He is the original rocket scientist and Space is his sandbox. Smiling astrobiologist Kevin Hand had predicted that extraterrestrial life would be found in 20 years, at a Nasa meet earlier this year. Hand is the quintessential adventurer — he loves a good hike, ski or climb, and has the exuberance to explore beyond human limitations. He admits, “I think there is a misconception that scientists are boring and dry. To be a true innovator, you need to think creatively, and embrace imagination. You have to then use maths and physics to explain it, of course,” he says with a grin.
The young boy from Vermont Manchester, United States, who remembers spending hours staring at the night sky, now works at Nasa’s elite Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California and is currently deep in a project about Europa — one of Jupiter’s moons.
“I have been fascinated by the search for life in Space since I was a boy. It’s not believing whether it exists, it’s about those experiments to prove it. My work involves going to extreme environments here on Earth to examine microbial life forms. I’ve travelled to Antarctica, the Arctic, to the bottom of our ocean, to deserts — where conditions, temperature, pressure etc. are hostile. But there are ecosystems that thrive in places such as the Mariana Trench and in the dry valleys of Antarctica.”
About Europa, he explains, “It’s about the size of our own moon, covered in ice. Beneath Europa’s ice and shell, we have good reason to believe that there are liquid water oceans 100 km deep. Its ocean is a salty liquid with two to three times the volume of all the liquid water on Earth. I am working on trying to get a space craft to Europa,” he adds.
Hand was also part of a science expedition to the Mariana Trench — the deepest point in the world’s oceans — with director James Cameron for a part of a documentary, Aliens of the Deep. “James and I have a lot of fun brainstorming on new ideas for explorations. Whether it is art or science, the connective thread is the creative process. It is a wonderful bridge between the arts and science. James has often said his real passion is science, but he makes movies so that he can fund these expeditions that allow him to explore the oceans,” Hand adds. From the depths of oceans looking at hydrothermal vents, he declares, “If conditions are right, if we bring together liquid water, rocks, elements needed for life, and some energy, I have every expectation that we will find life out there. The exciting part is the prospect of building a spacecraft for these experiments.”
Complex, endless in terms of time, robotic explorations he feels are leaps of faith — be it Nasa’s Mars Curiosity Rover, the Cassini space craft hovering over Saturn, the Galileo craft that orbited Jupiter many years ago and upcoming missions that will explore Europa directly. Looking back, this Space scientist says, “Growing up in a small town under a beautiful night sky in Vermont was just beautiful. You look at the sky and can’t help but wonder whether there is life elsewhere,” says the Nasa genius.
Hand is also at the helm of Cosmos Education, which he started with a focus on advancing critical content in the developing world. “It is a fundamental component of learning. It’s easy to take for granted what it means to think critically. It is about learning how to ask questions. Often when students are learning, they are told not to ask questions, just listen and write. There is a misunderstanding that science is about answers. As a scientist, the most important things I do is ask questions. In the schools we visit Sub-Saharan Africa for hands-on experiments. Maybe, someday we will travel to India too,” Hand adds. Single and footloose in his pursuits, unlike worldly endeavours that see results sooner, exploring Space is a journey of patience, perseverance and belief.
“The Europa project will not be on the launch pad till 2022. And then, it might not even get there,” Hand feels, but it’s the idea that consumes him. “It’s a dream — the question is so grand, the potential answer so exciting. This exploration is definitely not for the faint of heart.” So, what about Space colonies? Will all of us, one day have neighbours in another star system? We ask Kevin this question, who was also recently on the jury for the Rolex Young Laureates 2014 awards.
“My work focuses on robotic explorations. But in 500 years, if we can learn how to live peacefully, then we will inhabit other worlds. Conflicts plaguing humanity are rooted in access to resources and they will become non-issues. If you need some iridium, we can harvest it from an asteroid belt. I hope by then we will have solar and fusion power and we will be launching ships to go mine asteroids instead of destroying forests. I have an optimistic view of our future provided we can get through the next few decades without destroying each other.”
