{"id":4138,"date":"2018-12-18T08:00:07","date_gmt":"2018-12-18T13:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transy.edu\/1780\/?p=4138"},"modified":"2020-07-14T15:00:59","modified_gmt":"2020-07-14T19:00:59","slug":"how-can-we-land-on-an-asteroid-les-johnson-84-has-an-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transy.edu\/1780\/2018\/12\/how-can-we-land-on-an-asteroid-les-johnson-84-has-an-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"How can we land on an asteroid? Les Johnson ’84 has an idea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Photo courtesy lesjohnsonauthor.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Asteroids and Eastern Kentucky. Hard science and science fiction. Outer space and Earth\u2019s resources. These dimensions\u2014seemingly incongruent on the surface\u2014are integrated in the working imagination of Les Johnson \u201984. His liberal arts way of thinking is the bridge. His intellect, wide-eyed wonder and evangelical enthusiasm for deep space are the clinchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the time he was a boy in Ashland, Kentucky, watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon, he has been in thrall to outer space. Today, Johnson is a technology manager for NASA\u2019s Marshall Space Flight Center and the Solar Sail Principal Investigator for the Near-Earth Asteroid Scout Mission. After hours, he\u2019s a writer and frequent collaborator on popular-science and science-fiction books. Fascinatingly, the worlds are totally intertwined in Johnson, each feeding the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking into the night sky, he says, beckons big questions about our place and meaning. \u201cTo people who have not experienced the epiphany of a cloudless, no moon, starry night sky,\u201d he muses, \u201cI don\u2019t know how to describe it. It\u2019s a spiritual, emotional experience for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For him, there is something similar to be found in well-written science fiction that draws the reader into wondering: \u201cAre we alone in the universe?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would it be like to visit these other places?\u201d He says he gets the same \u201csense of awe and wonder of nature and the universe\u201d from science fiction and physics. \u201cAnd now, I get it in my day job. I\u2019m very lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At NASA, Johnson is considered by some to be \u201con the edge\u201d in terms of technologies because of his imagination and enthusiastic propensity to convince. \u201cI want to push the envelope,\u201d he says. And at sci-fi conventions\u2014where he was welcomed as a teen fan and, later, as a post-Transy critical thinker with a keen ability to explain physics\u2014he\u2019s thought to be a tad corporate; he represents NASA\u2019s scientific protocol of peer-reviewed science, rigor and due diligence. But he is highly successful and respected by both camps, with three prestigious Exceptional Achievement Medals from NASA, four space technology patents and multiple books of popular science and science fiction in publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine gently propelling a craft through outer space using no rocket thrust, just a solar sail consisting of a large, thin sheet of film that reflects sunlight. After rocketing through the earth\u2019s atmosphere, the mission relies on reflecting photons\u2014light particles\u2014to reach an asteroid and collect data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now picture convincing your superiors at NASA that this is a viable idea. Professionally, Johnson has been focused on solar sails for NASA since 1999. \u201cBut in my imagination,\u201d he says, \u201cit\u2019s much earlier than that.\u201dIt\u2019s the idea he convinced NASA to use, so the responsibility is his to make it work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The solar sail that he first read about in 1970s science fiction is now the propulsion system for the Near-Earth Asteroid Scout mission that will be launched next year. Yes, it\u2019s rocket science, but for Johnson, it\u2019s also the interplay between hard science and the imagination that fuels his love of science fiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is the first flight of a solar sail that I have led and the first one that NASA or anyone in the United States has flown beyond Earth and into deep space,\u201d he explains with equal measures of glee and sober realism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNature is trying to stop you at every turn. So, when you propose to do something new, it\u2019s very difficult to get that through the system because of the inherent risks\u2014and expense\u2014of doing something no one\u2019s done before.\u201d But he harped on the benefits of the new capability and successfully made his case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the NASA website, 1,409 near-Earth asteroids(having orbits that pass nearby the Earth) pose a potential hazard to our world. We need to know more about them. But for Johnson, asteroids also present an opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a native of Eastern Kentucky, he advocates the idea of mining asteroids to protect our planet. It\u2019s why he co-wrote \u201cHarvesting Space for a Greener Earth\u201d and, more recently, a sci-fi novel. \u201cMission to Methone,\u201d set in 2068, begins with an asteroid mining company looking at asteroids to mine; their survey vehicles are small aircraft propelled by solar sails. He thinks it will be common practice in 100 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson writes \u201chard science\u201d science fiction, meaning that the physics in his futuristic setting is physically possible. \u201cMy day job and education influence my writing in that I try to make the settings believable in science fiction. It\u2019s hard to say where the distinction is because in my day job I get to dream up some pretty cool stuff. If it\u2019s too cool for work, I take it to fiction,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inspiration for \u201cMission to Methone\u201d came during a series of weekly \u201crisk management\u201d meetings for the Near-Earth Asteroid Scout Mission. All of the experts gathered to brainstorm everything that could conceivably go wrong: \u201cThe rocket can fail. The communications antenna can fail. The power supply goes out. You get a cosmic ray that causes your computer to malfunction.There are a gazillion things that can go wrong,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day, several weeks into the relentless meetings, the person responsible for creating the flight plan from Earth to the asteroid introduced a less-than-one-percent chance that the asteroid could, in fact, be an old Saturn 5 rocket that had been captured in orbit around the sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Books by Les Johnson ’84. Photo courtesy lesjohnsonauthor.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe all turned around and looked at him and chuckled,\u201d Johnson recalls. But the idea, however fleeting, was enough to grab Johnson\u2019s imagination. For a moment he zoned out and thought, \u201cWow, what if it is an old space ship and it\u2019s not from Earth? What if it\u2019s been there for 50,000 years?\u201d He plotted the novel that night. \u201cMission to Methone\u201d was published last February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s how they interact,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople have their hobbies. I\u2019m in my technical world at work. Literature and fiction are in a different part of the brain. For me, it\u2019s cathartic. It\u2019s recreational to write.\u201d In the same month as \u201cMission to Methone,\u201d he also published a nonfiction book, \u201cGraphene: The Superstrong, Superthin, and Superversatile Material that Will Revolutionize the World.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The many challenging dimensions of Johnson\u2019s productivity relate directly to his liberal arts grounding: the unleashed imagination, the ability to integrate the many parts, the skill set and experiences that prepared him to communicate with a wide range of people and to convincingly make the case that is requisite to moving a project forward. He trumpets these connections, along with the ability to organize and manage projects of enormous scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, he attributes so much to his Transy experience that he insists to every intern he works with at NASA who has chosen a strictly engineering education, that they spend summers taking humanities courses, creative writing and public speaking. \u201cI guarantee you it will help you be better in your field,\u201d he tells them. (His daughter recently graduated from Transy.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, he describes what he does as a moral obligation. \u201cI see some real problems facing us as a world, with energy and the environment. I think things we\u2019re doing in space can help solve some of those problems. And if we don\u2019t start working on them now, then the solution gets postponed. We\u2019d better start now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article originally appeared in the spring\/summer 2018 issue of Third & Broadway.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The many challenging dimensions of Les Johnson\u2019s productivity relate directly to his liberal arts grounding at Transylvania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":4139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[49,138],"tags":[75,139],"feeds":[],"class_list":["post-4138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-third-broadway","tag-alumni","tag-third-broadway"],"yoast_head":"\nHow can we land on an asteroid? 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