NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

By: Jim Hodges

After a morning invitation to study the environment in the employ of NASA, after visits to Science Directorate booths touting Earth study, everything stopped Wednesday afternoon at the Reid Conference Center.

A roomful of summer interns, campers with posters, students and NASA employees on hand as part of "Green Palooza" sat mesmerized while Tom Jones spoke of seeing Earth from space, of the effort to get there, of the challenge ahead and of how it could involve them.

Former astronaut Tom Jones speaks to guests at the Reid Conference Center about his four successful missions with NASA's Space Shuttle Program. Photo Credit: NASA/Sean Smith.

Click on the image for a larger view
"We need to go back to some places we should have gone back to a long time ago," said Jones, who flew on four Space Shuttle missions, but acknowledged that time is nearing to retire the 30-year-old birds.

First the moon. Then, "eventually, I'd like to see us consider visiting some asteroids. … Finally, visit Mars," Jones said.

That's in about 2030.

And that's the challenge to young people who sat, still, eyes fixed on Jones.

"Is there life on Mars?" Jones asked. "We won't know until we send somebody smarter than a robot to find out."

So who goes?

"That's for all of you new people," Jones said. "You can take this program, you can carry out the mission."

That's because, he added wryly, "every astronaut I know will be in an old age home by 2030."

It was the message many astronauts have delivered in many venues, but this was a new audience that offered a new perspective. They weren't around when Apollo astronauts first set foot on the moon.

"I wouldn't turn it down," said Justin Green of a chance to visit Mars as an astronaut.

Green is a rising senior at Nebraska who has spent his summer working on the Launch Abort System for the Constellation program.

Katie Lorentz speaks to Jim Bly about our Earth's protective ozone layer during the Green Palooza held at the Reid Conference Center. Photo Credit: NASA/Sean Smith.

Click on the image for a larger view
"It would be pretty sweet," he said.

Jones is an author now, and he used "Sky Walking, An Astronaut's Memoir" as the basis for his talk. For more than 90 minutes afterward, he autographed copies for a long line of people who had heard him speak.

The audience questioned him about the future of the U.S. role in space, even about the possibility of a space race much like that NASA went through in the 1950s and '60s.

There will be no space race, Jones said, but he added a warning, "the very moment that another astronaut puts boots on the moon without us being involved will send a message that the United States is no longer the technological leader of the world."

What kind of world that will be was the day's theme. "Green Palooza" focused on the environment, and Dave Young, assistant director of the Science Directorate, gave students a clue earlier in the day when he talked of Langley's role in studying climate change.

He spoke of 15 satellites aloft monitoring climactic effects, and of seven more missions planned or being executed short of launch.

"Our job is to find as many different ways to measure as many different things as we can at the same time," he said.

"This," Young added, "is why it's so cool to work here. … I hope a lot of you guys will join us."


 
NASA Langley Research Center
Managing Editor: Jim Hodges
Executive Editor and Responsible NASA Official: H. Keith Henry
Editor and Curator: Denise Lineberry