(This posting is the second of two on Chris Hadfield's Exploration talk at the Orpheum Theatre - Part One can be read here.)
After a brief intermission, Chris Hadfield returns to the stage to continue his look at the future of space exploration.
What does he see as the most important factor in the exploration of our solar system? Water. It's the key element of life on Earth, and an equally key element of space exploration. "With enough water, we can survive anywhere."
He then asks the question, "Where should we explore in our own solar system if water is the key to survival?"
One place to start is Mars. The Martian polar ice caps are an obvious resource for extended stays on Mars, and satellite images have shown sublimating water, places where water ice* has evaporated and recondensed. The Opportunity probe discovered examples of sedimentary rock, evidence that Mars used to have oceans and lakes.
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| "InSight is a rectal probe for Mars." |
NASA's current mission, the Martian InSight lander, is drilling into the surface of Mars in order to taking temperature readings to determine how deep the ground is frozen and where liquid water might be found.
The Commander points out that there is water all through our solar system. Comets are primarily water, a building block for water in the solar system. "We're trying to understand what are asteroids made of - the Japanese Space Agency recently sent a little probe to an asteroid called Ryugu." The Hayabusa 2 probe successfully landed on the surface of Ryugu and conducted experiments to examine the asteroid's interior.
Jupiter's moon Europa was examined by the Galileo probe, which discovered that the surface of Europa is covered with cracks that appear to be healing over time, a process consistent with ice and liquid water.
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| "Europa is a water world - in fact, there's more water under the ice cover than there is water on Earth." |
Saturn is also a hotbed of possibilities. NASA's Cassini probe revealed in 2017 that the moon Enceladus is covered with deep crevices, and is spewing plumes of water into space, water which ends up becoming part of Saturn's ring structure. As Cassini neared the end of its lifespan, NASA flew the probe through the plumes to confirm their content.
As with Europa, the combination of heat and liquid water creates the possibility of life on Enceladus.
"These are all definite destinations for exploration."
However, to reach these destinations, Hadfield sees the need for innovation and invention.
"Who is Henry the Navigator now? Who is the inventor of the wheel? Who is trying to come up with better ideas so that we can explore further?"
Hadfield cites the three billionaire tech entrepreneurs Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and Elon Musk as frontrunners in innovative and creative thinking in the area of space travel.
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| "All three of them think that this is the time in history to design a new ship...maybe this is the time in history when we're able to leave the earth like we've never done it before." |
SpaceX conducted its first test launch in in April of 2015, making an unsuccessful attempt to land on a barge near Florida, which, interestingly, Hadfield doesn't view as a negative outcome.
"They learned a lot - it's really good to fail early - if they'd gotten away with it the first time, they wouldn't have learned anything. Through failure comes rapid learning."
One year later, SpaceX successfully completed a booster landing on a floating drone ship. SpaceX has flown 70 missions using this system, and "now owns the world's launch market".
Musk has upped the ante by taking three of SpaceX's used Falcon 9 boosters - "...that didn't used to be a thing, used rockets" - and combining them to create "the biggest rocket that exists", the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle, which Musk views as a potential platform for a mission to Mars. Hadfield sees this as "opening up opportunities in exploration that we've never seen before, taking the next level in invention."
However, at this point in time he sees the Moon as the next immediate destination - "not just to visit, not to just go camping, to permanently live there."
He points out that as part of the Chinese moon landing at the start of this year, one experiment grew cotton, the first time any sort of cultivation has taken place anywhere other than Earth. "It's just a first step, but it's a pretty interesting step."
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| "Everywhere you see light blue, those are glaciers." |
The discovery last year of underground glaciers on the Moon "almost changes the game completely" in Hadfield's opinion.
"By our best estimation, there are 600 billion liters of water on the Moon, a huge amount of water. A natural place for us to go next. Water to drink, oxygen to breathe, and hydrogen and oxygen for fuel.
"So now, everyone's thinking about going to the Moon."
NASA, in cooperation with Canada and its other international partners, has already announced its plans to construct a permanent orbiting space station around the Moon. "And of course, Elon is thinking of going there as well. He's building this great big rocket, the BFR: the Big...ah...Flying...Rocket - and then just landing it on the Moon.
"We'd have a whole new place that humans can go."
Hadfield considers the International Space Station to have been a pivotal element in advancements in space exploration. "The Space Station has taught us so much about our planet - living there continuously for nineteen and a half years. The ISS is the great exploration vessel of our generation," helping us to understand our planet and develop the technologies to go further, as well as learn what happens to the human body during extended periods of time in space.
This knowledge is a crucial element as we move forward in the exploration of our solar system.
"It's not far away that our technology will be good enough to live on Mars. The amount of water trapped in the polar ice caps of mars is immense. If you could somehow melt all the water on Mars, it would cover the planet ten meters deep."
In summarizing, he takes a philosophical look at what exploration means to us as a species:
"These things are possible. We only think they're impossible because we haven't done them yet. To be able to harness the energy, to be able to go further out, with higher speeds, to make it easier to explore, to be able to live in other places, to get our eggs out of one basket - we're on that edge of exploration right now, just limited by our own imaginations.
"We need to solve the problems on Earth first, we need to think about who we are, but it really comes first circle. What we can do in one lifetime is just amazing, to push ourselves, where we learn to walk, and we learn to walk in places we've never been.
"The human brain is the greatest exploration engine, to be able to imagine things that don't exist, and to be able to understand the problems we're facing. We are an incredibly clever species, we just have to see the world as one place, and see our place in it.
"We have to solve these problems, for the next generation. What is going to be normal for them that wasn't for us? We need to put examples in front of our kids of opportunities that exist. You limit most of your choices in life because of the example of the people around you."
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| "We need people like Joshua, and Jenni, and David, and Jeremy." |
"It's very close to a Canadian flying in space and going to the Moon, and there's a very good chance that it will be Jenni."
He ends with a quick version of his well-known cover version of David Bowie's Space Oddity, then actually looks a bit embarrassed as we give him another standing ovation, waving goodbye and bowing repeatedly as he makes his way off stage.
Thanks for your commitment and your passion, Commander - and thanks for being so Canadian. You make us proud.
- Sid
* This is not a casual distinction. The Martian polar ice caps are covered with a layer of frozen carbon dioxide - more commonly known as dry ice. The northern ice cap has a layer of approximately one meter, and the south pole is covered with a permanent layer eight meters in thickness.
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