Growing up, every kid has a dream job.
For many of us, it might be something improbable, like movie star or rock star, and in the end, we move on, find other goals and dreams.
But for the select few, like William & Mary research professor Joel S. Levine, who was in sixth grade when he first saw pictures of Mars at his neighborhood library, a one-time childhood passion evolved into a more than 40-year career in planetary science.
“I remember as a sixth grade student, I was amazed that there was another object orbiting the sun,” he said. “It was very, very exciting to me. At that time, I developed an interest in planets, in particular Mars, and I was very fortunate because I was able to pursue that area that I first became very excited about in the sixth grade.”
Levine went on to earn several degrees in physics and astronomy, including a Ph.D. in atmospheric science from the University of Michigan. He took a job at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton in 1970, where he began working on NASA’s Viking Project, which became the first U.S. mission to land a spacecraft on the surface of Mars.
“I first thought about Mars as a sixth-grade student in Brooklyn, New York, and then several decades later I was participating in the first successful soft landing on another planet in human history,” he said.
After spending 41 years at NASA, Levine retired and joined W&M’s faculty in 2011, while continuing to serve as a NASA consultant.
Recently, Levine published a new book, “The Impact of Lunar Dust on Human Exploration,” after the project was assigned by NASA. Levine spent about a year compiling and editing the book, which is about 300 pages and features contributions from 48 different scientists and scholars from NASA, the European Space Agency and from universities around the world.
Lunar dust, which, according to Levine, was “perhaps the major discovery of the Apollo program 50 years ago,” became an important topic of discussion again for NASA recently as it prepares to send humans back to the moon in 2024 ahead of the human missions to Mars scheduled for the 2030s.
“As Neil Armstrong was walking down the ladder, he communicated back to the control room that the surface of the moon appears to be covered by a 1 to 2 inch layer of very, very fine dust,” Levine said. “Unknown to Armstrong at the time is that this lunar dust is very detrimental to anything that comes in contact with it.”
The dust caused damage to equipment, helmets and space suits and even posed a health hazard for astronauts, causing eye irritation and respiratory issues.
“Now that we’re planning to send humans to Mars, we need experience in how you live off the land and how you function on another celestial body,” Levine said.
Knowing the problems that lunar dust posed on the first missions to Mars, Levine proposed an international conference to assemble researchers from around the world to come to the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston to give review papers on the effects of lunar dust. “The Impact of Lunar Dust on Human Exploration” is based on the results of the workshop and outlines what the actual lunar dust problem is and how the problem can be mitigated.
To find presenters for the conference, Levine did a literature search on the topic of lunar dust, and found papers written by scientists, engineers, medical doctors and researchers. He then invited a group to present their papers.
The book, published by Cambridge Scholars, can be found on the publisher’s website (www.cambridgescholars.com), and the ebook is available on Google Play.
With space exploration at the forefront of national thought once more, thanks in part to billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson as well as the renewed interest in both the moon and Mars, it is more important than ever to learn as much as possible about the conditions outside of Earth, Levine said.
“The future of the human species is going into space. … It’s a world movement to explore the solar system, and I think that as we go into the solar system, we’re going to find out more about how we got here, how the Earth was formed, how it evolved, how life formed and evolved,” he said. “The big payoff, once we find life outside the Earth, is we’re going to get new insights into human genetics and human disease. … I think there will be a golden age in biology, because for the first time, life scientists are going to study life that formed outside of the Earth.
“… I think there are going to be tremendous payoffs in the near future.”
Sian Wilkerson, sian.wilkerson@pilotonline.com
