JSPG Author Takes the Stage at AAAS: A Voyage From Earth to the Cosmos

Introducing Christian Johnson, the author of the JSPG paper, who shares his experience presenting the paper in collaboration with JSPG at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting. Johnson has a PhD in particle physics and works in the research side of the policy field. 

I recently had the pleasure of attending the AAAS annual meeting in Denver, Colorado, to present my paper published with JSPG. My talk was technically related to outer space, but it was decidedly more down-to-earth than the fate of the Universe. 

Imagine this: a towering structure reaching from Earth into the depths of outer space, capable of preparing us for space travel. That’s the essence of my talk about the space elevator, a hypothetical megastructure that, if built, would dramatically lower the cost of launching payloads into orbit. 

Space Travel in An Elevator

The idea behind the space elevator is simple: a counterweight is placed in outer space, and connected to the Earth by an extremely long cable. As the Earth rotates, centrifugal force holds the tether in tension, creating a scalable surface to which a “climber” can cling to and carry payloads. When the climber reaches an altitude of about 36,000 kilometers, it can simply release the payload that finds itself entering orbit – no muss, no fuss. 

By climbing up a tether instead of a rocket, the climber saves the hassle of carrying its fuel, which leads to dramatic cost savings. The whole thing is a bit zany and sci-fi, so I knew that engaging the audience wouldn’t be a problem. However, my main concern was toeing the right line between the fun and the practical. 

The main point of the paper was to discuss some of the geopolitical implications of the space elevator, and when my slides turned to the discussion of multinational treaties, I was worried it would become a snoozefest. But I was pleasantly surprised by the audience engagement. After a lively Q&A session and a discussion, we wrapped up with a group of students who were taken with the idea of a space elevator and the real-world implications. 

Diversity in Science

AAAS meetings are about much more than presenting the latest academic research. The conference is about bringing together scientists in different fields who wouldn’t normally talk to one another to meet, cross-pollinate ideas, and learn. This year’s theme “Towards Science Without Walls” underscores this point, and it was certainly reflective of my time in Denver. 

With my talk scheduled for the late afternoon, I had most of the day available to attend talks and found that the subjects spanned the whole of the scientific enterprise. I listened to Sheril Kirshenbaum present research on how Congressional staffers learn about scientific issues. Spoiler: listening to scientists is not their preference. 

Nearest to my heart was the overview presented by Maura McLaughlin and Xavier Siemens on the NANOGrav experiment, a network of telescopes that measure variations in pulsar periodicities across the sky as a way to detect low-frequency gravitational waves. I hadn’t closely followed this line of research since I graduated, so seeing the latest results, which show good evidence of a signal, was particularly interesting! We live in the era of  “multimessenger” astronomy, meaning signals from optical telescopes, neutrino telescopes, gravitational wave detectors, and other instruments can be used in concert to answer long-standing questions about the Universe, and this talk was a perfect example of that paradigm.

As if on cue, an unexpected treat awaited me while wandering the halls after the NANOGrav session: I ran into Joel Primack, who was in attendance to receive the prestigious lifetime achievement award (the Abelson Prize) from AAAS for his contributions to the ΛCDM theory,  the best current theory of how dark matter and dark energy shaped the Universe. Joel was an emeritus professor at UC Santa Cruz while I was a graduate student there, so it was great to catch up with him and congratulate him on the award! 

Launching Future JSPG Speakers

After giving my talk, I got some time to talk with Julianne McCall and Chiungwei Huang of JSPG, who were the ones who made my trip to Denver possible. Both of them are great; without their tireless efforts, the results laid out in my paper would certainly not have received interest in a short period during the conference. I’m hopeful that as JSPG sends future authors to conferences, they’ll have as good a time spreading their ideas and learning from others as I did. Indeed, science without walls!