Q&A: JPL’s Charles Elachi maps out the scientific frontier
Employees at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge spent a busy year in 2014 launching new missions and receiving data that will forever change the way we think about the planets in our solar system and the universe beyond.
At the center of that activity has been JPL Director Charles Elachi, who’s had the advantage of seeing the year’s advancements from a broader perspective of leadership.
Recently, Elachi took a few moments to share his thoughts and feelings on the highlights of this year, including updates on the Mars rovers Curiosity and Opportunity, the future of space exploration and some exciting things on the docket for 2015.
How would you characterize the year 2014 at JPL? What missions or issues have been at the forefront of the work that’s been done this year?
We have been calling [2014] “The Year of Earth,” because we’ve had a number of (Earth-related) missions which were launched. One of them was OCO-2, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory. The objective of that mission is to demonstrate that we can map globally carbon dioxide. And that is of great importance, not only scientifically, to understand carbon dioxide, but also understanding potential global warming. If there are going to be any treaties about trading carbon dioxide (emissions) or reducing carbon dioxide worldwide, you need to be able to verify how much carbon dioxide is being emitted out of Peking or Shanghai or Los Angeles or Washington. We will be able to do that, to quantify that amount. It’s a precursor for a potential long-term observation.
That was followed by the mission called ISS-RapidScat, where we put an instrument on the Space Stationthat is providing data of wind over the ocean. That allows usto see through the clouds of hurricanes and to see the wind velocity under the clouds of a hurricane. And that allows us to project its trajectory and where it will hit land. The other reason wind is important is because the heat exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere is very much driven by the wind that is blown.
Then we completed a mission that will be launched very early in 2015, called SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive). That will allow us to map worldwide the amount of moisture every few kilometers on the (Earth’s) surface. That has also applications scientifically, because of humidity in the heat exchange. Also it has applications to farming; farmers will know now on a regular basis how much moisture there is in the ground.
So these are the highlights from the new missions. Of course we have 20 missions, which have been flying across the solar system — Curiosity has provided what seems to be more convincing data that organic material exists on Mars, and all the ingredients for life and the environment for life existed in the past. That’s a major step in our understanding of Mars.
Opportunity shortly will be celebrating its 11th anniversary, so for 11 years our nation has had a continuous presence on Mars with rover driving. Cassini made major discoveries related to some of the lakes on Titan, and Voyager just left our solar system.
Also during 2014, we did a demonstration of what we call the “Mars Saucer;” the technical term is the LDSD (Low Density Super Decelerator). The idea there was to develop technology, which will enable us to land a heavier mass on the surface of Mars. That means we need a larger parachute, we need larger heat shields, and we’re doing an inflatable heat shield. And we did that demonstration in the Earth’s atmosphere. So we used a balloon, went up to about 120,000 feet and fired a rocket that took us up to 180,000 feet. And then we let the capsule come and enter, simulating what happens on Mars. We wanted to push the limit to almost have it fail.
In another experiment, a group of some of our young employees developed a laser communication length that they put on the Space Station. And it’s been demonstrated that you can transmit a video. So, on the laser beam from the Space Station we have been transmitting videos down to our station in Table Mountain. . Now we’re thinking about in the future communicating from Mars to Earth via laser beam instead of a radio signal. That will allow us to get literally an order of magnitude more data, so we can have real-time video of the rover driving on Mars in the future.
From your point of view, what are some of the most exciting or significant moments for you to have been in or heard about?
That’s always an interesting question that I get, because every day is an exciting moment at JPL, and there are so many different discoveries. But clearly, for instance, when we got OCO-2 launched and in orbit. Now we have a tool which has been put in place, that’s an exciting moment.
It was exciting when we found that Curiosity discovered organic material on Mars. Recently we saw methane was being emitted, which doesn’t guarantee that it’s biological, but it could be a biological source; it could be an organic source also.
When suddenly we get a new discovery, I think, “Gee, now I’m smarter than I was five minutes ago, because I know now something really important in the news that I didn’t know five minutes ago. And that happens fairly often around here. Some of [the discoveries] are small ones, some of them are really dramatic, like methane on Mars, that’s a major discovery.
It’s like you’re making history, every week.
Every day. That’s why this is a fun job. That’s why so many people love working at JPL— because they are making history every day. One quote I always like to say from one of our young employees, when we asked her “Why do you like JPL?” she said, “Every morning, I sit down with my friend and think of what’s impossible and then go and do it.”
Congress recently approved an $18.01-billion spending plan for NASA, which dedicates $1.437 billion for planetary science, an increase of 12% from last year’s budget. What does this mean for JPL and its missions? Is this a sign of increased buy-in, that people are believing in the value of planetary science?
No question, we were delighted with the increase and the emphasis that Congress is putting on planetary exploration. And there’s no question in my mind the success of all the planetary missions,the excitement that they have generated in the public, had a major factor into Congress saying this is something exciting.
The consequences of that increase — No. 1, that assures that all our operating missions will continue being funded. It will give us much higher confidence that Mars 2020 is on track; they specifically stated that at least $100 million will go to Mars 2020. So that puts the next rover mission on solid ground. And also they specified $100 million to continue the formulation of the mission to Europa, which is the next major mission to an outer planet (Jupiter). So, just in the planetary budget, I think that gives JPL confidence that for the next five years, for the rest of this decade, I think we’ll be in excellent shape for planetary science. And when I say excellent, it doesn’t mean only employment, it means keeping the capability and the talent for our nation to explore space.
In addition, there was good news across the board, not only in planetary science. They also started funding for a mission called WFIRST. That mission is led by the Goddard Space Center, but we are playing a major role, particularly in the development of an instrument which can start imaging planets around neighboring stars.
So all in all, I would say the budget was good for NASA, and it was good for JPL. We hope that excitement and interest about space exploration in general will continue after that.
It sounds like a nice change from the last five years.
Absolutely. A congressman from Texas by the name of John Culbertson was appointed as the chairman of the committee which oversees the NASA budget. And he told us he puts a very high priority on space science and keeping the leadership of our country in space exploration. It’s always encouraging to have that strong voice of somebody visionary in Congress advocating for that. So I would say almost as valuable, if not more valuable, than the amount of money is to have the strong interest and advocacy. And those relate; a lot of the increase was a result of people like John Culbertson and [Rep.] Adam Schiff. These are two people who have been really strong advocates.
JPL frequently reaches out to youth through programs, collaborations and events, like the recent Invention Challenge . Why is this important? And, has a wider focus on STEM curriculum in schools aided you in your outreach efforts?
When you make an investment, you need people to be working on it. So we feel part of our responsibility at JPL is to really help educate the next generation, because they are the ones who are going to be carrying the leadership we are developing today. That starts from elementary school. Kids are always very fascinated by new things.
Just yesterday, I gave a one-hour lecture to first-graders at my grandson’s school up in Northern California, and let me tell you, these kids were asking me about black holes and wormholes. One of them saw “Interstellar,” so they wanted to know about the dilation of time. They were very fascinated by that. The key thing is to nurture that and make sure it continues. Even if they don’t end up being scientists and engineers, but at least being technically educated, they could be artists, musicians, politicians, lawyers.
We put a very strong emphasis here at JPL to reach out to the schools and to the community. More than 20,000 students actually visit JPL every year. When we had our open house recently, we had 45,000 people who visited over a two-day weekend. That was a record, and it shows the excitement of the public and the desire. And we encourage that. We put a fair amount of our effort and budget to outreach to the public, and not only to the young, but also for older people, because after all, we are spending their tax dollars.
And have you noticed a difference in interest the past couple of years?
Absolutely. Many times when I go and talk to congressmen on the Hill, they say, “Wow, I was recently at our museum and they told me some information that came out of JPL.” That’s great. That gets them excited. And for the young people, basically what we have been doing is we have tracked people who are high-schoolers, who come and spend time here, and we find that a large percentage, I think 30% to 40% of them, actually end up (working) in science and engineering…And we talk with teachers and they always want more materials to help them.
If you had to pick one seminal moment, or maybe one image that would define the accomplishments of this year, what would that be?
One key image is that we discovered that there are, on the lakes of Titan, some islands that suddenly appeared over a period of many months. That created, for me intellectually, I said, “Wow. It looks like there is a change which is happening in those lakes on Titan — that there is an island that suddenly appeared.”
That kind of sticks in my head as a major thing which has happened over the last year. If you would have asked about the past two years, I would have told you the landing of Curiosity. Every time I give a talk, I show a video of the landing of Curiosity. I’ve probably showed it 50 times in the last year. Every time I show it, my heart beat goes up by 50% because you sort of relive a moment in your life which was an absolutely incredible kind of moment.
Looking ahead to 2015, what’s coming up?
First, we have the launch of SMAP, which I mentioned earlier. That’s happening on the 29th of January, so that’s going to be a very exciting event. We’re going to also do another test of the parachute for the (LDSD) saucer in June. Also in calendar 2015, we have a spacecraft which is heading toward an asteroid called Ceres. That’s the largest asteroid in the solar system, and it’s about the size of the Western United States, so it’s a huge asteroid. And there are all kinds of different theories about what it’s made of.
Some people think it might be made of ice; we might be seeing some geysers coming from it, or there might be some liquid there. All that we know about it is that it is a little blurb in the sky. And suddenly we are going to be able to see it in much more detailed images of what it’s made of. That’s going to be happening in March. We’ll be close enough that we’ll get captured in orbit, and then by about an April or May time frame, we’ll start getting some very high-resolution images. So no question, that probably will be the highlight of the year because that’s really an exploration in the making.
But also I would envision there will also be a lot of new discoveries. Curiosity is driving up the hill of what we call Mount Sharp, so it is going to be examining multiple layers. I have no doubt there will be some discoveries which will be coming out of it. OCO-2 will be getting us not only images of carbon dioxide, but it will be getting us a video of how the emission of carbon dioxide is changing over the period of a full year. I could envision a lot of scientific advances. And we’re getting at the stage where we would start possibly the development of the Europa mission. We would have formulated it in the early part of the calendar year, and by the end of the calendar year, hopefully would be able to convince [the] administration and Congress to actually pursue that mission.
What would you say to someone reading this, maybe a young person, about JPL and the future of science?
What I tell people is that the spirit of exploration and curiosity is still alive in the United States, and JPL is an example of that spirit. And that’s what our future depends on.
For me, when a society loses its optimistic spirit and its spirit of going and exploring and doing great things, the society will die. What I admire mostly about people, particularly in the U.S., is the positive spirit that we all have here. We are a nation of explorers, of pioneers and that spirit is still there. We are exploring space on behalf of people.
I tell young people, if you keep working hard at it, you could become an explorer, either at JPL or you could explore with us. The key message is that the spirit of exploration is still alive and well in the U.S., and NASA is really carrying that spirit on behalf of all the population in the U.S.
