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Speaker 4: Hey Daniel, have you been ordering stuff online a lot lately?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? You know, like everyone, I've been clicking on websites

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Speaker 1: rather than visiting stores.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you don't need a mass when you click. I

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Speaker 4: guess it is pretty amazing how inexpensive it is these

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Speaker 4: days to get stuff sent to your house from around

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Speaker 4: the world.

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Speaker 1: Even if it comes from the other side of the planet.

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Speaker 1: It can just be like a few cents per gram

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Speaker 1: to ship it to your house.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I wonder when we can start ordering

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Speaker 4: stuff from even further away.

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Speaker 1: I've been trying to order some moon rocks. I wonder

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Speaker 1: how much is the shipping on those things.

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Speaker 4: Well, I heard NASA spend about three hundred thousand dollars

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Speaker 4: per gram to get some moon rocks. But you know,

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Speaker 4: I think it's cheaper if you have prime.

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Speaker 1: You know, Jeff Bezos is starting his own rocket company,

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Speaker 1: so he's probably gonna link that up and make it

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Speaker 1: super cheap.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. Why visit other planets when you can just order

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Speaker 4: a little bit of them online? Or Hey, I'm a

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Speaker 4: cartoonist and the creator of PhD comics.

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Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I would love

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Speaker 1: to have a little bit of Jupiter delivered to my house.

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Speaker 4: He really, huh, Isn't Jupiter mostly gas? So you just

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Speaker 4: wanted like a canister or just to like release it

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Speaker 4: in your home to know that you breathe it in

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Speaker 4: a little bit of Jupiter.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, Jupiter is mostly gas, but some of

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Speaker 1: that gas is in a really weird state, like metallic hydrogen,

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Speaker 1: and that makes me really curious. I really want to

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Speaker 1: see what metallic hydrogen looks like.

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Speaker 4: Hmmm, doesn't need to be like super under pressure.

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Speaker 1: Hey, these are all engineering details. I just want the

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Speaker 1: metallic hydrogen order to my house. I'm just clicking and waiting.

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Speaker 4: I want a little bit of that gas from the

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Speaker 4: red eye of Jupiter, like it is the gas. Also

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Speaker 4: read what's going on there?

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Speaker 1: I think we did a whole pod episode on that one.

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Speaker 4: I should listen to it. But welcome to said podcast.

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Speaker 4: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of iHeartRadio in.

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Speaker 1: Which we let you stay at home and order it

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Speaker 1: information about the whole universe delivered to your ears without

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Speaker 1: any effort on your part. We talk about things in

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Speaker 1: the universe that are super far away. We talk about

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Speaker 1: the tiny particles that are swimming inside your body. We

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Speaker 1: talk about everything and anything, and we try to explain

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Speaker 1: all of it to you as right.

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Speaker 4: We try to bring the universe and the cosmos and

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Speaker 4: everything in between to your brain free of charge.

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Speaker 1: Because wondering belongs to everybody, and the questions that you

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Speaker 1: have about space and physics and the universe. Are the

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Speaker 1: questions that everybody has, and the same questions that scientists

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Speaker 1: want answers to.

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Speaker 4: Because we're all still learning about the universe, and part

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Speaker 4: of that learning is exploring, is going out into the cosmos,

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Speaker 4: into other planets and to the stars and figuring out

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Speaker 4: out what's going on there and what is there for

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Speaker 4: us to do discover.

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Speaker 1: And sometimes it's so depressing to think that we've explored

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Speaker 1: such a tiny little fraction of our universe. You know,

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Speaker 1: we've barely gotten off this planet to explore the Moon,

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Speaker 1: to land a few rovers on Mars. It's incredible what

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Speaker 1: a tiny little dot of the universe we have been

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Speaker 1: able to explore so far.

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Speaker 4: But what a dot it is. It's a pretty cool dot.

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Speaker 1: And we're lucky that there is something to explore. I mean,

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Speaker 1: right in our neighborhood, right next door, there's an amazing planet, Mars,

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Speaker 1: that really has a lot of tantalizing and fascinating scientific questions.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, Mars is awesome, and so we'd like to know

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Speaker 4: a little bit more about what is there on Mars.

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Speaker 4: I mean, we can see it, but so far we

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Speaker 4: haven't been able to really, I don't know study it

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Speaker 4: up close.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty hard because it's so far away, and all

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Speaker 1: we've been able to do so far is send our

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Speaker 1: robots there and have them do science. But that's sort

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Speaker 1: of like trying to do science with a ten foot

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Speaker 1: pole or a ten million mile long pole. That's not

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Speaker 1: easy to do.

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Speaker 4: That's kind of a philosophical question, isn't it, Daniel, Like

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Speaker 4: if you send a robot out to explore something, have

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Speaker 4: you explored it? Technically? Like if the robot touches Mars,

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Speaker 4: did you touch Mars? Did humans touch Mars?

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Speaker 6: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: I mean if you have a robotic hand, you consider

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Speaker 1: it part of yourself. If you touch something with that hand,

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Speaker 1: then it's part of you. And so this is just

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Speaker 1: like a spatially disconnected prosthetic, right, interesting, think about the

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Speaker 1: rovers as part of your body. Then, yeah, philosophically, I've

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Speaker 1: been on Mars.

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Speaker 4: I wonder if the Mars rover would disagree.

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Speaker 1: When it gets to the point that it can disagree,

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Speaker 1: it's no longer part of your body.

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Speaker 4: It has its own Twitter account. Did you know that

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Speaker 4: the Mars rover?

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Speaker 1: Oh?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it has its own Twitter count. It has more

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Speaker 4: followers than I do Yeah, we didn't get off its couch, Daniel,

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Speaker 4: and actually, you know, went somewhere.

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Speaker 1: It has accomplished more in its life than I ever will,

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Speaker 1: that's true.

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Speaker 4: But yeah, we'd love to know more about Mars and

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Speaker 4: whether or not it had life on it, like bacteria

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Speaker 4: or who knows what else we could discover that Mars had,

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Speaker 4: but it's really hard to do it from here, and

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Speaker 4: even to do it through robots.

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Speaker 1: It is challenging, and it's amazing to me how open

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Speaker 1: this question remains. You know, through history, we thought, oh,

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Speaker 1: maybe Mars has life on it. Then we took a

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Speaker 1: closer look, where like, actually it looks pretty dry. They're like, wait, no,

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Speaker 1: there is water on there. Maybe there are microbes, and

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Speaker 1: so keeps going up and down, and it's fascinating to

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Speaker 1: me that this planet, this one that's the closest to us.

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Speaker 1: We still don't know the answer of if there is

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Speaker 1: life on Mars, is it similar to Earth? Did it

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Speaker 1: come to Earth from Mars, or to Mars from Earth,

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Speaker 1: or to both planets from somewhere else. It's an incredibly

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Speaker 1: important question and it's right there. It's so accessible.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a huge question, right, whether or not life

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Speaker 4: on Earth actually started on Mars, because it's possible that

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Speaker 4: there was life on Mars and then got knocked off

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Speaker 4: on an asteroid and then flew here and landed on Earth,

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Speaker 4: and that's how life started on Earth. That's a theory, right.

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Speaker 1: That is a theory, and it's not just the plot

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Speaker 1: of a science fiction novel. It's potentially actually plausible. And

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Speaker 1: it's the kind of question that we could answer if

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Speaker 1: we had deeper for access to rocks on Mars.

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Speaker 4: Right, we could all be Martians.

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Speaker 1: Martians could all be Earthlings. Who knows, we could all

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Speaker 1: be Jovians.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, but it'd be great to answer that question. And

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Speaker 4: I think the only way we're gonna answer that question

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Speaker 4: is to actually go there and take a close look

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Speaker 4: at the rocks and the soil and to like actually

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Speaker 4: like take a super microscope to it and see if

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Speaker 4: we see any little critters in there.

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Speaker 1: That's right, But sending scientists to Mars is unfortunately still

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Speaker 1: many many years away, decades probably if ever.

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Speaker 4: It's really hard. But we've done it with some things

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Speaker 4: in space, like, for example, we've gone to the Moon

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Speaker 4: and gone in rocks from the Moon and brought them

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Speaker 4: back to Earth. I think you can order them online, right.

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Speaker 1: I don't think you can order them online?

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Speaker 4: No, you can. Can you get on eBay and like

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Speaker 4: a bid on a piece of moon rock.

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Speaker 1: I think anything you buy on eBay is not going

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Speaker 1: to be actually moon rock, so please don't waste your money.

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Speaker 1: But we did actually bring rocks back from the Moon,

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Speaker 1: and those rocks have been an incredible treasure trove of science.

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Speaker 1: We are like still thinking of new things to do

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Speaker 1: to those rocks, to learn things to figure out answers

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Speaker 1: to new questions about the science of the Moon. So

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Speaker 1: it's incredibly valuable to have here in our Earth laboratories

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Speaker 1: a sample from the Moon or from somewhere else.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I have actually held a moon rock. I was

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Speaker 4: at JPL visiting ones and they let me hold a

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Speaker 4: little bit of moon dust.

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Speaker 1: And did you feel transported?

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Speaker 4: I accidentally breathed them in and sneeze. Had you go

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Speaker 4: in there for a second.

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Speaker 1: That sounds like the opening scene of a terrible science

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Speaker 1: fiction novel. Poor Hey gets infected by a moon based pathogen.

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Speaker 4: And that's why I have superpowers.

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Speaker 1: You gained the Moon's proportional strength.

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Speaker 4: Again, the ambility to moon people.

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Speaker 1: You cause tides, right, you'd be some sort of lunars superhuman.

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Speaker 4: That's right. I'm like the villain into next app Woman movie.

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Speaker 1: That's right, You're like the DC version of Magneto. Right.

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Speaker 4: You just insulted me twice over there. You just confuse

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Speaker 4: the DC character with a Marvel character.

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Speaker 1: No, I'm trying to bring one from the other, right,

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Speaker 1: Like Magneto controls metals, and so lunar Jorge controls tides

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Speaker 1: right in the DC universe.

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Speaker 4: But anyways, so the question is can we just go

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Speaker 4: to Mars, pick up some rocks and bring them back

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Speaker 4: and then study them, and then we would know if

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Speaker 4: life potentially came from another planet.

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Speaker 1: That would be incredible.

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Speaker 4: And so to the on the program, we'll be asking

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Speaker 4: the question, can we bring rocks back from Mars?

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Speaker 1: Or more optimistically, how can we bring rocks back from Mars?

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Speaker 4: Oh? Oh, so you're feeling good. You feel like it's

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Speaker 4: not an if question.

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Speaker 1: It's not a physics question, right, there's nothing in physics

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Speaker 1: that prevents us from moving rocks from Mars to Earth.

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Speaker 1: It's definitely an engineering question, and as you're here, it's

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Speaker 1: a tricky one.

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Speaker 4: So as usual, we were wondering how many people out

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Speaker 4: there had thought about this question or wonder whether or

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Speaker 4: not it's possible to bring something back from Mars. So

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Speaker 4: Daniel went out there into the wilds of the internet

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Speaker 4: to add ask people how can we retrieve rocks from

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Speaker 4: Mars to study them on Earth.

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Speaker 1: So these are the answers I got from random folks

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Speaker 1: on the Internet who were willing to speculate baselessly without

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Speaker 1: any googling about the questions. I asked them, if you'd

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Speaker 1: like to participate and hear your voice on the podcast

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Speaker 1: some point in the future, please write to us to

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Speaker 1: questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com.

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Speaker 4: Here's what people had to say.

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Speaker 7: I think that we should send a rocket to Mars

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Speaker 7: and then maybe the Mars wherever that our coroner Mars

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Speaker 7: should take the rock samples and put them inside the rocket,

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Speaker 7: and then we could somehow program the rocket to flybacks

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Speaker 7: on its.

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Speaker 8: Own perseverances on us where they are right now, and

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Speaker 8: hopefully the next generation of perseverances will be able to

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Speaker 8: bring them back to study.

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Speaker 6: I thought that that was part of the upcoming Mars mission,

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Speaker 6: or maybe for the next mission to have some sort

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Speaker 6: of return capsule.

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Speaker 1: It's really difficult to get things back from Mars. So I imagine.

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Speaker 9: That we probably have to send some sort of pro

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Speaker 9: there that would then have to do a lot of

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Speaker 9: the analysis there on Mars.

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Speaker 7: I think the new perseveremance wherever it can actually collect

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Speaker 7: unstorm Mars rocks for a future mission to retrieve and

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Speaker 7: bring back to Earth.

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Speaker 9: I'm envisioning maybe we send something to enter into Mars'

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Speaker 9: orbit that can maybe send down an explosive. He's the

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Speaker 9: surface sends out a bunch of particulates. The probe gathers

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Speaker 9: these particulates and then breaks out of the orbit goes

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Speaker 9: back to Earth.

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Speaker 10: We can gather samples from Mars for study on Earth,

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Speaker 10: kind of how we went to the Moon, except all robotically, right,

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Speaker 10: and instead of a lamb, we have a mem Well, I.

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Speaker 11: Know we already have a mission going there, and I

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Speaker 11: believe what they're going to do is do little core

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Speaker 11: samples and then somehow package them and leave them for

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Speaker 11: a recovery mission.

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Speaker 4: All right, a lot of excitement about this idea.

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Speaker 1: I feel, Yeah, a lot of excitement.

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Speaker 4: People are like, I don't know, but sounds cool.

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Speaker 1: Somebody out there is like, let's just nuke Mars, and

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Speaker 1: I have a feeling they were just waiting for the opportunity.

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Speaker 4: Was that a fellow physicist. I feel like that sounds

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Speaker 4: like an efficient solution to a physicist.

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Speaker 1: You don't think an engineer would be like, let's just

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Speaker 1: shoot a string of nuclear weapons at this thing to

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Speaker 1: guide it back to Earth.

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Speaker 4: I think even a freshman engineer would be like, maybe

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Speaker 4: there's a better way.

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Speaker 1: That's right, And also it probably destroy the samples and

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Speaker 1: pollute them with radiation, so it might undermine the very

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Speaker 1: science that we're trying to do.

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Speaker 4: Right, that's probably a huge part of it, right, like

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Speaker 4: not contaminating.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's a big deal.

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Speaker 4: All right, Well, let's dig into this topic. Let's get

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Speaker 4: some samples of it and retreat it and bring it

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Speaker 4: to Earth. So Daniel, first of all, I guess talk

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Speaker 4: about why we would want to get rocks from Mars.

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Speaker 4: I mean, I know that it'd be great to study them,

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Speaker 4: but you know, why can't we just study them there?

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Speaker 1: Well, we can do a lot of studying on the

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Speaker 1: surface of Mars, and we have rovers that do that.

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Speaker 1: But it's tricky. You want to do some science on

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Speaker 1: a rover, you have to pick an instrument which can survive.

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Speaker 1: I've like launch and transit and landing on Mars and

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Speaker 1: then can get set up automatically without any like a

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Speaker 1: grad students tinkering with it. You know, every cutting edge

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Speaker 1: lab that I'm aware of here on Earth, the most

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Speaker 1: powerful instruments are delicate instruments, and they require like experts

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Speaker 1: tweaking them and massaging them to make them work and

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Speaker 1: to calibrate them. So for something to work on a

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Speaker 1: rover has to be really robust, and that really limits

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Speaker 1: the kinds of science that you can do.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess you need a lab, and it's tricky

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Speaker 4: to handle these samples and to do the science right.

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Speaker 1: That's right. If you had your hands on Martian samples,

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Speaker 1: like right now, this is like a hundred things you

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Speaker 1: would want to do to it right away. But only

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Speaker 1: a few of those ever make it onto a rover,

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Speaker 1: so you're really limited. And then you get the answers back,

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Speaker 1: you're like, oh, look it has this weird thing in it.

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Speaker 1: Now I want to check with my other funky instrument.

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Speaker 1: But you can't do that kind of thing all in advance.

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Speaker 1: When you send your roverover, you have to plan very

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Speaker 1: far in advance exactly what you're going to do to

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Speaker 1: every sample, you can't respond to what you've learned with

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Speaker 1: new ideas, whereas if you bring the rocks back, then

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Speaker 1: you can keep coming up with new ideas. And also

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Speaker 1: you have access to future instruments. Right, cool techniques we're

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Speaker 1: going to develop in ten years or in twenty years

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Speaker 1: that we haven't even thought of. Now we have the

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Speaker 1: rocks here, rather than sending the machines there, then we

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Speaker 1: can use new machines on old rocks.

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Speaker 4: Right, Because I guess it's you know, it's really hard

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Speaker 4: to take stuff to Mars, right, I mean, like every

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Speaker 4: gram costs like a million dollars or something, and these

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Speaker 4: lab equipment machines are really big.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes they are really big, And a lot of the

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Speaker 1: engineering challenges of building a rover are how to miniaturize, right,

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Speaker 1: how to make these things really small. It's got to

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Speaker 1: be like the size of a shoe box and fit

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Speaker 1: on the edge of a stick, and be totally robust,

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Speaker 1: Like you have to just be able to send it

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Speaker 1: one command and it boots up and starts up. It's

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Speaker 1: got to have a little bit of AI in there

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Speaker 1: to get itself going. You can't just like crawl out

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Speaker 1: there with your screwdriver and fix it right once you

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Speaker 1: send it, it's gone.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you can't just call it heat to fix it.

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Speaker 1: And they'll say, have you tried turning it off and

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Speaker 1: turning it on again? Did you update your Windows installation?

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Speaker 4: You're like, I can, it's on Mars. I can't even

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Speaker 4: turn it on and off.

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Speaker 1: No, And you can't even like drive something on Mars.

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Speaker 1: Remember these rovers operate semi autonomously because Mars is so

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Speaker 1: far away that it takes light minutes to get there,

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Speaker 1: So you can't have the kind of feedback loop you

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Speaker 1: need to real time drive something on Mars. It's like

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Speaker 1: you drive forward, you stop, you take a picture, you

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Speaker 1: send it back to the folks in NASA they figure

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Speaker 1: out what to do next. And so having it be

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Speaker 1: so far away makes it really limited.

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Speaker 4: It has to survive the trip too, Like launching from

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Speaker 4: the Earth into space is not easy, right, Like there's

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Speaker 4: huge forces and you know you're basically strapped onto giant explosion.

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Speaker 4: It has to survive that, and also the landing on Mars,

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Speaker 4: which can be pretty tough, like sometimes they just fall

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Speaker 4: into the ground and bounce around, and it has to

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Speaker 4: survive that, where like that's the landing strategy.

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Speaker 1: Design strategy, right. I mean, remember all those movies about

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Speaker 1: astronaut training, Like they put those folks through some tough stuff.

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Speaker 1: They spin it around, they shake them a lot. Basically,

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Speaker 1: take your most sensitive science instruments and put them through

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Speaker 1: astronaut training to see if they have the right stuff.

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Speaker 1: Most of the time it's just going to fall apart.

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Speaker 1: Like you go into a random geology or microbiology lab

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Speaker 1: here on Earth. Most of those instruments are very delicate.

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Speaker 1: They don't let people in there poking and products. So

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Speaker 1: you're right, surviving all the shaking and the landing and

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Speaker 1: all that stuff. It's not easy. So this whole categories

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Speaker 1: of instruments, nobody's figured out how to miniaturize and make

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Speaker 1: robust enough to send to Mars.

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Speaker 4: Okay, so it would be a lot better for science

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Speaker 4: if we could bring some Mars rocks back so you

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Speaker 4: can study them, and you know, you can do a

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Speaker 4: whole bunch more tescent. You could on a robot in Mars,

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Speaker 4: but it's really hard, and apparently you can't just study

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Speaker 4: meteors from Mars, Like that's another possibility, but it's not,

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Speaker 4: as I guess. Fresh.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the amazing thing is that we actually already have

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Speaker 1: Mars rocks, right, like what yeah, what you were talking

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Speaker 1: about sort of as a joke, actually happens. Sometimes big

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Speaker 1: rocks hit the surface of Mars right impact craters, and

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Speaker 1: stuff gets thrown out into space. You know, these can

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Speaker 1: be really big impacts and some of those rocks get

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Speaker 1: tossed out into space and eventually a small fraction of

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Speaker 1: them hit the surface of the Earth and then are recovered.

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Speaker 4: And how do we know they're from Mars? Do they

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Speaker 4: have like a maiden Mars tag or.

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Speaker 1: Well they went through customs, right, and so we can

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Speaker 1: tell And just look at the form.

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Speaker 4: I mean, can you tell like does it have a

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Speaker 4: special like queue of red or something.

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Speaker 1: You can tell because of the geology. Every object in

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Speaker 1: the Solar System has a different history and a different composition,

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Speaker 1: and that tells you where it comes from. And so

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Speaker 1: when you get a meteor from outer space, when you

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Speaker 1: get a chunk of space rock, first of all, you

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Speaker 1: can tell it's a space rock because of what it's

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Speaker 1: made out of. It's made of stuff you don't find

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Speaker 1: on Earth. And then you can tell roughly where it

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Speaker 1: came from based on the details of what's in it.

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Speaker 1: And so most of the rocks that land on Earth come,

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Speaker 1: for example, from the asteroid belt, and we can tell

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Speaker 1: based on the blend of metals and also the organization

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Speaker 1: of the metals in them that tells you something about

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Speaker 1: its history, like when it was last melted and how

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Speaker 1: long it's been frozen for. And some of these things

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Speaker 1: have composition and geology that's only consistent with the surface

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Speaker 1: of Mars. So yeah, we have like dozens of these

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Speaker 1: objects that have landed on the Earth from Mars, which

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Speaker 1: is fascinating and incredible and wonderful opportunities to do science.

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Speaker 1: But it's not good enough.

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Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, you need like fresh rocks, Like those asteroids

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Speaker 4: are kind of stale. They've been floating around space and

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Speaker 4: who knows where they came from.

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Speaker 1: It's not just that you need fresh rocks, it's that

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Speaker 1: you need to know where they came from. Like it's

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Speaker 1: just a random sample. You don't know where on Mars

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Speaker 1: it came from, so you can't really like fit it

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Speaker 1: into your science picture of what's going on on Mars.

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Speaker 1: Which you'd like is to have a rover travel around

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Speaker 1: and make judicious decisions and say, I'm going to get

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Speaker 1: a little bit of this kind of rock and I

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Speaker 1: see where it is. It's on the downflow of a slope.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to get that piece of rock over there,

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Speaker 1: and I know the scientific context. Just like getting a

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Speaker 1: piece of pottery and having no idea where it was

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Speaker 1: dug up from, it's much less valuable scientifically.

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Speaker 4: It's also kind of like when you go to a

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Speaker 4: Las Vegas buffet. You know, you and judiciously pick a

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Speaker 4: little bit from everything and know where you got it from,

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Speaker 4: so you can go back and get the stuff you liked.

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Speaker 1: That's right, and so you know what made you throw

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Speaker 1: up and what you actually enjoyed.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, all right. So it sounds like it would

439
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Speaker 4: be a lot better if we can get go to Mars,

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Speaker 4: get some rocks, bring them back, and then study the

441
00:20:29,560 --> 00:20:32,000
Speaker 4: heck out of them to answer these big questions about

442
00:20:32,080 --> 00:20:34,399
Speaker 4: life in the Solar System and about Mars and the

443
00:20:34,440 --> 00:20:36,919
Speaker 4: history of Mars. But it's a tough problem, and so

444
00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:39,280
Speaker 4: let's talk about how we would actually do that and

445
00:20:39,320 --> 00:20:41,880
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446
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Speaker 4: All right, Daniel, we are souvenir shopping in the Solar system.

497
00:23:30,720 --> 00:23:35,400
Speaker 4: We're trying to get some original, authentic rocks from Mars.

498
00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 4: But it's a tough problem because Mars is really far away,

499
00:23:39,280 --> 00:23:40,919
Speaker 4: and you don't just have to get the rocks. You

500
00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:41,840
Speaker 4: have to come back with them.

501
00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:43,600
Speaker 1: You got to come back with the rocks. Right, Like,

502
00:23:43,640 --> 00:23:46,480
Speaker 1: we've done the one way thing. We've sent something to

503
00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:49,600
Speaker 1: Mars and it's dug up rocks and studied them, but

504
00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:53,000
Speaker 1: they're still on the surface of Mars. And so now

505
00:23:53,040 --> 00:23:55,320
Speaker 1: we need to do the second bit, the round trip

506
00:23:55,359 --> 00:23:58,199
Speaker 1: to come home and deliver them to scientists in a

507
00:23:58,240 --> 00:24:01,399
Speaker 1: pristine condition, so that we can finally answer some of

508
00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:03,800
Speaker 1: these incredible, long standing science questions.

509
00:24:03,880 --> 00:24:06,280
Speaker 4: Right, And I feel like the problem is it's not

510
00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:09,240
Speaker 4: just double, it's like squared because you know, it's hard

511
00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:11,560
Speaker 4: enough to take off from a planet and land on

512
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:13,879
Speaker 4: another planet, but now you got to do it again,

513
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 4: take off from there and land here. But it still

514
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:19,280
Speaker 4: has to be the same machine that you send out,

515
00:24:19,359 --> 00:24:20,960
Speaker 4: Like the same machine you send out has to do

516
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:21,760
Speaker 4: both of those things.

517
00:24:21,840 --> 00:24:24,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's complicated, and it's not just squared as you're

518
00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:26,800
Speaker 1: going to hear. There's a lot of moving parts. It's

519
00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:29,719
Speaker 1: more like to the ninth power or something. It's pretty

520
00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:32,640
Speaker 1: ridiculous little dance of machines that we have to get

521
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:36,119
Speaker 1: working all together to get those rocks back from Mars.

522
00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:38,600
Speaker 1: And you know what you just said, Nobody has ever

523
00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:42,479
Speaker 1: done that before. We've never successfully launched a rocket from

524
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:44,480
Speaker 1: the surface of another planet, right.

525
00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:46,120
Speaker 4: Well, we've done it for the Moon, but the Moon

526
00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:48,080
Speaker 4: is kind of easy to take off from.

527
00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:49,960
Speaker 1: That's right. The Moon is pretty low gravity, and it's

528
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:53,000
Speaker 1: not a planet, and it's not remote right, there's somebody

529
00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:55,199
Speaker 1: in there driving that thing, right, So now we have

530
00:24:55,240 --> 00:24:59,400
Speaker 1: to remotely launch from the surface of another planet. I mean,

531
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:01,800
Speaker 1: that's hard to to do from Earth. So yeah, it's

532
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:02,439
Speaker 1: a big challenge.

533
00:25:02,560 --> 00:25:04,640
Speaker 4: Luckily you volunteered to go. Tomorrow's right now.

534
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 1: I volunteered to press the big red button when the

535
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:09,119
Speaker 1: time comes. Oh yeah, I'm first in line for that.

536
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:11,000
Speaker 4: I wanted to take off the take a button or

537
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:11,720
Speaker 4: the aboard one.

538
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:13,680
Speaker 1: Whatever. Man, just put a big red button in front

539
00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:15,400
Speaker 1: of me, and I will hit it. That's my job.

540
00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:19,639
Speaker 4: That's that's how these podcasts gets started. You hit a

541
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:20,320
Speaker 4: big red button.

542
00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 1: Hey, you don't get to live your dream if you

543
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:24,560
Speaker 1: don't ask for it. So this is my official request

544
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:26,440
Speaker 1: to get invited to press the big red.

545
00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 4: Button NASA button pusher. All right, but we've actually tried before. Like,

546
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 4: this is not a crazy idea that you and I

547
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:35,560
Speaker 4: just came up with here on the podcast that you asked.

548
00:25:35,600 --> 00:25:38,520
Speaker 4: The Soviets have been trying to do this for really

549
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:40,159
Speaker 4: like forty forty fifty years.

550
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:42,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they've been trying and failing. But the failures

551
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 1: have been political and financial. It's not like we've sent

552
00:25:46,080 --> 00:25:49,159
Speaker 1: a mission that's attempted to do this and then not succeeded.

553
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:52,600
Speaker 1: The mission has been thought up and planned and organized

554
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:55,560
Speaker 1: and then canceled many times in the past. Really, the

555
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:58,159
Speaker 1: Soviets thought about it in the seventies, but they couldn't

556
00:25:58,200 --> 00:26:00,919
Speaker 1: get their rockets to work. Now had a plan in

557
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:05,000
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine that was canceled because it was too complicated,

558
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:09,960
Speaker 1: and then recently NASA and the European Space Agency had

559
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:12,160
Speaker 1: a plan that was in twenty twelve that people thought

560
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:14,520
Speaker 1: was going to happen, but then it was aborted again

561
00:26:14,600 --> 00:26:16,960
Speaker 1: because it was too complicated and too expensive.

562
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:19,240
Speaker 4: This cancel culture is out of hand.

563
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:22,800
Speaker 1: Daniel, Yeah, and I think that especially was really traumatic

564
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:25,760
Speaker 1: for the sort of Mars science community. People really believed

565
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:27,280
Speaker 1: that that one was going to be the one. It

566
00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:29,840
Speaker 1: was finally going to come to fruition. So when that

567
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:32,200
Speaker 1: was canceled, it was a bit like the Superconducting super

568
00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:34,439
Speaker 1: Collider was for particle physics. It left a bit of

569
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,119
Speaker 1: like PTSD on the community. There's a little bit more

570
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:38,440
Speaker 1: cynicism than there was before.

571
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:42,120
Speaker 4: So it sounds like people get excited about it, they

572
00:26:42,160 --> 00:26:44,760
Speaker 4: start the program, but then they realize it's too hard,

573
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:47,320
Speaker 4: so they cancel it. Is that, and it's happened over

574
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:47,920
Speaker 4: and over.

575
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:50,520
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of a political problem though, because

576
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:53,520
Speaker 1: it's one of these projects that takes years or decades

577
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:56,760
Speaker 1: to pull off. So even if you're committed to spending

578
00:26:56,840 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 1: a lot of money over many years. You need all

579
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 1: the people who are in charge after you to stay

580
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:05,560
Speaker 1: committed to not have their priorities changed, And so it

581
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:09,160
Speaker 1: takes consistent support over many, many years for this kind

582
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:10,440
Speaker 1: of thing to actually happen.

583
00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 4: All right, So there was a big program at NASA

584
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:16,239
Speaker 4: that got canceled in twenty twelve. But now now it's

585
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:18,680
Speaker 4: sort of been revived. Right now, there is some activity

586
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:20,919
Speaker 4: at NASA to actually do it.

587
00:27:21,119 --> 00:27:23,600
Speaker 1: That's right, it has been revived. There is a new plan,

588
00:27:24,080 --> 00:27:27,359
Speaker 1: and it's a pretty reasonable plan in comparison with the

589
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:30,359
Speaker 1: other crazy plans, although I think you'll still find it

590
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:31,920
Speaker 1: fairly absurd and amazing.

591
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:35,239
Speaker 4: This is the level headed conservative.

592
00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:37,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the least ridiculous plan that we have.

593
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:40,679
Speaker 4: Going to how they pitched it to Congress. We have

594
00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 4: a new, less ridiculous plan. You guys are going to love.

595
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:47,400
Speaker 1: It now forty percent less crazy. And the most exciting

596
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:49,960
Speaker 1: part is that the first part of it has already launched.

597
00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:53,760
Speaker 1: Like the first element of this multi stage plan to

598
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:56,639
Speaker 1: bring rocks back from the service of Mars is already

599
00:27:56,680 --> 00:27:58,240
Speaker 1: on its way to the red plan.

600
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 4: Wait, what this is already happening?

601
00:28:02,400 --> 00:28:05,200
Speaker 1: It's already happening. They have a new clever strategy, which

602
00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:08,000
Speaker 1: is they break it up into pieces and so they're

603
00:28:08,040 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 1: easier to sell. And the first piece works no matter what, Like,

604
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:13,240
Speaker 1: the first piece is something you want to do, even

605
00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:14,880
Speaker 1: if you're not going to bring the rocks back.

606
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:19,680
Speaker 4: Oh, I see they're cleverer now about the mission planning.

607
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:21,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're a little bit more cynical, I guess you

608
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:24,160
Speaker 1: could say, or more experienced. And so this first piece

609
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:26,879
Speaker 1: is a rover that launched on July thirtieth. It's the

610
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:30,399
Speaker 1: Perseverance Rover this year. And it's this year, yeah, just

611
00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago, and it's on the way to

612
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 1: Mars now, and it's an awesome piece of technology. You

613
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:37,439
Speaker 1: may have heard about it. It's going to be the

614
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:40,480
Speaker 1: heaviest rover ever landed on Mars. It's going to have

615
00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:43,480
Speaker 1: a little helicopter on the top of it that can

616
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:46,640
Speaker 1: fly up the first helicopter operate on the surface of Mars.

617
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:47,680
Speaker 4: That is so sci fi.

618
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gonna be really cool. It's gonna have a

619
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: little laser on it, but most importantly, it's going to

620
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:55,600
Speaker 1: have a device that can drill into the surface of

621
00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 1: Mars and extract cores, which it can then store in

622
00:28:58,960 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 1: a little sample contentment.

623
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 4: I feel like now we're getting to really transform or territory,

624
00:29:04,080 --> 00:29:06,960
Speaker 4: you know, like we're sending a box and then when

625
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:10,560
Speaker 4: the box lands, it's gonna transform into a drilling machine

626
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 4: with lasers and a helicopter.

627
00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:15,720
Speaker 1: That's right, it's optimist prime. That's what they should have

628
00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 1: called it.

629
00:29:16,560 --> 00:29:19,600
Speaker 4: That's right for getting perseverance or something inspiring, just go

630
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:20,480
Speaker 4: with optimist prime.

631
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:23,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, So this thing is gonna have a year's long mission,

632
00:29:23,320 --> 00:29:25,800
Speaker 1: and it's gonna drive around and it's gonna collect like

633
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 1: rock course from maybe thirty nine different locations, and each

634
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 1: one is pretty small, you know, they're like a centimeter

635
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:35,720
Speaker 1: wide and a few centimeters long. But that's gold for

636
00:29:35,800 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 1: scientists down here. To have a few cubic centimeters of

637
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:44,040
Speaker 1: rock from several dozen locations around Mars, it's incredibly valuable.

638
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:46,560
Speaker 4: So it is a rover like the ones we've sent before,

639
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:49,640
Speaker 4: and it's gonna run around and collect samples and then

640
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:51,360
Speaker 4: keep them keep them in like a box.

641
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 1: So it's got its own science mission. It's a good

642
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:57,840
Speaker 1: idea anyway, even if Mars sample return doesn't happen. But

643
00:29:57,880 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 1: then it's gonna collect these rocks and it's gonna put

644
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 1: them in a little sample container, and then it's going

645
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 1: to leave them on the surface of Mars for the

646
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:06,720
Speaker 1: next stage to come and retrieve.

647
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:08,960
Speaker 4: Wait what it's gonna be littering.

648
00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:12,960
Speaker 1: It's going to be preparing a gift for us. Man,

649
00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:14,680
Speaker 1: it's not trash.

650
00:30:14,680 --> 00:30:17,760
Speaker 4: But why not collect them? But it's gonna really leave

651
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:18,959
Speaker 4: them out where it would found them.

652
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:21,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to seal up in tubes and then

653
00:30:21,120 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 1: it's gonna leave it out where the next mission can

654
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:24,680
Speaker 1: come and collect it.

655
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 4: Why not bring them all together so that it's easier

656
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:27,520
Speaker 4: to pick up.

657
00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 1: No, it's going to collect them all into one container.

658
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:32,000
Speaker 4: Oh, I see, and then leave the container there.

659
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:35,920
Speaker 1: See it all nice, and then the next stage is

660
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:37,120
Speaker 1: going to come and pick it up. And so if

661
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:40,719
Speaker 1: you're keeping track, there's three major stages to this mission.

662
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 1: Stage one is perseverance, Go and create the samples, pack

663
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:46,760
Speaker 1: them up in the container, leave it on the surface.

664
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 4: It's also going to study them, but also going to

665
00:30:49,280 --> 00:30:49,720
Speaker 4: leave them there.

666
00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:53,000
Speaker 1: Okay. The next stage is to get it off the

667
00:30:53,120 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 1: surface of Mars.

668
00:30:54,200 --> 00:30:56,480
Speaker 4: Wow, all right, And each of these is like a

669
00:30:56,520 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 4: different mission. It's kind of I think that's when you're saying, like, yeah,

670
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 4: don't put it all in one mission that could fail,

671
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 4: but do one mission and if that one succeed, then

672
00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:05,880
Speaker 4: do the next mission, and if that one succeed, to

673
00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:06,480
Speaker 4: the next mission.

674
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:09,360
Speaker 1: Yes. So there's three separate launches from Earth, like we

675
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 1: are sending three different devices from Earth. They're all going

676
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 1: to work together to make this happen.

677
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:16,880
Speaker 4: Three different transformers. Uh huh.

678
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:19,320
Speaker 1: The first one lands on the surface and makes these samples.

679
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 1: The next one is I think maybe the craziest, and

680
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:24,880
Speaker 1: it's the one that's going to land on the surface

681
00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:27,960
Speaker 1: of Mars and then it's going to deploy a mini rover,

682
00:31:28,280 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 1: like a little rover that just runs out, picks up

683
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:36,600
Speaker 1: the sample container, comes back right, loads that into a

684
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 1: rocket that it has landed on the surface of Marsh.

685
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:42,760
Speaker 1: It wraps that all up and then launches from the

686
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:47,160
Speaker 1: surface of Mars sends the sample container up into space. Wow.

687
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 4: So on a rocket will be sending another rocket and

688
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 4: a launching pad and a launching pad and a little

689
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:54,680
Speaker 4: tiny retriever robot.

690
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:57,600
Speaker 1: And a mini rover. Yeah, exactly. So the job of

691
00:31:57,640 --> 00:31:59,960
Speaker 1: this thing is to land there, pick up the sample

692
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:02,640
Speaker 1: container and it has a robotic arm that will take

693
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:05,320
Speaker 1: it from the rover and put it into the rocket

694
00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:09,280
Speaker 1: and then yeah, remote launch from the surface of another planet.

695
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:12,280
Speaker 1: Maybe the most valuable sample ever to be collected.

696
00:32:12,360 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 4: Wow, this feels kind of comical to me, like, you know,

697
00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:19,480
Speaker 4: like this giant machine lands opens up. Oh there's another

698
00:32:19,560 --> 00:32:24,080
Speaker 4: rocket in there. This little robot comes out, picks up something,

699
00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:28,360
Speaker 4: runs back, sticks it in. The rocket just launches back

700
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:31,480
Speaker 4: somehow that it feels comedic, something like something out of

701
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:32,040
Speaker 4: a cartoon.

702
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:34,640
Speaker 1: It does seem a little Loony Tunes. Yeah, you're right,

703
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:37,080
Speaker 1: and if this thing works, it definitely needs that sort

704
00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 1: of like comedic music in the background to inspire you,

705
00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:42,720
Speaker 1: you know, poopoo l poo, poo, poo, pooo, poo, poo,

706
00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 1: loo poo, poo, poo poo. It'll be pretty funny. But

707
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:48,040
Speaker 1: this is not set to go for another five years

708
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:51,360
Speaker 1: or so, so we're talking about launching this next bit

709
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:53,600
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six. Wow.

710
00:32:53,640 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 4: So wait, so there must be working on it now,

711
00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:56,760
Speaker 4: like it's being built right now.

712
00:32:57,040 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 1: It's being built right now, So Perseverance will have years

713
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:03,640
Speaker 1: on the surface of Mars to collect these samples. And

714
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 1: also we'll have an idea like, how did that go?

715
00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:06,360
Speaker 6: Right?

716
00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 1: How well are things going? We could change our plan

717
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:12,120
Speaker 1: based on where perseverance is or how things go for perseverance,

718
00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:14,680
Speaker 1: or what it learns, or how the sample container looks.

719
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:17,360
Speaker 1: And so that's another part of it. You build in

720
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:21,520
Speaker 1: these delays so you can change your plans as things develop. So, yeah,

721
00:33:21,560 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 1: they're working on that now and they're'll launch it in

722
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:26,400
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, and the idea is it would arrive

723
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:29,000
Speaker 1: on the surface of Mars in twenty twenty eight. Remember

724
00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:31,680
Speaker 1: it's a two year trip, and then grab it and

725
00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:34,640
Speaker 1: launch it out into space. But it only has the

726
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:37,440
Speaker 1: power to get it into orbit around Mars. It can't

727
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:40,480
Speaker 1: bring all the way back to Earth. Oh, that's still

728
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:43,959
Speaker 1: just phase two. That's just phase two, right, The actual

729
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 1: Looney Tunes crazy comedic value comes in the next stage.

730
00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:49,640
Speaker 4: All right, So what's phase three?

731
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 1: So phase three as we launch a third rocket from

732
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:55,520
Speaker 1: Earth and this one at the same time as we're

733
00:33:55,560 --> 00:33:57,800
Speaker 1: launching the second one, but this one just stays in

734
00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:01,479
Speaker 1: orbit around Mars. This is called the Earth return orbiter.

735
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:04,160
Speaker 4: So this one's concurrent, Like we're not going to wait

736
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:06,280
Speaker 4: for the second one to finish. We're gonna say two

737
00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:08,799
Speaker 4: and three. It's like filming the sequels at the same time.

738
00:34:09,120 --> 00:34:12,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So the third one hangs out in orbit

739
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 1: and it helps communicate and do a bunch of stuff,

740
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:18,040
Speaker 1: and then its most important job is to catch the

741
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 1: sample container. Because the surface rocket is gonna launch from

742
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:26,719
Speaker 1: the surface of Mars and get out near orbit, right,

743
00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:29,120
Speaker 1: it can't go all the way out actually out into space,

744
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:31,960
Speaker 1: and the one that's in orbit has to lower itself

745
00:34:32,040 --> 00:34:35,080
Speaker 1: down to lower orbit and then they're gonna pass the

746
00:34:35,120 --> 00:34:38,160
Speaker 1: sample container from one rocket to the orbiter.

747
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 4: Robots are gonna do this.

748
00:34:39,800 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 1: Robots are going to do this in space, you know.

749
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:47,799
Speaker 4: Sending Daniel is starting to seem a lot easier, I know.

750
00:34:48,400 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 1: And the sample container it has no like radio beacon,

751
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 1: It has no tracker on, it has no transmitter, has

752
00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:58,000
Speaker 1: no thrusters. It's just an inert white ball and the

753
00:34:58,120 --> 00:35:01,040
Speaker 1: orbiter just has to catch it, have like a GPS

754
00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 1: on it even or nope, well it's just white. They're like,

755
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:07,439
Speaker 1: let's make it white then you can see it in space. Right.

756
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 4: Wow, that is audacious to say the least. Yeah, But

757
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 4: I guess my question is why can't the rocket just

758
00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:17,640
Speaker 4: go straight into orbit? You can't put enough fuel on

759
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 4: it or something or what.

760
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:20,640
Speaker 1: That definitely takes a lot more power to get all

761
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 1: the way into orbit. And so yeah, I mean you

762
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:24,439
Speaker 1: have to launch this thing from Earth and then send

763
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:26,800
Speaker 1: it to Mars. And so there's a lot of risks

764
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:28,759
Speaker 1: and costs here that they're trying to balance, and this

765
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:32,440
Speaker 1: was what they decided was the least crazy plan.

766
00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:36,480
Speaker 4: I guess it would be a lot to like land

767
00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 4: a rocket that can make it all the way back

768
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 4: to Earth. I guess this is smarter to like, you know,

769
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:44,799
Speaker 4: make this rocket smaller and then save the space shif

770
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:47,040
Speaker 4: part of it for another phase.

771
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:50,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, and now the part the orbiter only ever has

772
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:51,759
Speaker 1: to live in space. It doesn't have to go down

773
00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:54,280
Speaker 1: to the surface. So you have one thing that's dedicated

774
00:35:54,280 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 1: to going down to the surface it's good at that,

775
00:35:56,320 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 1: and another thing that's dedicated at orbiting Mars, catching this

776
00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:03,480
Speaker 1: soccer ball with the most valuable cargo humans have ever created,

777
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:06,640
Speaker 1: and then flying on its own all the way back

778
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:07,120
Speaker 1: to Earth.

779
00:36:07,160 --> 00:36:08,799
Speaker 4: It sounds like, you know, kind of like a whole

780
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:11,520
Speaker 4: bunch of robots that together make one big robot.

781
00:36:11,719 --> 00:36:14,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a bit of a Rube Goldberg machine, right,

782
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:16,480
Speaker 1: they should have called this the Rube Goldberg Mars Mission.

783
00:36:16,520 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: It's pretty hilarious.

784
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:23,279
Speaker 4: All right. Well, let's get into what happens next phase three,

785
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 4: But first let's take a quick break.

786
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:31,080
Speaker 1: When you pop a piece of cheese into your mouth

787
00:36:31,160 --> 00:36:34,320
Speaker 1: or enjoy a rich spoonful of Greek yogurt, you're probably

788
00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:38,400
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789
00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:41,040
Speaker 1: But the people in the dairy industry are. US Dairy

790
00:36:41,080 --> 00:36:45,400
Speaker 1: has set themselves some ambitious sustainability goals, including being greenhouse

791
00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:48,000
Speaker 1: gas neutral by twenty to fifty. That's why they're working

792
00:36:48,040 --> 00:36:50,400
Speaker 1: hard every day to find new ways to reduce waste,

793
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:54,640
Speaker 1: conserve natural resources, and drive down greenhouse gas missions. Take water,

794
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:58,280
Speaker 1: for example, most dairy farms reuse water up to four times.

795
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:01,720
Speaker 1: The same water cools the milk clean's equipment, washes the barn,

796
00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:05,480
Speaker 1: and irrigates the crops. How is US dairy tackling greenhouse gases?

797
00:37:05,560 --> 00:37:08,560
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798
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:11,960
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799
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:14,280
Speaker 1: electric cars. So the next time you grab a slice

800
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:16,160
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801
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802
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803
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804
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805
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821
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822
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826
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830
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Speaker 4: All right, Daniel, we are talking about transformers in Mars

831
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:57,719
Speaker 4: and robots that we're going to send there and work

832
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:01,520
Speaker 4: together on their own to lend Mars, get some rocks,

833
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:04,560
Speaker 4: shoot them back up into space, hand it off, and

834
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:07,200
Speaker 4: then bring it back. So that's phase three is bring

835
00:39:07,239 --> 00:39:09,359
Speaker 4: the samples from Mars back.

836
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:11,840
Speaker 1: That's right, that's phase three. So it has to catch

837
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:15,400
Speaker 1: this soccer ball in orbit around Mars. Right, It like

838
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 1: opens a door on the side of the ship and

839
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:20,399
Speaker 1: the ball just like drifts in because remember the ball

840
00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:22,920
Speaker 1: is not powered. So it just has to like match

841
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:24,960
Speaker 1: it in orbital speed and get in front of it

842
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:26,920
Speaker 1: and then slow down a little bit and just sort

843
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:30,800
Speaker 1: of like mate with this thing. Yeah, it's gonna catch it.

844
00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:33,160
Speaker 1: It's going to catch it, and it has to then

845
00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:37,480
Speaker 1: keep it somehow sterile. It can't like let the sample

846
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:40,360
Speaker 1: container or anything that was on it infect the rest

847
00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:41,160
Speaker 1: of the ship.

848
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 4: Oh, I see, that's to catch it and isolated.

849
00:39:44,640 --> 00:39:47,479
Speaker 1: Catch it and isolate it, fly it all the way

850
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 1: back to Earth. Right, that's not that big a deal.

851
00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:50,920
Speaker 1: You just have to sort of point in the right

852
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:54,160
Speaker 1: direction and have enough power left, and then it has

853
00:39:54,239 --> 00:39:55,800
Speaker 1: to drop it off on Earth.

854
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:58,000
Speaker 4: Wow, it's gonna drop it off or it's going to land.

855
00:39:58,080 --> 00:39:59,600
Speaker 1: It's not going to land here on Earth. It's just

856
00:39:59,560 --> 00:40:01,960
Speaker 1: going to prop it off, and the sample container is

857
00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:05,120
Speaker 1: essentially just gonna fall to the surface. They were like,

858
00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 1: should we add parachutes or something to slow it down?

859
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:10,440
Speaker 1: But that seemed too complicated.

860
00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:13,840
Speaker 4: They're like, no, can't you just call like uber to

861
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 4: pick it up.

862
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:17,960
Speaker 1: Or build a huge catcher's mitt or something.

863
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:20,040
Speaker 4: Well, why not build another robot to go up there

864
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 4: and catch it? Why not?

865
00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:24,319
Speaker 1: Well, they thought this was simplest, and you know, they

866
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:27,719
Speaker 1: already used up their quota of crazy robots on this mission, so.

867
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:29,600
Speaker 4: They're just gonna toss it into the ocean.

868
00:40:29,719 --> 00:40:31,760
Speaker 1: No, it's gonna land on the surface and land around

869
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:34,000
Speaker 1: ninety miles per hour on the surface.

870
00:40:35,200 --> 00:40:37,320
Speaker 4: And it's not gonna explode or vaporize.

871
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:39,480
Speaker 1: It's not gonna vaporize that. It should be able to

872
00:40:39,520 --> 00:40:42,640
Speaker 1: survive that. And you know, the samples themselves shouldn't be

873
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:45,839
Speaker 1: that delicate, right, It's not like they're glass containers or

874
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:48,440
Speaker 1: you know, anything that's gonna break. It's just rocks were

875
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:48,960
Speaker 1: bringing back.

876
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:50,360
Speaker 4: I thought they were going to be on like you know,

877
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:54,320
Speaker 4: test tubes, but I guess you want something to more sturdy.

878
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:57,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, But the question is like can we keep it

879
00:40:57,719 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 1: safe and contained. We're basically shipping a chunk of Mars

880
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:03,640
Speaker 1: onto the surface of the Earth, and we want to

881
00:41:03,719 --> 00:41:05,919
Speaker 1: isolate it so that we can study it for well

882
00:41:05,960 --> 00:41:08,279
Speaker 1: a couple of reasons. One is like who knows what's

883
00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:10,120
Speaker 1: in that thing? And if there really is like weird

884
00:41:10,239 --> 00:41:12,239
Speaker 1: life on Mars, the last thing we want to do

885
00:41:12,360 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 1: is like eradicate all life on Earth because we imported

886
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 1: some pathogen and didn't wrap it into plastic bag. First.

887
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:19,480
Speaker 4: I've seen that movie.

888
00:41:20,120 --> 00:41:22,799
Speaker 1: It's pretty good unless you're living it. But the other

889
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:24,480
Speaker 1: thing is we want to keep it sterile so that

890
00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:27,000
Speaker 1: if we do, like find weird bugs in it that

891
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:29,080
Speaker 1: are similar to bugs on Earth, we want to know

892
00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 1: they came from Mars and not from like the Utah

893
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:32,680
Speaker 1: Desert where it landed.

894
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:36,520
Speaker 4: Wow, well, this seems like a super audacious, an amazing

895
00:41:36,719 --> 00:41:39,520
Speaker 4: and incredible plan. And Daniel, you actually got to talk

896
00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:41,919
Speaker 4: to somebody who works on this, somebody from NASA.

897
00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:45,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's incredible excitement in the community for this project.

898
00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:48,200
Speaker 1: People are hoping beyond hope that they'll get to get

899
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:51,080
Speaker 1: their hands on some of these rocks. So I reached

900
00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:55,799
Speaker 1: out to doctor Nina Lanza. She's a Mars rover instrument scientist.

901
00:41:56,040 --> 00:41:57,879
Speaker 1: She built some of the things that are going on

902
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:00,879
Speaker 1: Perseverance right now. And I are a bunch of fun

903
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:02,280
Speaker 1: questions about this project.

904
00:42:02,320 --> 00:42:05,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a great interview, so we'll play that for

905
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:08,520
Speaker 4: you right now. So here's Daniel talking to doctor Nina Lunzon,

906
00:42:09,080 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 4: Mars Rover instrument scientist.

907
00:42:11,120 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 1: So it's my pleasure to be talking to doctor Nina Lanza.

908
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 1: Would you introduce yourself for our listeners.

909
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:19,320
Speaker 5: Sure, I'm Lena Lanza.

910
00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 8: I work at Los Alamos National Laboratory and I'm a

911
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 8: planetary scientist.

912
00:42:23,960 --> 00:42:27,320
Speaker 1: Awesome, And so our questions today are mostly about getting

913
00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:30,880
Speaker 1: your hands on samples from Mars or the signs you

914
00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:34,120
Speaker 1: can do with stuff on Mars. So our first question

915
00:42:34,160 --> 00:42:36,279
Speaker 1: has to do with the rovers that we have over

916
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:38,640
Speaker 1: there and that we're sending over there. What do you

917
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:42,960
Speaker 1: think are the most important scientific questions that those instruments

918
00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:44,200
Speaker 1: on the rovers are asking.

919
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:48,440
Speaker 8: Well, it's important to remember that each of these missions

920
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:51,239
Speaker 8: had a different goal and they would they build on

921
00:42:51,320 --> 00:42:54,560
Speaker 8: each other. Right, So, when we first started sending rovers

922
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:57,560
Speaker 8: to Mars and even Landers, you know, we didn't know

923
00:42:57,640 --> 00:42:59,560
Speaker 8: a lot. We know a lot more after all the

924
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 8: missions you've done. So initial missions were just to figure out,

925
00:43:03,040 --> 00:43:06,960
Speaker 8: you know, what's on Mars, what's it like? And subsequent

926
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:09,520
Speaker 8: missions have been trying to find out the details of that.

927
00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:12,920
Speaker 8: What has the history of Mars been like, you know,

928
00:43:12,960 --> 00:43:15,799
Speaker 8: in terms of climate, in terms of geology. Now we're

929
00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:20,800
Speaker 8: asking questions about habitability, is or was the Martian environment

930
00:43:20,880 --> 00:43:23,880
Speaker 8: habitable in a way that we understand. So habitability is

931
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:27,200
Speaker 8: not looking for life, but rather places where life as

932
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:30,759
Speaker 8: we understand it could exist. And so now after our

933
00:43:30,800 --> 00:43:33,640
Speaker 8: most recent missions, you know, we feel really confident that

934
00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:37,960
Speaker 8: Mars was absolutely a habitable place in the past and

935
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:43,120
Speaker 8: is kind of habitable now for certain terrestrial microbes. And

936
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:46,680
Speaker 8: so our next goal is to find out whether or

937
00:43:46,760 --> 00:43:50,040
Speaker 8: not life ever existed in the past on Mars, and

938
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:53,520
Speaker 8: so that's really exciting. So I think it's not that

939
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:56,080
Speaker 8: one of those questions is more or less important.

940
00:43:56,120 --> 00:43:58,480
Speaker 5: It's really that they are building upon each.

941
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:01,000
Speaker 1: Other, and so are the questions that are being asked

942
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:04,239
Speaker 1: by these rovers or instruments designed for these rovers that

943
00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:08,520
Speaker 1: are inspired specifically by things you learned on previous generations, like, oh,

944
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:11,680
Speaker 1: we saw this, and now we have a follow up question, Oh.

945
00:44:11,600 --> 00:44:14,799
Speaker 8: Certainly, gosh, And there's so many examples of that. I mean,

946
00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 8: there are some big questions. For example, we've seen from

947
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:24,239
Speaker 8: remote sensing these huge mineral provinces, specifically clay, minerals and carbonates,

948
00:44:24,440 --> 00:44:27,000
Speaker 8: maybe less huge on the carbonates, right, We've seen these

949
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 8: from orbit, and so the question is can we ground

950
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:32,440
Speaker 8: truth this and find this on Mars in a geologic

951
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:35,400
Speaker 8: context that we can interpret. We've certainly found quite a

952
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:38,560
Speaker 8: bit of clay on the surface with the Curiosity rover,

953
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:43,200
Speaker 8: so yay success. But now we're looking for those pesky carbonates.

954
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:46,399
Speaker 8: Carbonates are predicted to have formed on Mars, but we've

955
00:44:46,440 --> 00:44:49,279
Speaker 8: never really encountered them in any kind of abundance, and

956
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:52,560
Speaker 8: so it's one of these ongoing mysteries. And so as

957
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:56,680
Speaker 8: we have moved forward looking at Mars in detail with curiosity,

958
00:44:56,760 --> 00:44:58,759
Speaker 8: we still haven't seen all that many carbonates. So it's

959
00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:02,480
Speaker 8: still this question and why not. We're hoping to answer

960
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:05,400
Speaker 8: that with a perseverance rover in its new landing site

961
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:06,319
Speaker 8: jezuro Crater.

962
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:08,799
Speaker 1: Cool. So, I know, when you start a project, you

963
00:45:08,840 --> 00:45:12,640
Speaker 1: have sort of like optimistic hopes for what might happen,

964
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:15,640
Speaker 1: or fantasies about data you might collect or whatever. So

965
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:18,239
Speaker 1: if you let your imagination run wild and you hit

966
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:20,600
Speaker 1: all the home runs, what's like the best case scenario

967
00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:23,080
Speaker 1: for what you could discover using these rovers?

968
00:45:23,280 --> 00:45:27,680
Speaker 8: Well, I think it would be just incredible and paradigm

969
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 8: shifting if we could find signs that life existed somewhere

970
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:35,719
Speaker 8: not Earth. Right, we know there's life on Earth, you know,

971
00:45:35,800 --> 00:45:37,799
Speaker 8: but how did it start? We don't really understand a

972
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:40,360
Speaker 8: lot about our own origins, and we don't.

973
00:45:40,200 --> 00:45:41,239
Speaker 5: Know how common it is.

974
00:45:41,440 --> 00:45:44,200
Speaker 8: Right now, we only have one example of life on

975
00:45:44,239 --> 00:45:46,840
Speaker 8: a planet, and that's our planet. If we could find

976
00:45:47,480 --> 00:45:49,840
Speaker 8: evidence of life on a different planet, how to be

977
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:51,560
Speaker 8: remarkable and incredible?

978
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:54,440
Speaker 1: What would that look like in terms of the rovers

979
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:56,479
Speaker 1: that we have now or the rovers that are en route.

980
00:45:56,760 --> 00:45:58,400
Speaker 1: What would that discovery look like. I mean, we're not

981
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:01,359
Speaker 1: talking about little critters waving that to the cameras, right,

982
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 1: I mean.

983
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:05,640
Speaker 8: I think it's pretty clear that there is a macroscopic

984
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:06,520
Speaker 8: life on Mars.

985
00:46:06,600 --> 00:46:07,319
Speaker 5: Right the trees.

986
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:09,839
Speaker 8: There's no dinosaurs. We would have seen those things. So

987
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:12,240
Speaker 8: now the question is microscopic life.

988
00:46:12,640 --> 00:46:14,520
Speaker 5: Was it there? And is it there?

989
00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:16,560
Speaker 8: So those are actually two different questions and we have

990
00:46:16,680 --> 00:46:19,800
Speaker 8: to have different approaches to answer those questions.

991
00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:20,080
Speaker 7: Right.

992
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:23,600
Speaker 8: The Perseverance rover is looking for signs of past life

993
00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:25,000
Speaker 8: and there's a lot of ways.

994
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:27,880
Speaker 5: To do that, and we use the same techniques that

995
00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:28,760
Speaker 5: we do on Earth.

996
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:31,400
Speaker 8: How do we know when life began on Earth and

997
00:46:31,440 --> 00:46:33,200
Speaker 8: what were the signs that it left? So that's our

998
00:46:33,239 --> 00:46:37,480
Speaker 8: best way of analyzing Mars rocks to find out if

999
00:46:37,480 --> 00:46:40,160
Speaker 8: there was life in the past. I think our best

1000
00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:44,720
Speaker 8: bet is going to be bringing these samples back to Earth.

1001
00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:48,839
Speaker 8: We have some incredible rovers and they having great payloads

1002
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:51,439
Speaker 8: of these instruments that just do great things, and they're

1003
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:54,000
Speaker 8: doing them remotely. It's just amazing what we can do.

1004
00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:57,000
Speaker 8: But it doesn't compare to our gold standard instruments that

1005
00:46:57,000 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 8: we have on the Earth, and so there are questions

1006
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:02,440
Speaker 8: that we can never answer with our current payloads. So

1007
00:47:02,480 --> 00:47:04,800
Speaker 8: we're going to need to just get that sample back

1008
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:07,799
Speaker 8: into the laboratory, take a look at it, and then

1009
00:47:07,960 --> 00:47:10,359
Speaker 8: we'll probably want to do different analyzes. Right, we don't

1010
00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:12,080
Speaker 8: know what we're going to see, and so we don't

1011
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:14,520
Speaker 8: know what the next steps will be. And that's the

1012
00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:17,600
Speaker 8: excitement and the fun part about doing science like this

1013
00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:21,480
Speaker 8: is that you can only predict the first few steps,

1014
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:24,359
Speaker 8: but it's the next steps are all dependent on what

1015
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:24,880
Speaker 8: you find.

1016
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:28,520
Speaker 1: And why can't we just do those studies on Martian mediors,

1017
00:47:28,520 --> 00:47:30,359
Speaker 1: you know, bits of Mars that have been blasted off

1018
00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:31,480
Speaker 1: and landed here already.

1019
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:34,319
Speaker 8: We're very lucky that Mars has sent us about one

1020
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:37,320
Speaker 8: hundred and fifty pieces of itself, so we didn't actually

1021
00:47:37,320 --> 00:47:39,320
Speaker 8: have to go to Mars to get those pieces of Mars,

1022
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:43,040
Speaker 8: So thank you Mars. The problem with those meteorites, though,

1023
00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:46,480
Speaker 8: is that they don't have any context. Right, they fell

1024
00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:49,439
Speaker 8: out of the sky. We don't know where they came

1025
00:47:49,440 --> 00:47:54,120
Speaker 8: from on Mars. It's very hard to make statements about

1026
00:47:54,320 --> 00:47:56,920
Speaker 8: geology in a broad sense if you only have a

1027
00:47:56,960 --> 00:47:57,560
Speaker 8: hand sample.

1028
00:47:57,680 --> 00:47:57,839
Speaker 7: Right.

1029
00:47:58,040 --> 00:48:00,000
Speaker 8: As a geologist, people come to me all the time

1030
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:02,960
Speaker 8: with some random rock they're like, what's this. I'm like, well,

1031
00:48:03,160 --> 00:48:06,279
Speaker 8: I could tell you some things, but you know, you

1032
00:48:06,360 --> 00:48:07,399
Speaker 8: just pick that up off of the ground.

1033
00:48:07,440 --> 00:48:09,480
Speaker 5: Where did it come from? What was the broader context?

1034
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:12,520
Speaker 8: We need that context to really be able to answer

1035
00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:15,160
Speaker 8: these questions about Mars. That's why sample return is so

1036
00:48:15,239 --> 00:48:18,320
Speaker 8: exciting because we know exactly where it came from. We

1037
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:21,920
Speaker 8: have documented that location very well, and so then when

1038
00:48:21,920 --> 00:48:25,160
Speaker 8: we get results from that sample, we can then integrate

1039
00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:26,520
Speaker 8: that into a larger context.

1040
00:48:26,719 --> 00:48:29,160
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. And so if there

1041
00:48:29,200 --> 00:48:32,680
Speaker 1: are craters alive on Mars and little microbes and we

1042
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:36,200
Speaker 1: sample them by chance and those samples come back to Earth,

1043
00:48:36,960 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 1: are we imagining that those things could still be, you know,

1044
00:48:40,200 --> 00:48:43,560
Speaker 1: alive and wiggling. Can we measure like, you know, metabolic

1045
00:48:43,640 --> 00:48:46,200
Speaker 1: activity in the sample that returns to Earth from Mars.

1046
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:48,800
Speaker 8: If there are things living near the surface of Mars,

1047
00:48:48,880 --> 00:48:51,640
Speaker 8: they have got to be amazing because the radiation environment

1048
00:48:51,680 --> 00:48:55,319
Speaker 8: on Mars is terrible. You know, it's Mars doesn't have

1049
00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:58,800
Speaker 8: a magnetic field because it doesn't have a dynamo and

1050
00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:02,440
Speaker 8: its core and so this environment is just's pretty icky

1051
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:04,360
Speaker 8: for life. There's a lot of life on Earth that

1052
00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:05,359
Speaker 8: could probably handle it.

1053
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:07,040
Speaker 5: But it's not that common.

1054
00:49:07,120 --> 00:49:10,000
Speaker 8: So I would say the chances of us finding extant

1055
00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:13,240
Speaker 8: Martians in the near.

1056
00:49:13,120 --> 00:49:15,439
Speaker 5: Subsurface where we can access it with a rover, it's

1057
00:49:15,560 --> 00:49:20,040
Speaker 5: very very low. But we have to prepare for that possibility.

1058
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:23,560
Speaker 8: So one of the things that's really critical that we

1059
00:49:23,640 --> 00:49:26,479
Speaker 8: do before our samples come back is to prepare their

1060
00:49:26,920 --> 00:49:30,360
Speaker 8: housing facility. There are a few facilities on Earth that

1061
00:49:30,440 --> 00:49:32,880
Speaker 8: already are ready for this. A notable one is at

1062
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:36,719
Speaker 8: Johnson Space Center, which is the main repository for all

1063
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:38,200
Speaker 8: the Apollo samples from the Moon.

1064
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:39,080
Speaker 5: Because we had the.

1065
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:41,120
Speaker 8: Same questions about the Moon, you know, who knows what's

1066
00:49:41,200 --> 00:49:43,320
Speaker 8: up there, And it turns out that the Moon is

1067
00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:45,960
Speaker 8: a pretty sterile place, it turns out, and maybe that

1068
00:49:46,080 --> 00:49:48,840
Speaker 8: was easy to predict in retrospect, but you know, we

1069
00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:50,960
Speaker 8: had no idea. So we had to take really a

1070
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:55,120
Speaker 8: lot of precautions to protect both the samples and Earth

1071
00:49:55,160 --> 00:49:55,839
Speaker 8: from each other.

1072
00:49:56,160 --> 00:49:58,440
Speaker 5: And so we'll have to do the same for a

1073
00:49:58,520 --> 00:49:59,840
Speaker 5: Mars sample return mission.

1074
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:03,160
Speaker 8: And so we know from our experience with Apollo and

1075
00:50:03,280 --> 00:50:06,360
Speaker 8: also just bioscience in general, you know the best methods

1076
00:50:06,400 --> 00:50:09,080
Speaker 8: for doing that. So I think that facilities are going

1077
00:50:09,120 --> 00:50:12,520
Speaker 8: to either be constructed or old ones retrofitted to be

1078
00:50:12,640 --> 00:50:14,400
Speaker 8: able to handle these new samples.

1079
00:50:14,440 --> 00:50:17,520
Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, I hope that happens. I've been reading a

1080
00:50:17,560 --> 00:50:21,040
Speaker 1: little bit about the history of these missions, and I

1081
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:23,600
Speaker 1: note that you know, Mars sample return has been discussed

1082
00:50:23,640 --> 00:50:27,240
Speaker 1: for decades and even planned and then canceled and replanned

1083
00:50:27,239 --> 00:50:30,400
Speaker 1: and recanceled. Do you think this latest plan by NASA

1084
00:50:30,440 --> 00:50:33,880
Speaker 1: and ESA is likely to actually happen or do you

1085
00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:38,200
Speaker 1: think the political climate where we change administrations and government

1086
00:50:38,239 --> 00:50:40,200
Speaker 1: every few years makes it difficult to pull off a

1087
00:50:40,280 --> 00:50:41,640
Speaker 1: long term project like this.

1088
00:50:41,719 --> 00:50:44,600
Speaker 8: Well, it's certainly above my pay grade to make political predictions,

1089
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:45,960
Speaker 8: so I can't.

1090
00:50:45,719 --> 00:50:46,680
Speaker 5: Really speak to that.

1091
00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:51,480
Speaker 8: But it's true that these missions are really big, they

1092
00:50:51,520 --> 00:50:54,760
Speaker 8: require incredible amounts of collaboration over long periods of time,

1093
00:50:54,800 --> 00:50:57,759
Speaker 8: and they require quite a bit of funding. So that

1094
00:50:58,040 --> 00:51:00,120
Speaker 8: is what we need the most. I don't think that

1095
00:51:00,160 --> 00:51:03,120
Speaker 8: anything is impossible for us if we work together. I

1096
00:51:03,120 --> 00:51:05,520
Speaker 8: think that we've really come up with a great plan

1097
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:08,640
Speaker 8: that has a high likelihood of success. The question is

1098
00:51:08,719 --> 00:51:10,600
Speaker 8: whether or not we want to fund that, and that's

1099
00:51:10,719 --> 00:51:13,839
Speaker 8: not up to me as an individual if it were

1100
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:15,799
Speaker 8: be funded right now, but you know, we have to

1101
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:19,640
Speaker 8: make sure that this is aligned with our taxpayers desires.

1102
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:21,799
Speaker 8: There's a lot of things that go into that, and

1103
00:51:22,080 --> 00:51:24,239
Speaker 8: is this where we want to put our priorities. I

1104
00:51:24,280 --> 00:51:27,960
Speaker 8: would note that NASA is not funded at the levels

1105
00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:30,000
Speaker 8: that most people think right when I like to play

1106
00:51:30,000 --> 00:51:32,480
Speaker 8: this game like what percentage of the total US budget

1107
00:51:32,680 --> 00:51:35,719
Speaker 8: is NASA getting, and people are like twenty percent, and

1108
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:37,160
Speaker 8: I'm like, that's great.

1109
00:51:37,400 --> 00:51:38,920
Speaker 1: I wish it were twenty percent.

1110
00:51:39,640 --> 00:51:42,719
Speaker 8: I know, of like, that would be amazing, you know,

1111
00:51:42,840 --> 00:51:46,120
Speaker 8: but unfortunately, at its maximum, NASA has never gotten more

1112
00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:47,720
Speaker 8: than one percent of the total US budget.

1113
00:51:47,760 --> 00:51:49,520
Speaker 5: It's much lower than that now, you know.

1114
00:51:49,600 --> 00:51:53,839
Speaker 8: So we are doing all this work with really very

1115
00:51:53,880 --> 00:51:56,480
Speaker 8: little funding, which is amazing. We don't really need that

1116
00:51:56,640 --> 00:52:00,760
Speaker 8: much more funding to make a sample return mission from reality.

1117
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:02,400
Speaker 5: So that's that's what I would say.

1118
00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:04,480
Speaker 8: I would say, you know, maybe it feels like it's

1119
00:52:04,520 --> 00:52:06,799
Speaker 8: a little bit of extra money now, but the I

1120
00:52:06,800 --> 00:52:09,239
Speaker 8: think the rewards would be incredible and it would absolutely

1121
00:52:09,239 --> 00:52:10,120
Speaker 8: be worth the price tag.

1122
00:52:10,400 --> 00:52:12,319
Speaker 1: I agree with you. I think it's incredible when we

1123
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:14,879
Speaker 1: have the capability to do something and the only thing

1124
00:52:14,920 --> 00:52:17,759
Speaker 1: that limits us is the money. It's like you're at

1125
00:52:17,760 --> 00:52:20,120
Speaker 1: the universe is like knowledge shop and you could just

1126
00:52:20,239 --> 00:52:23,560
Speaker 1: buy this information about the universe, and the money is there,

1127
00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:25,880
Speaker 1: but they're spending it on aircraft carriers.

1128
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:27,480
Speaker 5: So when we need those two, we need them all.

1129
00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:30,000
Speaker 8: We need all the things, but we could just you know,

1130
00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:32,359
Speaker 8: I think people think of it as more expensive than

1131
00:52:32,360 --> 00:52:35,239
Speaker 8: it really is. It really is a bargain what we

1132
00:52:35,280 --> 00:52:35,640
Speaker 8: can do.

1133
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:38,520
Speaker 1: It really is. So let's say this mission happens. There

1134
00:52:38,560 --> 00:52:40,960
Speaker 1: are several parts to it which seem a little you know,

1135
00:52:41,080 --> 00:52:44,200
Speaker 1: nerve wracking. It's being transferred from one to the other.

1136
00:52:44,600 --> 00:52:47,880
Speaker 1: Say this happens. Which part is the most nail biting

1137
00:52:47,920 --> 00:52:50,680
Speaker 1: for you? Which is the moment where you're like, you know,

1138
00:52:50,719 --> 00:52:52,440
Speaker 1: holding your breath hoping that it works.

1139
00:52:52,719 --> 00:52:55,360
Speaker 8: I think for me, the most anxiety written part of

1140
00:52:55,360 --> 00:52:57,560
Speaker 8: any mission is launching and landing.

1141
00:52:57,600 --> 00:52:59,200
Speaker 5: Those are the hardest parts that we do.

1142
00:52:59,280 --> 00:53:02,800
Speaker 8: It's really hard to launch something off of another planet

1143
00:53:02,960 --> 00:53:05,520
Speaker 8: and get it onto another planet safely.

1144
00:53:06,120 --> 00:53:10,080
Speaker 5: And so you know, we've done this now for many.

1145
00:53:09,880 --> 00:53:12,920
Speaker 8: Missions successfully, right, but we can't never guarantee that it's

1146
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:14,560
Speaker 8: going to always work out well. I think we have

1147
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:17,040
Speaker 8: a good track record, but we're gonna be trying to

1148
00:53:17,080 --> 00:53:20,359
Speaker 8: do some very different things with sample return that we've

1149
00:53:20,360 --> 00:53:21,959
Speaker 8: never tried before, and that is.

1150
00:53:21,880 --> 00:53:25,600
Speaker 5: We've got to first get our rover perseverance to Mars.

1151
00:53:25,719 --> 00:53:26,880
Speaker 5: So we're already.

1152
00:53:26,920 --> 00:53:29,399
Speaker 8: Launching, we've already launched off of Earth and now we're

1153
00:53:29,640 --> 00:53:30,279
Speaker 8: en route to Mars.

1154
00:53:30,320 --> 00:53:31,520
Speaker 5: We're gonna land on Mars.

1155
00:53:32,320 --> 00:53:35,399
Speaker 8: Then that rover has to gather samples, and then we're

1156
00:53:35,440 --> 00:53:38,360
Speaker 8: gonna launch another spacecraft that's gonna get into orbit around Mars.

1157
00:53:38,440 --> 00:53:40,680
Speaker 8: And then that spacecraft's gonna launch a lander with a

1158
00:53:40,680 --> 00:53:42,799
Speaker 8: little fetch rover, and that rover is gonna pick up

1159
00:53:42,800 --> 00:53:45,600
Speaker 8: our samples and then get back to this lander and

1160
00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:48,240
Speaker 8: then launch off of Mars. This is all by itself,

1161
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:51,160
Speaker 8: by the way, no help from us. Then it's gonna

1162
00:53:51,200 --> 00:53:53,920
Speaker 8: rendezvous with that orbiting spacecraft, and then that spacecraft is

1163
00:53:53,960 --> 00:53:58,560
Speaker 8: gonna come back to Earth. And that's very complicated. I

1164
00:53:58,640 --> 00:54:02,040
Speaker 8: think we can absolutely, it's absolutely feasible, but there's quite

1165
00:54:02,080 --> 00:54:04,640
Speaker 8: a bit of risk there, and especially because we can't

1166
00:54:04,920 --> 00:54:07,160
Speaker 8: operate this in real time, these systems have to be

1167
00:54:07,200 --> 00:54:08,160
Speaker 8: somewhat autonomous.

1168
00:54:08,760 --> 00:54:12,080
Speaker 1: So then imagine that it's here, we have Mars samples,

1169
00:54:12,080 --> 00:54:15,560
Speaker 1: they're steriler pristine, they're in the labratory, and you're the

1170
00:54:15,560 --> 00:54:17,680
Speaker 1: first person to get crack at them, right, what's the

1171
00:54:17,719 --> 00:54:19,839
Speaker 1: first thing you do to those samples? What's the first

1172
00:54:19,920 --> 00:54:21,200
Speaker 1: question you want to answer?

1173
00:54:21,800 --> 00:54:23,600
Speaker 8: Oh, my goodness, that is such a I mean, if

1174
00:54:23,640 --> 00:54:25,279
Speaker 8: I'm the first person to see them, I don't know

1175
00:54:25,320 --> 00:54:26,640
Speaker 8: if I could keep it from my friends, I'd have

1176
00:54:26,680 --> 00:54:28,279
Speaker 8: to invite everybody over so we can all look at

1177
00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:31,239
Speaker 8: this together, I think. I mean, the first step for

1178
00:54:31,600 --> 00:54:34,120
Speaker 8: bringing back samples like this is you must triage them.

1179
00:54:34,160 --> 00:54:36,560
Speaker 8: So we need to get a general sense what kind

1180
00:54:36,560 --> 00:54:38,319
Speaker 8: of rock is this, what kind of minerals? You know,

1181
00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:42,719
Speaker 8: just basic characteristics, because that will then tell you what

1182
00:54:42,800 --> 00:54:44,960
Speaker 8: the next question should be. You know, if you have

1183
00:54:45,280 --> 00:54:49,280
Speaker 8: a rock that appears to be igneous, so from a volcano,

1184
00:54:49,680 --> 00:54:52,279
Speaker 8: the next questions are going to be, you know, more

1185
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:55,680
Speaker 8: about how did volcanism evolve in this place? You know,

1186
00:54:55,800 --> 00:54:59,279
Speaker 8: what kind of volcano reduce this material? And then what

1187
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:02,280
Speaker 8: happened to it? Now, if you get a sedimentary sample,

1188
00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:05,719
Speaker 8: totally different questions. You're like, okay, so now this is sedimentary.

1189
00:55:05,800 --> 00:55:07,040
Speaker 8: Was it in placed in water?

1190
00:55:07,719 --> 00:55:08,600
Speaker 5: What kind of water?

1191
00:55:08,680 --> 00:55:10,920
Speaker 8: You know, what's the nature of the properties of that fluid?

1192
00:55:11,360 --> 00:55:14,320
Speaker 8: And then what kind of other minerals were precipitating there?

1193
00:55:14,600 --> 00:55:17,680
Speaker 8: And what does that tell us about the habitability of

1194
00:55:17,680 --> 00:55:21,400
Speaker 8: that environment and what kind of things could actually utilize,

1195
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:23,040
Speaker 8: you know, what are the energy sources that might have

1196
00:55:23,120 --> 00:55:23,520
Speaker 8: been there.

1197
00:55:23,840 --> 00:55:25,799
Speaker 5: So I think like depending on.

1198
00:55:25,760 --> 00:55:28,360
Speaker 8: The first canister that I open, you know, you go

1199
00:55:28,480 --> 00:55:32,000
Speaker 8: in a different direction. So I'm hoping that we get

1200
00:55:32,840 --> 00:55:35,960
Speaker 8: some sedimentary materials that are high in manganese and will

1201
00:55:36,080 --> 00:55:39,200
Speaker 8: know that before they come back from Mars, because we

1202
00:55:39,320 --> 00:55:41,920
Speaker 8: will select these very carefully, so that would probably be

1203
00:55:42,000 --> 00:55:44,960
Speaker 8: something that will already know. So I would pick, you know,

1204
00:55:45,120 --> 00:55:47,439
Speaker 8: my favorite canister to open first so that I could

1205
00:55:47,480 --> 00:55:50,880
Speaker 8: follow my favorite questions. And for me, I'm really interested

1206
00:55:50,880 --> 00:55:54,920
Speaker 8: in understanding you know, are there biosignatures that are preserved

1207
00:55:55,040 --> 00:55:59,720
Speaker 8: in sedimentary materials on Mars. So these are chemical or mineral,

1208
00:55:59,719 --> 00:56:04,880
Speaker 8: logical or even morphological features that are left by life

1209
00:56:05,080 --> 00:56:07,280
Speaker 8: that can tell us something about what it was doing.

1210
00:56:07,800 --> 00:56:09,600
Speaker 8: And then it can also, depending on the age of

1211
00:56:09,600 --> 00:56:11,960
Speaker 8: the rock, tell us when it was doing that. So

1212
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:13,880
Speaker 8: those are the questions that I'd want to answer first.

1213
00:56:14,160 --> 00:56:16,840
Speaker 1: All right, wonderful, Well, I can hear your enthusiasm and

1214
00:56:16,880 --> 00:56:19,759
Speaker 1: it makes me excited to get these samples back here.

1215
00:56:19,880 --> 00:56:24,400
Speaker 1: Twenty thirty one, So thanks again for coming on our

1216
00:56:24,440 --> 00:56:26,000
Speaker 1: program and for telling us about it.

1217
00:56:26,080 --> 00:56:27,080
Speaker 5: Yeah, thanks for having me.

1218
00:56:27,360 --> 00:56:31,560
Speaker 4: It's been great chatting all right, pretty awesome. She's amazing.

1219
00:56:31,840 --> 00:56:34,440
Speaker 4: It sounds like it's totally possible, Like this might work, Daniel.

1220
00:56:34,719 --> 00:56:37,799
Speaker 1: It's basically a question of politics and money and then

1221
00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:40,000
Speaker 1: you know a little bit of luck, Like if we

1222
00:56:40,040 --> 00:56:42,600
Speaker 1: actually commit to doing this thing and to sending this

1223
00:56:42,640 --> 00:56:45,560
Speaker 1: thing over there, we have a reasonable chance of it working. Really,

1224
00:56:45,800 --> 00:56:48,879
Speaker 1: you know, something like fifty percent of missions to Mars fail,

1225
00:56:49,040 --> 00:56:50,520
Speaker 1: but that's a reasonable.

1226
00:56:50,160 --> 00:56:54,000
Speaker 4: Chance of fifty. Is that our hit rate?

1227
00:56:54,120 --> 00:56:55,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's our hit rate, and I think we have

1228
00:56:55,560 --> 00:56:57,480
Speaker 1: the best hit rate of any country on Earth. But

1229
00:56:57,520 --> 00:57:00,160
Speaker 1: it's still it is tricky, it's far away. These things

1230
00:57:00,160 --> 00:57:03,040
Speaker 1: are complicated. But remember what NASA has pulled off, Like

1231
00:57:03,320 --> 00:57:06,600
Speaker 1: they have done amazing things like the sky crane landing

1232
00:57:06,640 --> 00:57:09,040
Speaker 1: on Mars and all sorts of stuff. Yeah, so there's

1233
00:57:09,080 --> 00:57:11,960
Speaker 1: some pretty awesome engineers over there. I trust them. I

1234
00:57:12,000 --> 00:57:13,520
Speaker 1: think they deserve a couple billion.

1235
00:57:13,800 --> 00:57:16,400
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, you're saying that the biggest challenge is just

1236
00:57:16,520 --> 00:57:19,439
Speaker 4: keeping this project funded, because you know, it takes years

1237
00:57:19,480 --> 00:57:22,600
Speaker 4: and years. It's like a twenty year project, fifteen year project.

1238
00:57:22,760 --> 00:57:25,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, if the samples do return, they'll be back here

1239
00:57:25,480 --> 00:57:28,960
Speaker 1: in twenty thirty one. Wow. And so it just needs

1240
00:57:29,000 --> 00:57:31,280
Speaker 1: constant funding. And you know how it is these days

1241
00:57:31,280 --> 00:57:34,560
Speaker 1: with politics. New administration comes in, first thing they love

1242
00:57:34,640 --> 00:57:37,360
Speaker 1: to do is cancel the projects from the previous administration.

1243
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:41,880
Speaker 1: And so it has to be consistently supported by multiple

1244
00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:44,080
Speaker 1: branches of government in order to survive.

1245
00:57:44,200 --> 00:57:46,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, well sure, yeah, let's give them all the billions.

1246
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:49,320
Speaker 1: I mean not all the billions, but a few of

1247
00:57:49,320 --> 00:57:52,360
Speaker 1: the billions. Think of the things we could learn. I'm

1248
00:57:52,360 --> 00:57:56,120
Speaker 1: always frustrated when there are opportunities to learn something important

1249
00:57:56,120 --> 00:57:59,200
Speaker 1: and deep about the universe and the only barrier is money,

1250
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:02,200
Speaker 1: money that we have. I would totally go into the

1251
00:58:02,320 --> 00:58:05,480
Speaker 1: Universe knowledge shop and spend lots of billions of dollars

1252
00:58:05,520 --> 00:58:06,960
Speaker 1: to learn things about the universe.

1253
00:58:07,040 --> 00:58:10,760
Speaker 4: You would totally press that red buy now, but Mars

1254
00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:14,240
Speaker 4: rock by now, sample of gas from Jupiter, buy now.

1255
00:58:14,480 --> 00:58:17,280
Speaker 1: Secrets of the Universe. Click click click, deliver.

1256
00:58:17,080 --> 00:58:23,440
Speaker 4: Tomorrow please next day delivery please All right, Well, doctor

1257
00:58:23,520 --> 00:58:26,960
Speaker 4: LANSI was definitely excited. We're excited, and good luck to

1258
00:58:27,000 --> 00:58:28,520
Speaker 4: the Mars scientists who are working on.

1259
00:58:28,480 --> 00:58:30,760
Speaker 1: This and tune in in twenty thirty one. Well, we'll

1260
00:58:30,800 --> 00:58:34,320
Speaker 1: break down for you the incredible discoveries made by Mars

1261
00:58:34,320 --> 00:58:35,160
Speaker 1: sample return.

1262
00:58:35,520 --> 00:58:39,640
Speaker 4: That's right today on episode three thousand of Daniel and

1263
00:58:39,720 --> 00:58:42,560
Speaker 4: Horris Paint Universe. Remember that time we interviewed one of

1264
00:58:42,600 --> 00:58:43,200
Speaker 4: the scientists.

1265
00:58:43,240 --> 00:58:45,560
Speaker 1: No, it'll be two robots. Two robots will have taken

1266
00:58:45,560 --> 00:58:46,600
Speaker 1: over the podcast by then.

1267
00:58:48,400 --> 00:58:52,440
Speaker 4: Yeah, and together they'll transform into an awesome podcast.

1268
00:58:53,760 --> 00:58:56,600
Speaker 1: Actually making good jokes a trunk.

1269
00:58:57,200 --> 00:58:59,240
Speaker 4: All right, Well, thanks for joining us. Hope you enjoyed that.

1270
00:59:00,080 --> 00:59:00,880
Speaker 4: See you next time.

1271
00:59:08,960 --> 00:59:11,760
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and remember that. Daniel and Jorge Explain

1272
00:59:11,840 --> 00:59:15,840
Speaker 1: the Universe is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts

1273
00:59:15,840 --> 00:59:20,480
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

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Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. When you pop a

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Speaker 1: about the environmental impact. But the people in the dairy

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Speaker 1: industry are. That's why they're working hard every day to

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Speaker 1: electric cars. Visit you COM's Last Sustainability to learn more.

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