Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking, either unwelcomed to Forward Thinking, the podcast that
Speaker 1: looks in the future and says, here comes the mathn
Speaker 1: He's coming around. He's such a connoisseur, he's such an
Speaker 1: autograph hound. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Joe McCormick. So
Speaker 1: today we're gonna be talking about a particular NASA mission, Yes,
Speaker 1: the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft. A Mathan. Oh,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, that's a mouthful, but you've preempted me. Well,
Speaker 1: it's still a mouthful. You're not incorrect. So the the
Speaker 1: You know, we've talked a lot about Mars on this show,
Speaker 1: and because I mean it's it's a fascinating subject. It's
Speaker 1: one of the possible jumping off points for uh further
Speaker 1: exploration into space, both manned and unmanned. Right, It's central
Speaker 1: questions about whether there could exist life on other planets.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a question of, well, we don't seem
Speaker 1: to see life on Mars today, or at least not
Speaker 1: so far, but maybe there could have been life there
Speaker 1: in the past. And if there had been, what conditions
Speaker 1: would have allowed that, And what changed? What? What? What
Speaker 1: happened to the point so that now they're the conditions
Speaker 1: are no longer supportive of life. Another thing about the
Speaker 1: conditions of Mars is knowledge about what happened to Mars
Speaker 1: to make it the way it is today could help
Speaker 1: us in the future if we were to ever to
Speaker 1: want to terraform Mars, to turn it into the kind
Speaker 1: of planet that we could live on. Right. So, for example,
Speaker 1: if we decided as a group, hey, you know what
Speaker 1: would be awesome, let's just pack up a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of oxygen, head over to Mars, let it loose and uh,
Speaker 1: party times, y'all. Uh, it turns out that would not
Speaker 1: be an immediate solution to the problem. Would not be
Speaker 1: so many party times now we would we would have
Speaker 1: to we would have to solve some other really big issues.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of one of the things may even
Speaker 1: will be looking at, or at least the information that
Speaker 1: may even gathers could end up informing us, uh, and
Speaker 1: when we come to make decisions like that in the future. Right,
Speaker 1: Because two of the big problems with you know, up
Speaker 1: and moving to Mars is that it doesn't have as
Speaker 1: much of an atmosphere as Earth does, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to have water. Yeah, it's got it's got water
Speaker 1: and ice form, but it doesn't have any like free
Speaker 1: flowing water on the surface. Yeah. Right, So it's those
Speaker 1: are big issues. Obviously, there's also other ones, like the
Speaker 1: fact that Mars does not have a magnetosphere the way
Speaker 1: the Earth does. The Earth has a very powerful magnetosphere
Speaker 1: that uh that surrounds us and binds us in PNOI
Speaker 1: that's the force. But it does protect Earth largely from
Speaker 1: a lot of harmful radiation. Yes, Also it's Mars's soil
Speaker 1: happens to contain a lot of percolates which are highly
Speaker 1: cancer causing particles. Um. But other than that, I think
Speaker 1: that the really interesting questions here and the things that
Speaker 1: Mayven is going to be looking for are those atmosphere
Speaker 1: and water questions. Yeah, it's it's it's stuff that It's
Speaker 1: not all about sending a rover onto the surface and
Speaker 1: exploring the soil, which we've done several times. This is
Speaker 1: specifically a spacecraft dedicated to orbiting Mars and sampling the
Speaker 1: atmosphere of Mars to learn more about it. Right, So
Speaker 1: let's tell the story of Maven. Okay, sure, all right,
Speaker 1: you guys, Uh, gather around. Uh, I got some hot
Speaker 1: chocolate over here. I'll tell you the story. So it
Speaker 1: goes back to the mid two thousand's when there was
Speaker 1: a lot of interest in Mars still is, clearly, But
Speaker 1: NASA had this challenge of coming up with what how
Speaker 1: are we going to study Mars? Right? What are what
Speaker 1: are the next steps? How are we going to actually
Speaker 1: implement this approach so that we can learn things? I
Speaker 1: mean the answer was wide open at that point, right,
Speaker 1: So they started looking around, and they knew that they
Speaker 1: needed to keep the costs low because NASA had had
Speaker 1: some budget cutbacks. It was no longer the era of
Speaker 1: a three billion dollar space probe to be sent out
Speaker 1: into space. They needed to come up with ways they
Speaker 1: were much less expensive and had a low risk of failure.
Speaker 1: I mean, it would be terrible for you to send
Speaker 1: something up into space and it malfunctions. That is not
Speaker 1: a great uh, not a great message to send to
Speaker 1: the people who are signing the checks that are allowing
Speaker 1: you to get the science done. Uh, certainly not no.
Speaker 1: And and right around that time, there have been a
Speaker 1: few space shuttle failures that I'm sure we're fresh in
Speaker 1: everyone's mind. Sure, And you know, we also were living
Speaker 1: in a post nine eleven world. There were a lot
Speaker 1: of things going into creating a complicated political atmosphere for
Speaker 1: the space research budget. Yeah. So, Uh. The program that
Speaker 1: NASA came up with was called the Mars Scout program.
Speaker 1: It was specifically this approach to say, how can we
Speaker 1: make efficient, low cost projects that will effectively explore different
Speaker 1: elements of Mars bring back then for animation to us
Speaker 1: that's in, that's useful, so that we can actually demonstrate
Speaker 1: that this is an important work of science that we
Speaker 1: are doing and are likely, you know, the most likely
Speaker 1: to succeed. And so from the twenty six different proposals
Speaker 1: they looked at, they started off with the Phoenix Lander.
Speaker 1: You guys probably remember the Phoenix right, the Phoenix Lander.
Speaker 1: The thing I remember most about it is that they
Speaker 1: were NASA was very savvy and uh and ended up
Speaker 1: using a social networking approach to communicating the Phoenix Landers
Speaker 1: mission progress. And so there was a Twitter account dedicated
Speaker 1: to the Phoenix Lander, and it was all delivered in
Speaker 1: the first person, so it's sort of anthropomorphized the Phoenix
Speaker 1: Landers saying things. Um today, I discovered that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and people developed an emotional attachment to the Phoenix Lander.
Speaker 1: I mean they were they were emotionally invested in the
Speaker 1: science that was going on on Mars. Which is great news,
Speaker 1: right because now you've got people who are really interested
Speaker 1: and evolved and they want this project to succeed so
Speaker 1: much so that when the Phoenix Landers sent its final tweet,
Speaker 1: people got really emotional. Uh it's sent a message in
Speaker 1: binary code, and it was a Twitter message that was
Speaker 1: all just one s zeros and if you were to
Speaker 1: translate it, it's spelled out the single word triumph. And
Speaker 1: immediately people broke down in tears, um, except for Gladys,
Speaker 1: who just said anyway. Uh So that was the first
Speaker 1: of the Mars Scout program, and they all of the
Speaker 1: programs had to uh or at least they were supposed
Speaker 1: to cost less than than essentially half a billion dollars,
Speaker 1: which sounds like, I mean, it's a huge amount of money,
Speaker 1: but in space terms, it's you know, tiny, at least
Speaker 1: as far as NASA's history is concerned. So around four
Speaker 1: million dollars was like the That was the Capper. So
Speaker 1: the second project they looked at was Maven out of
Speaker 1: those those initial twenty six and uh, it turns out
Speaker 1: the MABN was the last of the Mars Scout project,
Speaker 1: second and last. Yes, in fact, to the point where
Speaker 1: you know it launched is jumping ahead a little bit.
Speaker 1: But it launched in two thousand thirteen, um, but the
Speaker 1: the Mars Scout program was ended in two thousand ten. Now,
Speaker 1: the reason why Maven went ahead anyway is due to
Speaker 1: the complex nature of the way Earth and Mars line
Speaker 1: up and don't line up. So there are times when
Speaker 1: you have an ideal launch window where you're going to
Speaker 1: be spending the least amount of fuel in order for
Speaker 1: you to get from Earth to Mars, right, because the
Speaker 1: planets are moving around, so sometimes they're further away from
Speaker 1: each other, and sometimes they're close together, right, and and
Speaker 1: so you can't just launch when they're close together, because
Speaker 1: by the time you're getting out to where Mars was,
Speaker 1: it ain't there no more. Right. Yes, I I posit
Speaker 1: that space travel is really the universe's most expensive and
Speaker 1: carefully calculated form of bacci. Yeah. Imagine that you're planning
Speaker 1: a family vacation to a specific destination, but that specific
Speaker 1: destination is also in motion relative to you. So, so
Speaker 1: the problem is that you have to plan for where
Speaker 1: it will be, not for where it is. And uh,
Speaker 1: same sort of thing with Mars. I mean, it's it
Speaker 1: really is and so uh the problem there is that
Speaker 1: if there's a delay in the process of getting your
Speaker 1: spacecraft off the Earth and and towards Mars, you might
Speaker 1: miss that window. And in fact, that did happen to Maven. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was originally announced back way back in two thousand
Speaker 1: seven that they were going to delay the launch until
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen, that would be the earliest. It's funny
Speaker 1: because if you look at NASA's records, it talks about
Speaker 1: how Maven was approved for budget in two thousand eight.
Speaker 1: So you might say, well, how the heck did something
Speaker 1: Did they delay a project in two thousand seven that
Speaker 1: they have not yet even approved and budgeted, And it
Speaker 1: was because they realized already they were not going to
Speaker 1: meet that original launch a first window, right, Yeah, So
Speaker 1: it meant that they were automatically going to be delayed
Speaker 1: twenty six months, even if all the technology and everything
Speaker 1: else went went perfectly, the design of the device, the
Speaker 1: building of it, even if all of that worked, flawlessly
Speaker 1: that that delay was still going to happen just because
Speaker 1: of the way Earth and Mars orbit the Sun. So uh,
Speaker 1: it was a it was a tough blow, but it
Speaker 1: was an important one. It turned out that the reason
Speaker 1: for the delay in the first place was because there
Speaker 1: was a conflict of interest in the mission statements of
Speaker 1: the various instrumentation groups. They were all putting stuff aboard
Speaker 1: the maven and they had to say, look, if we
Speaker 1: go forward with this, we are not doing We're doing
Speaker 1: a disservice to the project. And I would rather, as
Speaker 1: painful as it is, I would rather go ahead and
Speaker 1: delay and and and hash all this out than to
Speaker 1: go forward and potentially endanger the entire program. You know,
Speaker 1: you also, if you if you know the history of NASA,
Speaker 1: you also know there have been lots of stories of
Speaker 1: budgets getting out of control or at least inflating beyond
Speaker 1: what they were originally anticipated to be. So they were
Speaker 1: being very careful about this. Now. The principal investigator of
Speaker 1: this entire project is Bruce Chakowski of the Laboratory for
Speaker 1: Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder,
Speaker 1: and the spacecraft itself was built by Lockeed Martin, not
Speaker 1: a big surprise, Luckied Martin has done a lot of
Speaker 1: work with NESSA, and it was based on innovations that
Speaker 1: were made for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Mars
Speaker 1: Odyssey missions. The original launch date again was going to
Speaker 1: be two thousand eleven. It got delayed to two thousand thirteen,
Speaker 1: and in two thousand thirteen. October two thousand thirteen, so
Speaker 1: this is essentially the month before it was supposed to launch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in October two thirteen, there was a completely different issue
Speaker 1: that threatened to once again delay Maven by another twenty
Speaker 1: six months. Mart worse government shutdown. I remember that. I
Speaker 1: had some friends working for the Park Service at the time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's it's rough, right, I mean, it's one of those
Speaker 1: things where you know, no one comes out looking good
Speaker 1: in that situation. Now you're either you're either vilified for
Speaker 1: what you have done, possibly justifiably, or you are suffering
Speaker 1: because of something else someone has done. And very rarely
Speaker 1: is that justifiable. But at any rate, it was. It
Speaker 1: was tough all over the United States. Oh, for many reasons, right, um,
Speaker 1: but but in this specific case, so I mean, okay,
Speaker 1: So so the shutdown in the end only lasted sixteen days,
Speaker 1: but there was only um but but there was no
Speaker 1: way to tell at the outset how long that was
Speaker 1: going to be, and it was no there was no
Speaker 1: way of telling if it was going to delay enough things.
Speaker 1: You know, when you're coming toward a launch, the stuff
Speaker 1: is happening. It's it's not like they're resting on their
Speaker 1: laurels right up until the countdown. It's not like you
Speaker 1: wake up five in the morning and I'll better go
Speaker 1: put the rocket on the launch pad. No, it's exactly
Speaker 1: a meticulous, us painstaking approach to get something into space.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's obviously not an easy thing to do.
Speaker 1: And so there was a lot of fear that this
Speaker 1: was going to end up delaying it again, which would
Speaker 1: mean another twenty six month delay. The earliest that they
Speaker 1: could have a launch at that point would have been
Speaker 1: two thousand six. And you might say, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just the study of Mars, which is really cool
Speaker 1: but maybe not critical. Um so, why were they so
Speaker 1: worried about it? Well, they were able to show that
Speaker 1: there is a critical factor here, so you know, we've
Speaker 1: got the curiosity rover rolling around on Mars yea, and
Speaker 1: it sends information back to us, which all the scientists
Speaker 1: clap their hands for and get really excited about. Well,
Speaker 1: the reason why it's able to send information and part
Speaker 1: is because of communication relays that are set up to
Speaker 1: relay that information to communicate it back to Earth. Right.
Speaker 1: So Maven is not the first spacecraft that will be
Speaker 1: orbiting Mars. Right. So the problem is that the communication
Speaker 1: relays that are in operation on Mars are already beyond
Speaker 1: their life cycle. They they have lasted longer than they
Speaker 1: were projected to, which is great, but you you never
Speaker 1: know when it's going to stop working. So the scientists
Speaker 1: were pointing out the Maven, apart from just doing amazing
Speaker 1: science in the atmosphere of Mars, could also act as
Speaker 1: a communication relay and supplement these older relays that could
Speaker 1: break down at any moment, and said, this is critical
Speaker 1: to things we have already invested in. We have already
Speaker 1: put our money into this. They are already on Mars.
Speaker 1: Plus we have some other future plans that if they
Speaker 1: do go into effect, will require those communication relays, So
Speaker 1: we need Mayven to be there. So they were looking
Speaker 1: at a potential two year lapse in communication with the
Speaker 1: Curiosity rover um, you know, during which it could go
Speaker 1: out Lord of the flies on us. I know, we
Speaker 1: don't know now we we we would expect it would,
Speaker 1: we'd re established contact. It has established the new Martian religion. Well,
Speaker 1: you just have the red. You just hear that there
Speaker 1: was a terrible incident with a with a someone only
Speaker 1: identified by the name of Piggy at any rate, Um
Speaker 1: that that that did not have, That did not happen,
Speaker 1: as it's also the color of blood, you know, coming
Speaker 1: back having having now that we've had our little literary digression. Um, no,
Speaker 1: the the obviously that did not happen. Uh. The government
Speaker 1: agreed with NASA and May even launched off as scheduled
Speaker 1: in November two thousand thirteen, specifically November eighteen, two thousand thirteen.
Speaker 1: It's launch vehicle was an Atlas five vehicle, and the
Speaker 1: May even slowly made his way to Mars because the
Speaker 1: speed was not what was important. It was that that
Speaker 1: you know, concerned conservation of fuel. You know, that's the best,
Speaker 1: the most important things because it cuts down that cost.
Speaker 1: So it arrived in Martian orbit at ten thirty four
Speaker 1: p m. Eastern time. Whoa wait a second, is that
Speaker 1: the time it arrived at the time we got the
Speaker 1: signal that it arrived. That's a great question that I
Speaker 1: do not know the answer to, because if you have
Speaker 1: you know, paid attention, you know that it takes like well,
Speaker 1: when when the Curiosity Rover was landing it was a
Speaker 1: fourteen minute the lake just because that happened to be
Speaker 1: how far apart Earth and Mars were at the time,
Speaker 1: but speak in say ten to twenty minutes. Yes, somewhere
Speaker 1: around there. It all depends on where the orbits were
Speaker 1: at that point. But yeah, I think that's that's safe.
Speaker 1: At any rate. Um, the the Maven had had arrived
Speaker 1: where it needed to be. It was a September two
Speaker 1: thousand and fourteen. I didn't say what the date was.
Speaker 1: It didn't arrive at ten that evening. Actually it went
Speaker 1: from November eighteen, two thousand thirteen to September twenty, two
Speaker 1: thousand and fourteen. That's three hundred six days of travel um.
Speaker 1: But it's four hundred and forty two million miles, so
Speaker 1: I feel like it was making pretty good time. A considered,
Speaker 1: it would have made the Griswolds proud. But now it's there.
Speaker 1: It's they're doing science. Yeah, well, it's their ish. It's
Speaker 1: currently in a six currently by the recording of this podcast,
Speaker 1: i should say, and by the publication of this podcast,
Speaker 1: will still be in this six week commissioning phase, which
Speaker 1: is where it is maneuvering into its final science orbit.
Speaker 1: As of October tenth um it had activated its engines
Speaker 1: four times to kind of edge closer into the planet
Speaker 1: into a into a lower orbit where it needs to
Speaker 1: be in order to do the science um and had
Speaker 1: also activated and or deployed a few of its instruments
Speaker 1: for for testing. Yeah and uh. Once it is in position,
Speaker 1: it will begin a one year scientific research mission, and
Speaker 1: part of that mission includes what are called deep dip campaigns.
Speaker 1: Deep dip campaigns different from campaign. Yeah. Well they're gonna
Speaker 1: dip five times, so it's it's much better than double dipping.
Speaker 1: Um they are. What this means is again, this is
Speaker 1: a spacecraft that is analyzing the atmosphere, the upper atmosphere,
Speaker 1: largely of Mars, but five times it's going to dip
Speaker 1: down from around ninety three miles above the surface of
Speaker 1: Mars to seventy seven miles or so, and the purpose
Speaker 1: of that is to study the area of the atmosphere
Speaker 1: where the upper atmosphere meets the lower atmosphere of Mars. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's getting the entirety of the upper atmosphere and and
Speaker 1: really pretty close to the lower atmosphere kind of seeing
Speaker 1: where they interact. Now, that's going to be significantly different
Speaker 1: than studying, say, the upper atmosphere of Earth, because Martian
Speaker 1: atmosphere is much thinner than Earth's atmosphere, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: those those numbers are way further down than um than
Speaker 1: they would be on Earth. Yeah yeah, yeah. Um, in
Speaker 1: in Earth terms, that would be something like a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty kilometers to kilometers above the surface. Um. Well
Speaker 1: that's not in Earth terms, that's just a metric to
Speaker 1: imperial conversion, um. But ethnically it is Earth terms because
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure alien civilizations don't use the kilometer accurate. Um.
Speaker 1: But but that would be somewhere in the in the
Speaker 1: lower to mid thermosphere here. So um, so that's that's
Speaker 1: way lower than we put our stuff into orbiting. Sure, sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're looking at I was referring after the altitude, but
Speaker 1: to the thickness of Martian atmosphere, which is Uh, it's
Speaker 1: one of earth density rather yeah. Yeah, it's very thin, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then that's part of why the spacecraft is necessary.
Speaker 1: We want to we want to find where did that
Speaker 1: atmosphere go? Yeah, what happened to it? So in order
Speaker 1: to talk about what happened to it and to and
Speaker 1: we have some ideas, we'll we'll talk about some of
Speaker 1: the things that have very likely, in fact, we're pretty certain,
Speaker 1: have caused the Martian atmosphere too um to disappear over time.
Speaker 1: But here are some of the tools that we're going
Speaker 1: to be using to actually study that to you know,
Speaker 1: support the hypotheses we've drawn. Number one, a hammer. There
Speaker 1: is no hammer aboard the Maven. Is there a mystical X?
Speaker 1: There's no There are no arms on the Maven. Neutral
Speaker 1: gas and ion mass spectrometer, Now, Joe, you're just being
Speaker 1: son of a gun. You're right, there is a neutral
Speaker 1: gas and ion mass spectrometer. Purse you, Joe. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the instrument that measures the composition and isotopes of
Speaker 1: thermal neutrals and ions. So essentially it's going to determine
Speaker 1: the basic structure of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere of Mars.
Speaker 1: So when you say neutrals, you're talking about an uncharged
Speaker 1: particle essentially ions. Obviously that's something that has either gained
Speaker 1: or lost on electron and thus has a net charged.
Speaker 1: This is just straight up looking at what particles are there.
Speaker 1: Then you've got the Remote Sensing package, which is UH
Speaker 1: that includes the Imaging Ultraviolet spectrograph, and that's going to
Speaker 1: look at the global characteristics in the Martian upper atmosphere,
Speaker 1: so kind of looking at the overall composition as opposed
Speaker 1: to specific segments of the atmosphere. It's kind of more
Speaker 1: like a U Satellites eye view, I guess. So then
Speaker 1: you've got the Particles and Fields package, which includes six
Speaker 1: different instruments. The magnetometer, which is an instrument that is
Speaker 1: used to measure the strength and direction of magnetic fields.
Speaker 1: We mentioned you know, the Martian UH planet does not
Speaker 1: have a magnetosphere the way the Earth does. That doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it doesn't have one at all. It does. It's patchy,
Speaker 1: it's smaller, it is not as effective at warding off
Speaker 1: the solar wind, but it is there. So this would
Speaker 1: be one of the instruments that would be able to
Speaker 1: detect it and kind of get us more information about it.
Speaker 1: So then there's the supra thermal and thermal ion composition,
Speaker 1: which will measure the source ion populations and sort between
Speaker 1: shocked solar wind and planetary ions, in other words, saying
Speaker 1: which one of these came from the Sun and which
Speaker 1: of these were affected by the Sun but came from Mars.
Speaker 1: Then you've got the Solar Wind Electron Analyzer, which will
Speaker 1: measure the solar wind and ion a spheric electrons. It
Speaker 1: will look at the effects of electron impact in the
Speaker 1: Martian atmosphere. You're probably picking up on some themes here.
Speaker 1: The Solar Wind ion Analyzer, which will study the ionization
Speaker 1: rates of neutral particles as an input to atmospheric loss processes.
Speaker 1: So we talked about, you know, what made the Martian
Speaker 1: atmosphere leave, like why is it? Why is it no
Speaker 1: longer there? This is one of those instruments that's going
Speaker 1: to be looking specifically at the factors that affect the
Speaker 1: Martian atmosphere why is it escaping? So really we're looking
Speaker 1: at here is the effects of the solar wind on
Speaker 1: the Martian atmosphere and how that's kind of ripping away
Speaker 1: the atmosphere of Mars. Uh, it will also measure the
Speaker 1: Martian magnetosphere, which again is not terribly strong, and how
Speaker 1: the solar wind affects that magnetosphere on Mars. And then
Speaker 1: you've got the solar energetic particle, which is an instrument
Speaker 1: that will determine the impact of solar energetic particles on
Speaker 1: the upper atmosphere of Mars. And I like the names
Speaker 1: that are they totally make sense. Now, does anyone know
Speaker 1: how to say this first word? I know how I
Speaker 1: would say it, but I'm used to hear while you
Speaker 1: would say it. I was going to say langer yea, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was gonna saying more like lang mirror so a little.
Speaker 1: So I was going like, it sounds like it's a progression.
Speaker 1: We had lang mir, Langmuir, and then langmir. At any rate,
Speaker 1: it's a probe and waves, and it's an instrument that
Speaker 1: will look at ionospheric properties, wave heating of the upper atmosphere,
Speaker 1: and solar extreme ultra violet input to the atmosphere. So
Speaker 1: again it's really looking to see what how the Sun
Speaker 1: has affected the atmosphere of Mars. That's ultimately what we're
Speaker 1: talking about here. So if you've got a planet that
Speaker 1: lacks the protection that Earth's magnetosphere gives Earth, then what
Speaker 1: would happen to it? Well, it's that's that's what Mars is, right,
Speaker 1: Mars is a planet that lacks that protective magnetosphere. And
Speaker 1: so the question is, did phenomenon originating from the Sun
Speaker 1: over time rip away an atmosphere that once existed on
Speaker 1: Mars by ionizing those particles, by charging those particles, pushing
Speaker 1: essentially the wind blowing the atmosphere, the solar wind, the
Speaker 1: solar wind blowing the atmosphere into space. Um. There's some
Speaker 1: really cool animations out there that kind of illustrate this
Speaker 1: that I wish we could include, but as an audio podcast,
Speaker 1: we have not yet figured out how to put the
Speaker 1: animated gift in there. You could state the color of
Speaker 1: each pixel and graph you just see blue, green, yellow, yellow, yellow, green, red, red,
Speaker 1: zero one one. So the question is we're really early
Speaker 1: on in the actual project of Maven right. It has Yes,
Speaker 1: it's it's there. It's taken a couple of samples, and
Speaker 1: everything that I've seen so far seems to be working
Speaker 1: as expected. Um, but we're not. I mean, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of there's a lot of science to do, right,
Speaker 1: it has not yet reached its UH it's final position,
Speaker 1: so it is still maneuvering into position. It's still testing
Speaker 1: its various UH instrumentation and so that make sure that
Speaker 1: everything's working the way it's supposed to. UM. But we
Speaker 1: have already seen some results. In fact, within eight hours
Speaker 1: of it arriving at its orbit, it was sending back
Speaker 1: pictures to NASA, which is kind of cool. So now
Speaker 1: those images were of Mars's upper atmospheres you would expect,
Speaker 1: and it was mapping out the presence of hydrogen and oxygen. UH.
Speaker 1: Now it was using the imaging ultra violet spectrograph to
Speaker 1: capture the images, which then we had to convert. We
Speaker 1: had to put in false color for us to be
Speaker 1: able to see the results. Right, So you'll see if
Speaker 1: you if you look up the images that may even
Speaker 1: has gathered already, they're very vibrant. But obviously that's not
Speaker 1: the actual data that came back to us. That's us
Speaker 1: after we put in it through a conversion representation so
Speaker 1: that we can look at it with our eyeballs and
Speaker 1: tell stuff about it. Exactly because most of us are
Speaker 1: incapable of seeing the ultra violet spectrum UM, so they
Speaker 1: if you were to look at these pictures to see
Speaker 1: a series of them that were first sent back. One
Speaker 1: of them is a very blue planet Mars, and the
Speaker 1: color blue represents the ultra violet light that scattered that
Speaker 1: was scattered by hydrogen gas. Uh. There's also a green
Speaker 1: one which shows a different wavelength of ultra violet light
Speaker 1: that was scattered by oxygen. There's also a red one
Speaker 1: which actually shows the ultra violet light that made contact
Speaker 1: with the surface of Mars itself and then was reflected off.
Speaker 1: And there's a fourth one that is a composite of
Speaker 1: all of those different images put together, so you can
Speaker 1: kind of see the mixture that's there. And uh, it's
Speaker 1: really pretty. I mean it's dramatic. It's uh, it's cool
Speaker 1: to see and to think this is before MAYBN is
Speaker 1: even in position to really do what it's supposed to do.
Speaker 1: This is this is preliminary stuff. Yeah, this is eight
Speaker 1: hours into being the exactly so, uh, it's really exciting
Speaker 1: to see how this is gonna end up, you know,
Speaker 1: affecting our understanding of Mars and how it might shape
Speaker 1: our plans for futures to Mars. Because again, it's going
Speaker 1: to act not just as a scientific instrument or a
Speaker 1: communication array. It's going to give us a lot of
Speaker 1: information that could be valuable for things like coming up
Speaker 1: with new ways to protect astronauts if they were to
Speaker 1: leave the protective envelope of that magnetosphere. You know, if
Speaker 1: you were to journey beyond, say the Moon, and you
Speaker 1: needed to make sure that they were protected. Learning more
Speaker 1: about the interactions of the solar wind with an area
Speaker 1: that doesn't have that magnetic protection is valuable. Sure, Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's one of the things that we continually talked about
Speaker 1: when we talk about the problems of space flight. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this information could tell us more about our solar system.
Speaker 1: It could tell us more about the conditions outside of
Speaker 1: our immediate surroundings, and better prepare us for when we
Speaker 1: decide to shuffle off the coils of Earth and gravity,
Speaker 1: when we personally, the three of us, I'm working on it, see,
Speaker 1: but when we are able to do that and be
Speaker 1: able to slip the bonds of Earth, I think is
Speaker 1: the best way of putting it less like you're saying
Speaker 1: we're going to die. I didn't say mortal coil. Mortal
Speaker 1: coil is a very specific thing. It would merely imply
Speaker 1: the phrase shuffle off is just not used all that
Speaker 1: off if you unless you're talking about like leaving after
Speaker 1: I don't know, one of those races where your feet
Speaker 1: are tied together. Yeah, I guess maybe if you're very British,
Speaker 1: I mean, not just mildly British, like I'm talking extraordinarily British.
Speaker 1: Deep inside, I am extraordinarily British. I'm also an actor,
Speaker 1: So shuffling off the stage happens all the time, It's true. Um,
Speaker 1: but at any rate, um So, So we're gonna try
Speaker 1: to remember to share with you guys on our social
Speaker 1: media networks, um, some of these brilliant images that are
Speaker 1: already coming out of the Maven and and we'll keep
Speaker 1: an eye on it see what other kind of cool information.
Speaker 1: Maybe if there's something that is spectacularly interesting, will do
Speaker 1: an update to the episode and kind of talk about
Speaker 1: some of the science that has come out of the
Speaker 1: Maven project. I'm really interested in how some of the
Speaker 1: science coming out of Maven will inform our ideas about
Speaker 1: the possibility of terraforming Mars in the future. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: I mean, and you know, we had mentioned that that's
Speaker 1: a big challenge obviously, not just because terraforming is this
Speaker 1: idea that we have, but we don't really know how
Speaker 1: to implement said idea. But beyond that, even if we
Speaker 1: could implement it, how would you transform Mars in a
Speaker 1: way that would be permanent right as opposed to we
Speaker 1: talked about this in our Our Colonies episode where you
Speaker 1: can make changes to Mars, but without fixing that magnetosphere issue,
Speaker 1: the solar wind would just come in and start wreaking
Speaker 1: havoc anyway, So maybe the answer is that we figure
Speaker 1: out a way to create an artificial magnetosphere. That sounds
Speaker 1: easier said than done to me. Yeah, get a bunch
Speaker 1: of bar magnetismswhere yeah, everybody, we got this. We got this. Guys,
Speaker 1: we got this. Yeah. We just need some funding. So
Speaker 1: if you guys, uh, you know, I want to send
Speaker 1: us bags of money, Um, well, first you should probably
Speaker 1: get in touch with us, and the best way to
Speaker 1: do that is actually not through the mail, but through Twitter,
Speaker 1: Google Plus, and Facebook. You can find us on Twitter
Speaker 1: and Google Plus with the handle f w Thinking. Just
Speaker 1: search for FW thinking over in Facebook. Ours will pop
Speaker 1: up right away. Give us your ideas about you know,
Speaker 1: what you want to hear for future topics forward Thinking
Speaker 1: give us your ideas about the future of Mars itself.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to hear what you guys think and uh,
Speaker 1: just get in touch with us that way and we
Speaker 1: will talk to you again really soon. For more on
Speaker 1: this topic in the future of technology, I'll visit forward
Speaker 1: thinking dot com. Rock you buy Toyota, Let's go places.