Back to the Moon: For Science and Exploration

SETI Talks

Tags: SETI Talks, Outreach, Moon

Time: Thursday, Jul 18, 2019 -

Location: SRI International, 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025

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NASA has an ambitious plan to return astronauts to the Moon. The return includes commercial and international partners with the goal of promoting a faster and more extensive exploration of the Moon as well as destinations beyond.

In a fashion similar to what has been done in commercializing low-Earth orbit, NASA proposes to lead these partnerships. The plan this time is to establish a space outpost, to learn how to live in deep space, and to explore the Moon from above.  Meanwhile, as assembly of this orbital outpost takes place, astronauts would land at the lunar south pole by 2024.

What are the goals of this new project? Is the lunar south pole the best place to go? What science will we be able to conduct from the surface of the moon and from lunar orbit? The new plan has received both praise and criticism. Supporters praise it as valuable, as they view it as the first true step for humans to permanently settle another world and prepare for the exploration of Mars and beyond. Opponents criticize it as too rushed, too costly, or too ill-defined.

We are inviting three space scientists (an engineer, an explorer, and an astronomer) from different backgrounds to share their thoughts on this new program. Bruce Pittman, who has been the Chief System Engineer in the NASA Space Portal Office at the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley since 2005 and has supported the Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, will describe the goals and objectives of the program and the return to the Moon in the framework of NASA. Dr. Pascal Lee, a planetary scientist with the SETI Institute and the Mars Institute, will discuss the new prospects of exploring the Moon and their potential to advance the human exploration of outer space, in particular of Mars. Finally, Dr. Doug Caldwell, Kepler Instrument Scientist and Chair of the Exoplanet group of the Carl Sagan Center, will emphasize the use of this new endeavor for scientific studies in fields as diverse as astronomy and medicine.

Douglas Caldwell

Doug Caldwell is the Instrument Scientist for the Kepler/K2 Mission and works in the TESS Science Processing Operations Center. 

Dr. Caldwell has worked on the Kepler mission since the proposal phase. During this time, the discovery of thousands of worlds around other stars has shown that planets orbit most of the stars in our Galaxy. Caldwell has had a part in this discovery through his work on Kepler. His focus was on the performance of the Kepler photometer and pixel calibration and systematic noise rejection in the data processing pipeline. As the Kepler and K2 Instrument Scientist, Caldwell led the team that identified and characterized several critical noise artefacts introduced by the Kepler photometer. Over the last 18 years, he has worked on all aspects of Kepler's science from data analysis to planet validation and follow-up. 

We now know that planets are common, but we still want to know how many of these planets are Earth-sized and possibly Earth-like. Dr. Caldwell hopes to help answer these questions through his efforts with the TESS mission. He has been working to understand how the instrument affects the science data in order to inform the pipeline processing, and helping scientists understand the instrumental and processing impacts on TESS science results.

Pascal Lee

Dr. Pascal Lee is a planetary scientist with the SETI Institute, the Mars Institute, and NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. His research focuses on water on Mars, caves on the Moon, and the origin of Mars’ moons, Phobos and Deimos. Dr. Lee is also internationally recognized for his work on advancing the human exploration of the Moon and Mars. He has led over 30 expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctica to study the Moon and Mars by comparison with the Earth, and since 1997 has directed the NASA Haughton-Mars Project (HMP), the leading Moon/Mars analog field research project, situated on Devon Island in the High Arctic. As part of the HMP, Dr. Lee led the Northwest Passage Drive Expedition, an epic vehicular journey on sea-ice along the fabled Northwest Passage and the subject of the award-winning documentary film Passage To Mars (2016). 

Dr. Lee has also been studying ice-rich lava tubes in Iceland as analogs for potential ice-rich caves on the Moon and Mars, and is pioneering the use of new robotic technologies – in particular drones and inflatables – to explore planetary surfaces and caves. His first book, Mission: Mars, won the 2015 Prize for Excellence in children’s science books from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In his free time, Pascal likes to be walked by his dogs, fly, and paint. He is an FAA-certified helicopter commercial pilot and flight instructor and an artist member of the International Association of Astronomical Artists.

Bruce Pittman

Bruce Pittman has been the Chief System Engineer in the NASA Space Portal Office at the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley since 2005.  In this position, he supported the Emerging Space Office - first in the NASA Office of the Chief Technologist and then in the Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.  

The programs he supported ranged from orbital applications of the International Space Station and other orbiting commercial facilities to low cost, reliable access to space, reusable space infrastructure, and cislunar commercialization.  The Space Portal’s latest initiative is a plan for returning to the Moon using public/private partnerships. Bruce led the Space Portal support of the Frontier Development Lab summer study program with the SETI Institute in 2016, 2017, and 2018. Mr. Pittman has a BS in Mechanical/Aerospace Engineering from U. C. Davis and a MS in Engineering Management from Santa Clara University.  He is an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and is the chairman of the AIAA Commercial Space Group. In 2012 Mr. Pittman was elected to the Board of Directors of the National Space Society (NSS) and in 2013 he was elected by the Board as Senior Vice President and Senior Operating Officer of NSS.  He is an advocate of the Space Foundation and a member of the Board of Directors of the Waypaver Foundation.  

He has authored or co-authored more than four dozen papers on a technical, management, and business topics in aerospace and high technology.  He has co-authored two book chapters in Beyond The Earth:  The Future of Humans in Spaceand  and Space Commerce:  The Inside Story.  In addition to his technical work, Mr. Pittman has also been a member of the adjunct faculty in the Graduate Engineering School at Santa Clara University for more than thirty years.