Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer at
Speaker 1: how stuff Works and I love all things tech. And
Speaker 1: it's time for another classic episode of tech Stuff. And
Speaker 1: recently I did an enormous series about space travel, and
Speaker 1: I've given you guys a few days to recover from that,
Speaker 1: but now it's time to go back. This classic episode
Speaker 1: has Chris Polette and I talking about the Curiosity Project,
Speaker 1: the Curiosity Project that went to Mars, and it was
Speaker 1: an incredible mission and one that was really inspiring for us,
Speaker 1: so we had a great time talking about it. We
Speaker 1: originally published this episode all the way back on August
Speaker 1: twenty nine, two thousand and twelve. I hope you guys
Speaker 1: enjoy it. Let's listen in today we are going to
Speaker 1: talk about stuff. What beeps? Yes, stuff, what beeps? What
Speaker 1: we shoot off into space to hit the red planet
Speaker 1: that is near us sometimes near us? And well it's
Speaker 1: funny because there there is another science podcast around here somewhere. Yeah,
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind. Yeah, we're not talking about
Speaker 1: them because we decided, well, occasionally we talked about the
Speaker 1: same stuff because we're fascinated by it, and we decided
Speaker 1: that we didn't care if they talk about this. There's
Speaker 1: overlap because we wanted to talk about the Mars rover. Yes,
Speaker 1: and and specifically we're talking about the Curiosity rover, which
Speaker 1: successfully touched down on the surface of Mars, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that the way of delivering said rover to the
Speaker 1: surface of Mars was I think the scientific term is
Speaker 1: absolutely freaking crazy. I was gonna say nuts, but that'll work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's the short version of the full scientific term. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And we want to talk about why is it such
Speaker 1: a big deal, why is it so hard to get
Speaker 1: to Mars, and sort of talk about some of the
Speaker 1: historical missions that led up to Curiosity as well as
Speaker 1: the Curiosity mission itself. So, um, do you let's say that,
Speaker 1: let's say we're talking about the success failure rate of
Speaker 1: missions to Mars. Yeah. Um, depending not pleasant to talk about,
Speaker 1: depending upon how you define success or failure. Uh. One
Speaker 1: of the more common statistics I've seen, or are figures
Speaker 1: I've seen, is that twenty three out of thirty eight
Speaker 1: missions sent to Mars failed in some way. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: which gives it a pretty dismal success rate. Are you.
Speaker 1: Are you speaking of all missions to Mars a missions tomorrow?
Speaker 1: So anybody who's ever shot something at the Red Planet,
Speaker 1: anyone anyone on Earth. We just we can't just pointing
Speaker 1: that out. We can't really talk about anyone from outside
Speaker 1: of Earth. We don't know. Good point, but I meant
Speaker 1: not you not it states. Of course we are located
Speaker 1: in the United States, and why I just wanted to
Speaker 1: point out that you're not talking You're talking at Earthlings.
Speaker 1: The United States success failure rate is better. It's thirteen
Speaker 1: successes out of eighteen tries prior to curiosity, I think
Speaker 1: it is. It is important to point out too, that
Speaker 1: the United States has been later to the let's throw
Speaker 1: stuff at the Red planet party, and so maybe part
Speaker 1: of the failures of the Soviet Union is well, part
Speaker 1: of them is due to the fact that the Soviet
Speaker 1: Union is no more. But when they were very active
Speaker 1: at this, they were maybe not so good at it.
Speaker 1: They were the probably be better at it now they
Speaker 1: were the only ones doing it at the time. Yes
Speaker 1: they were. So you might say, well, why is the
Speaker 1: why is this success rates so low? Mars is hard
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to get to and and here's the
Speaker 1: moon might be a little closer. Yeah, let's I'll give
Speaker 1: you some figures here. So the average distance between Earth
Speaker 1: and the Moon is about two thou in nine miles
Speaker 1: or three four thousand, four hundred kilometers. That's about how
Speaker 1: far it is from Earth to the Moon. And it
Speaker 1: takes a few days for us to send something to
Speaker 1: go land on the Moon. So for example, astronauts aboard
Speaker 1: and Apollo Capsule take a few days to get there,
Speaker 1: and to get there in a few more days to
Speaker 1: get back. Um, but that's that's doable. We did do it,
Speaker 1: so clearly it's doable. It's a vacation. Getting someone to Mars.
Speaker 1: Getting anything to Mars takes a lot more time. Now.
Speaker 1: Part of that is because the distance between Earth and
Speaker 1: Mars is not constant. And the reason for that is
Speaker 1: that you know, both planets are going around the Sun, right,
Speaker 1: but they're going at different speeds and their orbits are
Speaker 1: different sizes. So there are times when Earth and Mars
Speaker 1: are aligned and they are about as close as they
Speaker 1: poss can be. And there are other times where Earth
Speaker 1: is on one side of the Sun and Mars is
Speaker 1: on the other side of the Sun, and they're about
Speaker 1: as far apart as they possibly can be, so the
Speaker 1: distance varies dramatically. At the closest earthen, Mars are about
Speaker 1: thirty three million, nine hundred thousand miles apart or fifty
Speaker 1: four million, six hundred thousand kilometers. So to compare again
Speaker 1: to the Moon, the Moon was two hundred thirty eight thousand,
Speaker 1: nine hundred miles away, Mars thirty three million, nine hundred
Speaker 1: thousand miles away, So that's not a day trip way further,
Speaker 1: and that's at its closest. At its furthest away, Mars
Speaker 1: is about two hundred forty nine million, one hundred sixty
Speaker 1: thousand miles away or four hundred one million kilometers away.
Speaker 1: So if you're gonna make a mission to Mars of
Speaker 1: any kind, um then you need to do a lot
Speaker 1: of thinking about it and and plan in beforehand, because
Speaker 1: you need to decide, Okay, well, what are we gonna
Speaker 1: send there. We're gonna send a rover, um man, how
Speaker 1: how much is that gonnaway? Well, it's gonna weigh about
Speaker 1: this much? How much you know, rocket tuge do we
Speaker 1: need to throw at it? Okay, so you got your
Speaker 1: you've got your rocket tude, and your just makesically think
Speaker 1: like some sort of nineteen eighties side scrolling video game. Rocket.
Speaker 1: I'm going to write that, um and your rover, you
Speaker 1: know what, you know what you wanted to do, you
Speaker 1: know how to get it there? Uh, you start having
Speaker 1: to think about all sorts of other stuff. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: so how much gravity? Uh does Mars have? How much
Speaker 1: difference in the weight is there going to be once
Speaker 1: this this rover gets there? How are you know how
Speaker 1: much atmospheric interference is going to be there? Okay, so
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to plan how long it's gonna take
Speaker 1: for you to shoot this thing into space and get
Speaker 1: to Mars, and how it's gonna stop when it gets there. Oh,
Speaker 1: and then you have to take a new account. If
Speaker 1: you know roughly how long it's gonna take. Where are
Speaker 1: the two planets going to be? Yeah, you have to
Speaker 1: figure out when you're from there and go, Okay, they're
Speaker 1: going to be at their closest here, so we have
Speaker 1: to launch it then can make that happen. Technically, you
Speaker 1: even have to launch it before then, because you have
Speaker 1: to do what's called a transfer orbit. So so by
Speaker 1: the let's let's say let's say we've got to the point.
Speaker 1: By the way, it takes about two years for Earth
Speaker 1: and Mars to line up so that they are at
Speaker 1: their closest, and then it will take another two years
Speaker 1: before they are at that same position relative to one another.
Speaker 1: So there's a two year gap between when uh your
Speaker 1: closest when you're not and close is important because that
Speaker 1: determines how much fuel you're going to need to get
Speaker 1: whatever it is you're sending to Mars there. And fuel
Speaker 1: is heavy because we depend on you know, uh, these
Speaker 1: these chemical fuels that are you know, these solid chemical
Speaker 1: fuels that that weigh a lot, They give off a
Speaker 1: lot of energy and they are about as a fish
Speaker 1: sent as we possibly can be with chemical uh fuel.
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, their weight factors into the whole calculation.
Speaker 1: So you want to use as as little fuel as
Speaker 1: possible to get your your spacecraft to Mars to be
Speaker 1: as efficient as you possibly can be. This is also
Speaker 1: why it's really difficult to talk about a manned mission
Speaker 1: to Mars. I'll get to that in a second. But um,
Speaker 1: so you when you when Earth and Mars are closest together,
Speaker 1: if you were to launch at that point, Well, you know,
Speaker 1: you can't just point the rocket at Mars where Mars
Speaker 1: is right now, because it is not gonna be there
Speaker 1: by the time the the spacecraft would have made its
Speaker 1: way to that point. You know, both planets are still
Speaker 1: moving around the Sun, so your spacecraft would be going
Speaker 1: to where Mars used to be, not to wear Mars
Speaker 1: is going to be. So you actually have to planet
Speaker 1: out ahead of time to make sure you are being
Speaker 1: as economic as possible with your fuel use. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: a paraphrase the great one, you have to launch the
Speaker 1: rocket at where the planet's gonna be. Yeah, you gotta
Speaker 1: shoot for where it will be, not for where it is.
Speaker 1: So I'm sorry, go ahead, I was just gonna say so. Essentially,
Speaker 1: there is a lot of thought that has to go
Speaker 1: into this before before you even build the rocket, before
Speaker 1: you even build the rover. You really have to think
Speaker 1: about what you need to do to make it happen.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, when you shoot something at the Moon,
Speaker 1: the factors are lessened somewhat by the distance and and
Speaker 1: the proximity of the Moon. You know what, you that
Speaker 1: the orbit and all those things are are are lesser
Speaker 1: and the more complex a project gets you know, the
Speaker 1: more factors you have to deal with, and it's just
Speaker 1: that that's going to make it more difficult to reach
Speaker 1: Mars than it is to reach the Moon. And if
Speaker 1: you were trying to reach Pluto, for example, the factors
Speaker 1: get even more difficult. And Pluto's got such an odd
Speaker 1: orbit anyway. So I mean, this is this is know,
Speaker 1: this isn't rockets, so it's it's complex. It's not brain surgery,
Speaker 1: so the yeah, so it takes about it takes about
Speaker 1: between seven and eight months to get from Earth to
Speaker 1: Mars using the methods that we have available to us today.
Speaker 1: There are scientists who have suggested that we look into
Speaker 1: using a nuclear powered propulsion system in order to get
Speaker 1: from Earth to Mars, which would significantly reduce the weight
Speaker 1: of your vehicle because you wouldn't have to have so
Speaker 1: much chemical fuel aboard. But then there are other problems,
Speaker 1: of course with the idea of the nuclear propulsion system,
Speaker 1: especially if you're going to use some sort of chemical
Speaker 1: propulsion to get you off the the surface of the
Speaker 1: Earth into lower Earth orbit before you engage the nuclear
Speaker 1: propulsion system. Having explosives next to a nuclear device makes
Speaker 1: people nervous. I don't know why. There's also the possibility
Speaker 1: that people have said of of building the spacecraft in
Speaker 1: lowerth orbit, So you would have space missions that would
Speaker 1: go out build this craft and lowerth orbit, and then
Speaker 1: you solve the problem of having to escape Earth's gravity. Uh.
Speaker 1: You engage the nuclear propulsion system then and that also
Speaker 1: gets around it at any rate. So you've got about
Speaker 1: seven to eight months to get to Mars, depending on
Speaker 1: you exactly what you're sending there and and the timing involved. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is and here's the reason why a manned mission
Speaker 1: to Mars would be really really difficult. Let's say that
Speaker 1: we sent let's say we we built the spacecraft that
Speaker 1: that is capable of carrying a party of about six
Speaker 1: astronauts to Mars. That tends to be about the number
Speaker 1: of crew members that is considered ideal. Uh. This comes
Speaker 1: from NASA, and NASA says that ideal number is somewhat
Speaker 1: reached by You want to have enough of a mix
Speaker 1: of people so that you can balance out any personality issues.
Speaker 1: You also want to have enough so that you can
Speaker 1: represent multiple nationalities because you have to have a lot
Speaker 1: of partnerships with other countries in order for these projects
Speaker 1: to come through, so there's a political element to it
Speaker 1: as well. Um so let's say we've built the ship
Speaker 1: that could hold six people, uh, that can hold all
Speaker 1: the supplies they would need to get to Mars and back.
Speaker 1: It would still take thirty two months from the time
Speaker 1: you launch to the time you touched down back on
Speaker 1: Earth to do a Mars mission. And the reason for
Speaker 1: that is that because it takes seven to eight months.
Speaker 1: You know, assuming that you're going for pure fuel economy
Speaker 1: again to limit the weight of your spacecraft, takes seven
Speaker 1: to eight months for you to get to Mars. By
Speaker 1: the time you land on Mars, the Mars and the
Speaker 1: Earth are no longer in that ideal situation where you
Speaker 1: can easily get from one to the other. In fact,
Speaker 1: at that point, by the time the Curiosity rover landed
Speaker 1: on the surface of Mars, Mars was further away from
Speaker 1: the Earth than the Earth was to the Sun. So
Speaker 1: by the time you land, the Earth is further away
Speaker 1: from you than the Sun would be if you were
Speaker 1: still on Earth. So you have to wait for that
Speaker 1: timing to be right again so that you can launch
Speaker 1: from Mars and get back to Earth. That takes almost
Speaker 1: two years, So from the time you leave to the
Speaker 1: time you get back thirty two months past, so that's
Speaker 1: a that's a very long mission. And during that whole
Speaker 1: time you would also have to be able to to
Speaker 1: not only provide all the resources your astronauts would need
Speaker 1: to stay alive on the surface of Mars, which not
Speaker 1: a very friendly planet for us, not too terribly accommodating.
Speaker 1: It's it's not the worst, but it's not it's not
Speaker 1: the best either. You would also have to figure out
Speaker 1: how to protect them from things like radiation. The longer
Speaker 1: you're out in space, the more likely you are to
Speaker 1: encounter various forms of radiation that we are protected from
Speaker 1: here on Earth due to factors like their's atmosphere and
Speaker 1: its magnetic field. So you have to figure out how
Speaker 1: do you protect the astronauts from things like I'm a
Speaker 1: radiation out in space, so that they don't turn into
Speaker 1: incredible incredible hulk or a cosmic race, so they don't
Speaker 1: come back as the Fantastic six, because there would be
Speaker 1: two more than the four UM. I also thought you
Speaker 1: were going to point out that there need to be
Speaker 1: enough people aboard so that when the aliens do start
Speaker 1: bursting out of them that you know there's somebody left
Speaker 1: at the end of Yeah, you have to have that
Speaker 1: dramatic person at the end so they can come back
Speaker 1: and tell the story and and and blame the corporation
Speaker 1: from the documentary alien um the Yes. So there there
Speaker 1: are a lot of factors that make it really really
Speaker 1: hard for us to send amanned mission to Mars, which
Speaker 1: is why the missions that we've sent to Mars so
Speaker 1: far have been unmanned missions. And uh, even those have
Speaker 1: not had a great success rate, although again the United
Speaker 1: States success rate is significantly higher than if you were
Speaker 1: to to think of the entire world UM, which is
Speaker 1: mainly the USSR or SO Union at the time, UM
Speaker 1: now would be Russia in the various countries around Russia. Uh.
Speaker 1: The Japan also has attempted to send missions to Mars,
Speaker 1: and there was I think a European mission as well.
Speaker 1: So the the first attempt to send a mission to Mars,
Speaker 1: an unmanned mission to Mars was in nineteen sixty by
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union and it was called corrobl four KO
Speaker 1: R A B L and R in the B in
Speaker 1: our alphabet. I don't read cilic, so I couldn't tell
Speaker 1: you the other version but um, yeah, that was in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty It did not even it didn't reach Earth orbit,
Speaker 1: so that was a failure early on it did not
Speaker 1: um even make it into lower th orbit, much less
Speaker 1: out into Mars. I actually saw that one listed as
Speaker 1: Mars Nick Mars Nick interested. Uh, so this is the
Speaker 1: information I got was from NASA. Okay, so I was
Speaker 1: going from an article and Wired, so yeah, this is
Speaker 1: this is from NASA, so they had to Actually that
Speaker 1: went around the same time CORRABL four and five according
Speaker 1: to NASA, but I'm sure I had different names in
Speaker 1: the Wired article. The first attempt by the United States
Speaker 1: was in nineteen sixty four with the Mariner three UM,
Speaker 1: which was it was supposed to be a fly by mission.
Speaker 1: So this is a spacecraft that's supposed to pass by
Speaker 1: Mars and take photos as it goes by. Uh. That
Speaker 1: one was also a failure. The the shroud failed to jettison,
Speaker 1: so it did not make it to Mars. But shortly thereafter,
Speaker 1: the Mariner four was a successful fly by mission and
Speaker 1: it returned twenty one images of Mars to Earth. So uh,
Speaker 1: the United States first attempt was a failure, but the
Speaker 1: second attempt succeeded. UM. There were a lot of attempts
Speaker 1: since then. Uh. Some of them, many of them were flybys, UM.
Speaker 1: Some of them were meant to be orbit ters. Uh.
Speaker 1: A lot of launch failures, a lot of orbits that
Speaker 1: were obtained, but then the device failed before it could
Speaker 1: really retrieve a lot of information. The first success really
Speaker 1: for the Soviet Union UM was the Mars five which
Speaker 1: was in nineteen seventy three, and that was that returned
Speaker 1: sixty images of the planet and it but it only
Speaker 1: lasted nine days. Yeah, Mars to actually attempted to put
Speaker 1: a lander on the surface, but not so much with
Speaker 1: the success. Yeah, the orbiter actually arrived into the orbit
Speaker 1: of Mars, but yeah, the lander did not did not
Speaker 1: land successfully. Chris and I have more to say about
Speaker 1: the Curiosity ander over on Mars, but before we get
Speaker 1: to that, let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor.
Speaker 1: One of the challenges again that I had read about,
Speaker 1: especially with the recent coverage on Curiosity again recent as
Speaker 1: of the time we're recording this UM, is that the
Speaker 1: the atmosphere of Mars is very very unlike that of Earth.
Speaker 1: It's very thin. Yes, So I mean, you know, if
Speaker 1: you think about Uh, for example, the Space Shuttle coming
Speaker 1: back in or the Mercury and Geminy missions. I love
Speaker 1: doing that because Jonathan wins Is every time I see Geminy.
Speaker 1: Some of the astronauts called it that though. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: using the heat shields and coming in and having the
Speaker 1: heat shield you know, burning as it comes through the
Speaker 1: Earth's atmosphere. Uh, Mars's atmosphere does not act as a
Speaker 1: slower downer, not not as much. It does. It does
Speaker 1: slow down the vehicle, but not as much. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I was going to say that. Okay, well you
Speaker 1: said and as you said that, you said it wasn't
Speaker 1: a slower downer. I wanted to correct, well, not as
Speaker 1: I was going to say, not as much as it
Speaker 1: does here, and with gravity being so different there too.
Speaker 1: Um it is those are our factors that the scientists
Speaker 1: have to take into account. Um I if I am
Speaker 1: not mistaken. You know there have been times when we
Speaker 1: tried to use a big cushiony bouncy ball to try
Speaker 1: to protect something and and it didn't work out to
Speaker 1: what we But we have had Rover's Land using that approach. Um.
Speaker 1: It's an air air bag approach, is really what it is.
Speaker 1: A's airbags. Uh. Well, yes, the the atmosphere on Mars
Speaker 1: is thinner than it is on Earth, and it does
Speaker 1: not slow entry vehicles down to the same extent as
Speaker 1: we would have here on Earth. So you have to
Speaker 1: come up with other ways of slowing your entry vehicle
Speaker 1: entry vehicle down, uh, if you don't want to go
Speaker 1: boom on the surface of the planet. And there have
Speaker 1: been a lot of different attempts to do that. So
Speaker 1: previous attempts involved using parachutes, which can slow you down
Speaker 1: a little bit, but even then the atmosphere is so
Speaker 1: thin that you're going Uh. They, for example, the Curiosity
Speaker 1: rover deployed the largest supersonic parachute NASA has ever built,
Speaker 1: which way I think a hundred pounds total. That was
Speaker 1: that was able to slow down the vehicle to two
Speaker 1: miles per hour. Uh. And I don't have the kilometers
Speaker 1: perer conversion. They're right in front of me, so I
Speaker 1: apologized for that. But anyway, even at that speed, there
Speaker 1: was no way the rover could land and maintain integrity.
Speaker 1: It would have smashed to little tiny pieces. So they
Speaker 1: had to find another way of slowing down. Uh. There
Speaker 1: are other elements literally on Mars that make this difficult.
Speaker 1: One of the potential things you could do is use
Speaker 1: rockets to slow down your your entry vehicle. But the
Speaker 1: closer you get to the surface of the planet, the
Speaker 1: more those rockets are going to disturb the dust that's
Speaker 1: on the surface. That dust can cause lots of problems.
Speaker 1: If you have sensitive scientific equipment. This equipment might get
Speaker 1: gummed up by dust. The dust could damage it so
Speaker 1: that it's unusable, which means that you might land successfully,
Speaker 1: but you can't actually retrieve any data because your instruments
Speaker 1: are fouled by dust. Um the dust itself could also
Speaker 1: be corrosive, so there's some real problems there. So you
Speaker 1: have to figure out, well, if you can't just use rockets,
Speaker 1: then you have to find some other balancing features so
Speaker 1: that you can lower the rover itself onto the surface
Speaker 1: without getting the rockets so close to the surface that
Speaker 1: they start to disturb the dust about kilometers per hour.
Speaker 1: Thank you so uh in some cases the way that
Speaker 1: the rovers we have landed. Now, we we've also launched
Speaker 1: orbiters that just orbit Mars and take uh scientific measurements
Speaker 1: from orbit. So we've got some of those in orbit already. UM.
Speaker 1: In fact, we've got a couple that we launched not
Speaker 1: too long ago, we being the United States. UM. The
Speaker 1: the there's the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which was launched in
Speaker 1: two thousand five and uh it's already returned more than
Speaker 1: twenty six terra bits of data about the planet. There's
Speaker 1: also the Odyssey Mars Odyssey, which was launched in two
Speaker 1: thousand one UM and both of those have contributed a
Speaker 1: lot to our scientific knowledge. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has
Speaker 1: a boarded a special camera called the High Resolution Imaging
Speaker 1: Science Experiment or high RISE, and the high RISE actually
Speaker 1: caught a great photo of the Curiosity rover as it
Speaker 1: was landing with the parachute deployed. So you can actually
Speaker 1: see the parachute, you can see the capsule that contained
Speaker 1: the rover. You can if you look really carefully, you
Speaker 1: can even see the heat shield that was jettisoned off
Speaker 1: the bottom of the rover. We'll talk more about that
Speaker 1: whole procedure in just a minute. UM. So, one of
Speaker 1: the things you could do is you use rockets to
Speaker 1: slow yourself down further from the parachute, so the parachute
Speaker 1: gets you down to a certain speed. The rockets can
Speaker 1: slow you down a little bit more, and then as
Speaker 1: you get closer to the surface, you need to find
Speaker 1: a way of lowering the rover itself so that the
Speaker 1: rockets don't disturb the dust too much. One way of
Speaker 1: doing that is to lower the rover, uh to essentially
Speaker 1: drop it with all these air bags around it, which
Speaker 1: cushioned the blow, and it lands and then it retrieves
Speaker 1: the air bags and or or emerges from the air
Speaker 1: bags and continues on submission. That's how the smaller rovers
Speaker 1: um landed from the smaller ones being things like the
Speaker 1: Spirit and the Opportunity, uh, the Phoenix Lander, things like
Speaker 1: that used those sort of approaches because um they were
Speaker 1: they were small enough where it wasn't that it wasn't
Speaker 1: as huge a challenge. With the Curiosity Rover. You're talking
Speaker 1: about a one ton vehicle, and at that size, the
Speaker 1: size of the air bags you would need are so
Speaker 1: huge that you would really run the risk of even
Speaker 1: if everything worked properly, you would run the risk of
Speaker 1: fouling the drive system of the Curiosity Rover because it
Speaker 1: has to get out of this enormous air bag. So
Speaker 1: that was considered too risky. Another approach is to put
Speaker 1: uh these so pretty much like stilts, like landing stilts,
Speaker 1: so that when the the rockets lower the the descent
Speaker 1: vehicle down, the the stilts touch ground and keep the
Speaker 1: rockets at an elevation high enough so that they aren't
Speaker 1: disturbing the dust too much, and then the rover can
Speaker 1: drop down from there. Again. With the Curiosity rover, it
Speaker 1: was so large and heavy, the stilts would have had
Speaker 1: to have been way too tall to do this in
Speaker 1: a way that would have been easy to do. And
Speaker 1: also it would have really made it difficult to ensure
Speaker 1: that the Curiosity would be undamaged as it came down.
Speaker 1: So they had to come up with a different way
Speaker 1: to get the Curiosity Rover onto the surface of Earth.
Speaker 1: And it was insane. A sky crane. Sky crane. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that sounds that sounds like some kind of strange,
Speaker 1: other worldly company. And so we'll walk you through how
Speaker 1: how this unfolded. And it's still incredible to me that
Speaker 1: this worked well. I think, um, and I don't mean
Speaker 1: this in any way to be a slight to the
Speaker 1: scientists behind this. I think they were a little astonished. Well,
Speaker 1: the reaction that we saw at the and as we
Speaker 1: learned that the Curiosity had in fact landed successfully. And
Speaker 1: by the way, by the time we knew that the
Speaker 1: Curiosity was successful in its landing, it had been on
Speaker 1: the surface of Mars for several minutes. Because again Mars
Speaker 1: is further away at the point of the Curiosity landing
Speaker 1: from Earth than the Earth is to the Sun. It
Speaker 1: takes it takes about eight minutes for light from the
Speaker 1: Sun to get to Earth. It takes fourteen minutes for
Speaker 1: electromagnetic communication to get from Mars to the Earth Internet
Speaker 1: now fourteen minutes for that information to get to us.
Speaker 1: It takes seven minutes from the time the landing capsule
Speaker 1: enters the Martian atmosphere to the point where Curiosity would
Speaker 1: touch down. That means there's a seven minute gap where
Speaker 1: things have already happened and we do not know what
Speaker 1: they were. Yes, so it was seven minutes of terror,
Speaker 1: which is I think brilliant. There was a wonderful video
Speaker 1: NASA put out that was very dramatic, almost almost comedically so,
Speaker 1: because it was like it was like a thriller movie, right,
Speaker 1: but it was all about the seven minutes of terror.
Speaker 1: The fact that you have to build a vehicle that's
Speaker 1: operating autonomously for for you know, there's nothing you can do.
Speaker 1: You can't make any adjustments because it's going to take
Speaker 1: fourteen minutes for that information to get to you, and
Speaker 1: then any information you send back it's going to take
Speaker 1: fourteen minutes for it to get there. So by the
Speaker 1: time you send any sort of information, by the time
Speaker 1: you react to a changing condition, it doesn't matter. Things
Speaker 1: have changed too much for that to have any effect. So, uh,
Speaker 1: the capsule enters the Martian atmosphere, there's seven minutes until
Speaker 1: it touches down, and then seven more minutes before we
Speaker 1: find out that anything about it. The first thing that
Speaker 1: happens is the atmosphere starts to slow down the capsule,
Speaker 1: and like we said, it's a thin atmosphere, so it
Speaker 1: doesn't slow it down that much. It is, however, thick
Speaker 1: enough to cause lots of heat from friction. So it's
Speaker 1: it's a double whammy for NASA right on the breaks exactly,
Speaker 1: all the heat none of a break. So you have
Speaker 1: to build a device that's capable with standing the heat.
Speaker 1: But I have to make you have to take into
Speaker 1: account the fact that the atmosphere is not going to
Speaker 1: slow it down sufficiently enough for it to make a
Speaker 1: safe landing. What a headache. So that's already tough. Capsule
Speaker 1: enters the atmosphere, starts to heat up, has to have
Speaker 1: a heat shield to protect the innerds because electronics don't
Speaker 1: react well to heat. Said a billion times uh, not literally.
Speaker 1: The once it reaches a certain altitude, uh, it deploys
Speaker 1: the parachute, which slows down the the vehicle even more.
Speaker 1: And so it started to slow down once it hits
Speaker 1: the atmosphere. Actually takes a little while before it starts
Speaker 1: to slow down, but it does slow down. Hitting the atmosphere,
Speaker 1: the parachute slows it down further. Once it slows down
Speaker 1: as much as it possibly can with the parachute, it
Speaker 1: jettison the parachute, which is important because then it activates rockets.
Speaker 1: So if it activated the rockets first, then there's the
Speaker 1: danger of actually colliding with the parachute and fouling the
Speaker 1: whole system. So jettison's the parachute, parachute flies off, and
Speaker 1: then the rockets make a horizontal adjustment so that the
Speaker 1: descent vehicle is not going to be in the same
Speaker 1: path as the parachute. Uh. It eject the it detaches
Speaker 1: the the heat shield as well. Actually I think that
Speaker 1: even detaches while the parachutes deployed. Uh. And there are
Speaker 1: sensors on the bottom of the rover which can help
Speaker 1: guide the whole system, so it lands in the best spot. Now,
Speaker 1: they were aiming for the Gael Crater, which is was
Speaker 1: It's a crater that was created on Mars about three
Speaker 1: billion years ago with a meteor impact, So they wanted
Speaker 1: to land the rover in there. So the the sensors
Speaker 1: on the bottom of the rover detect where the right
Speaker 1: landing area is. The rockets position it properly and start
Speaker 1: the descent, continuing to slow that that the scent so
Speaker 1: that you're not plummeting to the surface. At about twenty
Speaker 1: meters above the surface of the planet, the rover descends
Speaker 1: on a on a set of cables from a crane
Speaker 1: that's in that descent vehicle. So you've got a crane
Speaker 1: essentially mounted on rockets lowering a one ton vehicle. The
Speaker 1: cables I think we're about seven meters long, and so
Speaker 1: it would then the rockets would then slowly allowed this
Speaker 1: entire thing to descend until the wheels of the rover
Speaker 1: made contact with the Martian soil. At that point, the
Speaker 1: bridles holding the cables to the rover were jettisoned, and
Speaker 1: then the the the descent vehicle with the rockets would
Speaker 1: then launch itself about four away to crash on the
Speaker 1: surface of the planet so that it would not um
Speaker 1: cause any problems to the rover because you don't want it.
Speaker 1: Tell just we've gently set the rover down. Oh and
Speaker 1: then our descent vehicle landed on our rover. That's a bummer.
Speaker 1: That would have been a bad thing. So the descent
Speaker 1: vehicle went about four away and crash landed. Uh, and
Speaker 1: the rover was safe on the planet. And we found
Speaker 1: out about it seven minutes after it happened. And everyone
Speaker 1: did a little dance and cheered and jumped and hugged
Speaker 1: each other. I don't think they did a little dance.
Speaker 1: I think they did a big dance. They did do
Speaker 1: a big dance. And there are gifts out there that
Speaker 1: show this that were very very popular. As soon I
Speaker 1: mean like seconds after the footage at the Internet, there
Speaker 1: were already memes about it. Yeah. Yeah, well, um, like
Speaker 1: I said, I think they were a little surprised, but
Speaker 1: in a in a positive way, Like they came up
Speaker 1: with an excellent solution, but without ever you know, trying
Speaker 1: it in practice. Um, you know it on Mars. They
Speaker 1: weren't certain, especially with their past success rate, whether it
Speaker 1: would work for sure or not, or would it deliver
Speaker 1: the rover in excellent condition, which it did, so they
Speaker 1: were they were very very happy about about that. And
Speaker 1: it's it's something that you can't really test here on
Speaker 1: Earth because the conditions here on Earth are so different
Speaker 1: from on Mars that even if you were to build
Speaker 1: something that works well on on here on our planet,
Speaker 1: you cannot be certain that the same thing is going
Speaker 1: to apply on Mars because the conditions are too different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, it wasn't just engineered well on paper,
Speaker 1: it actually in practice did did very very well. And
Speaker 1: there's quite a lot of equipment on on Curiosity as well.
Speaker 1: I mean there's seventeen cameras alone, uh, and most most
Speaker 1: of those are navigational and hazard cameras, but there is
Speaker 1: a mast. Uh. You know what my favorite piece of
Speaker 1: equipment aboard the Curiosity is, or do I have to
Speaker 1: ask what what? What is your favorite piece of equipment?
Speaker 1: It's a lazier, which the laser is used to concentrate
Speaker 1: a very focused beam of of light on rocks in
Speaker 1: the Martian soil, and UH they it does listen very
Speaker 1: very short bursts, like five ninosecond long bursts, and after
Speaker 1: about seventy bursts of this high powered, intense laser, it
Speaker 1: starts to a blate or evaporate the rock that it's
Speaker 1: focused on. And then what happens is a special camera,
Speaker 1: actually three different cameras will get information from our three
Speaker 1: different sensors will get information from a telescopic camera that
Speaker 1: will analyze the plasma this rock gives off, and by
Speaker 1: analyzing the plasma through UH spectroscopes, they can determine what
Speaker 1: chemical elements made up the rock itself. So essentially, what
Speaker 1: you're doing is you're burning something. Looking at burning is
Speaker 1: an oversimplification, but you're burning something, looking at the fumes
Speaker 1: it gives off, and based upon those you determine what
Speaker 1: the stuff is made of. The reason for this is
Speaker 1: one so we can learn more about the composition of Mars,
Speaker 1: but to also look for things that could be foundational
Speaker 1: building blocks to support life. Now, curiosity is not looking
Speaker 1: for evidence of life itself. It is not looking for
Speaker 1: microscopic life because it doesn't have any equipment aboard the
Speaker 1: rover itself capable of seeing things that that result Lucian.
Speaker 1: So it's not looking for evidence of microscopic life that's
Speaker 1: currently there on Mars. It's really looking for all the
Speaker 1: elements that would need to be in place for life
Speaker 1: to have at least one at one time been supported
Speaker 1: on Mars. That, however, has not stopped all the other
Speaker 1: memes that have gone around where there have been pictures
Speaker 1: circulated from curiosity and of course uh these pictures of curiosities. Uh,
Speaker 1: from curiosity's point of view, across the surface of Mars
Speaker 1: is it's big and flat. However, duty so far, the
Speaker 1: life forms I have seen superimposed over that landscape on
Speaker 1: social media include Marvin the Martian from this Q thirty
Speaker 1: two Space modul tour from uh, the Looney Tunes cartoons, uh,
Speaker 1: the Muppets from uh that that that go yep yep up.
Speaker 1: And I did see a couple of days ago some
Speaker 1: ad apts walking across the surface. So the empire is
Speaker 1: apparently they're already um, very very amusing all terrain attack
Speaker 1: transports or something like that. That's what it means. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: So from Star Wars UM documentary Star Wars. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: but yeah, they there are several different cameras. They're they're
Speaker 1: taking photos three d um. So the James Cameron contingent
Speaker 1: is there, black and white colorful avatars are running around
Speaker 1: of there. Yep, yep. Um. So basically they're they're doing
Speaker 1: all kinds of of imaging and analysis of the planet's surface. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know they're it's it's pretty awesome to be
Speaker 1: able to do this kind of work. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: a this is an evolutionary step from what the previous
Speaker 1: rovers we've seen up there, like Phoenix and Spirit and Opportunity,
Speaker 1: where they were all very much geologic, uh, instruments, geological
Speaker 1: instruments really, so the geological formation of Mars and it's
Speaker 1: geological features. We have a bit more to say about
Speaker 1: the Curiosity project over on Mars, but I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: get myself a Mars bar and you guys can take
Speaker 1: a quick break and listen to our sponsor. Curiosity is
Speaker 1: more of like a fully fledged scientific laboratory that is
Speaker 1: on wheels and moves very very slowly. Uh. It's got
Speaker 1: but it's got a lot of sophisticated equipment like you said,
Speaker 1: it has that mast that projects above the rover itself self.
Speaker 1: Gun arm Um. You mentioned the KEM CAM, which is
Speaker 1: the laser. It's got a chemistry and mineralogy experiment or
Speaker 1: instrument called KEMEN. They remember we talked about the different
Speaker 1: parts of the Space Shuttle group. They love love love acronyms.
Speaker 1: So the CAM in instrument looks at minerals to identify
Speaker 1: whether water could have been there. Then there's the rover
Speaker 1: Environmental Environmental Monitoring Station or MS, which will give you
Speaker 1: the weather report. Yes it's not raining again. Uh. There
Speaker 1: there's so much aboard and um. One of the other
Speaker 1: things I think has been really remarkable about the past
Speaker 1: few missions to Mars is NASA's ability to communicate this
Speaker 1: information in a way that is really exciting to people
Speaker 1: who otherwise might not really have cared that much. The
Speaker 1: space exploration history in the in the entire world has
Speaker 1: really gone through sort of a roller coaster of as
Speaker 1: far as the public interest is concerned, right, because you
Speaker 1: had the space race for the Moon, which was politically motivated,
Speaker 1: I mean that was that was really all a few old,
Speaker 1: not literally but metaphorically by the political opposition of the
Speaker 1: United States and the Soviet Union, And so once we
Speaker 1: landed men on the Moon and got them back safely, uh,
Speaker 1: the political uh motivation to push people out into space
Speaker 1: really diminished, which is part of the reason why we
Speaker 1: didn't start immediately looking at Mars as being the next step,
Speaker 1: because a lot of the excitement and enthusiasm and funding
Speaker 1: had gone away because we already achieved this other amazing
Speaker 1: and insanely amazing goal of landing people on the Moon. Um. Then,
Speaker 1: like we had the Space Shuttle era, which started off
Speaker 1: with incredible interest. I mean, it was this amazing program,
Speaker 1: but then Shuttle mission after Shuttle mission, people started to
Speaker 1: think of it more as something that just happens and
Speaker 1: less as something amazing and special because it was you know,
Speaker 1: it just seemed like, oh, yeah, another Shuttle mission is
Speaker 1: going up, which is, when you think about it, that's
Speaker 1: a crazy, crazy thing to just take for granted because
Speaker 1: the amount of work it takes to get people into
Speaker 1: space is phenomenal. But it did happen. Uh, once we
Speaker 1: started sending missions to Mars and have them be a success,
Speaker 1: you know, there were science fans who really thought was interesting,
Speaker 1: but the general public, I don't know that necessarily cut
Speaker 1: their attention. I think what really turned things around was
Speaker 1: when NASA started to leverage social media and began to
Speaker 1: use social media to to communicate scientific facts, figures, discoveries
Speaker 1: to the general public. That got people excited, and beyond that,
Speaker 1: they began to give almost a personality to some of
Speaker 1: the equipment they sent out. That's that's funny. I don't
Speaker 1: know if Jonathan heard this. This morning, UM, as I
Speaker 1: was driving to the train station to come in for
Speaker 1: this podcast, I was listening to National Public Radio NPR
Speaker 1: here in the United States, and there was an interview
Speaker 1: UM with Veronica McGregor now Veronica McGregor. She was the
Speaker 1: person who was in charge of updating a Twitter account
Speaker 1: for the Phoenix Mars Rover, and the Phoenix Mars Rover
Speaker 1: ended up getting an enormous number of fans following it,
Speaker 1: and it was able to know through the Phoenix Twitter feed,
Speaker 1: NASA was able to communicate a lot of interesting scientific information.
Speaker 1: But Veronica went a little step further and gave the
Speaker 1: Phoenix sort of again a personality. And I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember I followed the Phoenix rover and
Speaker 1: it was truly an emotional moment. When the second to
Speaker 1: last tweet the Phoenix sent out during its official mission
Speaker 1: was It's very unlikely I'll wake up next spring, but
Speaker 1: if I do, I'll call home. Go luck with your project.
Speaker 1: And people thought about that, like, there's this little robot
Speaker 1: all alone, not really all alone. There are other robots
Speaker 1: on Mars too, but they're really far away. So more
Speaker 1: or less, there's this little robot all alone on the
Speaker 1: surface of this planet, uh, you know, miles and miles
Speaker 1: and miles away from Earth, and it is doing science
Speaker 1: for us, and it's doing it selflessly, and it's about
Speaker 1: to die because it's solar circuits aren't going to get
Speaker 1: enough juice to keep it going, and there's and by
Speaker 1: the time it comes out of that that essentially Martian Winter,
Speaker 1: for lack of a better term, by the time it
Speaker 1: comes out, it will not be able to reboot it
Speaker 1: system and it will be a dead piece of technology.
Speaker 1: It impacted people, I mean, people got teary eyed over
Speaker 1: the idea because they, yeah, people had had humanized this
Speaker 1: inanimate well animated but on a live object and has
Speaker 1: no actual feelings or personality. But Veronica had really imbued
Speaker 1: this thing with that kind of sense of purpose and
Speaker 1: and personality that people identified with, and it made a
Speaker 1: powerful statement and I think people connected to the space
Speaker 1: mission in a way they hadn't in many years. And
Speaker 1: NASA has continued that trend. And uh the last Twitter
Speaker 1: post it posted was all in binary and it's spelled
Speaker 1: out triumph all making a note here. Huge success. Well,
Speaker 1: they talked to Veronica McGregor this morning. She is the
Speaker 1: social media manager UM and is at it again. There
Speaker 1: there's a team of three women who, according to NPR,
Speaker 1: who work on the Curiosity rovers Twitter account, which has
Speaker 1: according to this uh UM Chicago Tribune, I couldn't remember
Speaker 1: Veronica's last name, so I looked it up and and
Speaker 1: this article posted earlier today. As of right now, more
Speaker 1: than eight hundred thousand followers UM already for Curiosity, so
Speaker 1: they will be following through the mission just in case
Speaker 1: you're curious. According to Veronica McGregor, the Curiosity as as
Speaker 1: she it has a female, she said. According to them,
Speaker 1: they had sort of talked about it and they they
Speaker 1: feel they get this feeling that it's a her. So
Speaker 1: I don't know, you go girl, it's interesting. But well,
Speaker 1: if if you put yourself in the shoes of someone
Speaker 1: who is talking about this. Um, you know you you
Speaker 1: kind of have to make a personality as you're building
Speaker 1: your personality, like you know what, I think, I think
Speaker 1: it's a woman, but I do. I do remember listening
Speaker 1: to or watching videos of the engineers talked about the
Speaker 1: Curiosity and they referred to the entire vehicle as a she,
Speaker 1: which at the time I didn't think unusual because I
Speaker 1: like the votes ships not boats. Well, some boats I
Speaker 1: think of. I think of ships or hurricanes. Um, the Enterprise, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Star Trek, that's as she. Well. People have talked
Speaker 1: about the expense of the mission, and I'm sure there
Speaker 1: were people who are going, why on Earth were Mars?
Speaker 1: Do you care if it's a male or a female? Were?
Speaker 1: Over All, these things personalize it somewhat, and they do
Speaker 1: make it more accessible to us, and they also get
Speaker 1: us inspired to to try new things, to find ways
Speaker 1: to grow better crops or pure diseases, or launch the
Speaker 1: next mission to space. They make us want to try
Speaker 1: something that we haven't been able to do before, and
Speaker 1: it's valuable. The the effects that come out of this
Speaker 1: are across so many different disciplines, so not only one.
Speaker 1: We're learning about Mars. Two, we're learning more about our
Speaker 1: solar system. Three, we're learning more about the Earth as
Speaker 1: we learn what things are similar versus dissimilar between Mars
Speaker 1: and Earth. And and go ahead. Four we're inspiring future
Speaker 1: generations of scientists and engineers because this is genuinely exciting
Speaker 1: and people, little kids will think that is amazing. Look
Speaker 1: at what can be accomplished. I want to do that.
Speaker 1: And and five you're promoting science in general to the
Speaker 1: general public. And again, you know, promoting science, I think
Speaker 1: it's an incredibly important thing. It's not the easiest thing
Speaker 1: in the world to do, especially you know, some scientists
Speaker 1: are so focused on their field they may not be
Speaker 1: the best at communicating that that passion and enthusiasm to
Speaker 1: the general public. Even though they possess it themselves, they
Speaker 1: might not be able to communicate it effectively. So bridging
Speaker 1: that gap is really important so that the public understands
Speaker 1: why this is important and gets excited. It also helps
Speaker 1: with funding. Um it might inspire the next private company
Speaker 1: to try and go into something that they wouldn't have
Speaker 1: done before. So yeah, the the this is really a
Speaker 1: true domino effect, right. It's amazing the sort of stuff
Speaker 1: that can come out of a mission like this that
Speaker 1: may not even be obvious at first glance. Yep, and
Speaker 1: eventually we're gonna have to get off this rock. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: and we should mention also. NASA currently only has one
Speaker 1: other Mars mission planned, which is a launch in of
Speaker 1: the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution um SO or MAVEN
Speaker 1: this name of that, and don't really have a creative
Speaker 1: acronym for that. I'm who would have thunk it. Maven's
Speaker 1: purpose is to study the atmosphere of Mars. So again,
Speaker 1: the rovers we are sending are mostly looking at the
Speaker 1: composition of the soil and the geological formations that are
Speaker 1: on Mars, and to really look at the various layers
Speaker 1: that someone of the reasons why we landed uh, the
Speaker 1: curiosity of a crater is because they can look at
Speaker 1: different layers on the surface of Mars and see how
Speaker 1: it's how it has changed over time. But this will
Speaker 1: be more to look at the atmosphere. We do not
Speaker 1: have any manned missions to Mars planned, at least not
Speaker 1: NASA UM and there are other nations in the world
Speaker 1: that are also planning missions to Mars. NASA has only
Speaker 1: got the one and then after that, who knows. Um,
Speaker 1: we don't have any planned missions to Mars. There are
Speaker 1: some companies. There are some companies that have talked about it, uh,
Speaker 1: and some of the plans are kind of insane. But
Speaker 1: if you really want to hear a pretty crazy idea
Speaker 1: about landing on Mars, my favorite is the first one
Speaker 1: that I could come across, the first published um plan
Speaker 1: or calculation of what it would take to to send
Speaker 1: a manned mission to Mars, and it comes from Verna Magnus,
Speaker 1: Maximilian Friar von Brown or Verna von Brown as most
Speaker 1: people would know, who was a rocket scientist rocket scientists
Speaker 1: during World War Two built rockets for the Germans. After
Speaker 1: the end of World War Two, the United States UM
Speaker 1: essentially took him and put him to work for the
Speaker 1: U S Rocket program. Uh, it was That's a political
Speaker 1: story that is fascinating, and you should all write to
Speaker 1: stuff you missed in history class to talk about that. Actually,
Speaker 1: that'd be a fascinat fascinating podcast. But anyway, Van Brown
Speaker 1: first made rockets for the Germans and then began to
Speaker 1: make rockets for the United States. And one of the
Speaker 1: things he thought of back in nineteen was what it
Speaker 1: would take to send a manned mission to Mars. It
Speaker 1: wasn't published till nineteen fifty two. Eventually became an appendix
Speaker 1: in a novel he wrote, which was a fictional account
Speaker 1: of what that mission would be like. The novel, from
Speaker 1: what I understand, is not UM terribly good, I did
Speaker 1: not publish until two thousand and six. But anyway, in
Speaker 1: his in his version, it was going to be a
Speaker 1: ten spacecraft mission where these ten spacecrafts would carry about
Speaker 1: seventy crew members total, and the spacecraft would go into
Speaker 1: orbit around Ours and then the mission the the ground
Speaker 1: mission crews would detach from the orbiting UM spacecraft in
Speaker 1: winged vehicles that had skis at the bottom of them
Speaker 1: and would land at the polar caps on Mars. The
Speaker 1: thought being that the polar caps would be flat and
Speaker 1: so that would be the best place to land. Then
Speaker 1: they would take Mars crawlers to the equator on Mars,
Speaker 1: which would take about eighty days I think, and then
Speaker 1: build base camp there and then would come back to
Speaker 1: Earth when the those orbits would line up properly. Again.
Speaker 1: So that was his idea. UM didn't happen. It was
Speaker 1: It was an incredibly um Uh, I don't know difficult,
Speaker 1: I have difficult project. I mean it would have. It
Speaker 1: would have been much harder than anything else we have
Speaker 1: attempted so far. So but that that was my favorite
Speaker 1: of the proposed Martian expeditions, although there are some other
Speaker 1: ones there's been. There was one that was more like
Speaker 1: a reality television show, um which was a private endeavor
Speaker 1: and I won't go into it, but it did sound
Speaker 1: pretty crazy. So there have been some interesting proposals for
Speaker 1: trips to Mars. Mostly it looks like for the foreseeable
Speaker 1: future it's going to be unmanned missions from most of
Speaker 1: the world unless some crazy person with lots of money
Speaker 1: gets behind it and and and does what we think
Speaker 1: is think of as the impossible, which after the Curiosity
Speaker 1: ro overlanding, I'm not sure my my definition of the
Speaker 1: impossible needs to be adjusted. It was certainly not a
Speaker 1: mission impossible, that's true. That wraps up this classic episode
Speaker 1: of text stuff. I hope you guys enjoyed it. It
Speaker 1: was fun to revisit this. I remember actually following the
Speaker 1: progress of the Curiosity as it was happening, or really,
Speaker 1: you know, several minutes after it had happened because of
Speaker 1: the communications delay between Mars and Earth, and it was
Speaker 1: absolutely thrilling. I always find anything to do with space
Speaker 1: and space exploration to be really interesting and exciting, pushing
Speaker 1: back the boundaries of our ignorance, incredible engineering achievement of
Speaker 1: getting stuff into space. So I hope you guys enjoyed
Speaker 1: this classic episode. If you have any suggestions for future
Speaker 1: topics for tech Stuff episodes, send me an email the
Speaker 1: addresses tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com. If
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Speaker 1: trust me, coffee just taste better in it, you can
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