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07. Hunter-Gatherer | NASA's The Invisible Network Podcast

Season 1Episode 7Nov 14, 2019

In recent years, NASA has renewed its focus on the Moon. Soon, we will look up at the Moon and rediscover a magic first experienced in 1969. It’s a magic that will flow through networks more sophisticated than ever before — an appreciation for the technological wonders that lay ahead, just above and all around us.

illustration of future Moon mission vehicles

illustration of future Moon mission vehicles

NARRATOR

In this second season of “The Invisible Network,” we’ll look at some of the forward-thinking innovations developed by NASA communications and navigation professionals. We’ll encounter the creative minds envisioning the communications networks of tomorrow and of the far future. On the journey, we’ll examine small pieces of the larger NASA puzzle — unique technologies and capabilities crucial to exploration.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine:

NASA ADMINISTRATORJIM BRIDENSTINE

Make no mistake, we go to the Moon because we’re interested in science and discovery and exploration. And, the return on investment is far more than we could ever expect.

NARRATOR

As NASA goes forward to the Moon and onto Mars, there’s so much to discover (and not just on the dusty lunar landscape). Communications and navigation engineers at NASA are developing the systems and technologies that will empower exploration, guiding the agency beyond Earth’s bounds.

But, taking a break from writing this season of this podcast, I indulged myself, purchasing a new video game. I got home from work on a Friday, slipped into comfy pants and downloaded it over my 3 Mbps wireless connection. I can only imagine what the space station’s recent upgrade to a whopping 600 Mbps would have made of the download, but that’s a story for another episode.

In the game I installed, you oversee your own space program, building rockets and embarking on missions to imaginary planets. You’re responsible for designing launch vehicles, planning trajectories and assuring the safety of your astronauts — cute, green creatures who look like a hybrid of a corgi, a salamander and a wintergreen Tic Tac.

In early missions, you simply try to get a rocket to orbit and back safely. As the game progresses, you can venture on to distant planets — though I couldn’t even manage to get one of my little astronauts to land on their home-world’s nearest moon.

While failing my digital Apollo missions, I thought back on one of my favorite computer games growing up. In it, you developed a civilization from hunter-gatherer tribe through the Space Age, beating back barbarian hordes and competing players. The players were usually the computer, except when my dad’s youngest brother came to visit. He’d set up a local area network, or LAN, so that we could play together. These so-called LAN parties are a memory I cherish to this day.

At the time, the late ’90s and early aughts, networking computers together seemed almost magical. With a couple of cords, a router and some troubleshooting, my uncle made the computers talk to each other. We could then play the game together, duking our digital civilizations against one another. He’d always win before I managed to get anything close to space-age-level tech, but I’d like to think I put up a good fight.

In college, I’d hold my own LAN parties with friends in the basement of our dorm. Now, I can play computer games with friends in Boston or Los Angeles with nothing more than a Wi-Fi connection. As the internet became ubiquitous, these connections lost some of their magic.

It’s so easy to overlook what once was miraculous.

I’m Danny Baird. This is the Invisible Network.

NARRATOR

In 1969, NASA put a man on the Moon. Over the next three years, these Apollo missions saw 12 brave astronauts walk on the lunar surface.

The Apollo program, conceived under President Dwight Eisenhower, expanded upon Project Mercury, the effort that first put an American, astronaut John Glenn, into orbit. However, it would take a bold proclamation by Eisenhower’s successor, President John F. Kennedy, to catalyze NASA’s mission to the lunar surface. In 1962, in an address at Rice University in Houston, Kennedy said…

JOHN F. KENNEDY

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon…We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.

NARRATOR

These are inspiring and prescient notions. Not only did Kennedy’s rhetoric motivate the nation to pursue the ambitious goals he outlined, he understood the cooperative nature of space exploration — a power to bring about a “sea of peace” rather than a “terrifying theater of war.” Without international partnership, the International Space Station, humanity’s current flagship effort to live and work cooperatively in space, would not have been possible. The same can be said for many NASA missions.

The speech is also tinged with a competitiveness and not just because the address was delivered in a football stadium. The competitive language reveals one of the primary motivations behind Kennedy’s Apollo program. At the time, the Cold War burned between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. This wasn’t a war in the obvious sense. It was a war fought by proxy — and one of those proxies, was space technology and exploration. NASA Chief Historian Bill Barry explains it better:

NASA CHIEF HISTORIANBILL BARRY

This is an interesting thing, because, of course, I grew up in the Space Age and my perspective on it ­- –in fact, I was born in Boston, grew up in Massachusetts ­— and so the Kennedys were godlike to our family. I always imagined that John Kennedy — I listen to those speeches and, I thought wow, this guy really is into space.

And then, as I grew up and start learning more about space history, I discovered, actually, he really wasn’t interested in space. What he had was a political problem with the Soviets and it wasn’t just a personal political problem — it was a problem for the Western world.

The Soviets were being very successful in space. They had extremely effective engineers and a very nimble team. They made it look like they were way ahead of the United States technologically, which caused all kinds of political problems for the West and also for all those newly independent countries that came into existence after World War II.

They all wanted to develop too. They’d look and they say, “OK, well, the Soviet Union: it was a backward country at the beginning of 20th century. Now, they’re beating everybody else in space. They must be better than the Americans and the West.”

And that was that was causing all kinds of political havoc for the western alliance. So Kennedy knew he needed to do something about it and, kind of out of desperation, I think he realized that the space program was kind of a key thing. If he could nudge the Soviets off of being the leaders in space and make it clear that there was more of at least parity — if not that the United States was better than the Soviets — then that was the most effective argument he had in the geopolitical fight.

NARRATOR

In recent years, NASA has renewed its focus on the Moon. The current administration has challenged NASA to put the first woman and the next man on the lunar surface. Vice President Pence directed the agency to do so on March 26, 2019, at the fifth meeting of the National Space Council, which he chairs.

VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE

50 years ago, one small step for man became one giant leap for mankind. But now has come the time for us to make the next giant leap and return American astronauts to the Moon, establish a permanent base there and develop the technologies to take American astronauts to Mars and beyond.

That’s the next giant leap.

You know, it’s been 47 years since American astronauts last walked on the Moon. And ironically, America’s first generation of space pioneers knew that it would likely take time for the next generation to return to the Moon, including one of the founders of rocket city [Huntsville, Alabama, home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center], Dr. Wernher von Braun. Dr. von Braun believed it would take what he called, in his words, “enabling technology,” for us to return to the lunar surface. The good news is, as we will hear from our distinguished panelists today, those enabling technologies have arrived and we are going back to the Moon.

NARRATOR

Orion, the capsule that will take our astronauts to the Moon, looks very similar to the capsule that flew Apollo astronauts there. Artemis, the name of NASA’s new lunar effort, is the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology — goddess of the hunt and the Moon. The administrator explains the significance:

NASA ADMINISTRATOR JIM BRIDENSTINE

We decided to call the program to go to the Moon sustainably with commercial and international partners and use the resources of the Moon to live and work for long periods of time­ — we call that program Artemis. We call it Artemis because we love Apollo.

The Apollo program of the 1960s that took us to the Moon the first time was astonishing. It set the stage for a future where the United States of America would lead in space. All of that is fantastic.

But, in those days, all of our pilots, all of our astronauts, came from fighter pilot backgrounds and test pilot backgrounds. In those days there were no opportunities for women. Today, we have this very diverse, highly qualified astronaut corps that includes women.

In Greek mythology, Apollo had a twin sister. Her name was Artemis and she was the goddess of the Moon. So, now we go back to the Moon sustainably; we go with a very diverse, highly qualified astronaut corps that includes women; and we go under the name of Apollo’s twin sister. Her name is Artemis.

I just think it’s a great story. It closes all the loops and it says, “Yes, we love Apollo, but we’re not the same country we were in the 1960s and we’re going forward in a very dynamic way.”

NARRATOR

The similarities between Apollo and Artemis end with their names and their destination. We are no longer locked in a Cold War. Our reasons for reaching toward the Moon are different. We will go there to establish a sustained presence; to prospect for resources that might turn spaceflight into an economic engine; to prove the technologies necessary to journey on to Mars and beyond; to build a Gateway to deep space.

This is about critical milestones on humanity’s inexorable progression from hunter-gatherer to spacefaring civilization.

NASA ADMINISTRATOR JIM BRIDENSTINE

How do we go to the Moon in a way that we can stay at the Moon, to go with commercial partners, to go with international partners? That’s the key piece there.

How do we use the resources of the Moon? How do we basically take that water ice — hundreds of millions of tons of water ice — on the south pole of the Moon? How do we use it for life support: air to breathe, water to drink? And in fact, hydrogen is rocket fuel — same rocket fuel that powered the space shuttles.

So, how do we get access to that resource on the south pole of the Moon? How do we put it into a configuration that can be usable for life support and fuel? And then ultimately, how do we build an architecture at the Moon that’s replicable at Mars, because the goal is to get to Mars. The Moon is basically the proving ground. How do we live and work on another world for long periods of time?

Mars is the destination.

NARRATOR

The preparations for our journey forward to the Moon are already well underway. The astronauts that will tread on the dusty lunar regolith are already in training, their capsule is undergoing testing and their missions are in planning.

In the realm of space communications, NASA is developing new technologies and upgrading critical infrastructure to support Artemis. We’re constructing ground stations at Kennedy Space Center to support the Space Launch System, the most powerful rocket ever built. We’re developing optical communications terminals for Orion, providing Artemis astronauts with higher data rates using lasers. We’re infusing our networks with protocols capable of supporting an interplanetary internet. We’re rethinking lunar navigation architectures, finding new uses for existing systems. We’re turning science fiction to science fact, looking to the mysterious quantum world for solutions to the communications challenges of tomorrow.

This podcast is about those invisible connections between things, lines of communications that are often unseen or overlooked ­— both tangible and intangible. It’s the physical connection between computers that allows me to play video games with friends across the country, but it’s also the emotional connection between me and the uncle who taught me how to set up a LAN party.

It’s the physical timelines we set for ourselves, the schedules that drive the agency forward. But, it’s also the power this moment has in the grand timeline of human experience — a milestone somewhere between hunter-gatherer and interplanetary explorer.

Playing my computer game, guiding my tiny green astronauts toward their moon, I marvel at this moment, where we go forward to ours. It’s a moment we are all lucky enough to participate in.

Soon, we will look up at the Moon and rediscover a magic first experienced in 1969. It’s a magic that will flow through networks more sophisticated than ever before — an appreciation for the technological wonders that lay ahead, just above and all around us.

This season of “The Invisible Network” debuted in November of 2019. The podcast is produced by the Space Communications and Navigation program, or SCaN, out of Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Episodes were written and recorded by me, Danny Baird, with editorial support from Matthew Peters. Our public affairs officers are Peter Jacobs of Goddard’s Office of Communications, Clare Skelly of the Space Technology Mission Directorate and Kathryn Hambleton of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate.

Special thanks to Barbara Adde, SCaN Policy and Strategic Communications director, Rob Garner, Goddard Web Team lead, Amber Jacobson, communications lead for SCaN at Goddard, and all those who have leant their time, talent and expertise to making “The Invisible Network” a reality. Be sure to rate, review and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. For transcripts of the episodes, visit NASA.gov/invisible. To learn more about the vital role that space communications plays in NASA’s mission, visit NASA.gov/SCaN.