Part 4 of Spaceport LA ’s roundtable discussion with Bobak Ferdowsi from NASA/JPL

More about Bobak Ferdowsi & SpaceportLA

Lets continue the Space Conversation!

The horrible cliché of “Space is Hard,” I believe it does more harm than is helpful to it. But I would like to see a debate between you two on what is harder: Landing on Mars or solving Alzheimer’s. Is Space really harder than any other scientific challenge?

“They have landed on Mars…”

(BF) “We are a lot better funded and a have a lot more people.”

“If you would have had the same funding, would you have solved Alzheimer’s by now?”

“I do not think so because we just don’t understand the brain.”

“We understand Mars more than the human brain?!”

(BF) “Well we understand more how to build things, how basic physics works.”

On a personal level — where would you want to see humanity focus more on towards space, is it more Earth observation or is it more specific things in space? How would you tweak our approach?

“For me personally, while I admire the human space program the thing that gets me excited is looking for life elsewhere in space. I don’t necessarily need or want humans in that loop because humans pollute the environment they are in — it is not intentional but we are micro biomes. So I know I don’t want to send a human to Mars if I am genuinely still looking for life on Mars. Basically the first human to step on Mars…well that’s it, the game is over, but that is ok, we have a certain amount of time, we bring back a sample, we do what we can, but at some point progress must be made…I like the robotic space program that is why JPL suits me very well.“

“In terms of longer term goals, I think there are very more different and more interesting forces at play. In my opinion, and this is not part of some grand NASA opinion or anything like that, butI think that NASA should always stay focused on pushing the limit of what exploration can do — whether that be human or robotic explanation.That is why at some level I like SLS, I think it is great because it allows us to lift heavier things to space, but at the same time I am like why are we still in the rocket making business when it seems like in the near future we are certainly not going to invest the dollars that large companies can that have more money and more customers than NASA has.”

“It is one of those things that I don’t think personally that is the investment that I would make if I were NASA, but on the other hand I also understand that if you need to send humans to Mars and you think that is the only way you can do it to ensure the success of that or to carry a large enough payload because you don’t necessarily want to be reliant on somebody else then that might make sense. I don’t know all the politics that go into it. I am sure there are also what center needs to funded and who is their congress person and all the things that happen with that.”

“I think it will make more sense for NASA in a general sense to seed that money to industry to develop technologies that industry can also use but that we can benefit from.The model makes sense more to me for a commercial crew honestly. It makes more sense to fund industry and buy tickets so to speak or buy rides. I mean it is the same way launch vehicles work today, NASA buys rides all the time for satellites and spacecraft.”

“For Journey to Mars, that is one road map. I do like direct to Mars more than I like asteroid redirect and things like that because I don’t really see the point of asteroid redirect. I mean I like it, it’s cool, it has some neat things to it but I’m not convinced it brings us closer to pushing the limits of human exploration. That being said, the reality is that budget cycles are not twenty years long and we can’t get the guarantee for funding to do something as far as 2035 or 2040 or whatever the time frame is. So, I understand why they set short-term goals that at least realistic and can get congressional and presidential approval. I obviously don’t have the insight that some people have, but that is just how I feel if I was thrown in charge today without anymore information that what I have — that is how I guess I would do things.”

So for those people who absolutely have to be there, then you give them some VR/AR glasses?

“I mean I want everybody to get VR glasses honestly. One of the most amazing things is that we are almost at a point where you can experience it without having to travel there yourself. At that point you have to start asking the question, Is it worth it for the effort of travel. For some people it will, for others it won’t. It is a great dilemma to be faced with.”

More info on how NASA’s VR LAB is utilizing current improvements of Virtual & Augmented Reality technology below:

Timeline of iteration improvements via Erin Carson of TechRepublic :

1991 — Flight Helmet Virtual Research (LCD displays — 320x240)
 1992 — N-Vision Datavisor (CRT displays — 1280x1024)
 1994 — N-Vision Datavisor(CRT displays — 1280x1024)
 2005 — N-Vision Datavisor (Micro-OLED displays — 800x600)
 2012 — In-house built (LCD displays — 1280x720)
 2015 — In-house built (OLED displays — 1920x1080)

I have seen a drive of policy from public perception or the pseudo thought of it, but what role does the public at large have to play? Is it getting a community like this or direct aspects like crowd funding or citizen science?

“It’s two fold. There is support. There is making sure that space exploration is still seen as a priority…I think the biggest case you can make in all of these things is if you can demonstrate there is a profitable reason to do space exploration. Then there is no conflict between the two. There is forever going to be the conflict of well should we fund NASA or should we fund something else and that is a very reasonable conversation to be had. It is really difficult to have that conversation if you can prove that space exploration yields very immediate results and also is a good return on investment. I would say we are getting to that point and starting to see that take place, or a great wave of that take place — not that it didn’t take place before.”

The reason why I brought it up is obviously we all have a computer in our phones and this all came from the Apollo program. What is that disconnect from using a phone, but not knowing that all of that comes from space exploration and funding that as well?

“It is very unlikely you will see a similar Apollo program where we are today. I just don’t think NASA is ever going to get funded at that level again. That doesn’t mean that there are not great advances or great advances can’t be made, but I still think the idea to seed that to industry and say OK we can take advantage of this. There are always places, even within NASA, where they are looking at this and balancing the risk versus reward. OK so a 5% increase in propulsion efficiency will give you a lot of mission types or it might be a sure thing that we can guarantee something else if we spend X amount of dollars in five years time or whenever. But there has got to be a few of the crazy ideas like: Let’s try Warp Drive because sure IF it works then hey that is a game changer for all of us. So I think like any other good portfolio, you want to have a little bit of the crazy stuff in there. I had this great slide that compares the iPhone to Curiosity and how much better the iPhone was.”

“One question with respect to the interplay between science for science sake and discovery and defense and commercial. Who is running Space at this point?”

“Well I can’t tell you what Defense is doing, but everything I know is telling me it’s Defense. But I really can’t tell you what they are doing, but I can tell you that they are probably running the show.”

— The US Government has a think tank sort of like RAND, but on the national level and it determines what we are going to spend our money on big, big picture. The weirdest thing is that not a lot of people even know this exists, but it determines the direction of our country and says we should spend our resources on answering these types of questions. That is handed down to committee big picture and one of those committees is Space, and part of what Space does is say ok within Space you are going to support Defense, within Space you are going to support exploration, and within Space you are going to support Earth Observation. Then each of those are handed down to committee that subdivides it. So for Defense, part of that will go to DARPA, for Earth observation part of that will go to synthetic aperture radar, some of it will go to Propulsion systems. Some of it will go to Cal-Tech/JPL. So it’s definitely not willy nilly. It is down to congressional committees being lobbied by industry and Science that are ultimately making those decisions — those big budgetary decisions.”

Current Budget for FY 2016

Budget estimates for FY 2017

What advice would you give to people that would like to get more involved in Space or Science?

“Honestly I don’t know if I have a great answer for that. For me personally, I have been really trying to understand how just as a whole I can get younger people to appreciate the level of engineering in Space and Science that goes into everyday objects. Some of my coworkers and I are doing a non-profit educational program and content for kids to build simple things that they might use. They could be decorative things, but to understand how sauntering works, how chips work, and LEDs, and all of those sorts of things. Generally speaking from my perspective the perceived part of the problem is, I mean for people among us it is really easy to have rational and normal conversations about why space exploration is valuable or even the importance of STEM. But, I don’t know if that happens everywhere, so it is how to create that dialogue and that is why it is great that you all come from diverse fields. We can all agree on: yeah STEM is great and we will all agree because we are all in a STEM field. So, I think it is very different with the reality, the harsh reality of the Internet…”

“One of the things that you are doing by creating a community you are levying the diversity of backgrounds and different experiences moving forward. I know that people think that the only way you get to work at NASA is just to have an engineering degree, when in reality we are about 50% engineers, and the other 50% are people who help engineers help make better decisions and do their job better, and provide communication to the outside world and to manage budgets.Honestly, we would just blow through our money in the first year and say: well we didn’t quite finish that rover. So, you need all of those things to be successful and effectively a renewable resource and keep the ball rolling and that is really important. I guess the other thing is inspiration. When I talk about why I am hesitant about private industry on Mars, I just think that we want it to serve as the great community of people who are really excited and passionate about these things. Each of us found things that bring us to this field and why we love it. So, I don’t necessarily want people to be like: Oh well it is best for profit. It is really about how do we, with this singularity of focus and purpose that allows us to do really great things.

That is ultimately what Apollo did so well was: if you apply the resources of a large community and you give them the power to do something that is arguably the most iconic things that humanity has ever done. For years after that, people went into all sorts of engineering and science fields, not just Aerospace Engineering. I mean the reality is that for years the numbers in Aerospace Engineering have been dropping over the years. So you do want those kinds of things, whether it be Alzheimer’s disease or learning how the brain works, that is to me another one of those moments in humanity where we finally were like whoa we are finally beginning to understand and unlock some of these great mysteries. Those are things that you can point to that will get people excited about. For me at least, it is not the extra decimal place on an experiment in college. I don’t know what the answer is, but bringing that passion and excitement, and then also thinking about what projects even if they are not necessarily the end or Apollo itself, but it could be the thing that keeps people thinking about that and being a step to that, but being a concrete step and saying: yeah that is one step we need to take in order to get to humans on Mars or the time where all of us get the chance to go to Space and somehow look back at Earth as this precious thing. That is the experience we should all be focusing on.”

“Per Aspera Ad Astra” which means “Through hardships to the stars” in Latin.