WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.520 --> 00:00:05.400 Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye, and today 2 00:00:05.480 --> 00:00:08.199 I will be reading from a special edition of Smithsonian 3 00:00:08.279 --> 00:00:14.080 Magazine America at two fifty the Revolutionary Spark. As a reminder, 4 00:00:14.400 --> 00:00:17.120 Radio Eye is a reading service intended for people who 5 00:00:17.160 --> 00:00:20.719 are blind or have other disabilities that make it difficult 6 00:00:20.719 --> 00:00:24.039 to read printed material. Please join me now for the 7 00:00:24.079 --> 00:00:28.640 first article titled in the early nineteen hundreds, a young 8 00:00:28.719 --> 00:00:32.719 ecologist shot a wolf and watched the life leave its eyes. 9 00:00:33.159 --> 00:00:39.320 That changed his position on conservation. Aldo Leopold's writing reconsidered 10 00:00:39.320 --> 00:00:42.479 to place the humans in the natural world and challenged 11 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:45.719 people to be less conquerors of the land and more 12 00:00:45.840 --> 00:00:51.840 citizens of it. By Ben Goldfarb, one day in the 13 00:00:51.880 --> 00:00:56.840 early twentieth century in eastern Arizona, a forester full of 14 00:00:56.960 --> 00:01:01.320 trigger itch, as he later wrote, leaned over rimrock Ledge, 15 00:01:01.520 --> 00:01:05.959 readied his rifle and shot a wolf. This was hardly unusual. 16 00:01:06.319 --> 00:01:11.319 Wolves and other carnivores were a mammalia non grata, persecuted 17 00:01:11.359 --> 00:01:16.079 for their perceived crimes against livestock and deer. In those days, 18 00:01:16.120 --> 00:01:18.280 we had never heard of passing up a chance to 19 00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:22.680 kill a wolf. The forester, although Leopold would recall decades 20 00:01:22.760 --> 00:01:28.400 later more surprising was what followed. Remorse Standing over the 21 00:01:28.439 --> 00:01:33.079 fading wolf, Leopold watched a fierce green fire die in 22 00:01:33.120 --> 00:01:36.760 her eyes. There was something new to me in those eyes, 23 00:01:36.840 --> 00:01:40.799 he wrote, an epiphany that would forever change his perspective 24 00:01:40.840 --> 00:01:45.519 on nature and our own. America has been graced with 25 00:01:45.599 --> 00:01:50.239 plenty of environmental prophets, yet Leopold's work has arguably had 26 00:01:50.280 --> 00:01:55.480 the greatest influence on conservation. His fatal fateful wolf encounter 27 00:01:56.159 --> 00:02:00.400 epitomizes his perspicacity. He gazed into the eye of an 28 00:02:00.439 --> 00:02:06.400 expiring animal and intuited an ecological truth. Born in eighteen 29 00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:10.560 eighty seven to a nature loving Iowa family, Leopold graduated 30 00:02:10.599 --> 00:02:13.680 in nineteen o nine from the Yale School of Forestry 31 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:16.639 and headed to the Southwest to serve in the U. S. 32 00:02:16.680 --> 00:02:21.879 Forest Service, an agency founded just four years earlier. Conservation 33 00:02:22.080 --> 00:02:27.439 was newly urgent. Decades of overgrazing by livestock had peeled 34 00:02:27.479 --> 00:02:32.680 away an incalculable amount of very fine soil, as Leopold wrote, 35 00:02:32.879 --> 00:02:36.120 and wanton hunting and trapping had laid waste to what 36 00:02:36.159 --> 00:02:40.879 he called the richest fauna in the world. Automobiles would 37 00:02:40.879 --> 00:02:45.479 soon run roughshod over the American countryside, injecting tourists into 38 00:02:45.599 --> 00:02:51.000 once roadless landscapes. America was becoming aware of nature's limits 39 00:02:51.039 --> 00:02:56.319 and developing institutions to protect it, while nineteenth century writers 40 00:02:56.360 --> 00:02:59.800 like Henry David Thureaux were content to observe and celebrate 41 00:02:59.800 --> 00:03:05.319 man Leopold was also a scientist who made substantial contributions 42 00:03:05.319 --> 00:03:09.719 to fields including forestry, wildlife management, and the discipline we 43 00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:14.719 now know as ecology. He turned out journal articles, op eds, 44 00:03:14.960 --> 00:03:20.400 and letters with the indefatigability of a printing press. In 45 00:03:20.479 --> 00:03:23.879 a seminole nineteen twenty one paper for the Journal of Forestry, 46 00:03:23.919 --> 00:03:27.680 for instance, he championed the preservation of the Hila National 47 00:03:27.719 --> 00:03:31.919 Forest in its semi virgin state, an idea that led 48 00:03:31.919 --> 00:03:35.520 to its designation as the country's first wilderness area in 49 00:03:35.599 --> 00:03:39.960 nineteen twenty four. By far, his best loved work is 50 00:03:40.159 --> 00:03:45.199 A Sand County Almanac, a posthumously published essay collection that 51 00:03:45.319 --> 00:03:50.479 bent the trajectory of environmental thought, particularly through Leopold's idea 52 00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:57.560 that humans are mere players on a biotic team encompassing wildlife, vegetation, soil, water, 53 00:03:57.879 --> 00:04:02.520 and other natural elements. Today, our interdependence with the natural 54 00:04:02.520 --> 00:04:06.360 world is almost a truism. But when Sand County was 55 00:04:06.400 --> 00:04:09.919 published in nineteen forty nine, just a few decades after 56 00:04:09.960 --> 00:04:12.879 the near extinction of the bison and at the dawn 57 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:16.519 of the atomic revolution in the interstate Highway system, it 58 00:04:16.600 --> 00:04:20.800 was radical to aver that Homo sapiens should transition from 59 00:04:20.959 --> 00:04:24.920 conqueror of the land community to plain member and citizen 60 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:30.759 of it. Buddy Hufficker, Executive director of the Leopold Foundation, 61 00:04:31.279 --> 00:04:35.920 compares what Leopold called his land ethic to the Copernican Revolution, 62 00:04:36.319 --> 00:04:39.240 which recast the Earth as a component within the solar 63 00:04:39.279 --> 00:04:44.560 system rather than the universe's heart. Leopold challenges us to 64 00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:48.160 reframe humans from being in the center of everything to 65 00:04:48.279 --> 00:04:52.040 being a part of everything. Huffacker said in an interview 66 00:04:52.879 --> 00:04:57.720 that mindset would shape developments from nineteen seventy's environmental legislation 67 00:04:58.120 --> 00:05:03.000 to the rise of organic agricul Indeed, to revisit Sand 68 00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:07.240 County is to be struck by its prescients. Practically every 69 00:05:07.279 --> 00:05:12.120 significant strand of modern environmental thought is woven into its essays. 70 00:05:12.839 --> 00:05:16.800 Long before biologists proved that many parks were too small 71 00:05:16.839 --> 00:05:21.480 to sustain wide ranging animals like grizzly bears, Leopold noticed 72 00:05:21.720 --> 00:05:25.399 that species quote, do not seem to thrive as detached 73 00:05:25.439 --> 00:05:29.600 islands of population. And though he had long been a 74 00:05:29.639 --> 00:05:34.319 proponent of killing predators to bolster huntable game, he described 75 00:05:34.360 --> 00:05:37.560 his change of heart in his essay, thinking like a 76 00:05:37.639 --> 00:05:42.959 mountain without wolves, he realized deer browsed every edible bush 77 00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:48.800 and seedling to nubbns, starving themselves in the process. Biologists 78 00:05:48.839 --> 00:05:53.000 have since documented how the disappearance or addition of predators 79 00:05:53.279 --> 00:05:57.480 can shift an entire ecosystem. The effects have been measured 80 00:05:57.480 --> 00:06:02.839 in seagrass beds, rainforests, and tide pools, catalyzed by animals 81 00:06:02.879 --> 00:06:07.439 as diverse as tiger, sharks, jaguars, and sea stars. But 82 00:06:07.560 --> 00:06:13.920 Leopold expressed this concept with matchless concision. I now suspect 83 00:06:14.240 --> 00:06:17.360 that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear 84 00:06:17.439 --> 00:06:20.879 of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal 85 00:06:20.959 --> 00:06:26.120 fear of its deer. His views on wildfire also evolved 86 00:06:26.120 --> 00:06:30.680 over time. Like most foresters, he once considered it a scourage. 87 00:06:31.240 --> 00:06:35.199 Later he recognized it as a force of grassland rejuvenation. 88 00:06:36.519 --> 00:06:40.800 That native people deliberately started fires to promote wildlife habitat 89 00:06:41.160 --> 00:06:46.000 did not escape his attention. In nineteen thirty five, Leopold, 90 00:06:46.319 --> 00:06:49.879 then a professor at the University of Wisconsin, purchased a 91 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:53.439 Sauk County farm. When he broke the news to his wife, 92 00:06:53.600 --> 00:06:57.720 Estella and their five children, they imagined this house with 93 00:06:57.839 --> 00:07:00.519 geraniums and white flower boxes in the sas the front, 94 00:07:00.759 --> 00:07:05.399 recalled Susan Leopold Freeman, his granddaughter in an interview. The 95 00:07:05.560 --> 00:07:10.279 reality was bleaker. The main farmhouse had burned down, leaving 96 00:07:10.319 --> 00:07:15.639 behind only exhausted soil, ravenous mosquitoes, and a battered chicken coop. 97 00:07:16.319 --> 00:07:20.319 None of this daunted the Leopolds. They planted trees, white 98 00:07:20.399 --> 00:07:24.680 pines and jackpines, red oaks and red cedars, maples and tamaracks, 99 00:07:25.199 --> 00:07:29.800 alongside shrubs, grasses, and wild flowers like violets and trillium. 100 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:34.240 Around fifty thousand pine seedlings went into the sandy earth. 101 00:07:35.439 --> 00:07:38.680 Leopold suffered a fatal heart attack in nineteen forty eight 102 00:07:38.959 --> 00:07:42.560 at sixty one, while fighting a fire on a neighbor's property. 103 00:07:43.439 --> 00:07:48.120 Restoration remained a family passion. In the nineteen nineties, Freeman 104 00:07:48.240 --> 00:07:52.480 and her husband Scott purchased an eighteen acre dairy farm 105 00:07:52.839 --> 00:07:56.800 along a damaged stream in western Washington and set about 106 00:07:56.839 --> 00:08:00.959 recontouring its channel and replanting its flood plane to the 107 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:06.240 delight of beavers, otters, cougars, and salmon. Legions of volunteers 108 00:08:06.279 --> 00:08:10.319 aided the recovery, among them the couple's children and grandchildren. 109 00:08:11.199 --> 00:08:13.800 When you work on the land and plant trees, it 110 00:08:13.920 --> 00:08:19.160 touches something very deep inside people, Freeman said. Though Leopold 111 00:08:19.240 --> 00:08:23.439 lamented the effects of human industry, his writing rarely comes 112 00:08:23.439 --> 00:08:29.120 across as misanthropic. As Huffaker put it, Leopold casts people 113 00:08:29.160 --> 00:08:33.039 as positive actors in the unfolding drama of the world. 114 00:08:33.600 --> 00:08:37.399 People possess the capacity to harm, but also to protect, 115 00:08:37.679 --> 00:08:41.559 to cherish, and to restore. An ethical relation to nature, 116 00:08:41.679 --> 00:08:46.840 Leopold wrote, must emerge from love, respect, and admiration for land, 117 00:08:47.600 --> 00:08:50.799 and Leopold had love to spare, even in the end 118 00:08:51.159 --> 00:08:56.639 for the wolf he killed. And accompanying this article, did 119 00:08:56.679 --> 00:09:01.720 you know the HeLa Wilderness Area At nearly five hundred 120 00:09:01.840 --> 00:09:06.039 sixty thousand square miles, the Heilo Wilderness Area was created 121 00:09:06.360 --> 00:09:10.320 in June nineteen twenty four. Visitors to the region can 122 00:09:10.360 --> 00:09:15.519 find evidence of volcanic activity, rock spires, steep cliffs, among 123 00:09:15.600 --> 00:09:21.120 other natural wonders. The Magolan people ancestors of the Pueblo 124 00:09:21.600 --> 00:09:25.279 lived in the region before the arrival of Europeans there. 125 00:09:25.399 --> 00:09:30.799 Thirteenth century. Dwellings are still visible in the area and 126 00:09:30.919 --> 00:09:36.519 also with this article an American conservation Corps. These forward 127 00:09:36.519 --> 00:09:40.840 thinking scientists and policy makers changed our approach to earth, 128 00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:47.559 water and air. John Wesley Powell Water eighteen seventies to 129 00:09:47.639 --> 00:09:52.600 eighteen nineties. After surveying the Colorado River and its tributaries, 130 00:09:52.919 --> 00:09:59.519 Powell issued prescient warnings about Western water scarcity. Bernhard Ferno 131 00:10:00.120 --> 00:10:05.360 Forestry eighteen eighties to nineteen tens. The country's only trained 132 00:10:05.519 --> 00:10:09.919 forester until eighteen ninety one, Ferno drafted the laws that 133 00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:13.840 created the U S Forest System. He also founded the 134 00:10:13.919 --> 00:10:20.240 first forestry degree program at Cornell University. George Washington Carver 135 00:10:20.559 --> 00:10:26.320 Soil eighteen nineties to nineteen forties. The agricultural scientists studied 136 00:10:26.320 --> 00:10:33.840 and promoted crucial techniques for replenishing depleted soil, including crop rotation. J. N. 137 00:10:34.159 --> 00:10:40.080 Ding Darling Wildlife nineteen thirties to nineteen forties. The influential 138 00:10:40.080 --> 00:10:45.360 political cartoonist led efforts to reverse environmental damage and establish 139 00:10:45.519 --> 00:10:52.320 the National Wildlife Federation. Rachel Carson Environmental Health nineteen fifties 140 00:10:52.360 --> 00:10:57.559 to nineteen sixties. Her book Silent Spring raised awareness of 141 00:10:57.639 --> 00:11:04.200 toxic pesticides and helped launch the modern environmental movement. E. O. 142 00:11:04.360 --> 00:11:09.600 Wilson Biodiversity nineteen sixties to twenty tens. Ants were his 143 00:11:09.720 --> 00:11:14.799 first love, but Wilson expanded his lens to include larger ecosystems. 144 00:11:15.600 --> 00:11:19.360 He argued that preserving the diversity of species was crucial 145 00:11:19.399 --> 00:11:25.080 for life on Earth. And Finally, Ada Deer Native Lands 146 00:11:25.320 --> 00:11:30.159 nineteen seventies to twenty twenties, the first woman to oversee 147 00:11:30.159 --> 00:11:34.279 the Bureau of Indian Affairs, she helped native groups gain sovereignty, 148 00:11:34.679 --> 00:11:41.320 including the right to restore and manage their own lands. Next, 149 00:11:41.600 --> 00:11:44.480 a blip on a telescope and a Colorado parking lot 150 00:11:44.840 --> 00:11:48.720 bolstered a space mission that has found thousands of planets 151 00:11:48.759 --> 00:11:52.799 and counting. The Kettler Telescope changed how we saw the sky. 152 00:11:53.480 --> 00:11:56.159 It's just one of the devices we've sent out beyond 153 00:11:56.159 --> 00:12:01.279 the reach of humans to search our solar system. Linda Shiner. 154 00:12:02.600 --> 00:12:05.919 On September ninth, nineteen ninety nine, a twenty five year 155 00:12:05.960 --> 00:12:09.919 old Harvard graduate student, David Charboneau, made one of the 156 00:12:09.919 --> 00:12:15.200 closing century's most consequential astronomical discoveries using a four inch 157 00:12:15.279 --> 00:12:18.840 telescope set up inside a plywood shed in a Colorado 158 00:12:18.879 --> 00:12:23.399 parking lot. Charboneau and his advisor Tim Brown, who had 159 00:12:23.440 --> 00:12:26.480 built the telescope, had been measuring the light from a 160 00:12:26.519 --> 00:12:31.120 sun like star with the undramatic designation h D two 161 00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:34.879 zero nine four five eight. They hoped to use a 162 00:12:34.919 --> 00:12:40.399 technique called photometry measuring a star's light to confirm speculations 163 00:12:40.440 --> 00:12:43.639 that h D two zero nine four five eight had 164 00:12:43.679 --> 00:12:48.200 an orbiting planet. At the time, NASA was deciding whether 165 00:12:48.240 --> 00:12:51.519 to fund the Kepler mission, a space telescope that would 166 00:12:51.639 --> 00:12:55.240 use the same technique. Kepler was a long shot because 167 00:12:55.279 --> 00:12:58.960 photometry had never before detected a planet orbiting a star 168 00:12:59.240 --> 00:13:03.480 outside our solar system. Brown and Charbonneau were about to 169 00:13:03.600 --> 00:13:07.600 change a long shot into a sure bet. In nineteen 170 00:13:07.679 --> 00:13:12.120 ninety nine, there were very few confirmed exoplanets or planets 171 00:13:12.159 --> 00:13:15.799 outside our own solar system, and these were gas giants 172 00:13:15.840 --> 00:13:19.879 on the order of Jupiter, not smaller rocky planets like Earth. 173 00:13:20.600 --> 00:13:24.360 They had been confirmed using a method known as Doppler spectroscopy, 174 00:13:24.799 --> 00:13:28.279 which registered shifts in the color spectrum over time as 175 00:13:28.320 --> 00:13:31.960 the star was tugged to and fro by orbiting planets. 176 00:13:32.639 --> 00:13:36.240 Doppler was useful for finding Jupiter sized planets that were 177 00:13:36.279 --> 00:13:39.559 close to their stars, but it couldn't always deliver clear 178 00:13:39.639 --> 00:13:43.120 data on smaller planets that were farther from their stars. 179 00:13:43.799 --> 00:13:49.759 Astronomers using Doppler spectroscopy had noticed something unusual happening around 180 00:13:49.919 --> 00:13:52.720 h D two zero nine four five eight, about one 181 00:13:52.799 --> 00:13:55.879 hundred and fifty light years from Earth, but the wobbles 182 00:13:55.919 --> 00:13:59.519 in the color spectrum could have had another cause, such 183 00:13:59.559 --> 00:14:04.080 as the scar star contracting and expanding. In theory, the 184 00:14:04.080 --> 00:14:08.120 photometry method that Charboneaux and Brown used would be able 185 00:14:08.200 --> 00:14:11.679 to show more decisively whether a planet was orbiting a 186 00:14:11.759 --> 00:14:17.200 far off sun. Many photometric telescopes couldn't register changes in 187 00:14:17.279 --> 00:14:21.039 brightness that were smaller than a few percent, but Brown 188 00:14:21.200 --> 00:14:25.399 designed his telescope to continuously monitor a change in a 189 00:14:25.440 --> 00:14:29.159 star's brightness as small as one percent, the dip a 190 00:14:29.240 --> 00:14:32.440 Jupiter sized planet would cause as it passed in front 191 00:14:32.480 --> 00:14:36.600 of its star. As Charboneaux and Brown trained their sights 192 00:14:36.639 --> 00:14:40.559 on HD two zero nine four five eight, computer software 193 00:14:40.639 --> 00:14:45.600 graft the star's brightness, Charboneau saw the predicted one percent dip, 194 00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:50.320 the first clear photometric evidence of a planet eclipsing or 195 00:14:50.480 --> 00:14:55.080 transiting a star. At first, he felt anxious. Here was 196 00:14:55.120 --> 00:14:57.720 a phenomenon that no one had ever seen before. He 197 00:14:57.799 --> 00:15:01.679 recently said, you really do, asked yourself, Am I delusional? 198 00:15:02.080 --> 00:15:04.799 Have I fooled myself? Is there a problem with the 199 00:15:04.799 --> 00:15:08.200 telescope or a problem with the data? There was not. 200 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:13.440 Two months later, another team collected similar photometric data on 201 00:15:13.720 --> 00:15:17.840 h D two zero nine four five eight. Some believe 202 00:15:17.919 --> 00:15:21.559 that Charbonneau's discovery was the moment that led NASA to 203 00:15:21.600 --> 00:15:25.120 greenlight the Kepler Mission, a multi year project that has 204 00:15:25.159 --> 00:15:28.440 so far confirmed the existence of more than twenty seven 205 00:15:28.519 --> 00:15:33.600 hundred planets orbiting other stars. The data is still being analyzed. 206 00:15:34.240 --> 00:15:38.919 The mission's principal investigator, William Bourouki, had been pushing for 207 00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:42.840 the use of photometry for years. He believed that measuring 208 00:15:42.879 --> 00:15:46.240 a planet's transit across its sun was the best way 209 00:15:46.279 --> 00:15:51.639 to identify smaller, rocky, potentially habitable worlds outside our Solar system, 210 00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:55.679 which was one of Kepler's main goals. I was sure 211 00:15:55.720 --> 00:15:59.159 I could develop the transit technique sufficiently to find Earth 212 00:15:59.240 --> 00:16:02.759 sized planets and the habitable zone of stars like our Sun, 213 00:16:03.320 --> 00:16:07.200 he said in a recent NASA oral history. By nineteen 214 00:16:07.240 --> 00:16:11.080 ninety nine, Borouki's team had proved in the lab that 215 00:16:11.120 --> 00:16:14.440 the Kepler instrument was precise enough to find a planet 216 00:16:14.480 --> 00:16:18.519 the size of Earth. NASA formally approved the mission in 217 00:16:18.559 --> 00:16:22.879 two thousand one, and the Kepler Space Telescope launched aboard 218 00:16:22.919 --> 00:16:26.720 a Delta two rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, just before 219 00:16:26.799 --> 00:16:30.759 eleven p m Local time, on March sixth, two thousand nine. 220 00:16:31.840 --> 00:16:36.360 The point nine five meter telescope contained a mosaic of 221 00:16:36.440 --> 00:16:40.639 photometric cells that allowed it to detect changes in brightness 222 00:16:40.799 --> 00:16:44.879 as tiny as zero point zero zero two percent. It 223 00:16:45.039 --> 00:16:47.279 zeroed in on an area of the sky in the 224 00:16:47.320 --> 00:16:51.639 Signus Lira constellations, gathering light from the same group of 225 00:16:51.679 --> 00:16:56.120 around two hundred thousand stars for four years. The spacecraft 226 00:16:56.240 --> 00:16:59.279 was designed to trail behind the Earth as it orbited 227 00:16:59.279 --> 00:17:03.200 the Sun, giving it a continuous, unobstructed view of the sky. 228 00:17:04.160 --> 00:17:08.000 The mission quickly achieved a thrilling pace of discovery. In 229 00:17:08.079 --> 00:17:11.440 twenty ten, the Kepler team announced that the mission had 230 00:17:11.480 --> 00:17:15.440 confirmed five new exo planets in its first six weeks. 231 00:17:16.200 --> 00:17:20.480 In December twenty eleven, the scientists announced the discovery of 232 00:17:20.519 --> 00:17:23.319 the first planet in the habitable zone of its star 233 00:17:23.960 --> 00:17:26.680 not too hot or too cold for life to exist. 234 00:17:27.519 --> 00:17:31.480 In twenty thirteen, NASA engineers were able to extend the 235 00:17:31.559 --> 00:17:34.680 original life span of the equipment, and a second phase 236 00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:37.960 of the project, called K two, brought the total number 237 00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:42.640 of surveyed stars to half a million. In April twenty fourteen, 238 00:17:43.119 --> 00:17:47.039 scientists announced the first Earth sized planet, the kind of 239 00:17:47.119 --> 00:17:50.720 rocky world that might be able to support Earth like life. 240 00:17:51.880 --> 00:17:55.519 The spacecraft finally ran out of fuel and twenty eighteen, 241 00:17:55.920 --> 00:18:00.480 but Kepler had time to detect many wondrous things planet 242 00:18:00.640 --> 00:18:04.119 orbiting two stars, like the planet Tatuine in star wars, 243 00:18:04.640 --> 00:18:08.799 planetary systems with three, four or five planets, a giant 244 00:18:08.880 --> 00:18:13.319 gas planet with the density of a marshmallow. These discoveries 245 00:18:13.440 --> 00:18:17.920 vastly broadened the field of exoplanet research, which NASA's test 246 00:18:18.119 --> 00:18:22.480 spacecraft has continued, and which the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope 247 00:18:22.640 --> 00:18:25.160 will carry on when it goes into orbit within the 248 00:18:25.200 --> 00:18:29.559 next year. This new telescope will add to Kepler's findings 249 00:18:29.799 --> 00:18:33.720 by detecting the gravitational fields of planets even smaller than 250 00:18:33.799 --> 00:18:38.240 Earth and capturing direct images of Jupiter sized planets outside 251 00:18:38.279 --> 00:18:41.920 our Solar system. For the first time. By some measures, 252 00:18:41.960 --> 00:18:45.480 the Kepler mission was a modest one. Since nineteen fifty eight, 253 00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:49.480 NASA has dispatched spacecraft to every planet in the Solar 254 00:18:49.519 --> 00:18:52.559 System and measured the faint hum left behind by the 255 00:18:52.599 --> 00:18:57.440 Big Bang. The twin Voyager spacecraft, launched in nineteen seventy 256 00:18:57.480 --> 00:19:01.440 seven are still speaking to their operators by radio from 257 00:19:01.480 --> 00:19:05.359 billions of miles away. Yet the Kepler mission changed the 258 00:19:05.359 --> 00:19:10.640 way astronomers understand the whole galaxy. It revealed that planets 259 00:19:10.759 --> 00:19:14.880 orbiting around other stars are not rare but commonplace, and 260 00:19:14.960 --> 00:19:17.599 that some of them might have the right conditions to 261 00:19:17.640 --> 00:19:21.799 support life. Before Kepler, we looked at the sky and 262 00:19:21.839 --> 00:19:29.200 saw stars. After Kepler, we see Solar systems and Accompanying 263 00:19:29.240 --> 00:19:33.559 this article, the past, present, and Future of space exploration. 264 00:19:35.079 --> 00:19:39.599 Mariner two and Mariner four the first functioning spacecraft to 265 00:19:39.640 --> 00:19:44.359 reach another planet. Mariner two, the width of about five refrigerators, 266 00:19:44.720 --> 00:19:47.519 launched in nineteen sixty two on a mission to Venus, 267 00:19:47.799 --> 00:19:50.160 where it found that the planet had a dense Co 268 00:19:50.400 --> 00:19:54.920 two atmosphere and a hellishly hot surface above eight hundred degrees. 269 00:19:55.640 --> 00:19:59.759 In nineteen sixty five, Mariner four transmitted the first close 270 00:19:59.799 --> 00:20:03.279 in images of Mars using a TV camera with a 271 00:20:03.279 --> 00:20:09.640 magnetic tape recorder. The Pioneers and Voyagers. Pioneer ten launched 272 00:20:09.640 --> 00:20:13.079 in nineteen seventy two, crossing the asteroid belt to measure 273 00:20:13.160 --> 00:20:18.519 Jupiter's radiation and magnetic fields. In nineteen seventy three, Pioneer 274 00:20:18.599 --> 00:20:21.880 eleven headed towards Saturn, where it discovered a new ring 275 00:20:22.039 --> 00:20:27.200 and two moons. Voyager one later found vulcanism on Jupiter's 276 00:20:27.200 --> 00:20:31.839 moon Io and Voyager two found rings and several moons 277 00:20:31.880 --> 00:20:38.799 around both Uranus and Neptune. Galileo Cassini and Juno Galileo 278 00:20:38.920 --> 00:20:42.400 spent nineteen ninety five to two thousand three gathering data 279 00:20:42.480 --> 00:20:46.279 from Jupiter and its moons, discovering evidence of an underground 280 00:20:46.319 --> 00:20:49.599 ocean on Europa with more water than all the oceans 281 00:20:49.640 --> 00:20:54.599 on Earth. In two thousand four, Cassini began orbiting Saturn 282 00:20:55.319 --> 00:20:59.440 and released the Huygens probe on its moon Titan, where 283 00:20:59.480 --> 00:21:03.640 gasoline like liquid rains from the sky. In twenty sixteen, 284 00:21:04.079 --> 00:21:08.039 Juno discovered that Jupiter's colorful bands extend to a depth 285 00:21:08.039 --> 00:21:13.240 of nineteen hundred miles the Mars rovers. In nineteen ninety seven, 286 00:21:13.599 --> 00:21:18.079 Pathfinder deployed a rover named Sojourner, the first wheeled vehicle 287 00:21:18.119 --> 00:21:21.559 on the red planet, which used an alpha proton X 288 00:21:21.680 --> 00:21:26.519 ray spectrometer to analyze rocks and soil. In two thousand four, 289 00:21:26.920 --> 00:21:31.720 larger rovers Spirit and Opportunity arrived, confirming that Mars once 290 00:21:31.799 --> 00:21:37.240 had water car sized Curiosity landed in twenty twelve, followed 291 00:21:37.279 --> 00:21:43.400 in twenty twenty one by Perseverance, which deployed the helicopter Ingenuity. Collectively, 292 00:21:43.720 --> 00:21:48.240 these rovers have traveled more than eighty miles analyzing clues 293 00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:53.559 left by ancient lakes and rivers, and finally, Europa Clipper 294 00:21:53.599 --> 00:21:58.079 and Dragonfly. The Europa Clipper will arrive at Jupiter's icy 295 00:21:58.160 --> 00:22:01.599 moon in twenty thirty to serve for environments that could 296 00:22:01.599 --> 00:22:05.680 support life, using tools such as an ice penetrating radar, 297 00:22:06.119 --> 00:22:12.319 an ultra violet spectrograph, and high resolution cameras. Dragonfly, scheduled 298 00:22:12.319 --> 00:22:15.079 to launch in twenty twenty eight, will send a large 299 00:22:15.160 --> 00:22:20.160 rotor craft to Saturn's moon Titan. Equipped with spectrometers, a 300 00:22:20.200 --> 00:22:23.640 sample drill, and a camera suite. The craft will fly 301 00:22:23.799 --> 00:22:27.440 through the thick atmosphere and alight on frozen dunes and 302 00:22:27.559 --> 00:22:34.440 other lunar terrain. Next Born in eighteen ten, Margaret Buller 303 00:22:34.799 --> 00:22:38.599 was labeled a child prodigy. She later used her intellect 304 00:22:38.720 --> 00:22:43.559 to ask important questions about women's role in America. Her 305 00:22:43.599 --> 00:22:46.880 writing posed the novel premise what does it Mean to 306 00:22:46.920 --> 00:22:50.480 Be a Woman? Her early death meant she never saw 307 00:22:50.519 --> 00:22:56.480 the movement she inspired by Megan Marshall, the New England 308 00:22:56.480 --> 00:23:00.200 writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David The row our 309 00:23:00.200 --> 00:23:05.319 household names today credited with originating the American ideal. Emerson 310 00:23:05.440 --> 00:23:09.920 termed self reliance. Less remembered is their friend Margaret Fuller, 311 00:23:10.160 --> 00:23:13.920 who was every bit their intellectual equal. Yet of the three, 312 00:23:14.319 --> 00:23:19.000 Fuller is the easiest to imagine in contemporary America. Her 313 00:23:19.039 --> 00:23:24.279 breakthroughs in journalism, social reform, and female self determination have 314 00:23:24.400 --> 00:23:29.440 become part of the fabric of modern life. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 315 00:23:29.519 --> 00:23:32.440 in eighteen ten, Fuller was the first child of an 316 00:23:32.440 --> 00:23:37.319 ambitious lawyer politician who experimented with offering a boy's college 317 00:23:37.359 --> 00:23:42.160 preparatory curriculum to his very bright daughter. She read fluently 318 00:23:42.240 --> 00:23:46.359 at age four, translated Latin at six, and excelled in 319 00:23:46.559 --> 00:23:50.880 oral argument and persuasive writing, earning a reputation as a prodigy. 320 00:23:51.640 --> 00:23:55.400 By fifteen. She was determined on distinction. She wrote to 321 00:23:55.440 --> 00:24:00.720 a teacher, but how although Fuller's capabilities matched those of 322 00:24:00.839 --> 00:24:05.240 highly educated men, she couldn't attend college or enter a profession. 323 00:24:05.920 --> 00:24:09.319 Her close friend, James Freeman Clark wondered in his journal, 324 00:24:09.680 --> 00:24:13.759 why was she a woman? Fuller pondered the question too, 325 00:24:14.400 --> 00:24:17.000 what did it mean to be a woman? Or, as 326 00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:19.720 she asked a group of Boston women during one of 327 00:24:19.759 --> 00:24:23.920 her famous weekly conversation circles, what were we born to do? 328 00:24:24.519 --> 00:24:28.200 How shall we do it? By then, she'd joined the 329 00:24:28.200 --> 00:24:33.079 group of spiritual reformers known as Transcendentalists. The men in 330 00:24:33.119 --> 00:24:36.359 the group honored Fuller by making her the first editor 331 00:24:36.640 --> 00:24:41.519 of their influential journal, The Dial. Fuller shaped its contents, 332 00:24:41.640 --> 00:24:45.359 favoring literature, the arts and matters of the spirit over 333 00:24:45.440 --> 00:24:50.359 theological dispute. She introduced her own vision of the exemplary 334 00:24:50.359 --> 00:24:54.200 individual in a July eighteen forty three essay titled The 335 00:24:54.240 --> 00:25:00.200 Great Lawsuit, Man Versus Men, Women versus Women. In the essay, 336 00:25:00.480 --> 00:25:04.720 Fuller drew on her experience of exclusion from higher education 337 00:25:05.240 --> 00:25:09.880 and the professions while being labeled unfeminine for her superior intelligence. 338 00:25:10.599 --> 00:25:14.240 She argued that the great radical dualism of male and 339 00:25:14.319 --> 00:25:18.880 female was false. There is no holy masculine man, no 340 00:25:19.079 --> 00:25:23.400 purely feminine woman. All must be permitted to realize their 341 00:25:23.519 --> 00:25:27.119 unique capabilities to the utmost, she concluded, in order to 342 00:25:27.160 --> 00:25:32.200 achieve fullness of being. The month her dial essay appeared, 343 00:25:32.599 --> 00:25:36.680 Fuller was traveling through Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin to gather 344 00:25:36.839 --> 00:25:40.119 material for her first book, Summer on the Lakes in 345 00:25:40.160 --> 00:25:44.079 eighteen forty three. In this eye witness account of America's 346 00:25:44.119 --> 00:25:49.559 fast developing West, Fuller sympathized with overworked pioneer wives while 347 00:25:49.599 --> 00:25:53.799 deploring the treatment of Native Americans, the region's rightful lords, 348 00:25:54.319 --> 00:25:58.160 and the destruction of old growth forests. She attended a 349 00:25:58.200 --> 00:26:02.839 gathering of Chippewa and Ottawa tribes at Mackinac Island, conversing 350 00:26:02.960 --> 00:26:06.200 with the Native women in sign language and joining them 351 00:26:06.200 --> 00:26:10.119 and pounding their breakfast corn meal. She wandered the prairies 352 00:26:10.160 --> 00:26:13.799 and rode the rapids to offer vivid natural descriptions and 353 00:26:13.960 --> 00:26:20.759 raise her reader's environmental awareness. Thereau praised her rich extempore writing, 354 00:26:21.240 --> 00:26:24.240 talking with pen in hand, an approach he went on 355 00:26:24.559 --> 00:26:27.240 to take in his own books, which were yet to come. 356 00:26:28.680 --> 00:26:32.839 When the new York City newspaperman Horace Greeley urged Fuller 357 00:26:32.920 --> 00:26:36.440 to expand The Great Lawsuit into a book. The result, 358 00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:40.640 Women in the Nineteenth Century, sold out its first printing 359 00:26:40.680 --> 00:26:44.200 in a week. The book included accounts of female inmates 360 00:26:44.240 --> 00:26:47.640 at sing Sing Prison, many of them jailed for prostitution. 361 00:26:48.519 --> 00:26:52.720 Fuller considered them women like myself, save that they are 362 00:26:52.839 --> 00:26:57.440 victims of wrong and misfortune. Her book exhorted men to 363 00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:02.799 remove arbitrary barriers and allow women to pursue any profession 364 00:27:02.839 --> 00:27:07.319 they wished, from scholar to sea captain. She recalled watching 365 00:27:07.400 --> 00:27:12.640 young girls happily using carpentry tools. Where these tastes are indulged, 366 00:27:12.920 --> 00:27:16.519 cheerfulness and good humor are promoted. Where they are forbidden, 367 00:27:16.880 --> 00:27:20.160 because such things are not proper for girls, they grow 368 00:27:20.240 --> 00:27:24.440 sullen and mischievous. After Greeley hired her as a front 369 00:27:24.480 --> 00:27:28.079 page calumnist for his New York Tribune, Fuller published more 370 00:27:28.119 --> 00:27:31.680 than two hundred articles, cultural reviews, and features on the 371 00:27:31.720 --> 00:27:35.559 city's asylums, as well as editorials that opposed the death 372 00:27:35.599 --> 00:27:40.119 penalty and supported black voting rights and Irish emigration. In 373 00:27:40.200 --> 00:27:43.720 eighteen forty six, she sailed to Europe as the Tribune's 374 00:27:43.759 --> 00:27:48.640 foreign correspondent. There, she covered the European revolutions of eighteen 375 00:27:48.680 --> 00:27:52.640 forty eight and directed a hospital for the wounded in Rome. 376 00:27:53.200 --> 00:27:56.000 In eighteen fifty she sailed back to the United States, 377 00:27:56.160 --> 00:27:58.759 but died in a shipwreck. She was forty years old. 378 00:27:59.799 --> 00:28:03.799 This concludes readings from the Smithsonian Magazine for today. Your 379 00:28:03.839 --> 00:28:06.880 reader has been Rebecca Shore. Thank you for listening, and 380 00:28:06.960 --> 00:28:07.880 have a great day.