Boosters, Breakthroughs and Budgets: Canada and the US Look Toward Space

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[00:00:00] The dollars and good sense of space in Canada and the USA this week on planetary radio. Welcome. I'm at Kaplan of the planetary Society with more of the Human Adventure across our solar system and beyond the White House has unveiled its proposed 2020 budget for the United States one little corner of that budget. Well under 1%. Is set aside for NASA the plan contains good and bad news. According to planetary Society Chief Advocate Casey dryer. He'll provide a top-level overview and he'll tell us about the Monday March 4th day of action that put 100 citizens face advocates in the offices of their Washington representative. Bruce vets can smell the coffee on the International Space Station. He'll share some of that goodness on this week's what's up segment and then a special treat just for you [00:01:00] podcast listeners will hear from NASA administrator Jim bridenstine as he spoke to the day of action volunteers. First of all will travel north of the US for a visit with the society's Global community outreach manager K towels. She talked with me from her home. Not far from Toronto, Ontario in Canada. Kate welcome back to Planet to a radio. It's a good time for us to talk 60 years since the first Canadian satellite made Canada only the third Nation to reach low earth orbit to go into space and now all of this new work new announcements by the Canadian government. Is this something of a renewal or a reaffirmation of Canada's plans for space exploration and space. Yes, it absolutely is Canada's Space Program had been more or less coasting for a long time without any real they're real strong direction from the government and that had been taking its [00:02:00] toll not knowing where we were going is difficult for any companies that want to invest in space in Canada. Any young professionals who want to build their career in space in Canada? So these announcements of the budget and the strategy are really really great for being able to plot the future of Canada's activities in space. I guess key to this. I mean it's nice to have big plans. But if you don't back it with money, it doesn't mean much and there is money behind this. Yeah, absolutely and the Canadian government has been very good about not making pitches of things they want to do without being able to have the money to back those ideas up which has been frustrating to an extent because we want to hear what the big plans are that they have in mind, but they don't announce that until they have the money behind it. So even the Space strategy. That we've seen this past week is pretty General in in terms of the detail. It doesn't really go into specifics because there are [00:03:00] still budgetary asks to come to Define exactly what is going to happen, but being able to get the big investment in place to support the next Canada arm on the lunar Gateway. That's a humongous step. I have opened in front of me this report that I guess summarizes all of this. It's an exploration imagination Innovation a new Space strategy for Canada and we can post a link to this from this week's show page of planetary dot org slash radio. Is this a good place for people to start? Yes. Absolutely. It's a good summary of what the government has planned and what we can look forward to there are still more information to come the sort of details of the implementation of this strategy. We're still awaiting but that is a really great starting point for people to brush up on what Canada has up its sleeve for the years to come and there is a lot of great stuff in here are five major calls them activities, but I guess they're basically [00:04:00] initiatives that that Canada hopes to follow up on and there's some things here. I wasn't aware of like Canada's contributions to the James Webb Space Telescope and and much more. Yeah, Canada has had sort of a silent partner role in a. Of NASA missions at least silent from NASA's perspective. We make quite a lot of noise about it up here. But yeah, we have we have a long Legacy of involvement in major ambitious science and exploration missions, but usually it's contributing a component rather than leading the way and that's I think how we're going to continue to operate moving forward just with the reality of. The size of our population and the size of our budgets but we are very proud of those contributions that we make as your leader of the planetary Society is education and Outreach efforts. You must be pretty happy to see the emphasis given in this report to using space to inspire especially to inspire young people. Yeah. Absolutely. And when [00:05:00] the space Advisory board that I am a member of in Canada went and did public consultations with members of the space community. Throughout Canada a couple of years ago one of the main recommendations that we came away from that with was that Canada needed to really up its involvement in stem activities. So reaching out to kids and to students. Using space as a way of inspiring curiosity and desire to learn so that was one of our key recommendations to government and we see that they have taken that recommendation in are running with it. So it is really good to see that as a personally I'm all about science education. But also this is something that many many people in the Canadian space Community agree on I'm so glad that you brought up the space Advisory Board in Canada. Because of course you're a member of that. Can you can you tell us what's that about? To your charge. So we were charged with developing. The first thing [00:06:00] we were asked to do was develop a set of recommendations for government and this actually this process of Consulting with the space Community to develop those recommendations that happened before I joined the board. I was a late addition since then our role has been to advise the government as it has been developing its Space strategy. We've given them feedback on the strategy itself. We given them feedback on where the space Community stands because this has been quite a long drawn-out process as government has put together its plans and so we've kind of been the Liaisons between the broader space community and the government and we've also given them advice on how to get political by in on their plans and public by in on these investments just support for this come right from the top from the prime. Office space Advisory Board was put together by the minister of innovation science and economic development navdeep Baines and he has been sort of the champion of the Space Program. It's in [00:07:00] his portfolio, but it also is something that he personally really believes in so part of what we've had to do was get the prime minister's Office on Board because they have obviously so many other things to worry about space isn't always front of mind. So it was part of our job. To advise Minister Baynes on how how the politics of space tend to work and how to avoid some of the sort of landmines that we know exist when trying to get political buy-in on Space funding. I guess it didn't hurt to have Bill Nye drop in for a visit that you were also part of absolutely we have been the planetary Society has been involved in advocating for space funding in Canada for several years now and one of our biggest moments of being able to do that was when prime minister Justin Trudeau invited Bill Nye to speak at a public event celebrating a major investment in science that came in last year's federal budget. And so I tagged along with Bill [00:08:00] and and told him. What exactly he needed to say to Trudeau to make sure that space came into that conversation and they had a private sit-down chat before the public event where Bill really did Advocate very well for space funding and the the importance of that and from what I could tell that seemed to have an impact on prime minister Trudeau. And I think that that may have been one of the factors that got us to this point. Having this investment really, you know in Canada. It does come down to the prime minister's office and the minister of finances office getting on board. So I think that that was probably at least helpful maybe influential. I'm sure it was Kate. This is exciting stuff a lot to look forward to and thank you for joining us to talk about this and and for your work advancing it it's my pleasure and I'll just say that the work is not done yet. We still need to maintain public support for this funding. There's a federal election this year. So politics [00:09:00] might come back around and and challenge this investment. So the public of Canada really needs to continue to show its support for this kind of funding. So the planetary Society will continue to be active in that and yeah, I'm looking forward to what's to come though. This is all very good news. That's Kate Howells Global community outreach manager Global stress on that word for the planetary society, and she does that from her home not far from. Mud Toronto and will continue to do so are working on other initiatives for the planetary society as well. As you heard also a member of the space advisory Council for the nation of Canada Casey glad you could stop by but. Wean the monthly space policy editions of [00:10:00] planetary radio because there's been a lot in the news topping it of course is the president's budget request you have written about this in a terrific March 11 blog post that people can find at planetary dot-org. I don't think we'll be able to cover all of it. But this is the fuhrer's to be a real mixed bag what has most piqued your interest in this proposal from the Trump White House. It was frustrating in a lot of ways this budget because there's a lot to like in there obviously near and dear to my heart is money for a Mars sample return follow-on Mission. So Mars 2020 is going to be launching in 2020 to go to Mars me cashing samples of the Martian surface. This budget actually has at least a hundred million dollars set aside to start building the fetcher over that will grab those samples launch them back up into space. It's basically the next step of the Mars program for NASA that we've been waiting for for a long time. So that was very very welcome to see. We also saw important Investments. [00:11:00] They're moving the Europa Clipper Mission up to a 2023 launch date, which is great that sooner I'd like to be alive when it gets to Europa personally and that was to help set. The Actuarial tables will kind of work in my favor that way and then also we see some real money being put towards the lunar initiatives both with building this Gateway station orbiting the Moon. Advancing a lot of Technology development for lunar initiatives human and robotic and that's important stuff too. So they're putting some real effort behind this now. It's obviously not all good news, especially for again is this accurate for fans of that big new rocket the space launch system. Well, it's kind of good and bad news it they're cutting back spending at least they're proposing to we should be clear about this. This is the White House proposal the sets the basic Contours of the. We're going to have this here about NASA's budget for the fiscal year 2020 and the White House is proposing to scale back spending on the SLS rocket really [00:12:00] focus on what they call the block 1A and stop building this what they call this exploration upper stage that would have given much more powerful lift capability to the lunar area and out Beyond just distant parts of the solar system SLS has been as many people know. Struggling let's say to stay on track and stay on budget. What do you see the administration is saying like look, let's just build the launch ability to launch anything particularly the Orion Space Capsule to the Moon then we will deal with building this expanded capability later on. It seems unlikely that Congress will go along with this Congress has been. Very let's say supportive of spending lots of money on SLS. So that's yet to be determined but it's interesting to see this is basically you can think of this as the mule can the chain a little bit on this project and saying we're watching you now, and we're getting a little frustrated with the pace of things. Didn't Senator Shelby from Alabama which of course is where the Marshall space flight center is where they are basically running the [00:13:00] construction of the space launch system around the country. Didn't he sort of backup exactly what you've just said telling the head of that Center. Don't worry we're going to take care of you. Yes, and that has been the case for a while now. So I mean it it can be a little frustrating right you can see the parochial interest in the politics of this. It always comes down to for critics of the SLS. What are you going to do with the 50,000 or so jobs in Alabama, Florida, Texas and 47 other states of the of the country if this project goes away, you may not like what that implies about how Government funding works, but it's a reality but there's a ton of political support for this rocket and functionally me and the planetary Society. I think I can speak for here just wants it to work and we wanted to work and be effective at what it does. And so this is not the worst decision here. I don't think in terms of focusing on what's this getting it to launch giving it to launch humans to the moon and then we can worry about how it fits into this larger ecosystem of rockets and heavy-lift [00:14:00] rocket that are coming online. I want to encourage everybody once again to take a look at your that March 11 blog posts. It has this table you you titled it. Here's a summary of what we know so far and it shows. The 2019 budget the one that is real now the real budget and this brand-new PBR president's budget request and it's absolutely fascinating to look at the numbers here some of which hardly any change at all some of which were funding disappears completely W. First the follow-on to the James Webb Space Telescope, which that's truly gets a small increase in the president's recommendation W. First is. It's gone altogether as is funding for stem engagement. They really aren't big fans of educational efforts by NASA in the White House. Are they? Yeah, it's again. This is the frustrating aspect. These are all cuts that they proposed last year and some of them even the year before Congress resolution [00:15:00] dingly rejected those kind of times and they haven't made any case to cut them again. They're just here's the cut clearly very likely Congress will. NASA does relatively well in that it was cut by only two percent. So, you know, you can place it in that context. But at the same time if they just put in that extra half a billion dollars, even if they'd kept it flat. You would have been able to sustain W first and your education program and we wouldn't be talking about these negative things. We'd be saying how pretty strong about budget. This is so this is where it becomes frustrating. It is a self-imposed negative messaging here that makes it frustrating and people going to have to [00:16:00] work to restore these incredibly important science missions educational efforts and also a couple of we should note of earth science missions again proposed to be canceled for I think the third year in a row. And so we have the ability here to do all this the planetary Society is recommending a 5% increase to NASA over last year. And this is not just us. This is dozens of other organizations around the country saying if I percent is doable, it's reasonable. And once you have that little bit of extra buffer, you can do these kind of MIT great missions in science, you can do the education you can do this in new lunar initiative to send humans into deep space. All this stuff is possible to just grow slightly above inflation Congress. I keep pointing out since 2014 has. On average increase NASA's budget by 4% per year. We can keep that Trend going very easily. What should we be watching for next as the budget moves toward reality? Well, the first thing is that this budget was only a top-line numbers. So we don't know all the programmatic breakouts. So we'll have more detail this budget coming out on March [00:17:00] 18th. After that Congress basically takes over you're going to start seeing hearings in both the Senate and the house usually with the NASA administrator. They hold them up in front of a committee asked them a bunch of bunch of questions, and then you start to see. Appropriations bills being written starting in the house. Probably sometime in April or May things are a little wonky this year because we have this overall issue with the amount of spending. The government is allowed to have there needs to be some deal. Struck on that first before we really know how much money these committees have to work with to fund things like NASA. It's also kind of a mess because this is a budget that is starting to bump now into the presidential election cycle coming up. So things are going to be highly politicized. It's going to be kind of a wild ride this year. But overall, let's say NASA could have been much worse, but we do need to do a lot of work here and this is why we have our petition online. This is why can get involved because we need to keep NASA growing make sure. Missions actually happen and this is [00:18:00] also why you and a bunch of other space enthusiasts. We're on Capitol Hill a barely a week ago as we speak tell us about the day of action. Yeah, these weren't just Enthusiast Matt. These were Advocates we had about a hundred members of the planetary Society come from 25 States across the country all coming together in Washington DC with me and our chief of DC operations, Brandon Currie, and we had about a hundred and thirty. Meetings with members of Congress and their staff all promoting exactly what I was just saying five percent growth for NASA importance of Mars sample return the search for Life exploration. It was really fun. It was a lot of work putting this together, but it's always just so incredibly inspiring honestly to meet these dedicated members of the society. We had I think like a six-year-old grade school girl who wanted to be an astronaut. To folks who remember watching Apollo we had such a range of people all their United by their love a space [00:19:00] exploration and they came under their own dime. They took time off of work and they were there to advocate for space. It was just it's why I do this job. Honestly. It's for moments like that just to see that incredible dedication of our membership. It was just so. Great II you can tell I'm not a poet Matt sometimes but it was but we got to spend a lot of time together. And you know, this is something we'll be talking about next year as well. Do this. Annually people always tend to have a great experience. It's a lot of work, but it's also really. Casey you're deep passion always comes through I guess there was some pretty passionate words from a leader of NASA. Yeah. We got a special briefing from the NASA administrator Jim bridenstine to our entire group on the morning before he went up to the hill. He kind of gave us an overview of what NASA is doing and why NASA so important it was really great of him to spend that time with us and really inspiring to everybody there to see that this is a [00:20:00] nonpartisan big picture thing. Country can do that. Everyone can be a part of Casey the Fight Continues. Thank you for this update. We will talk again certainly by April 5th, which is the date of the next space policy addition to planetary radio. Look forward to that conversation as well as always met that's case. You drive the chief advocate for the planetary Society doing what he does best. You can read as we've said much more about this in his March 11 blog post at planetary daughter work. We are ready to bring you this week's edition of what's up on planetary radio. So the chief scientist of the planetary Society Bruce Betts is here to tell us once again about the night sky and so much more welcome back. Thank you good to be back. I have all kinds of funny responses for the contest this weekend. We're going to throw in a little bit one extra prize along with the rubber asteroid. When we get to the new contest I had this note from Keith [00:21:00] white in Ottawa, Ontario. He says is there a special random.org that you use to select winning entries for the rubber asteroids? No Keith. It's the same old random.org and it's the same old night sky as it. Well, yeah, but it's cool. So yeah Mars in the south in the early evening, but the party as we've been talking about is in the pre-dawn East where there's a lovely line up going from The Horizon to the upper, right? You've got super bright Venus yellowish Saturn. Bright Jupiter and then if you keep going you get the reddish star Antares in Scorpius, and then the moon will join the gang towards the end of the month and be hanging out near Jupiter on the 27th. We move on to this week in space history. 1958 Vanguard 1 launched Vanguard 1. Is still in orbit. It is the [00:22:00] oldest spacecraft in orbit stopped working a long time ago, but it's still an orbit will be for another hundred or two hundred years before the orbit degrades. I love that. It's still up there. Yeah, it's fun 1980 sad day, although hidden for a lot of the world for a long time Soviet rocket explosion killed 50 people on the launch pad. Including a lot of the leadership of their program apparently because they were out there just kind of hanging out at the rocket when it went boom. Yep in happy news 2011 messenger went into orbit around Mercury the first-ever Orbiter at Mercury and only one so far. All right, we move onto I'm sorry. We move onto some space. Love those rolling ours astronauts on the space station have coffee cups designed specifically for microgravity. Its special shape takes advantage of [00:23:00] surface tension of the coffee to facilitate drinking its kind of Groove. You know, I never thought about coffee on the ISS, but how could you possibly live up there for a year without coffee? Well, then you're going to be excited at the new trivia question. Oh good. But but onto the old trivia question I asked you where will the Hayabusa 2 sample return capsule and when it returns to Earth, how did we do man? Let's Let The Poet Laureate of planetary radio Dave Fairchild provide the answer. Jax has got a sample now from Hayabusa 2. They're going to bring it back to Earth to science it for you December 2020. It will come back with a thunder and land itself that woomera the land we call. Down under ha ha ha nicely done. Thank you Dave. Well, that's good news for Christopher Strauss a first-time winner in West Chester, [00:24:00] Ohio. It's in on the woomera test range in Australia December of 2020 that Hayabusas sample return capsule will come back down to earth. So congratulations Christopher you have won yourself a. Dare, we say it dear. We roll it a planetary Society kick asteroid rubber asteroid and a 200 point. I telescope dotnet astronomy account. Alan bricks Camberley in the UK. He said it's an amazing Mission Hayabusa to the total flight distance by the end of the mission is estimated to be about five and a quarter billion kilometers or three point two seven five billion miles that is impressive. That's a long trip. Will Mara we got this from a whole bunch of people who found the translation of woomera, which is an Aboriginal. Trillion word. It means it's a [00:25:00] wood wooden spear throwing device. David Shanks says hmm an Aboriginal predecessor to Rockets how appropriate Stephen Coulter and Woodville Australia how appropriate he reminds us that the marrow test range was used by the British to test their rocket program. And was the launch location for Australia's first satellite on the 29th of November in 1967. It made Australian only the third Nation to launch a satellite from its own territory. Cool fact finally this from Ian Eric Brent assassin in Sweden. One of our many listeners in Scandinavia keeping in mind that it's going to be coming down in December of twenty 20. He says, I hope the capsule doesn't hit Santa Claus in the. Down, I think it's really unlikely. Unless you know, maybe Sam will be looking for it. Maybe he wants that sample for himself. [00:26:00] You know that Santa he's a taker take take take and you're not getting a sample of anything in your stocking for get onto this new contest that now I'm so intrigued by. Okay. It's it's a straightforward question. Think what is the name of the espresso maker on the International Space Station? Go to planetary dot-org Radio contest. No doubt is some wonderful NASA acronym right? I'm not going to comment. You're not going to comment. Okay? Well, I respect that you need to get us your answer by March 20, that'd be Wednesday, March 20 at 8 a.m. Pacific time and you will win. [00:27:00] And I'm going to throw in this it's a book that was given to me by Michael wall. Dr. Michael wall. He's a writer for space.com and it's very entertaining. There are a lot of books out there that sort of survey what's going on around the universe now, but not many of them come with hand-drawn cartoons, which I believe Michael himself did I can't find a credit for anybody else. Anyway, the book is called out there. A scientific guide to alien life antimatter and human space travel for the cosmically curious and we're going to throw this in for whoever comes out ahead in that contest that Bruce just got started and that we will close out in two weeks on this program and we're ready to close out this edition of what's up. All right, everybody go out there look up the night sky and think about never needing a reason never needing a rhyme to step in time. [00:28:00] Thank you and goodnight. For women Step in Time. He's Bruce Betts the chief scientist of the planetary society and he joins us every week here for what's up? We'll close with that special treat. I promised you as you heard from Casey dryer NASA administrator. Jim bridenstine paid a personal visit to the men and women from all over the US who travel to the nation's capital on March 4th. The audio isn't great. But I think you'll enjoy hearing a small portion of what he had to say just in time in the NASA administrator. And months now. We discovered complex organic compounds on the surface of Mars. Think about what that means they don't exist on the moon they exist on Mars and exist on Earth the building blocks for Life exists on Mars. We know that the methane Cycles are commensurate with the seasons of Mars doesn't guarantee life [00:29:00] increases the probability. I'm stealing Thomas removed his talking points right now and he's right over there. So I'm doing in front of you I doing okay. Alright, okay, so but but it goes beyond that. We now know that there's liquid water 12 kilometers under the surface of Mars. What is happening? Well, we know on Earth everywhere. There's liquid water. There's one again. I'm not guaranteeing. There's life NASA doesn't wait until there's proof. We don't say that fits their but the probability friends keeps going up. That's why we go to the Moon. We have to prove the capability to prove the technology retire the risk and ultimately take all of this to Mars with human Expeditions. Now when we go to the moon in the word is sustainable when I say sustainable. I don't mean that we're going to have a village on the moon. Although that day may eventually come that's not the policy objective right now. We want to be able to go to the Moon anytime. We want to any part of the Moon we want that's what we're talking about sustainable access. [00:30:00] That's an achievable objective and we need to get there as soon as we can but we don't want to get anchored on the moon. We want to take all of this and we want to go to Mars. That's that's the Horizon goal here. The glory of the moon is that it's a three-day journey home and we've seen with Apollo 13, if something goes wrong on the way to the Moon you can still make it home safe. When we go to Mars, as you are all are aware, we're only aligned once every 26 months on the same side of the sun. We're going to get a lot more on board starting with our partners from the International Space Station the European Space Agency the Japanese Space Agency, of course, Russia, the United States all great partners, and now we're going to expand it. So we have that as an advantage and we have the advantage of reusability which didn't exist. Even 10 years ago and Commercial partners that are investing more of their own money for their own purposes. So all of that colludes to say we have the ability to achieve more now [00:31:00] than ever before but it doesn't mean that we don't need your support and I am thrilled that you're here doing what you do and Brendan and Casey you guys have been friends for a long time doing this work for your country and in fact for the world. And you guys are following the right crew here to get this done people who understand how the hell works that are willing to work the hill and make us put us in a good position. I will say this in closing. When I first got nominated to be the NASA administrator the president's budget request for NASA had gone up 1 billion dollars. I was a big increase 5% increase and it was it was something that. Hasn't happened in a long time. You guys probably know better than me, but probably not in my adult lifetime. If we had an increase that significant now from that Congress passed the bill even before I became an asset - traitor increasing our budget not 1 billion [00:32:00] dollars, but 1.7 billion dollars. That's a that's a big increase bipartisan support. I've said and I will continue to say this agency is a political it is nonpartisan. The reason your value here is so important is you're talking to both sides of the aisle. We don't have the last thing we want is some kind of debate that becomes partisan about whether it's the moon or Mars friends. It is both it is an all-of-the-above strategy. We cannot get to Mars if we don't have the mood as a Proving Ground and we need to use it in order to get there. So it isn't all of it. And by the way, the studies that I've seen have all indicated the fastest way to get to Mars is using Moon as a Proving Ground. So my point is this. Talk to both sides of the aisle. Tell them the importance to the United States of America for developing this capability and the importance ultimately to the world again to the world. Peace. Let me second the heck I could speak forever. I know Thomas is waiting. Okay, we are unique in the world the [00:33:00] United States of America. This is the one country that can put together a coalition of Nations to sustain a return to the moon. This this is us. This is who we are and it's what we. And this is a piece of American soft power its diplomacy its leadership. It's a thing where the United States and Russia can actually work together and cooperate regardless of the geopolitical problems that exist on the earth. We can cooperate in space. That's what space exploration is all about. It's about thinking of ourselves differently than we think about ourselves here on Earth. And guess what that partnership goes back to 1975 the height of the Cold War the apollo-soyuz program and then the shuttle-mir program, of course, but I went to Russia they called it the Sawyer's Apollo program and they are shuttle program. But either way bottom line is the two words are used in both programs. And of course that were on the International Space Station and they're [00:34:00] they're ready willing and able I think. We're working on it to to join us with this return to the moon. So this is really about American leadership and and I think our legislators on both sides of the aisle know that and make sure that that's a message that gets across as well. What an amazing day? I'm so glad that you guys are all here, and I look forward to hearing the results from Casey and Brendan when when you guys are done with this important threat, so, thank you all so much. NASA administrator Jim Brighton Stein speaking on March 4th to the Citizen Space Advocates gathered in Washington DC for the planetary society's day of action. I want to thank my colleague and rupali for capturing that audio planetary radio is produced by the planetary Society in Pasadena, California. It is made possible by its fired up members Mary. Liz vendors are associate producer Josh Doyle composed our theme which was arranged [00:35:00] and performed by Peter Schlosser. I'm at Kaplan Ad Astra.