John Grunsfeld talks with NASA Social attendees

NASA Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters and former Astronaut John Grunsfeld took time out of his busy schedule at the American Geophysical Union’s meeting on December 4th to talk to attendees of the NASA Social.

Grunsfeld started by talking about climate change and wildfires. He became interested in them because he saw the smoke from space during the day and the flames at night. Not only do wildfires release a lot of CO2 and greenhouse gases, but the warming of the Earth increases fire risk from a drier atmosphere.

Grunsfeld graciously answered questions from the attendees.

How do you balance the missions that scientists really want versus missions that interest the public?

All the science is people science. In the end all the data goes to scientists and the results go out to the public. Because it is the taxpayers who pay for the NASA research, the public has access to it through archives and various data systems. NASA receives input largely from the scientific community through a series of decadal surveys and advisory groups. NASA’s job is to synthesize all of it and work with Congress and the administration to find where the sweet spot is. Often public interest is given less attention.

With the landing of Curiosity on Mars, seeing people in the middle of Times Square and around the world watching and celebrating a science event in the middle of the night is significant to Grunsfeld. It is something that we should pay attention to.

What about the balance between science, human spaceflight, and technology development?

The purpose of technology development is to queue up technology that human spaceflight or science will use. In the past, we used to have the technology development embedded in the organizations which would fund those things. Within the NASA portfolio, Grunsfeld sees these artificial divisions between human spaceflight and science as an accounting trick. To get funded in the Federal Government, you have to have lines of business essentials. Science, technology, aeronautics are some lines of business.

In order to land Curiosity on Mars, they needed a high technology and aeronautics component. They were doing hyper-sonic aeronautics into the Martian atmosphere, leveraging years of NASA research. They are now starting to blur the lines. As we move forward, you won’t necessarily see the balance of funding change, but instead see more participation and synergy between the groups.

Grunsfeld hopes when humans are sent to Mars, they are scientists who will explore and who will discover.

If you were the one controlling NASA and didn’t have to worry about the budget, what would be your top priority?

To build a human spaceflight system that allows us to go past low-Earth orbit, to leave commercially viable solutions to the commercial sector. To get humans to explore the Moon and Mars. One of his personal interests is whether we are alone in this universe. He believes we are on the cusp of answering that question in our own solar system or other exoplanets.

The results from Kepler suggests that there is a solar system around every star in the sky. If that’s true, you could be looking at 10 Earth-sized planets. He believes in a decade or two we will know if there are habitable zones. With a moderately sized 20 meter telescope, we can determine if continents and oceans, clouds, and seasonal effects exist. To be able to do this, we need human and robotic advancements.

As a scientist and former astronaut, how important do you feel it is to have humans land on Mars?

Putting people on the surface would be hugely valuable to science and the pace of science. We are destined to go out and explore the planets and stars. With Curiosity, in just five months, we’ve gone 500 meters. He believes humans would be motivated to visit all the places of the surface, travelling great distances within a small time frame.

A few years ago he was part of a study that determined the cost of robotic missions and manned missions are about the same. It might cost 100-200 times to get a human to another planet than a robot, but a human can do 100-200 times the science per unit of time. With a time frame of 15-20 years, Grunsfeld believes it is something that will fit within the budget and that we should aspire to.

How has the budget negotiations been going with the administration given the budget pitfalls for next year? What can we do to help make sure NASA gets the budget it needs to do the exploration science?

The agency has to spend at a rate that is consistent with guidelines from Congress because we can’t guess what the budget will be. But we also have priorities set by the administration and are in a catch-22 position. What’s important is that we use science for the public good. One of the things he believes the social networking side of covering science can do is to reach a broader audience. To share with future generations (our children) and current decision makers (parents) who are taxpayers how exciting science is. To inform people so they can make decisions. To be able to talk about the great things we find on Mars as inspiration.

How common do you feel life is in our solar system?

We found hydrogen on Mercury which we infer is water. We do know Mars has water. Phoenix was sent to Mars to dig near the poles and landed on a glacier. With the results from SAM, we are seeing a small amount of water vapor. We know water is pervasive throughout the universe. We see it in comets so it is possible to see it embedded in the soil of craters.

Whether life exist is a fundamental science question that we have a potential to answer. Grunsfeld believes it is almost inconceivable that we are the only life in the universe. We see places with water, carbon, and sources of energy throughout the solar system, the galaxy, and the cosmos.

What are your favorite parts of the job you do now?

Science results and launches. Talking to kids.

How has the rise of commercial space enterprises changed NASA’s mission? Does it feel competitive?

We aren’t quite to commercial spaceflight yet. We had the first SpaceX launches where NASA has paid them to deliver cargo. NASA is still heavily subsidizing them, investing in a industry that in the future will offload routine things. We have an opportunity to move to a regime where when NASA needs to get something to the ISS, they can hand the gear off like a letter to a mail carrier. That will take a big burden off of NASA. At the moment, it is the only way to get cargo up and science and experiments down from the station. Having to support that role is a huge overhead.

If these companies can also be profitable, they can turn their profits into future vehicles and capabilities that could include tourism and other users. If there are other customers and the companies are successful, it brings down the marginal cost to NASA.

Another benefit to science directly, that includes both commercial spaceflight and the space launch system, is one of the big inflationary issues that Grunsfeld has to deal with, paying for rockets and EDLs. If the launch rate is down, the cost is driven up. The Falcon 9 fits a nice spot that used to filled by the Delta II. If we can launch missions at a lower cost, we can launch more missions and do more science.

What do you see with international cooperation?

85% of our science missions are collaborative with partners around the world. Grunsfeld believes one of the great successes of the ISS is that we work as partners. When we lost Space Shuttle Columbia, the Russians said don’t worry, we’ll take care of you. The Europeans, Canadians, and Japanese have been strong partners with us.

China is an exception because we are prohibited from working with them on space projects. With one country being left out, Grunsfeld said it could of such significance that it could almost change the world politics.

Are there any planned missions that will use the lower cost Falcon 9?

The Air Force selected the Falcon 9 for the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) mission in 2014 that has some space weather payloads and Earth-science payloads.

Is there a program to get humans to Mars?

It isn’t as well coordinated as Grunsfeld would like to see. On the ISS, we are reprocessing urine into clean drinking water. The human body can’t discern between six months on the ISS and a six month cruise to Mars other than radiation. The solution to bone loss and cardiovascular issues are two simple prescriptions, diet and exercise. With proper nutrition and resistance exercise, we only have to worry about the radiation problem.

What about laundry in space?

Food, laundry, and habitability are red herrings in space. On the shuttle, you had to change your clothes everyday. When you’re camping in the wilderness, you bring fewer changes of clothes. The nature of real exploring is high tolerance for adversity. If you knew you were going to Mars, you would select people who wouldn’t need clean clothes everyday. Second, you would have people that would change their behavior for the expected goal. The same would be true for food and space. What you send to Mars should be the minimums you need to reduce mass. If you pay too much attention to creature comforts, you will never go.

Do you think politically we can let astronauts go without the creature comforts?

I think we won’t go until we give those up. That’s why we end up with these massive missions that never go anywhere.

Do you think NASA is too risk-adverse and do astronauts desire to take on more risk?

I think most people in the general public have no qualitative or quantitative feel for risk. Look at the way people drive. I spend about an hour and forty minutes each way on my commute on Baltimore roads. Every week, maybe every day, I see an accident. It’s almost always due to risky behavior like speeding. It doesn’t make sense because speeding doesn’t gain any advantage down the road. People don’t believe that is risky. NASA does quantitative risk assessments and come up with pretty good ways to numerically assess the risk of various things. On his last mission the quantitative estimate was he had a 1:67 chance of not coming back. The question is, is that really risky? For Hubble, he felt it was worth the risk.

Going to the Space Station is a little bit safer. Why did we retire the shuttle? Because collectively we felt that it was too much risk for something we wanted to do routinely for the return of getting people and cargo to and from space. The hope with something like SpaceX or CT100 from Boeing is that by being simpler, they can be safer. When we go to Mars, we will have to accept a lot more risk. The astronauts who went to the Moon felt like they were in 50/50 category. We got everyone there and back, with the only loss of a crew on the ground.

What do you think about a one-way mission that sets up a colony on Mars?

I think that is so far off into the future to support that. You don’t want to send people one-way knowing it’s only going to be for six months. Americans don’t do that. What happens when the colony starts falling apart? Some critical life-support element doesn’t work? The early missions will be more like traditional exploration where they come back, each time building upon previous missions.

In terms of Mars, have you considered sending things ahead so you have supplies and equipment when you arrive?

Even though that is expensive, I think it has huge benefits. You send your infrastructure ahead, bring infrastructure with you, and in theory, use what you have available on the surface.

He is @SciAstro on Twitter.