 Think Tech Hawaii. Civil engagement lives here. OK. We're back. We're live. We're in research in Manoa on a given Monday. And I'm Jay Fidel. I'm in Honolulu. And I'm the sort of guest host on this. And our true host, our real host, who is today my guest is Pete McGinnis-Mark. He's a researcher at HIGP, the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at UH Manoa. Welcome to your show, Pete. Thanks, Jay. It's great to be here. Just don't mess up the show, OK? I'll try hard. Now, you might have figured out that Pete is not in Honolulu. He's in Houston, Texas. And he is attending the Lunar and Planetology Science Conference, Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas, with a couple of thousand other scientists there. So, Pete, thanks for reporting back to us. I'm so excited about what's going on. And I'm looking forward to hearing about it in detail. Can you describe what's going on in Houston at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference? Sure, Jay. I'm happy to give an update now. Realize that the conference itself only started today. And it runs through Friday of this week. But most exciting from, I hope, the viewer's point of view is Saturday and Sunday was passed. We had a special micro symposium that featured China in space. China has a very vibrant space program planned for the next five to 10 years. So, there may be 20 or 30 tiny scientists from all over the country presenting some of their plans and talking to American and European space scientists about everything from engineering projects to where they would land to how they would analyze the data from a mission. So, very exciting. It was about 80 people from the United States there, some from Europe, as well as these people from China. Really good. And UH is well represented, isn't it? You sent a significant delegation to Houston for this conference. That's right. Yes, for the conference in general, there's perhaps 25 people from the University of Hawaii at Manaw, our graduate students and postdocs as well as faculty members. Some of them have only come to the meeting itself. So, that started today. But there was a smaller contingent who attended the China in space micro symposium. So, in general, what you have 2000 research, 2000 participants in the conference for this event? Yes. And they come from all over the planet, from Europe, from South America, Australia, as well as from Asia. And those people have a wide range of interests. My own interest to the viewers may know is in the geology of the planet Mars, but then we have others who specialize in looking at, say, meteorites and comets. They're not on our show. We've had Hopi Shi, for example, talking about that kind of work. We've also got a lot of people studying the moon. And again, we've had, say, Jeff Gilles Davis on the program. Jeff is here right now, as is Jeff Taylor and Lyndon Martel. So, several of the guests that we've had on Research in Manaw are also here. And we're just scattered amongst the various special sessions. The way the conferences run, there might be five different topics which are being discussed simultaneously in different rooms. A different track. The Hawaii people don't actually see that much of each other, except when we get together at lunchtime or in the evening. Well, yeah, they say science is an important part of science these days and 21st century is collaborating with people far away. And certainly there is a lot of collaboration. And UH does a lot of collaboration with scientists far away. That's right, yes. And with the China and space topic, for example, some of our faculty, like Paul Lucy, are specialists in analyzing color data of the moon. And so Paul can tell the Chinese where to land their spacecraft, which are due to go to the moon either late this year or early next year. And Jeff Taylor is particularly good at giving background on how to analyze some of the rocks who understand the evolution of the moon. So we do not currently collaborate with any Chinese scientists, although we have Chinese students at Munoa. But our hope is that we might, in the near future, strike up some collaborations either for data analysis or for trying to design new missions to the moon. Well, that's the benefit of a conference like this. I mean, you can meet people that you might not otherwise meet. You can fashion relationships and joint projects. You might not otherwise have the opportunity to do. And in this case, especially with China. So, gee, it sounds to me like your chances are pretty good of striking up a relationship with China. That'll be great on both sides of the fence. Although, of course, in a sense, we're competing with the other 1,900. Everybody wants to do it. But, at UH Munoa, we've got some real strengths in terms of reputation in the planetary community. And so some of the work we do is highly sought after for collaborations. We also use Hawaii as a comparison to some of the geologic processes on the planet. So, at this meeting, I've been discussing with people what would be a relevant comparison between, say, volcanoes on Earth in Hawaii and those found on Mars and the Moon. So, I understand that this is the first day of the conference this given Monday, but that the preliminary proceedings called China in Space, the workshop, took place over the weekend. And that's very interesting. And, of course, you were there because you wanted to find out what they were doing. So, let me ask, what are the Chinese doing this day? Where are they on the global continuum of exploration and research in lunar and planetary science? Good question, Jay. Yeah. It's been a revelation, I think, to many of the participants at the workshop. Turns out there's at least 2,000 either engineers or scientists in China at many different institutions across the country who are in some way or other involved in their space program. And what is more important is that they have some very ambitious plans to do not just one mission to the Moon. As I said earlier, they hope to go to Mars as well. And they may even go to an asteroid. So, it's the breadth as well as the depth of their interest in the space program and the Chinese government's commitment to sort of a long-term program. They aren't planning astronauts going to either the Moon or Mars yet, but they are doing all of the preliminary steps. They want to put spacecraft in orbit. Then they want to put spacecraft down on the surface of the Moon or Mars. They'll have rovers. Once you get to that point, all of the technology gets very sophisticated. The computer software that they need to control these spacecraft at these distances away from Earth. They've already had some very successful missions. For example, a spacecraft called Changi2 not only orbited the Moon, but then they sent it off to rendezvous with an asteroid. So, they have already learned a lot of sophisticated techniques for exploring near-Earth space. One thing which is different right now between, say, the U.S. program that NASA runs and the Chinese program, though, is that at the present time at least China is only focused on our Moon and Mars, whereas the U.S. is going to the outer part of the solar system, and in the past we've been to Venus and Mercury closer to the Sun than Earth. So, China is taking measured steps, but they are also advancing very rapidly and many different institutions. The equivalent of NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, applied physics lab, as well as a number of their top universities, like Peking University, are involved in some aspect of each of the missions. It sounds like a full court press, because if you think back to the early days of NASA and the Kennedy Initiative to get to the Moon and all, the U.S. was way ahead, with Russia heavily involved. The Chinese were not at all involved in those days. Their whole initiative started only a few years ago. The cultural revolution was ongoing at the time that the U.S. and Soviet Union were trying to get to the Moon. We're hoping that the next phase of solar system exploration will not be as competitive. We've been very heartened by the openness and camaraderie that the Chinese have shown us at least at this meeting. You know, for example, they are quite willing to talk about the instruments that they will fly, ask questions, as well as tell us a little bit about what specifically they are planning to do, where they want to land on the Moon, what they want to do with the samples when they come back. So this isn't a secretive program. They genuinely seem to be interested in what the U.S. and European space programs can contribute to their activities. It's just that they are advancing very rapidly, so that perhaps in 10 years, they will be the world leaders in certain parts of robotic exploration, where right now NASA is in charge. Well, Pete, we're going to take a short break and then come back. That's Pete McGinnis-Marck. He's a researcher at HIGP, Y Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at UH Minoa. He's in Houston at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. And a very interesting aspect of that is China in Space, where they spent a weekend at a special workshop, preliminary to this conference, to find out what the Chinese were doing and what the Chinese would like to do, of new collaborations possible. When we come back from this break, Pete, I'd like to ask you, it seems to be a kind of disconnect, because these days in the Trump administration, there's a little friction going on between the U.S. and China. China is very ambitious in many ways, from a geopolitical point of view. You're describing a conference that is very open and friendly. And I wonder if you see anything in there that can help explain the difference between the geopolitical side and the scientific side. We'll be right back. Let's do that. We'll be right back. I'm Ethan Allen, host of Likeable Science on Think Tech, Hawaii. Every Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. I hope you'll join me for Likeable Science, where we'll dig into science, dig into the meat of science, dig into the joy and delight of science. We'll discover why science is indeed fun, why science is interesting, why people should care about science, and care about the research that's being done out there. It's all great. It's all entertaining. It's all educational. So I hope to join me for Likeable Science. Hello, everyone. I'm DeSoto Brown, the co-host of Human Humane Architecture, which is seen on Think Tech, Hawaii every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. And with the show's host, Martin Desbang, we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live, but other aspects of our life, not only here in Hawaii, but internationally as well. So join us for Human Humane Architecture every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. on Think Tech, Hawaii. We're back. We're live with Pete McGinnis-Mark, having a very interesting conversation during the break, as we always do. He's in Houston at the Luna and Planetary Science Conference. He's a researcher at HIGP at UH Manoa. And it must be a very interesting experience to see the Chinese come out, possibly as never before in the China in Space workshop that just took place over the weekend. So my question that I posed before and actually during the break is, you know, do you feel that they're coming at this from the same view that you are? You know, you're looking for science. You're looking to understand the universe. They're under an agenda of the Communist Party in China, Xi Jinping. Do you feel that they're in the same place that you are, Pete? Yeah. I mean, you certainly can't ignore the geopolitical aspects, the high tech which is being developed in order to get to the moon, you know, the rockets which they have, all of the software which is being developed. So for sure, you know, there's some nationalistic objectives, not only with China, but with the U.S. with the Europeans and the Russian. But I sort of, I contrast to this weekend's workshop with the Chinese to some of the meetings which I attended, say, in the late 70s, early 80s, when it was the Soviet Union that was flying spacecraft in orbit around Venus. And it's quite striking the difference that the Chinese, it's not full disclosure, but they are not holding back if you ask them questions. If you need more information on a way an instrument is working or how successful they've been on a previous mission, there isn't the same kind of political intrigue associated with it. We don't have that strong a Russian interplanetary program at the present time, but of course the Russians do collaborate very extensively with NASA through the International Space Station. So I think one striking difference between the sort of the political situation between the U.S. and all of the other countries compared to the science community, scientists like myself, we're just really fascinated in trying to understand how the solar system was put together. And so we applaud our international partners as much as we do our U.S. colleagues because exploring space is such a complicated task, it involves thousands of people. It's inevitable that no one person knows everything. So you just want to learn from your colleagues, different techniques, different science discoveries, different topics in terms of life beyond Earth's orbit, for example. And so the collaborations or the discussions with the Chinese, which instantly was organized by a professor from Brown University in Rhode Island, a guy called Jim Head, would be applauded for pulling together 20 Chinese scientists as well as the U.S. investigators. So it feels very much like a team effort. No one person or no one country can cover all of the topics. So personally, I just welcome the Chinese for the exploration of the moon and Mars. I think it's going to be great. There are differences, obviously, in U.S. politics towards China or towards which any other country right now. But the science community, we don't really care. We want to know what it is, what types you find elsewhere in the solar system, how do you land on Mars, how do you go and explore a near-Earth asteroid or something like that. It's really an exciting kind of situation. Obviously, we talk a little bit about the politics in each country, but we don't really worry about it because we've all got the same goal. We want to know what's on the far side of the moon or what an asteroid looks like and things like that. So there's something new that happened here, and that's the presentation of the Chinese efforts in the China in Space workshop. It sounds very impressive, as a matter of fact. It sounds like they are interested in joining the international community of science, dealing with lunar and planetary science. And they want to be a member. They want to be members, active members, contributing members, collaborating members of that community, more than ever. And it really is an international effort. So I draw attention to the tremendous accomplishments that the Europeans made two years ago by landing a spacecraft on the nucleus of a comet of the Indians who managed to send a spacecraft to orbit Mars for less than $100 million, a very low price compared to NASA experiments. The Canadians put instruments on some U.S. spacecraft that land on Mars. So it very much is an international community, as well as the group of scientists from South America and Australia, in particular. It really is a collection of international scientists who've all got similar goals, and that makes it a really exciting environment to be in. You know, when these scientific conferences come to Hawaii, come to conventions there, you always find out that there are committees. There are the board of directors or board of governors. That's it. And it's always international and global, and commendably so. But I wonder if that's the same here with this organization, the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. Do they have officers and directors? Are they electing people to serve between the conferences? Are you running? Are you running? Do you want to be on that board? It doesn't really have the same organizational structure as an international society. The kind of meeting I'm attending right now, they have a program committee which basically discusses which presentation will be paired with other presentations. But it's more just a reporting society as opposed to making decisions on what will the US do next in space. The National Academy of Sciences would be a better group which puts together 10-year or decadal plans for, say, what the US should be doing in space. And then other countries, all of whom are STEM representatives through Houston for this meeting, will have their own sort of strategic plan. And because some of these planetary missions may take 15, 20, even 30 years to implement and collect the data, each country has to plan for like the year 2040 or 2045 about now. And so they have their own group like the National Academy of Sciences for the United States which makes these long-term plans. The Academy makes the recommendation to NASA headquarters. And then NASA headquarters, if they like the ideas, will go to officer management and budget in the White House to try and get the money to do this. But we don't have the same kind of international panel that would necessarily coordinate a whole variety of countries in interest. You know, I mean, at these conferences, there's always the possibility of new collaborations, meeting people, engaging in new collaborations, whether it be between universities, between business entities, research entities. Well, for that matter, between governments. And I wonder what the possibility is that this particular conference or a repetition or a continuation of a conference like this, whether it will result in joint missions. Do you foresee a time when there would be a collaboration between, say, for example, United States and China or maybe other countries involved too? Oh, indeed. Going to a planet together? Right now, for example, faculty members at UOH are involved in three funded planetary missions. And Paul Luce is writing a proposal for a lunar mission. A meeting such as the one which I'm attending now enables Paul to talk to people not only from across the United States, but also Europe and Canada and Japan. And together, they will go to the business community, which actually is poorly represented at this meeting because they build the hardware as opposed to analyze the data. But yes, this kind of meeting really does help build relationships. And you also just learn about what other people are finding interesting. And so you take your expertise, look at what people are trying to do, and then say, well, my technology or my data analysis technique and my field sites offer additional information to what is currently present. And so that's how you start coming up with ideas or an instrument or why you want to fly into a place like one of the moons of Saturn, for example. It's the science ideas which then make you think about the instruments, collaborations, the business involvement with aerospace companies, and that kind of thing. I'm just wondering, every conference that I go to, we go to various conferences here in Honolulu. We videotape them and all that. They always have an exhibit hall, an exhibition. People who are building things, you mentioned equipment. The equipment would be there. The companies who are trying to build and sell the equipment, the businesses that are trying to be involved, they're there. And you walk around and see things that might interest you in your work, your research. Does this conference include an exhibition as well? No. There's no hardware, mainly because businesses are not the group which actually starts the ideas of new instruments to fly. It's almost entirely done either from universities or from national laboratories like the Jet Propulsion Laboratory or Goddard Space Flight Center or the Applied Physics Lab. Aerospace Industry only comes into play once you've got the idea, where you want to go, what you want to measure, and how you want to measure it. And then we start bringing in people not only for the rocket, you've got to have a rocket to get there, for example, but also the satellite itself and the data system and things like that. So there's no hardware being put on display. Downstairs in the exhibition room is just a session devoted to people putting pieces of paper on the wall describing what climate science results have had. Well, Pete, we're almost at the end of the throw over this. And I would like to know, in your mind, how this conference differs from some of the conferences you've attended before and I'd like to know your reaction to this one, what you've learned, what has impressed you, what has stirred your scientific feelings this week in Houston? Well, certainly the conference itself, I'm hoping, perhaps next week I'll be back in Honolulu and I can elaborate more on the science results. But the micro symposium with the Chinese was very enlightening about how open they are and how sophisticated their plans are for future exploration, mainly of the moon, a little bit of Mars as well. They are going to be a major player in planetary exploration from now on in. It's just great to have another partner along with the Europeans and the Russians during this kind of research. You know, I can't help but think, and you and I won't be around when it happens, but one day these conferences will be taking place on the moon or on Mars, don't you think? That would really be something, wouldn't it? Well, you can speak for yourself, Jay. Kids like myself certainly want to be around when astronauts are back on the moon and maybe people have got to Mars as well. But yeah, holding a conference on the moon might be a bit of a challenge in the near term. We can always hold it in think-tech. How about next week when you're back, looking forward to it? Thank you so much, Pete. Pete McGinnis, Mark. Researcher at HHGP. Get my regards to Hawaii, okay? Thank you, Pete.