the last 50 years we have made these
extraordinary discoveries that change
the world
I’ll guarantee you we will never make
that next discover if we don’t keep
exploring space exploration raises what
we believe we can accomplish it brings
out the best in us and it is an
extraordinary value
I was celebrating 50 years of solar
system exploration when I when I was a
kid the Mariner 2 spacecraft flew by
Venus and the big discovery was for me
that astonish means Venus turns the
wrong way and then you ask yourself well
what does that mean the wrong way who
gets to say what’s right and that right
there I remember that moment where you
you get to question things it’s okay to
to change what you expected with with
the facts and this is what I find so
compelling space exploration brings out
the best in us it brings out the best in
people and as Carl Sagan used to say
when you’re loved you want to tell the
world and we have here tonight the
people that created that legacy and I
believe we have here in the room the
people that will carry it on well you
know 50 years ago little Mar Mar Mariner
2 started on a it’s historic journey to
Venus in August of 1962 and it was a 100
day mission to get the Venus and it made
it just barely it had three weeks to
spare and established really the
beginning of a new age of exploration
which is what we’re going to be talking
about tonight in which you all read
about in your textbook every year when
you when you study the planets it’s
interesting that just three years after
that historic flyby a graduate student
Caltech Dean Gary flandro was studying
the orbits of planets at JPL and
discovered that every hundred and
seventy-six years all four the giant
planets Jupiter Saturn Uranus and
Neptune are lined up so a single
spacecraft can fly by so you’re saying
that once every 176 years
so who was it be Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson right
he had the planets lined up and he
missed he didn’t do anything about head
and dog
but it was a big challenge you can see
was remember a hundred days to Venus to
get to Neptune was 12 years and Neptune
has 30 times as far from the Sun as the
earth so the sunlight is much much
dimmer out there so those are some of
the challenges but JPL designed a
spacecraft called Voyager was launched
we started on in 1972 40 years ago
was two of them were launched in 1977
but Mariner 2 on its way to Venus it
also found for the first time measured
directly the fact that from the Sun
there’s a million mile per hour wind
blowing radii outward creating a huge
bubble around the Sun called the
heliosphere and today the two voyagers
are on the journey to interstellar space
to leave the bubble today Voyager 1 is
11 billion miles from Earth 122
astronomical units from the Sun it is
very near the edge of interstellar space
and will soon become our first
interstellar probe observing and being
immersed in material that has come from
other stars than our own Sun so that’s
just part of the legacy from the many
missions which in fact have changed our
view of the solar system and in fact
which will continue to be changed by the
missions currently underway and those
which you all be hopefully working on
and enjoying some decades in the future
space exploration is humbling we think
we have this we think we’re the big deal
being on earth
but we’re pretty small compared to these
other worlds yet we can understand it
and I find that so compelling I find
that just brings out the best in us so
to understand these other worlds along
this line Margie you are physicists you
got interested in a magnetic field
that’s right well I would say that my
first thoughts of space came a month and
a day after my daughter was born when I
stood in the garden and watch Sputnik go
overhead and at that time I certainly
wouldn’t have said that 50 years later
well little more than 50 years later
they’d be an armada of spacecraft that
had visited
all the planets of the solar system on
the way to the edge of interstellar
space but that did get me excited I then
worked with a student who had been given
a very interesting problem the moon Io
the volcanic moon seemed to control the
intensity of radio emissions from
Jupiter as it went around its orbit at
certain points of its orbit the radio
missions became more intense and nobody
could figure out why although they
figured there must be some electrical
currents connecting IO with the upper
atmosphere of Jupiter so I was really
estranged an important object but it’s
only one of the moons of Jupiter I got
really interested in Jupiter and its
moons and had the audacity to try to
become the to provide an instrument a
magnetometer to measure the magnetic
field of Jupiter and maybe see what was
going on around the moon’s so I proposed
for what was called Jupiter orbiter
probe later became Galileo and I got the
chance to do it and there is the Galileo
spacecraft in the high bay at Jet
Propulsion lab and what you ought to
look at first is the antenna because
that’s an important part of the story
you can see it’s very very large
comparing it with the size of the people
who are standing around there’s a boom
sticking out in there to magnetometers
on it and the reason we put the
magnetometer on a boom is that we wanted
to measure the field of space not the
field of the spacecraft and we had to
get far away so we wouldn’t do that then
we had a lot of trouble between the
times that we started building this
mission and the final successful launch
but we were finally launched in 1989 you
can see I was very happy about it
and so were a lot of other people it
took us six years to get to Jupiter
because of a sort of an underpowered
space interplanetary engine but after
we’d been out for a couple of years we
time came to deploy the big antenna the
antenna had been launched folded up like
an umbrella they tried to open the
umbrella the umbrella stuck and that was
a very serious moment but there was a
small antenna that we’d been using for a
couple of years and so instead of having
the spacecraft’s and long email messages
it sent us tweets and you know when you
have a tweet it means that you get the
most important information in the fewest
words and that’s what Galileo did for
the six years that it was in orbit
around Jupiter that is extraordinary
yeah and as we say nicely done so Kevin
along with being deputy scientist for
solar system exploration in 2011 you
were you were an emerging Explorer at
the National Geographic Society and you
explore these distant watery worlds now
before I talk about the search for life
elsewhere and and these potentially
habitable worlds in the outer solar
system I want to connect us back to our
understanding of life here on earth the
past 50 years have really seen a
revolution in our understanding of of
what makes life tick and end and how
life on Earth works and and where on
earth life can survive keep in mind that
it was just 1953 about 60 years ago when
the structure of DNA was revealed it was
1977 when the first
method for sink secret sequencing DNA
was published and for any of you that
are involved with national Geographics
Genographic project and Spencer wells
and and the fantastic team that’s
working on that everything that the
Genographic project is based on starts
with that DNA sequencing method that’s
1977
now also in that year explorers of our
ocean depths including national
Geographics Bob Ballard discovered these
hydrothermal vents at the bottom of our
ocean these are hot springs basically on
the seafloor cut off from the sunlight
down there for kilometres at depth no
sunlight incredible pressure quite cold
and yet what they found was that life
doesn’t just exist at these hydrothermal
vents life thrives you can see in some
of this video that there are microbes
around the chimneys you see the whites
and the yellows and stuff those are all
microbes there’s a little crab
hello crab so unlike life at the surface
of the earth where the base of the food
chain is photosynthesis at the ocean’s
depths and in many of the extreme
environments here on earth where where
life thrives it’s the base of the food
chain is is utilizing chemosynthesis
utilizing the chemistry in this case of
the hydrothermal vent fluids and so the
microbes are using that and then the
crabs and the fish and the shrimp in of
the clams and everything else are
building off of that that food chain now
so the exploration of our own planet has
really expanded our understanding of
what it takes for a world to be
habitable and in the early days of solar
system exploration we had this kind of
Goldilocks scenario where in order for a
world like the earth to be habitable you
had to be at just the right distance
from your parent star
such that liquid water would be stable
on the surface and in contact with a
nice atmosphere and you could have
continents and clouds and all sorts of
wonderful stuff if you were too close to
your parent star like Venus then you’re
too hot if you were too far away like
Mars then you were too cold this was
sort of the Goldilocks scenario when our
exploration of the solar system has
really changed that this is outdated
this is sort of an old Goldilocks we now
have a new Goldilocks scenario it’s a
scenario of habitability that’s mediated
not my distance from your parent star
but instead by tidal energy dissipation
the tug and pull of a world like Europa
or Isle with its parent planet we’ve got
Europa and Ganymede and these worlds may
occupy this kind of new Goldilocks zone
and Europa in particular may have this
global subsurface liquid water ocean of
some 100 kilometers in depth this is a
liquid water ocean and when I say that I
mean h2o good old-fashioned liquid water
so Burma everybody looked at Jupiter
with the telescope and you’ve seen the
Galilean moons you’re looking at these
moons yeah and you’re telling me that
when I’m looking at that little pinprick
of light I’m looking at a hundred I’m
looking at seventy miles of water yes
you do the math it turns out that Europa
harbours two to three times the volume
of all the liquid water found here on
earth that is a tremendous volume of
liquid water and for a planetary
scientist and astrobiologists like
myself liquid water that is the the
flag-waving four come here look for life
we’ve got liquid water so Europa has
this liquid water ocean and we think
it’s got a rocky seafloor that might be
home to hydrothermal vents to some of
the the kind of similar geological
activity that we see at the depths of
our ocean here on earth and Europa
Ganymede Callisto these are just a few
of
what I would call the ocean worlds of
the outer solar system incredibly
compelling places to go and search for
life beyond Earth where did we come from
and are we alone and if you want to
answer those two questions you have to
explore space and that’s what dr. Han
was talking about especially but right
now while we’re sitting here we are
exploring the next logical place to look
for signs of life
a an answer to the question are we alone
and someone who’s working on that
diligently right now is dr. Elman
Bethany you are working on the Curiosity
rover you are a participating scientist
and you’re gonna take us to Mars I’m
gonna take you to Mars that I’m gonna
take you to Mars by way of this
particular iconic photo which a lot of
you in the room probably recognize I
think I think it did a number of things
I think it showed how we are all
together here on one planet we better
figure out how to get along on it how to
take care of it it’s hanging here in the
void of space and we can look at it from
the closest nearby planetary body the
moon but you see the craters and the
lifeless surface it can’t sustain life
the earth though there hangs delicately
in the horizon and that’s the question
that drove me to space exploration
how do planets sustain life through time
why are some planets able to host life
others don’t I think one of the messages
from this this glorious 50 years of
solar system exploration has been the
diversity of worlds that are out there
to be explored we have we have we have
worlds with it with a deep ocean and we
have worlds where I’ll take you now to
Mars where that are very much on the
edge so we know from our explorations
here of life on Earth that everywhere
there’s water there’s life you know deep
underground 2 kilometers underground and
are in the deepest mines
deep in hydrothermal vents at the ocean
floor inside volcanoes inside nuclear
reactor’s wherever there is water there
is life so Mars is the closest to being
like earth in our solar system today
it’s cold it’s dry if there is liquid
water on the surface it’s very ephemeral
but that raises the question was there
life is there life and so that’s what’s
driven the exploration of this our
neighbor and fourth planet out from the
Sun so in addition to Rovers studies on
Earth one of the other tremendous
aspects of looking at at Mars is the
flotilla of orbiters that we have around
Mars and the resolution has been getting
better and better and better so as we’ve
gotten a capability to peer at Mars at
higher and higher resolution what’s
become apparent is that Mars hosted
hydrothermal systems in the past it
hosted lakes it hosted environments
where soils were forming some of them
were acidic some of them were alkaline
the further we look back in Mars history
the more it looks like Earth and the
first billion years of Mars’s history
the period from three and a half billion
years ago backward Mars looked quite a
bit like Earth at that time so that
raises the question was there life could
there have been life how do we find it
so we’re taking steps in that direction
now both from orbit and from from the
rover’s I have the privilege of working
on the team that day-to-day working
together scientists and engineers sets
the activities of the rover we get the
data down from Mars we have the period
of the Mars overnight to work to put
together the plan the entire 24 hours 40
minutes of activity on Mars so that by
the time the rover wakes up at 9:45 a.m.
the next morning it sleeps late but then
it looks to earth to get its command
load we send it down and then it
executes sit on its own it’s its
autonomous in that sense and we move
further and further being able to do
higher fidelity laboratory experiments
for the the robots that we send out word
in the solar system to be sophisticated
explorers in our own right and you know
these explorers this is
a self-portrait of the rover taken with
a microscopic imager turned backwards
before the dust cover was off to get
this artistic effect but as this rover
peers out into the surface it is a proxy
for us standing on the surface of Mars
and peering outward onto the surface how
many people would go to Mars there you
go look at that yeah now why do you want
to go this is what I we ask ourselves
and I believe it’s because there’s
something in us that makes us explore
and if we don’t go exploring if we don’t
look up and out what does that say about
us we’re just gonna stay home we don’t
care those people our ancestors who felt
that way are not here anymore
my concern is we’re at another
crossroads where everybody here is ready
to go to Mars but the funding for it is
not being maintained unless unless we
vote for it so everybody keep it in mind
keep it in mind when you interact with
your representatives and stuff that
planetary exploration is a tremendous
value to all of us so I very much right
now like to open it up to questions from
the audience
stand up Harry let him turn around let
me say a fabulous choice and ties um do
you think that my son Mars we can
prevent the you said Mars was earth-like
do you think that we could prevent Earth
from becoming Mars like by studying Mars
or do you think that Earth and a few
billion years will be Mars like yeah
it’s a really good question and and
that’s one of the reasons actually that
that I study Planetary Science I
actually got into planetary science
through environmental science and I
think the question is what is it that
sustains a habitable environment through
time so we talk about sustainability and
the environmental movement but we can
really think about sustainability and
sustaining the ability to have life for
for billions of years and so I think by
studying
hours and other terrestrial planets is
we take steps toward figuring out how
planets work we have we have one data
point here on earth to test our physics
and our chemistry based models for how
planets work and so when we look at Mars
when we look at Venus we have another
data point for trying out our models
testing how they work so our concern my
concern I don’t about ours
it’s not becoming like Mars in a couple
billion years which is it would be an
issue perhaps but we don’t want to
become like Venus in the next 20 or 50
or 100 years and it was through discover
through studying venus in the
atmospheric venus which started 50 years
ago that people discovered the role of
carbon dioxide in greenhouse gases and
climate change and so we wouldn’t have
this insight we wouldn’t know this so
much about our place in space our place
in the cosmos without studying these
things you know Carl Sagan often
speculated he wondered how many stars
have planets he wondered if it was a
rare thing and I remember him in class
speculating that was one in 10 one in 10
stars have planets well now it’s more
like a hundred percent of stars have
planets and that’s another discovery
made in our lifetime
and I am so excited for you because the
discoveries that will be made will
change the world yeah so over here
there’s been some discussion in the past
about a lot of the elements that we have
here on earth are results of distant
stellar explosions and all of these
matters somehow got to earth I think
it’s mind-numbing to figure out that
warehouse process happened and then how
did it aggregate here on earth and then
how would that work maybe as a building
block if you are not troubled by that
you are somebody else no this is what is
so compelling this is what Carl Sagan
used to talk about all the time is we
are made of star stuff then we are by
reasoning
we are one way at least that the
universe knows itself and right here I
think we cue the spooky music no it is
stunning and so as the more we learn
about astronomy the more we learn about
our place in the cosmos our place in
space the more humbling it is I think
but also the more empowering it is that
you can come to understand all that is
really this it’s really it brings out
the best in us it’s what makes our
species worthy of being in the cosmos
and I think it’s wonderful next
questions over here yeah in the back row
my question is uh I would picked up my
wife from work the other day and I was
driving her home our home us home and I
was explaining to her that was coming
here and explained to her about the
spacecraft that is going to Pluto we’ll
be there in 2015 I believe you said and
she asked me why are we going to Pluto
as if why bother and so I pulled over
the car Nasser two gallon I was gonna
say are you yes and we’re still married
okay
yes we’re still marry we worked it out
it’s okay and so my question is if you
have 30 seconds like an elevator pitch
for space exploration the importance of
it what it could lead to just you’d like
you said right a crossroads we need to
vote for the budget for space
exploration
what is your 30 second elevator pitch to
a politician and everyday Joe Schmo like
myself on the street of why space
exploration is important to everybody as
us as a species it’s part of our human
DNA to explore as we were talking about
earlier and you know in terms of the
federal government budget it is right
and proper that we spend a substantial
portion of our budget on defense on
infrastructure on health and on all
those things that are important to
people’s day-to-day life but I think to
sort of maintain ourselves our humanity
our society and to push that to push the
boundaries to push it
I mean Kennedy said we do these things
not because they are easy but because
they are hard and by doing hard things
by taking not all of the budget but a
small portion and investing it in doing
something hard we learn you know we
develop new technologies we educate the
neck and inspire the next generation and
we learn something about ourselves so I
think it’s important to keep that
percentage because that’s what keeps us
as a society pushing forward on the
political side NASA is the top of the
innovation food chain I run a lab at the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
I have sub contracts with companies in
Pennsylvania New Hampshire Connecticut
California etc throughout the country
and the return on investment has been
shown to be greater than $2 for every $1
invested in terms of sort of the what
the u.s. gets for its for its taxpayer
investment so feeding that innovation
food chain I think is very important one
specific example I went to grad school
at Stanford a few years before me there
was this guy who was on he was funded
through NASA fellowship doing something
with computer knowledge etc and and
autonomy and whatever and he then
dropped out of grad school to start a
company called Google so Sarah Gavron
was on a nash was on a nasa fellowship
during his time at stanford how do you
how do you quantify that now what’s the
value to the taxpayer of a company like
Google that’s the political the
passionate I would simply say or ask to
your wife do you believe in the pursuit
of new knowledge because that is at the
heart of what NASA is about the pursuit
of new knowledge the the spin-offs all
that stuff that is that’s fantastic
obviously that is useful but at the
heart NASA is not just the the agency
for the pursuit of new knowledge for the
US
nasa provides a cortex for our planet
for just a small amount of money we have
put spacecraft around our planet to let
us learn about that the habitability the
development the changes that are
occurring here on earth and to inform us
about other planets in our solar system
and how our world came to be I value
that sort of planetary cortex that that
nASA has allowed us to put in place and
so for the cup of coffee
the cup of coffee per year per taxpayer
I’ll buy two cups the other thing when
you travel to other parts of the world
NASA is the best branding that the
United States can have I mean people
respect what you do in a way that they
they don’t respect a lot of other things
that the United States does and this is
such a value like well word it’s such a
remarkable value so next time you talk
to your wife just remind her that she’s
getting a lot for her money
and and if we don’t keep looking up and
out we’re we’re not going to move
forward thank you all very much thanks
you
extraordinary discoveries that change
the world
I’ll guarantee you we will never make
that next discover if we don’t keep
exploring space exploration raises what
we believe we can accomplish it brings
out the best in us and it is an
extraordinary value
I was celebrating 50 years of solar
system exploration when I when I was a
kid the Mariner 2 spacecraft flew by
Venus and the big discovery was for me
that astonish means Venus turns the
wrong way and then you ask yourself well
what does that mean the wrong way who
gets to say what’s right and that right
there I remember that moment where you
you get to question things it’s okay to
to change what you expected with with
the facts and this is what I find so
compelling space exploration brings out
the best in us it brings out the best in
people and as Carl Sagan used to say
when you’re loved you want to tell the
world and we have here tonight the
people that created that legacy and I
believe we have here in the room the
people that will carry it on well you
know 50 years ago little Mar Mar Mariner
2 started on a it’s historic journey to
Venus in August of 1962 and it was a 100
day mission to get the Venus and it made
it just barely it had three weeks to
spare and established really the
beginning of a new age of exploration
which is what we’re going to be talking
about tonight in which you all read
about in your textbook every year when
you when you study the planets it’s
interesting that just three years after
that historic flyby a graduate student
Caltech Dean Gary flandro was studying
the orbits of planets at JPL and
discovered that every hundred and
seventy-six years all four the giant
planets Jupiter Saturn Uranus and
Neptune are lined up so a single
spacecraft can fly by so you’re saying
that once every 176 years
so who was it be Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson right
he had the planets lined up and he
missed he didn’t do anything about head
and dog
but it was a big challenge you can see
was remember a hundred days to Venus to
get to Neptune was 12 years and Neptune
has 30 times as far from the Sun as the
earth so the sunlight is much much
dimmer out there so those are some of
the challenges but JPL designed a
spacecraft called Voyager was launched
we started on in 1972 40 years ago
was two of them were launched in 1977
but Mariner 2 on its way to Venus it
also found for the first time measured
directly the fact that from the Sun
there’s a million mile per hour wind
blowing radii outward creating a huge
bubble around the Sun called the
heliosphere and today the two voyagers
are on the journey to interstellar space
to leave the bubble today Voyager 1 is
11 billion miles from Earth 122
astronomical units from the Sun it is
very near the edge of interstellar space
and will soon become our first
interstellar probe observing and being
immersed in material that has come from
other stars than our own Sun so that’s
just part of the legacy from the many
missions which in fact have changed our
view of the solar system and in fact
which will continue to be changed by the
missions currently underway and those
which you all be hopefully working on
and enjoying some decades in the future
space exploration is humbling we think
we have this we think we’re the big deal
being on earth
but we’re pretty small compared to these
other worlds yet we can understand it
and I find that so compelling I find
that just brings out the best in us so
to understand these other worlds along
this line Margie you are physicists you
got interested in a magnetic field
that’s right well I would say that my
first thoughts of space came a month and
a day after my daughter was born when I
stood in the garden and watch Sputnik go
overhead and at that time I certainly
wouldn’t have said that 50 years later
well little more than 50 years later
they’d be an armada of spacecraft that
had visited
all the planets of the solar system on
the way to the edge of interstellar
space but that did get me excited I then
worked with a student who had been given
a very interesting problem the moon Io
the volcanic moon seemed to control the
intensity of radio emissions from
Jupiter as it went around its orbit at
certain points of its orbit the radio
missions became more intense and nobody
could figure out why although they
figured there must be some electrical
currents connecting IO with the upper
atmosphere of Jupiter so I was really
estranged an important object but it’s
only one of the moons of Jupiter I got
really interested in Jupiter and its
moons and had the audacity to try to
become the to provide an instrument a
magnetometer to measure the magnetic
field of Jupiter and maybe see what was
going on around the moon’s so I proposed
for what was called Jupiter orbiter
probe later became Galileo and I got the
chance to do it and there is the Galileo
spacecraft in the high bay at Jet
Propulsion lab and what you ought to
look at first is the antenna because
that’s an important part of the story
you can see it’s very very large
comparing it with the size of the people
who are standing around there’s a boom
sticking out in there to magnetometers
on it and the reason we put the
magnetometer on a boom is that we wanted
to measure the field of space not the
field of the spacecraft and we had to
get far away so we wouldn’t do that then
we had a lot of trouble between the
times that we started building this
mission and the final successful launch
but we were finally launched in 1989 you
can see I was very happy about it
and so were a lot of other people it
took us six years to get to Jupiter
because of a sort of an underpowered
space interplanetary engine but after
we’d been out for a couple of years we
time came to deploy the big antenna the
antenna had been launched folded up like
an umbrella they tried to open the
umbrella the umbrella stuck and that was
a very serious moment but there was a
small antenna that we’d been using for a
couple of years and so instead of having
the spacecraft’s and long email messages
it sent us tweets and you know when you
have a tweet it means that you get the
most important information in the fewest
words and that’s what Galileo did for
the six years that it was in orbit
around Jupiter that is extraordinary
yeah and as we say nicely done so Kevin
along with being deputy scientist for
solar system exploration in 2011 you
were you were an emerging Explorer at
the National Geographic Society and you
explore these distant watery worlds now
before I talk about the search for life
elsewhere and and these potentially
habitable worlds in the outer solar
system I want to connect us back to our
understanding of life here on earth the
past 50 years have really seen a
revolution in our understanding of of
what makes life tick and end and how
life on Earth works and and where on
earth life can survive keep in mind that
it was just 1953 about 60 years ago when
the structure of DNA was revealed it was
1977 when the first
method for sink secret sequencing DNA
was published and for any of you that
are involved with national Geographics
Genographic project and Spencer wells
and and the fantastic team that’s
working on that everything that the
Genographic project is based on starts
with that DNA sequencing method that’s
1977
now also in that year explorers of our
ocean depths including national
Geographics Bob Ballard discovered these
hydrothermal vents at the bottom of our
ocean these are hot springs basically on
the seafloor cut off from the sunlight
down there for kilometres at depth no
sunlight incredible pressure quite cold
and yet what they found was that life
doesn’t just exist at these hydrothermal
vents life thrives you can see in some
of this video that there are microbes
around the chimneys you see the whites
and the yellows and stuff those are all
microbes there’s a little crab
hello crab so unlike life at the surface
of the earth where the base of the food
chain is photosynthesis at the ocean’s
depths and in many of the extreme
environments here on earth where where
life thrives it’s the base of the food
chain is is utilizing chemosynthesis
utilizing the chemistry in this case of
the hydrothermal vent fluids and so the
microbes are using that and then the
crabs and the fish and the shrimp in of
the clams and everything else are
building off of that that food chain now
so the exploration of our own planet has
really expanded our understanding of
what it takes for a world to be
habitable and in the early days of solar
system exploration we had this kind of
Goldilocks scenario where in order for a
world like the earth to be habitable you
had to be at just the right distance
from your parent star
such that liquid water would be stable
on the surface and in contact with a
nice atmosphere and you could have
continents and clouds and all sorts of
wonderful stuff if you were too close to
your parent star like Venus then you’re
too hot if you were too far away like
Mars then you were too cold this was
sort of the Goldilocks scenario when our
exploration of the solar system has
really changed that this is outdated
this is sort of an old Goldilocks we now
have a new Goldilocks scenario it’s a
scenario of habitability that’s mediated
not my distance from your parent star
but instead by tidal energy dissipation
the tug and pull of a world like Europa
or Isle with its parent planet we’ve got
Europa and Ganymede and these worlds may
occupy this kind of new Goldilocks zone
and Europa in particular may have this
global subsurface liquid water ocean of
some 100 kilometers in depth this is a
liquid water ocean and when I say that I
mean h2o good old-fashioned liquid water
so Burma everybody looked at Jupiter
with the telescope and you’ve seen the
Galilean moons you’re looking at these
moons yeah and you’re telling me that
when I’m looking at that little pinprick
of light I’m looking at a hundred I’m
looking at seventy miles of water yes
you do the math it turns out that Europa
harbours two to three times the volume
of all the liquid water found here on
earth that is a tremendous volume of
liquid water and for a planetary
scientist and astrobiologists like
myself liquid water that is the the
flag-waving four come here look for life
we’ve got liquid water so Europa has
this liquid water ocean and we think
it’s got a rocky seafloor that might be
home to hydrothermal vents to some of
the the kind of similar geological
activity that we see at the depths of
our ocean here on earth and Europa
Ganymede Callisto these are just a few
of
what I would call the ocean worlds of
the outer solar system incredibly
compelling places to go and search for
life beyond Earth where did we come from
and are we alone and if you want to
answer those two questions you have to
explore space and that’s what dr. Han
was talking about especially but right
now while we’re sitting here we are
exploring the next logical place to look
for signs of life
a an answer to the question are we alone
and someone who’s working on that
diligently right now is dr. Elman
Bethany you are working on the Curiosity
rover you are a participating scientist
and you’re gonna take us to Mars I’m
gonna take you to Mars that I’m gonna
take you to Mars by way of this
particular iconic photo which a lot of
you in the room probably recognize I
think I think it did a number of things
I think it showed how we are all
together here on one planet we better
figure out how to get along on it how to
take care of it it’s hanging here in the
void of space and we can look at it from
the closest nearby planetary body the
moon but you see the craters and the
lifeless surface it can’t sustain life
the earth though there hangs delicately
in the horizon and that’s the question
that drove me to space exploration
how do planets sustain life through time
why are some planets able to host life
others don’t I think one of the messages
from this this glorious 50 years of
solar system exploration has been the
diversity of worlds that are out there
to be explored we have we have we have
worlds with it with a deep ocean and we
have worlds where I’ll take you now to
Mars where that are very much on the
edge so we know from our explorations
here of life on Earth that everywhere
there’s water there’s life you know deep
underground 2 kilometers underground and
are in the deepest mines
deep in hydrothermal vents at the ocean
floor inside volcanoes inside nuclear
reactor’s wherever there is water there
is life so Mars is the closest to being
like earth in our solar system today
it’s cold it’s dry if there is liquid
water on the surface it’s very ephemeral
but that raises the question was there
life is there life and so that’s what’s
driven the exploration of this our
neighbor and fourth planet out from the
Sun so in addition to Rovers studies on
Earth one of the other tremendous
aspects of looking at at Mars is the
flotilla of orbiters that we have around
Mars and the resolution has been getting
better and better and better so as we’ve
gotten a capability to peer at Mars at
higher and higher resolution what’s
become apparent is that Mars hosted
hydrothermal systems in the past it
hosted lakes it hosted environments
where soils were forming some of them
were acidic some of them were alkaline
the further we look back in Mars history
the more it looks like Earth and the
first billion years of Mars’s history
the period from three and a half billion
years ago backward Mars looked quite a
bit like Earth at that time so that
raises the question was there life could
there have been life how do we find it
so we’re taking steps in that direction
now both from orbit and from from the
rover’s I have the privilege of working
on the team that day-to-day working
together scientists and engineers sets
the activities of the rover we get the
data down from Mars we have the period
of the Mars overnight to work to put
together the plan the entire 24 hours 40
minutes of activity on Mars so that by
the time the rover wakes up at 9:45 a.m.
the next morning it sleeps late but then
it looks to earth to get its command
load we send it down and then it
executes sit on its own it’s its
autonomous in that sense and we move
further and further being able to do
higher fidelity laboratory experiments
for the the robots that we send out word
in the solar system to be sophisticated
explorers in our own right and you know
these explorers this is
a self-portrait of the rover taken with
a microscopic imager turned backwards
before the dust cover was off to get
this artistic effect but as this rover
peers out into the surface it is a proxy
for us standing on the surface of Mars
and peering outward onto the surface how
many people would go to Mars there you
go look at that yeah now why do you want
to go this is what I we ask ourselves
and I believe it’s because there’s
something in us that makes us explore
and if we don’t go exploring if we don’t
look up and out what does that say about
us we’re just gonna stay home we don’t
care those people our ancestors who felt
that way are not here anymore
my concern is we’re at another
crossroads where everybody here is ready
to go to Mars but the funding for it is
not being maintained unless unless we
vote for it so everybody keep it in mind
keep it in mind when you interact with
your representatives and stuff that
planetary exploration is a tremendous
value to all of us so I very much right
now like to open it up to questions from
the audience
stand up Harry let him turn around let
me say a fabulous choice and ties um do
you think that my son Mars we can
prevent the you said Mars was earth-like
do you think that we could prevent Earth
from becoming Mars like by studying Mars
or do you think that Earth and a few
billion years will be Mars like yeah
it’s a really good question and and
that’s one of the reasons actually that
that I study Planetary Science I
actually got into planetary science
through environmental science and I
think the question is what is it that
sustains a habitable environment through
time so we talk about sustainability and
the environmental movement but we can
really think about sustainability and
sustaining the ability to have life for
for billions of years and so I think by
studying
hours and other terrestrial planets is
we take steps toward figuring out how
planets work we have we have one data
point here on earth to test our physics
and our chemistry based models for how
planets work and so when we look at Mars
when we look at Venus we have another
data point for trying out our models
testing how they work so our concern my
concern I don’t about ours
it’s not becoming like Mars in a couple
billion years which is it would be an
issue perhaps but we don’t want to
become like Venus in the next 20 or 50
or 100 years and it was through discover
through studying venus in the
atmospheric venus which started 50 years
ago that people discovered the role of
carbon dioxide in greenhouse gases and
climate change and so we wouldn’t have
this insight we wouldn’t know this so
much about our place in space our place
in the cosmos without studying these
things you know Carl Sagan often
speculated he wondered how many stars
have planets he wondered if it was a
rare thing and I remember him in class
speculating that was one in 10 one in 10
stars have planets well now it’s more
like a hundred percent of stars have
planets and that’s another discovery
made in our lifetime
and I am so excited for you because the
discoveries that will be made will
change the world yeah so over here
there’s been some discussion in the past
about a lot of the elements that we have
here on earth are results of distant
stellar explosions and all of these
matters somehow got to earth I think
it’s mind-numbing to figure out that
warehouse process happened and then how
did it aggregate here on earth and then
how would that work maybe as a building
block if you are not troubled by that
you are somebody else no this is what is
so compelling this is what Carl Sagan
used to talk about all the time is we
are made of star stuff then we are by
reasoning
we are one way at least that the
universe knows itself and right here I
think we cue the spooky music no it is
stunning and so as the more we learn
about astronomy the more we learn about
our place in the cosmos our place in
space the more humbling it is I think
but also the more empowering it is that
you can come to understand all that is
really this it’s really it brings out
the best in us it’s what makes our
species worthy of being in the cosmos
and I think it’s wonderful next
questions over here yeah in the back row
my question is uh I would picked up my
wife from work the other day and I was
driving her home our home us home and I
was explaining to her that was coming
here and explained to her about the
spacecraft that is going to Pluto we’ll
be there in 2015 I believe you said and
she asked me why are we going to Pluto
as if why bother and so I pulled over
the car Nasser two gallon I was gonna
say are you yes and we’re still married
okay
yes we’re still marry we worked it out
it’s okay and so my question is if you
have 30 seconds like an elevator pitch
for space exploration the importance of
it what it could lead to just you’d like
you said right a crossroads we need to
vote for the budget for space
exploration
what is your 30 second elevator pitch to
a politician and everyday Joe Schmo like
myself on the street of why space
exploration is important to everybody as
us as a species it’s part of our human
DNA to explore as we were talking about
earlier and you know in terms of the
federal government budget it is right
and proper that we spend a substantial
portion of our budget on defense on
infrastructure on health and on all
those things that are important to
people’s day-to-day life but I think to
sort of maintain ourselves our humanity
our society and to push that to push the
boundaries to push it
I mean Kennedy said we do these things
not because they are easy but because
they are hard and by doing hard things
by taking not all of the budget but a
small portion and investing it in doing
something hard we learn you know we
develop new technologies we educate the
neck and inspire the next generation and
we learn something about ourselves so I
think it’s important to keep that
percentage because that’s what keeps us
as a society pushing forward on the
political side NASA is the top of the
innovation food chain I run a lab at the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
I have sub contracts with companies in
Pennsylvania New Hampshire Connecticut
California etc throughout the country
and the return on investment has been
shown to be greater than $2 for every $1
invested in terms of sort of the what
the u.s. gets for its for its taxpayer
investment so feeding that innovation
food chain I think is very important one
specific example I went to grad school
at Stanford a few years before me there
was this guy who was on he was funded
through NASA fellowship doing something
with computer knowledge etc and and
autonomy and whatever and he then
dropped out of grad school to start a
company called Google so Sarah Gavron
was on a nash was on a nasa fellowship
during his time at stanford how do you
how do you quantify that now what’s the
value to the taxpayer of a company like
Google that’s the political the
passionate I would simply say or ask to
your wife do you believe in the pursuit
of new knowledge because that is at the
heart of what NASA is about the pursuit
of new knowledge the the spin-offs all
that stuff that is that’s fantastic
obviously that is useful but at the
heart NASA is not just the the agency
for the pursuit of new knowledge for the
US
nasa provides a cortex for our planet
for just a small amount of money we have
put spacecraft around our planet to let
us learn about that the habitability the
development the changes that are
occurring here on earth and to inform us
about other planets in our solar system
and how our world came to be I value
that sort of planetary cortex that that
nASA has allowed us to put in place and
so for the cup of coffee
the cup of coffee per year per taxpayer
I’ll buy two cups the other thing when
you travel to other parts of the world
NASA is the best branding that the
United States can have I mean people
respect what you do in a way that they
they don’t respect a lot of other things
that the United States does and this is
such a value like well word it’s such a
remarkable value so next time you talk
to your wife just remind her that she’s
getting a lot for her money
and and if we don’t keep looking up and
out we’re we’re not going to move
forward thank you all very much thanks
you
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