Thirty years ago, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched into space and became one of the greatest scientific instruments in history. Since its deployment, Hubble has made numerous important discoveries. Hubble discovered two new moons of Pluto, dubbed Nix and Hydra; that the universe’s expansion is not slowing down or even constant, but rather is inexplicably expanding; and that protoplanetary disks of gas and dust are ubiquitous around many young stars (reinforcing the idea that alien worlds are common in the universe).

Five-time Space Shuttle astronaut John Grunsfeld has a unique connection with the orbiting space telescope. Three of his shuttle flights missions were to repair Hubble, during which he conducted eight space walks that lasted over 58 combined hours. Grunsfeld is often affectionately called, ‘The Hubble Repairman’, and was the last person to touch the extraordinary space telescope.

Join us on Tuesday, May 19th at 1:00 pm EDT for a special Q & A with John Grunsfeld. This session will be facilitated by Mat Kaplan of Planetary Radio.

Join us Wednesday, May 13, 2020 @ 3:00pm EDT for a conversation with author of the seminal work, The Overview Effect, Frank White, led by MaryLiz Bender and Ryan Chylinski, Co-founders of Cosmic Perspective.

More than 30 years ago, Frank White coined the term “Overview Effect” to describe the cognitive shift in awareness that results from the experience of viewing Earth from orbit or the moon. He found that, with great consistency, this experience profoundly affects space travelers’ worldviews—their perceptions of themselves and our planet, and our understanding of the future. White found that astronauts know from direct experience what the rest of us know only intellectually: we live on a planet that is like a natural spaceship moving through the universe at a high rate of speed. We are, in fact, the crew of “Spaceship Earth,” as Buckminster Fuller described our world.

"The Overview Effect is an important book in helping people see that your attitude does change when you see the Earth from the space perspective—an experience that seems to be an almost universal phenomenon." —Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut, founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, founding member of the Overview Institute.

In recent years, human missions to Mars have gone from a topic that some dismiss as science fiction to a goal that now has broad public and bipartisan support. Humans walking on the surface of the Red Planet are now regarded as being inevitable.

Join us on May 7, 2020 at 1:00 pm for a special webinar called Building an Architecture for Humans on Mars. This webinar will review current concepts in Mars mission planning, and will also discuss many of the challenges in designing such plans and what is required to establish a permanent presence on Mars. Initial missions to Mars will last a duration of at least 2-3 years, a time period far longer than humans have been away from Earth - beyond any possible rescue from Earth. This presents innumerable technical and design hurdles to assure crew members remain healthy (physically and mentally) and productive.

The panelists will also examine how best to utilize the Moon to advance the goal of humans to Mars.

This session will be moderated by Mat Kaplan, the Host of Planetary Radio. Panelists will include:

Tim Cichan (Lockheed Martin: Space Exploration Architect)

Nujoud Merancy (NASA: Chief, Exploration Mission Office)

Joe Cassady (Aerojet Rocketdyne: Executive Director for Space, Washington Operations)

With the development of private commercial aerospace innovations, the chances of humans traveling to Mars in the near future are increasing. But only a tiny fraction of the 7.8 billion people presently living on Earth will ever travel to Mars, and the effort could arguably be a distraction from the very real problems of climate change, food security and energy we all face collectively. Education, inspiration and technological development are obvious benefits of a Martian voyage, with technology arguably being the most immediately practical. We will consider how specific technological innovations needed for the earliest Mars missions will materially help fight climate change on Earth. Creativity, imagination and an ability to work in groups make humans an extraordinary species. How can we leverage these abilities to help the other species on Earth as well as our own?

The history of technological innovation suggests that transformational technologies are often developed for other purposes. The steam engine was innovated to solve the problem of pumping water out of deep coal mines. The phonograph was innovated to take dictation, rather than play records. Graphics Processing Units, which today power medical diagnostics, self-driving vehicles and an enormous social media economy, were largely developed to serve demand for video games. We will consider some of the technology paths required for the first Mars missions to succeed, and explore the likelihood of generating meaningful climate change innovations, including the use of methane-lox rocket engines powered by in situ propellant, engineering of arid- and salt-tolerant crops, and advanced solar and nuclear energy.

Panelists:

Dr. Joe Mascaro, PLANET, Dir. Education and Research Programs

Dr. Tanya Harrison, PLANET FEDERAL, Manager Science Programs