back to indexDava Newman: Space Exploration, Space Suits, and Life on Mars | Lex Fridman Podcast #51
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The following is a conversation with David Newman.
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She's the Apollo Program Professor at MIT
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and the former Deputy Administrator of NASA
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and has been a principal investigator
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on four space flight missions.
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Her research interests are in aerospace
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biomedical engineering, investigating human performance
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in varying gravity environments.
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She has designed and engineered and built
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some incredible space suit technology,
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namely the BioSuit that we talk about in this conversation.
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Due to some scheduling challenges on both our parts,
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we only had about 40 minutes together.
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And in true engineering style, she said,
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I talk fast, you pick the best questions, let's get it done.
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It was a fascinating conversation
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about space exploration and the future of spacesuits.
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This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast.
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If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube,
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give it five stars on Apple Podcast, support it on Patreon,
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or simply connect with me on Twitter
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at Lex Friedman, spelled F R I D M A N.
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For the first time, this show is presented by Cash App,
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And now, here's my conversation with Deva Newman.
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You circumnavigated the globe on boat,
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so let's look back in history.
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500 years ago, Ferdinand Magellan's crew
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was first to circumnavigate the globe,
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but he died, which I think people don't know,
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like halfway through, and so did 242 of the 260 sailors
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that took that three year journey.
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What do you think it was like for that crew at that time
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heading out into the unknown to face probably likely death?
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Do you think they were filled with fear, with excitement?
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Probably not fear, I think in all of exploration,
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the challenge and the unknown, so probably wonderment.
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And then just when you really are sailing the world's oceans,
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you have extreme weather of all kinds.
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When we were circumnavigating, it was challenging,
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a new dynamic, you really appreciate Mother Earth,
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you appreciate the winds and the waves,
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so back to Magellan and his crew,
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since they really didn't have a three dimensional map
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of the globe, of the Earth when they went out,
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just probably looking over the horizon thinking,
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what's there, what's there?
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So I would say the challenge that had to be really important
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in terms of the team dynamics and that leadership
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had to be incredibly important, team dynamics,
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how do you keep people focused on the mission?
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So you think the psychology, that's interesting,
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there's probably echoes of that in the space exploration
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stuff we'll talk about.
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So the psychology of the dynamics between the human beings
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on the mission is important?
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Absolutely, for a Mars mission, it's lots of challenges,
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technology, but since I specialize
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in keeping my astronauts alive, the psychosocial issues,
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the psychology of psychosocial team dynamics, leadership,
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that's, you know, we're all people, so that's gonna be,
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that's always a huge impact, one of the top three,
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I think, of any isolated, confined environment,
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any mission that is really pretty extreme.
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So your Twitter handle is devaexplorer,
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so when did you first fall in love with the idea
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Ah, that's a great question, you know, maybe as long
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as I can remember, as I grew up in Montana
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in the Rocky Mountains and Helena in the capital,
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and so literally, you know, Mount Helena was my backyard,
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was right up there, so exploring, being in the mountains,
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looking at caves, just running around,
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but always being in nature, so since my earliest memories,
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I, you know, think of myself as kind of exploring
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the natural beauty of the Rocky Mountains where I grew up.
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So exploration is not limited to any domain,
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it's just anything, so the natural domain of any kind,
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so going out to the woods into a place you haven't been,
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it's all exploration.
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I think so, yeah, I have a pretty all encompassing
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definition of exploration.
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So what about space exploration?
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When were you first captivated by the idea
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that we little humans could venture out into the space,
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into the great unknown of space?
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So it's a great year to talk about that,
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the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11,
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as I was alive during Apollo,
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and specifically Apollo 11, I was five years old,
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and I distinctly remember that, I remember that humanity,
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I'm sure I probably didn't know their names at the time,
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you know, there's Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin,
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and never forget Michael Collins in orbit,
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you know, those three men, you know,
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doing something that just seemed impossible,
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seemed impossible a decade earlier, even a year earlier,
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but so the Apollo program really inspired me,
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and then I think it actually just taught me to dream,
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to any impossible mission could be possible
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with enough focus, and I'm sure you need some luck,
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but you definitely need the leadership,
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you need the focus of the mission,
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so since an early age, I thought,
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of course, people, it should be interplanetary,
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of course, people, we need people on Earth,
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and we're gonna have people exploring space as well.
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So that seemed obvious, even at that age, of course.
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It opened it up, before we saw men on the moon,
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it wasn't obvious to me at all, but once we understood
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that yes, absolutely, astronauts, that's what they do,
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they explore, they go into space,
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and they land on other planets or moons.
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So again, maybe a romanticized philosophical question,
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but when you look up at the stars,
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knowing that, you know, there's at least 100 billion
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of them in the Milky Way galaxy, right,
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so we're really a small speck in this giant thing
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that's the visible universe,
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how does that make you feel about our efforts here?
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I love the perspective, I love that perspective,
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I always open my public talks
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with a big Hubble Space Telescope image,
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looking out into, you mentioned just now,
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the solar system, the Milky Way,
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because I think it's really important to know
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that we're just a small, pale, blue dot,
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we're really fortunate, we're on the best planet by far,
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life is fantastic here.
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That we know of, you're confident
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this is the best planet.
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I'm pretty sure it's the best planet,
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the best planet that we know of.
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I mean, I searched my researches, you know,
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in mission worlds, and when will we find life?
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I think actually probably the next decade,
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we find probably past life,
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probably the evidence of past life on Mars, let's say.
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You think there was once life on Mars,
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or do you think there's currently?
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I'm more comfortable saying probably 3.5 billion years ago,
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feel pretty confident there was life on Mars,
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just because then it had an electromagnetic shield,
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it had an atmosphere, has wonderful gravity level,
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three HGs, fantastic, you know, you're all super human,
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we can all slam dunk a basketball,
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I mean, it's gonna be fun to play sports on Mars.
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So I think we'll find past, no, fossilized,
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probably the evidence of past life on Mars.
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Currently, that's okay, we need the next decade,
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but the evidence is mounting for sure.
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We do have the organics, we're finding organics,
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we have water, seasonal water on Mars.
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We used to just know about the ice caps,
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you know, North and South Pole,
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now we have seasonal water.
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We do have the building blocks for life on Mars.
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We really need to dig down into the soil,
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because everything on the top surface is radiated,
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but once we find down, will we see any life forms?
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Will we see any bugs?
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I leave it open as a possibility,
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but I feel pretty certain that past life,
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or fossilized life forms, we'll find.
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And then we have to get to all these ocean worlds,
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these beautiful moons of other planets,
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since we know they have water,
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and we're looking for some simple search for life,
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follow the water, carbon based life,
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that's the only life we know.
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There could be other life forms that we don't know about,
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but it's hard to search for them, because we don't know.
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So in our search for life in the solar system,
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it's definitely search, follow the water,
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and look for the building blocks of life.
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So you think in the next decade,
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we might see hints of past life, or even current life?
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I think so, that's it.
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Pretty optimistic.
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I love the optimism.
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I'm pretty optimistic.
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Do humans have to be involved,
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or can this be robots and rovers and?
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Probably teams, I mean, we've been at it,
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on Mars in particular, 50 years.
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We've been exploring Mars for 50 years, great data, right?
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Our images of Mars today are phenomenal.
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Now we know how Mars lost its atmosphere.
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We're starting to know,
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because of the lack of the electromagnetic shield.
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We know about the water on Mars.
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So we've been studying 50 years with our robots,
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we still haven't found it.
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So I think once we have a human mission there,
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we just accelerate things.
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But it's always humans and our rovers and robots together.
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But we just have to think that 50 years,
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we've been looking at Mars, and taking images,
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and doing the best science that we can.
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People need to realize Mars is really far away.
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It's really hard to get to.
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You know, this is extreme, extreme exploration.
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We mentioned Magellan first,
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or all of the wonderful explorers and sailors of the past,
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which kind of are lots of my inspiration for exploration.
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Mars is a different ball game.
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I mean, it's eight months to get there,
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year and a half to get home.
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I mean, it's really extreme.
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The harsh environment in all kinds of ways.
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But the kind of organisms we might be able to see
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hints of on Mars are kind of microorganisms perhaps.
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Yeah, and remember that humans,
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we're kind of, you know, we're hosts, right?
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We're hosts to all of our bacteria and viruses, right?
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Do you think it's a big leap
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from the viruses and the bacteria to us humans?
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Put another way, do you think on all those moons,
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beautiful, wet moons that you mentioned,
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you think there's intelligent life out there?
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I mean, that's the hope, but you know,
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we don't have the scientific evidence for that now.
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I think all the evidence we have in terms of life existing
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is much more compelling again,
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because we have the building blocks of life now.
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When that life turns into intelligence, that's a big unknown.
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do you think we would be able to find a common language?
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We haven't met yet.
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It's just so far, I mean, do physics just play a role here?
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Look at all these exoplanets, 6,000 exoplanets.
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I mean, even the couple dozen Earth like planets
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that are exoplanets that really look like habitable planets.
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These are very Earth like.
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They look like they have all the building blocks.
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I can't wait to get there.
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The only thing is they're 10 to 100 light years away.
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So scientifically, we know they're there.
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We know that they're habitable.
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They have, you know, everything going from, right?
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Like, you know, we call them in the Goldilocks zone,
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not too hot, not too cold,
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just perfect for habitability for life.
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But now the reality is if they're 10 at the best
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to 100 to thousands of light years away,
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so what's out there?
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But I just can't think that we're not the only ones.
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So absolutely life, life in the universe,
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probably intelligent life as well.
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Do you think there needs to be fundamental revolutions
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in how we, the tools we use to travel through space
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in order for us to venture outside of our solar system?
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Or do you think the ways, the rockets,
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the ideas we have now, the engineering ideas we have now
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will be enough to venture out?
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Well, that's a good question.
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Right now, you know, cause again, speed of light is a limit.
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We don't have a warp speed warp drive
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to explore our solar system, to get to Mars,
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to explore all the planets.
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Then we need a technology push,
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but technology push here is just advanced propulsion.
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It'd be great if I could get humans to Mars
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and say, you know, three to four months, not eight months.
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I mean, half the time, 50% reduction.
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That's great in terms of safety and wellness of the crew.
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Orbital mechanic, but physics rules,
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you know, orbital mechanics is still there.
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Physics rules, we can't defy physics.
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So invent a new physics.
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I mean, look at quantum, you know,
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look at quantum theory.
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So you never know.
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Exactly, I mean, we are always learning.
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So we definitely don't know all the physics that exist too,
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but we're, we still have to, it's not science fiction.
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You know, we still have to pay attention to physics
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in terms of our speed of travel for space flight.
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So you were the deputy administrator of NASA
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and during the Obama administration,
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there's a current Artemis program
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that's working on a crewed mission to the moon
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and then perhaps to Mars.
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What are you excited about there?
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What are your thoughts on this program?
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What are the biggest challenges do you think
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of getting to the moon, of landing to the moon once again,
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and then the big step to Mars?
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Well, I love, you know, the moon program now, Artemis.
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It is definitely, we've been in low earth orbit.
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I love low earth orbit too,
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but I just always look at it as three phases.
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So low earth orbit where we've been 40 years,
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so definitely time to get back to deep space,
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time to get to the moon.
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There's so much to do on the moon.
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I hope we don't get stuck on the moon for 50 years.
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I really want to get to the moon, spend the next decade,
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first with the lander, then humans.
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There's just a lot to explore,
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but to me it's a big technology push.
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It's only three days away.
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So the moon is definitely the right place.
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So we kind of buy down our technology.
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We invest in specifically habitats, life support systems.
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We really need to understand really how to live off planet.
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We've been off planet and low earth orbit,
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but still that's only 400 kilometers up, 250 miles, right?
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So we get to the moon.
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It really is a great proving ground for the technologies.
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And now we're in deep space, radiation becomes a huge issue
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and to keep our astronauts well and alive.
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And I look at all of that investment for moon exploration
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to the ultimate goal, the horizon goals we call it,
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to get people to Mars.
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But we just don't go to Mars tomorrow, right?
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We really need a decade on the moon, I think,
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investing in the technologies, learning,
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making sure the astronauts are, their health,
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they're safe and well,
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and also learning so much about in situ research utilization,
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ISRU, in situ resource utilization is huge
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when it comes to exploration for the moon and Mars.
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So we need a test bed.
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And to me, it really is a lunar test bed.
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And then we use those same investments
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to think about getting people to Mars in the 2030s.
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So developing sort of a platform
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of all the kind of research tools of all the,
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what's the resource utilization, can you speak to that?
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Yeah, so ISRU for the moon, it's,
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we'll go to the South Pole and it's fascinating.
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We have images of it.
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Of course, we know there's permanently shaded areas
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and like by Shackleton crater,
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and there's areas that are permanently in the sun.
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Well, it seems that there's a lot of water ice,
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water that's entrapped in ice and the lunar craters.
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That's the first place you go.
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Because it's water and when you wanna try to,
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it could be fuel, life support systems.
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So you kind of, again, you go where the water is.
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And so when the moon is kind of for resources utilization,
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but to learn how to,
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can we make the fuels out of the resources
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that are on the moon?
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We have to think about 3D printing, right?
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You don't get to bring all this mass with you.
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You have to learn how to literally live off the land.
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We need a pressure shell.
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We need to have an atmosphere for people to live in.
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So all of that is kind of buying down the technology,
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doing the investigation, doing the science.
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What are the basically called lunar volatiles?
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What is that ice on the moon?
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How much of it is there?
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What are the resources look like?
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To me, that helps us, that's just the next step
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in getting humans to Mars.
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You know, it's cheaper and more effective
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to sort of develop some of these difficult challenges,
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like solve some of these challenges,
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practice, develop, test, and so on on the moon.
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Absolutely. That is on Mars.
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And people are gonna love to, you know,
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you get to the moon, you get to,
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you have a beautiful Earthrise.
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I mean, you have the most magnificent view of Earth
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So it just makes sense.
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I think we're gonna have thousands, lots of people,
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hopefully tens of thousands in low Earth orbit,
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because low Earth orbit is a beautiful place to go
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and look down on the Earth,
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but people wanna return home.
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I think the lunar explorers
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will also wanna do round trips
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and, you know, be on the moon, three day trip,
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explore, do science, also because the lunar day
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is 14 days and lunar nights, also 14 days.
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So in that 28 day cycle, you know,
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half of it is in light, half of it's in dark.
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So people would probably wanna do, you know,
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couple of week trips, month long trips,
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not longer than that.
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What do you mean by people?
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People, explorers.
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I mean, yeah, astronauts are gonna be civilians
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in the future too.
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Not all astronauts are gonna be government astronauts.
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Actually, when I was at NASA, we changed,
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we actually got the law changed to recognize astronauts
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that are not only government employees,
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you know, NASA astronauts
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or European Space Agency astronauts
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or Russian Space Agency that astronauts,
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because of the big push we put on the private sector,
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that astronauts essentially are gonna be astronauts.
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You get over 100 kilometers up
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and think once you've done orbital flight,
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then you're an astronaut.
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So a lot of private citizens are gonna become astronauts.
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Do you think one day you might step foot on the moon?
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I think it'd be good to go to the moon.
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I'd give that a shot.
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Mars, I'm gonna, it's my life's work
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to get the next generation to Mars.
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That's you or even younger than you,
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you know, my students generation
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will be the Martian explorers.
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I'm just working to facilitate that,
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but that's not gonna be me.
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Hey, the moon's pretty good.
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And it's a lot tough.
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I mean, it's still a really tough mission.
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It's an extreme mission, exactly.
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It's great for exploration, but doable,
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but again, before Apollo,
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we didn't think getting humans to the moon was even possible.
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So we kind of made that possible, but we need to go back.
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We absolutely need to go back.
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We're investing in the heavy lift launch capabilities
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that we need to get there.
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We haven't had that, you know,
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since the Apollo days, since Saturn five.
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So now we have three options on the board.
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That's what's so fantastic.
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NASA has its space launch system.
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SpaceX is gonna have its heavy capability
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and Blue Origin is coming along too with heavy lifts.
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So that's pretty fantastic from where I sit.
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I'm the Apollo program professor.
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Today I have zero heavy lift launch capability.
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I can't wait, just in a few years,
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we'll have three different heavy lift launch capabilities.
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So that's pretty exciting.
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You know, your heart is perhaps with NASA,
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but you mentioned SpaceX and Blue Origin.
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What are your thoughts of SpaceX
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and the innovative efforts there
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from the sort of private company aspect?
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Oh, they're great.
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They're, remember that the investments in SpaceX
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is government funding.
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It's NASA funding, it's US Air Force funding,
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just as it should be,
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because they're betting on a company who is moving fast,
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has some new technology development.
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So when I was at NASA,
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it really was under our public private partnerships.
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So necessarily the government needs to fund
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Now, SpaceX is no longer a startup,
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but you know, it's been at it for 10 years.
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It's had some accidents, learned a lot of lessons,
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but it's great because it's the way you move faster.
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And also some private industry folks,
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some private businesses will take a lot more risk.
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That's also really important for the government.
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What do you think about that culture of risk?
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I mean, sort of NASA and the government
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are exceptionally good at delivering sort of safe,
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like there's a bit more of a culture of caution and safety
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and sort of this kind of solid engineering.
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And I think SpaceX as well has the same kind of stuff.
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It has a little bit more of that startup feel
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where they take the bigger risks.
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Is that exciting for you to see,
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seeing bigger risks in this kind of space?
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And the best scenario is both of them working together
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because there's really important lessons learned,
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especially when you talk about human space flight,
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safety, quality assurance.
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These things are the utmost importance,
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both aviation and space, you know,
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when human lives are at stake.
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On the other hand, government agencies,
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NASA can be European Space Agency, you name it,
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they become very bureaucratic, pretty risk averse,
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move pretty slowly.
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So I think the best is when you combine the partnerships
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Industry necessarily has to push the government,
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take some more risks.
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You know, they're smart risk
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or actually gave an award at NASA for failing smart.
link |
Failing smart, I love that.
link |
You know, so you can kind of break open the culture,
link |
say, no, look at Apollo, that was a huge risk.
link |
So there's always a culture of safety, quality assurance,
link |
you know, engineering, you know, at its best.
link |
But on the other hand, you want to get things done
link |
and you have to also get them,
link |
you have to bring the cost down.
link |
You know, for when it comes to launch,
link |
we really have to bring the cost down
link |
and get the frequency up.
link |
And so that's what the newcomers are doing.
link |
They're really pushing that.
link |
So it's about the most exciting time
link |
that I can imagine for space flight.
link |
Again, a little bit, it really is the democratization
link |
of space flight, opening it up,
link |
not just because of the launch capability,
link |
but the science we can do on a CubeSat.
link |
What you can do now for very,
link |
those used to be, you know, student projects
link |
that we would go through, conceive, design, implement,
link |
and think about what a small satellite would be.
link |
Now they're the most, you know,
link |
these are really advanced instruments,
link |
science instruments that are flying on little teeny CubeSats
link |
that pretty much anyone can afford.
link |
So there's not a, there's every nation,
link |
you know, every place in the world can fly a CubeSat.
link |
Oh, CubeSat is a, this is called 1U.
link |
CubeSats we measure in terms of units.
link |
So, you know, just in terms of, I put my,
link |
both my hands together, that's one unit, two units.
link |
So little small satellites.
link |
So CubeSats are for small satellites.
link |
And we actually go by mass as well.
link |
You know, a small satellite might be a hundred kilos,
link |
200 kilos, all well under a thousand kilos.
link |
CubeSats then are the next thing down from small sats.
link |
You know, basically, you know,
link |
kilos, tens of kilos, things like that.
link |
But kind of the building blocks,
link |
CubeSats are fantastic design,
link |
it's kind of modular design.
link |
So I can take a 1U, one unit of CubeSat and, you know,
link |
but what if I have a little bit more money and payload,
link |
I can fly three of them
link |
and just basically put a lot more instruments on it.
link |
But essentially think about something
link |
the size of a shoe box, if you will.
link |
You know, that would be a CubeSat.
link |
And how do those help empower you in terms of doing size,
link |
in terms of doing experiments?
link |
Oh, right now there's, again,
link |
back to private industry, Planet, the company,
link |
is, you know, flying CubeSats
link |
and literally looking down on Earth
link |
and orbiting Earth, taking a picture, if you will,
link |
of Earth every day, every 24 hours,
link |
covering the entire Earth.
link |
So in terms of Earth observations,
link |
in terms of climate change,
link |
in terms of our changing Earth,
link |
it's revolutionizing because they're affordable.
link |
We can put a whole bunch of them up.
link |
Telecoms, we're all, you know, on our cell phones
link |
and we have GPS, we have our telecoms,
link |
but those used to be very expensive satellites
link |
providing that service.
link |
Now we can fly a whole bunch of modular CubeSats.
link |
So it really is breakthrough in terms of modularity,
link |
as well as cost reduction.
link |
So that's one exciting set of developments.
link |
Is there something else that you've been excited about,
link |
like reusable rockets, perhaps,
link |
that you've seen in the last few years?
link |
Yeah, well, the reusability you had,
link |
and the reusability is awesome.
link |
I mean, it's just the best.
link |
Now we have to remember, the shuttle was a reusable vehicle.
link |
Which, and the shuttle is an amazing,
link |
it's narrow space engineer.
link |
You know, I mean, the shuttle is still,
link |
this is the most gorgeous, elegant,
link |
extraordinary design of a space vehicle.
link |
It was reusable, it just wasn't affordable.
link |
But the reusability of it was really critical
link |
because we flew it up, it did come back.
link |
So the notion of reusability, I think absolutely.
link |
Now what we're doing with we, you know,
link |
the Global We, but with SpaceX and Lord Jim,
link |
setting the rockets up, recovering the first stages,
link |
where if they can regain 70% cost savings, that's huge.
link |
And just seeing the control,
link |
you know, being in control and dynamic as a person,
link |
just seeing that rocket come back and land.
link |
It never gets old, it's exciting every single time
link |
you look at it and say, that's magic.
link |
To me, the landing is where I stand up,
link |
start clapping, just the control.
link |
Yeah, just the algorithm, just the control algorithms,
link |
and hitting that landing, it's, you know,
link |
it's gymnastics for rocket ships,
link |
but to see these guys stick a landing,
link |
it's just wonderful.
link |
So every time, like I say, every time I see,
link |
you know, the reusability and the rockets coming back
link |
and landing so precisely, it's really exciting.
link |
So it is actually, that's a game changer.
link |
We are in a new era of lower costs
link |
and the higher frequency.
link |
And it's the world, not just NASA,
link |
many nations are really upping their frequency of launches.
link |
So you've done a lot of exciting research,
link |
design, engineering on spacesuits.
link |
What does the spacesuit of the future look like?
link |
Well, if I have anything to say about it,
link |
it'll be a very, it'll be a very tight fitting suit.
link |
We use mechanical counter pressure
link |
to pressurize right directly on the skin.
link |
Seems that it's technically feasible.
link |
We're still at the research and development stage.
link |
We don't have a flight system, but technically it's feasible.
link |
So we do a lot of work in the materials.
link |
You know, what materials do we need to pressurize someone?
link |
What's the patterning we need?
link |
That's what our patents are in, the patterning,
link |
kind of how we apply.
link |
This is a third of an atmosphere.
link |
Just to sort of take a little step back,
link |
you have this incredible biosuit where it's tight fitting,
link |
so it allows more mobility and so on.
link |
So maybe even to take a bigger step back,
link |
like what are the functions that a spacesuit should perform?
link |
Sure, so start from the beginning.
link |
A spacesuit is the world's smallest spacecraft.
link |
So I really, that's the best definition I can give you.
link |
Right now we fly gas pressurized suits,
link |
but think of developing and designing an entire spacecraft.
link |
So then you take all those systems
link |
and you shrink them around a person,
link |
provide them with oxygen to breathe,
link |
scrub out their carbon dioxide,
link |
you know, make sure they have pressure.
link |
They need a pressure environment to live in.
link |
So really the spacesuit is a shrunken,
link |
you know, spacecraft in its entirety,
link |
has all the same systems.
link |
Communication as well, probably.
link |
Yeah, communications, exactly.
link |
So you really, thermal control,
link |
little bit of radiation, not so much radiation protection,
link |
but thermal control, humidity, you know, oxygen debris.
link |
So all those life support systems,
link |
as well as the pressure protection.
link |
So it's an engineering marvel, you know,
link |
the spacesuits that have flown
link |
because they really are entire spacecraft,
link |
they're the small spacecraft that we have around a person,
link |
but they're very massive,
link |
but 140 kilos is the current suit,
link |
and they're not mobility suits.
link |
So since we're going back to the moon and Mars,
link |
we need a planetary suit, we need a mobility suit.
link |
So that's where we've kind of flipped the design paradigm.
link |
I study astronauts, I study humans in motion,
link |
and if we can map that motion,
link |
I want to give you full flexibility,
link |
you know, move your arms and legs.
link |
I really want you to be like a Olympic athlete,
link |
an extreme explorer.
link |
I don't want to waste any of your energy,
link |
so we take it from the human design.
link |
So I take a look at humans, we measure them, we model them,
link |
and then I say, okay, can I put a spacesuit on them
link |
that goes from the skin out?
link |
So rather than a gas pressurized shrinking
link |
that spacecraft around the person,
link |
say, here's how humans perform,
link |
can I design a spacesuit literally from the skin out?
link |
And that's what we've come up with,
link |
a mechanical counter pressure, some patterning,
link |
and that way it could be order of magnitude less
link |
in terms of the mass,
link |
and it should provide maximum mobility for moon or Mars.
link |
What's mechanical counter pressure?
link |
Like how the heck can you even begin
link |
to create something that's tight fitting
link |
and still doesn't protect you from the elements and so on
link |
and the whole, the pressure thing?
link |
That's the challenge, it's a big design challenge
link |
we've been working on it for.
link |
So you can either put someone in a balloon,
link |
that's one way to do it, that's conventional,
link |
that's the only thing we've ever formed.
link |
That means the balloon that you fill with gas?
link |
That's a gas pressurized suit.
link |
If you put someone in a balloon,
link |
it's only a third of an atmosphere
link |
to keep someone alive.
link |
So that's what the current system is.
link |
So depending on what units you think,
link |
in 30 kilopascals, 4.3 pounds per square inch.
link |
So much less than the pressure that's on Earth.
link |
You can still keep a human alive with 0.3
link |
and it's alive and happy.
link |
And you mix the gases.
link |
June, we're having this chat
link |
and we're at one sea level in Boston, one atmosphere.
link |
But a suit. Oxygen and nitrogen.
link |
Oxygen and nitrogen.
link |
And you put a suit, if we put someone to a third
link |
of an atmosphere, so for mechanical counter pressure now,
link |
so one way is to do it with a balloon.
link |
And that's what we currently have.
link |
Or you can apply the pressure directly to the skin.
link |
I only have to give you a third of an atmosphere.
link |
Right now, you and I are very happy in one atmosphere.
link |
So if I put that pressure, a third of an atmosphere on you,
link |
I just have to do it consistently,
link |
across all of your body and your limbs.
link |
And it'll be a gas pressurized helmet.
link |
Doesn't make sense to shrink wrap the head.
link |
See the blue mangrove, that's a great, it's a great act.
link |
But we don't need to, there's no benefits
link |
of like shrink wrapping the head.
link |
You put, you know, a gas pressurized helmet
link |
because the helmet then, the future of suits,
link |
you asked me about, the helmet just becomes
link |
your information portal.
link |
So it will have augmented reality.
link |
It'll have all the information you need.
link |
Should have, you know, the maps that I need.
link |
Okay, well, hey, smart helmet.
link |
Then show me the map, show me the topography.
link |
Hopefully it has the lab embedded too.
link |
If it has really great cameras,
link |
maybe I can see with that regolith.
link |
That's just lunar dust and dirt.
link |
What's that made out of?
link |
We talked about the water.
link |
So the helmet then really becomes this information portal
link |
is how I see kind of the IT architecture of the helmet
link |
is really allowing me to, you know,
link |
use all of my modalities of an explorer that I'd like to.
link |
So cameras, voiceover, images, if it were really good,
link |
it would kind of be, would have lab capabilities as well.
link |
Okay, so the pressure comes from the body,
link |
comes from the mechanical pressure.
link |
Now, what aspect, when I look at Biosuit,
link |
just the suits you're working on,
link |
sort of from a fashion perspective, they look awesome.
link |
Is that a small part of it too?
link |
Oh, absolutely, because the teams that we work with,
link |
of course, I'm an engineer, there's engineering students,
link |
there's design students, there's architects.
link |
So it really is a very much a multidisciplinary team.
link |
So sure, colors, aesthetics, materials,
link |
all those things we pay attention to.
link |
So it's not just an engineering solution.
link |
It really is a much more holistic, it's a suit.
link |
It's a suit, you're, you know,
link |
you're dressed in a suit now.
link |
It's a warm fitting.
link |
So we really have to pay attention to all those things.
link |
And so that's the design team that we work with.
link |
And my partner, Geetraati, you know,
link |
we're partners in this in terms of,
link |
he comes from an architecture, industrial design background.
link |
So bringing those skills to bear as well.
link |
We team up with industry folks who are in, you know,
link |
athletic performance and designers.
link |
So it really is a team
link |
that brings all those skills together.
link |
So what role does this space suit play
link |
in our longterm staying in Mars,
link |
sort of exploring the,
link |
doing all the work that astronauts do,
link |
but also perhaps civilians one day,
link |
almost like taking steps towards colonization of Mars?
link |
What role does a space suit play there?
link |
So you always need life support system, pressurized habitat.
link |
And I like to say, we're not going to Mars to sit around.
link |
So you need a suit.
link |
You know, even if you land and have the lander,
link |
you're not going there to stay inside.
link |
That's for darn sure.
link |
We're going there to search for the evidence of life.
link |
That's why we're going to Mars.
link |
So you need a lot of mobility.
link |
So for me, the suit is the best way
link |
to give the human mobility.
link |
We're always still going to need rovers.
link |
We're going to need robots.
link |
So for me, exploration is always a suite of explorers.
link |
Some people are going to,
link |
some of the suite of explorers are humans,
link |
but many are going to be robots, smart systems,
link |
But I look at it as kind of all those capabilities together
link |
make the best exploration team.
link |
So let me ask, I love artificial intelligence
link |
and I've also saw that you've enjoyed the movie
link |
Space Odyssey, 2001 Space Odyssey.
link |
Let me ask the question about HAL 9000.
link |
That makes a few decisions there
link |
that prioritizes the mission over the astronauts.
link |
Do you think, from a high philosophical question,
link |
do you think HAL did the right thing
link |
of prioritizing the mission?
link |
I think our artificial intelligence
link |
will be smarter in the future.
link |
For a Mars mission, it's a great question
link |
that the reality is for a Mars mission,
link |
we need fully autonomous systems.
link |
We will get humans, but they have to be fully autonomous.
link |
And that's a really important,
link |
that's the most important concept
link |
because there's not going to be a mission control on Earth.
link |
20 minute time lag,
link |
there's just no way you're going to control it.
link |
So fully autonomous,
link |
so people have to be fully autonomous as well,
link |
but all of our systems as well.
link |
And so that's the big design challenge.
link |
So that's why we test them out on the moon as well.
link |
When we have a, okay, a few second,
link |
three second time lag, you can test them out.
link |
We have to really get autonomous exploration down.
link |
You asked me earlier about Magellan.
link |
Magellan and his crew, they left, right?
link |
They were autonomous.
link |
You know, they were autonomous.
link |
They left and they were on their own
link |
to figure out that mission.
link |
Then when they hit land, they have resources,
link |
that's in situ resource utilization
link |
and everything else they brought with them.
link |
So we have to, I think, have that mindset for exploration.
link |
Again, back to the moon, it's more the testing ground,
link |
the proving ground with technologies.
link |
But when we get to Mars, it's so far away
link |
that we need fully autonomous systems.
link |
So I think that's where, again, AI and autonomy come in,
link |
a really robust autonomy,
link |
things that we don't have today yet.
link |
So they're on the drawing boards,
link |
but we really need to test them out
link |
because that's what we're up against.
link |
So fully autonomous meaning like self sufficient.
link |
There's still a role for the human in that picture.
link |
Do you think there'll be a time when AI systems,
link |
beyond doing fully autonomous flight control
link |
will also help or even take mission decisions
link |
That's interesting.
link |
I mean, they're gonna be designed by humans.
link |
I think as you mentioned, humans are always in the loop.
link |
I mean, we might be on Earth,
link |
we might be in orbit on Mars,
link |
maybe the systems of landers down on the surface of Mars.
link |
But I think we're gonna get,
link |
we are right now just on Earth based systems,
link |
AI systems that are incredibly capable
link |
and training them with all the data that we have now,
link |
petabytes of data from Earth.
link |
What I care about for the autonomy and AI right now,
link |
how we're applying it in research
link |
is to look at Earth and look at climate systems.
link |
I mean, that's the, it's not for Mars to me today.
link |
Right now AI is to eyes on Earth,
link |
all of our space data, compiling that using supercomputers
link |
because we have so much information and knowledge
link |
and we need to get that into people's hands.
link |
First, there's the educational issue with climate
link |
and our changing climate.
link |
Then we need to change human behavior.
link |
That's the biggie.
link |
So this next decade, it's urgent
link |
we take care of our own spaceship, which is spaceship Earth.
link |
So that's to me where my focus has been for AI systems,
link |
using whatever's out there,
link |
kind of imagining also what the future situation is,
link |
what's the satellite imagery of Earth of the future.
link |
If you can hold that in your hands,
link |
that's gonna be really powerful.
link |
Will that help people accelerate positive change for Earth
link |
and for us to live in balance with Earth?
link |
And kind of start with the ocean systems.
link |
So oceans to land to air and kind of using
link |
all the space data.
link |
So it's a huge role for artificial intelligence
link |
to help us analyze, I call it curating the data,
link |
It has a lot to do with visualizations as well.
link |
Do you think in a weird, dark question,
link |
do you think human species can survive
link |
if we don't become interplanetary
link |
in the next century or a couple of centuries?
link |
Absolutely we can survive.
link |
I don't think Mars is option B actually.
link |
So I think it's all about saving spaceship Earth
link |
I simply put, Earth doesn't need us,
link |
but we really need Earth.
link |
All of humanity needs to live in balance with Earth
link |
because Earth has been here a long time
link |
before we ever showed up
link |
and it'll be here a long time after.
link |
It's just a matter of how do we wanna live
link |
with all living beings, much more in balance
link |
because we need to take care of the Earth
link |
and right now we're not.
link |
So that's the urgency.
link |
And I think it is the next decade
link |
to try to live much more sustainably,
link |
live more in balance with Earth.
link |
I think the human species has a great long optimistic future,
link |
but we have to act.
link |
We have to change behavior.
link |
We have to realize that we're all in this together.
link |
It's just one blue bubble.
link |
It's for humanity.
link |
So when I think people realize that we're all astronauts,
link |
that's the great news is everyone's gonna be an astronaut.
link |
We're all astronauts of spaceship Earth.
link |
And again, this is our mission.
link |
This is our mission to take care of the planet.
link |
And yet as we explore out from our spaceship Earth here
link |
out into the space,
link |
what do you think the next 50, 100, 200 years
link |
look like for space exploration?
link |
So I think that we'll have lots of people,
link |
thousands of people, tens of thousands of people,
link |
who knows, maybe millions in low Earth orbit.
link |
That's just a place that we're gonna have people
link |
and actually some industry, manufacturing, things like that.
link |
That dream I hope we realize, getting people to the moon.
link |
So I can envision a lot of people on the moon.
link |
Again, it's a great place to go.
link |
Living or visiting?
link |
Probably visiting and living.
link |
If you want to, most people are gonna wanna come back
link |
to Earth, I think.
link |
But there'll be some people and it's not such a long,
link |
it's a good view, it's a beautiful view.
link |
So I think that we will have many people
link |
on the moon as well.
link |
I think there'll be some people, you told me, wow,
link |
hundreds of years out.
link |
So we'll have people, we'll be interplanetary for sure
link |
So I think we'll be on the moon.
link |
I think we'll be on Mars.
link |
Venus, no, it's already a runaway greenhouse gas.
link |
So not a great place for science.
link |
Jupiter, all within the solar system,
link |
great place for all of our scientific probes.
link |
I don't see so much in terms of human physical presence.
link |
We'll be exploring them.
link |
So we live in our minds there because we're exploring them
link |
and going on those journeys.
link |
But it's really our choice in terms of our decisions
link |
of how in balance we're gonna be living here on the Earth.
link |
When do you think the first woman, first person will step on Mars?
link |
Well, I'm gonna do everything I can
link |
to make sure it happens in the 2030s.
link |
Say mid, 20, mid 20, 2025, 2035, we'll be on the moon.
link |
And hopefully with more people than us.
link |
But first with a few astronauts,
link |
it'll be global, international folks.
link |
But we really need those 10 years, I think, on the moon.
link |
And then so by later in the decade, in the 2030s,
link |
we'll have all the technology and know how,
link |
and we need to get that human mission to Mars done.
link |
We live in exciting times.
link |
And, Dava, thank you so much for leading the way
link |
and thank you for talking today.
link |
I really appreciate it. Thank you, my pleasure.
link |
Thanks for listening to this conversation
link |
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link |
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link |
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