WEBVTT - The Sound of Mars 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:15.320 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:18.680 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:23.919 and I love all things tech. And on February twenty one, 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:29.280 NASA celebrated upon receiving word that the Mars rover called Perseverance, 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:32.040 had touchdown safely upon the Red planet. And if you 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:35.159 listen to Monday's episode, you heard me cover the basics 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:38.920 of the rover, including all the instruments in tech that 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:42.160 it's carrying. Today, I thought I would talk more about 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:45.760 the journey to launching that rover and what it's been 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:48.440 doing up on Mars since it touched down a couple 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:51.559 of weeks ago. Now, when it comes to space missions, 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:56.320 a lot of factors come into play. There's the tech, obviously, 0:00:56.640 --> 0:00:58.520 I mean without the tech, we wouldn't be able to 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:02.000 get to space or do anything useful once we're out there. 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:06.479 But there's also money and politics, two factors that can 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:11.000 actually make or break space missions. In fact, the whole 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:14.160 purpose of the space race, when you really boil it down, 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:18.680 was because of political pressures between the United States and 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:22.120 the Soviet Union. We had a lot of benefits that 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:25.080 came out of it that had nothing to do with politics, 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:28.720 But the money would never have been there had it 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:31.880 not been for that political pressure. Personally, I wish it 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:34.400 were otherwise. I would love it if just the pursuit 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:37.280 of knowledge was enough for us, But we live in 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:42.400 the real world. NASA, or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:46.920 is a US federal government agency, and as such, it 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:51.200 is particularly subject to the whims of politics and budget committees, 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:53.320 and that means it can be really tough to make 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:56.919 long term plans, as changes in the government can really 0:01:57.400 --> 0:01:59.880 shake things up from one group of leaders to the next. 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:04.000 This is no small matter. The person in charge of 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:08.880 leading NASA gets that job through political appointment. The President 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:12.079 of the United States appoints the nominee, who then must 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:17.000 receive approval from the US Senate. This administrator is both 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:20.360 the head of NASA as well as the top advisor 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:24.440 when it comes to matters involving space. Every four years 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:28.120 in the United States we have presidential elections, and when 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:31.359 those elections lead to a change in which political party 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:35.480 is holding the executive branch that is the president, well, 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:38.560 that typically means we also will see a change in 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:42.799 leadership at NASA. Since the agency's founding in the late 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:47.560 nineteen fifties, there have been thirteen official administrators and another 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:51.359 eleven acting administrators, meaning they were filling in the position 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:54.760 while a new administration was in the process of choosing 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:59.680 a successor. Oh and uh. Of those acting administrators, Alan 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:04.639 love Lace, actually served as that role twice. So leadership 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:09.000 at NASA has changed twenty four times since the agency 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:13.360 was founded in October night. If we were to average 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:15.600 that out, it would mean that the head of the 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:20.239 agency changes every you know, two point six years or so. Now, 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:23.080 if you've listened to tech stuff for a while, or 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:25.000 if you've listened to a show I used to do 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.680 with aerial casting called Business on the Brink, you've heard 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:32.360 stories about companies that were plagued with issues that either 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:36.800 caused or contributed to a sort of revolving door situation 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:40.480 at the executive leadership level. And when you've got top 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:45.640 leadership changing frequently, it can be difficult to maintain momentum 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:48.880 or a long term strategy. And when it comes to space, 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:52.840 you you have to plan long term because the amount 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:56.880 of time it takes to conceive, develop, produce, and execute 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:00.360 a mission can span several years or even more than 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:05.200 a decade. Long term plans are hard y'all. Many of 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:08.080 NASA's long term plans have focused on Mars, and I 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:10.760 would say we're still firmly in the phase of learning 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:14.760 about Mars itself. We know a lot about the planet already, 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:18.240 but there are many questions that we still have. So 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:21.000 let's do a quick rundown on stuff we already know 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.560 about Mars. And first let's get the obvious stuff out 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:27.320 of the way. It's the fourth planet out from the Sun, 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:31.560 which makes Earth and Jupiter. It's next door neighbors. It's 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:35.040 smaller than Earth. The diameter of Mars is a bit 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:39.200 more than half of Earth's diameter. The Earth has about 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.440 ten times the mass of Mars. This also means that 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:45.080 the gravity on Mars is less than what you would 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.000 experience here on Earth. On Mars, you would weigh about 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:51.400 thirty eight percent of what you weigh here on Earth. 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.600 Of course, your mass would remain the same. Mass doesn't change, 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:58.279 but your weight would change. And we call it the 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:05.159 red planet because it's red, So that okay, that that 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:08.560 that makes sense. And it's also a planet, so that 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:11.520 also I mean that it tracts. And we know why 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:14.880 it's red too. It's red because of the regulars on Mars, 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:18.000 that's what we call the rocks and the loose soil 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.920 on the surface, it happens to be rich with iron, 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:25.719 and as we know, rust is the product of oxidation. 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:29.039 So it's time for some chemistry, all right. So the 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:33.040 simple formula is that you get iron or f E 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:37.920 on the elemental table and you get an oxidizer. Here 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:40.840 on Earth, the most common combination tends to be iron 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:44.039 water and oxygen. Water is more like a catalyst. In 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:48.880 this case, iron exposed just oxygen does oxidize, but the 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:54.160 process is fairly slow. Water speeds us up a lot, 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:56.760 and if the water has a lot of electrolytes, which 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:01.800 is not just what plants crave, then the process happens 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:05.600 even faster. That's why iron exposed to salt water will 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:08.560 rust pretty darn quickly. Now does that mean the iron 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:11.600 on Mars rusted in a similar way, perhaps due to 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:16.960 torrential rainstorms. Well maybe that's one hypothesis, but there are 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:21.480 other possibilities, such as solar radiation breaking down molecules like 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:25.680 carbon dioxide into oxidants that rusted the iron over the 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:29.120 course of millions of years, or there might be several 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:33.720 reasons combined that led to the oxidation process, but Mars 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:37.720 is reddish color was one of the reasons scientists suspected 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:40.279 that water is or was on the surface of the 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:45.640 planet before we were able to actually verify. Oxidizing reactions 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:50.120 can be either endothermic or exothermic. That means that, depending 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:54.039 upon the actual reactants, you might need to add heat 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:58.560 to cause the oxidation process to start, or the process 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:02.760 itself might really ease heat. So with iron oxidation, you're 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:06.839 talking about an exothermic reaction, meaning it does generate heat. 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:11.040 If you expose a very tiny speck of pure iron 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:14.160 to an environment that has oxygen and maybe some water 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.800 vapor like you know our atmosphere does, well, that spec 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:21.760 will oxidize very quickly and release more heat than can 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:24.800 disperse through that tiny tiny piece of iron. We're talking 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.800 like itty bitty little flecks of iron. So you end 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:30.720 up getting a super hot fleck of iron because the 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:33.840 heat can't disperse quickly enough, and that ends up being 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:37.840 a spark. Anyway, that's kind of getting off track. More 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:40.360 to the point. The fact that Mars has rust on. 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.720 It tells us that iron and some sort of oxidizer 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:47.440 have to be or at least had to be present, 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:50.680 and it brought up the possibility that the planet has 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:53.400 or had water on it. This would be one of 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:55.360 the facts that we were trying to establish for a 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:59.000 long time with various observations and Mars missions, and we 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:04.040 did eventually mind ice on Mars. Mars is also very cold. 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:07.520 The average temperature on Mars is minus eighty one degrees 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:11.840 fahrenheit or nearly minus sixty three celsius, and the atmosphere 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:15.800 on Mars is primarily carbon dioxide. We would not be 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.960 able to breathe there. It's a very thin atmosphere too, 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:21.720 so not not a whole lot of it, and most 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:26.800 of its carbon dioxide. Mars has two moons, Damos and Phobos, 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:31.200 both discovered by astronomer A Esop Hall in eighty seven. 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:36.319 Hall had almost given up looking for moons around Mars, 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:39.920 but his wife Angelina encouraged him to keep looking, and 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:42.400 according to the story, he found both of them within 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:46.280 that week. So I think we all owe Angelina credit 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:49.680 for this as well. It's no surprise that the two 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.920 moons were difficult to spot. They are two of the 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:57.239 smallest moons in our Solar system. Phobos is the larger 0:08:57.280 --> 0:08:59.800 of the two by a little bit, and it also 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.360 orbits Mars at a really low altitude of six thousand 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:07.839 kilometers or just three thousand, seven hundred miles. Now, for comparison, 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:12.320 our own moon around Earth is three hundred eighty four 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:16.400 thousand kilometers or two hundred thirty eight thousand, nine hundred 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:20.760 miles away. So Phobos is super close to Mars, and 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:23.640 that's one of the reasons why it's very hard to spot. 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:27.080 There's not a whole lot of distance between Phobos and 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:30.360 the planet it orbits, and it's very tiny, so picking 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:34.520 it out in the nineteenth century was really hard to do. Dams, 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:38.480 while smaller, is also a bit further out in its orbit, 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:41.040 and this also means that the two moons have vastly 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:46.720 different cycles. Phobos orbits Mars three times per day and 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:50.160 Dams takes about thirty hours to do a full circuit 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:54.240 around Mars. Phobus is fate is also sealed. Every year 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:57.319 it gets a little bit closer to Mars because its 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:01.720 orbit is decaying and in line and by in time 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:05.600 I mean like fifty million years or so it will 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:09.319 either collide with Mars or it might break apart into 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:11.640 eighty eight pieces, and then Mars will get a ring. 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:15.120 Come on, we all know Mars deserves a ring. Beyonce 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:19.480 would agree with me. Both Phobos and Damos always present 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:23.320 the same face to Mars, which makes them kind of 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:25.320 like our moon. You know, if you look up at 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:28.160 the moon, you're always looking at the same face of 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:30.400 the moon. And by the way, this is a good 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:33.120 time to remind people that the phrase dark side of 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:36.120 the moon doesn't mean that one side of the moon, 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:40.360 either Earth's moon or Mars's moon, is always dark. There 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:43.960 is a light side and a dark side of these moons, 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:47.439 but the sides change because of the cycles, just as 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:51.040 Earth always has a side that is, you know, lit up, 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:53.559 and another side that's dark. But it's not like it 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:55.520 stays that way all the time. That's why we have 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:58.840 night and day. Now, all that being said, it's possible 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:02.160 that future trips tomorrow Mars might use these moons as 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:06.040 a forward base. For one thing, If you established the 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:09.520 base on the side of the moons that always face Mars, 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:12.560 you've got the rest of the Moon behind you blocking 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:16.760 radiation from space and the Sun in particular for most 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.800 of the time, which is a good thing because, as 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:23.560 we all know, space is always trying to kill you, 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:28.280 and cosmic radiation is one of the many weapons of choice, 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:30.520 along with stuff like you know, the lack of a 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:34.280 breathable atmosphere and the effects of vacuums on humans and 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:38.560 long term effects of exposure to micro gravity. I've done 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:41.680 full episodes about how space is trying to kill you. 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:44.560 I guess it's a good time to transition to some 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:47.760 of the missions that various countries have launched to get 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:50.280 more info on Mars. There's a lot more that we 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:54.720 know about Mars. For example, it doesn't have tectonic plates 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:59.920 the way Earth does. Uh. It has the largest volcano 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.080 is in the Solar System, but none of them are active. 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:07.480 They've all gone extinct millennia ago. It doesn't have a 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:11.280 magnetic field the way the Earth does. That has lots 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:14.040 of consequences from Mars, one of which is that the 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:19.480 solar wind from the Sun is gradually siphoning off Mars' 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:24.360 atmosphere over you know, millions of years. So there are 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:27.200 other things we know, but let's let's talk about some 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:29.760 of the missions we've sent to Mars to learn more 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:34.160 about it. The first successful Mars mission was Mariner four, 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.520 which did a fly by of the planet in nineteen 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:41.760 sixty five. There have been other attempts that predated Mariner four, 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:45.800 but NASA's Mariner four was the first to actually make it. 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:49.120 All the others had mission failures. A few years later, 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:52.880 Mariner six and Mariner seven followed suit, and then the 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:57.120 former uss ARE launched its own successful orbiter spacecraft in 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:01.760 nineteen seventy one. The first space have to land on Mars, 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:06.640 you know, without actually crashing into it, was the Mars 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:11.280 Pathfinder with the Sojourner rover, which launched in nineteen and 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:16.679 landed in n Sojourner remained in operation for less than 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:20.520 ninety earth days. There wouldn't be another successful landing on 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:25.320 Mars until two thousand three. That's when NASA had its 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:29.640 Mars Exploration Rover mission and launched a pair of rovers 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:33.800 to the Red planet. One was called Spirit, the other Opportunity. 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:36.520 They launched a few weeks apart in the summer of 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:40.120 two thousand three and landed on Mars in January two 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:43.720 thousand four, in very different locations on the planet. Both 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:47.840 of these Rovers made contact by using a parachute and 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:51.760 then retro rockets and then massive air bags, so the 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:56.000 landing was a bumpy one. Mars atmosphere is thin, but 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:59.760 it does exist, so parachutes are viable presuming that what 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:01.920 where it is you're trying to land on Mars isn't 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:04.840 too heavy, and they don't slow you down as much 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:06.880 as they would on Earth because there's just not as 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:11.080 much atmosphere to catch and slow you down. These rovers 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:15.280 also stayed in service a very long time. Spirit gave 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:20.920 up the Ghost pun intended in but Opportunity remained active 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:24.920 until the main purpose of these rovers was to look 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:27.920 for signs of past water activity on the surface of Mars. 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:31.160 While Spirit would get stuck in two thousand nine and 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:34.480 finish out its mission as a stationary platform kind of 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:39.600 like a lander, Opportunity kept working until it was clear 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:43.160 that it was beyond reach and had expired. The NASA 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:46.880 Social team shared the message my battery is low and 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:51.640 it's getting dark, and frankly, a lot of people on 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:55.960 the Internet got very sad that this robot on Mars 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:59.240 was going offline. By that time, people had sort of 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.720 a scry a kind of personality and life to this 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:06.320 robot in no small thanks to the NASA Social team, 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:09.640 and people got really caught up on how this robot 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:14.200 was so far from home and all alone and I'm sorry, 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:17.560 I can't read my notes because something's in my eye. 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:22.720 The Spirit and Opportunity were each doing science long after 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:26.880 their initial planned missions, which was great, but Mars missions 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:30.960 don't always go that way. The Phoenix Lander, which wasn't 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:34.800 a rover but a stationary Mars science platform, launched on 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:38.440 August four, two thousand seven. It landed on Mars on 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:42.280 May two thousand eight. It also used a parachute and 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:46.360 thrusters during landing, achieving a soft landing in the process, 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:49.760 and it landed near the polar region of the northern 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:52.520 part of Mars, and scientists knew that it was going 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:56.200 to have a pretty short useful life, or at least 0:15:56.240 --> 0:16:00.000 was likely to, because, as George R. R. Martin would say, 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:05.040 winter is coming. The Phoenix Lander operated until NASA lost 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:09.760 contact with it in November two eight, essentially six months 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:13.040 after it had landed. By that time, sun exposure on 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:15.440 that part of Mars was very low, which meant the 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:18.440 lander couldn't get enough energy for its solar panels in 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:21.520 order to recharge its battery. But it did do a 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.720 lot of science in those six months, examining the polar climate, 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:28.360 the composition of the lower atmosphere on that part of Mars, 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.680 and studying the history of water and ice on Mars. 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:34.320 It might not have had a very long life like 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.480 Spirit or Opportunity, but it did do a ton of work. 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:41.640 Then we move up to twenty eleven with the launch 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:45.360 of the Mars Science Laboratory, better known to the rest 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:48.840 of us as the Curiosity Rover. This one was much 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.760 bigger than the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. It weighed in 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:56.040 at more than a ton at least on Earth Martian gravity, 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:58.800 being about a third of Earth's gravity, and as I 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:03.840 mentioned in the pre Perseverance episode, Curiosity required an up 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:08.040 to that point unique approach with a sky crane. So 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:10.679 think of it as a platform that uses rockets to 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:13.520 maintain a position above a specific point on Mars, kind 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:17.040 of hovering above it, and then it lowers the rover 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:21.560 jeep sized rover down to the ground below with cables. 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:25.679 Perseverance would use a very similar method, but again I 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:27.800 covered that in the previous episode, so I'm not going 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:30.480 to repeat it here, because all chances are you've heard 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:35.080 it already. In ten, NASA launched the Insight Lander, which 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:38.240 touched down on Mars in November of that year. Insight 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:42.040 is kind of like a Martian weather station. It monitors 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:45.960 stuff like wind, pressure and speed, temperature and so on, 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:49.639 but it's also measuring seismic activity on Mars, and it 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:53.159 attempted to get a temperature reading of the planet's interior, 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:56.640 but it turned out that the clumpy nature of Martian 0:17:56.800 --> 0:18:00.680 soil meant that the temperature probe wasn't able to get 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.040 enough purchase to dig down in order to do the work. 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:08.120 Mars is hard, y'all. Now, when we come back, we'll 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.000 talk more about the lead up to Perseverance itself, but 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:22.400 first let's take a quick break. So as of this recording, 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:26.280 there have been forty nine attempts to send missions to Mars, 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:30.600 whether a fly by spacecraft, an orbiter, a lander, or 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.640 a rover, and some of the missions, to be fair, 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:37.920 had multiple components. So out of all those missions, about 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:41.400 half were outright failures and some of the remaining were 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:46.560 really only partial successes. There's never a guarantee that any 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:49.480 one mission is going to achieve its goals. So when 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:54.080 we factor all this in that NASA's leadership changes pretty regularly, 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:56.679 that if you miss a launch window to Mars you 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.560 have to wait two and a half years to try again. 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.719 It even when things line up you might have a 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:05.800 fifty chance of success, you start to see how the 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:08.960 odds are stacking up against you. And of course there's 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:13.480 also the matter of budget. Because NASA is a government agency, 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.840 it has to appeal to Congress for its budget, and 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:20.480 since twenty ten, Congress has granted NASA the equivalent of 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:24.680 around half a percent of the total federal budget, or 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:30.080 between eighteen and twenty one billion dollars depending on the year. Now, 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:33.320 this isn't just a blank check. The administration at the 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:36.120 White House gets a big say in where that money goes. 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:40.840 When Barack Obama announced his administration's space policy, it really 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:43.359 shook things up quite a bit over at NASA. For 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:47.119 one thing, it removed all funding for the Constellation program, 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:51.120 which had as its mission objectives the funding of vehicles 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:54.440 that could launch crews to low Earth orbit, the Moon 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:58.600 and ultimately to Mars. But it had gone over budget. 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:02.760 It was under funded despite being over budget. In other words, 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:05.040 it was going to be way more expensive than what 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:08.920 anyone had anticipated, and there had been numerous delays. So 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:15.359 after a thorough review of the program, UH, the White 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:18.520 House decided to no longer funded. This, by the way, 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:23.240 remains a controversial decision. There were some within NASA who 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:28.440 adamantly disagreed with the decision. There were others who were 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:33.160 saying that perhaps it was merited. UH. I probably need 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:35.760 to do a full episode about the Constellation project at 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:39.600 some point and really dive into all sides of that story. Anyway, 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:43.280 back in twenty sixteen, the European Space Agency had to 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:45.720 go it alone with a mission that had intended to 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:49.760 be a joint effort between the e s A and NASA, 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:52.480 and the reason NASA was no longer part of this 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:56.640 dance was because of changes to NASA's budget in general. 0:20:56.800 --> 0:21:00.520 Around twenty twelve, the White House budget request US began 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:04.000 to allocate less money to go towards unmanned missions to 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:09.240 Mars and more money dedicated toward human exploration and commercial spaceflight. 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:13.200 New goals included a mission that would ultimately send astronauts 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:16.359 to an asteroid, something that still hasn't happened as of 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:20.159 right now. Oh and also some funding went toward the 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:24.880 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, something else that 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:29.760 hasn't happened yet. When the James Webb Telescope was first proposed, 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:34.680 the target launch was let me check my notes, two 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:38.199 thousand seven, but if all goes as planned, it will 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:43.359 launch on Halloween of this year, so better late than never. 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:47.119 As for that European mission, it was part of a 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:52.320 program called Exo Mars. The effort involved launching both an orbiter, 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:57.480 which measures trace gases in Mars' atmosphere, and a lander 0:21:57.560 --> 0:22:01.800 called the Shia Parelli E d M. The orbiter entered 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:04.919 into its planned orbit without issue. It is still orbiting 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:07.439 Mars now. In fact, it even got a look at 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:11.800 the Perseverance, but the lander crashed on Mars and did 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:15.920 not survive. A second part of this program, originally scheduled 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:19.960 for eighteen, has since been pushed to twenty twenty two, 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:24.520 and in NASA's absence, the Russian space program rose Cosmos 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:27.439 has stepped into partner with the E s A. The 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:31.560 budget cuts did not bode well for projects like Perseverance. 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:35.439 NASA estimates that all told, the cost of the Perseverance 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:38.000 mission will be somewhere in the neighborhood of two point 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:42.119 seven to two point nine billion dollars. The majority of 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:44.840 that cost went into the development of the spacecraft and 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:48.560 the rover that was two point two billion of the total, 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:51.040 and the rest would cover the launch of the payload 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:54.359 into space, which was around two fifty million dollars, and 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:57.320 the cost of operating the mission for the projected length 0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:02.240 of service UH the projected mission is to last two years, 0:23:02.480 --> 0:23:04.879 but keep in mind that other missions to Mars have 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:09.520 had numerous extensions to their missions when conditions allowed it. Still, 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:13.800 that cost is much lower than the development costs were, 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:17.440 and the benefits of extending missions when feasible are unknown 0:23:17.440 --> 0:23:21.480 and thus incalculable, and they're usually pretty cool. So while 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:23.280 we don't know how much it's going to cost in 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:27.359 the long run, we also aren't really sure of what 0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:31.160 kind of amazing benefits we might see due to those missions. 0:23:32.000 --> 0:23:36.080 NASA began working on the Perseverance mission back in when 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:39.399 less than one million dollars of its budget went to 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:43.920 the preliminary stages of defining mission objectives, which in turn 0:23:44.000 --> 0:23:47.440 informed engineers as to the types of tools and instruments 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:50.399 that the rover would require to carry out its mission. 0:23:50.960 --> 0:23:54.080 For the following two years, the amount of NASA spent 0:23:54.200 --> 0:23:58.200 on Perseverance hovered around the one hundred million dollar mark, 0:23:58.560 --> 0:24:01.800 But in twenty six is really kicked into gear. That's 0:24:01.840 --> 0:24:04.720 when the actual build phase for the project began, and 0:24:04.760 --> 0:24:08.320 from twenty sixteen until last year, NASA would spend an 0:24:08.400 --> 0:24:11.760 excess of three hundred million dollars per year on the project, 0:24:12.119 --> 0:24:15.800 with the peak coming in with more than five hundred 0:24:15.960 --> 0:24:19.600 million dollars of NASA's budget going toward Perseverance. Now what 0:24:19.800 --> 0:24:22.960 certainly an expensive endeavor. I don't want to give the 0:24:23.000 --> 0:24:28.000 impression that Perseverance stands out over all other NASA missions. 0:24:28.359 --> 0:24:34.000 Other Solar System exploration missions like the two Viking spacecraft Cassini, 0:24:34.080 --> 0:24:39.480 and Perseverances, older but smaller sibling Curiosity, are all more expensive, 0:24:39.760 --> 0:24:42.439 especially when you adjust for inflation. If you don't adjust 0:24:42.440 --> 0:24:46.280 for inflation, then it doesn't look that way, but inflations 0:24:46.280 --> 0:24:48.040 of things, so we have to take that into account. 0:24:48.480 --> 0:24:51.679 And those aren't the only missions that NASA's done that 0:24:51.680 --> 0:24:55.399 are more expensive than Perseverance. Perseverance currently ranks as number 0:24:55.560 --> 0:24:59.960 seven in NASA's planetary exploration programs in terms of cause, 0:25:00.440 --> 0:25:02.639 And if you look at long term projects with human 0:25:02.720 --> 0:25:07.600 space flight, Perseverance doesn't even really mirrit attention the Apollo program, 0:25:07.640 --> 0:25:11.880