Speaker 1: This is Latino USA, the radio journal of News and
Speaker 1: courtur Latino US.
Speaker 2: Latin Latino USA.
Speaker 1: I'm Maria Inojosa. We bring you stories that are underreported
Speaker 1: but that mattered to you, overlooked by the rest of
Speaker 1: the media.
Speaker 2: And while the country is struggling to deal with these, we.
Speaker 1: Listen to the stories of Black and Latino Studio United
Speaker 1: Latino Front, a cultural renaissance organizing at the forefront of
Speaker 1: the movement. I'm Maria Inojosa, Lan Latino USA. Listener, Hope
Speaker 1: you're having a good one. Here's a show from the archives.
Speaker 3: Eight seven, six, five five for engine Ignition two one zero.
Speaker 2: Relate and lift off.
Speaker 3: As the countdowns cars continues the Perseverance of humanity launching
Speaker 3: the next generation of robotic explorers to the Red Planet.
Speaker 1: From Fudromidia and RX. It's Latino USA. I'm Mariano Rosa.
Speaker 1: Today we meet some of the Latinos working on the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty historic Perseverance mission to Mars. It's been about
Speaker 1: forty five years since the first US spacecraft landed safely
Speaker 1: on Mars. Since then, there have been several other missions
Speaker 1: to the Red Planet, each one building off of the
Speaker 1: other and getting us to where we are today Perseverance.
Speaker 4: After the Rover Curiosity landed on Mars eight years ago,
Speaker 4: it confirmed the Red planet once could have supported life.
Speaker 4: Perseverance will try to find definitive proof catch.
Speaker 5: Out confirmed Perseverance safely on the sefith of Mars.
Speaker 1: The Rover left Earth last July and traveled almost three
Speaker 1: hundred million miles across space to its destination, the Red Planet.
Speaker 1: And on today's episode, you're going to hear from some
Speaker 1: of the Latinos and Latinas whose own perseverance made this
Speaker 1: mission possible. People like Dianna Trujillo.
Speaker 6: The night before always were empty and I am setting
Speaker 6: up thinking about, you know, having the biggest night of
Speaker 6: my career. On the next morning, on getting ready.
Speaker 1: For it, Christina Ernandez.
Speaker 7: I woke up super early because I could not sleep
Speaker 7: at all in the anticipation of landing on Mars. I
Speaker 7: was one of the people who was actually supporting remotely
Speaker 7: from home. So because of the pandemic, a large majority
Speaker 7: of our team is actually working remotely.
Speaker 1: Elio Morigo.
Speaker 5: The moment we landed, we were just you know, throwing
Speaker 5: our arms up. It was super emotional because after so
Speaker 5: many years, our baby was fine only on the surface
Speaker 5: of Mars, ready to get on with the science mission.
Speaker 1: And Alejandro Miguel San Martin, who went viral after his
Speaker 1: daughter shared with the world Alejandro's reaction to the moment
Speaker 1: when Perseverance landed on Mars.
Speaker 8: Table being at home, my wife next to me, I
Speaker 8: was more free to actually be part of the experience
Speaker 8: than in the previous for landings that I was in
Speaker 8: the control room in a more bridgie settings, because you're
Speaker 8: doing a job, and so I think that's also play
Speaker 8: a role in my being able to celebrate the great
Speaker 8: success of Perseverance landing.
Speaker 1: Year's producer Reinaldo Leanos Junior bringing us their stories.
Speaker 2: Diana tru Hill was working late at NASA's JPL Jet
Speaker 2: Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the night before the Perseverance
Speaker 2: rover would finally touch down on the surface of Mars.
Speaker 6: That night, I think it was not only reflecting on that,
Speaker 6: reflecting also oman family and understanding how far we have
Speaker 6: gotten us humanity and recognizing that everybody is going to
Speaker 6: get to see what we're about to do on Mars.
Speaker 2: As flight director for the rover, Deanna knew that in
Speaker 2: just a couple of hours should be a part of history.
Speaker 6: I was setting up and getting ready for the first
Speaker 6: Spanish language landing broadcast and NASA has done for a
Speaker 6: planetary mission, Perseverance.
Speaker 2: Deanna would lead this broadcast and give a play by
Speaker 2: play as the rover inch closer and closer to landing.
Speaker 2: The idea for a Spanish language broadcast came to her
Speaker 2: when she was working on another Mars mission about a
Speaker 2: decade ago, Curiosity.
Speaker 6: It came to my mind, maybe like a week or
Speaker 6: a few days before Curiosity landed in twenty twelve. But
Speaker 6: since then I've been, you know, going to the media
Speaker 6: office periodically every time there's a major mission happening, like hey,
Speaker 6: we should do this in Spanish, Hey we should do
Speaker 6: this in Spanish and yeah, So right before Perseverance started,
Speaker 6: I mentioned it again and consistently, I feel like for
Speaker 6: seven years, and then they said yes, So.
Speaker 9: Idiana trojijoa, studijando director Deuelo, the Superficia, the Perseverance.
Speaker 6: But oh thank god.
Speaker 9: Pre program my nest Panol de la Nasa Planetario bien venils.
Speaker 2: Throughout nearly two hours of broadcast, Deanna several guests by
Speaker 2: virtually like Lola and Abby from Sestime Street.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 6: Ona Is the Lisa C.
Speaker 3: Mascalistas see Lola Estadosperandusi Momento.
Speaker 2: And Colombian artist Juanzolissa. Journalists Ramos and Maria, Elena Salinas
Speaker 2: and others also made an appearance. Just before one pm
Speaker 2: Pacific time on February eighteenth, Perseverance landed on mars Emo Perceeo.
Speaker 10: Takewaymorrow.
Speaker 2: The video of the Spanish broadcast, which they called Junto Samos,
Speaker 2: has more than two point six million views on YouTube.
Speaker 6: Our culture showed up to it.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 6: It wasn't like please come, It was the other way,
Speaker 6: which was thank you for having it in Spanish. We
Speaker 6: wanted to hear it. We have always been here, but
Speaker 6: you know, nobody was talking to us. So now somebody's
Speaker 6: talking to us, and that's great.
Speaker 2: Her family in the US and abroad also tuned in.
Speaker 6: I'm from Colombia in my country on the public channel,
Speaker 6: they broadcasted it, so my grandma saw it and she
Speaker 6: was super excited. She was actually on the phone with
Speaker 6: my mom, my kids, my husband, my mom. They're all
Speaker 6: watching it on TV at home while I'm at the office.
Speaker 1: Dan.
Speaker 2: I was glad her family watched, but even more excited
Speaker 2: that they were part of this collective experience.
Speaker 6: I'm sure that if he hadn't been the pandemic, and
Speaker 6: you know, I love my culture and everything. I feel
Speaker 6: like we would have pull up the TV outside everybody
Speaker 6: will have you on the street. People will be like
Speaker 6: watch this, and like all the neighbors would have opened
Speaker 6: the doors, Like I could see that happening on my
Speaker 6: country and even on my own street right where everybody
Speaker 6: just unites for a single thing that is happening with
Speaker 6: a lot of pride because we're part of it.
Speaker 2: The road to NASA has been a long one for Vienna,
Speaker 2: but she remembers different times throughout her life that space
Speaker 2: found its way to her. The first time was when
Speaker 2: she was a little girl and her parents were getting
Speaker 2: a divorce. As she felt that everything around her was
Speaker 2: falling off, the stars in the night sky held her up.
Speaker 6: That's when space came in for me, because I think
Speaker 6: that it was just more of like an escape kind
Speaker 6: of like now as an adult, you know, you have
Speaker 6: a bad day and you go out for a walk
Speaker 6: and you look at the stars and you're like, Okay,
Speaker 6: I got my moment of I'm calm. Now, that's the
Speaker 6: same it was for me when I was a little girl,
Speaker 6: So thinking about the stars, looking at how awesome that is,
Speaker 6: and then as you're in that zone of peace, recognizing that,
Speaker 6: my god, somebody actually walked on the moon, which is
Speaker 6: insane and I am so far from that and there's
Speaker 6: no way I will ever do that and it's not
Speaker 6: going to happen. But how cool would it be to
Speaker 6: understand how that works? Because somehow the sky figure out
Speaker 6: how to make it all work, and we haven't on Earth.
Speaker 2: It was the women Indiana's life who would make her
Speaker 2: aware of her true potential. On frequent visits to her
Speaker 2: grandmother's house, who lived just the block away from her,
Speaker 2: she would sit on the floor and listen to her
Speaker 2: Abuela Diaz and cousins talk about everything.
Speaker 6: Oh, my husband did this, You're not gonna be leave that.
Speaker 6: It was kind of like they were coming together to
Speaker 6: share with each other the stories of what had occurred
Speaker 6: to them on that week. There was this beautiful thing
Speaker 6: where there was a community of women. They were just
Speaker 6: helping each other, and it was almost like this is
Speaker 6: happening to me, Is this happening to you?
Speaker 2: Or how did you handle this, Danna says, is coming
Speaker 2: together of women was essential for her to recognize that
Speaker 2: everyone has problems, that there is always a way out.
Speaker 6: Those problems, in many cases were very similar to each other.
Speaker 6: I can do this, I can do that, or I
Speaker 6: don't have this, or I don't have that, and a
Speaker 6: lot of the I can do this, I can do
Speaker 6: that were related to the relationship where your significant other
Speaker 6: and the backing down from what you wanted out of
Speaker 6: in some level, fear fear of it's all to my partner.
Speaker 6: I give everything to my partner. But what about you, Like,
Speaker 6: when are you going to think about for one moment,
Speaker 6: this is what I want to do, this is how
Speaker 6: I want to do it.
Speaker 2: She started to wonder what about her, what were her
Speaker 2: goals and really.
Speaker 6: What that to me translated after a while through the
Speaker 6: years was mainly that my grandma didn't finish middle school
Speaker 6: because of concerns from her significant other completely education. My
Speaker 6: mom also took a long time to even complete her
Speaker 6: degree because she was supporting my dad.
Speaker 2: But her mom and grandma wanted Diana's life to be different.
Speaker 2: With high hopes and expectations for her. They had officially
Speaker 2: named her Lady Danna.
Speaker 6: Part of my understanding from my grandma and choosing the
Speaker 6: name is you don't come second, you come first because
Speaker 6: you're our princess of the house and we want you
Speaker 6: to do so great. And so they tried everything from
Speaker 6: the name to the environment to protect me and build
Speaker 6: me in a way that I could see that I
Speaker 6: could do anything I wanted.
Speaker 2: Danna eventually moved to the US when she was seventeen
Speaker 2: years old. She knew she wanted to pursue something challenging.
Speaker 6: I have to do something hard. I have to do
Speaker 6: something that sends the message internally to my family really
Speaker 6: that women do add value, that women have value and
Speaker 6: we can contribute as much as another person or more.
Speaker 6: So when I got here at that, how do I
Speaker 6: help the men and my family recognize that.
Speaker 2: She knew being an astronaut was one of the hardest
Speaker 2: things someone could do, so she started to explore the
Speaker 2: career paths of other astronauts and discovered several of them
Speaker 2: were aerospace engineers. That eventually led her to NASA JPL,
Speaker 2: where she's had many hats. As the Mars mission has evolved.
Speaker 2: These days, Danna and her colleagues work around the clock
Speaker 2: to make sure everything's okay on Mars.
Speaker 6: A way of actually picturing this in my mind is
Speaker 6: like you're walking through a house and you're turning every
Speaker 6: single light, making sure that every light bulb warks, and
Speaker 6: then nothing has actually burned.
Speaker 2: She says. The rover has a schedule like you and I.
Speaker 6: In our case, you know, you put your alarm at
Speaker 6: not six am. The rover has an alarm at nine am,
Speaker 6: and so the wakes up at nine am to listen
Speaker 6: to the commands of the day, which includes commanding everything
Speaker 6: from moving the arm, taking images, doing any type of
Speaker 6: instrument activity, driving. But the rover just like it's exactly
Speaker 6: like you and I. Right at some point it's like
Speaker 6: I need to recharge my batteries, and so we put
Speaker 6: it to sleep.
Speaker 2: Deanna says the days on Earth and Mars are different,
Speaker 2: so sometimes they'll start at midnight and maybe another day
Speaker 2: they'll start at three am or ten am. It just varies,
Speaker 2: and while she plans to continue to be part of
Speaker 2: the Mars mission, Deanna has not given up on her
Speaker 2: original goal to become an astronaut.
Speaker 6: If the opportunity way to come, I will certainly go
Speaker 6: right if you were to ask me right now, Hey,
Speaker 6: there's an open spot you want to go or not.
Speaker 6: I was like, yeah, let's do it, Like there's no
Speaker 6: let me go think about it, let me consult. Nope,
Speaker 6: it's like, oh yeah, I already have my list of
Speaker 6: what I will pack done.
Speaker 1: Coming up on Latino USA, we'll hear more from Latinos
Speaker 1: and Latinas who helped make this recent mission to Mars possible,
Speaker 1: and they're going to share some inspirational words for any
Speaker 1: of you who are thinking about a career in NASA,
Speaker 1: the Moon, the Stars, stem Mars. Stay with us, don't
Speaker 1: stay like us. Hey we're back and let's get back
Speaker 1: to some of the Latinos and Latinas who recently helped
Speaker 1: send a rover to Mars. Producer Ronaldo Leans Junior once
Speaker 1: again picks up the story from here.
Speaker 2: In the lead up to the rover landing, part of
Speaker 2: the Mars team worked on the rover itself, and others
Speaker 2: worked hard on designing, building, and testing scientific instruments that
Speaker 2: are part of Perseverance. One of those instruments is named Sherlock,
Speaker 2: which is.
Speaker 7: An ultra violet spectrometer and it has a companion called Watson.
Speaker 7: We love our cute names. Watson is a camera that.
Speaker 2: Is Christina Hernandez, a payload system engineer. She worked on
Speaker 2: two scientific instruments. One that was developed in Spain called Meta.
Speaker 7: Which is a weather station that has sensors throughout the
Speaker 7: vehicle and is going to help us understand temperature, humidity,
Speaker 7: and even the dust that we have at Mars.
Speaker 2: And one made in Norway called Rimfax, which is.
Speaker 7: A ground penetrating radar that as the rover is traversing
Speaker 7: and trekking along the Martian surface, Rimfax is going to
Speaker 7: be able to image what's underneath.
Speaker 2: Working with teams based outside the US forced Christina to
Speaker 2: adapt to their clocks.
Speaker 7: And so I would have to get up at like
Speaker 7: five am for six am seven am design meetings with
Speaker 7: the team. Early on it was lots of meetings, lots
Speaker 7: of design, lots of like you know, big picture thinking,
Speaker 7: how are we going to do this? And about a
Speaker 7: year and a half from launch it got to my
Speaker 7: favorite part, where you start testing and building hardware and
Speaker 7: seeing how it's working and fighting fires and troubleshooting. That's
Speaker 7: the fun stuff, right You're in the in the tests
Speaker 7: in the lab till like three in the morning, figuring
Speaker 7: out these problems that have come up that you didn't
Speaker 7: prepare for.
Speaker 2: But Christina wasn't always the type of person who liked
Speaker 2: to break and take things apart.
Speaker 7: I didn't grow up being a tinker, you know. I
Speaker 7: wasn't taking apart, you know, remotes and things like that.
Speaker 7: I explored through turning a page in a book. I
Speaker 7: loved reading. I loved sign fiction. And I remember seeing,
Speaker 7: you know, pictures from Saturn that Cassini actually took, and
Speaker 7: I asked myself, I was like, Wow, how do I
Speaker 7: take a picture of something that's so far away, so
Speaker 7: far out of my perspective and my reality.
Speaker 2: Christina realized that she wanted to be someone who helps
Speaker 2: answer those questions that are fundamental to being human, like
Speaker 2: why are we here? And what else is out there?
Speaker 7: I wanted to be an engineer that helped enable science,
Speaker 7: and I really feel that's what I get to do
Speaker 7: every single day as this payload systems engineer, which is
Speaker 7: really just a fancy title for somebody who helps develop
Speaker 7: the tools and the science instruments that we take to
Speaker 7: go explore and answer these fundamental questions.
Speaker 2: The first time Christina heard about NASA's JPL was through
Speaker 2: a show called Nova on PBS. She learned that it
Speaker 2: was at JPL where some of these engineers made missions
Speaker 2: in space a reality.
Speaker 7: My mom was such a supporter of taking me to
Speaker 7: the library, taking me to museums because we couldn't afford
Speaker 7: space camp, so my mother sought out opportunities that were
Speaker 7: accessible to us, and one of those was JPL's open House.
Speaker 7: I just came away with the feeling of this place's
Speaker 7: Disneyland for nerds. You're walking around open house and these
Speaker 7: engineers are driving small robots over kids. They're bringing out
Speaker 7: our larger robots from the Mars yard and showcasing them.
Speaker 7: I just never realized that there was a place where
Speaker 7: science fiction meets reality.
Speaker 2: When Christina was an elementary school, her dad, an electrical technician,
Speaker 2: was studying to be an electrical engineer.
Speaker 7: My dad would always take me everywhere with him. He
Speaker 7: would take me to the facilities, and I just specifically
Speaker 7: remember cal State, LA. There was a couple of you know,
Speaker 7: electrical centers that he would go and check in and repair,
Speaker 7: and I would see his toolkit, all of his meters
Speaker 7: where he's you know, checking on the equipment, and I
Speaker 7: started to connect you know math and science to dad,
Speaker 7: I really started to make the connection of Oh, like,
Speaker 7: my dad's going to be an engineer. He's going to
Speaker 7: help in this endeavor.
Speaker 6: Of what I see on TV.
Speaker 2: She started to realize that if she wanted to make
Speaker 2: science fiction happen, she needed to focus on engineering, which
Speaker 2: eventually led her to NASA's JPL. A few years ago,
Speaker 2: she took her parents and Abuilos, a Mexican immigrants, for
Speaker 2: a visit to JPL. While touring the laboratory, her grandmother
Speaker 2: told Christina a story she had never heard before.
Speaker 7: There was a moment when they got picked up by immigration,
Speaker 7: and my grandmother tells me that when they were on
Speaker 7: their way to the immigrant center, on the radio, they
Speaker 7: were celebrating something with the Apollo astronauts. This was like
Speaker 7: back in the seventies.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 7: My grandmother just vividly remembers that moment, you know, when
Speaker 7: she was thinking about, oh, there's people who are exploring space.
Speaker 2: Suddenly Christina realized how far she'd made it.
Speaker 7: When I heard that story, I got very emotional because
Speaker 7: I it was that moment where you realize what a
Speaker 7: privilege it can be to be working for a NASSA
Speaker 7: to be having your dream job. And it really started
Speaker 7: with my grandparents and my parents setting this foundation of
Speaker 7: coming to this country for greater opportunity and pushing forward
Speaker 7: no matter what the obstacles were.
Speaker 2: When perseverance made it to Mars, Christina's grandmother took her
Speaker 2: granddaughter's contributions to the mission as also part of her own.
Speaker 7: In the moment of landing, you know, what she had
Speaker 7: said is that yo yah yah, yeah Marte, because her
Speaker 7: granddaughter had gotten there, and it was it was very
Speaker 7: special because we are here because of our families, because
Speaker 7: they supported us with whatever.
Speaker 6: Means they had.
Speaker 7: It's the foundation and the path that the explorers and
Speaker 7: my family paved for me to be here.
Speaker 2: For Ecuador born Eleo Morio, a systems test bet engineer
Speaker 2: at NASA JPL, it was his mom who was his foundation.
Speaker 5: My mom the entire time. You know, she was an
Speaker 5: ecuador She had almost nearly a twenty plus year career
Speaker 5: as a teacher. You know, she reached the heights of
Speaker 5: her career. She was a principal, She was known across
Speaker 5: you know, the whole area for academics and such.
Speaker 2: Then in the nineties, things started to change.
Speaker 5: The banking system kind of collapsed, and this is around
Speaker 5: the time where Ecuador gets dollarized. My mom knew that
Speaker 5: the situation could potentially get dire, and we had some
Speaker 5: family at the time or over several years had already
Speaker 5: moved to New York City, which included my grandparents and
Speaker 5: some aunts and uncles. So we got fortunate in the
Speaker 5: sense that my grandpa requested us through the green card
Speaker 5: process and we got our green cards.
Speaker 2: So Eleo and his mom packed up and left for
Speaker 2: New York. Ellio's older brother, seventeen years his senior, moved
Speaker 2: to New York before Elio was born.
Speaker 5: I can't imagine putting myself through that kind of position
Speaker 5: where after twenty plus years as a professional in my
Speaker 5: respective career, I end up going to another country where
Speaker 5: I don't necessarily know the language, and I have a
Speaker 5: son and that I have to take care of and
Speaker 5: make ends meet so that he's fed, he's educated, and
Speaker 5: has opportunities to set up for him.
Speaker 2: Elio's mom would hold different jobs, from packing food at
Speaker 2: John F. Kennedy Airport to cleaning offices. Around this time,
Speaker 2: Elio's older brother ended up getting married to a Puerto
Speaker 2: Rican woman and they all moved to the island.
Speaker 5: It's where I form my Spanish is Puerto Rican. By
Speaker 5: all definition, I identify more Puerto Rican than Ecuadorian.
Speaker 2: For that case, livin again in a place where Spanish
Speaker 2: was also spoken. Elio's mom resumed her teaching career. She
Speaker 2: did tutoring to bring in some extra money and went
Speaker 2: back to college.
Speaker 5: It was always very clear for me through her that
Speaker 5: education was the way out of our situation. It wasn't
Speaker 5: full blown poverty, but we didn't have you know, we
Speaker 5: never had a car, I never had internet at my
Speaker 5: own place, we never had cable. I got all these things,
Speaker 5: you know, spending weekends at my friend's house or something.
Speaker 5: That's where I kind of became aware of what the
Speaker 5: working class in middle class people had, you know. It
Speaker 5: gave me those a sense of aspiration to you know,
Speaker 5: if I go to school and do such and such,
Speaker 5: I can have these things, and I can provide these
Speaker 5: opportunities for my friends and family.
Speaker 2: It was during these weekends at his friend's house, while
Speaker 2: watching Saturday morning cartoons, that Ilio became interested in science, math,
Speaker 2: and technology.
Speaker 5: I used to love Dexter's Laboratory still do, would watch
Speaker 5: that in a heartbeat any day. I wanted to be
Speaker 5: like Dexter.
Speaker 7: Dexter, my sensors have picked up a giant meteor headed.
Speaker 2: Directly for Earth.
Speaker 5: I wanted to have my own lab. I wanted to
Speaker 5: build my own robots and do my own science.
Speaker 2: Experiments like Christina. He'd also watched Nova and Catching Cosmos,
Speaker 2: all show that really opened his eyes to what the
Speaker 2: universe had.
Speaker 5: Fantasy played a lot into how I shaped I guess
Speaker 5: and how I formed what I believed in and created
Speaker 5: a vision in a way of what I wanted to
Speaker 5: become involved with.
Speaker 2: Elio would stay in Puerto Rico until around the time
Speaker 2: he was in eighth grade. Then he would have to
Speaker 2: relocate again.
Speaker 5: It was two thousand and six, two thousand and seven,
Speaker 5: that's when the economy in Puerto Rico really starts spiraling
Speaker 5: out of control into what it is today. My mom
Speaker 5: saw those patterns because she had lived through them in Ecuador.
Speaker 8: She knew what was to come.
Speaker 2: It was also an important time in Elio's life because
Speaker 2: he was about to go to high school, and his
Speaker 2: mom knew that the high school process would be important
Speaker 2: for him to go to college. His brother and sister
Speaker 2: in law ended up moving to Florida, so Eleo moved
Speaker 2: back to New York City in the middle of its
Speaker 2: eighth grade year. He would then go to high school.
Speaker 2: With the importance of education instilled in him. Elio would
Speaker 2: then go to the University of Michigan and study mechanical
Speaker 2: engineering as his major and electrical engineering as his minor.
Speaker 2: He would do internships at SpaceX, Boeing and other places,
Speaker 2: then complete grad school before joining NASA.
Speaker 5: For five years almost I have been involved with the
Speaker 5: System TESTBA team. We have the Earth equivalent models all
Speaker 5: of the subsystems that are going to go to Mars.
Speaker 5: The Earth equivalent models live here on Earth and they
Speaker 5: stay here on Earth.
Speaker 2: He says. This allows them to test every hardware and
Speaker 2: software interaction they can think of and simulate a Mars
Speaker 2: environment through inputs that makes the rover and spacecraft computers
Speaker 2: believe that they are going through the launch, space descent
Speaker 2: and landing onto the red planet. The simulations allow them
Speaker 2: to anticipate any issues and fix them ahead of time.
Speaker 5: I specialize on particular subsystems, including the mechanical the motor control,
Speaker 5: the head of the rover, the cameras which were the
Speaker 5: first images we got down. I had tested for years
Speaker 5: the high gain antenna, which is the antenna on the
Speaker 5: rover that lets us speak directly to the rover as
Speaker 5: well as communicate certain telemetry directly from the rover to Earth.
Speaker 2: Elio says that the people who are now operating the
Speaker 2: rover on Mars also had to be tested.
Speaker 5: I was leading many of these efforts on the test
Speaker 5: bed side, where you throw wrenches at people's processes. We
Speaker 5: call it becoming gremlins, and as modern data equivalents, we
Speaker 5: were impostors, trying to spoil the team in some way
Speaker 5: or form so that the teams were prepared to react
Speaker 5: in the case similar events happened on Mars or on
Speaker 5: the way to Mars.
Speaker 2: But testing isn't the only thing he's part of. He's
Speaker 2: also part of another historic team, the Ingenuity Team.
Speaker 11: More than one hundred and sixty million miles from Earth
Speaker 11: and aircraft is sitting on an alien world waiting to
Speaker 11: make history. NASA's Ingenuity helicopter, which traveled to Mars with
Speaker 11: the Perseverance Rover, will soon attempt the first powered flight on.
Speaker 2: Another planet, Aliothis. He and others have been working on
Speaker 2: this for a while now.
Speaker 5: Just about a little bit more than one hundred years ago.
Speaker 5: We're learning how to fly here on Earth. And now
Speaker 5: you know to recognize that we actually took a piece
Speaker 5: of the of the tarp from one of the original
Speaker 5: Wright Brothers vehicles and it lives inside of Ingenuity.
Speaker 2: The Wright Brothers, the fathers of aviation in the US.
Speaker 2: On April nineteenth, Ingenuity became the first aircraft to fly
Speaker 2: on another planet.
Speaker 5: I hope that over the next few years and decades
Speaker 5: will see this new aerial capability be used. Be it
Speaker 5: for a scientific purpose, right, so you equip helicopters or
Speaker 5: drones with scientific instruments and do different kinds of science.
Speaker 5: But also with the eventual human presence on Mars, that
Speaker 5: the humans will be able to bring these scouts right
Speaker 5: to help them navigate the terrain on Mars and map
Speaker 5: their surroundings so that they're more aware of what's around them.
Speaker 5: And I'm super excited for what Ingenuity is about to
Speaker 5: teach us on Mars.
Speaker 2: As we mentioned in the very beginning of the episode,
Speaker 2: this recent mission was built off previous ones. Alejandro Miguel
Speaker 2: San Martin is the chief engineer of Guidance and Control
Speaker 2: Section at NASA JPL. He's been with NASA since the eighties.
Speaker 8: Part of the Sign of Perseverance, for example, the spacecraft
Speaker 8: that transport Perseverance from Earth to Mars. He said, the
Speaker 8: sign that we from Mars Pathfinder in the nineties.
Speaker 2: That mission, Miguel's first on Mars, landed on the red
Speaker 2: planet on July fourth, nineteen ninety seven, with the rover
Speaker 2: companion named Sojourner.
Speaker 12: The small, twenty five pound, six wheeled rover only designed
Speaker 12: to last week, would end up spending eighty three days,
Speaker 12: capturing five hundred and fifty pictures and taking atmospheric measurements
Speaker 12: from the planet's surface.
Speaker 2: He says during that mission they were encouraged to follow
Speaker 2: their product all across the mission, so from the very
Speaker 2: initial design to the implementation, to the testing and then
Speaker 2: flying it. He says at that point he felt like
Speaker 2: he'd be lucky if he was to ever be part
Speaker 2: of another Mars mission.
Speaker 8: I remember having a conversation with a veteran of JPL
Speaker 8: that was part of the Passfinder. He said that I
Speaker 8: feel sorry for you guys, because you know I'm about
Speaker 8: to retire, so this is a great way to retire.
Speaker 8: But you guys will you know in the beginning of
Speaker 8: your career you will never perire is another mission like this?
Speaker 2: His colleague was wrong. Miguel and many of his coworkers
Speaker 2: would get an opportunity to work on another mission, the
Speaker 2: landing of twin Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity on Mars in
Speaker 2: different days of January of two thousand and four. Then,
Speaker 2: he says, they also used a lot of the same
Speaker 2: designs from the Pathfinder mission.
Speaker 8: And then came Curiosity, where also the same group of
Speaker 8: a team of people that we met in past find
Speaker 8: that we continue evolving and inventing new ways of landing
Speaker 8: on Mars. In the case of Curiosity, because all the
Speaker 8: previous missions that are worked that landed on Mars use airbags,
Speaker 8: so I wanted to work on a mission that landed softly.
Speaker 2: He and the team created a landing contraption that landed
Speaker 2: the rover like a helicopter. Miguel would go on to
Speaker 2: work on other missions, including the landing of Perseverance.
Speaker 8: It was a new experience for me because in the
Speaker 8: previous missions, first of all, I was part of them.
Speaker 8: In this one in Perseverance that was a consultant. The
Speaker 8: Perseverance team would come to me with questions, you know,
Speaker 8: and during the actual trip to Mars, I was part
Speaker 8: of also of a team that provided regular consultation to
Speaker 8: the team.
Speaker 2: Miguel is originally from Argentina. He was born on a
Speaker 2: family farm in La Patagonia, but grew up and went
Speaker 2: to school in Buenos Aires. Every winter and summer vacation,
Speaker 2: though he'd go back to the family farm.
Speaker 8: That's where my father taught me about the stars. He
Speaker 8: was a civil engineer and he built roads, dirt roads
Speaker 8: in some cases in the Patagonia, and for that, you know,
Speaker 8: before GPS, they navigated using the stars. So my father
Speaker 8: knew the stars. So at night in the farm he
Speaker 8: would teach me all the constellations and all the stars.
Speaker 2: Miguel began to develop the mind of an engineer.
Speaker 8: I was, you know, fascinated about all the machinery, particularly
Speaker 8: in the arm and the mechanical equipment, and also you know,
Speaker 8: the radios on the TVs, and so at a very
Speaker 8: early age, I wanted to be an engineer.
Speaker 2: And then something that he vividly remembers to this day,
Speaker 2: he saw a man stepping onto the moon for the
Speaker 2: first time.
Speaker 6: Armstrong is on the moon.
Speaker 2: Neil Armstrong, thirty eight year old American, standing on the
Speaker 2: surface of the Moon on this July twentieth, nineteen hundred
Speaker 2: and sixty nine.
Speaker 10: One man.
Speaker 2: The Apollo mission had a profound impact on him.
Speaker 8: First of all, I remember being very very aware of
Speaker 8: the risks. Are they really going to do that? I mean,
Speaker 8: it was kind of like hard to believe that they
Speaker 8: were going to attempt such a thing. So it was
Speaker 8: late at night and we were on the with my father,
Speaker 8: my mother, and my sister watching in front of a
Speaker 8: black and white TV. We see Neil Armstrong coming down
Speaker 8: the ladder, and remember that we were, you know, glued
Speaker 8: to the TV, and we just couldn't believe it, right,
Speaker 8: And I looked at my father right that he was
Speaker 8: born like in nineteen eleven, And it was an incredible
Speaker 8: experience for the family.
Speaker 2: Watching Armstrong walk on the Moon sparked Miguel's curiosity and wonder.
Speaker 2: Final confirmation of his love and interest in space would
Speaker 2: come a few years later in nineteen seventy six with
Speaker 2: NASA's Viking Project.
Speaker 8: And I found myself in the farm actually the day
Speaker 8: of the landing, listening to the BBC on the radio,
Speaker 8: and that night the program says, well, all the systems
Speaker 8: are go, and in a few hours Viking is going
Speaker 8: to land on Mars for the first time, US attempt
Speaker 8: for the first time.
Speaker 2: The next day, in front of a newspaper stand, he
Speaker 2: saw a photo of the Viking one spacecraft on the
Speaker 2: surface of Mars, and.
Speaker 8: I remember that has a huge impact on me, and
Speaker 8: that's when I said, this is what I want to do.
Speaker 8: I want to be on one of these missions when
Speaker 8: I grow up.
Speaker 2: His father told him that his best bet would be
Speaker 2: studying in the US, so when he finished high school,
Speaker 2: he packed his bags and left behind his family, friends
Speaker 2: and country. He says this was the hardest thing he
Speaker 2: ever had to do. He had to learn English and
Speaker 2: figure out how to get accepted into university, but he
Speaker 2: worked his way through. He made it to Syracuse, where
Speaker 2: he studied electrical engineering and went on to graduate school
Speaker 2: at MIT.
Speaker 8: And I remember that I got a little piece of
Speaker 8: paper from one of the administrative persons in the Aeronastro department,
Speaker 8: and my tea said, JPL is coming tomorrow to interview.
Speaker 8: So I showed it up and I talked to the
Speaker 8: engineer doing the interview, and they flew me to JPL,
Speaker 8: and they offered me a job and the rest is history.
Speaker 2: His dad was able to see him go through college
Speaker 2: and get the job at JPL, but unfortunately passed away
Speaker 2: before Pathfinder made it to Mars.
Speaker 8: So that aspect, I'm a little sad that by five
Speaker 8: years or so, for five years he passed away before that.
Speaker 8: So it would have been nice for him to see that,
Speaker 8: because that was when when Mark part found the land.
Speaker 8: That is when I actually I could say, you know,
Speaker 8: I have achieved my goal. I could actually feel that
Speaker 8: all the sacrifice of leaving the country and my family
Speaker 8: and friends paid off or you know, or was worth
Speaker 8: it in some ways.
Speaker 2: But before his father's death, Miguel was able to bring
Speaker 2: both his mom and his dad to visit NASA's JPL.
Speaker 8: He just was blown away, right, I mean, he immediately
Speaker 8: loved the place.
Speaker 2: He says that visit was a turning point for his
Speaker 2: mom too, who through the years had always asked him
Speaker 2: in letters from Argentina why did he leave her. After
Speaker 2: that visit, his mom wrote him saying.
Speaker 8: Now I understand why you're there, and I won't ask
Speaker 8: you anymore why did you leave me?
Speaker 2: Despite his long career NASA Miguel doesn't have any plans
Speaker 2: of slowing down. He plans to join an upcoming mission
Speaker 2: to retrieve the samples collected on Mars and hopes to
Speaker 2: be part of other projects elsewhere.
Speaker 8: I mean, Mars is awesome, it's cool, but you know,
Speaker 8: we have other destinations too.
Speaker 2: When looking back at his life and career, he says
Speaker 2: he can't believe how fortunate he's been.
Speaker 8: I wouldn't have been able to do this without the
Speaker 8: support of my family, you know. And it's been a
Speaker 8: long journey. And I never imagined, to be honest, that
Speaker 8: I would be so lucky to fulfill what I wanted
Speaker 8: to do, one beyond my wildest imaginations. And I'm a
Speaker 8: happy person.
Speaker 1: Diana Trujillo, Christina Hernandez, Elio Morigo and Alejandro Miel San
Speaker 1: Martin left some partying and inspirational words for Latinos and
Speaker 1: Latinas and well anyone else who might have a dream
Speaker 1: of someday pursuing a job at NASA or a career
Speaker 1: in stem.
Speaker 6: Here they are again, write it down, Write it down
Speaker 6: and remember it, because you can do it. For me
Speaker 6: was to write it down and I'll put it on
Speaker 6: the mirror on my bathroom, and every time I was,
Speaker 6: you know, brushing my teeth, I will just read the
Speaker 6: thing that I wanted to do. Don't give up your dreams,
Speaker 6: and then keep pushing because it can be done.
Speaker 7: I often think about the words of wisdom that my
Speaker 7: grandmother has told me, and so obviously h L. Ganas,
Speaker 7: but she also told me one that I really hold true.
Speaker 7: She was like, in signet rancheta, you know what that
Speaker 7: is to me? What that means is, you know, be
Speaker 7: self sufficient, you know, get dirty, you know, get in
Speaker 7: there and give it you're all.
Speaker 6: For.
Speaker 7: You know, students who want to come into engineering, be fearless,
Speaker 7: because I think oftentimes we are taught, you know, don't
Speaker 7: stir the pot, don't get in trouble. If you think
Speaker 7: you're going to break it, don't touch it. And here
Speaker 7: I'm trying now to undo all of that past advice,
Speaker 7: and I'm encouraging others to do the same, because the
Speaker 7: more you tinker, the more you fail, you eventually start
Speaker 7: to build your confidence.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 5: I love to tell students and people that want to
Speaker 5: pursue these careers that it's absolutely worth it. It's by
Speaker 5: no means easy.
Speaker 6: This is a very hard career.
Speaker 5: It requires a lot of sacrifice, but you know it's
Speaker 5: it's beautiful and all of that. I just hope to
Speaker 5: inspire a few students, if at all right, to come
Speaker 5: and pursue and join me over here.
Speaker 6: As I tell people, you know.
Speaker 8: Sometimes you get slnely. Right.
Speaker 5: There's not that many Latinos here, and I hope to
Speaker 5: see more in the coming years.
Speaker 8: You need to start working from day one. We are
Speaker 8: not all good in everything, right, so you need to
Speaker 8: understand what is your thing that you're passionate and you're
Speaker 8: good at, and then you just concentrate and do well
Speaker 8: at that moment. You can have a goal of working
Speaker 8: for NASA. That's a good long term goal to have,
Speaker 8: but your short term goal should be do well on
Speaker 8: what you're doing at this moment and be excellent at it,
Speaker 8: and then the doors will open.
Speaker 1: And before we go, we want to give a special
Speaker 1: shout out to some of the other Latinos and Latinas
Speaker 1: with fabulous names by the way, who took part in
Speaker 1: the Perseverance Mission. So to Danielle Nunez, cloud Out, Ferrol,
Speaker 1: Eric Aguilard, Fernando A. Vigueria, Fernando er Hicks, Erman, Martinez, Ivari,
Speaker 1: Contijojorgue Nunez, Jorge Pla, Garcia, Jos, Antonio Rodriguez, Manfredi, Paul Rugarolas,
Speaker 1: Roxanna Gonzalez, Borgos, Zamalis Santini de Leon, Sandra Nandez, Corrine Rojas,
Speaker 1: Sara Eurex and everyone else involved us Glacias. This episode
Speaker 1: was produced by Renaldo Leanos Junior. It was edited by
Speaker 1: Andrea Lopez Cruzado. It was mixed by Stephanie Lebou. The
Speaker 1: Latino USA team also includes Victoria Estrada, Tori mar Marquez,
Speaker 1: Marta Martinez, Mike sargent Ner, Saudi and Nancy Trujio. Beenille
Speaker 1: Ramirez is our co executive producer. Our senior engineer is
Speaker 1: Julia Caruso. Additional engineering support by Gabriel Lebaiaz and jj Krubin.
Speaker 1: Our marketing manager is Luis Luna. Our theme music was
Speaker 1: composed by Sagner ro Renos. I'm your host and executive
Speaker 1: producer Maria jo Josa. Join us again on our next episode.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, look for us on all of your
Speaker 1: social media a devel jaquer dee Yes Bye.
Speaker 10: Latino Usa is made possible in part by the John D.
Speaker 10: And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, working with
Speaker 10: visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide, and
Speaker 10: funding for Latino USA is Coverage of a Culture of
Speaker 10: Health is made possible in part by a grant from
Speaker 10: the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Speaker 6: A middle schooler Rowann essay about what the name of
Speaker 6: the March twenty twenty mission should be. He tries to
Speaker 6: make the analogy of human qualities and characteristics of who
Speaker 6: we are with the names spirit, opportunity, curiosity, and then
Speaker 6: I believe he said something along the lines. But if
Speaker 6: those are the qualities of humans, we have missed the
Speaker 6: most important wile, which is perseverance.