I've always felt that the knowledge that man can walk on other worlds is liberating by its very nature. It not only liberates humanity from Earth, but liberates us intellectually as well. If we can manage to set foot on the moon and return again safely, then anything is possible. If we can solve the myriad challenges that had to be overcome to put a robot on Mars to test soil samples for alien life, there is no problem that we can't solve.
The space program teaches us that there is no distance too great and no goal too far for humanity. In my mind, that has been one of NASA's most successful missions, not to go where the rest of us can't, but to show us that we, collectively and individually, can also reach seemingly impossible goals if only we prepare carefully enough and work hard enough. At a point in our history where we are on the cusp of practical commercial space flight, what should NASA's role be going forward? Do we need NASA to run a cargo service back and forth to the International Space Station or do we need them to reach further?
I had the good fortune to ask those questions and others of Scott Parazynski, a retired NASA astronaut who has travelled more than 23 million miles on five space shuttle missions.
[Related: Part one of my interview with Dr. Parazynski: The Fragile Earth]
In your view, given that there are increasing capabilities from private industry in the area of space launches, what should be NASA's role? Is it deep space exploration? Is it engendering the next generation of scientists and inspiring the nation in that way?
I think NASA needs to live up to being the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, so, obviously, being in a leadership role in advancing safety and technology in aviation, but also pushing the boundaries in space. The access to and from low Earth orbit is something that I think can be done by commercial enterprise and probably very cost-effectively.
This is a good time to transition, but I think utilization of the space station, advancing science, using the platform that we've developed up there is really important, but also exploring well beyond Earth orbit, to go to Mars, robotically explore Europa, its icy surface and the oceans below would be an incredible robotic mission. Those are the kinds of things that I hope will happen. I still think that the former vision for space exploration that would have established a lunar colony and the development of technologies for living on a planetary body would have been a really worthy goal for our country. Perhaps it's still in the cards, I don't know.
[Related: The origins of our fascination with Mars]
Do you think the next steps for space exploration should be something that really grabs the public imagination like a trip to Mars?
Yes, I think that's really an imperative. We need to set high, lofty goals and then have the resolve to achieve those goals and not make it a whim of the next presidential administration. These are long term investments and you can't successfully repurpose them every four years. That really sets us back.
[Related: Ceres, Vesta and the Arrival of Dawn]
Right now, the administration is championing a proposal to go to an asteroid which is interesting scientifically, but probably not captivating in terms of public interest. Ultimately, it isn't the grand goal that everyone looks for like going to Mars, colonizing it, looking for signs of life that might once have existed there, and things like that.
You spoke about the possibility of a human transit to Mars and one of your specialties is the study of human adaptation to stressful environments and space physiology. What are some of the changes that happen to the human body in the absence of gravity?
In the absence of gravity and the absence of countermeasures, if you just went up let nature take its course, you would actually be okay for the period of time that you were in space. The challenge is when you come back to a gravitational field. Your heart muscle hasn't worked against gravity for quite some time. Your muscles and bones have atrophied and you'd be at substantial risk for fractures and life back on Earth.
One of the great by-products of our space station has been the advancement of the technology of countermeasures. A lot of those have evolved: resistive and cardiovascular exercise. There are some pharmacologic solutions as well to help preserve muscle integrity and bone integrity.
I guess the other big challenge for going to Mars, which is a really long trip, is the radiation environment. When we're in Earth orbit, we have the protection of the Earth's magnetic field from the solar wind and galactic cosmic radiation, but if you're out in deep space, you could get pretty badly nuked in a pretty short amount of time. There's really no advance warning of that type of event, so to protect the crew and reduce their risk of long-term cancer and radiation sickness is really a big concern.
There are some people who have been up on the space shuttle or the International Space Station for significant periods of time. Are they exposed to this kind of radiation risk?
As I was suggesting, when you are in low Earth orbit, you have the protection of the Earth's magnetic field, so you're relatively safe. There have been large solar particle events when the crew of the space station had to go into what we call "Safe Haven." Safe Haven is an area of the space station that has a lot of water containers. We call it the water wall. They'll basically get called into Safe Haven and they'll wait until that radiation flux has passed.
If you're out in deep space, though, there's not a lot you can really do to protect the people unless you really change the basic design of the spacecraft. You can't launch a ten-foot-thick wall of lead into space. It would be prohibitively expensive. So, one of the really neat technologies that is being proposed is the plasma-ion engine, that was invented by one of my colleagues, Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz. He is a former astronaut and he is also a nuclear physicist and an astro-physicist. It's a neat technology that lets you get to Mars a lot more quickly, by using this plasma-ion engine. The other element of it that is really neat is that it creates its own magnetic field. It's powered by nuclear reactors that create a magnetic field around the crew compartment. It's basically like taking a mini-Earth with you as you head out to Mars.
It reduces the radiation expose in two ways, by getting you there a lot quicker than you could on a conventional rocket, then there's the element of creating a magnetic field around the crew which does a pretty good job of shielding them.
[Related: Ion propulsion systems, science fiction and science fact]
With the advancing capabilities of robotics and remotely controlled systems, do we really need to send humans to space anymore?
Absolutely. You know, I'm a huge proponent of robotics and what the Mars rovers have done for us. They were originally planned for, I believe, a 90 day stay on the planet, and, you'll have to check the stats, but I think they've already been there for five years. They have done incredible things. There is certainly a huge place in our future exploration for robotics, but even moreso in human-robotic interfaces. I've got a lot of experience in not only building the space station robotic arm outside on spacewalks during one of my missions and using it in space, but flying other robotic arms and other robotic systems in medicine and other applications, so there is great utility in the human-robotic interface. Ultimately, though, the argument for sending humans is to adapt, to repair, to be able to get real-time decisions and to advance your knowledge much more quickly than a rover.
Rovers are very slow and methodical. They do wonderful things, but ultimately, you'd like to be able to scan a field of rocks, for example, and pick up the one that has the particular tint of color that suggests the presence of either unique minerals or, perhaps, water ice and to make those real-time calls that will allow the rapid advancement of knowledge.
It's human nature to explore, to go places, and to press those limits. I think the technology is more or less available to us now to set our sights on going to Mars. We could send people there in 10-15 years if we set our minds to it. Going internationally, as a collaborative effort, we could probably afford it. The potential not only to advance science, but to develop new industries and inspire us is just incredibly powerful. I think it's imperative that America lead that effort. It's the basis of our society, really, that we accept risk, take on challenges and make discoveries. If we lose that will, then we might as well hang it up.
You mentioned international collaboration in space, of which the International Space Station is a great example, but you, personally, have also trained at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia.
Yes.
How does Russian cosmonaut training differ from NASA's astronaut training program?
Well, I think it's interesting, the differences, some of which are cultural, some of which are technical. American programs make extensive use of really advanced, computer-aided design and testing, as well as training. We use a lot of virtual environments for our training now. The Russians are more didactic, lecture-based and use more physical models and mock-ups to train for their activities.
There are some similarities. We both rely pretty heavily on water-based training for our space-walks, for example. I guess the biggest difference between our two programs is they way that they have evolved. If you look at the Soyuz capsule that currently flies, it's basically been a stair-step, very incremental advancement from Yuri Gagarin's capsule in 1961. It's really not that different from his Vostok capsule. You know, when Yuri Gagarin flew, he had to parachute out; he was ejected out of his capsule and had to parachute down. Now of course, the whole capsule comes down with the crew. It really is, more or less, the same vehicle.
The shuttle and the Apollo-era capsules were all substantially different, and now, of course, as we look toward going to deep space again with other types of vehicles, we are starting with an extensive heritage of space vehicles, but it's almost a clean slate. What do we need to get a crew safely to and from either the moon or Mars. That different approach to technology and development stands out.
You talk about the importance of conducting space-based research on platforms like the ISS. What kind of research can only be done in space and not on Earth?
There are some really unique aspects of the microgravity of space. Obviously, gravity is a variable that you can take out of the equation for life sciences, for biology, for animal and plants studies, for material science, and physics, geo-physics and combustion physics. Lack of convection is another thing that is dramatically different. By using that unique environment, you can either develop new processes to either develop new materials or, ideally, to create ultra-pure, ultra-uniform materials for either industry or biologic purposes.
One of the really interesting things that they are looking at now in space is the ability to grow tissues in three dimensions. Here on Earth if you were to grow a cancer or tissue, typically it would be done in a petri dish in one or just a few layers of cells and basically nutrients and waste products have to diffuse in and out of the tissue just on one side. In space, using the microgravity environment, you can actually create three dimensional structures, see how tumors grow, see how the vascular system begins to evolve inside tumors, even artificial organs that might be possible in the future. That's a really fruitful area of scientific research.
For many years, they've been doing three dimensional structure determination using proteins that have been crystallized in space. They're getting better at doing some of those procedures here on Earth, I think, based on some of the things we've learned in space.
Is that typically at the fuzzy-front end of the research level or is that something that can be used right here, right now?
I think it's really at the leading edge, right now. One of the exciting things about the space station now is that we have six crew members aboard with the primary focus of doing research. When I visited the space station, on my missions, it was very much a construction zone. We were going up and assembling large pieces of the space station. Things were being outfitted by the long-duration crews and the next mission would come up and assembly would continue. Now the space station is complete, the crew is engaged in all manner of research that, hopefully, will unlock exciting keys for some of the areas that I've talked about.
With the advent of a fledgling commercial space industry, do you foresee a lot of these researchers contracting with some of the private space firms for their own research platforms?
There's certainly reason to believe that's so. Bob Bigelow and Bigelow Aerospace, the company that he founded, is based on that premise. He has technology that will enable him to launch inflatable structures in space, basically his own space stations. Sovereign nations as well as private companies can lease out his space stations and fly their own crews to do their own research for several months at a time. He has a business model that supports that assuming that the launch vehicles come in at prices that are currently advertised.
It's pretty exciting. I also think that if NASA can make its space station more readily available to researchers, make it relatively quick and painless to get their experiments up on orbit, there will be a lot of users as well.
[Related: Virgin Galactic CEO Offers 3 Big Goals for NASA to Inspire America Again]
Brad Sylvester writes about the space program for the Yahoo! Contributor Network. Watching the Apollo missions through the static on a small black and white television sparked a lifelong interest in the space sciences for him. Since then, he has spent 40 years watching improvements in the technologies of space travel and our understanding of the universe. Follow Brad's space-related writing on Twitter @Space_Matters or on his Space Matters Facebook page.
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