Latest / Made of Stars / Your Friendly Neighborhood Rocket Scientist Les Johnson

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Your Friendly Neighborhood Rocket Scientist Les Johnson · Made of Stars

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  Speaker 1: Warning. The following podcast contains an entertaining look at astronomy, physics,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and space news throughout the known universe. Listeners have been
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: known to learn about astronomical phenomenon, the scientific method, and
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: expanded vocabulary to include terms like quasar asterism and uranus. Listen,
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  Speaker 1: that's your own risk.
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  Speaker 2: Go ahead. When made of Stars, medium Stars, Madies, When
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  Speaker 2: meda stars.
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  Speaker 3: You could be from high would New Mexicomus.
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  Speaker 4: We're on.
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  Speaker 2: Stars when we are Made of Stars. I'm Wes Carrol.
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  Speaker 3: And I'm doctor Sean Cruisin from Columbus State University's Coca
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  Speaker 3: Cola Space.
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  Speaker 2: Science Centerles Johnson is more than just your friendly neighborhood
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  Speaker 2: rocket scientist. He's the chief technologist at NASA's Marshall Space
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  Speaker 2: Flight Center. He's an accomplished author, and he'll be appearing
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  Speaker 2: at dragon Con Labor Day weekend in Atlanta. Most importantly,
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  Speaker 2: he's appearing now on Made of Stars. Les Johnson Welcome.
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  Speaker 4: Hey, thanks for having me on the show. I'm glad
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  Speaker 4: to be here.
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  Speaker 2: We're excited to have you on because this is the
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  Speaker 2: time of year when we start talking about events like
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  Speaker 2: dragon Con, and a lot of people they don't have
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  Speaker 2: a great understanding of what this convention is. They think
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  Speaker 2: of the old Shatner sketch with on SNL where he's
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  Speaker 2: calling everybody nerds and telling them to get a life.
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  Speaker 2: Dragon Con is so much bigger than that. It's this
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  Speaker 2: popular arts convention. It's huge, but it has so many
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  Speaker 2: components to it that include actual science. It's not just
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  Speaker 2: science fiction. It's actual science, and they've kind of grown
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  Speaker 2: these science tracks over the years, and that's part of
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  Speaker 2: why you're there. You're also there for the science fiction
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  Speaker 2: side of it. I'm sure with the books that you've written,
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  Speaker 2: but this isn't your first time at dragon Con. I
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  Speaker 2: know you've been there before. So if you could talk
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  Speaker 2: just a little bit about your experiences at dragon Con.
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  Speaker 4: Sure, I'll be glad to do that. The first thing
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  Speaker 4: I have to do is make it clear that anything
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  Speaker 4: I say is my own opinion, not that of my employer,
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  Speaker 4: because I go to dragon Con and write books on
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  Speaker 4: my own time, and I'm not representing NASA when I
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  Speaker 4: do that. Now that I've got the disclaimer aside, I
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  Speaker 4: love dragon Con. I've actually been going since the mid nineties.
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  Speaker 4: If you can believe that, I took a break when
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  Speaker 4: my kids were little. There were some things there that
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  Speaker 4: were not suitable for children at times, especially late at
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  Speaker 4: night on Saturday, and so I didn't go when they
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  Speaker 4: were young. But I've been going back for the last
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  Speaker 4: decade or so and just love it. Me and seventy
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  Speaker 4: thousand of my good friends. Right, it's a real spectacle.
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  Speaker 4: I typically participate in the space track. I've been in
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  Speaker 4: the science track this year. I'll be also in the
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  Speaker 4: Apocalypse Rising track, which is to be a trip, the
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  Speaker 4: writer's track, and you meet some of the great people,
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  Speaker 4: and the costumes are awesome. It's basically one big festival
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  Speaker 4: the whole weekend. But the thing that I don't think
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  Speaker 4: listeners who might hear about Dragon con appreciate unless you
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  Speaker 4: actually go, is it's just just not about people in costume.
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  Speaker 4: You have some of the most meaningful conversations you're going
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  Speaker 4: to have all year long with experts in many fields
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  Speaker 4: talking about the future and the impact of technology on
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  Speaker 4: the future, where the society's going, foreign events. I mean,
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  Speaker 4: it's incredible as well as all the nerdy stuff. I mean,
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  Speaker 4: it all kind of rolls together.
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  Speaker 2: And you being there as a writer. It's just one
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  Speaker 2: of those situations where You're really kind of catching it
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  Speaker 2: from two different sides, aren't.
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  Speaker 4: You catching it? It's probably a good term for part
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  Speaker 4: of it, because you know, the writer. If you ever
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  Speaker 4: make a mistake or say something in a book or
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  Speaker 4: there's a misspelling, you hear about it from your readers,
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  Speaker 4: and I'll hear about it at Dragon Con. But no,
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  Speaker 4: I love that because I kind of live in both
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  Speaker 4: those worlds. I've been a science fiction fan long before
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  Speaker 4: I became a science fiction and writer. I was a
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  Speaker 4: science fiction fan before I became a physicist, and for me,
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  Speaker 4: it all merges, and the persona that I have and
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  Speaker 4: who I am is a mixture of all of that. Writer,
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  Speaker 4: science fiction reader, science fiction movie fan, as well as scientist.
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  Speaker 2: Is there extra pressure as a scientist with your daytime job,
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  Speaker 2: your day job that makes it so that you feel
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  Speaker 2: like you have extra pressure to keep your science fiction
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  Speaker 2: as grounded as possible in that real science.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I do not, completely though. When I'm writing some
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  Speaker 4: of my hard science science fiction works, like the trilogy
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  Speaker 4: I'm currently working on with Travis Taylor, my co author
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  Speaker 4: of the Orion's Arm series, we want to keep a
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  Speaker 4: really good story being told, but we make sure that
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  Speaker 4: all the technology and the science in the background is plausible,
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  Speaker 4: not necessarily what we can do today in engineering, but
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  Speaker 4: something that's not physically impossible. Because we're marketing the books
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  Speaker 4: as hard science, which means it's got to be believable,
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  Speaker 4: and if we put something in there that's dubious, we'll
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  Speaker 4: definitely hear about it, and that's bad. I don't want
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  Speaker 4: to hear stuff like that. I want people to say,
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  Speaker 4: can we really do that? And then that turns on
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  Speaker 4: the teacher in me that likes to go in and explain, well,
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  Speaker 4: as a matter of fact, we might be able to
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  Speaker 4: do that, And that's the beauty of science fiction, is
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  Speaker 4: the what if and such. But I also write. I
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  Speaker 4: wrote a space opera book, and that's kind of a
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  Speaker 4: subgenre of science fiction where the science isn't as important
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  Speaker 4: as the grand sweeping story of an interstellar empire kind
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  Speaker 4: of thing thing. So it just depends on what I'm writing.
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  Speaker 3: You and I share. I think we share some passions, certainly,
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  Speaker 3: but we also share kind of an endeavor where we're
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  Speaker 3: getting other people interested in science, and I think that
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  Speaker 3: we know that there's a nexus point between science and
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  Speaker 3: science fiction that those people who enjoy science fiction. Also
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  Speaker 3: enjoy pursuing the hard science end of things. And really
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  Speaker 3: science fiction has inspired so many people to go into
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  Speaker 3: various careers in science. And I think you have some
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  Speaker 3: background yourself and that can you talk about those years
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  Speaker 3: and what inspired you to actually become a science technologist
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  Speaker 3: at NASA?
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  Speaker 4: I sure can. It's a good question, Thanks for asking.
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  Speaker 4: It goes way back. I was a young child when
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  Speaker 4: Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. This gives away my age.
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  Speaker 4: I was seven years old watching on a black and white,
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  Speaker 4: grainy television. You know, when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
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  Speaker 4: My parents probably woke me up. I was in my
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  Speaker 4: footy pajamas. There's something who knows? And I got excited
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  Speaker 4: about it and started kind of paying attention to what
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  Speaker 4: was happening in the space race at the time. And
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  Speaker 4: then when I was about twelve, that's when it happened.
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  Speaker 4: My sisters let me stay up late with them on
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  Speaker 4: a Friday night, probably till ten o'clock to watch reruns
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  Speaker 4: of Star Trek O MG. I was hooked. I decided
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  Speaker 4: I want to build the Enterprise, so I started reading
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  Speaker 4: every science fiction book I could get at the school.
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  Speaker 4: Anything my parents would buy me at the bookstore and
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  Speaker 4: started reading popular science books. Isaac Asimov was a big
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  Speaker 4: inspiration with both his popular science and science fiction books,
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  Speaker 4: and it was all from there I decided I wanted
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  Speaker 4: to be a physicist. I wanted to work for NASA,
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  Speaker 4: and I wanted to help make basically the enterprise of reality.
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  Speaker 4: So that has been I've been driven with that passion
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  Speaker 4: since I was middle school. And you go back to
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  Speaker 4: my reunions, and I'll be going to one this fall
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  Speaker 4: in my hometown up in Ashland, Kentucky, and none of
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  Speaker 4: the people there were surprised that I ended up with
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  Speaker 4: the job that I had. Many of them would tell you,
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  Speaker 4: I knew that when you were in sixth grade, you know,
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  Speaker 4: not just my inspiration.
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  Speaker 3: Just a quick follow up question to that, do you
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  Speaker 3: this is kind of taking onto something you said a
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  Speaker 3: moment ago where you get a lot of fear feed
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  Speaker 3: back from your readers if they think that something isn't
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  Speaker 3: quite right. Do you think that reading and really immersing
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  Speaker 3: yourself in science fiction helps develop your critical thinking skills,
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  Speaker 3: something that is so important for science students as they go.
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  Speaker 4: Forward, critical thinking skills. I think for some it can
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  Speaker 4: some people it's just escape its literature, right, they just
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  Speaker 4: want to read it and they want to escape and
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  Speaker 4: enjoy the ride. But I think there are a lot
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  Speaker 4: of people like I was that when I read science
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  Speaker 4: fiction and encountering an intriguing idea, you glom onto it.
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  Speaker 4: And I can give a professional example. I've been the
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  Speaker 4: lead here at NASA Marshall for many years now in
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  Speaker 4: our work to develop and fly something called a solar sale,
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  Speaker 4: a type of propulsion system that uses a large, lightweight
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  Speaker 4: thin reflector looks like a piece of aluminum foil and
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  Speaker 4: in space photons light from the Sun reflect from that,
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  Speaker 4: and as they reflect from it, it's like little bb
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  Speaker 4: shooting at a canvas. Right. They impart a little bit
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  Speaker 4: of momentum intal move so it's a propulsion system. Well,
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  Speaker 4: I remember reading a story when I was in high
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  Speaker 4: school by two of the great science fiction writer collaborators,
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  Speaker 4: Larry Niven and Jerry Pornell, and the book was called
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  Speaker 4: The Mote Mote in God's Eye. It was about an
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  Speaker 4: alien invasion of Earth and the aliens were coming driven
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  Speaker 4: on these big sales, driven by laser light that allowed
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  Speaker 4: them to get really high speeds for interstellar travel. I
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  Speaker 4: thought that was so cool. Well, in my career in
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  Speaker 4: the early two thousands, I had the opportunity to start
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  Speaker 4: working on solar sales and so I granted it and
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  Speaker 4: I said, I want to do that. And the reason
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  Speaker 4: I wanted to do it was because I think, ultimately
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  Speaker 4: that might be how we go to the stars. And
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  Speaker 4: I was inspired to do that by reading the works
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  Speaker 4: of Nivin and Pornell. So it really fed directly into
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  Speaker 4: my career, and it was something I read in high school.
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  Speaker 4: Of course, I read other books about it since then
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  Speaker 4: and found out they're physically possible, but the technology is
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  Speaker 4: now possible to build our fort sales. They won't go
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  Speaker 4: to the stars, but their descendants might, so it's exciting.
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  Speaker 2: More with Les Johnson after a quick break. Do you
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  Speaker 2: ever have moments where you're at a place like Dragon
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  Speaker 2: Con and you're talking to two fans that are actually,
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  Speaker 2: you know, interested in pursuing science as a career and
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  Speaker 2: get this thought or feedback that your writing may be
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  Speaker 2: influencing that next scientist, the way that the writing that
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  Speaker 2: you read influenced you.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I don't I don't want to sound braggardly, but
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  Speaker 4: there have been cases where I've had people come who
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  Speaker 4: are in the field who told me that some of
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  Speaker 4: my books influenced that. There was an entrepreneur who came
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  Speaker 4: to Huntsville, Gosh, by the way, which is great. Rocket
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  Speaker 4: City is a great, great place to be if your
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  Speaker 4: listeners haven't visited Huntsville. We've got a great space museum.
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  Speaker 4: It's a wonderful place to be. And we were having
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  Speaker 4: lunch and he was proposing a payload for the International
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  Speaker 4: Space Station, and I was not the deciding official. He
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  Speaker 4: had already met with all the people about that work,
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  Speaker 4: and he just contacted me saying he'd read some of
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  Speaker 4: my stuff and he'd like to talk. And he took
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  Speaker 4: out a copy of a book I had written a
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  Speaker 4: few years before that and said, hey, let's I want
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  Speaker 4: you to know and I want your signature on this
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  Speaker 4: book because this book inspired me to write the proposal
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  Speaker 4: as being considered for Space Station. That payload actually went
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  Speaker 4: up to Space Station. So I had a direct encounter
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  Speaker 4: that was really memorable for me, and that I think
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  Speaker 4: that was the first time someone had directly attributed their
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  Speaker 4: career direction and something that were working on to something
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  Speaker 4: I had written. And that's where I realized I better
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  Speaker 4: be careful what I say because people are going to
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  Speaker 4: listen to me.
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  Speaker 2: Well, and it's just semantics, I know, but technically you're
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  Speaker 2: not bragging. If I asked the question so I was,
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  Speaker 2: you know that way, it's technically you're not bragging.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, I'll take that.
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  Speaker 3: So as you're thinking through that inspiration, and you know,
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  Speaker 3: I think that's a great story, by the way, I
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  Speaker 3: just I just love to hear that as you're thinking
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  Speaker 3: through that inspiration and knowing that there are a number
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  Speaker 3: of our students here at Columbus State University who've listened
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  Speaker 3: to this podcast, and also just other students you might
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  Speaker 3: be talking to out there, students who might be flirting
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  Speaker 3: with the idea of pursuing a career that might lead
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: them to working either with NASA or at NASA directly,
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  Speaker 3: what kind of advice or what kind of helpful hints
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  Speaker 3: do you have for them in terms of like pursuing
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  Speaker 3: that career and what kinds of things do they need
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  Speaker 3: to be thinking about along that journey.
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  Speaker 4: The number one thing I hear from people, by far,
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  Speaker 4: it may not be the majority, but it's certainly a
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  Speaker 4: plurality of comments along those lines is I would love
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  Speaker 4: to have pursued a career in science, but I couldn't
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  Speaker 4: do the math. And I hear that a lot, and
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  Speaker 4: that makes me very sad because I have a personal
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  Speaker 4: story that it relates to that I wanted to be
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  Speaker 4: a physicist. As I said, I've wanted to do that
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  Speaker 4: since I was twelve. When I went to college and
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  Speaker 4: I took in first semester freshman year CALC one. I
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  Speaker 4: barely got to see, and I think I got to
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  Speaker 4: see because the professor took pity on me because he
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: knew I was so motivated and I was terrified because
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  Speaker 4: I had placed all of my dreams in doing that career,
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: and I knew I had to understand calculus. And so
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  Speaker 4: for the second semester, my faculty advisor happened to be
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  Speaker 4: in the math department and he said, less, I'm teaching
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  Speaker 4: CALC two next semester. I'll set up a weekly tutoring
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  Speaker 4: session with you, and as I teach a little different
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  Speaker 4: style than the profit you had for calkwe and I
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  Speaker 4: will be honest with you. Don't give up your career
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  Speaker 4: goals yet, don't change your major. Let's see how this
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  Speaker 4: works out. And his name is doctor Charles Haggard, and
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  Speaker 4: he recently passed, and this was at Transylvania University up
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  Speaker 4: in Kentucky, small liberal arts college, and he met with
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: me every week to tutor me, and about halfway through
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  Speaker 4: the semester, I got it, and I ended up going
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  Speaker 4: on and taking all the calculus, differential equations, partial different
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  Speaker 4: all the stuff you got to do to become a physicist.
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  Speaker 4: But I was almost giving up because the math I
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  Speaker 4: did not understand at first, and had to work really
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  Speaker 4: really hard at it and get help every single week,
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  Speaker 4: until finally finally my brain clicked and was like, oh,
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  Speaker 4: I get it, and I was able to start figuring
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  Speaker 4: out how to do it. And so the advice I
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  Speaker 4: give to young people is if you get intimidated by math,
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  Speaker 4: you may not be able to do it, but you
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  Speaker 4: may not have had the right instructor or the right teacher,
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: or you might need a little bit of help. Don't
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  Speaker 4: be afraid to ask for it, because if that's your dream,
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  Speaker 4: don't let that stand in a way.
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  Speaker 3: I think that's such an important advice, and it's kind
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  Speaker 3: of heartwarming to hear you tell that story, because myself
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  Speaker 3: and I have other colleagues that I've heard from We
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: had a similar journey. I decided on physics a little
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: bit later in life. I was already in my twenties,
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  Speaker 3: and then I decided, well, wait a minute, I was
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  Speaker 3: in a different major track, and I really wanted to
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  Speaker 3: pursue physics, but like you, I didn't have I didn't
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  Speaker 3: have that solid foundation in mathematics, and so I had
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: to begin at a very low level and kind of
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: fight my way up through math. And so I do
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  Speaker 3: actually share that same message with my students, but it's
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  Speaker 3: fantastic to hear a person in your position share that
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: same message, which is, hey, you can do this. You
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: may have to find the right now, you may have
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: to work extra hours, you have to put that extra
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: effort into it, but it is achievable, and don't let
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: that stop you from pursuing what actually is your passion.
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  Speaker 3: I think that's a great message.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks for sharing that, Sean and I try to keep
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: this show as rooted in science as we can. We're
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: talking about doing that when it comes to your writing,
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: and we try to keep the show on track for that.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: We've gotten to the point where in society in general now,
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: with discussions about UAPs, all of a sudden Things that
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: at one time didn't seem like they were real science
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: and real things that scientists could talk about are now
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: obviously at times you know front page news or you know,
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: one of the most trending stories online or whatever. And
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: as more and more discussions come out about UAPs, it's
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: probably something because of writing and because of the fact
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  Speaker 2: that you know, you do work in interstellar travel, you
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  Speaker 2: probably have given some thought to what's going on with UAPs.
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  Speaker 2: I was just curious because I know you'll get asked this.
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  Speaker 2: I'm sure you probably get asked it all the time,
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: and you'll get asked at something like Dragon Con your
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: thoughts on where we are in our discussions about UAPs
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  Speaker 2: and what's going on.
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  Speaker 4: Well, as with every storyteller, I've always got a story
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  Speaker 4: when I was pursuing all this info about science and
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: space as a kid, as a young person, and I
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: was reading every book I could read on science and space,
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: and that included books about UFOs because in the mid
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: seventies there were a lot of people seeing these things,
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: and in my area of Kentucky there were lots of sightings,
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  Speaker 4: and I actually went and talked to people who claimed
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  Speaker 4: to have seen these things, and I really believe we
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: were being visited. And then I went to college and
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: started learning about in astronomy, the distances between the stars,
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: the energy required to get to the speeds you need
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: to travel between the stars. And we started learning more
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: about the planets in our solar system, and it looks
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: like we're in a big, mostly dead solar system and
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: we're looking at exoplanets and not many of them look
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: like they can sustain life. I changed my view and
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: I said, well, you know, I don't know that we're
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: really being visited by anybody, but I set up a
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: trip wire a mental note, and that mental note was,
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: if ever, the Department of Defense and Military comes out
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: with multisensor data, i e. It's not just something that
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: somebody in their back porch looks up and sees a
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: light in the sky, but there's radar, sonar, infrared simultaneously
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: with visible of things we can't explain, I would start
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: paying attention again. Well, dang it, that happened in the
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: last ten years, right, and now we've had congressional hearings
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: about it. You've seen the videos on YouTube from the
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: military aircraft. I've talked to people in unclassified settings about
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: things that there's multisensor data for that I don't think
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: we can ignore. Now that said, there's a big leap
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: between hey, it is this and over being visited by aliens, Right,
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: So I think there might be many possible explanations for
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: these UAPs, but you can't rule out the extraterrestrials. It's
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: just I don't think it's a high probability of that
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: happening for a lot of reasons. But I am taking
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: it seriously. And in fact, there's a meeting happening in
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: Italy this fall from the Soul Foundation called Soul twenty five,
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: and it's a group founded by a Nobel Prize winner
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: in medicine and I'm sorry, I can't remember his name
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: off the top of my head. But it's an invitation
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: only event and I got invited to go, and so
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: I'm eager to go and listen and see what they
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: have to say and what kinds of research they're doing.
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: I've seen their board. It's a pretty credible group of people,
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: and I'm not affiliated with them in any way. I'm
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: not going as a NASA person. I'm going on vacation time,
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: but I want to go and listen I want to
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: find out what this is about, because I can no
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: longer ignore it, I guess is the bottom line.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: We took a similar approach on our show. The nature
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: of this show, Beate of Stars, is it's a space
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: news show, so we talk about current affairs in both
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: space exploration but also in astrophysics and astronomy, and all
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: of a sudden there were congressional hearings and there were
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: professional testimonies, and it was like, well, we can't not
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: talk about it on the show, right, So it just
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: got to be a very interesting time, which is when
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: I know that you're involved with the Interstellar Space symposiums,
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: you know, it's it's it's It was a question that
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: Wes and I talked about asking you because it's just
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: it's just such an interesting thing that we live through
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: a time where it made it to that level and
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: as you say, naval pilots with multi multi sensor data
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: on these phenomenon and we can't necessarily just pin it
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: down to oh, it's just a seagull or something, right,
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: So so it was a very interesting time. Do you
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: find that Do you find that when when I can't
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: say things like this, because it really hasn't happened before,
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: but when really interesting, forefront pushing ideas in science are
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: coming forward, that you get a lot of extra interest
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: from people in the field of going into propulsion technology
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: or going into just space exploration in general. These it
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: feels like these kind of societal things almost drive and
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: interest that ends up producing another wave of scientists.
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: I get a lot of emails both at NASA and
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: my author account because I write books about the plausibility
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: of traveling to the stars and science fiction novels. I
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: get about an email a week from someone who is
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: interested in the field, and might be a sincere question
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: of a thoughtful person who's looking into it, Hey, have
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: you thought about this? Or have you thought about that?
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: I also get people's perpetual energy patentable supposedly ideas sent
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: to me wanting my opinion, And of course I'm not
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: going to evaluate all those. I don't know if there's
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: not enough hours in the day to do that, you
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: probably get those. I love hearing from people, and I
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: try to be polite to everyone who reaches out, and
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: I always respond to people. It may take me a
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: while because my inbox gets kind of full, but I
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: think it does I think these things inspire people to
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: think about things they don't normally think about. And I'm
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: going to go on a rant, and that rant is
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: we are so insular, you know. I'm of the TV generation.
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: My kids are of the internet, you know, social media generation.
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: They're millennials, and we spend so much time inwardly focused
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: looking at screens we're in our houses. I just think
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: that when people actually go outside and they look at
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: the sky, if they can get to a place that's
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: a dark sky and you look at the stars, you
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: can't help but have the deep thoughts of are we alone?
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: What else is out there? What's my place in all this? Right?
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: And science fiction helps you when you're back inside kind
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: of think, Okay, I want to go there, I want
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: to do what other people are thinking about this. But
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: I think the sightings in the sky get people look up,
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: and when they look up, they can't help but ask
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: some of those more meaningful questions, right, And some of
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: the people who ask those questions are inspired to go
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: in science. Some of them might go into theology, you know,
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: I don't know, but at least they're asking that question
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: because our ancestors, thousands of years ago that's all they
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: did at night other than sleep, right, they looked at
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: the sky. So anyway, that's my rant, get outside, look
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: up and think about the really meaningful questions.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Well my advice, and you say that, and Shawn and
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: I always get excited because when there is an event,
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: when you have an eclipse, when you have Aurora borealis
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: that make their way down to Puerto Rico, you know,
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: as far south as that, these kind of and then
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: happen twice in the same year, which is insane, but
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: these are the kind of things that do drive people
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: to go outside and at least look at the sky,
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: and it does sort of inspire those very things. So
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: it's one of those Even in Shawn and I will
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: talk about and when one of the meteor showers happens,
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: and we don't cover those quite as much, and people ask,
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: why didn't you tell us there were going to be
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: meteor showers, And it's like, because that doesn't quite have
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: the dramatic effect. Often you're just kind of staring at
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: the sky for a long time and you don't see
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: a whole lot, and every now and then you see something,
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: it doesn't quite have that punch as some of the
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: other things. So any of those things that happened certainly
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: drive people outside to do exactly what you're saying. They
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: start looking at the sky.
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: The eclipses were huge for that. That's you know, people
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: walk around with I was in this town for the
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: eclipse of you know, twenty twenty four or the one
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: up and a few years ago. I was fortunate I
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: was asked to go speak at Johnny Cash's boyhood home
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: in Arkansas, and I'm a big Johnny Cash fan, right,
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: And then I actually watched the eclipse in a little
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: town called Pigot, Arkansas, and it was beautiful, clear, guys.
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: It was like a party. The whole town was out there.
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: Kids were playing games, they had their glasses, people were
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: oohing and eyeing and looking at the sky and they
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: was all right in front. As a writer, was right
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: in f front of the house where hemming Ray Hemmingway
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: wrote part of a Farewell to Arms. So for me
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: it was like double duty. You know, I'm there where
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: one of the great writers of the twentieth century did
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: his work. I'm looking up at the sky, I'm seeing
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: this incredible phenomenon happen, and I'm seeing people around me
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: get excited about it. It's one of those memories I'll
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: never forget the emotions that brought out all flowing together.
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: It was great well, and.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: I think you probably experienced this, either through your own
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: experience or just being with other people. When someone sees
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: something like a total solar eclipse for the first time,
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: it really can be life changing, right. I mean, it
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily make them into a scientist or drive them
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: into a stem field, but it really changes their perspective
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: on just how they think about their daily lives, how
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: they think about our interaction with the universe. And I
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: got to be in Waco, Texas during the last solar
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: eclipse and was with a fairly large group of people
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: down in Waco, and that was my impression. I had
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: seen solar eclipses before, but I knew how impactful they were,
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: so I kind of cast my eyes down a little
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: bit and just shared the experience of watching all these
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: other people see that event for the first time. And
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: it kind of really brings about this idea that we
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: truly are citizens of the solar system.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: And it gives you also a sense of scale in
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: your place in it, and when you see what you
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: can't see during the day the corona of the sun,
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: and there was actually a solar prominence visible right at
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: this past eclipse, and people were saying, what's that? What's that?
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: Where are we seeing that? And you know, just to
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: see them, and they never would ask that in their
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: daily life, right, but they did. And yeah, you're right.
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: It was great. And what was also really neat is
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: when it finally ended, people groaned because they wanted it
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: to continue, right, They were like, oh, darn is over.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Well, there's another one coming in twenty twenty nine in
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: the Kimberly resin of Australia and Western Australia. Sean and
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: I are trying our best to get down for that.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: That's right near my wife's birthplace in Australia. So if
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: you'd like to join us for that, we'll try to
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: figure out a way we can make that happen.
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: That's a long trip. I've been to Australia once and
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: I loved it. I was there for a space conference,
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: did some sight seeing, but bore, you got to be
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: ready for a long flight when you go to Australia.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: I just got back from there, so it's very fresh,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: very fresh on my mind. More with Les Johnson after
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: a quick break.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: So, Les, we want to ask you just this question,
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: and we don't want to know secrets that you can't
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: tell us. But certainly there are emergent technology that are
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: under development at Marshall and at other places. What do
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: you feel like is the most important emergent technology that's
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: going to really improve our understanding or our ability to
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: explore space that people just kind of don't know about.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: They don't know what's happening. It's not because it's secret,
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: but it's it's just the public awareness is not as
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: high about that.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: That's a question I don't know if I can answer
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: just off the top of my head. In terms of things,
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: there are some potential revolutions coming that could make long
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: duration in the Solar System human spaceflight more achievable. One
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: of them is in the whole notion of how do
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: you do closed loop life support to keep people alive
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: perhaps on a two and a half to three and
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: a half year round trip mission too and from Mars right,
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: and the technologies we're using today are very well understood.
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: They're all evolved from the systems developed back in the sixties.
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: They're all based on chemistry. One of the initiatives that
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: I started in my tenure here and this is all
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: public I'm not giving inside information. Is biological based EQUALISS
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: and life support environmental closed loop life support system sorry
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: after an acronym in there. And the notion is you know,
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: since since we've in the last twenty five years, this
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: is the sameuctree of bioengineering CRISP or genetic engineering modifying
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: and understanding the genome. And I think we're on the
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: cusp of being able to take microbes and have a
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: bioregenerative system instead of just using chemistry, use the biology
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: of nature itself augmented through genetic engineering, to recycle air, water,
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: break apart carbon dioxide, turn it back into oxygen, put
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: the carbon somewhere where you can use it to do
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: some kind of printing, three D printing or otherwise. So
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: I would say there's a potential for a real breakthrough
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: of life support systems that are essential for people to
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: travel of the stars to come eventually and in the
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: Solar system near term for sure. That's one. The other
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: is I am a huge fan of space nuclear power
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: and propulsion, and I think nuclear power in space recently
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: has been making the news. But this notion of using
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: the energy of the atom to help drive our spacecraft.
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: I could actually open up a lot more of the
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: Solar System for human exploration because it's a lot more
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: energy release and ability to propel a spacecraft than we
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: can get through chemistry. So I'm all in favor of
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: those two are examples that people may or may not
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: be aware of.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: Thank you. That's a great answer.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: So you mentioned earlier you're working on a book. Now,
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: could you tell us a little bit about that, and
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: then also a little bit about your book that's coming
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: out in November that's part of the Benbova Outer Planet series.
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: Sure, if I can start with the latter, that would
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: be great. I have been a big ben Bova fan
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: since I was in high school. I read his books.
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: He was the editor of the premier science fiction magazine
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: in the field, Analog Magazine, back in the eighties. He
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: also edited a short lived magazine that was really high
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: gloss that I got every issue of called Omni. If
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: anybody remembers Omni, great science fiction, science fact magazine. And
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: he also has written some fantastic hard science science fiction books.
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: His Mars book is like the seminal work on human
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: exploration at Mars, and when he passed of COVID in
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty one. I think it was shortly after that
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: his estate reached out to me and asked me if
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: I'd be willing to write, based on his notes, the
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: final book in his Grand Tour series, which spans all
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: the way out from Mercury to all the planets and
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: the minor planets, all the way out to Pluto and
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: concludes the arc of his story. And so of course
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: I said I'd be honored to do that. So I did,
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: and the book called Pluto comes out in November in
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: hardcover from Tour Books. And I'm really excited about that
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: book because I idolize Ben. But I'm also nervous because
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: there are a lot of ben Bova fans out there,
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: and having somebody else write his last book, I might
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: not meet their expectations, right, So I've got to kind
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: of gird myself for the real heart diehard ben Bova
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: fans to write. You know, this is not how Ben
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: would have ended it. But I hope they don't do that.
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: I hope they say this is a great and fitting ending.
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: Because I reread many of his books and I tried
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: to pay honor to Ben as I was completing that.
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: Now what I'm working on. I'm working on the third
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: book with Travis Taylor in our Orion's Arm series, which
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: is a first contact story. And the first two books
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: are Saving Proxima and Crisis at Proxima and they're from
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: Beyon Science Fiction part of Simon and Schuster. They're distributed
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: that way, and that'll be out sometime next year. And
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: I'm also working on a nonfiction book for Princeton Universe Press,
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: which is about how we can use space technology to
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: help improve life on Earth and to let people know
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: that space development and exploration is not just about going there,
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: but it's also about helping us solve problems here on
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: Earth and making our lives better here on the planet.
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: So I'm really excited about that book. Princeton Press has
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: some plans for that book when it's finished, and I'm
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: really pumped. I'm about two thirds of the way finished
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: with that book.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: Less, we appreciate you taking some time with us today.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Looking forward to seeing a Dragon con, I can tell
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: that there are already people you're getting ready to connect
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: with when you get there, so I know you're probably
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: pretty excited about getting back to the convention.
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: Oh, I love Dragon Con. The director of the space
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: track does a fantastic job pulling things together, and her
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: name is Rain Glenn, and I feel like we're family
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: even though we're not, because I've been to so many
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: of her stuff work on panel ideas back and forth
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: and so Phillips and the sci fi lit track. I
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: just give just kudos and shout outs to the people
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: who take the time to put together a great convention.
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: So I think any of your listeners that want to
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: come out, whether they're science oriented or not, that if
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: they're into pop culture and this kind of stuff, they're
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: gonna have a great time.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: And I always tell people whatever you think it is,
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: it's probably that and a whole lot more.
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, oh yeah. I tell people when they ask me,
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: I say, it's a spectacle. It is.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: And I try to tell people too, like when some
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: of the guests come in and they're preparing to come
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: in and they say, well, I hear this one's different
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: than some of the other conventions, and I say, well,
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: first thing you need to know, because they'll ask the
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: question like, so when does it shut down each day?
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: And it's like it shuts down on Monday.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: Like there's no.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Nightly shut down. It just it starts on Thursday and
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: it stops on Monday. That's just the way it works.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: And it's all hours of the night. And it's just
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: like being on you know, a cruise ship where there's
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: a giant costume party going on and then all these
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: other cool tracks and things going on at the same time,
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: and it just really never stops. But nobody parties like
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: the science track. I know that's a fact less Johnson,
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining us.
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: How about that, Sean, Wow, was that a great interview
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: or what? Les?
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: Isn't that cool?
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: You know, knowing how much he appreciates Dragon con, how
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: much he enjoys the convention, just being able to kind
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: of tee him up for that right at the beginning
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: and hear him talk about that, he kind of knew
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: we were going to have a talker and that's good
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: when you do interviews, you want a talker.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: He was a talker, but in a great way, right.
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: I mean he's a science he's a true science communicator, right,
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: And yes he's a science fiction author, but he's also
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: a science communicator. And I think that's it just reinforces
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: the reason why we do this joint coverage of dragon Con,
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: because he put it very very well himself when he
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: talked about the fantas haastic influence that the TV series
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: Star Trek had on his journey into space. There are
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: so many people in the age group that apparently Less
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: and I are pretty close, pretty similar in age, so
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: many people of our generation who receive their initial inspiration
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: from that one TV show, right, that one TV show
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: probably did more to drive people into science and technology
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: than all manner of recruiting efforts of academic institutions or
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: you know, science teachers telling their kids in class, you
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: should really go into science as a career. Probably Star
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: Trek did orders of magnitude more good in that regard.
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: So again, that's that's why we that's why we pay
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: attention to dragon Con, and that's why we at Space
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: Science Center at Columbus State University support the notion that
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: we need to know more about science fiction because it
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: leads to actual science, both in the ideas but then
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: in the inspiration of people to take part in that.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: And we thank less again for joining us, and Shawn
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: and I thank you for listening, and we will do
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: this again next week. Overhead Door Company of Columbus has
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