NASA Chief Scientist Waleed Abdalati presented “Looking Homeward Toward Earth: The Power of Perspective,” Wednesday in the University of Idaho College of Law courtroom.
Steven Devine | Argonaut
NASA Chief Scientist Waleed Abdalati attends a press conference Wednesday at the College of Natural Resources, answering various science questions.
Abdalati said the key to understanding the Earth and space all comes down to perspective. When looking at the image of Earth from space people get a distant perspective, but when you move closer people see the movement of clouds and the changes in the ocean colors.
“You see a planet that’s alive. You see a living breathing planet that hosts life as we know it, our lives,” Abdalati said. “What could be more important?”
That is also how NASA gains support and funding for research. They are working to understand what hosts us, and the value of that is easy for people to understand in principle, he said.
NASA researches and works on other projects outside space.
Abdalati said that they have airborne and ground activities, because the earth is a system and you have to understand how the different parts of the system work with and affect each other.
“This week we are flying an Unpiloted Aerial Vehicle into hurricanes, into tropical storms to try to understand the structure of these storms,” he said.
College of Natural Resources professor Lee Vierling, who invited Abdalati to speak, said he invited Abdalati to UI because of his intimate knowledge of the relationships between the Earth’s climate and water cycle.
He said the data NASA has can help people understand the system of interconnections that influence the quality of life and that these connections are a natural fit to UI’s land grant mission — using advanced tools to improve the sustainability of Earth’s natural resources.
The research NASA has done and is doing will help tell the world what difference in the climate might be, Abdalati said. In the Palouse, changes in the climate can affect water, which might change soil fertility and what is grown in this area.
Abdalati said climate change can have a profound impact anywhere.
“We have to stay alert and pay attention to those changes and their impacts,” he said. “That is what is needed for success.”
Vierling said that Abdalati spent the day talking to students and faculty, and answering questions they had about NASA, science and life in general. He said Abdalati also spoke to classes Thursday.
“It was unreal to have him here and available,” said Isaiah Hoier, a senior majoring in ecology and conservation biology.
Abdalati said he loves talking to students.
As far as NASA’s relationship with schools, they are involved in direct and indirect ways, he said. With the direct ways they offer undergraduate internships and graduate fellowships, which are at the university level. In indirect ways they use their scientific content to generate interest.
“At NASA, it’s cool,” he said when explaining how they get elementary and middle school students interested in science.
He said that NASA is highly invested and want to enhance the STEM enterprise in high schools, and expects the relationships NASA has with land grant universities to only improve.
Abdalati is an expert in snow and ice, and he said he loves his job.
“I have a front row seat to some of society’s greatest achievements,” Abdalati said. “NASA is not just intellectual pursuits, but emotional pursuits too. We feel what we do.”
Abdalati said he got to where he is now because he does what energizes him.
“I am buoyed by loving this, and it shows, which creates opportunities,” he said.
Allison Griffith can be reached at arg-news.uidaho.edu