Apollo 17 LM Pilot and professional geologist Jack Schmitt examines a boulder at the Taurus-Littrow landing site, December, 1972

During my recent appearance on The Space Show, a caller questioned the need for people on the Moon. If teleoperated robots can be used to mine resources, manufacture useful products, and set up a lunar outpost, as I have proposed, why do we even need people on the Moon? The caller’s question touches once again on the age-old argument about the transport and support of humans in outer-space, where their presence is both mass- and power-intensive and thus, more costly. But we shortchange humanity if we fall into the trap of believing that a human presence on the Moon (or in space in general) is either not necessary or that it is only required for making repairs, or for updating equipment.

Now that returning to the Moon is in the news, “Why send humans into space at all?” will be asked, again, as it lies at the heart of a very old debate and battle about space. It is the same question that spawned the 2014 Congressionally mandated study by the National Academy of Sciences. That effort posed two “enduring questions”: How far can humans go and what can they accomplish when they get there? But how can anyone truly know the answers to those questions or make sweeping pronouncements about them? Fortunately, because we’ve had 50 years of human space missions, we have demonstrable evidence about the “usefulness” and promise of humans living and working in space.

In December, we’ll celebrate the 45^th anniversary of the Apollo 17 mission of 1972 – the first (and so far, only) mission to fly a professional geologist to the Moon – Lunar Module Pilot Jack Schmitt. The Apollo 17 landing site was a complex, multiple objectives site whose complete and thorough understanding and characterization was not likely within the allotted 3-days there. Nonetheless, Apollo 17 crewmembers Commander Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt traversed and explored the Taurus-Littrow valley “from one end to the other” (as Gene would say from the Moon), and where they made several significant discoveries. They found highland rocks of extreme antiquity, almost as old as the Moon itself (4.6 billion years). They sampled large boulders that represented the remnants of ancient collisions that created the large, circular mare basins more than 3.9 billion years ago. They discovered orange and black soil at Shorty crater, which later was found to be composed of tiny beads of glass created when lava generated 100s of km deep within the lunar interior erupted and sprayed into space and fell back to the surface. And they collected pieces of material thrown out from one of the youngest large craters on the Moon, Tycho, more than 2200 km distant and whose impact occurred “only” 100 million years ago. Eight hundred and forty pounds of lunar rock and soil samples were returned to Earth by American astronauts over six lunar missions. These samples have given a tangible, invaluable context to scientists studying the Moon remotely, for over 48 years.

Could autonomous machines or those under remote control have carried out this complete and thorough exploration of a complex geologic landing site? Most scientists involved in the Apollo program would argue that machines could not have accomplished what the Apollo 17 crew managed to do. Certainly, scientists studying Mars via rovers have often wished that a thinking, walking and talking human could replace that machine. Productive geological fieldwork requires more than the ability to make measurements and pick up rocks – it is important to sample the right rocks, but also to put visual and mental data into a conceptual framework that guides the geologist toward reconstructing the history and processes of a planet. Of course, “grab samples” can be informative when the site is geologically simple and the rocks have a clear context. An example of this might be collecting samples from the youngest lava flow on the Moon. A scoop of fresh regolith from such a site would most certainly contain chips of lava from that flow, allowing for the determination of its composition, age and the nature of its source region. But complex areas, where comprehensive studies demand a real time, in-depth, working knowledge of complicated geologic “mixes,” require humans who can recognize and mentally process what they see before them.

Fieldwork is a complex discipline, whereby an experienced geologist maps an area and chooses samples – not just rocks picked up at random, but rather carefully chosen – significant and representative samples that inform us about process and history. In any natural setting, literally billions of bits of data could be collected. And that’s what a machine does – it collects data. A human field scientist also collects data, but they also are able to high-grade it by collecting only the most significant and relevant data. It takes extensive study, then training and experience in the field, to be able to recognize the significant and distinguish it from the trivial – to see the big picture. We often remark on the Mars Exploration Rovers for their accomplishments, yet for all the data collected, we still cannot draw a simple geologic cross-section of those landing sites, and we still do not know the origin of many of the rocks at the site (igneous or sedimentary). A human geologist would have obtained this important information after a few hours of fieldwork. The mass- and power-intensive humans give a big return on their investment.

In addition to fieldwork, humans possess other qualities that machines do not. The ability of people to recognize, diagnose and solve equipment malfunctions has been proven time and again throughout the history of the space program. The Apollo 17 crew not only explored the valley of Taurus-Littrow, they also deployed an experiment package that required careful installation and alignment. They fabricated and replaced the fender of their lunar rover by using the famous stand-by of all terrestrial repairmen, duct tape and plastic maps (if the rover fender had not been replaced, the dust kicked up by the rover wheels would have soon coated all electronic equipment, leading to overheating and termination of the surface exploration). During the Skylab program (1973), repair work by the crew saved the crippled space station after it was damaged during launch. Literally heroic efforts by Pete Conrad and his crewmates Paul Weitz and Joe Kerwin allowed not only habitation of the overheated Skylab, which was then used by two subsequent crews, but literally saved the entire program. When it was discovered after launch that the mirror of the Hubble Telescope had been ground incorrectly, the crew of Shuttle Mission STS-61 were sent on a mission to put corrective lens on the telescope, again saving the entire program. The assembly and numerous repairs and maintenance of the International Space Station (ISS) require the use of both human and robotic assets to complete, without which the program certainly would not have survived. And this new era in space spawned an explosion of engineers and scientists, and dominated our culture with space movies, architecture, fashion and technology.

Fortunately for humanity, people are required in space to do what only people can do (while also dreaming up new things to do and new ways to do them) – tasks requiring experience and knowledge guided by reasoned judgment and imagination. The ability to act and then learn from such action is critical. People will always innovate solutions for seemingly intractable problems that may arise. A combination of fine-scale manual dexterity and expert, informed knowledge and the ability to react, creates an ease of capabilities in space unachievable by machines alone. The template created during the assembly of the ISS – in which people using robotic machines assembled a complex spacecraft in orbit – is the most likely and productive path for future space activity of all kinds.

Do we need people on the Moon? Fortunately, the answer is a resounding “Yes!” Humans bring unique capabilities that are needed to accomplish new things – unknowable things, things that will enhance our lives on Earth. Studies that conclude that only robots should conduct space and surface operations – as people require protective equipment and habitats – is shortsighted and harmful to a vibrant, intelligent, and inquisitive society. Both humans, and the machines they create to assist them, are required for success in this grand adventure.

A Mars rock with bugs?  Scanning electron microscope image of alleged fossil bacteria in a martian meteorite. These features are extremely small (note the scale, in nanometers, i.e., a billionth of a meter).  NASA image.

In a letter to Space News, current CEO of The Planetary Society, Bill Nye, expounds on his belief that the search for life on Mars is the both the principal rationale and objective of human spaceflight. Many members of the Planetary Society subscribe to this belief, as do many others in the space advocacy field. Certainly, upon reading through various decadal studies of the planetary science community, it quickly becomes apparent that searching for extraterrestrial life is the major goal of space exploration and other topics are noted as to the degree with they contribute to the search for life. Where does this deeply ingrained idea come from?

Setting aside for a moment the decades of science fiction dealing with invaders from Mars and a variety of BEMs (Bug-Eyed Monsters) from space, this quest for life (as a driving imperative for the space program) took much of its impetus from Carl Sagan (1934-1996). Sagan, who popularized space science in his TV series Cosmos, is renowned for speaking and writing about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Sagan became famous by pontificating on the “billions” of planetary systems that must exist in our galaxy, explaining (on the basis of our scientific understanding of how life arises) that many millions of them must be teeming with life. The science fiction concept of extraterrestrials was thus elevated and dignified by a seemingly irrefutable scientific argument, and this combination steam-rolled NASA into making the Quest for Life Elsewhere (QFLE) a cornerstone of its rationale for existence and its space exploration strategy. NASA’s quest to inspire (and let loose the floodgates of funding) saw gold in Sagan’s appeal to the public.

From our earliest recognition that Mars was a planet similar in size and composition to the Earth, it has harbored humanity’s hopes for the discovery of extraterrestrial life. Dreams of “life” were dashed when the initial flyby mission showed a cold, cratered surface, more like the Moon than like the Earth – a desolate Mars with an extremely thin, carbon dioxide atmosphere. In 1971, the Mariner 9 orbiter rekindled hopes of “life” when it showed channels as natural features on the surface. These landforms are difficult to explain by any process other than flowing water, and water is a prerequisite for life. Two Viking landers were launched to Mars in 1975, configured with the express objective of searching for evidence of (microbial) life in the martian soil. Nothing was found, except for some strange and unexpected soil chemistry. No organic matter was found in the soil at the parts per billion level, suggesting that not only was there no life there, but that some chemical process on the surface was destroying carbon compounds that did exist (we knew that they were being deposited on the planet by meteorite impact).

Thus, for the twenty years following Viking, Mars was considered dead, although many speculative efforts tried to envision how life might have arisen there in the past and then went extinct, as the climate changed from an early wet, warm and thick atmosphere to the current cold, dry, and thin conditions. Another round of robotic missions to Mars in the 1990s rekindled interest in possible life – or at least fossils – that could exist there. Since then, we have sent some type of robotic probe to Mars at nearly every launch opportunity (which occur every 26 months). Each mission has discovered that: a) Mars once had liquid water near the surface; and b) could have developed life. Each announcement of these astounding results is accompanied by much press hoopla as the again “new” findings are heralded and papers are published.

Concurrent with these findings was the astonishing result that perhaps life had already been found. Scientific study of the meteorite ALH 84001 showed extremely small rod-like forms that look similar to terrestrial bacteria. This space rock is one of a group thought to have come to Earth from Mars, blasted off the planet by an ancient impact. If all of these inferences were correct, then we may have already discovered fossil life from Mars! However, these interpretations are not universally accepted – indeed, they are not accepted by most of the scientific community today. Thus, the QFLE continues.

Just why is the idea of martian microbes so compelling? Although motivations vary, many in the space community have embraced the QFLE in relation to Mars because it has been good for business. The discovery of the possible fossils in a martian rock in 1996 inspired and spawned an entire Mars exploration program, one responsible for the launch of 11 American and 7 international spacecraft (and still counting) to the red planet over the last 20 years. Each mission repeats the new discovery that Mars “probably” was conducive to life early in its history. We can’t stop now – this elusive goal is just around the next bend!

Two issues present themselves in regard to the QFLE, especially as applied to Mars exploration. First, is the QFLE a valid rationale for a space exploration program? Second, if extraterrestrial life were found there, so what and what then?

Clearly, as they have embraced it as their rationale for space exploration, NASA is endorsing the QFLE. I have two issues with this adoption, one practical and one philosophical. On the practical side, if you define your objective around the search for life and you don’t find it, by definition, your mission is a failure. One cannot prove a negative, so not finding life or evidence of former life does not prove that it never existed. The only response QFLE advocates have to such a negative result is that “we just haven’t looked in the right place” and thus, additional missions or experiments are needed. This gambit works for a while (at least, it has worked up until now), but eventually, the public will get wise and decide that enough is enough. Thus, using the QFLE as a rationale for spaceflight contains within it the seeds of its own demise, as finding life or evidence for its past existence is an unlikely occurrence (it has yet to happen in 50 years of planetary exploration).

On the philosophical side of the issue, I contend that the QFLE, while a legitimate scientific inquiry, should not be the all-consuming justification for our space endeavors. It is certainly no more important than all of the other questions about the origin, history and evolution of the planets that we have developed over the years. By focusing on the QFLE and making all other topics subservient to its needs, we preclude opportunities for discoveries and breakthroughs in fields unrelated to biology. But more insidiously, by questing for life, we are attempting not to make a new discovery, but to confirm an existing dogma. Virtually all scientists subscribe to the materialist paradigm for the origin and development of life, viz., that given the right chemistry and environment, life will arise and over geological time, it will evolve into many different, ever more complex organisms. And if, or when, extraterrestrial life is found, what will have been proven? That our materialist model is correct? What scientist doubts that now?

By necessity, most planetary scientists follow the money and because special pots of funding have been set aside for the study of extraterrestrial life, many orient their research in that direction (one must eat, after all). But that funded scientific “interest” is not a product of the free marketplace of ideas deciding which topics are most important, but rather the directed result of a bureaucratic decision.

According to Nye,

“Everyone…..would agree that if we were to discover evidence of ancient life on Mars, let alone if we were to discover something still alive there, it would change the course of human history.”

Well, I don’t agree. I believe that the really important breakthroughs and insights of science tend to come from totally unexpected connections and conceptual breakthroughs, not from some finding that everyone has been expecting for the last 100 years. By making the QFLE the central objective that propels our national space program, we’re ignoring other objectives of equal (if not greater) importance and significance. Moreover, we’ve set the program up for an abrupt termination when the long-sought evidence for life fails to turn up. But even if life or evidence of former life is found, all we have done is to validate our existing prejudices. I sense that this realization is gradually creeping into the consciousness of others in the space community, as some advocates of human Mars exploration are emphasizing habitation and settlement, rather than the search for martian life.

The universe is big and displays many interesting phenomena for us to study. To make the QFLE the main focus of our scientific exploration efforts is to ignore or give short shrift to other equally engaging problems. It also has the potential to cause a loss of political support for the program – the public “excitement” that it seeks.

NASA and Congress are always asking: What will inspire the people? We don’t need another Sagan – what we need is a permanent path to everywhere in space. The quest for everything can begin once our leaders move beyond believing that we need gurus and gimmicks to inspire and sustain a great space program.

You may have noticed that I haven’t been blogging here much lately.  I am busy with the manuscript of my next book, due at the publisher in a couple of months.  I’ll be back with more commentary on space policy and programs soon.

The clockwork universe — “overthrown” by relativity? (From Einstein and Eddington, BBC)

I enjoyed watching a couple of movies during the holidays. Covering important historical events, they detailed the back stories behind major scientific developments.

Einstein and Eddington, a BBC production from a few years ago (available on YouTube), is a dramatization of one of the most famous scientific experiments of the last century. The 1919 British expedition to Africa led by Sir Arthur Eddington, to observe and record a total solar eclipse, was undertaken to test Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.

The Imitation Game tells the story of Professor Alan Turing’s involvement in cracking Enigma – the German coding device used to encrypt the military communications and operations of the Third Reich. This successful, British top-secret effort by a group of scientists and cryptologists, is credited with saving many lives and for shortening the duration of World War II considerably.

While these two films are interesting and reasonably well told, what caught my attention were certain ideas implied by the narratives. Viewers need to be cognizant of history – and artistic license – when a filmmaker uses the descriptor “based on a true story.” In both cases, the story lines got some things wrong. In Einstein and Eddington, it was implied that the General Theory of Relativity (tested and validated by Eddington’s observations) “overthrew” Newtonian mechanics (the physics that we all learn in high school). At the end of The Imitation Game, we are told that “Turing’s Machine” (the collection of relays and rotating drums that was used to decode the Enigma messages) is “known today as the computer.” This statement implies that Turing invented the modern computer. I think that both of these “conclusions” (as they seem to imply) are wrong and do a disservice because they reflect a misunderstanding of how science works and the meaning of scientific knowledge.

Science is the process by which we explain nature. It involves not merely expensive laboratory equipment, white lab smocks and wild hair on absent-minded academics, but in reality, it is a way of thinking about problems. We observe the world and devise explanations for phenomena. Usually, most of these “guesses” are wrong. The most common misunderstanding about science is that it is a collection of immutable knowledge. Actually, it is a collection of the best explanations that we have at any given time. Any scientific explanation is subject to change, given enough compelling evidence. Researchers must keep an open mind about scientific explanations (called hypotheses), even those that have been long accepted by most workers (the scientific “consensus”).

When a hypothesis has been around for some time and continually passes whatever tests we can devise for it, it becomes elevated to the status of a scientific theory. Note well that this meaning of the word theory is very different from its common meaning in everyday speech. In common parlance, we typically use the word theory to mean what a scientist means by the word hypothesis, which is usually no more than an opinion (informed or not). But there is a very important difference.

In science, any hypothesis must be testable. To maintain its status as a viable concept, hypotheses undergo repeated testing. A million “passings” of an experimental test mean nothing against a single failure. If a hypothesis cannot stand experimental or observational scrutiny, it must be discarded. At best, it is incomplete; at worst, it is simply wrong. If a hypothesis continually stands up over time to many different tests, it gradually becomes accepted as a theory. Good hypotheses and theories not only stand up to rigorous testing, but they make predictions about what possible future tests will indicate.

The system laid out in Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia (1687) described a mechanistic world that was predictable and comprehensible. Its famous Law of Gravitation made testable predictions, one of the first being a precise description of the timing and location of the next apparition of the 1682 comet (now known as Halley’s comet), which promptly appeared again in 1758. The Newtonian system was so thorough and comprehensive that it was thought to be the definitive explanation for the way our universe worked.

Toward the end of the 19th Century, problems with Newtonian mechanics appeared. These involved diverse phenomena ranging between the extremely small and the extremely large. Problems appeared with the classical understanding of light as a wave. The orbit of Mercury did not conform to strict Newtonian predictions. Einstein, working to explain some of these discrepancies, concluded that classical Newtonian mechanics were not wrong – merely incomplete. It was only at the extreme ranges of possible measurement (such as very massive objects like stars, and very high velocities such as the speed of light) that these discrepancies were evident. Einstein went on to develop a new system to better describe the behavior of the universe in these extremes.

The contention of the film Einstein and Eddington that Einstein “overthrew” Newtonian physics is simply wrong. General Relativity (Einstein’s name for his model) doesn’t overthrow anything – it extends mechanics into realms with which Newton had no experience. Under normal conditions (i.e., human-scale interactions with nature), Newton’s equations work just fine. Only at the very limits of observational science do we find that we need relativistic mechanics. A good example of this is the use of GPS systems to navigate cars, ships and airplanes. Because GPS satellites move at very high speeds (orbital velocity) and use extremely precise (atomic) clocks, corrections must be made for the fact that relativity predicts that time moves more slowly the faster you travel. This relativistic time correction is needed to give the meter-scale precision that GPS can deliver.

One of the most interesting things about General Relativity is that it does not replace Newtonian physics – it encompasses it. When velocities and distances are more within the realm of normal human experience, the Einstein gravitational equation reduces to the Newtonian one. Thus, General Relativity did not “overthrow” Newtonian theory – it extended it into new realms. Scientific revolutions rarely overthrow systems of thought, more typically they extend and refine our knowledge. (One exception is the overthrow of the Ptolemaic Earth-centered Solar System by the Copernican Sun-centered one.)

Likewise, Turing’s Enigma de-coding machine at Bletchley Park was not the world’s first computer. Computing machines have been built for centuries, each new one being more advanced, more powerful and more capable than the last. If any one person should be granted the “honor” of being the father of the computer, it is probably John von Neumann, whose basic computer architecture is used in every computer today. Turing certainly deserves great credit for his ideas about algorithms and computable numbers, but a “Turing Machine” is a theoretical concept, not a practical computer. The work of von Neumann built upon and extended Alan Turing’s work (whose value von Neumann fully acknowledged). Newton notably expressed the cumulative process of learning in science when he said, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Science advances incrementally (small steps that contribute to knowledge) and cumulatively (each piece adds to the larger whole). It is also supposed to be self-correcting. Scientists must accept and acknowledge the concept that scientific knowledge is constantly changing and changeable. Thus, ideas like “the opinion of the majority of scientists” or “consensus” reflect not science but our current incomplete (and likely mistaken) state of knowledge. The worst science of all twists new observations, facts and discoveries inside out to preserve the viability of some existing model. A wide variety of current popular scientific ideas (such as the origin of the Moon and global climate change) belong in this category. The attractiveness or appeal of an idea is not relevant to its validity. Scientific hypotheses must be falsifiable. If they are not, we’re just chasing our tails.

I strongly recommend both films for enjoyable entertainment and insight into how science works – just watch out for the producers’ misunderstandings of it.