NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
presents the von Karman lecture a series
of talks by scientists and engineers who
are exploring our planet our solar
system and all that lies beyond
good evening ladies and gentlemen how is
everyone tonight
excellent oh thank you you're far too
kind well thank you everyone
both here in the house and on camera and
on the internet and all that for joining
us tonight
so tonight we celebrate the 60th
anniversary of Explorer 1 the first u.s.
satellite which also made the first
science discovery and pin space and
paved the way for six decades of earth
science discoveries as you can see our
set up tonight is a little bit different
we'll be using a panel format hosted by
JPL's Blaine Baggett but with our usual
lecture format you'll be able to ask
questions after the show Blaine is a JPL
fellow and the laboratories
documentarian his productions many
involving space themes have been
recognized by virtually every major
awards competition including the pardon
me of the DuPont Columbia award for
journalism the Peabody Award and local
national and international Emmys ladies
and gentlemen please help me welcome
tonight's host mr. Blaine Baggett
good evening and let me also extend my
welcome to you to NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory here in LA cañada California
we're are going to celebrate Explorer
one the very first u.s. satellite and
the satellite that gave the entire world
the very first space science discovery
and it was discovery
not just any science discovery but one
that helps to explain why you and I can
walk on the surface of this planet so I
think you'll be very interested in the
knowing about it and then in the second
half of our show we're going to speed
ahead 60 years and spend some time
learning about what do we know about the
vital signs of our planet now and what
NASA is doing to understand that
so to begin let me introduce our
historian dr. Eric Conway
we come on board here
good in here what do you think just by a
small introduction Eric is our official
historian here at the laboratory
you know he's published authors written
things about Mars about aviation and
about our own planet so just as a
context about how JPL got started for
everyone and then will we behead is that
JPL started as a small group of handful
of students some of them Caltech who
wanted to build rockets in the 1930s and
that got serious during the drumbeats of
world war two coming on there was
funding from the Army and it was
actually an army exercise to build
rockets to begin wasn't it
yep lab basically started as a student
research project and and kind of grew
like Topsy after 39 yeah and we're gonna
leap ahead to this iconic image we have
up here for for us which is the
celebration of the success of Explorer 1
and let's start off Eric by who's that
fellow on the far right that we see here
so the gentleman on the far right is
Verner von braun he got his start
building designing and building rockets
for Nazi Germany started really in the
30s began to be successful really in the
mid 40s and was able to get his he
wanted me to rockets to a state where he
could bombard London during during the
war and after the war he and a large
group of his engineers and scientists
with him decided to surrender to US
forces in Germany basically because they
figured they would be better treated for
us and that we were more likely to be
able to afford their ambitions to build
space rockets and that's indeed what
happened they went to the United States
to I guess first New Mexico and they
were launching these b-2s experiments in
the United States that's right that's
right so we didn't do
just abscond would von braun in his
engineers we also brought back about a
hundred of the v2s that had been built
in various stages of repair and they
were shipped to White Sands proving
ground in New Mexico where the army had
them reassembled and began test
launching them along with
instrumentation prepared by with the
help of a group of US scientists known
as a rocket research panel and then they
move on to Alabama
yeah they eventually land in in
Huntsville Alabama and but but white
sands is where they first came into
collaboration with JPL which was also
developing its ballistic missiles for
the army via test launches at white
sands and how about let's go to back to
the image here and what about the photo
on the far left so the gentleman on the
far left is a New Zealand er who came to
Caltech to get his PhD in electrical
engineering did cosmic ray research and
then began working part time initially
at JPL on telemetry for the missile
program here at the lab became the
corporal missile program director
corporal was JPL liquid-fueled rocket
being developed as a we would now call
it a short-range ballistic missile with
a nuclear warhead for deployment in
Europe
he became the corporal program director
and then in 1954 he became the JPL
director so you've got these two groups
one in Alabama here one here at JPL
they're both building rockets and they
somehow merged their ambitions merged
not just in terms of their ambitions
though but in terms of the actual
hardware one of the things that was
known to be possible theoretically but
hadn't been done as of the late 1940s is
staging we do it all the time now but
here you're looking at the there the
actual first product of the union of JPL
and and von brown's folks i mean what
was called a bumper whack literally the
lower half of this rocket is a v2 and
the upper half of it is a huge JPL built
whack corporal there were eight of these
flown to first six at white sands and
the last two at
Cape Canaveral this one is known as
bumper west bumper whack number eight
which was launched in from the Cape in
July 1915 and this was the very first
ever launch of a rocket from the Cape
yep amazing yes and so they get this
notion that they want to launch a
satellite into space
don't they they kept working together
after this bumper whack program the army
had them working because of the pressure
on all the US armed services to develop
ICBMs they had a research project to
figure out whether you could bring more
heads back from space intact which was
known as reentry test vehicle program
was classified for a long time they
built believe was nine sets of hardware
that were a redstone rocket and a set of
upper stages solid fueled upper sages
developed by JPL to hurl the warhead
2,000 miles downrange and fast enough to
prove that you could bring this warhead
back from space and they also believed
that that set of equipment could be used
to orbit a satellite they proposed this
as project orbit but Eisenhower whose
president were midst of the Cold War
here has other agendas and let's roll a
video a clip from a documentary that's
been done on explore one
Nikita Khrushchev had rejected
Eisenhower's open-skies proposal to use
airplanes for mutual reconnaissance how
hostile Eisenhower worried would the
Soviet Union be to a satellite flying
overhead the great question hanging over
the inauguration of the Space Age was is
it legal to orbit satellites over the
territory of other countries does is
outer space subject to the same airspace
laws that airplanes have to obey it's
not it's not legal to fly you to
airplanes over the Soviet Union if the
Soviet Union does it doesn't permit it
their airspace is an extension of their
national sovereignty extending upward
squad calum in the latin phrase even
unto the heavens in 1955 a potential
solution to the problem appeared
physicist James Van Allen was helping
spearhead an effort to launch a
satellite to study the earth as part of
a worldwide science effort called the
International Geophysical Year or igy
Eisenhower immediately seized on the
opportunity
so that fellow is the fellow we see here
in the center of this picture so tell us
about James Van Alen in the role he's
playing in this story so Van Alen is
another early cosmic ray researcher and
along with JPL director or William
Pickering was a member of the rocket and
research panel that was flying
instruments on these v2 s he was also a
developer of small rockets to do cosmic
ray research even even the thing that
called a raccoon of all things literally
a balloon with a rocket under it you
sent the balloon up when they got high
enough launched the rocket so then Alan
was already deeply involved in this kind
of rocket research any new Pickering
then Alan's cosmic ray instrument was
selected for the International
Geophysical Year or bringing satellite
after that was approved by President
Eisenhower and I believe it's 55 and and
so he was very involved in in that whole
research area and in getting it sold one
of the problems the International
Geophysical Year scientists had was that
they wanted to do global measurements
even even in Antarctica but from the
ground the best you can do is get a
bunch of pinpricks on the surface of the
world and with a satellite you could do
much better so that was the idea of the
igy satellite program that banana then
Alan helped sell so he's advocating that
he was certainly an advocate of it and
Pickering is gung-ho as this one brought
in but the Russians are interested in
this too that's that's right so the this
the International Geophysical Year
actually had a lot of Soviet connections
they had major research fleets they
wanted to appear scientifically
interested in progressive so they
intended to contribute a lot to the igy
and they decided they were going to
launch their own satellite lo and behold
they do to the shock of the entire world
the shock of the entire world except the
people who knew a lot about the igy
because they actually announced in
advance that they were going to do it
it's just people that's the rest of us
didn't pay attention and and so it was
very surprising to
most Americans even the ones in the know
that it actually worked it was a shock
really to the system you know people had
to take math I had to take math as a
result of this yeah that's true there
was the National Defense Education Act
after so so at this point we did have
our own satellite that we our own
program and it was called Vanguard I
think so the Vanguard program remember I
said earlier I think that von Braun and
JPL's folks had proposed something
called project orbiter to use that
vehicle stack we like to call it in the
space business but that rocket they
developed for the reentry test vehicle
program to orbit a satellite and they
proposed that as the International
Geophysical years launch vehicle and
they lost you saw in that the tape it's
the wrong word for it but you saw on the
tape Eisenhower had this concern about
overflight I mean because he had that
concern about overflight he wanted the
u.s. Gy satellite to have as little
connection to military programs as
possible and so the Naville Research Lab
proposed developing a new rocket that
wasn't a result of the ICBM program for
the igy that was called Vanguard and
that was the vehicle that got the the
blessing of the of the White House and
then what happened on the launch pad
well there's a reason that little
satellite you saw is hanging in a museum
now instead of burned up in space their
launch vehicle exploded in front of the
whole world don't tell yeah because the
u.s. didn't keep it all secret
we had a very public embarrassment it
was called flop Nick
flop Nick and kaputnik yeah
so at this point Eisenhower has really
no choice but to turn to the efforts of
JPL and and what was then I guess the
Redstone with Braun that's right so
after the Sputnik launch in October
President Eisenhower had authorized a
backup to be prepared using the Army's
army JPL of von Braun group's re-entry
test vehicle set up like project orbiter
except with Van Allen's
cosmic ray instrument and a couple of
micrometeoroid detectors and that launch
attempt is is what winds up pulling JPL
out of the classified world and back in
the space ions so let's go back to that
actual time and and see the launch and
see what happened time late evening
Friday January 31st 1958 in a blockhouse
at canopy of countdown to explore the
one
so we got a we got a report from the
Cape that the launch looks pretty good
and it should fly over California in
such a time and so the decision was made
that we would make no public
announcements about the Rockets until
it'll actually be picked up in
California and so we sat there for an
hour and a half the time came and went
and there was a period of a period of
eight minutes there which was the long
statements over spent in my life but
finally JPL received the signal that the
satellite was in orbit the United States
had a success Eisenhower on a golfing
trip at the time was awakened from his
sleep and told the news let's not make
too big of a hullabaloo over this he
cautioned and went back to sleep no one
took the president's advice we were told
that there was going to be a press
conference over at the National Academy
of Sciences and the other side of the
river so off we went and I remember
sitting in that car with the three of us
in the back seat it was sort of a cold
rainy January night in Washington and I
remember conversation going along up one
word anybody's gonna be out here because
it's about know about two o'clock in the
morning in Washington at the National
Academy of Science a packed auditorium
of reporters radio and brown and allen
and Pickering are there to lift the the
satellite aloft the success of Explorer
and what we learned from it really does
kind of recreate in the in the most
fundamental way the nature of the of the
Jet Propulsion lab and moving it from a
rocket development center to one in
which space science becomes what it
really does it really put JPL on the map
scientifically
and there you have at that moment the
iconic moment and what's really
important about it I guess is the space
sciences as much and talk to us about
about what that instrument was and what
it did place so they're Nolan's
instrument fundamentally is a Geiger
counter in the cosmic ray instrument and
it's kind of the center tube of that
image you're seeing while I'm pointing
to one down there because it's on the
floor but up there and it's surrounded
by batteries because there are no solar
panels on the satellite yet and it had a
odd behavior well it was orbiting the
Earth and that was it it would have a
normal sort of expected lowish count and
then it would start to climb and then it
would suddenly go to zero and it did
this in every orbit and it's a couple of
months before Van Allen's crew start to
understand what's going on they thought
there's something wrong with the
instrument they tried various things but
what was really happening was that it
was becoming saturated when it got to
certain parts of its orbit and they
tried in the lab to figure out what you
had to do to cause this to happen and
they they found that they zapped it with
an x-ray machine they would get the same
result and what that showed was that
there's a point in a in the in its orbit
where it's going through an extremely
high area of radiation and they figured
that it's radiation trapped by the
Earth's magnetic field so we have
basically radiation belts we have a
radiation belt and radiation shielding
from the magnetic field that a handful
of scientists had thought might be true
but disproved it and because of that
radiation belt we have were protected we
are protected by yeah yeah and from the
cosmic rays and we're able to walk
around they're here only for might be
key to life on earth the answer might be
yeah well that's a great story and then
there's another thing that happens as a
result of this is that there's the
formation of our space agency yeah so
President Eisenhower having you know
it's the army his old service of course
the army who had had the first space
science result and but but President
Eisenhower didn't want science
kind of under under the military's thumb
even if the site even if the military
had been a good patron and so he took
some thought on the subject of how to go
about making a civilian space agency
that would be a scientific agency as
well and concluded that the way to go
about it was to take an already existing
organization known as the National
Advisory Committee and Aeronautics or
the NACA
it's actually been founded and after
right at the end of World War one and
convert that into the new space agency
and that's for other centers but not JPL
and not Don still folks initially so at
one point it looked like Caltech and JPL
would just be shut out of the space
agent but JPL particularly because it
were a part of Caltech to this day
wanted to get out of the weapons
business and wanting to get into the
science business absolutely so Caltech
had never been very happy with the
decision but the army made to convert
JPL into making weapons for the Cold War
and particularly not when they started
making operational weapon systems
because it didn't contribute to the
teaching mission though of Caltech it's
a school fundamentally that's what it's
supposed to be and so there were
discussions about how do we get JPL to
do something else and this was the
opportunity so NASA's goes into
operation in October of 58 and mr.
Pickering or dr. Pickering I'm sorry
I will be crucified for that dr.
Pickering goes to Washington who tried
to sell NASA and the White House on the
idea of moving JPL out of the army and
into NASA and they're successful so JPL
makes the transition of the beginning of
the following year but it took the
thawed Browns crew another couple of
years to even decide they wanted to be
out of the army and move over to NASA it
was to turn on a twist of a phrase is
the rest is the future the rest is the
future and we do things that are
completely different now Eric thank you
so much for having me whirlwind tour
thank you
thank you and now we're going to turn
our attention to some incredible
software that I couldn't be more proud
of that you can download on your
computer in some cases on an application
that you can see some of the things that
we're doing today in space exploration
and to tell us about that is mr. Jason
Craig a visualization specialist here at
the laboratory welcome James Jason
Thank You Blaine so if you've been
watching this monitor you've seen
explore one but what you may not know is
this is not a pre-rendered animation
this is a live 3d simulation in real
time so this is one second per second
and I can control what's going on so
this is actually the entire solar system
from 1950 to 2050 and you're in control
of time and space so if I leave explorer
1 there's not much going on out there
out in the solar system but I can turn
on the labels the orbit lines
constellations if you like and if I hit
the Now button we can see where
everything is let's turn off those
constellations so I'm gonna use the
controls to show you some cool stuff but
first and foremost I want you to know
that this is something that you can have
at home so in the back of the room there
are cards that will tell you the website
to go to and you can download this for
your pc or mac laptop or desktop and
it's called eyes on the solar system and
it's an eyes nasa.gov eyes like your
eyes and you actually get three programs
when you do a quick install so I'm
showing right now I was showing eyes on
the solar system which is the simulation
of over a hundred and twenty NASA
missions for a hundred years and it's
accurate it's accurate as it can
possibly be
everything's to scale one two one two
one you also get eyes on the earth which
I'm going to show after this to show
some earth data and you can visit each
and every exoplanet we've ever found
which is over three thousand I wouldn't
advise that unless you've got a lot of
free time
but those are just for your laptop your
desktop but we also have apps for your
phone so if you have your phone you can
actually get these right away earthnow
which it will be similar to what I'm
about to show but it's for your phone
and also one called spacecraft 3d and I
have cards in the back for that as well
and that's kind of fun it's like Pokemon
go but for NASA spacecraft so check that
out when you get a chance so quick
download you get three programs now let
me show you some cool cool stuff all
right so back to the solar system let me
turn off the constellations and go back
here and this is a live view of the
solar system we hit now it's January
25th 729 p.m. at one second per second
so let me show you the general orbit
line so you can see the solar system so
there it is this is the solar system I'm
in control we can pull out all the way
to the voyagers the voyagers this one
has left the solar system but let me go
to Mars let's take a live let's just
drop in on Mars and take a live look any
label you see you double-click and you
go on in and this is Mars right now and
those are our missions at Mars right now
there's actually quite a few and let me
fast-forward so you can see so that's
seven minutes per second rate so we've
got a bunch of orbiters we have you can
see the moon there Phobos and we have
two Rovers on Mars right now let me show
you the trails of each of these orbiters
so let's go double click on one and take
a look and see how it's doing and catch
MRO here or that's fast let's go back to
real rates sometimes they run away from
you let's go to Odyssey Odyssey is a
very long-lasting orbiter
so there's Odyssey this is actually
where it is this very second and if you
want to go ahead in time we just fast
forward you go to really fast you can
make yourself ill we're not going to do
that and let me go back out and show you
something you may not be aware of is the
beautiful beautiful shadows on Saturn so
we have added this detail and we bring
up real lighting these beautiful ring
shadows on Saturn they're amazing and
this is what they look like right now
but if we go forward in time you can see
what happens with its seasons
and now it's changed to the northern
hemisphere so now we're in 2028 so just
like that we're there but then we
fast-forward some more we get back up to
the absolute Solstice and then it'll go
back down again pretty cool stuff
but I'm going to leave solar system
because the rest of this will be earth
and I'm gonna switch to eyes on the
earth so when you install you get all of
these programs it'll put a little icon
on your desktop and I'm gonna load eyes
on the earth and show you our earth
fleet right now so that's a this is a
live look if I hit real time this is a
live look at our earth fleet and so eyes
on the solar system this is for you good
taxpayers you've already paid for it you
may as well download it so please check
it out when you get a chance I'll turn
it back over to blame now that's the
fastest trip I've taken through the
solar system ever I think well joining
me now are two incredible scientists
here at the laboratory dr. carmen bowen
and dr. Erica POTUS dr. Boeing is a
scientist on the grace mission she's
conducting research on ocean climate
interactions that include global water
cycle and sea level rise and dr. POTUS
just working on the soil moisture active
passive mission a mission better known
and easier said is SMAP her research
areas include global carbon and water
cycle changes in climate change so
welcome to you too - thank you
now we've got a lot of ground to cover
an atmosphere and oceans to cover and so
let's get right to it Jason's gonna
continue to visualize what we're talking
about as we go through this but he's put
up on the screen this armada of science
instruments that are circling the globe
now it's it's quite an impressive group
of missions yeah absolutely so what
you're seeing here is NASA's Earth
observing missions in space which
consists of 20 and these missions
observe the different components of our
global environments as related to the
oceans the atmosphere and the continents
and together they provide a picture of
our earth as a system so we can study
almost everything from the air we
breathe to the rain and the snow that
provide water for agriculture for
communities to natural disasters like
floods and droughts and the study from
space has really revolutionized our
understanding of our planet and it's
constantly providing new information
that helps us understand how the planet
functions and how it's changing and all
of this is thanks to the incredible
technological achievements that's been
developed through decades of experience
going back to Explorer 1 and I know
you're a favorite image that you have is
of the earth as a puzzle as scientists
that makes sense to me because there's
such mysteries I know you're always
wanting to to solve but it's a complex
system and of complex puzzle to solve
it's me yes absolutely so the pieces of
the puzzle are everything urban
environments biodiversity oceans
atmosphere everything that comprises our
planet and putting this puzzle together
is complicated because earth is a
complex system there's a lot of
interactions at different scales from
the local to the regional to the global
scales and it's not only that but it's
understanding what happens when a system
is altered how
that impacts other systems and then
trying to foresee how things will evolve
in the future so even though we don't
know everything we have enough pieces of
the puzzle to know the general direction
where things are heading so Carmen we're
going to be talking a lot about climate
but I just want to make sure we are all
clear about the difference between
climate and weather because we've had a
lot of cold weather in this country
recently and I could imagine a lot of
folks shivering saying what do you mean
about the fact that the climate is
warming what is the difference really
yeah just exactly yeah so there is a big
difference between climate and weather
and weather is really what's happening
right now in one place to the other and
as you said it might be very cold
somewhere in the world and then at the
same time there is a lot of heat and
droughts in another place so looking at
these things over time that is what
climate is it's really not the the
hourly to daily weekly weather but the
the long-term change what happens from
year to year from decade to decade maybe
even over over centuries and that's like
so great now that we have this fleet of
satellites that can actually look at the
whole globe and look at these different
places how they develop over time and
yes just have this big picture view of
everything you know and you mentioned
decades if we just think about this new
century just recently NASA announced
something like 17 in the last I think 18
years have been the warmest in modern
modern records and this is all goes back
to another basic ideal fundamental idea
that the greenhouse effect isn't it
absolutely so the earth is surrounded by
a layer of gases
called the atmosphere and some of these
gases are greenhouse gases which trap
heat
the greenhouse effect what you're seeing
here is when the Sun heats up the
surface of our planets the surface then
radiates that heat back to the
atmosphere part of that heat is trapped
by the greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere and what you're seeing on the
right is what's called the normal it's
it's a normal greenhouse effect and what
you're seeing on the sorry on the left
what you're seeing on the right is the
perturbed greenhouse effect so what's
happening is think of it as a blanket
and as we are increasing the
concentration of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere that blanket is getting
thicker and therefore the ability of
earth to trap heat is increasing and
that's the perturb greenhouse effect
that you're seeing on the right the
greenhouse effect is a natural here on
earth if it were not for the greenhouse
effect we would not be able to live here
so it's very very important and what
you're seeing in this graph are the
gases that make up the greenhouse effect
which are water vapor carbon dioxide met
methane nitrous oxides
chlorofluorocarbons however the most
important man-made greenhouse gas is
carbon dioxide or co2 and co2 can be
released to the atmosphere either
through natural processes like volcanic
eruptions or through human activities
such as the production of cement
deforestation forest degradation and the
burning of fossil fuels and that's one
thing that JPL and NASA can do from
space is measure the concentration of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and
what you're seeing here this video
animation is the monthly concentration
of co2 starting from 2002 and going
through 2016 as measured with the sensor
called airs and it's onboard a NASA
satellite called aqua the colors the
aqua colors are lower concentrations of
co2 and the yellow and the red
colors represent higher concentrations
of co2 co2 by the way is measured in
parts per million and you can see here
to thought the progression of this video
that there's been a change in the colors
from blues to yellows and reds so the
next graph shows this quantitatively
throughout the time period of the video
and we can see that it's just a
continuous increase in co2
concentrations where are we now in
December of 2017 the average co2
concentration was about 406 parts per
million but what does that mean so let's
put things into perspective the next
graph shows reconstructions of
atmospheric co2 concentration through
ice cores and we go 500,000 years back
and we can see that in this time frame
co2 concentrations didn't go above 300
parts per million okay
so that puts things into perspective we
are living in unprecedented times in the
interesting thing to me looking at this
this graph is that when you start to
begin to see the the spike bit hard to
see here but we're talking about the
beginning of the Industrial Revolution
so we're starting to say machines that
are using carbon-based fuels and and so
by the time you get to 1950 you're
starting to go somewhere we've never
been before absolutely yes
so that low there right before the spike
that's around the time when the
industrial revolution began and you can
see this just very quick increase in co2
concentrations and it's that's right in
1950 we surpassed the 300 part per
million so our planet in spite of this
is trying to cope with what we are doing
you can you talk about how the planet is
responding to this sure so first of all
our planet is very wise it tries to keep
itself in balance
and the oceans vegetation and soils have
mechanisms to take up to absorb carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere however
what's happening is we are releasing
carbon dioxide too quickly and we're not
allowing these mechanisms to take up
that excess carbon dioxide so if you
look at the percentage of carbon dioxide
that's released per year into the
atmosphere 26 percent of that co2 is
absorbed by oceans twenty-eight percent
by the land surface and the rest
accumulates in the atmosphere so this
next video animation it's really cool I
love it because it shows our earth
breathing and what you see over land the
green means vegetation growth and these
are measurements from a sensor called
modis onboard NASA's Aqua satellite and
then what you're seeing in the
atmosphere
those are co2 concentrations measured
with airs also onboard aqua so it starts
from January 1st and around May there's
a peak in atmospheric co2 concentrations
and then around September October
there's a minimum in atmospheric co2
concentrations and what's driving this
cycle is primarily the vegetation and
the northern high latitudes so you can
see that during winter there's no green
in the northern high latitudes the land
surface freezes and there is no exchange
between the vegetation and the
atmosphere in the spring when the thaw
rolls around vegetation turns on it's
like a binary switch and it starts
growing and it starts taking up huge
amounts of co2 enough so that we can see
that the concentrations change
dramatically
so vegetation one of the areas that
there's vegetation is actually in the
polar region that is frozen that we now
call permafrost but it's not so
permanent anymore and that's a concern
too isn't it yes absolutely so
permafrost our soils that have been
permanently for
and for at least two years anywhere from
two years to decades to hundreds or even
thousands of years and as you can see in
the figure here these areas of
permafrost are primarily in the northern
highlighted soot especially in Alaska
Canada and Russia and so permafrost is
like a freezer if you put food in your
freezer it'll be preserved but if your
freezer breaks oh starts to heat up and
as it heats up bacteria starts eating
your food and the food starts to rot and
the methane and carbon dioxide and other
gases and chemicals and nasty stuff will
be produced but permafrost is like that
so permafrost has vegetation that's
trapped in the soil vegetation that has
just died that could not decompose and
it's just freezes and as temperatures
increase above zero degrees the
permafrost starts to thaw and that
vegetation then starts to decompose and
the carbon that's part of that
vegetation is released into the
atmosphere as carbon dioxide or methane
and actually estimates of how much
carbon is stored in the permafrost is
that it's about or it's more than twice
the amount of carbon that's in the
atmosphere so it's a huge amount and
it's very concerning I do a lot of field
work in Alaska and I see the evidence of
melting permafrost you see that they're
these slanted trees because the
infrastructure the ground just as it
melts right it shifts the ground and so
you have these slanted trees that are
called drunken trees and in some places
it's so prevalent that you have large
patches of forests that where you see
these slanted trees they're called
drunken forests so yes it's it's very
concerning so if you if you think about
it step back in the last two decades
it's the industrial revolution is
happening with all the co2 and now the
question of what's coming with the
release potentially of the permafrost
will be upsetting the cycle yet again
the carbon cycle want it absolutely yes
so it's a cycle that intensifies
so while Carmon while we're here in the
the polar region let's talk about also
the ice sheets and glaciers it what's
what's happening there give us the
latest on that yeah so as we see that
it's warming I mean not only is is
permafrost decreasing its melting but
actually when we look at the ice sheets
and we do have quite a lot of missions
that and airborne and satellite missions
that look at the ice sheets and and see
how they're changing and so one of the
missions that we have is a mission that
that I'm working on a lot it's called
the grace mission it's a Gravity
Recovery and climate experiment and
we're going to talk about that a little
bit more later but what we see here in
this graph is what is happening to
Greenland since 2002 and what you see in
these colors is the white color is where
nothing much is happening and then you
see in some of these areas it's actually
turning red and this is the areas where
the Greenland ice sheet is losing mass
water mass it's melting and it's going
into the ocean and when you look at the
graph that's just shows you how much it
is doing that over time since 2002 and
we've talked about seasons so seasons do
a lot they also happen in Greenland so
that's why you see this up and down in
this curve so in the winter there's snow
so snow increases the ice mass of
Greenland but then in the summer it's
melting and what you see also here so
it's steadily declining so it's more
it's melting more than snow gets onto
the ice sheet I think I read somewhere
that's that the warming is almost twice
as much in the polar regions is other
places yes and then northern polar
regions because it's it's amplified in
in that region so but if we go to
Antarctica in the south it's it's
slightly different and it's a slightly
different environment in Greenland the
atmosphere is
usually warmer in Antarctica it's
actually a lot colder and I can say that
I've been there actually on the research
cruise and I've been out there and and I
was trying to take pictures of the
environment and off the icebergs and as
I was doing that I took off my glove and
I was trying to push down the button
after five minutes I had to stop with
the pictures that was it was too cold
but then what you see is also happening
in Antarctica there are some regions
that also turn this reddish color dark
red and this is actually why this is
actually because the ocean is affecting
the ice sheet at that point is it's
warming too and it's melting the ice
from underneath so more ice is flowing
from the land into the ocean and let's
talk about the sea rise and what's
happening with the oceans - yes so in
the in the next picture we just see
again like what it really looks like you
know we looked at the data but now here
you see some actual imagery of glaciers
and and how they're decreasing over time
and so that of course then contributes
to sea level rise sea level change and
so in this animation that Jason is
showing us with the ice on Earth is
showing data from another satellite
mission this satellite mission the first
one was launched in 1992 and was called
topex/poseidon after that they called it
the Jason missions and that's what
they're still call we just recently
launched the third jason and what these
satellites are doing they are called
altimeters so they have a radar beam
that they sent down through the surface
and it bounces off the surface of the
ocean the satellite receives that signal
back and by flying over it and doing
that time
after time you can actually see how
sea-level is changing over time it's
very fine it's I've heard it so I could
the diameter or something yes yeah yeah
so it's that it's not precise and so you
have so you have the melting of the
glaciers and the ice sheets contributing
and the water because it's warming up
anyway is it's rising yes so there's a
concern about what that will mean to
coastal areas everywhere yeah yeah
exactly on what what we see currently we
have about three point three millimeters
per year but over the time that we have
this mission the topics missions it's
already accumulated to a couple of
inches and so if you would say that
continues over a hundred years just at
that steady rate we already have a foot
of of sea level sea level rise and then
when you add all the other effects that
we have in the ocean and along the coast
with the tides come on top of that and
the storm surge so that that just adds
up and as you can also see here in this
animation sea level is not flat
everywhere so so coasts are impacted
differently just because the ocean is
moving and distributing the heat and in
different ways so in this animation the
blue colors show where sea level is is
lower than than usual and the red to
white colors is where sea level is
higher than usual and what we have here
in the Pacific where you see like a lot
of this right red and white developing
that is what it's called the El Nino
Southern Oscillation and that's
something that's very very much of
interest to us here in California
because it impacts our weather so much
you know I know you work on Grace and
it's also on my favorite satellites
they said because it's so ingenious and
so counterproductive calorie intuitive
about how you've come up with these
measurements very clever what you
scientists do and I wonder if you could
describe let's just talk for a little
bit about the technology of a NASA
satellite this one but yes yeah and I I
fell in love with grace when I when I
wrote my thesis that was my first
project and I've worked on the project
ever since and I liked it because it was
so unique because it's actually a
mission that doesn't look down and scan
the earth it actually has two satellites
that follow each other in orbit and
measure like each other so I actually
brought two grace satellites here which
are just phones but they're very very
similar to the grace satellites in in
terms of like what type of technology is
in here so the phones when you flip them
right then your your screen flips too
and so there is a little instrument in
here that's called an accelerometer and
the grace satellites actually have one
on each spacecraft too just to see how
the satellites are moving and your phone
also has GPS right you can navigate with
it that's what the the satellites do -
they're getting located in space we want
to know where they are and why do we
want to attract them so precisely
because we want to measure the gravity
the gravitational pull on the satellites
so what these phones do not have is the
link between them so the the grace
satellites have a microwave link between
them where they can see how the distance
between change between them changes over
time and so why would they change the
distance at all so if we met if we
imagined some kind of like heavy thing
on earth and the satellites are
approaching and the first satellites
come comes near that mess it's actually
getting pulled by that heavy thing on
earth
and the distance between the satellites
increases so now they fly over and the
second satellite gets pulled too so now
the distance decreases again this the
first one leaves then and gets further
away from the meso the distance
increases again so they bounce back and
forth with the gravity field and this
can show us not only about the oceans
there's there's a I don't Jason you can
show it but there's the the Amazon is
what is an area that amazes me you fly
over it you see the seasons the
difference there between the monsoon
seasons and not water you can measure
the amount of water
exactly it's so soon when you first
think about gravity you think like oh
it's not changing very much but it's
actually changing quite a bit because
there's a lot of water moving and as you
said here over the Amazon blue again is
more water in red is less water you see
the dry and rainy season how it's
changing over time and let's bring this
back to California way how the water is
changing everywhere and so we can do
that also for us in California and what
we see here is how our water table then
is is developing over time so now grace
can actually not not only look at the
surface but it can actually tell us
something about the groundwater and here
in this graph that's moving this line
that's moving we see in 2011 how the
drought starts and what the grace
satellites see like you pull a lot of
water from from the ground and then in
the just the yeah from the aquifers and
then in the end we just saw this blip
that was the the rain we had last year
where some of the groundwater is
recovering but that recovering from just
one big rain is not going to
to it with a the aquifer so we still
need to be careful with our water
resources yes and also it was a result
of this we're seeing other impacts in
the breadbasket of the valley the
California Valley that's right so one of
the effects of over drawing from ground
from aquifers is that the ground can
sink
it's called subsidence and that's
something that we can measure with
satellites from space and this is an
example of that this is in the Central
Valley and we can measure the subsidence
in the order of inches so you can what
you're seeing here the blue areas are
areas where there's been no change but
up the cyan and the pink areas are areas
where there's been some such silence on
the order of 12 to 24 inches that's up
to 61 centimeters which is a lot and
this is over a very short time period
it's within two years but it's right
during the drought when there was a lot
of groundwater being withdrawn and I
think you there's some images - that's
right so here are some examples this is
the one on the left is not recent but
that really shows you how much
subsidence has taken place in the
Central Valley of California that's
actually a pretty famous picture I the
the person standing on the bottom has
the year which is 1977 and at the top
you see it says 1925 and there was a
nine meters of subsidence in that period
of time that's about 30 feet and then
the image on the right is a bit more
recent that's an oil well also in the
Central Valley of California and three
years prior the oil well had been
painted with pink orange paint and so
within that three year time frame the
ground subsided one and a half feet
another example of how much change is
happening right in in front of our eyes
no I'm also interested in the question
of with all this going on and how you
decided to get into these fields what
made you decide that you wanted to be in
this this field of work I'm really
curious yeah yeah so well I I started
actually studying mathematics so
theoretical mathematics and I did my
masters in in math and then I thought
okay so what am I gonna do with that
everything was so abstract and and
nothing really applied and I really
wanted to do something that relates to
the world and has an impact on people so
for my PhD then I decided to switch to
to physics and study the earth and this
how is how I started off with working on
the grace mission and wrote my thesis
about that and then came because it's a
JPL mission after that I came from
Germany here I moved from Germany to the
u.s. to work here yes straight from so
from a student working on Grace and now
you're here as a scientist yes that's
great about you Erica so for me I was
born and raised in Panama and it's a
beautiful country with an exuberant
nature and I was fortunate that my
parents were very outdoors so from a
very young age I was often outside
surrounded by nature and this developed
a curiosity and the love for nature and
I also had a great interest in
technology and I remember as a child
thinking it'd be great when I grow up if
I can use technology to study the
environment so years later when I was in
university early in my bachelor's degree
I discovered this field called remote
sensing which includes the observation
of Earth from space and so my masters in
my PhD
we're focused along those lines and then
one thing led to another in my life and
now I observe Earth from space here at
JPL and I'm loving it that's great and
and when you look ahead I mean there are
a lot of challenges facing this and what
do you what do you say to people that
you know that this some of this
information sobering this is challenging
and and what how do you talk to people
about the future and how do we sometimes
scientists talk about mitigation and
adaptation that that's a great point and
I think it's important for people to
understand what's going on with our
planet and the information that we are
we get here through satellites and what
we're understanding about our earth is
very important so I think the most
important thing is we can make a change
and we can all make little changes that
are beneficial for our environment
whatever your stance is I think we
should all take care of our environment
because a healthy environment
is a healthy human being no no you like
this also this image of the earth and
our is in our hands it's a it's
beautiful because it shows the fragility
of our planets and we don't have
infinite resources we really do have to
take care of it in Carmen how about you
how do you talk to people what do you
say to folks yes I mean so so being at
NASA and having the opportunity to to
look at all these observations that it's
just a great thing and and I think we
contribute a lot to society just by
doing these measurements and providing
these information and I hope people were
able to see that I mean we're able to to
study these remote areas that have so
much impact on our lives and
and so yeah we have a great opportunity
here and that's that's what I love about
working here that we do make some impact
well I take great comfort in knowing
that you two are doing and all your
colleagues are doing what you do and I
just want to thank you so much what you
do and for being here tonight thank you
you know we began this evening talking
about Explorer 1 a satellite 60 years
ago that gave us the very first space
science discovery and helped to answer
the question of why we live in such a
special place in such a special
circumstances protected by the Van Allen
radiation belts that we can enjoy life
here and we've progressed to talking
about the all this technology that we
now have in this fleet of science
instruments that NASA has to understand
a very very changing world that we live
in and as we mentioned a moment ago
there's for scientists and and others
involved in this there's mitigation
which means changing your behavior to
try to adjust address what is happening
to our world and there's adaptation if
the fact that we will face the
environment a different environment and
find ways of adapting to it and through
all that we have NASA to inform us as to
what information we need to know in
order to do those things and I think
that is so comforting to me because even
though we have NASA as a space agency
it's still this is the only planet we
know we can live on thank you so much
for coming we enjoyed it very much
well thank you Jason Thank You dr.
Conway
one final thought run don't walk too
when you get home not only to these
great software applications Jason is
total about but go to our NASA climate
site is WW climate nasa.gov and there
you will find the vital signs of our
earth that you can check like your blood
pressure every single day to know what's
going on on our planet again thank you
very much for those who are here on
Ustream hold on we'll be back in just a
moment
to answer your questions thank you okay
again for those who weren't here earlier
your your questions we'll be happy to
answer now if you have a question please
come up to the mic which is right here
in the center
nailed it
okay I have a little story to tell
related to this picture if you allow me
I was a little boy in city of Cairo
Egypt when I when the Russians and the
Americans sent those satellites and in
Boy Scouts they were telling us about
the orbits and the artificial satellites
and so on and I went to the American
Embassy in Cairo and saw this picture
and I told them what it is and they said
oh this is Jet Propulsion Laboratory
where in Pasadena California okay and
then I asked my teacher in junior high
school and he said well I told him I
want to work at the Jet Propulsion lab
rod he said you have to have a PhD in
order to get there I went back and asked
what is a PhD and then and then where is
Pasadena California I took them up went
to my parents I said I'm going to work
at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and I'm
going to have a PhD about a decade and a
half later I came to the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory after having studied Jet
Propulsion in Cairo and in Germany and
in the United States the day I started
here the moment I looked at this picture
starting at JPL I could not believe my
eyes
that I'm really here the moment I met
also dr. Pickering
it's like meet a meeting god I told him
the story and they said well thank you
for inspiring a little boy from Cairo
what I was looking at Scotty to see
those artificial satellites and I was
inspired okay I got my PhD in Jet
Propulsion and I was introduced to dr.
von Braun by my professors in Germany
dr. Herbert professor Herbert in OTA and
professor Herbert Smith line and then I
were killed in Isis with a student of
all carbon himself I mean and Here I am
60 years later after you know looking at
the sky by the way I never saw this
artificial satellite and 60 years later
and you know celebrating
thank you for sharing that
everybody yeah thank you
next question sir well that's a hard act
to follow but a very specific common
question in the discussion of of global
warming and climate change in this co2 I
think there's a very important
measurement that is rarely discussed
that I think is a mistake and that is
the isotopic signature of the co2 and
the fact that the fossil fuel has been
buried so long it has no carbon-14
that's all decayed and so you can by
measuring the the percentage of of the
co2 in the atmosphere that does have
carbon-14 which is created only in
surface carbon you can you can you can
prove that it's not coming from the
ocean that the rise in co2 is not
temporary that is coming from fossil
fuel mostly and for other human
activities that's known as ya soos
effect we just it's not work done at JPL
that's all well it's rarely barely
mentioned it's rarely mentioned it's
also really hard to do and so I I teach
an introduction to climate policy class
almost nobody knows about and I I do
teach it to my students but it's very
difficult to get them to understand the
measurement and and that might be why -
it's so rarely mentioned but thank you
we also have questions coming in from
our youth streamers and youtubers and
one here is a space TV eass is there any
technical program out there is designed
to remove carbon from the atmosphere do
you want me to say okay so lots of ideas
one for example is that we could remove
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by
dung
more iron into the oceans and
sequestering it that way problem then is
you create low oxygen zones in the ocean
which is bad for sea creatures there are
technological ideas about pulling co2
out of the air and then turning it into
something else
maybe burying it in ground but maybe
turning into some sort of a product the
one that probably gets the most
attention when there's any attention is
the idea of growing crops burning them
in power plants and then sequestering
the co2 from the power plant that one's
called bioenergy carbon capture and
storage so there are ideas but no one
actually doing it yet on any kind of
scale and the economics are really
difficult to see working out in question
here I'm dr. gene Nelson first a little
comment about that previous question dr.
James Hanson former NASA scientist
recognized a very simple low-tech
solution which is called reforest
raishin anyway I'm gonna go on to my
question and that is this is more
related to the history of space
exploration and I wanted to find out
what your take is as to the reason why
President Eisenhower said when he found
out that the army could in fact put a
Explorer one in orbit in late 1956
why did Eisenhower say no do you know
the real reason because there I'll give
you a hint it's another space program
that has its strong roots in California
so let's see what what your take is on
this another space program based in
California and I'll give you another
hint all the launches were from
Vandenberg Air Force Base Pike right
close by here well I assume you mean the
Air Force program but there's a
committee that was put together starring
Jack James from JPL and some other
as well as a lot of independent
scientists to choose which of the
competing proposals should be the igy
launch vehicle and that committee chose
Vanguard not the Eisenhower White House
so if that's the incident you're
referring to that committee made the
choice and the White House blessed it
there's the scientists on the committee
thought they were getting getting more
payload out of Vanguard and I think in
Jack James and the memos he wrote said
they're really de-emphasizing the
difficulty of making a launch vehicle
that was reliable as was proved on
December the fifth well as was proved um
yeah by the Vanguard attempt in which
the JPL and von Braun folks knew because
you know half the launches failed it was
that bad in the early space agent and
earlier the earlier you get it the worse
it was really making Rockets reliable
was a huge achievement and we spent we
the United States forget about the
German investment during World War two
we the United States spent in the 1950s
alone about a quarter of a about a
quarter of a trillion courage dollars
developing rockets it was an enormous
investment for that period of time I
agree but the corona program really is a
fascinating story and unfortunately it
was classified until 1993 right and it
really that story needs to be told so
that's that was my little plug for
Corona oh we were talking about Corona
is a Dwane do it des has been the
historian it oh yes yes I've talked to
Duane when I was in DC's yeah yes the
corona is there in the Air and Space
Museum in Washington we have it thank
you sir we have a question Milan asks I
don't know if it's Milan Italy or not
maybe so
what new explorations are planned for
the near and far future maybe we could
start with grace follow because we have
after we had 15 years of grace from 2002
to now we just ended the mission because
of its long line
time and so we're decommissioning those
satellites but we want to continue the
measurement because we talked about
climate and how its evolving over time
over these long timescales so nASA has
decided to again work with the Germans
on a new couple of satellites called the
grace fall on mission and those two
satellites are actually ready to go up
in space right now they're at the venom
Berg
air force field to be launched later
this year all right any others yes I can
speak to some of the terrestrial focused
satellites that will be or instruments
that will be launched shortly first of
all there are going to be two
instruments on the space station
launched this year one is called echo
stress and that measures
evapotranspiration and the other one is
called OC o3 and that measures co2
concentrations in the atmosphere and
it's also looking at something called
solar induced fluorescence which is an
indicator of photosynthetic activity of
vegetation then in a couple of years and
to four years down the road there's
satellite radar satellite called nice
are and that's together with the Indian
Space Agency and then around the same
timeframe there's another one called
history and that's a hyperspectral
sensor and by the way two things that
are really important here that
international collaboration is really
something fundamental in the work that
we do as you heard Carmon talk about
grace that's a joint collaboration
between JPL and Germany nice or is with
the Indian Space Agency and we've had
many other missions together with other
space agencies and the second thing is
that NASA as a free data policy so all
of the data that's collected by NASA
satellites or instruments is free you
can download it as well as data
collected by NASA instruments airborne
instruments sorry first Jason is the ice
program available for Linux or is it
only available for in
platforms yes I've gotten that question
before we are developing Linux right now
but we don't have it currently but we're
also going to move to the web which case
it'll be fine for Linux
I remember in 1968 or so who and Bill
Sjogren's and his colleague Muller whose
first name are forgotten discovered mass
concentrations on the moon using orbital
variations from lunar orbiter and I
think between that discovery and the
time of grace which originally bill
Sjogren's proposed is shortly after
lunar orbiter
I think Grace and Kobe kind of competed
neck-and-neck for the most canceled
mission I think Kobe was approved and
canceled more than 70 times I don't know
if grace has broken that record or not
yeah I mean that always happens right
that these concepts exist for a long
long time and all of a sudden yeah you
get the funding and you can fly
differently realize it's important yes
the third is it's not so much a question
well maybe it is a question I've been
astonished for the last 30 years or so
that people who have noticed that human
activity and especially the use of
carbon in the energy sector is affecting
the climate are quite worked up about it
and simultaneously oppose nuclear power
which is the only thing that could work
if you look at it an entire system and
not just you know a solar panel here or
wind bill there a dam somewhere the
waves off in Norway if it look at the
entire system as a system quantitatively
you reach the conclusion that nothing
but nuclear can work and by the way
nuclear power is the safest ever way to
make electricity by an extremely wide
margin 43 deaths in 60 years compared
with 30,000 deaths a year from coal
burning in the US alone we that's that's
not an externality there are no
externalities from nuclear power because
everything is put away somewhere there's
just no externalities so that that's
kind of an astonishment to me that
people who claim to be worked up about
carbon emissions from the energy sector
simultaneously oppose the only solution
that'll work
ok thanks sir
and now another question we have is how
long have they been tracking climate
change by satellites when your climate
change by Sun what's good started with
the Landsat program back in the early
70s well depends of which aspect right
there the the weather satellite data it
also extends back into the 70s and some
of the early passive microwave
radiometers too so but those none of
those missions were flown for climate
right they all had a different purpose
so there's climate data going but site
alight based climate data going back
that far but the first satellites really
dedicated for it or the Earth observing
systems satellites which are post-2000
or I'm sorry 99 for Terra sir hi it's
kind of it's been suggested in the last
year by the current administration that
you know to further explore and put more
to put more money into you know
exploration you know outside of the
low-earth orbit
area I remember the I don't remember the
specifics of it I remember the hearing
the proposal that there should be
massive cuts to the earth science
program at NASA and I as far as I
remember from what I've read that those
haven't come to fruition yet but they're
still they're still possible and what I
was hoping you guys might be able to
talk to a little bit is you know I would
assume that you guys have a you know
contingency plan in case all of a sudden
those cuts to earth science come through
and kind of what I would like to know
and I think it would be really good to
know for all of us is you know should
those cuts happen what what we lose like
what car emissions what we have to shut
down what missions in the pipeline would
we not be able to see launched and
just kind of you know speak to that well
we what would we lose in slashing there
a science budget I want to I don't want
to dodge that question but I want to
answer it honestly is that my experience
is that no matter where you go in the
country people are interested isn't what
and I'm talking about elected officials
are interested in what's happening in
their part of the world and what our
satellites and science instruments can
tell them about what's happening in this
world in that part of the world it could
be a drought in Texas it you know it can
be concerned about sea rise in Florida
or Louisiana I think that we are the
country as a whole isn't we're in pretty
good stead now with NASA so so I
wouldn't lose any sleep over that I
think people are I think our elected
officials understand that we're
providing our job at NASA is to provide
the information so that policymakers can
make good decisions and and and from
what I see I think we're doing fairly
well right now thank you very much yes
hello I got really excited about the
earlier isotopic ratios of co2 which I
would appreciate if I could follow up on
that with you and the gentleman who
brought it up but my question is 60
years ago there was no satellite in his
face his face was empty it was only like
a space material and now after 60 years
we have a space junk crisis so I I want
to have like your and Eric's opinion
about what is there any lessons learned
what did we do in last 60 years and
could we have done it differently it's
huge when I was born a space was touched
by humans but when my parents were born
a space was not touched by humans yeah I
want to hear your opinion about it and
see what's the lessons learned
what could we have done it differently
and if we go back to 60 years ago as a
historian or as a scientist do we do
everything exactly the same that we did
okay sure so nowadays there's a there's
an international agreement design
satellite so that they can be deorbited
and so what could have been done
differently is simply to have done that
earlier right and done it at the
beginning of this space age instead of
when we actually did it which it's maybe
20 years ago maybe it's not even that
long but but I mean that's the
fundamental solution we didn't learn the
lesson soon enough now we have to have a
plan and with the grace mission we had
to add that plan and we just
decommissioned the satellites which
basically meant the deorbit they burn up
in the atmosphere and that's how you get
rid of them all right we'll take one
final question thank you like the ladies
parents just before me when I was born
75 years ago we had barely touched the
stratosphere I want to know from our
guests what we can expect 75 years from
now I know it's hard to look ahead but
the pace have changed the pace of change
is increasing and increasing what what's
the most far-out thing you can say 75
years from now any of you Wow okay so
the first thing that comes to mind then
I hope it's not 75 years from now I hope
it's 20 years from now is we shouldn't
be flushing
drinking water down our toilet
I think I was thinking a little further
out in Spain
well if further art in space is what
we're after
heck I figure and unfortunately I know I
won't live to see it but I figure by
then we'll have definitive evidence with
whether there are other living planets
and are in the neighborhood of the earth
and I don't mean in our solar system we
already know that there aren't well okay
I'll get into trouble again for saying
that but I'm already pretty sure there
aren't other living planets in our solar
system but out there that's what I think
I think that's that's the big thing I
would expect in in astronomy in the next
75 years and blade if you will one final
question what happened to Explorer 1 is
it still up there
no deorbited yep it burned up I believe
it was March 31st 1970 our website
should say it for sure but it was in is
a highly elliptical orbit and so it
burned up and Sputnik I think so too
but I don't remember exactly I think
that's burned up as well well so
following up on my comment I think
thinking 75 years into the future and
what we're learning about our planet I
think our lives will be much more in
tune with our planet you know as we're
learning we'll see a lot of changes
probably in the next 75 years and
hopefully we'll be more efficient more
conscientious about the resources that
we use more efficient in the resources
that we use overall
