STAR ATTRACTION
Australian engineer Beth Jens spends her days at NASA JPL working on technologies she hopes will not only help space exploration but make this world a better place.
Australian engineer Beth Jens works at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory on technologies she hopes will not only help space exploration but make this world a better place.
The night sky in Australia is a beautiful sight. I grew up in Torquay, on the coast of Victoria. Living in a small town has the benefit of delivering spectacular views of the night sky. I have so many memories of staring up at it throughout high school, pondering the wonderful and terrible things occurring under that same set of stars. My eyes would always seek out the Milky Way, following it from the Southern Cross to Orion’s Belt. I would look up at those stars, dreaming of becoming an astronaut and helping humankind to explore our solar system. Twenty years after that dream took hold, I am now a propulsion engineer working at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. I spend my days either working on the next NASA Mars rover (a remotecontrol robot the size of a car) or helping to develop a new propulsion system with the goal of enabling a new class of small interplanetary spacecraft. The night sky is much harder for me to see through all of the lights of Los Angeles, but my passion for exploring it has not diminished.
I love the fact that space exploration allows us to think beyond the mundane realities of day-to-day life, and instead focus on the larger questions of who we are as a species, and where the future of humankind lies. Many of us working in this industry have different views on why we should explore. Most of us fundamentally believe that the drive to explore is a key facet of human nature, deriving from the lives of the earliest nomadic tribes. For those with a very long-term outlook, there is the drive to become a multi-planet species in order to survive independently of our home planet. Some people look to space as a means to extract resources, seeing the potential to mine rare metals from asteroids, rather than continuing to plunder our planet. Personally, I love that human space exploration efforts force us to relook at our consumption of resources, in an effort to strive to make our spacecraft ‘closed systems’ where every resource is constantly being recycled and re-used. Every kilogram of matter transported from Earth to space is expensive, so significant resources are invested into improving the recycling of resources, such as recovering oxygen and water. I believe that exploration of the planets in our solar system can help us to understand our own planet, and hopefully equip us to be better guardians of it.
The other aspect of space exploration that I am grateful for is the fact that the technology developed for space exploration is also fed back into society to help us improve our lives here on Earth. In fact, NASA was originally established to lead US space exploration in favour of using a branch of the military, so that the technologies developed for space can be spun off for use on Earth. The statement from NASA, that it strives “to improve life here, to extend life to there, to find life beyond”, speaks to the wonderful altruistic side of human nature.
There are so many fascinating destinations for us to explore within our solar system. Venus is our closest neighbour and yet is incredibly difficult to visit. Any spacecraft trying to land on Venus must travel through clouds of sulphuric acid and be able to survive temperatures of greater than 450°C. Electronic devices in particular do not like exposure to these temperatures. Only the Soviet Union has been able to land on Venus, and even then its spacecraft survived on the surface for only a couple of hours. Venus is closer to the sun than Earth is, but its temperature is higher than can be explained purely from its proximity to the sun; the high temperatures are due to a runaway greenhouse effect. We do not know what caused this to occur, but studying Venus could give us insight to some of the processes our planet might go through if we do not curb our greenhouse gas emissions.
There are three moons in our solar system that everyone should know about, as scientists believe they may harbour life. These moons, in no particular order, are Europa, Titan and Enceladus. Europa is an icy moon of Jupiter. Evidence indicates that Europa has a saltwater liquid ocean beneath its icy surface and has enough energy to perhaps support life forms within this ocean. NASA is currently working on designing spacecraft to send to Europa to start exploring this moon. Keep your eyes peeled for what it may reveal. Titan and Enceladus are both moons of Saturn. Enceladus is interesting because, like Europa, it also appears to have a liquid ocean. This was not realised until the Cassini spacecraft observed a massive geyser spewing liquid water out into space. Titan is interesting because it has a dense atmosphere, and appears to also have stable lakes of liquid ethane and methane. The exotic atmospheric composition of Titan means that if we were to find life there, it is likely that this life would be entirely different than anything we currently know.
Mars is the most likely planet on which we will be able to land humans in our lifetime. NASA has been exploring the surface of Mars with robotic missions since the Viking spacecraft landed in 1976. These spacecraft have taught us that although Mars is currently cold and dry, it was once a warmer and wetter planet. Mars is a smaller planet than Earth; it is thought that at some point its core cooled, causing it to lose its magnetic field. Without a magnetic field to protect it, Mars gradually lost most of its early atmosphere. We continue to explore Mars to better understand this, to look for fossils of past life, and to see whether some life might survive today in sub-surface water or caves.
There is fascinating technology being developed to help enable longterm human spaceflight. The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE), scheduled to fly on the next NASA Mars rover, is one such example. This instrument is designed to demonstrate that we can produce oxygen from carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere. The production of oxygen from in-situ carbon dioxide on Mars would be a game-changing technology for human exploration. If enough oxygen can be produced it could be used not just for human life support, but also as a propellant for rockets to launch off the surface of Mars.
There is also a significant amount of biological and engineering research being conducted on the International Space Station (ISS) to enable longduration human spaceflight. Thanks to the ISS, humankind has continuously inhabited lower Earth orbit for 17 years. The ISS has allowed us to study the effect of long-term exposure to microgravity on the human body, which accelerates bone loss and muscle degeneration. Mitigations in the form of nutrition, targeted exercises and medication are all being studied on the ISS. These health issues are not just a problem for astronauts; the symptoms seem analogous to those experienced by elderly, bedridden patients. The ISS is also a prime research location for improving life support systems, and working towards maintaining a closed system where every resource, such as water, can continuously be recycled and reused. The research being conducted on the ISS will be key to keeping our first human Mars explorers alive and healthy for the duration of their mission to the red planet.
It is not clear when the first human mission to Mars will occur. NASA is not the only organisation with its eyes on the red planet. Europe’s ESA is working on its first Mars rover, scheduled for launch in 2020, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX is developing a large propulsion system with the goal of eventually landing humans on Mars. Regardless of which organisation leads this push to the red planet, I am grateful for the opportunity to be at the forefront working with the technologies for such a mission. I still spend my time looking towards the stars, wondering if I, or someone I know, will be chosen to travel to Mars. In the meantime, I hope that space exploration continues to benefit our home planet and that, as a species, we are proud of the steps that are being made towards the peaceful exploration of our solar system.