Dave (8:53)

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Maria Varmazis (9:36)

Our guest today is Dr. Beth O'Leary. Beth is a member of the International Scientific Committee on Aerospace Heritage and the committee is part of ICOMOS and proposed the nomination to the World Monuments Fund to list the Lunar landings as historical preservation sites. And I asked Beth to tell me more about how this proposal came about.

Dr. Beth O'Leary (10:00)

I've been doing space archaeology and heritage for about the last 25 years. So it started with a great question at New Mexico State University, where I was a professor and a student in a graduate class, said, what's on the moon and does federal law protect it? And I've been running with that question since. So luckily I'm with some like minded colleagues and we are interested in trying to find ways internationally, as nations concerned with heritage, to protect those significant places and artifacts on the moon.

Maria Varmazis (10:39)

Thank you so much for that introduction. What you're working on is just so fascinating and I bet a lot of people, just at the outset they go, space archeology, how does that, how does that even work? I'm sure that's like the first question you often get.

Dr. Beth O'Leary (10:53)

We do, we often do. And then people say, have you been there to work? And I say, no, I have not. I have received some grants, but they were never that big to get back to the moon.

Maria Varmazis (11:04)

Who knows, maybe one day, right when we're talking about protecting heritage sites on the moon, can you give me a sense of what we're talking about? Is it literally everything or just certain things?

Dr. Beth O'Leary (11:14)

No, we don't protect everything here on Earth. We have sets of criteria in the United States, the National Historic Preservation act, that lays out criteria for evaluating what's significant. What we're trying to do in this committee, and I think the World Monuments Watch, is to get nations to come together and agree on an evaluative system. How do we decide what's really important to preserve? How do we get together? And then how do we preserve it ourselves? Because we have a heritage. The United States does, so does the ussr, Russia, China. And how do we honor and respect each other's antiquities? And it's only been, what, 55 and a half years since blink we first stepped on the moon. Yeah, that's an archeological blink. So that's really the thrust. And it started 25 years ago with a good question by a student. And then the state of California and the state of New Mexico put Tranquility Base, the first lunar landing site, on their respective state registers. Now, that doesn't mean New Mexico or California owns it, but they recognize and respect that as a significant property to which they contributed. They helped get those guys to the moon?

Maria Varmazis (12:37)

Yes. How did you help inform the committee about why this all needs to be protected?

Dr. Beth O'Leary (12:44)

The USSR put the first robotic on the moon, Luna 2, in 1959. Now that's an important first for humanity. And that's the big thrust of this. Humanity did this. It's no one genius in a country, it's all geniuses and all people that got together, the engineers all over the world that got together and allowed this amazing exploration, if you will, of humanity to another celestial body. So the thrust is how do we as people get together and say, yes, the first lunar landing site with humans is important. Yes, the first robotic site on the moon is important. So we're all trying to figure out how we can agree, how we can come up with criteria and protocols and agree that we protect what humanity finds important.

Maria Varmazis (13:44)

And this step certainly is another important declaration in that. I guess the question that comes to mind for me is now that we have more voices, more important groups saying these are important sites for humanity. What happens next with all this? Is there something beyond this that we need to also be doing?

Dr. Beth O'Leary (14:08)

Yeah, the big work starts now because it has to be international in scope. Okay, now we have examples of this. Luckily here on Earth, the continent of Antarctica is governed by treaty and agreements. And it's kind of the most remote place, if you will, on Earth. It's not quite as remote as the moon, but people got together there and said, okay, Shackleton's hut, the ship that he was on, all these things people agreed with that. These are important objects, these are important places. And not that we're going to stop everybody from visiting them, but we're going to come up with protocols that do the least damage, that allow tourism, for example, but that also preserve the integrity of those amazing accomplishments. Same thing on the moon. You know, it's a very remote place. It's been protected by its remoteness for a long time, but the future is much more activity. And as this announcement was being made on the 15th of January, SpaceX just sent two lunar rovers up. So I think the time is now and we have precedence so we can do this. It's not impossible, it's certainly not easy and presents a lot of challenges, but we have an opportunity to do this.

Maria Varmazis (15:39)

I'm curious if you have a sort of call to action for folks in the space industry, especially as we grapple with these fascinating questions and as more companies are trying to have some sort of presence on the moon, to say nothing of other nations. What would you like them to know?

Dr. Beth O'Leary (15:54)

Well, I was part of a team that NASA put together in 2011 to write recommendations for space fearing entities. And that was the commercial sector also. They were actually asked, they actually asked NASA what should we do. And again, the recommendations. So again we depend on the expertise of people in space. You know, we want to understand when you put a lunar lander down, how much regolith does it move, how far away should one be to not obliterate, obliterate tracks, footprints, or affect those significant properties, those cultural resources on the moon. So the question really becomes, how can we all use our expertise together to figure out ways to preserve what we want to preserve and to preserve things for the future?

Maria Varmazis (16:49)

I have to ask sort of a sci fi question because my mind is just asking at what point do we say we've preserved everything? Up to now. Now every when do you imagine we might get to a point where the things that are on the moon, those are gonna be safe, but after a certain cutoff, it's. I don't even know how to ask that question.

Dr. Beth O'Leary (17:14)

No, no, no, that's a good question. For example, you know, we have had discussions about what we call the first space age, or from about 1959-72, when the last Apollo mission, should those be grandfathered in? Because obviously that was the space race, it's part of the Cold War. But commercial interests put the first things there. Is that important China in 1969, when those guys landed on the moon, China wasn't even involved in it. So the Chinese have an interest in preserving their cultural resources on the moon? That's a good question. Much of preservation here in the United States is done by evaluating the site for significance and then trying to avoid or mitigate the adverse impacts to it. So, you know, having places that you can't go to. We have a World Heritage site right here in New Mexico called Chaco Canyon. You know, it's available for people to see, it's an amazing site. But there are restrictions on what you can do at Chaco Canyon and you can't take the artifacts away from there. So again, we have these protocols not just in the United States, but all over the world. And if we can agree on those, then I think we're preserving humanity's heritage and respecting the fact that other nations that are non space faring also see the moon as an important place and also have a relationship through it, through its stories, its spiritual practices. So again, I can't emphasize enough the fact that humanity has to decide these things because this is our big chance. For me, this is our big moment. I remember when they stepped, Neil Armstrong stepped on the surface of the moon in 1969. And I know that many people have seen the footage from there. There are critical and extraordinary moments in the history of humanity. And I think they deserve our attention and they deserve a chance to exist in the world. To the future.

Maria Varmazis (19:57)

We'll be right back.

Dave (20:04)

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Maria Varmazis (21:23)

Welcome back. You know, I'm still kind of abuzz from seeing my very first rocket launch last week. I think I've described the experience to just about anyone who will listen. Did I mention I saw my very first rocket launch last week? And I bet a bunch of people out there today are also marking their first launches too. Because today, February 4, we are slated to have five count em, five rocket launches today around the world. This morning saw a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch at Cape Canaveral. And as we mentioned earlier in the show, Blue Origin had its New Shepard NH29 mission in Texas. And then quick spin around the world, we've got a rocket lab electron set to lift off from New Zealand for the IOT for you and me mission. And then another little quick spin around the world. SpaceX plans to have another mission from Florida on another Falcon 9. And then late tonight, another spin around the world. A Roscosmos Soyuz 2.1 v Volga will launch from Playtesk Cosmodrome.

Dr. Beth O'Leary (22:19)

Whew.

Maria Varmazis (22:20)

There you go. That's five launches in one day. So, hey, that's cool. So anyway, it feels like a good time to mention this. You know, for no reason at all that there's a new report out in Nature's scientific reports called, and I quote, aerospace closures due to reentering space objects that worked on the probability for a rocket body reentry within airspace over a range of air traffic densities for large, busy regions like the one I live in the entire Northeast, United States, Northern Europe, and major cities in the Asia Pacific. Apparently, according to this report, there is a 26% risk of uncontrolled space debris reentry causing problems. To be clear, those problems mainly mean aerospace closures and the risk of collision with an aircraft in flight is extremely low. But I mean, something to consider, I guess. Did I mention I saw my first rocket launch last week?

Dr. Beth O'Leary (23:11)

Yeah. Yeah.

Maria Varmazis (23:25)

And that's it for T minus for February 4, 2025, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes@space.n2k.com we're privileged that N2K and podcasts like T minus are part of the daily routine of many of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector, from the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies. N2K's senior producer is Alice Carruth. Our producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Ibin. Peter Kilby is our publisher and I am your host, Maria Varmazes. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. T minus.

Dr. Beth O'Leary (24:14)

It.