[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
EXOPLANET DISCOVERIES:
HAVE WE FOUND OTHER EARTHS?
=======================================================================
JOINT HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE &
SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-27
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
DANA ROHRABACHER, California EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
RALPH M. HALL, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
Wisconsin DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia DAN MAFFEI, New York
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama JOSEPH KENNEDY III, Massachusetts
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois SCOTT PETERS, California
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana DEREK KILMER, Washington
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
BILL POSEY, Florida ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut
CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming MARC VEASEY, Texas
DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona JULIA BROWNLEY, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky MARK TAKANO, California
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota ROBIN KELLY, Illinois
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma
RANDY WEBER, Texas
CHRIS STEWART, Utah
VACANCY
------
Subcommittee on Space
HON. STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi, Chair
RALPH M. HALL, Texas DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
DANA ROHRABACHER, California SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma DAN MAFFEI, New York
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas JOSEPH KENNEDY III, Massachusetts
MO BROOKS, Alabama DEREK KILMER, Washington
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana AMI BERA, California
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas MARC VEASEY, Texas
BILL POSEY, Florida JULIA BROWNLEY, California
DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
CHRIS STEWART, Utah
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
------
Subcommittee on Research
HON. LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana, Chair
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
MO BROOKS, Alabama ZOE LOFGREN, California
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
C O N T E N T S
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Written statement by Representative Steven M. Palazzo, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Space, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 9
Written statement by Representative Donna Edwards, Ranking
Minority Member, Subcommittee on Space, Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives........... 10
Written statement by Representative Larry Bucshon, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Research, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 11
Written statement by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Ranking
Minority Member, Subcommittee on Research, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.. 12
Written statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 13
Witnesses:
Dr. Laurance Doyle, Principal Investigator, Center for the Study
of Life in the Universe, SETI
Oral Statement............................................... 14
Written Statement............................................ 16
Dr. John M. Grunsfeld, Associate Administrator, Science Mission
Directorate, NASA
Oral Statement............................................... 21
Written Statement............................................ 24
Dr. James Ulvestad, Director, Division of Astronomical Sciences,
National Science Foundation
Oral Statement............................................... 30
Written Statement............................................ 32
Discussion....................................................... 38
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. Laurance Doyle, Principal Investigator, Center for the Study
of Life in the Universe, SETI.................................. 52
Dr. John M. Grunsfeld, Associate Administrator, Science Mission
Directorate, NASA.............................................. 62
Dr. James Ulvestad, Director, Division of Astronomical Sciences,
National Science Foundation.................................... 81
Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record
NASA Exoplanet Missions Graphic submitted by Dr. John M.
Grunsfeld, Associate Administrator, Science Mission
Directorate, NASA.............................................. 96
EXOPLANET DISCOVERIES:
HAVE WE FOUND OTHER EARTHS?
----------
THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Space &
Subcommittee on Research
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Steven
Palazzo [Chairman of the Subcommittee on Space] presiding.
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Chairman Palazzo. This joint hearing of the Subcommittee on
Space and the Subcommittee on Research will come to order.
Good morning, and welcome to today's joint hearing titled
``Exoplanet Discoveries: Have We Found Other Earths?'' In front
of you are packets containing the written testimony,
biographies and Truth in Testimony disclosures for today's
witnesses.
Before we get started, since this is a joint hearing
involving two Subcommittees, I want to explain how we will
operate procedurally so all Members understand how the
question-and-answer period will be handled. As always, we will
alternate between the majority and minority members. We will
recognize those Members present at the gavel in order of
seniority on the full Committee and those coming in after the
gavel will be recognized in order of arrival, and because of
today's vote schedule, everybody, both minority and majority
Members, have decided we are going to submit our opening
statements for the record, which will allow us to proceed
directly to our witnesses' testimony.
[The information follows:]
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee on Space Chairman Steven Palazzo
Good morning, and welcome to this hearing. I would like to thank
our witnesses for being here today to testify about exoplanet research
and to share information with us about the recent discoveries made by
NASA's Kepler mission.
I would also like to commend NASA and NSF for working to meet our
Committee's testimony deadlines. I understand that their testimony was
late because the Office of Management and Budget failed to manage their
time and resources wisely. In this case, I do not want to hold NASA or
NSF responsible for problems in other areas of the Administration.
Today's hearing topic is an exciting one. As of May 2013,
scientists had identified roughly 900 confirmed ``exoplanets''--planets
beyond our solar system--and more than 2,700 planet candidates. Last
month, NASA's Kepler mission announced that it had found three super-
Earth sized planets in the ``habitable zone'' of two stars in our
galaxy. The ``habitable zone'' refers the region around stars where
planets could support liquid water. This discovery has broad
implications not only for the scientific community, but for all
mankind. This research will provide us with a better understanding of
the universe and inspire the next generation of scientists and
engineers.
NASA's Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 budget allocates roughly $41million
for exoplanet research, while the FY 2014 budget request is $55
million. This amount includes funding for the extension of the Kepler
mission and NASA's partnership with the Keck Observatory used for all
NASA astrophysics science programs.
According to Dr. Laurance Doyle, one of our witnesses today,
exoplanet research was not as popular when he entered the field 30
years ago as it is today. Now there are at least several thousand
astronomers and astrophysicists around the world applying the transit
method, like the one used by the Kepler mission, to detect and study
extra-solar planets. In addition to the Kepler mission, the agency is
planning to use future missions to further exoplanet research,
including the James Webb Space Telescope, the Wide-Field Infrared
Survey Telescope, and the newly announced Transiting Exoplanet Survey
Satellite (TESS), which is expected to study the nearest bright stars
and potentially discover thousands of new planets.
I look forward to hearing about NASA and NSF's plan for continuing
exoplanet research using these unique capabilities. Additional
discoveries will no doubt accompany the development of these
capabilities, which will in turn inspire new astronomers and
astrophysicists.
I am also interested in understanding how the government can
increase cooperation to further leverage our investments. The Astronomy
and Astrophysics Advisory Committee's (AAAC) Exoplanet Task Force and
the National Academies have issued recommendations and roadmaps to
guide future investigations. As the Academies notes in their recent
decadal survey, ``[t]he search for exoplanets is one of the most
exciting subjects in all of astronomy.'' The report went on to
recommend ``a program to explore the diversity and properties of
planetary systems around other stars, and to prepare for the long-term
goal of discovering and investigating nearby, habitable planets.''
The AAAC's Exoplanet Task Force issued a report in 2008 that posed
the following questions regarding exoplanets: Do Earth-like planets
exist; are they common; and do they show signs of habitability or
biosignatures? These are complex questions that the National Academies'
decadal survey argues will ultimately require a dedicated space mission
to answer. However, that same decadal survey went on to state that ``it
is too early to determine what the design of that space mission should
be, or even which planet-detection techniques should be employed. It is
not even clear whether searches are best carried out at infrared,
optical, or even ultraviolet wavelengths.''
As we strive to do more with less, I hope we will get a better
understanding of how exoplanet research should adapt to the fiscal
realities we face today. Is the current portfolio of missions and
research still the ideal path under constrained budgets? How can we
build upon recent inspirational discoveries in the most efficient
manner? These are key questions we must answer as we work to draft a
NASA Authorization Bill and a Reauthorization of COMPETES Act.
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee on Space
Ranking Minority Member Donna Edwards
Good afternoon and welcome to our distinguished panel of witnesses.
The news coming out of NASA a few weeks ago was both surprising yet
not unexpected. NASA's Kepler space telescope had found Earth-sized and
super-Earth sized planets. That was not unexpected as Kepler is doing a
fantastic job at discerning these faint objects.
What was tantalizing is that this particular detection included
three super-Earth-size planets in the "habitable zone," the range of
distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting
planet might be suitable for liquid water to exist.
I say tantalizing because this finding means we are making progress
in answering the fundamental questions of where do we come from and
whether we are alone in the Universe. NASA and the National Science
Foundation have exciting exoplanet research both underway and planned
that will help us gain further insight into those questions.
Unfortunately, as we will hear this morning, addressing those
questions will take time and resources; two things that are hard to
come by in this difficult budgetary environment.
In particular, NASA is somewhat hamstrung in starting a new large
mission in astrophysics until it is closer to launching the James Webb
Space Telescope, currently slated for 2018. And NSF's ability to
support a growing number of grant requests focused on exoplanet
research is threatened by relatively flat funding and the need to
maintain currently operating facilities.
I hope that today's hearing will shed light on the exciting
potential of NASA and NSF exoplanet activities as well as the
challenges these agencies face in getting there.
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee on Research and Technology
Chairman Larry Bucshon
Since humanity first began looking to the heavens, we have been
fascinated by the possibility that we may not be alone in the universe.
We dreamt of worlds far away, but not unlike our own, long before the
first exoplanet was discovered by researchers funded by the National
Science Foundation in 1992. The National Science Foundation's Division
of Astronomical Sciences has continued to play a crucial role in
furthering these discoveries, providing funds to help build and operate
ground-based telescopes used for exoplanet discovery and observation.
As the number of confirmed and cataloged heavenly bodies has
swelled in the past twenty one years, we have sought to learn more
about the conditions on these planets: the temperatures, the
atmospheres, their core composition, how they orbit their respective
stars, and ultimately, whether any are capable of sustaining life. We
will hear from our witnesses today about ``habitable zones,'' the
distance from a star that creates conditions hospitable to life. We
believe that 50 out of the 2700 exoplanet candidates identified by
NASA's Kepler mission exist in the ``goldilocks'' zone, neither too hot
nor too cold, and potentially just the right temperature to allow life
to flourish. Just last month, the Kepler mission released the details
of three ``super-Earth'' sized planets in the habitable zone. I look
forward to hearing from our witnesses regarding their suggestions for
the next steps in studying these super-Earth sized planets in
particular, as well as surveying for additional exoplanets.
I would like to highlight the important contributions to life
sciences research in space of two individuals affiliated with Purdue
University back in my home state of Indiana. Dr. France Cordova,
President Emerita of Purdue University is the Chairman of the Board of
the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, which manages the
National Laboratory aboard the International Space Station. Dr.
Marshall Porterfield, currently on leave from Purdue, is the Director
of NASA's Space Life and Physical Sciences Research and Applications
Division. At Purdue, he is a professor of agriculture and biological
engineering, as well as co-director of the Physiological Sensing
Facility, which fosters interdisciplinary engagement between
bioscientists and engineers to drive sensor development and
application. We are all very grateful for their service to our nation,
and I am very pleased to know that their work will benefit not only the
astronauts and scientists of today, but the students of Purdue
University who will be studying these complex problems in the years to
come.
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee on Research and Technology
Ranking Minority Member Daniel Lipinski
Thank you Chairmen Palazzo and Bucshon for holding this hearing and
thank you to the witnesses for being here. I will keep this brief.
The search for habitable planets outside of our own solar system
was identified as a scientific priority in the 2010 National Academies
Decadal Survey of Astronomy and Astrophysics. And no wonder. This is
exactly the type of scientific pursuit that expands our understanding
of the world, or worlds, around us and grips the imagination of
scientists and the public at large, even though we have no idea what we
will find.
Exoplanet research is also a good example of an area of science
that receives support from more than one federal agency. In this case,
NASA and NSF have overlapping science goals, but very different tools
with which to pursue those goals. As a result, the data and findings
generated by NASA's space-based instruments may map directly onto data
and findings generated by NSF's ground-based instruments, permitting
the kind of replication that drives scientific discovery forward. I
could also note that the recent paper describing the new exoplanet that
was found in a so-called habitable zone was co-authored by a researcher
being funded by an NSF CAREER award, which funds early career
researchers. I look forward to hearing more about the scientific
opportunities made possible by current and future instruments at both
agencies.
The collaboration between NSF and NASA on astronomy and
astrophysics research appears overall to be strong and productive. The
Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee, which was established by
Congress in the 2002 NSF Reauthorization Act to address structural
problems in interagency collaboration that were a real concern 10 years
ago, have been very positive in their assessments in more recent years.
At the same time, both NASA and NSF have been under budgetary
constraints that have hampered progress in astronomy and many other
fields of science, even as the quantity and quality of proposals
continues to increase. I'd like to hear from the agency representatives
how you are dealing with these funding challenges for exoplanet
research specifically and astronomy more generally, and any other
challenges you may be facing.
Prepared Statement of Committee on Science, Space and Technology
Chairman Lamar S. Smith
Thank you Chairman Palazzo and Chairman Bucshon for holding this
hearing. I also want to thank the witnesses for being here to share
their expertise on this topic.
Space exploration is an investment in our nation's future--often
the distant future. It encourages innovation and improves Americans'
quality of life. I don't know if space is the final frontier, but I
believe it is the next frontier.
The search for exoplanets and Earth-like planets is a relatively
new but inspiring area of space exploration. Scientists are discovering
new kinds of solar systems in our own galaxy that we never knew
existed.
The discovery of Earth-like planets will open up new opportunities
for American astronomers and explorers. Some experts predict that many
more planets will be detected soon. And some of these planets could
even contain the first evidence of organic life outside of Earth.
Imagine how the discovery of life outside our solar system would
alter our priorities for space exploration and how we view our place in
the universe.
Today we will hear where we are in our search. And what comes next
in our study of these newly discovered planets. The U.S. already has
undertaken a number of initiatives.
Cooperation between NASA's space-based telescopes, like the Kepler
mission, and ground-based telescopes funded in part by the National
Science Foundation (NSF), has enabled astronomers to expand their star
gazing capabilities. Also, next year construction will begin on the new
NSF funded Large Synoptic Survey Telescope in Chile.
In addition to its many other capabilities, this telescope will
essentially take a 10-year time lapse photo of the universe. The data
collected from the telescope will help astronomers confirm the
existence and types of exoplanets in our solar system.
The James Webb Space Telescope will use both transit spectroscopy
and direct imaging to determine the make-up of exoplanet systems in our
galaxy. This is an exciting time in the fields of astronomy and
astrophysics. I look forward to hearing our witnesses' perspectives on
these issues.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Palazzo. Now I will introduce our panel of
witnesses. Our first witness is Dr. Laurance Doyle, the
Principal Investigator for the Center for the Study of Life in
the Universe at the SETI Institute. Our second witness is Dr.
John Grunsfeld, the Associate Administrator of the Science
Mission Directorate at the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration. And our final witness is Dr. James Ulvestad,
Director of the Division of Astronomical Sciences at the
National Science Foundation. Previously, he was the Assistant
Director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. He served
in various capacities at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
where he played an important role in several interagency and
international programs.
As our witnesses should know, spoken testimony is limited
to five minutes each after which Members of the Committee have
five minutes each to ask questions. Your written testimony will
be included in the record of the hearing.
I now recognize our first witness, Dr. Doyle, for five
minutes for his testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DR. LAURANCE DOYLE,
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR,
CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE,
SETI INSTITUTE
Dr. Doyle. Thank you for inviting me. It is an honor to be
here.
My work in extrasolar planet research stretches back about
30 years, which is a decade before the first extrasolar planets
were actually discovered. At that time there were only two
other people in the world working on the transit method, John
Schneider and William Borucki, who is the PI of Kepler. The
transit method involves the detection of a planet as it orbits
in front of its star. In other words, one could say that one is
detecting the shadow of the planet. Today there are thousands
of astrophysicists and their students working using the transit
method to study and detect extrasolar planets.
In the early years of this research, I was able to identify
three methods for detecting extrasolar planets. In the 1990s I
directed an international network of telescopes to search for
circumbinary planets. As a participating scientist with Kepler,
I have been able to collaborate with the eclipsing binary
working group in the discovery of several thousands of new
eclipsing binaries. These are stars that orbit in front of each
other, and if they are in the background of an extrasolar
planet, they can look like the transit of a planet, so you have
to catalog all the eclipsing binaries.
My main work, though, as a participating scientist with
Kepler has been the detection of circumbinary planets, that is,
planets that orbit around two stars at the same time. This
was--the first transiting circumbinary planet was discovered in
2011, and it was called Kepler-16b. We began calling this
planet Tatooine, because the Star Wars hero Luke Skywalker was
watching a double sunset. And what we didn't know is someone
called George Lucas and asked him if we could nickname it
Tatooine and he sent the Director of Industrial Light and Magic
to the NASA press conference. So basically worldwide press
picked up this as ``Tatooine discovered,'' but it was a great
example of science fiction turning into science fact. And I
like to think it had inspired many students worldwide to study
math and science so they could turn science fiction into
science themselves someday.
In the context of the search for life in the universe, the
Kepler mission has already made a huge contribution. At the
SETI Institute, we have scientists working on all aspects of
detection of life in the universe, including robotic landing
missions and radio telescope searches. About 50 SETI Institute
scientists are currently working on the Kepler mission. For
about 50 years, SETI astronomers could only target stars. Now
that Kepler has discovered the frequency of planets, we now can
actually target planets that we know to be in the habitable
zone of their stars. This is a huge step as far as the search
for extraterrestrial intelligence.
The next step in detecting life in the universe will be
most likely to find biomarkers in the atmospheres of extrasolar
planets. An example of this is oxygen, which is highly
indicative of photosynthetic systems like forests, seaweed,
microflora and so on. Taking a remote spectra of the Earth, the
detection of oxygen would be indicative of plant life, possibly
animal life, and maybe even intelligent life. So, it could be
that the first detection of extraterrestrial life will be
forests.
Finally, to answer the question that is the title of this
session, ''Have we found other Earths?'' we know that the best
candidate to date is Kepler-62f, but it is also 1.4 times the
Earth's radius. It may be slightly too big to recycle its
atmosphere with plate tectonics, but we don't know for sure. A
lot of modeling still has to take place. So I would say the
safe answer to the question is ``almost.''
Within the next few years, Kepler will likely be able to
detect exactly Earth-size planets. To put this in perspective,
2,400 years ago, the ancient Greek philosopher, Metrodorus of
Chios wrote this: ``To consider the Earth as the only populated
world in infinite space is as absurd as to assert that in an
entire field sown with millet, only one grain will grow.''
Within the next few years we will have the privilege of finding
the actual answer to this age-old question: ``In the universe,
is there another place like home?'' I think with the Kepler
mission, we are just on the verge of answering ``yes.''
[The prepared statement of Dr. Doyle follows:]
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Chairman Palazzo. I now recognize our next witness, Dr.
Grunsfeld.
TESTIMONY OF DR. JOHN M. GRUNSFELD,
ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR,
SCIENCE MISSION DIRECTORATE, NASA
Dr. Grunsfeld. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee,
thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you
today to discuss what I consider an incredibly exciting
subject: extrasolar planets. As you have just heard, or
exoplanets, which are defined as planets orbiting stars other
than our own sun.
As a young boy growing up in Chicago, I quite often laid on
the grass at night looking up at the stars wondering is anybody
out there, and even explicitly, are there planets around any of
these stars. This wonder about the universe and the question of
whether there are exoplanets helped to drive me into a career
in science and engineering, ultimately to become an astronaut
and now the head of Science Mission Directorat at NASA.
NASA plays a key leadership role in the quest to discover
and characterize distant exoplanets and search for life in the
universe. We work with a variety of space-based and ground-
based telescopes and in concert with the National Science
Foundation and our international partners in observatories
around the world.
Since the first exoplanet discoveries in the 1990s, over
900 exoplanets have been discovered. There is an app on your
smartphone you can check daily if you are really curious, and
in just the last four years the Kepler mission has contributed
over 122 confirmed exoplanets and has over 2,700 candidates
most of which will probably turn out to be real exoplanets.
Thanks to the Kepler mission, the statistics suggest that
when you look up at the night sky, outside of the District, of
course, because it is hard to see very many stars, virtually
all of those stars have planets. At least one planet and
perhaps a whole solar system around them. Even more exciting is
the more commons star in our galaxy, an M-class star. About 15
percent, or one in six of those stars, has a rocky planet in
the habitable zone, and that is what Kepler has told us, if the
statistics hold out more generally.
The Kepler team recently announced the discovery of rocky
planets a little bigger than the Earth around their host stars
and one of which, Kepler-69c, around a star very much like our
own sun. The nearest habitable exoplanet, habitable meaning
liquid water could exist on its surface, may be as close as 15
light-years away.
When the Hubble Space Telescope was launched, no exoplanets
had been found and we had nine planets in our own solar system,
now eight. Since then, the Hubble has not only directly imaged
solar systems, one with three planets, but it has also measured
the components of the atmosphere around one of those planets.
Along with Kepler and Hubble, the Spitzer Space Telescope, the
NASA Keck ground-based telescope in Hawaii and many other
ground-based telescopes are contributing to the rapid pace of
discovery in this exciting field.
In 2018, we will launch the James Webb Space Telescope, and
that will give us a big leap in capability and our ability to
study exoplanets. When we started designing the James Webb
Space Telescope, again, we had not yet discovered any
exoplanets. But its infrared capability, the fact that it has a
coronagraph and its ability to take the spectrum of the light
from these exoplanets will really tell us a lot about the
atmospheres and the components of those systems.
But even before James Webb Space Telescope, we are going to
launch the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite just selected
as part of our Explorer program and it is going to do an all-
sky survey of the nearest and brightest stars, our neighbors,
to see if there transiting exoplanets around those stars. With
the TESS information, we will be able to target the James Webb
Space Telescope, also the Atacama Large Millimeter Array
sponsored by the National Science Foundation to really learn
about these closest neighbors. All these telescopes will work
together to answer the basic questions about these distant
solar systems: determine the size of the planets, their mass,
their characteristics, their atmosphere, their composition.
Very exciting work ahead.
Looking to the future, NASA funds technology development
for exoplanet research and is studying the use of an existing
telescope asset you may have heard about that we got from the
National Reconnaissance Organization that will have a
coronagraph that will be able to study the atmosphere of these
distant plants in much more detail by directing imaging. We are
also studying other techniques that will be infused into future
telescopes that will be able to characterize an Earth-sized
planet around a nearby star and search for evidence of life
beyond our solar system.
NASA is aware that exoplanets are of great interest to the
public, the science community, and they bring together many
scientific disciplines. That is one of the reasons why all of
our data from Hubble, Spitzer and Kepler is all made available
to the public, and this has resulted in an explosion of
discoveries well beyond the NASA-funded research, including a
number of discoveries by citizen scientists.
In conclusion, NASA has a comprehensive program to detect
and characterize exoplanets. And with the progress we have
already made, I am confident that it is not a question of
whether or not we will find an Earth-like exoplanet but when.
With our program, the active participation of a rapidly growing
scientific community, and our partners, we will continue to
make major strides forward in our understanding of the science
of exoplanets, and programs like Kepler capture the imagination
of everyday people. I think that is why you are all here, that
you are also interested including our students, who will be the
scientists and engineers of tomorrow. NASA has exciting
missions like the Hubble, the James Webb Space Telescope, TESS
and Kepler to reach even farther back in time, to unravel the
mysteries of the universe, and to start characterizing and
analyzing the atmospheres of exoplanets. The future of
exoplanet research is bright, and NASA will continue to play a
leadership role in that future.
I look forward to your questions, and I have one very short
comment, which is, at the end of almost every public
presentation I make, I have a quotation--it is a quotation from
Tennyson that I have editorially modified, and it says ``For I
dipped into the future as far as human eyes could see, saw the
vision of the new worlds and all the wonders that would be.''
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Grunsfeld follows:]
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Chairman Palazzo. I now recognize our final witness, Dr.
Ulvestad.
TESTIMONY OF DR. JAMES ULVESTAD, DIRECTOR,
DIVISION OF ASTRONOMICAL SCIENCES,
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Dr. Ulvestad. Good morning, Chairman Palazzo and Chairman
Bucshon, Ranking Members Edwards and Lipinski, and Subcommittee
Members. Thank you for giving NSF the opportunity to speak to
you today about our support of exoplanet research.
For millennia, people have looked up in the sky and
wondered if there is other life out there, if there are other
people out there. Determining if there were other planets
around other stars was really something that couldn't be done
for almost 400 years after Galileo first turned his telescope
to the heavens. So when I was in graduate school at Maryland in
the late 1970s, early 1980s, we never would have dreamed that
we could be at the place where we are now speaking about Earth-
like planets. But just 20 years after the first detection of
planets around other stars, we are now seriously talking about
Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones of other solar
systems, which I think is quite spectacular.
NSF has supported exoplanet research since its infancy. The
first detections were made actually with NSF's Arecibo radio
telescope in 1992 and it was very surprising to find planets
around a compact star called a neutron star, which was not
where people were looking. So I think exoplanet research over
the 20 years since then has been full of surprises--planets
much, much bigger than Jupiter very, very close to their stars,
and these surprising outcomes have totally revamped the way we
think about solar systems and the way planets form.
At NSF, the exoplanet research that we fund relies on three
critical elements: investigators, that is, people; tools, that
is, telescopes; and technology development. So we presently
have more than 40 active awards to individual investigators who
are doing exoplanet research, and many of these are people just
beginning in our field. There are early career awards, there
are postdoctoral fellowships, and this field is so exciting
that a lot of the young people who are going into the field of
astronomy actually want to work in this area. With our
international partners, we provide the ground-based telescopes
that complement the space-based telescopes that Dr. Grunsfeld
has mentioned that are needed to make precision measurements of
planetary systems. And third, and not to be neglected, we
support technology development that is very important for
getting us to the stage where we can detect planets as small as
the Earth. For example, we support technology development that
can be used to get more accurate wavelength standards that
enable precision measurements of stars to determine motions
that are being caused by planets with masses as low as the
Earth.
As exoplanet science enters its third decade, we are
growing beyond just the counting of planets. Dr. Grunsfeld
mentioned more than 800 or 900 confirmed planets but now we are
funding research at NSF into characterizing planetary
properties, into measuring exoplanet atmospheres, and into the
formation and evolution of planetary systems. Starting next
year, a new $25 million instrument on our Gemini telescope in
the South will be used to image up to 600 other nearby stars,
trying to image planets. This instrument cannot image planets
right next to the star but out at the distance of Jupiter and
beyond.
Over the last four years, NASA's Kepler satellite, as
mentioned previously, has opened these wonderful new
opportunities, and just to mention the complementary science,
some of the recent discoveries have actually been made using
Kepler data by investigators that NSF funds. We have an NSF
early career investigator who helped develop the technique that
was used to detect these two planets, Kepler-62e and f, that
are thought to be in the habitable zone around Kepler-62.
We are in the process of completing a very large instrument
called the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, which was dedicated
in Chile two months ago, and this, even in its pre-dedication
phase, has detected the presence of Earth-mass planets around
the bright star Fomalhaut, which you can see with your naked
eye in the night sky just 25 light-years away. ALMA will in
fact be incredibly complementary to the James Webb Space
Telescope, with James Webb in the near infrared, and with ALMA
in the far infrared, both imaging dust shells and circumstellar
discs around nearby stars at approximately the same resolution.
As with all of NSF's major facilities, the data acquired with
these instruments will be available to all investigators, not
just to the people who propose to get the data.
One of the key goals of NSF's strategic plan is to
transform the frontiers of science and engineering, and we
think that since the very first exoplanet detections, NSF-
funded research has transformed the frontiers of exoplanet
research. We will be very interested to see how the frontiers
continue to be transformed over the next 20 years.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my remarks, and I would be
happy to answer any questions you and the Subcommittee Members
might have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Ulvestad follows:]
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Chairman Palazzo. I thank the witnesses for their
testimony, reminding Members that Committee rules limit
questioning to five minutes. The chair will at this point open
the round of questions. The chair recognizes himself for five
minutes.
Dr. Grunsfeld, the Space Telescope Science Institute
indicated that a telescope larger than JWST is needed to detect
biosignatures from terrestrial-like exoplanets. They also
indicated that a heavy-lift launch vehicle such as the Space
Launch System is needed to launch a telescope this size. How
does the development of the SLS enable future exoplanet
discoveries?
Dr. Grunsfeld. The Space Launch System, our large rocket in
development, has the characteristic of course that it can lift
heavy weights but almost of equal importance for science is
that it has a very large launch route and so a future telescope
that would have the light-gathering capability to detect and
measure the bioscience, if you will, of a very, very dim planet
around a very bright star will require a lot of collecting area
and advanced instrumentation, and such a large telescope if you
think about how James Webb Space Telescope is going to launch,
and I know Chairman Smith, you have seen the model, that all
gets folded up like origami and transformed into a launch route
of an Orion V rocket, very big. That is about the largest thing
we can put into space in a conventional rocket. The Space
Launch System is transformative and this very large launch
route would enable us to scale that up to something that would
be a telescope that could detect life around a nearby Earth-
like planet. So we are looking very favorably on the
development of SLS.
Chairman Palazzo. Also, Dr. Grunsfeld, how does NASA plan
to manage education and public outreach related to exoplanet
discoveries in the wake of the proposed reorganization of
education and outreach funding? Are there any anticipated
changes to the education and public outreach strategy? And how
would the proposed reorganization impact the inspiration of the
next generation of explorers?
Dr. Grunsfeld. Well, the first thing that I will say is
that the critical component in the inspiration of our next
generation of explorers, scientists, engineers and even more
important, to have a very broad educated populace in the
scientific method and basic science is to do exciting things
that produce exciting scientific results that we can then get
out into the public domain. That is the number one requirement,
and on that scale, we are changing nothing. NASA is going to
continue working with NSF and the rest of the scientific
community to try and make exciting discoveries. I think when we
find a rocky planet around a nearby star that we think is very
Earth-like, that is going to be incredibly exciting, and if we
are so lucky to detect life on a planet like that, I think it
will be transformative to humans here on Earth.
As far as our NASA education, the President's Fiscal Year
2014 proposal to consolidate the science, technology,
engineering and mathematics education infrastructure from a
number of agencies into three primary agencies, NASA is part of
that plan and so our education activities will be transferred
and the budget with them will be transferred to a combined
Department of Education, Smithsonian and National Science
Foundation architecture. That plan is still in development.
Clearly the Administration has as its intention that this will
strengthen the STEM education in our country. One of the things
that I am very proud of is that our science missions and the
scientists who do that work spend time currently reaching out
to master teachers, to pre-service and in-service teachers and
all the way through students, and so whatever plan emerges from
this new reorganization it is critical that we preserve that
connection with the great science.
Chairman Palazzo. And my final question is for Dr.
Grunsfeld. The National Academies issued their Decadal Survey,
New Worlds, New Horizons, that laid out the path forward for
astronomy and astrophysics. How does NASA plan to adapt its
plans for exoplanets now that we are facing a tougher budgetary
environment?
Dr. Grunsfeld. Well, I did bring a graphic. I don't know if
that is easily available to come up. We have in our current
portfolio of exoplanet research, and again, it is all done in
concert with National Science Foundation but also private
observatories, but we use ground-based observatories, currently
Hubble, Spitzer and Kepler, to investigate exoplanets. So that
is our current stable of very powerful telescopes, and that is
what has allowed us to make all this tremendous progress, as
well as other ground-based observatories.
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite was selected out
of our competitive program but it does advance us quite
significantly in exoplanet investigations in that it will find
all of the closest transiting exoplanets, and that will allow
us to use both ground-based and space-based observatories to
start characterizing the nature of these planets, even down to
measuring the atmospheres of the planets around these nearby
stars. If we find something like an Earth, that will allow us
to start looking for signs, even with James Webb Space
Telescope, of water in the atmosphere, and if you have water in
the atmosphere of a rocky planet in the habitable zone, that
means there is probably lakes and clouds and precipitation.
That gets us a long way towards that question of could there be
life.
Next, of course, is James Webb Space Telescope. The next
two that are kind of dim are addressing what is in the New
Worlds, New Horizons, and so the first one is an Astrophysics
Focused Telescope Asset. That is just code for a study we are
doing, which is to use the 2.4-meter optic system that we
received from disposition of a National Reconnaissance Office
asset, and we are looking at that as a wide-field telescope
that meets the WFirst science requirements and with the
addition of a coronagraph, something that blocks out the light
of the central star, would allow us to study nearby exoplanets
in greater detail than we could have ever done with anything we
have currently on the plate.
Then beyond that, the New Worlds Telescope--that is just
how it was described in the Decadal Survey--would be this very
large telescope, something where the James Webb Space Telescope
is 6-1/2 meter diameter, about 20 feet, in order to actually
detect life signs, if they are there, of a planet around a
relatively nearby star, we would probably have to go to 16 or
20 meters in diameter, and that is the one that was referenced
in your Space Launch System question.
So we have studies going, technology work on prototype
detectors per those future lines. Given the constrained
physical environment, we are looking very closely at this NRO
asset as a way to bring down the cost of doing the next great
astrophysics mission.
Chairman Palazzo. Thank you, Dr. Grunsfeld. I now recognize
Ms. Edwards for five minutes.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you very much, and thanks to our
witnesses. I have to say, the work that you do is among the
most exciting that those of us who are laypeople can think
about. It truly is, and so thanks so much for everything that
you do.
Dr. Grunsfeld, I want to follow up with your last response,
and it really does have to do with this constrained fiscal
environment because a number of the things that each of you has
laid out requires an allocation of resources over a period of
time for us to get on with, if you will. And so I wonder if you
can tell me how the current budget environment is really
affecting exoplanet research and the additional technologies
that are going to be needed over this next decade, and what are
the likely impacts if we should continue with sequester into
Fiscal Year 2014?
Dr. Grunsfeld. So there is no question that the budget
environment has caused us to have to make some tough choices,
and whenever we try and make those tough choices, we think
about balance, we think about scientific priorities, and in the
case of exoplanets we are very fortunate that we have high-
value observatories on orbit, and so one of the things we have
to prioritize is what are we going to keep operating on orbit
providing high scientific return. The latitude we have for
adjusting to a changing budget is really in the start of new
projects, and so as an example, even though we have selected
the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, TESS, we have had to
slow the start of that mission by about six months, just what
we have seen from this year and looking into Fiscal Year 2014.
If we continue into a sequestered environment, then we are
going to have to look at perhaps turning off an operating
observatory or cutting back further on the development of new
missions, and something like the study for the NRO Asset
Telescope, AFTA, you know, we would have to reduce our
investment in that future, which would of course slow that down
further.
Now, we haven't--that is a study. We haven't approved or
come to you to ask for approval either. That is not approved
internally within NASA or externally. We are just looking at
the feasibility right now on that. But it would slow down
future development.
Ms. Edwards. Dr. Ulvestad?
Dr. Ulvestad. Yes, I would say there are two primary issues
that we would have to think about in terms of the constrained
fiscal environment. One is that some of the new observatories
that I spoke about are more expensive to operate than the older
observatories that we used to have, and so in a constrained
environment, in order to operate those new tools, what
sometimes has to give in the short term is the research grants
to individual investigators. As an example, I will cite the
ALMA Telescope, which we are just bringing online, which we
expect to be used very strongly in conjunction with JWST. So I
will just mention that. That is actually one of the ways that
we will maximize the sciences by trying to have these space and
ground assets work together on coordinated programs. But one of
the issues that we will run into for ALMA, which is an
international telescope, is that if we are not able to fund our
investigators to do the research and to bring their postdocs
and graduate students in, some of the best exoplanet science
with that telescope might be done by our international partners
and not by the U.S. investigators. So I think that is a very
serious concern for us.
The concern other than that is just being able to make sure
that having invested lots of money in these big tools that we
are able to operate them adequately, that we don't start doing
things like scrimping on the infrastructure because we are
trying to save a little bit of money here and there and then
essentially causing damage to the big investments we have
already made.
Ms. Edwards. Well, let me follow that up, because it is one
of the concerns I have had, for example, with James Webb Space
Telescope is that we actually got a lot of extended lifespan
out of the Hubble because a lot of upgrades were made over a
period of time and so that gave us a tremendous bang for the
buck. But the question is whether if we face future delays into
2018 will we, beyond then, be able to get more bang for the
buck out of JWST in the same way that we did out of Hubble.
Dr. Grunsfeld. Quite a long time ago, we looked at making
the James Webb Space Telescope serviceable similar to the
Hubble, and largely due to the fact that it is an infrared
telescope and it has to be very, very cold, its design was to
put it a million miles away from Earth, and that is a very
inaccessible place, and so we abandoned the idea of visiting it
and upgrading it. So the James Webb Space Telescope doesn't
have the capability for upgrades the way Hubble does. So what
determines the James Webb Space Telescope lifetime is really
the onboard fuel, and so we have designed it to a design
requirement of five years. At NASA we have redundancy, we have
reserves, you know, we plan for failures and operations. We
hope, and actually the engineering says we should get 11 years
of life out of the James Webb Space Telescope in an actual
operational mode that we think we will use.
Given that framing, we are looking very closely, and I am
very excited about the partnership observatories likes the
Atacama Large Millimeter Array because that is the way we are
going to maximize the output of the James Webb Space Telescope
is by using our other assets. I have a little bit of a dream,
but that dream is that not only will we have the ALMA and the
James Webb Space Telescope, that we will also have some overlap
with the Hubble Space Telescope, and engineering mechanics will
determine that lifetime but right now Hubble is still doing
well.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you.
Chairman Palazzo. I now recognize Mr. Bucshon for five
minutes.
Mr. Bucshon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to make a
comment first and then a couple of questions.
This is not the only hearing that we have heard from people
who depend on so-called discretionary spending at the Federal
level, and my comment is, is that until the American people can
help us address the entire piece of the Federal spending pie,
of which 60 percent we are not addressing today in Washington,
D.C., people who depend on discretionary spending are going to
continually feel the pinch, which is problematic, as Ms.
Edwards pointed out. At this point there is really only one
significant proposal in Washington, D.C., to address the 60
percent of the pie that is on our side of the aisle in our
budget, and until the American people help us address that, we
are going to continue to have ongoing discretionary-funding
problems because most of the driver of our national debt is not
in discretionary programs, it is in mandatory spending, and
everyone in D.C. recognizes that as a major issue.
The question I have, the first question I have is, I guess
any one of you can address it, and I think it is important when
people like me go back to Indiana and talk to people about
where we spend money and why, and so Dr. Grunsfeld, in short
order, what can I tell people why what you are doing is
important to the American people?
Dr. Grunsfeld. Well, there are a couple of different levels
but I will try and keep it short. The first is that investments
in NASA and the National Science Foundation in basic research
is really the investment in our future, and it is not an
abstract thing. Vannevar Bush and the Endless Frontier, the
document that helped spur on the creation of the National
Science Foundation really queued it up as our investigations in
basic science are what are critical to our economic prosperity,
our health care and the future of the country, and it is just a
wonderful document to read because that is coming out of World
War II, and the question was asked, how did science help us win
the war, and then generate such a strong economy. If we start
cutting back on the basic research, on trying to solve very
hard problems like how to build the instruments on James Webb
Space Telescope that challenge our industry, that challenge our
engineers, that allow these companies to grow new techniques
and new competitive tools, we will just continue to start
losing ground on the kinds of innovations that drive our
economy, and that is a very tight loop and well-documented
loop.
At the other end of the extreme is this idea of kids
looking up in the night sky, and I think we have all done that,
and the science tells us things that just inspire us, that
cause us to want to look towards the future, to have vision,
that drives people through hard times and that makes it into
the science textbooks that hopefully our students then bring
with them as they become future decision makers in our country,
not just in Congress but as medical doctors, and most
importantly, as parents of children, that they have the
knowledge to make good decisions based on technical knowledge.
Thank you.
Mr. Bucshon. Okay. I assume everyone is going to have a
similar response because I have another question that I want to
ask. By the way, I agree with you. I think that when I talk to
people about NASA, and this comes up all the time, I pull out
the list of things that have been developed technologically and
innovations that have come through NASA that aren't just about
putting a person flying around the Earth and going to the moon
but all the other things that happened as a result of
developing the technology to make that occur.
My second question is, I am always interested when I see--
and I hate to focus on NASA--like our project on Mars is that
we are looking for water, we are looking for carbon-based life
forms, and there are other--that is our definition of life, so
to speak. Are there other people out there that have other
definitions of life that are looking at that we might also be
exploring for?
Dr. Grunsfeld. Well, I think that is a good question for
Dr. Doyle from the SETI.
Mr. Bucshon. That would be great.
Dr. Grunsfeld. I will say that the Curiosity Rover,
although it has the scientific instruments, the mass
spectrometers to look at all the components of the soil we are
digging up and looking for some signs of perhaps previous
carbon stuff going on, it would see many other things, but I
will pass that to Dr. Doyle.
Dr. Doyle. I will just say the definition, some of the
people working in the field of exobiology are looking at the
definition of life as anything that can store information. So
there is a broad brush there. So there are studies going on
about a broader definition. Right now you have to work with
what you know, but silicon-based information storage and
crystals and so on has not been out of the realm of
consideration.
Mr. Bucshon. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Palazzo. I now recognize Mr. Lipinski for five
minutes.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to start
out by asking Dr. Grunsfeld about the status of the decision on
what to do with the telescopes donated by NRO. You had
mentioned them, but has that all been determined what is going
to be done with those?
Dr. Grunsfeld. So the answer is no, we haven't determined
what is going to be done with those. That is the subject I was
talking about of the Astrophysics Large Focused Telescope Asset
that we have done a study on. At the end of this month, I will
get the results of that study and then we will brief
Administrator Bolden, and that would us to go to the next step
from just the study phase to actually, if he approves it,
seeing if we should start doing some engineering to validate
that those telescopes could actually be used for a future space
telescope. So, right now our focus is on completing the James
Webb Space Telescope. As we get further into development of
that telescope, then we could start seriously thinking about
building another mission of some kind, whether in astrophysics
or another area. We are very excited about what we are seeing
so far, and I am happy, once Charlie Bolden, our Administrator,
has dispositioned it, to come back and talk to you about it.
Mr. Lipinski. Very good. I want to ask all the panelists,
what, if anything, is needed to further facilitate the
coordination and collaboration between the NSF and NASA on
exoplanet exploration and research? Is there anything more that
would help? Any places for improvement that you see?
Dr. Ulvestad. Let me start with that. I think that as you
heard from our testimony, we understand very well how our
different assets could work together with each other, and we
are in pretty regular communication about setting up joint
programs and so on. In fact, I think one of the key elements is
actually even working at a lower level, which is that our
program officers in the two agencies actually talk to each
other regularly. We had a meeting of all of our program
officers in our Astronomical Sciences Division and NASA's
Astrophysics Division about a month and a half ago just to talk
about making sure that we kept our lines of communication open,
making sure that we understood which proposals we were getting
and they were getting for research so that we were doing
complementary things and not doing duplicative research. I
think that is a very important aspect of our coordination, to
maximize the efficiency of the funding. I would say that it is
not clear to me that we need a lot of help as long as we keep
talking to each other, which we are doing very regularly right
now. So I will yield to Dr. Grunsfeld and see what he would
like to say about that.
Dr. Grunsfeld. I would concur on that. I wouldn't take this
too far but I think one of the effects of always being budget
limited for research in space astronomy and ground-based
astronomy is that you are forced to be very communicative and
creative with your partners to make sure that you don't have
duplication because there isn't enough money to be able to
duplicate things. In the case of the National Science
Foundation and the NASA efforts on exoplanets, it is a very
nice division because we use basically the space-based and
ground-based as the first natural breakpoint.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you.
Dr. Doyle. I would just say that SETI Institute is a
nonprofit and there are many research institutions that are
rather small, but they have started up support of exoplanet
research. For example, Planet Hunters has millions of people
that go home at night and start looking for planets. So there
is this huge upswell of millions of supporters of exoplanet
research that is also in kind of the nonprofit realm as well
that could be tapped.
Mr. Lipinski. That is always good to hear. I know we have a
lot of Members here and a short time, so I will yield back the
rest of my time. Thank you.
Chairman Palazzo. I now recognize Chairman Smith for five
minutes.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Actually, my first question, I think, has largely been
answered, and it was, how do we expedite the process of
searching for exoplanets, and it sounds to me like we need to
stay on track with the exoplanet missions that Dr. Grunsfeld
highlighted a while ago. Would you all agree, Dr. Doyle and Dr.
Grunsfeld, that the first thing we need to do is make sure the
current missions that have been proposed are funded and not all
had been funded? Would that be your recommendation?
Dr. Grunsfeld. Well, I am glad to say that----
Chairman Smith. Or are there any other missions that we
ought to consider?
Dr. Grunsfeld. So I agree with you completely. The plan we
have is, I think, the best plan that we could have and the
Administration's proposal for Fiscal Year 2014 funds us to go
on with the next mission, which is the Transiting Exoplanet
Survey mission, and fully funds James Webb Space Telescope. All
of that said, ultimately nature will determine when we find the
first planet that looks just like Earth.
Chairman Smith. And Dr. Doyle, are there any other missions
we should be considering other than the ones that need to be
funded?
Dr. Doyle. Well, I think the ones currently are quite well
planned. They do an all-around survey, and then to follow
through with detecting exolife basically. So I think we are on
track.
Chairman Smith. Dr. Grunsfeld, I was going to point out, I
think when you quoted Alfred Lord Tennyson, you didn't realize
that we had the quote that you mentioned on the wall behind the
podium, or did you notice that?
Dr. Grunsfeld. I noticed that in 2003 when I was Chief
Scientist, and that is when I started putting it into my
presentation.
Chairman Smith. Good. Then we came first. As you know, it
is a long poem, and that is the refrain that is repeated
throughout the poem, so it really has a good impact.
Dr. Ulvestad, you mentioned our international friends and
the missions that they have initiated. Do you think we should
perhaps duplicate some of those missions or should we rely upon
information that we get from them?
Dr. Ulvestad. Well, I think that what we are doing right
now with our international colleagues is, we are not doing
duplication, we are actually going in together to build one
telescope that any one of us would find it difficult to afford
by ourselves.
Chairman Smith. So that is mutually beneficial?
Dr. Ulvestad. Yes, I think that is mutually beneficial, and
an example--and we keep coming back to the Atacama Large
Millimeter Array, but originally there were concepts for a
similar telescope in Japan, in Europe and in the United States,
three different telescopes that were all going to end up fairly
close to each other in Chile. Rather than building those three
separate telescopes, by the three areas of the world coming
together, we were able to build one much more capable telescope
that we all can use.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you. Let me ask you all this
final question, and that is, what new technology do we need to
develop in order to expedite the process of detecting organic
life on an exoplanet, and do we need to do more than we are
doing? If so, what do we need to do and when do you expect us
to have that blockbuster news that there is possible life on
another planet? Dr. Doyle?
Dr. Doyle. Well, of course, as mentioned, you need a much
larger telescope, but the detection of oxygen would be
definitely an indicator of life on another planet. If it
transits, you can also--that is another method for detecting
oxygen on an exoplanet.
Chairman Smith. Do we have the technology now to detect
oxygen on another planet?
Dr. Doyle. If there was a very close star like an M star
and a very close orbit and we got lots of transits and we could
differentially subtract, we might be able to squeeze by and get
an oxygen line or so. But the next mission, of course, is to
get the nearby transiting planets, and then we could consider--
like Dr. Grunsfeld said, nature is the one that will decide
whether we can do that in the near future.
Chairman Smith. Dr. Grunsfeld, anything more we should be
doing to expedite that time?
Dr. Grunsfeld. A critical limitation is really the ability
to separate the light from a bright star from the light from a
very dim planet next to it that is in reflected light, and so
we are spending a fair amount of technology funds and
researchers working on techniques to do that light suppression
across a broad variety of fronts, four or five different
techniques. So we are making a lot of progress. I think within
five years, we will have demonstrated that if we put one of
those instruments on a new large telescope, we would be able to
detect essentially signs of life if they are as obvious as they
are on Earth.
Chairman Smith. We are going to hold you to that within
five years.
Dr. Grunsfeld. We will have the technology. You can hold me
to that.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Dr. Ulvestad, any more thoughts on
that?
Dr. Ulvestad. I think the key that Dr. Grunsfeld just
referred to is really being able to separate the light of a dim
planet, which a planet like Earth is dim when it is many light-
years away, from the light of the very bright star that is its
host. For instance, the instrument I mentioned in our Gemini
telescope is one of the steps along the way, but I also
mentioned that it could only detect planets that were out
farther than Jupiter, which is not where we expect Earth
planets to be. We have still got a ways to go to be able to
dull the star down to the dimness we require.
Chairman Smith. Thank you all for your testimony. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Palazzo. I now recognize Ms. Bonamici for five
minutes.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
Member, for this interesting hearing, and thank you to the
witnesses for your expertise. I am going to ask two questions
together because in the interest of time, hoping that each
witness can respond to each. We have also had discussions in
this committee about near-Earth objects and the potential for
asteroid incidents, and in those hearings we talked a lot about
international collaboration because obviously this is not just
an issue that affects our country. So will you each discuss
briefly the nature of international collaboration in the
exoplanet research? The second question has to do with more of
a big-picture issue. As Members of this Committee, we are
privileged to be frequently presented with this extensive
information on these issues and hear from people with
expertise, and then when we are back in our districts, we often
find that the public at large lacks specific information about
the work that NASA is doing, and importantly, how it affects
them. So with that in mind, could you also address how you
publicize what you are doing, how you educate the public about
not only the discovery of exoplanets but how to best translate
that into the benefits to the public at large. Thank you. I
will ask each of you to respond to those two issues.
Dr. Grunsfeld. I will go ahead and start. Almost everything
we do in NASA has large international collaboration--the
International Space Station, the James Webb Space Telescope.
These are partnerships where there is integral collaboration
between the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency,
the United States, in the case of the space station, Russia and
Japan, and these are working great. I would say probably 90
percent of everything in the Science Mission Directorate is an
international collaboration at some level where we are
contributing to leadership of a European instrument or another
country is contributing to leadership in one of our programs.
The James Webb Space Telescope is an example the United States
is leading. Even on the Hubble Space Telescope, originally that
was a 15 percent share of the European Space Agency. But when
we actually go to use the telescope, it is very broad, and of
course, all of our data is public and so anyone can actually
use it and so that is much further.
When we discover things, we put them out as press releases,
we put them on Web sites, but more importantly, we have an
educational public outreach program, where the scientists work
with master teachers and that gets into curriculum materials,
into the textbooks and into pre-service and in-service teachers
who then work with millions of students. That is how we work
through the educational side. Through more informal education,
we reach out to libraries across the country, planetariums and
museums. We do exhibits and shows. All of that contributes to
the public knowledge of the science benefits from NASA.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. Dr. Doyle?
Dr. Doyle. On the Kepler team, I would say we have a huge
number of countries represented. There is the Astrobiology
Consortium, which is centered in Denmark, but there are 500
members of that, and that is just a spin-off from the main
Kepler science team. So I would say Kepler is automatically
international.
With regard to reaching out and educational activities, one
of the things that we are doing is basically starting a series
of a kind of a wiki university where people can learn about
life in the universe from the SETI Institute and take classes
and so on, and I don't see any reason why they couldn't pass
the SAT after taking our classes. So it is free and online, and
let us go for it.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. Dr. Ulvestad?
Dr. Ulvestad. Yes, first on the international front, like
NASA, most of our major activities now are international in
terms of building big telescopes and operating big telescopes.
But I will honestly say that there is also some competition
there in the use of those telescopes. We would like the
scientists from the United States to actually be leading in the
discoveries. So they may be in collaborations, and in fact
often are with other international scientists, but we do want
to make sure that the U.S. scientists have the opportunities to
use the tools we have built.
Now, you mentioned near-Earth objects so I will just pick
up on that for a second. The number one ranking in the National
Academy Decadal Survey for a ground-based instrument was
actually something called the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope,
and one of its science goals is to characterize the asteroid
population in our own solar system and can do that very
extensively including near-Earth asteroids. That happens to be
not an international partnership but a partnership with the
Department of Energy, so you may consider them international
relative to NSF and NASA. They have slightly different cultures
than we have. But that is a different sort of incredibly
valuable partnership.
With respect to the public information, one of the
requirements we have at NSF for everybody who applies for a
research grant and for our large facility managers is something
called broader impacts. They are required to tell us what they
are doing, will do in their grant for broader impacts to the
public. So in getting ready for this hearing, I was actually
looking at the research grants that we have been making on
exoplanets over the last several years, and a large fraction of
those people, their broader impacts involved going into high
schools. It ranged between K-12 but high schools seem to be a
particular point that they were interested in, and that, if I
can pick up on a previous question, is very important because--
--
Ms. Bonamici. I am sorry. My time is expired. I yield back.
Chairman Palazzo. Thank you, Dr. Ulvestad. I now recognize
Mr. Rohrabacher for a couple minutes, not the full five.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Let me just note that we have been engaged
in a search for intelligent life for a long time over in the
Senate, however, and sometimes it is hard to determine.
I just want to make sure we understand that the last
mission concept does not necessarily rely on the SLS rocket,
does it not? There are other two proposed architectures for
this system that would not require us to build this big booster
and instead could be launched on EELV-class launch vehicles.
Isn't that correct?
Dr. Grunsfeld. Yes. The Advanced Large Area Space Telescope
concept is one of these new-world-type future large telescopes,
and in that study there were three telescopes studied: an 8-
meter diameter----
Mr. Rohrabacher. The answer is yes?
Dr. Grunsfeld. The answer is yes.
Mr. Rohrabacher. The answer is yes, so this is not--do you
know what the budget for the SLS Launch System is?
Dr. Grunsfeld. I----
Mr. Rohrabacher. We don't know, so you don't know either.
Quite frankly, that was a leading question.
Dr. Grunsfeld. All right.
Mr. Rohrabacher. And if that money was going to be taken
out of your budget to develop the SLS Launch System rather than
go with the launch systems that we have already got, would you
be supportive of that?
Dr. Grunsfeld. No.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right. I just want to make sure these are
on the record because there is a lot of people pushing for the
SLS Launch System and we don't even know what the budget is, we
don't know where the money is coming from, and it is really
possible if we do that, we will just defund all the things the
SLS is supposed to carry, meaning your projects.
The last thing is Arecibo Telescope. I noticed that the NSF
Arecibo Telescope Observatory was actually the ones who found
the first evidence in this exoplanet. Let me just note, we
almost closed that down for lack of funds, and some of us
understood just how important that was. Let us make sure we--
because that telescope really remains a very important part of
the very projects that we are talking about. So, Mr. Chairman,
thank you very much for the hearing and I just want to make
sure we got on the record. Thank you.
Chairman Palazzo. I want to thank the witnesses for their
valuable testimony and the Members for their questions. The
Members of the Committee may have additional questions for you,
and we will ask that you respond to those in writing. The
record will remain open for two weeks for additional comments
and written questions from Members.
The witnesses are excused and this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:00 a.m., the Subcommittees were
adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Dr. Laurance Doyle
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Responses by Dr. John M. Grunsfeld
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Responses by Dr. Dr. James Ulvestad
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Appendix II
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Additional Material for the Record
NASA Exoplanet Missions Graphic submitted by Dr. John M. Grunsfeld