Dr. Charles Elachi, expectations for Japanese space missions

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a world leader in the field of space exploration, having launched a number of spacecraft. Dr. Elachi is an expert in imaging radar, and has participated in a wide variety of missions ranging from space exploration, to Earth observation and to archeological expeditions.

With this experience, he is actively involved in a number of academies and strategic planning committees. He has a close connection to the Japanese space program as a member of an external evaluation committee for JAXA's space exploration missions.

The following is a JAXA interview with Dr. Elachi.
JAXA: You are a member of the ISAS (Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, JAXA) External Evaluation Committee. What was your impression of last year's session? Which space mission left the deepest impression on you?

Charles Elachi: I was very, very impressed with the efforts that are going on at ISAS. Our committee reviewed the different programs and approaches, and I was particularly impressed, not necessarily with a specific mission, but with the broad spectrum of activities at ISAS - planetary, astrophysics and space physics - and the close connection between the scientists, the engineers and the students who are working with them. It kind of reminded me a little bit of the early times of JPL. It's smaller than JPL, but they are taking some of the first steps in exploration.

JAXA: How do you think JAXA is perceived by the international committee?

CE: One of JAXA's recent missions was the rendezvous and landing on an asteroid by Hayabusa. That was a major challenge. I mean, even here in the U.S. such a mission would be a major challenge. I think the involvement of ISAS both in studying asteroids and in conducting the KAGUYA (SELENE) mission to the moon, which is now in orbit, really shows the leadership that Japan is taking in planetary exploration.

JAXA has had a number of programs that involved international activity, not only in planetary exploration but also in Earth science. So we at JPL have participated many times in Earth observation missions for which Japan had developed the spacecraft. And we've also had a number of scientists from Japan involved in our missions here.

These international exchanges, where either scientists or instruments from the U.S. fly on Japanese spacecraft or vice versa, build a strong scientific and human relationship between countries. That's very important in science and space exploration, and you have been very proactive in doing that.

JAXA: What kind of role do you think Japan should play in international space development?

CE: I think Japan can play a broader role. Japan has a strong capability in science, and space science, and engineering. One of our committee's recommendations was that JAXA should expand its international collaboration in Southeast Asia, and also worldwide. In addition to NASA and the European Space Agency, Japan is other major player in space exploration. And Japan could be a leader in the whole exploration program.

JAXA: Do you have any particular missions in mind on which you would like to collaborate with Japan in the future?

CE: Looking at the future, I would say one of the areas where Japan has built capabilities is rendezvousing and bringing samples from small bodies, such as asteroids. So that could be an exciting potential collaboration in the future - doing more extensive studies of asteroids and comets, rendezvousing with them and bringing samples from a variety of asteroids and comets, so we can see the diversity across the solar system. And clearly, the other area of cooperation would be in the Earth sciences, where we are all sharing the concern over global change. It's going to require all the leading nations in space to develop a network to observe the changes that are happening on our planet, so the public policy people can decide how to address all these issues.

JAXA: What advice would you give to JAXA regarding future activity and goals?

CE: I recommended two things. One is to expand international collaboration. I think international cooperation is very important, and almost every mission we have at JPL has an international element. We have a number of Japanese scientists involved in our missions, and we have been involved in Japanese missions. We all agree that space exploration is for all humankind, because when you look from space at the Earth you don't see any boundaries. There is some international collaboration now at JAXA, but I think it ought to be expanded. For instance you could have scientists from other countries work at JAXA for a year or two - what we call a research fellows program.

The other advice is to increase your tolerance for taking risks. In space exploration, particularly planetary exploration, there is always a high risk, because many of these missions we're doing the first time. So there needs to be a good tolerance for risk. In any type of exploration, in Antarctica, or when people explored the oceans 300 years ago, there was always high risk. And there were always setbacks and failures, but people never gave up. People in general, but particularly big organizations tend to shy away from risk. And if you are always afraid of problems and failure, you will not be a leader. So one of my recommendations is that we should try to avoid problems but expect that setbacks will happen. The important thing is to learn from our failures and keep pushing the frontier. We at JPL encountered that many times through our history. We had successes and we had failures. But we always learn from our failures, so we can push the frontier to the next step.

JAXA: Are there any space missions conducted by space agencies other than NASA and JAXA that have attracted your attention?

CE: Let me give you two examples. One is the European Space Agency (ESA) becoming an even bigger player in space exploration. Now ESA has a spacecraft orbiting Mars, called Mars Express, another orbiting Venus, called Venus Express, and there is also mission heading toward a comet. It's called Rosetta, and its mission is to rendezvous with a comet. So that shows that ESA is now playing a major role in that area.

We have also collaborated with CNES, the French space agency, on a number of programs to study the Earth's oceans from space. That's becoming a major benefit to both Japan and the U.S., to monitor what's called El Niño, which is a change in climate resulting from heat change in the ocean. And that's based on measurements done by a joint French-American satellite.

JAXA: In Asia, China was successful with human space flight. What are your views on China's space program?

CE: I think everybody needs to participate in space exploration. In my mind, the key thing always ought to be collaboration. When it's for peaceful purposes, planetary exploration and Earth observation are the responsibility of all humankind. The U.S. has always welcomed international civilian collaboration. And I hope in the future there will be more collaboration with China. At the present time, that collaboration is very limited. But I'm hopeful that in the future it could be expanded.

JAXA: Which of the missions you have been involved in has left the deepest impression?

CE: Personally, as an individual, the one that impressed me most is the first one I was involved in, Magellan, which was a mission to send a radar in orbit around Venus. When I was a student and started working at JPL, that was the first mission I worked on. So, you can imagine, when you are young you remember those things. But since then there have been many very exciting missions also. The Mars Rovers, the Spitzer space telescope, the space shuttle missions - it's kind of hard to say. It's like your kids, you know. People ask me, "which one is your favorite daughter?" Well, I love both of them the same amount. Each one has slight differences, but I love both of them. So I would say I found each mission has a fascinating aspect, because you learn something new from every mission.

JAXA: What is the major target of the United States' future planetary exploration projects?

CE: We have a number. The goal of our planetary exploration projects is to understand both the formation of planets and whether life evolved outside Earth. So that makes Mars a major target. Every two years we are sending a mission to Mars to understand its history, and whether biology occurred on it. But there are also other targets. Europa, which is a satellite of Jupiter, is of particular interest. We think there is an ocean below the surface. We have Titan, one of the satellites of Saturn, which we are observing now with the Cassini spacecraft, because it has an atmosphere that's made up heavily of hydrocarbons, which gives indication that maybe there is organic activity, and possibly biological activity. So these are some of the targets that are getting particular attention because of the possibilities that life might have evolved on those planets.

JAXA: What are your thoughts about the need for public education and promotion of planetary exploration?

CE: In the U.S., we feel very strongly that because the program is funded by the public, it's important that we keep the public informed and excited about what we do.

And we find in particular young people in the U.S. are very fascinated and excited about space exploration. I'm told that the number of visitors to science museums exceeds the number of people who go to sporting events, which is a big deal. So clearly there is a lot of interest. We see it from visits to JPL - something like 20,000 students come and visit every year. We see it from the number of hits on our Web site, particularly when there is special event such as Deep Impact or when we landed the Mars Rovers. In a matter of weeks, we got billions of hits on our Web site. So we play a very proactive role in informing particularly young people but also the general public about what we do. It goes from tours at JPL, to Web site, to having displays at a museum. And when I say display, I don't mean static displays. When we have a landing, people at science museums around the U.S. can see it in real time as it's happening.

JAXA: How do you think the theme of outer space should be utilized in education?

CE: What is particularly exciting about space exploration is that it kind of opens the minds of children by saying that anything is possible. That you are not limited to your immediate environment, that you can look up at the sky and see all these beautiful stars, and that you can travel there one of these decades in the future. I think it gives children an expansion of their imagination, telling them that, look, you can dream of things, and it could happen, whatever you dream of. Now, that doesn't mean that all they have to do is dream about space. Space gives them an opportunity to think. They look at the Moon, and dream about being on the Moon, and people actually do travel to the moon. So I think it gives an uplifting feeling to children that almost anything is possible that is important in our life. And that's what builds a spirit of exploration, and discovery, and innovation, and learning, and so on.

JAXA: What is the significance of planetary exploration to you?

CE: One way to describe it is this: we took images from Cassini looking at Saturn. You look across the ring from Saturn, and you see a little teeny dot of light, and that's Earth. I saw the picture of Earth taken from JAXA's KAGUYA. It is sobering or humbling, to see the Earth from this perspective. We think that we are at the center of everything. We keep fighting, countries fight, over resources or for whatever reason. And then when you look at that picture, you see how small we are, and we are all sharing that little sphere with that thin atmosphere around it. It gives you an idea of how fortunate we are, and that we really ought to protect our planet, because it's a very fragile environment. Until you see it from outside, you don't appreciate how fragile and how little it is. When you look at the Earth from that perspective, you see how small we are within the Solar System. For me, it's very important that we really understand the whole Solar System, how it formed, what our position is in it.

In the Middle Ages people thought that the Earth was at the center of the universe. And we quickly discovered that we are not at the center of the universe, we are just little blip around a little star called the sun, in a little galaxy, and there are billions of galaxies in the world. So it is really important for us to understand where we fit as humankind in a broader context. And I look at planetary exploration as the first step in understanding that.

JAXA: What do you think is the future outlook for space development?

CE: I think space development is going to have a broad spectrum of benefit. I mean, clearly there'll be the economic benefit. Today, we use it all the time when we use satellite TV. We use a spacecraft for relaying communication. People use a GPS receiver - that's done because of space development. There are satellites we call search-and-rescue. If people get lost on boats or in mountains and so on, there are ways of communicating with them using these satellites.

So that had been a major step in development. What will happen in the future? It's always limited by imagination. I mean, there could be future applications that we haven't even thought about. At the present time there could be space tourism. That's beginning to happen - people doing suborbital flights, talking about having space hotels. Even if just some of these happen, I think that will be a great expansion of mankind's sphere of activity. So, no question, I think, there would be a lot of new things particularly for the next generation to imagine and make happen.

Source: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
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