January 26, 2005

Name: Thomas Gangale

Age: 50

Occupation: Executive director of OPS-Alaska, a research firm with sites in Petaluma, Alaska and Russia, that studies issues of space exploration and human sociology.

Family: Gangale's 24-year-old son Darius lives in Ohio.

Background: A fifth-generation San Franciscan, Gangale joined the Air Force in 1974 as an air traffic controller. He left to study aerospace engineering at USC, but returned to the military after graduation to serve as a weapons system operator and navigator on F-4 fighter jets. When he returned to the Bay Area, his family had relocated to Marin County, and he followed. He made the jump to Petaluma when the chief researcher of OPS-Alaska moved here four years ago.

Back to school: After working on a number of satellite projects for the U.S. government and doing engineering design as a civilian for the Air Force, Gangale turned his efforts to a new field of study a few years ago. He enrolled in the international relations master's degree program at San Francisco State University, commuting from Petaluma.

"I have made the jump from the hard sciences to what social scientists like to call the harder sciences," he joked.

He expects to graduate in spring 2006, not as soon as he would have liked, but budget cutbacks have forced the school to only offer some courses once a year instead of every semester. Because there are no classes he needs this fall, he'll take a semester off and wait for 2006.

Mission to Mars: His entire life, Gangale has been fascinated by the possibilities of space exploration.

"I remember, at a very young age -- maybe 4 or 5 years old -- my father took me outside to see the first satellites in orbit," he said. "I remember the headlines about the launching of the first communications satellite, and, of course, the Mercury missions -- Al Shepard, John Glenn -- and I caught the bug. I'm very much a child of that age."

He got his aerospace degree with the hope that he would one day be able to help send people to Mars or back to the moon.

"I'm very interested in the human side of space exploration," Gangale said.

However, it became apparent to him that the country wasn't going to pursue the ambitious, human-focused space program that seemed possible in the 1960s.

"I became interested in the question of, 'Why not?'" he said. "What was it about the 1960s, in terms of social forces, domestic politics and international politics, that contributed to the decision to go to the moon? We had those cosmic tumblers of social forces fall into place in May of 1961 when Kennedy said, 'let's go to the moon.'"

He added, "I would like to be able to get a feel for what kinds of social forces might be on the horizon in the next 10 or 15 years that would really make the human exploration program become robust and sustainable, and not just a flags-and-footprints mission, where you plant your flag, you walk around a little bit, you come back and you never go again."

Planning the future: In pursuit of that goal, Gangale has taken on numerous projects and written several reports on the human factors in exploring space, particularly Mars.

"They're only focusing on the hardware," he said of current U.S. efforts. "You've got to design missions with humans in the loop."

He's created a potential Martian calendar and studied how months of isolation during a manned Mars voyage would affect a small crew, how the time delay during Earth-to-Mars communications would turn Mission Control into more of a "help desk," and how diversity in age, gender and background is necessary for the crew of an extended space mission.

"If you throw a bunch of fighter pilots together for three years, they'll fight amongst themselves, because they're all alpha males," he said. "Because their backgrounds are so similar, after a while they're just not interesting to each other anymore."

Where no hare has gone before: One of Gangale's experiments began almost as a spoof, but later turned into a serious proposal that he thinks could be useful for a future Mars colony.

He theorized that domesticated farm animals, long a part of human culture, would be part of any human colonies on other planets. His research led him to conclude that the ideal animal to take would be small, pose almost no health risk to humans, breed rapidly and require little care, among other factors.

The answer? Rabbits.

"As I got into it, I started following the logic and realized, 'Hey, there's something here,'" Gangale recalled. "I wondered why no one, as far as I know, has ever written a serious piece about animal husbandry in space."

He presented his proposal to the Mars Society in 1999, including a description of how he came to realize rabbit droppings would boost the fertility of Martian soil. (A friend in the space program got him some soil from a Hawaiian volcano that Gangale says closely matches the composition of Mars dirt.)

His experiment involved planting crops like tomatoes, radishes and carrots in two pots: One with regular "Martian" soil, and the other with soil enhanced with rabbit droppings.

The problem was the hard droppings wouldn't break down easily, so he resorted to a standard kitchen implement to mix the stuff -- a blender. "You might want to keep that in mind if you ever come over to my place for frozen margaritas," he joked.

On a more serious note, Gangale said rabbits are able to eat vegetable material that humans won't touch, creating manure that can be mixed with the soil on Mars for a farming program.

"It's already processed and it has a lot of nutrients in it; a lot of vitamins," he said. The experiment results seemed to back that up.

"Rabbit stuff seems to have 'the right stuff,'" he wrote.

Back here on Earth: Gangale's interest in the social sciences has also spread to politics and presidential elections, which he says are in serious need of fixing.

In the primary elections held a year ago, John Kerry quickly became the Democratic front-runner after winning contests in early but small states. With a "front-loaded" primary schedule designed to avoid a prolonged fight for the Democratic nomination (so the candidates wouldn't tear each other apart while President Bush's campaign waited on the sidelines for a weakened candidate to emerge), Kerry hardly had to spend money in later primary states like California -- even though a lot of Democrats had yet to vote, Gangale pointed out.

That system is unfair to voters, who deserve an extended campaign and the attention of as many candidates as possible, he said. "It does a disservice to the American people, because it does not allow them sufficient time to get to know the candidates well and make an informed decision. Thirty years ago, candidates would duke it out month after month, and the people would get to know them very well."

His criticism of the current system led Gangale to propose what he calls "The California Plan," a schedule based on the number of Congressional districts in each state. His plan allows larger states to play more of a role, while shuffling the order of primaries every presidential election.

Every two weeks, the number of total Congressional districts for the next round of primaries increases by eight. So if the first primaries are held in states that total eight districts, those contests could happen in one state with eight, two states with four each, or any other combination.

That allows different states to go first in election year after election year, and makes it possible for California to go as soon as the fourth round -- six weeks after the primaries begin, Gangale said.

His plan has drawn interest from both political parties, and he's spent hours on the phone going over the details with various elections officials and secretaries of state. Gangale said a recent conversation with New Hampshire's secretary of state focused on how New Hampshire, which has two Congressional districts, could still go first under The California Plan.

He's hopeful the plan may be considered when the Democratic Party releases a proposal for revising the 2008 presidential primaries.

Hobbies: Gangale considers himself a history buff, particularly ancient Roman history, and enjoys putting pen to paper.

"I just love to write," he said. He's also an artist, doing drawings when he can. "I don't devote enough time to it to be really good at it, but it's something I enjoy doing."

What has been your greatest challenge? "I think being in school again. It's more of a challenge now because I take it more seriously now. I was not a good student at USC; I got mediocre grades. But when I finally decided to go back to school, I said to myself, 'You're going to have to be serious because you're getting a very late start.'"

Favorite movies: "The Natural," with Robert Redford playing an old baseball player who finally makes it to the major leagues. Gangale sees parallels in his own life to the story of Redford's Roy Hobbs, who silences his critics by smacking one deep almost every time he's at bat.

"I feel like every paper I write for school, every class I take, I've got to hit a home run," Gangale said.

Favorite book: "Stranger in a Strange Land," by Robert Heinlein, the story of a man born during the first manned mission to Mars who returns to Earth as a stranger to human society.

Favorite food: "Anything spicy," Gangale said, including Indian, Ethiopian and Mexican food.

What has been your greatest accomplishment? "If I get The California Plan implemented, that will be my greatest accomplishment." And, if there's ever a trip to Mars, he hopes his research will help astronauts communicate with Earth and keep time according to his Martian calendar.

He'd love to be part of a Mars mission support team, but "the clock is running and I'm already 50," he said.

What are your goals in life? "I'm looking very seriously at going for a Ph.D. after my master's. I'm looking at being a student for the rest of my life -- keep life interesting; that's the goal."

And he hopes to contribute to his fields of study, whether in space exploration, politics or international relations.

"I want to make a valuable contribution," he said. "I want to leave this world better than I found it."

-- Interview by

Corey Young

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