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Space Topics: ISDC 2006The Planetary Society Joins Forces with the National Space Society in Hosting ISDC 06May 12, 2006 For the first time ever, The Planetary Society joined the National Space Society (NSS) in co-sponsoring the annual International Space Development conference, which took place in Los Angeles on May 4-7. As part of the meeting the Society hosted its own track of presentations, with guest speakers addressing some of the pressing and exciting issues in space exploration today. On the first day of the meeting the Society held a press conference announcing its "Save Our Science" (SOS) campaign against the proposed cuts in funding for NASA science. Executive Director Louis Friedman and Society Vice President Bill Nye spoke of the importance of Space Science for the space program and for humanity as a whole. The proposed cuts, they argued, would sharply curtail space science at the very time it is presenting us with some of its greatest and most exciting discoveries.
Among the conference highlights was a daylong session on lunar exploration, entitled "Back to the Moon, On to Mars." The session included representatives from five different nations that are working on Lunar missions, all planned for the next 10 years. These include China, Japan, India, the United States and the European Union (not quite a nation, but close enough). Louis Friedman opened the presentations by pointing out that the Moon has been by far the most popular target of exploration since the beginning of the space age. No less than 94 missions have targeted the Moon since the early 1960's. Nevertheless the new interest in the Moon comes after a relative lull in lunar exploration, and having five different space agencies working on missions to the same body at the same time is unprecedented. John Connolly of the exploration office at the Johnson Space Center and Chris Mckay of NASA Ames, program scientist of NASA's robotic lunar exploration program, emphasized that for NASA the moon was a way station to Mars. "We're going back to the Moon to relearn the art of exploration" said Connolly. McKay gave several examples of how "looking forward to Mars determines what we do on the Moon," including establishing long-term bases and trying to grow plants on the Moon. ESA's Aurora program also ultimately includes the human exploration of Mars, but as part of a broad program of solar system exploration, explained ESA's representative, Dietrich Vennemann. ESA's Smart 1 Lunar orbiter, which arrived at the Moon 2 years ago, is testing new technologies for this purpose as well as gathering scientific data. For the other participants the lunar program was a logical extension of their countries' experience in launching into Earth orbit. Maohai Huang of the Chinese Academy of Science spoke of the Chinese Cheng'E-1 probe scheduled for a 2007 launch. Narendra Bhandari of the Indian Space Research Organisation, who is also President of the International Lunar Exploration Working Group presented the Chandrayaan-1 lunar polar orbiter scheduled for 2008, and Junichiro Kawaguchi of the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) spoke of the Selene 2 orbiter, due to launch in 2007. A more capable Selene-2, planned for 2013/14 will include a lander and a rover, and preliminary plans are ongoing for a Japanese Lunar sample return mission.
In a question and answer session following the presentation the speakers considered both the potential and the limits of cooperation between different space programs, as well as the benefits of healthy competition. All emphasized the active cooperation between the programs and the fact that scientists from different countries contribute instruments to each of the planned probes. McKay presented the case of scientific cooperation in the Antarctic as a promising model for future space ventures. Within a general cooperative framework, the different national programs retain their identity and autonomy, and do not become overly dependent on each other. Other highlights included the latest news on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, presented by project scientist Rich Zurek, and a fascinating account of early results from the Stardust mission by Andrew Westphal of U.C. Berkeley. Most of the studies of cometary dust from Wild-2, brought to Earth in January aboard Stardust's sample return capsule, remain embargoed, pending a scientific publication. Nevertheless, Westphal was able to report on some of the most surprising results that have come out. One result pertains to dust particles captured in the Earth's upper atmosphere, which were thought to be samples of cometary dust. It turns out that these grains are in fact clearly different in composition from those captured from Wild-2. This leaves open the question of what these particles are and where they came from, if they are not in fact comet dust. There is also, of course, the possibility that there are different types of comets, and that the particles captured on Earth belong to a different type of comet than Wild 2. Either way, this surprising result opens up a whole slew of new and unexpected questions. Westphal also spoke of the exciting Stardust@home venture, which he direct. In this project computer users from around the world will help scientists locate particles of interstellar dust, hidden within Stardust's particle collector. Another surprising find from Stardust's comet samples is the discovery of an olivine grain among the samples, containing minerals formed by exposure to very high temperatures for very extremely periods of times, in the range of several minutes. What these minerals are doing on objects at the outer edge of the solar system, and when these objects could have been exposed to a brief period of such intense heat is as yet an unanswered question. Westphal offered no opinion on the questions, except to say that even if this were all we ever got from Stardust, it would still be worth all the work and investment that was put into it. Other presentations included a report by former JPL Director Ed Stone on the Voyager mission, which nearly 30 years after its launch is now approaching a distance of 100 Astronomical Units from the Earth. Rosaly Lopes of JPL gave an overview of the New Horizons mission to Pluto, and Scott Hubbard of the SETI Institute discussed the latest developments in the science of astrobiology. Bob Pappalardo of the University of Colorado discussed a future mission to explore Europa's subterranean ocean, and was followed by a sneak preview of a documentary film on the subject by director Dan Birman. On the last day of the conference Seth Shostak discussed the probability of discovering life and intelligent life on other worlds, and offered rationals for various search strategies. Major Planetary Society projects were also discussed on the last day. Society Executive Director Louis Friedman talked about The Planetary Society's Cosmos 1 spacecraft, and the prospects for another attempt to fly a solar sail in the future. Planetary Society Director of Projects Bruce Betts discussed the new Society-funded Optical SETI telescope, which was inaugurated last month at the Oak Ridge Observatory in Massachusetts. One of the liveliest events turned out to be a question and answer session with Planetary Society board members, where both members and non-members engaged in a discussion of the Society's goals and direction.
--Amir Alexander |
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