary.org slash gift to learn about the benefits of membership and how easy it is to give someone special the passion, beauty, and joy of space.

That's planetary.org. Thank you and happy holidays. Time for What's Up on Planetary Radio. Here is the chief scientist of the Planetary Society. It's Bruce Betts, who is ready to tell us about lots of stuff up in the night sky. And I will tell you, because I don't think I have yet, we have not one but two great prizes for your new contest this week. That's great.

Can't wait to tell people about them. Well, you're going to have to because I have a lot of things to say. Go for it. There's just all that good stuff. I mentioned last week, but here it comes. You've got the Geminid Meteor Shower, best meteor shower of the year, typically with over 100 meteors per hour from a dark site. But it's an almost new moon.

So that's peaking on December 13th and 14th that night. Will be good for a couple days before or after and is a really great opportunity to check out some meteors. But wait, don't order yet. Total solar eclipse visible from Chile and Argentina, portions of them, on December 14th. Partial eclipse visible for much of South America, but not Southern California, just to be clear, Matt. Jupiter and Saturn coming together, the closest they'll be in the sky in the last 400 years-ish on December 21st. That's low in the west on the 21st of December, but you can watch them getting closer together

now and farther apart after the 21st, Jupiter being the really bright one and Saturn being kind of yellowish and still looking like a bright star. And you still got Mars in the evening sky looking reddish over in the south and Venus in the pre-dawn east. It's a party out there. Two items. I, as it happens, will be in the Southern California mountains on the night of the 13th. What part of the sky, I know you can really look anywhere, right? But what part of the sky is going to be the best direction to look in? Well, the great news is you can really look anywhere, right? But what part of the sky is going to be the best direction to look in? Well, the great news is you can look just about anywhere. Technically, once Gemini, which is the radiant of the meteor shower, comes up in the middle of the evening, you can look 45 degrees away from it and maximize your opportunity. But fundamentally,

look for the darkest part of sky you can find. And that's probably your best bet. Although you'll be in the mountains. So, you know, look between the trees. Yeah, that'll be the trick. So here's another trick. I've noticed Jupiter and Saturn getting lower and lower in the west at dusk. And you're telling me, I want your reassurance that in, what'd you say, the 21st, 12 days from now, they're still going to be high enough to enjoy. Yes, but you've nailed the challenge. They will be low in the west, but they'll still be up and visible. But you want to look as soon as it's getting dark and pick them out when they're as high up as possible.

A challenge. Okay. Thank you. I accept. Then we can go on to this week in space history. 1962, the first ever planet flyby was made by Mariner 2 at Venus. Ten years later, 1972, Apollo 17 was on the moon and then became the spacecraft carrying the last humans to walk on the moon, off the moon, this week, 1972.

We move on to random space fact. So the names of lunar maria, the dark areas, mostly refer to sea and weather-related features, and some of them refer to states of mind, like mare serenitatis or mare tranquilitatis, tranquility. to see the far side of the moon, they found a mare, and the Soviets wanted to name it mare Moscoviense, and I'm sure that's poor Latin pronunciation, but basically Moscow mare, and there was a pushback that it wasn't following the conventions, but then it was accepted by the IAU with the justification that Moscow is a state of mind. So this suggests that Neil Armstrong should have said, tranquility base here, the eagle is mellow. That was actually his first draft. And NASA said, no.

No. No. We move on to the trivia contest. We'll come back tomorrow. Don't worry, Mario. And Latin. And Latin. But first, let's do some other Latin.

I asked you how many of the IAU-defined 88 constellations have domestic dog, so dog in Latin, in their name. How do we do, Matt? A very big response this time. Bigger than we've had for quite a while. Perhaps because people wanted this book by Alice George, The Last American Hero, The Remarkable Life of John Glenn. It was remarkable. I have the answer in front of me, but maybe I'll read Dave Fairchild's response first, our poet laureate in Kansas. read Dave Fairchild's response first, our poet laureate in Kansas. Like keys on a piano are the constellations where we have a set of 88, a stellar bill of fare. Now, three of them are doggos. We

have hunting, big and little. Pronouncing them in Latin, on that part, I'm noncommittal. Do you want to take this on? Do you want to give them a shot in the original Latin? Oh, sure. I can probably do a great job because my high school taught Latin. Oh, great. I did not take it, but they taught it. I was Latin adjacent. So we have Canis Major, Canis Minor, and Canis Benatici, the greater dog or big dog, the lesser dog, and the hunting dogs

that hang out in the sky with Biotis constellation is doing some hunting. Those are, in fact, exactly the responses that we got from our winner this week, first-time winner, Dimitri Bonin in Virginia. He's going to get that copy of The Last American Hero, The Remarkable Life of John Glenn. Congratulations, Dimitri. We're happy to have you on board and you give hope to other people out there who have been waiting patiently for a big win. Andrew Miller in Ohio. Ironically, as I was researching constellation names so that I could make my entry into this contest, my own dog was barking at me like crazy. I wonder if he knew what I was looking at. Dog guy that you are, I knew you'd like this stuff. I do. Well, that's why, you know, that's why I asked the dog question. Burton Caldwell in New York. My two dogs enjoy a good barking session while I am outside sky watching. I watch, they bark. They're probably barking

at the other dogs in the sky. Okay, attention Harry Potter fans. John Guyton in Australia. Three, one for each had a fluffy. Hagrid would be proud. And finally, because we got this from a couple of people, well, Torsten Zimmer in Germany and Mark Little, Northern Ireland among them. This is how Torsten responded. Gee, there's even a constellation named after a poop deck. Then he added, but not a single one is named after the most beautiful animal on earth, the one who purrs.

Humanity really sucks. What he's talking about there is pupus, pupus, or pupus, I suppose. And that inspired this poem from Gene Lewin in Washington. A Scottish deerhound by the name of Claire won best in show this year. Of all the breeds, both large and small, she was found to have no pairs. The Constellation Kettle Club, also known as the IAU, recognizes three dogs of 88. Dog lovers think far too few. A major one, a lesser breed, a hunting group makes three. We could have had another one if we simply mispronounce puppies.

Here, puppies. That's it. We can move right on and we'll announce those two new prizes. We're returning to the Maria on the moon. What are the only two Maria on the moon named after people? Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. You've got until Wednesday. That's Wednesday,

December 16th at 8 AM Pacific time to get us the answer. And if you are among those who has the correct answer, you will have a shot at random.org selecting you to receive. Well, this is not new because we made the announcement last week about the new Planetary Society baseball cap. So we're going to give away another one of those. You can see it at chopshopstore.com or planetary.org slash store, because that's where our store lives. Also, I know a lot of you, maybe most or all of you, heard the Space Policy Edition a few days ago, the December Space Policy Edition. And Casey talked to Teasel Muir Harmony, the curator, one of the curators at the National Air and Space Museum.

She's written this terrific book, Operation Moonglow, A Political History of Project Apollo. And in particular, they talked about the international ramifications for the United States of the Apollo program, which were largely very positive. Anyway, it's Operation Moonglow, Political History of Project Apollo from Basic Books. And the publisher will be happy to send you a copy along with your cap if you win. All right, everybody, go out there, look up in the night sky and think about your favorite body of water. Thank you and good night. There's a lake in the high country above Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite, which is just heaven.

And if I could remember the name, I would tell it to you. I remember his name. He's Bruce Betts, the chief scientist of 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 proud members. Join us for the start of the Elman era at planetary.org slash membership.

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