Episode 14 of Mars Pirate Radio

Episode XVI of Mars Pirate Radio Episode 15 of Mars Pirate Radio

Episode 14 of Mars Pirate Radio

Transcript: Interview with Shannon Bohle

Mars Pirate Radio

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Episode 14: http://dougturnbull.podbean.com/2013/07/06/episode-xiv/

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EPISODE 14

Interviewer: Doug Turnbull

Interviewee: Shannon Bohle

Interview Date: June 28, 2013

Air Dates: July 6, 2013

WRITTEN INTRODUCTION

Tonight we will present some updates in space science current events, the fifth installment of Ribbon To The Sky and the first half of our interview with space and medical science archivist, Shannon Bohle.

Current events updates are courtesy of NASA and Space.com. This interview was conducted on June 28. Music was composed by Bernard Herrmann for Fahrenheit 451, copyright 1966 by Universal Pictures and for The Seventh Voyage Of Sinbad, copyright 1958 by Columbia Pictures.

AUDIO TRANCRIPT

[Musical introduction]

[Doug Turnbull’s Introduction]

Tonight our guest is Shannon Bohle, who, among her many other achievements, founded the 3-D virtual library at the Neil A. Armstrong Library and Archives. In addition, I will provide an update of current events in space science, as well as read the fifth installment of my newest novella, Ribbon to the Sky.

SPACE NEWS On Thursday, June 27th, NASA’s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, also known as the IRIS Solar Observatory, separated from its Pegasus rocket and is now in an orbit around the sun. This followed a successful launch by the Orbital Sciences’ Pegasus XL rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The drop of the air-launched Pegasus from Orbital’s “L-1011 carrier aircraft [occurred] over the Pacific Ocean at an altitude of 39,000 feet, about 100 miles northwest of Vandenburg,” off the central coast of California, south of Big Sur. “IRIS is a NASA Small Explorer SMEX) mission to observe how solar material moves, gathers energy and heats up as it travels through a little-[understood] region in the sun’s lower atmosphere. This interface region between the sun’s photosphere and corona powers its dynamic, million-degree atmosphere and drives the solar wind” (Sources: NASA [1],[2]).

1) “Buzz Aldrin may be a strong supporter of private spaceflight, but the famed Apollo 11 moonwalker apparently has no desire to make a trip himself—at least not to sub-orbital space. When a commercial sub-orbital spaceflight company offered Aldrin…a free seat aboard one of its spaceships, he politely declined…during a [June 27th] press conference announcing the new space commerce initiative called PayPal Galactic. The former astronaut and fighter pilot did not name the company that made the offer, but major contenders could be Virgin Galactic or XCOR Aerospace, both of which aim to start flying customers in the next year or so. [Nonetheless,] Aldrin is working to help get suborbital spaceflight and the private spaceflight industry, in general, off the ground. For example, he’s an ambassador for the AXE Apollo Space Academy, a global contest sponsored by the men’s personal care product company AXE that promises to send 22 people to the edge of space and back aboard XCOR’s Lynx rocket plane. Buzz Aldrin, who stepped onto the surface of the moon just after Neil Armstrong in July 1969, sees private spaceflight playing a key role in the years ahead, helping humanity expand its footprint out into the solar system. ‘Today, we’re on the cusp of a new era in space,’ Aldrin said. The [space] shuttles have retired; [and] the dawn of commercial spaceflight is upon us.’ Our robotic science probes are spread throughout the solar system, even reaching beyond it. It’s not unrealistic to predict we’re only a generation away from a permanent human presence on Mars. (Source: Space.com). Let’s hope Buzz is right in his prediction.

INTERVIEW

Doug Turnbull: [Speaker Introduction]:

Tonight, our guest is Shannon Bohle, a professional librarian, archivist, computer scientist, journalist, and writer. Her background includes library and archive experience, primarily in scientific and medically driven research libraries, including Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Library, NASA and the University of Cambridge.

Ms Bohle was a winner of an artificial intelligence competition advertised by The White House that was sponsored by the Department of Defense. Her research has been presented before various military and government audiences, including those at National Defense University and the United States Congress. A video she filmed in the 3D virtual library she founded and directed, the Neil A. Armstrong Library and Archives, was shown by the Nobel Prize Foundation at the Nobel Museum in Sweden. Since 2011, she has served on the Editorial Board of the peer-reviewed academic journal Library and Archival Security, which is published by Routledge.

[Ms Bohle] obtained a Master of Library and Information Science degree from Kent State University.As a scholar whose research was funded by the Cambridge Overseas Trusts, she conducted additional graduate work on the preservation of historic and archival materials in the department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. She is a member of the Science, Technology, and Healthcare Roundtable of the Society of American Archivists, numerous other professional societies devoted to library science and history, as well as the Planetary Society and the Mars Society. She is a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a Senior member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals.

Among her many projects, she is currently assembling a pictorial history of women in astronomy and the space sciences.

Doug Turnbull: Good evening Shannon.

Shannon Bohle: Good evening, Doug.

Doug Turnbull: I notice that among your other many achievements, in association with NASA, you have been involved in Second Life. In fact, your avatar’s name is Archivist Llewellyn. Could you explain Second Life to our listeners, its purpose and what you think the future holds for virtual archives?

Shannon Bohle: Sure. Second Life is a virtual world platform designed by Linden Lab in 2003. After signing up and logging in, each user is given an avatar they can personalize and that avatar moves around inside of the virtual world by walking, flying, and teleporting. Unlike video games, virtual worlds allow the users to create their own environment and fill it with items limited only by the user’s imagination. The virtual world has its own currency, called Linden Dollars, that is tied to real currency, so that avatars can buy, sell, or give away virtual goods that they make. Making an item basically begins with the basic prim, or single object. Prims can be joined together to create complex objects that resemble items in the real world or that are imagined creations that are purely fictional, real world prototype models, or conceptual designs completely impossible in the real world. With recent upgrades, Second Life now supports MESH that enables higher quality graphics and texture visualization. There is also a specialized scripting language in Second Life called Linden Scripting Language that gives movement to objects, allowing them to fly, break, bend, or even talk. There are some serious computer programmers at work in Second Life as well. Some design alternate viewers. Some link Second Life to databases or other applications, like robots and human-computer interfaces (what are called HCIs). Some experimenters are combining Second Life with HCIs using full body suits or creating Microsoft Kinect hacks where they can use their body movements to control their avatar. More interestingly, some are using Emotive, a piece of equipment worn on the head which measures brain activity, and allows their avatar to move around the virtual world by the power of the user’s thoughts alone. Finally, some individuals come to Second Life to use the virtual world to control the real world. For example, they have designed virtual robots that can control real robots, or they have modeled a building and built it in real life [See Image: “NASA JPL Virtual Facility Design Center”]. Another individual I know connected a real building’s security system to Second Life, so that it was all controlled and monitored by his avatar logging in to the 3-D virtual world building. And, this may sound like science fiction, but it’s not.

Some amazing financial success stories involve virtual land barons, where in 2006 one creator, Anshe Chung, became the first millionaire (that’s $1 million USD, not Linden dollars) and was written about in Businessweek. Another individual became a millionaire in Second Life by designing and selling their own brand of shoes, Stiletto Moody, in 2010, and became the subject of a Forbes magazine article. However, prior to 2009, there was the first great exodus from Second Life. Over the years, there were some high profile universities, really large brand name companies, movie stars, rock bands, and high profile academics and scientists. And, some of these have included, just to name a few, Harvard, MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Imperial College London, Microsoft, IBM, U2, Nature Publishing Group, Drew Carey, Noam Chompsky, Michio Kaku [See Image: “Michio Kaku in Second Life”], John Mather, Stephen Hawking (via his assistant). Let’s see. There have been some shows that have been in Second Life. Science Friday’s radio host, Ira Flatow. The Cambridge UK-based radio show, The Naked Scientists. Also, Alan Boyle of MSNBC news [also] who hosts a Second Life talk show, Virtually Speaking Science. Some of these videos made in Second Life have been featured on television and even at the Sundance Film Festival. Currently there is an experienced film industry professional, Tony Dyson, who created R2-D2 for Star Wars, doing machinima. And there’s also a model builder for the film industry who is also in Second Life. Other famous people have been in Second Life–I’m sure there have been more–so if I didn’t mention someone famous who was there, please forgive me. The great thing about Second Life is that anyone can have an avatar to look like any famous historical person of their choice. Say, for example, some avatars that I’ve seen are Sun Tzu or Isaac Newton.

Doug Turnbull: This is amazing.

Shannon Bohle: [laughs]. It sure is. Some are still in Second Life, but many that have had a presence or visited in Second Life, left after revenues did not meet their expectations, or the Second Life “hype cycle” started to decline. The second major exodus occurred more recently, around 2011, after Linden Lab cancelled their 50 percent nonprofit discount and eliminated their Enterprise Strategy package, at which time military organizations and educators sought refuge in Open Sim. (And Open Sim is a platform outside of Second Life where there have been a lot of new virtual world startups). An entire array of other platforms exist in Open Sim, but they are, you know, beyond the scope of this talk, I think, today. It’s being talked about now that Linden Lab is going to be re-instituting its nonprofit discount, but some of the organizations are content in their new Open Sim locations, and many are saying, for example–if you overhear the conversations going on in the educator’s listserv– that they probably won’t return to Second Life. So, part of the reason is because non-profits are on a one year or more grant cycle, so they can’t just up and ask for 50 percent more money at the drop of a hat.

Just to give you an idea who is in Second Life, there are distinctly different groups in the virtual world Second Life just as there are in society. Some, as I mentioned, go into virtual worlds for entrepreneurship. Some are there to socialize, find love, or to make some online friends. And, some like the idea of gaming and role-play. Aspiring filmmakers come to create animated videos and movies. And, aspiring musicians perform live shows–and there’s a great variety of musical styles, like Jazz, Blues, Rock, Classical, and even space music.

Doug Turnbull: I’m going to have to ask my son and daughter about this. This Second [Life], I was totally unaware of its existence.

Shannon Bohle: And many people have a misconstrued idea of what Second Life really is about. So that is why I think this interview will help people know that there is more out there than just gaming, or role play, or some other things they may have heard about Second Life.

In fact, others come to a virtual world, like educators, who teach classes, or hold educational conferences where they give papers, PowerPoint Presentations, and posters. Other organizations, like government and military, including the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, NOAA, the Department of Energy, CDC, and other organizations, have used virtual worlds to model scenarios for training purposes or for STEM educational outreach. And STEM has to do with Science Technology, Engineering, and Math. Some real world organizations have come purely for space exploration [purposes] into Second Life, and these include NASA, United Space Alliance (also known as USA), the National Space Society. One of the more interesting projects that was in Second Life that I enjoyed was Caltech’s Stella Nova, (which was run an NSF-funded astronomy grant [NSF grant HCC-0917814.] called the Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics (abbreviated as MICA), and they hosted [a] regular Saturday lecture series, and they had a great turnout at those. And there was also Astronomy 2009, which was also a popular exhibit that went along with the real life activities for the astronomy celebrations. [And of course, Yuri’s Night [See Image: “Yuris Night 2013 – NSS”] and the first Moon landing celebrations are also celebrated annually in Second Life [See Image: “NSS in Second Life - 2013 First Moon Landing Celebration”].

The last reason is why I got involved. Before I entered Second Life in 2008, I already had an agenda in mind. I wanted to create a Library and Archives about the history of spaceflight, ideally with NASA—which was quite an ambition before even entering the virtual world. I chose the first name of Archivist and the random name from a list of assigned names that were available, Llewellyn. I created an exhibit at a library island free of charge due to a grant that the avatar Lorelei Junot (Lori Bell in real life) had secured. I used the very tiny space (150 prims) to create a tiny library with one exhibit, “Women in Aeronautics and Astronautics.” The exhibit contained archival images and video of female pilots, astronauts, as well as aeronautical and NASA employees. Using this exhibit as the foundation of a larger library with NASA’s presence in Second Life, NASA CoLab island, I created a proposal that was successful and was granted many more prims to work in collaboration with NASA. From there I created what became the Neil A. Armstrong Library Archives (named in honor of Neil Armstrong), the first virtual world library or archive recognized by the Library of Congress [See Image: “Neil A Armstrong Library and Archives”]. I also joined the “Archivists of Second Life” group, which was founded by Christi Janus (Christian van der Ven in real life). And, eventually, I led the group and held various activities, but like many things in Second Life, interest and participation waned, and the growth of the group started stagnating, and finally the group became inactive by 2011. Another archives group called VCARA is operated out of San Jose State University’s library science program, and they are still very active and holding conferences.

Doug Turnbull: This is really fascinating. This is a whole world that I was unaware of that is existing out there, and I just didn’t know anything about it. I’m going to have to check into this that is for sure. This opens a lot of interesting ideas and possibilities.

You conducted virtual interviews with Nobel laureates John Mather and Albert Fert. In fact, as I understand, they were shown as a part of a Nobel Prize Foundation educational outreach program. Could you share a bit about how that was set up and how it went?

Shannon Bohle: Sure, I can do that. The interview was hosted by NobelPrize.org, and if you look at their website, you can see that NobelPrize.org is affiliated with the Nobel Foundation. This particular activity was called “Ask a Nobel Laureate.” Essentially one Nobel laureate was selected at a time, and individuals from the public could video record a short question and submit it to them via YouTube. Of all the submissions taken into consideration, only a few were selected each time for the Nobel laureate to answer. I attempted three questions to three Nobel laureates, and those were John Mather, Albert Fert, and David Gross, and I was successful with two of the three. I decided that rather than simply going on camera myself, to make a short animated film in Second Life, called a machinima. A machinima is a recording in the virtual world Second Life using machinima software and editing tools. So my avatar was recorded in the virtual world Second Life and that is where I basically asked by questions. The filming took place in and around the Neil A. Armstrong Library and archives. As far as I could tell, I was the only person to have more than one question answered during the project, and the only person to create a film-like video let alone a machinima filmed in a virtual world, Second Life. The interview questions were hosted asynchronously, meaning that I submitted the question and then the Nobel laureates later replied with a video. The videos were merged by NobelPrize.org, and published on their YouTube channel. Now, after their first Nobel laureate, John Mather, had answered his questions, I was notified that some of those videos were being given a special showing at the Nobel Museum in Stockholm, Sweden, and mine was chosen. So, I wrote to them explaining “I’m not going to be able to attend in person,” so I kindly asked them if they would take a photo of my video while it was playing in the Nobel Museum, and so they did that. It was great fun, and I am very proud of the fact that a virtual library in Second Life focusing on space exploration, and, in particular, underrepresented groups, like women and minorities, gained the honor of such an affiliation with the Nobel Prize as well as given a presentation at their museum. After all, this is probably going to be the closest I come to winning a Nobel Prize (laughs).

Doug Turnbull: Well, I’m not so sure about that. Some of this virtual world stuff seems pretty amazing to me (laughs). I find it just astounding.

Shannon Bohle: Yes, and there is some wonderful science going on in the virtual worlds–science education as well as some scientific research projects.

Doug Turnbull: I think one of the uses for this for my big project in life is promoting human spaceflight and setting up an extraterrestrial civilization beyond the Earth. And being able to do some virtual experiments could be a good way to eliminate problems before you actually physically confront them.

Shannon Bohle: Well, I believe, that to some degree that we should follow the original ideas of that great rocket engineer and visionary space pioneer for NASA, Wernher von Braun, who sought to transform wartime ballistic missiles (first at the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal and then at NASA) into transportation systems for the scientific exploration and settlement of space. I mean, he envisioned much of what we’ve already done by reaching the moon, establishing an orbiting space station, and then moving on to settlement of a planet. In 1952 von Braun published a book that was translated into English as The Mars Project in 1953. The book contained his detailed plans and technical specifications for landing on and creating a human settlement on Mars. Supposedly, his approach is still a technically valid one, from an engineering point-of-view.[For a summary of the book and its reception, see the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mars_Project]. So, One thing von Braun admits, however, is to not having figured what the long-term effects of living on Mars upon the human body would be. NASA is determined, at least for now, while it tries to determine if there was ever life on Mars, not to introduce foreign organisms when traveling to Mars. Personally, however, I have given some thought to it. And I personally support the viability, in the future (when robotics technologies are more sophisticated than they are now) of using advanced robotic exploration and remote setup of a base camp, as well as robotic-initiated terraforming, as the long-term solution to many of the human factor concerns prior to the arrival of humans on Mars. I’ve worked a bit on AI and studied a bit of machine learning, and from what I can see the robotics profession and NASA’s faith in AI are not quite ready for the ‘next giant leap for artificially intelligent robotic kind.’ NASA doesn’t have the trust in the AI capabilities that are already on its rovers. In fact, they’ve used AI programming languages like A* and D* on their rovers, but instead they continue to rely primarily upon remotely sending programmed driving instructions to its rovers day-by-day from Earth using a satellite uplink and downlink system.

Doug Turnbull: I do wonder why they insist on trying to operate those rovers from Earth. Sometimes the turnaround time is [90 minutes*] from the time you send a command till the time you get a verification that that the command has actually been carried out. Well, that strikes me as what you really need to do is send an elaborate set of instructions and say “you’ll proceed somewhere and get this job done,” and just let it do it. And then you check to see if it did it. That’s my thinking.

Shannon Bohle: Well, that’s true in some respects what they do. But they want to keep the option open, if they are watching the rover and they are seeing that something interesting is coming up or that they need to deviate for whatever reason, or pause, they want to have that option to do that. I was watching a video by Tara Estlin, who is at NASA, and she does the AI programming for the [rovers]. Essentially she was explaining how the whole process for uplink and downlink process works and how data is transferred back and forth and some of the problems that have occurred, in terms of the delay, I mean, and also in terms of the fact that they can only transfer so much data at a time. So, the idea is that AI, or Artificial Intelligence, could be programmed into the rovers. Say a big rock comes up and they don’t know how to go around it, or it might take a very long time, they could have the AI navigate around specific objects on its own using its built-in programming specifications [for obstacle avoidance]. The other thing is they can also use AI potentially to do in-situ data processing, which means that they could do some filtering of the data, and so on, so that less information needs to be transferred back and forth, or that that data could be packaged in such a way, as she was saying in this video that I saw [laughs], that the most important data is [prioritized and] sent first, and then the other data remains there [until such time as] someone wants to have that sent as well. So, they want to make sure they get the most important data transferred first, and if they need to, go back and have additional data [relayed] related to that. So, it has to do with prioritizing the data transmission from Mars to Earth, and also the fact that they want to have the flexibility to be able to step in and send a command if they want to investigate something more fully. The rover does not go very fast, so to make a correction within [90 minutes*] wouldn’t probably be that much of a drastic course correction. So, the rover doesn’t travel very fast at all.

Doug Turnbull: Yes, it is unlikely that it’s going to get in a wreck at the speed that it’s moving.

Shannon Bohle: Exactly.

Doug Turnbull: Since we’re on [the topic of] Mars now, what work have you done that’s related to Mars and Mars exploration?

Shannon Bohle: Well, while employed at the Armstrong Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio, I created an educational outreach program called “Seniors and Space” which had an informational poster on the different types of plants grown in space and a hands-on element building “space terrariums.” The activity was teaching senior citizens about the functions of plants and why plants can be beneficial to astronauts [who are] living in space. So, the seniors had the opportunity to taste packaged astronaut food, and at the same time see the difference from real food. Real food would be much more tasty, I would think, than the packaged astronaut food. They were also [shown] an example of Mars stimulant soil that was given out by NASA to educators, and construct a terrarium with a Mars backdrop, and filled up with the types of plant species flown in space. Included in the terrarium was a cutting of an Optimara “space violet” which, as a seed, orbited the Earth in space for six years. So it truly was a “space” terrarium. The cost of the program that I did included the ability for the large terrarium to remain in the nursing home for the seniors’ enjoyment, and the activity gained local press coverage.

The second project I did that was indirectly related to that had to do with creating a Space Medicine exhibit that featured a variety of tests conducted on animals and people during the Mercury and Apollo eras. (This was the one in Second Life). It also had a 3D model of the backbone of the tumor suppressor p53, that I created, which was [a protein] studied in microgravity. Cancer, of course being one of the concerns from long-term radiation exposure in space or on Mars. It was relevant, I think, to the exhibit on Space Medicine.

The third Mars-related project I did was “Curiosity AI” which won an award from the Department of Defense. It consisted of creating a 3D simulation of Mars with Curiosity rover, Spirit, Opportunity, Phoenix lander, and the Odyssey satellite. [Related video]. Curiosity Scientist is a humanoid AI that can command the other robots as well [For details, see the commands page].