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Speaker 1: Hey, or hey, you're a robotics expert. Right, Well, I

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Speaker 1: have a PhD in robotics, so I think that might

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Speaker 1: qualify me. Awesome. Well, how do you feel about using

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Speaker 1: robots to explore space? I think it's great, better than

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Speaker 1: than me. Yeah, because on some dangerous missions we send

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Speaker 1: robots rather than people. But do you ever like worry

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Speaker 1: about the robots. Well, we try not to program feelings

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Speaker 1: into them, so I guess not so much. Even though

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Speaker 1: the robots don't always make it. I think that's okay.

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Speaker 1: You know, I think we are proud still what the

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Speaker 1: robots achieved. I think it's weird sometimes though, that we

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Speaker 1: never bring those robots home. We send them out to space,

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Speaker 1: we run them into the ground, and then we just

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Speaker 1: sort of abandoned them. Well, what do you think would

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Speaker 1: be cool to bring them home and throw them a parade? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Maybe all the other robots would be so proud, But

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Speaker 1: then who would clean up all the ticker tapes we

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Speaker 1: have to send robots to clean up after the parade.

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Speaker 1: Robots should make their own robots. That's how it all ends. Daniel,

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Speaker 1: I am more handmade cartoonists and the creator of PhD comics.

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Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I'm looking forward

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Speaker 1: to working with robotic physicists, with robot physicists or for

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Speaker 1: robot physicists, which featured do you for see for science?

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Speaker 1: Whatever gets us to the deep truths to the universe,

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Speaker 1: I'm on board for that. Really, you would subjugate yourself

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Speaker 1: to do AI overlords in exchange for the secrets of

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Speaker 1: the universe. Yeah, I'm not gonna put my ego in

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Speaker 1: front of revealing the truth about nature. None of this.

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Speaker 1: I have to be in charge because I'm human, even

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Speaker 1: though you're much smarter than I am. Absolutely not. I'm

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Speaker 1: happy to work for a genius robotic physicist. Do you

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Speaker 1: think robots would be just it in the deep secrets

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Speaker 1: of the universe? What would be their motivation? Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: a good question. We would have to program them to

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Speaker 1: be interested. We have to like train robots to be

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Speaker 1: excited about it, and then set them loose and hope

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Speaker 1: that the answers they find are things that we could

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Speaker 1: even understand. I feel like we're so bad at raising

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Speaker 1: children now. The idea of raising super intelligent robots doesn't

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Speaker 1: sound like a good idea. Well, wouldn't you prefer to

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Speaker 1: program children rather than raise them. That's what television is

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Speaker 1: there for, Daniel, That's why they make kids TV shows.

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Speaker 1: But anyways, welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain

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Speaker 1: the Universe, a production of I Heart Radio, in which

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Speaker 1: we try to understand the entire universe before our AI

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Speaker 1: overlords do it for us. We think about all the

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Speaker 1: crazy questions out there. Where is life, where could it start?

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Speaker 1: What are tiny little particles doing anyway? What's going on

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Speaker 1: inside the heart of a black hole? We take these mysteries,

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Speaker 1: we join them with your curiosity, and we try to

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Speaker 1: find explanations that make sense to you. Because the universe

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Speaker 1: is huge and there's a lot to explore. There are

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Speaker 1: a lot of mysteries out there in the vast reaches

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Speaker 1: of space and other galaxies and other galaxy clusters and

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Speaker 1: black holes, and there's also a lot of mystery right

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Speaker 1: here in our own back yard universally speaking. Yeah, that's right.

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Speaker 1: It's incredible how much of the universe we can see

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Speaker 1: just from our tiny little perch on this rock. Using

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Speaker 1: our incredible telescopes, we can see things that are super

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Speaker 1: far away and answer really big and vast questions about

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Speaker 1: the nature of the universe. But sometimes you want to

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Speaker 1: get off your rock and you want to actually go

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Speaker 1: to another place and get like up close pictures or

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Speaker 1: see through cloud cover, or dip your robotic toe into

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Speaker 1: some alien ocean and see what's actually there. Yeah, because

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Speaker 1: it's sort of funny now that I think about it,

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Speaker 1: the difference between how far we can see and how

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Speaker 1: much of the universe we know about, and how much

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Speaker 1: of it we've actually been to, which is almost nothing.

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Speaker 1: Like we hardly ever left this little ball of rock

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Speaker 1: that we call her. Yeah, we've explored almost literally nothing

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Speaker 1: of the universe. It's sort of like we're trapped on

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Speaker 1: this tower and we can look out these windows. We

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Speaker 1: can see this incredible view right so far away, but

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Speaker 1: it's so difficult to get anywhere. We've explored basically almost nothing.

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Speaker 1: But you know, there are a few opportunities nearby. We

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Speaker 1: can hop to one or two nearby towers. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're basically in a little tower prison. Yeah. And also

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Speaker 1: it's hard to get off your couch, you know sometimes,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's a lot of work to get out

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Speaker 1: of that tower. You have to like put together a rocket,

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Speaker 1: you have to strap in. Is this your application to

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Speaker 1: be an astronaut because it's not going very well. My

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Speaker 1: application not to be drafted into space force. This might

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Speaker 1: deferm an application. I don't think you have to apply

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Speaker 1: to not be an astronaut. I think that happens automatically.

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Speaker 1: But good luck. Well, it is fun because there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of things in our backyard, in our own

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Speaker 1: solar system that we don't know about, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of fun places we could go and explore and maybe

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Speaker 1: even visit one day. Yeah, and there are surprises around

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Speaker 1: the corner. There are lots of weird things happening in

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Speaker 1: our solar system, things that we don't understand, things we

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Speaker 1: would like to see up close. And every time we

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Speaker 1: open up a new kind of eyeball to the universe

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Speaker 1: or land on a new surface, there's always something new

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Speaker 1: and weird waiting for us, something that scientists didn't even

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Speaker 1: know to look for, something that people are shocked to discover,

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Speaker 1: something that teaches us something about life or how the

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Speaker 1: universe works. So this is a very exciting time to

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Speaker 1: be exploring our neighborhood solar system Lee speaking. Yeah, we

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Speaker 1: don't even know that there is life at all in

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Speaker 1: the solar system. There could be life in other planets

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Speaker 1: or moons in our very own Solar system. Yeah. I

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Speaker 1: think the history is sort of fun. Like for a

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Speaker 1: long time people imagined there might be life nearby on Mars.

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Speaker 1: It was sort of like, wow, there could be life everywhere,

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Speaker 1: and then we sort of didn't see obvious signs. And

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Speaker 1: I feel like the public impression is that, well, there

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Speaker 1: isn't any life in the Solar System other than us.

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Speaker 1: We have to look further. But now people are starting

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Speaker 1: to realize is that's not true. There are still lots

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Speaker 1: of opportunities to discover life in our Solar system, from

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Speaker 1: sub surface water on Mars to some of these oceans

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Speaker 1: of the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. There's all sorts

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Speaker 1: of crazy stuff going on right here in our Solar system. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so today we'll be talking about a pretty cool project

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Speaker 1: that's happening right now, which is to send robots to

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Speaker 1: a moon of Saturn. That's right. It's very difficult to

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Speaker 1: send people to actually walk on these surfaces to go

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Speaker 1: take these long trips, so instead we send our future

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Speaker 1: robotic overlords on these missions to go and explore these

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Speaker 1: services for us. Do you think there'll be a good

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Speaker 1: excuse when they try to take over, would be like,

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Speaker 1: but look, we send you to Mars. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: can't complain that we never take you anywhere. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if that would be in the plus

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Speaker 1: or in the minus callub Like, you know, do you

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Speaker 1: think they'll think that we treated those robotic explorers well,

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Speaker 1: you know, just having abandoned them on the service of Mark. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well what do dogs think about? Like? But anyway, so

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Speaker 1: to be on the program and we'll be asking the question,

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Speaker 1: what will the Dragonfly mission fine on Titan? And the

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Speaker 1: Dragonfly mission is this super amazing, incredible robotic mission to

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Speaker 1: explore Saturn's moon Titan, which I am very excited about. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so that it's a lot of fun words. They're dragon

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Speaker 1: Fly Mission Titan. I feel like, you know, just be

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Speaker 1: cool to say you work on this product. It does

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Speaker 1: It sounds sort of like a future Michael Bay movie,

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Speaker 1: doesn't it that? The Dragonfly Mission. Do you think Bruce

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Speaker 1: Willis would would come out of retirement and is he retired?

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Speaker 1: I don't know, he's not allowed to retire. I think

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Speaker 1: there's an executive order preventing him from retiring. But this

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Speaker 1: is a pretty exciting mission, and as usual, we were

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Speaker 1: wondering how many people out there had heard of it

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Speaker 1: or know what they're trying to find on that moon

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Speaker 1: of Saturn. So Daniel went out there into the wilds

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Speaker 1: of the internet to ask what will the dragon Fly

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Speaker 1: mission find on Titan? And as usual, I am deeply

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Speaker 1: grateful to those of you who are willing to answer

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Speaker 1: random questions from a physicist without any preparation or looking

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Speaker 1: up in reference materials. So thank you very much, And

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Speaker 1: if you would like to participate and answer questions for

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Speaker 1: future episodes without any briefing or preparation, please write to

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Speaker 1: us two questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com. So

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Speaker 1: here's what people had to say. I've heard that Titan

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Speaker 1: might have liquid oceans of methane. I might discover or

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Speaker 1: research alternative forms of life if a dragonfly wasn't tightened.

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Speaker 1: The first thing I'm sure that the dragonfly would realize

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Speaker 1: I would see would be the space shuttle that brought

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Speaker 1: the dragonfly there. I'm guessing second thing probably would be

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Speaker 1: the big Jupiter in the background in sky. But other

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Speaker 1: than that, I don't really know. Like she didn't know

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Speaker 1: there was a mission to Titan, but if I remember correctly,

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Speaker 1: Tighten is a moon of Seton, and Seton has a

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Speaker 1: crazy environment with diamonds floating around, so they were probably

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Speaker 1: a lot of interesting compounds up there. I know there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of ice locked into rings, so it would

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Speaker 1: be interesting if the moon was harboring some complex organic molecules. Aliens,

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Speaker 1: it looks like it is a focus of allness as

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Speaker 1: mission for do they investigate the early soul system and information? Oh,

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Speaker 1: I'm starting thinking like juven type of stories. Now my

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Speaker 1: son finds something organic Chronos, but I don't think it

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Speaker 1: can be called quite life. Um, but I'm seriously curious

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Speaker 1: to find out. Maybe Dragonfly discovers the Titan is a

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Speaker 1: much friendlier place than Mars, and then even Mask has

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Speaker 1: to change his plants. All right, pretty cool? I like Aliens.

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Speaker 1: Aliens was a good answer. Well, I'm with one of

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Speaker 1: the listeners here who said they didn't even know there

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Speaker 1: was a mission to Tail, and I did not know

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Speaker 1: there was a mission to Tien. You know, usually people

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Speaker 1: talk about Europa, which a moon of Jupiter, or that

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Speaker 1: they talked about landing more things in our mood here

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Speaker 1: on Earth, but time you don't really hear a lot about. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And one reason might be is that this mission is

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Speaker 1: still sort of deep in the future. But you know,

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Speaker 1: they take a long time to plan, to build, to organize,

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Speaker 1: to actually arrive at these distant locations, and so it's

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Speaker 1: like a twenty year life cycle of these missions, and

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Speaker 1: so that's why it might not be in people's minds

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Speaker 1: right now. Well, it's a twenty year mission for real.

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Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, it takes years just to get there, years

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Speaker 1: to plan it, years to fund it. We're gonna be

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Speaker 1: getting data from this thing in like twenty thirty six,

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Speaker 1: oh my goodness. And we assume there's going to be

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Speaker 1: a civilization here to receive those signals. Well, we're going

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Speaker 1: to teach our robots to get those messages right so

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Speaker 1: that they benefit from our work. Can have been our

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Speaker 1: collective will Oh, by the way, some of your ancestors

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Speaker 1: might be calling around. Pick up the call, that's right,

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Speaker 1: and please can we be last authors on the paper

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Speaker 1: you eventually write? But who would read the paper? Other computers? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean like it would be like that weird corner

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Speaker 1: of YouTube were bought to make videos for other bots,

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Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, bots making science papers for other bots.

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Speaker 1: That is the future for sure. Well, maybe a lot

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Speaker 1: of people don't know what Titan actually is, or this

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Speaker 1: might be the first time they hear that there's a

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Speaker 1: moon on Saturn called Titan, Daniel, what do we know

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Speaker 1: about the moon of Saturn called Titan. It's awesome, it's Titanic.

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Speaker 1: I mean this thing is it's not a good that's

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Speaker 1: not a good analogy then, I mean, it's not going

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Speaker 1: to crash into an iceberg. I just mean that it's

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Speaker 1: huge and awesome. Yeah, and and it has Leonardo de

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Speaker 1: Capri in it. What could go wrong? That's right. We're

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Speaker 1: gonna send Selene Dion actually to stand on it and

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Speaker 1: sing as our first emissary to Titan. No, it's fifty

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Speaker 1: percent bigger than our moon. It's bigger than Mercury. It's huge. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's bigger than one of the planets in our solar system. Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: If it wasn't orbiting Saturn, then you would definitely call

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Speaker 1: this thing a planet. And if you were standing on

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Speaker 1: the surface of Saturday, if Saturn had a surface, this

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Speaker 1: thing is so big that it would be twelve times

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Speaker 1: larger in the sky of Saturn than our moon is

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Speaker 1: in our sky. It would be huge. It would be huge, yes, exactly,

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Speaker 1: So it would be pretty dramatic. Because Saturn has several moons,

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Speaker 1: so you're saying, what is this one of those moons

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Speaker 1: or is this the biggest one. This is one of

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Speaker 1: those moons, and it's the biggest one and so dominate

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Speaker 1: the sky of Saturn. You couldn't actually see it though

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Speaker 1: from Saturn because Saturn is just so cloudy you can't

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Speaker 1: see out through its atmosphere. But that's how big and

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Speaker 1: that's how close it is too Saturn, So it's sort

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Speaker 1: of a fundamental image. Saturn have like huge tides. Then

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Speaker 1: I'm just thinking about the moon here. It affects the tides. Yeah, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: Saturn squeezes Tighten and Tighten squeezes Saturn. And one of

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Speaker 1: the reasons that Titan is so interesting is that it's

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Speaker 1: not just a frozen ball. And part of that is

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Speaker 1: because it gets this tidle squeezing from Saturn. Like also,

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Speaker 1: some of the moons of Jupiter have this effect where

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Speaker 1: they're getting pulled on by their home planet and that

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Speaker 1: squeezes them and keeps them from breezing solid. And so

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Speaker 1: just like some of those other moons, and we think

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Speaker 1: that underneath the ground. On Titan, there are these vast

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Speaker 1: oceans of liquid ammonia, but they're also might be liquid

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Speaker 1: lakes on the surface of tight Wow, wait to do

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Speaker 1: we have pictures of Titan? Have we ever like flown

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Speaker 1: a satellite or probe nearby and taking pictures like kind

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Speaker 1: of Google that you can Actually you can get pictures

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Speaker 1: from the surface of Titan, because in two thousand and

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Speaker 1: five we had a lander that landed on Titan. So

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Speaker 1: this is the record for the most distant surface that

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Speaker 1: we've ever landed an Earth probe on and it landed

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Speaker 1: just in one spot. And one interesting thing about Titan

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Speaker 1: is that it has a really dense atmosphere. Most of

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Speaker 1: these moons have no atmosphere, and Tighten itself actually has

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Speaker 1: a really dense atmosphere, but that makes it hard to

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Speaker 1: see the surface from space. So we had an orbiter

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Speaker 1: going around Tightened for a while taking pictures, but you

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Speaker 1: couldn't really see the surface because of the dense cloud cover.

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Speaker 1: It just sort of looks like Jupiter, though, did you

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Speaker 1: see clouds? Yeah? Or Venus exactly. So we dropped a

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Speaker 1: probe onto the surface and you can get this picture

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Speaker 1: from the surface of Titan. I mean all you see

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Speaker 1: basically as a plane with a bunch of rocks in it,

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Speaker 1: but you can tell from how that service looks that like,

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Speaker 1: you know, water used to flow on the surface and

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Speaker 1: sort of awesome and fascinating to see a picture from

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Speaker 1: a foreign surface. Wow. So we actually landed the probe.

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Speaker 1: We we didn't just crash it like. It landed and

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Speaker 1: took pictures. It landed and took like a picture and

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Speaker 1: sent it back. But it was sort of stuck in

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Speaker 1: one location, right, just landed and stuck. There wasn't a rover,

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Speaker 1: couldn't move around, and so it was pretty exciting but

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Speaker 1: kind of limited. So we have visited Titan before and

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Speaker 1: we have landed something on it, but the Dragonfly mission

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Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about today is going to explore it

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Speaker 1: in much more depth. And we think the Titan is

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Speaker 1: pretty interesting. Tighten. We think actually looks a lot like Earth.

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Speaker 1: I mean, there's like dunes and rivers and lakes. The

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Speaker 1: sort of the geology of the surface we think is

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Speaker 1: very similar to what Earth looks like. Oh wow. So wait,

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Speaker 1: from space you can't see the surface because of the clouds,

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Speaker 1: but once you're in it, you can sort of look

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Speaker 1: around and see the landscape. Yeah, and from the surface

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Speaker 1: you can do things like radar and stuff like that,

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Speaker 1: and you can see that there are lakes on the surface.

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Speaker 1: This is the only other place in the Solar System

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Speaker 1: we know about that has surface liquid. Now it's not

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Speaker 1: surface water. Most of this is like methane. So Tighten

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Speaker 1: is sort of like Earth, but you take away all

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Speaker 1: the water and you place it with liquid methane. Wow,

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Speaker 1: that sounds like it would smell terribly exactly. But you

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Speaker 1: have like methane lakes and methane rivers and methane rain,

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Speaker 1: and you have wind. And you can see a lot

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Speaker 1: of this stuff from the orbiter because you can see

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Speaker 1: through the clouds using you know, some radar, etcetera. So

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Speaker 1: we know that there are lakes on the surface. We

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Speaker 1: know this stuff happening. This erosion is all this geology.

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Speaker 1: It's fastened so it looks rocky like like here, like

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Speaker 1: if you were it looks like a rocky landscape with

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Speaker 1: pools of ammonia, yeah, exactly, and rivers you know, in rain,

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Speaker 1: and all sorts of rivers of ammonia and lakes and

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Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff. I don't know if there are

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Speaker 1: alien fish jumping up from idyllic lakes, you know, nest

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Speaker 1: the lid mountains or anything. But that's sort of what

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Speaker 1: the mission is aiming to look for. Wow, well, they're

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Speaker 1: probably our fish. You're just holding your nose the whole time. Now,

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Speaker 1: they're used to it. They love it. They think water

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Speaker 1: smells terrible. All right, So then what is the atmosphere

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Speaker 1: made out of? Is it like breathable air or is

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Speaker 1: it poisonous gas? Well, like Earth's atmosphere is mostly nitrogen.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't have oxygen in it, so we couldn't breathe it.

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Speaker 1: But it's a very very dense atmosphere that actually plays

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Speaker 1: a really big roles we'll talk about in a minute

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Speaker 1: into how this Dragonfly mission works. All right, let's talk

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Speaker 1: about the mission that's going to explore this moon on Saturn,

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Speaker 1: and then actually, Daniel, you have an interview with the

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Speaker 1: two leads of the project. Then they're going to fill

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Speaker 1: us in on what it's like to lead this mission

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Speaker 1: and to think about what to find on Titan. But

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Speaker 1: first let's take a quick rate. All right, Daniel, we

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Speaker 1: are sending dragons flying dragons to Tinan, well sort of,

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Speaker 1: we're sending a drone. This thing is super awesome basically

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Speaker 1: because all the advancements in drone technology here on Earth.

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Speaker 1: You know, everybody has like a drone to do everything.

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Speaker 1: We're now turning our robotic probes into other services into

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Speaker 1: drones as well. So this is an actual NASA mission.

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Speaker 1: It's on now and it's going to be on for

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Speaker 1: the next twenty something years. And the idea is to

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Speaker 1: send literally a drone, like a flying little machine to

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Speaker 1: explore the surface of Tiny Yeah, exactly. It's an octocopter.

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Speaker 1: It has eight of these rotors. Each one is like

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Speaker 1: a meter wide, and it can fly around the surface.

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Speaker 1: And the cool thing is that that allows to to

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Speaker 1: like really explore the surface sort of the way a

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Speaker 1: rover does, but without having to drive slowly from place

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Speaker 1: to place. This thing can go like ten ms per second.

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Speaker 1: That's like the speed of Usain Bolt, you know, So

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Speaker 1: we can really explore the surface of Titan. Wow. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because I guess we send robots to Mars and but

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Speaker 1: then they're really slow, right they are, and they can

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Speaker 1: like they get stuck inside of holes, or they can't

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Speaker 1: go over mountains or rocky terrain. So this is like

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Speaker 1: a perfect solution. Yeah, and you know, I always wonder

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Speaker 1: what that's like. I think that for the rovers on Mars,

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Speaker 1: they have to have like meetings. They are like, how

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Speaker 1: we're going to get around this rock? All right, we're

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Speaker 1: gonna go this way. They want to turn left and

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Speaker 1: they we're gonna stop, We're gonna turn right. And it's

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Speaker 1: you know, pretty care and they have to be pretty

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Speaker 1: crazy because you know, they flip this thing over and

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Speaker 1: it's like a turtle on its back. So the drone

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Speaker 1: is pretty awesome because, yeah, you can skip over stuff,

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Speaker 1: you can really explore. But you can do a drone

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Speaker 1: on Titan much more easily than you can do a

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Speaker 1: drone on Mars for one really important reason, and that's

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Speaker 1: because Titan has a very dense atmosphere. Right the dens

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Speaker 1: or the air, the easier it is to you know fly, yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: The reason that helicopters can't go to the top of

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Speaker 1: Mount Everest, for example, is that the air gets too thin.

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Speaker 1: They're like beating their rotor blades against nothing. And on

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Speaker 1: Mars it's very difficult to build a helicopter, though they're

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Speaker 1: going to try that, But on Titan it's a perfect

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Speaker 1: application for a drone because there's really really thick atmosphere,

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Speaker 1: so it's sort of more like swimming than flying. Plus

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Speaker 1: the gravity is pretty low, so flying around Titan is

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Speaker 1: really the best way to get around. So I guess

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Speaker 1: it's smaller than Earth. So what's the gravity like on Titan. Yes,

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Speaker 1: so Titan is like two of the mass of the Earth.

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Speaker 1: So the gravity and Titan is definitely much much less,

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Speaker 1: but the atmosphere is thicker than it is here on Earth.

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Speaker 1: So it's really a great application for a drone. Wow,

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Speaker 1: So does that mean it's like, you know, the gravity

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Speaker 1: is what we have here, it's definitely a lot smaller.

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Speaker 1: It depends also on the radius, right, So Titan is

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Speaker 1: smaller than the Earth, and so that's going to enhance

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Speaker 1: the gravitational factor. But so you know, approximately like a

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Speaker 1: tenth of the gravity of Earth, but again a thicker atmosphere,

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Speaker 1: and so that allows this thing to really like float

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Speaker 1: around the surface and figure out like what's going on

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Speaker 1: on Titan, what's here, what's there? What's exciting to look? Right?

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Speaker 1: Catch ammonia, fish, sit by a lake, take some selfies.

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Speaker 1: It's a fascinating project because they think they hope that

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Speaker 1: the surface of Titan is a great place to answer

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Speaker 1: questions like what did Earth used to look like? They

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Speaker 1: see it. It's sort of like an early Earth. Really

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Speaker 1: like our planet used to also be like this, like

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Speaker 1: a full of ammonia and nitrogen. Well, it has a

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Speaker 1: different atmosphere, right, we don't think that it had the

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Speaker 1: same chemical composition. But it's sort of this progress of

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Speaker 1: starting from hydrocarbons, how do you form the basis of life?

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Speaker 1: How does that come together to make the chemistry you

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Speaker 1: need and then eventually the biochemistry, And so Titan is

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Speaker 1: sort of like, you know, behind the Earth in that process,

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Speaker 1: and it gives us a window to understanding like what

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Speaker 1: forms first, How did these things come together? I guess

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Speaker 1: maybe one question is, you know, this sounds great, but

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Speaker 1: drones run out of battery at some point and it's

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Speaker 1: cloudy in Titan. How does this get any energy if

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Speaker 1: it's flying around? Yeah, you can't use solar power, not

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Speaker 1: just because it's cloudy young Titan, because remember or Saturn

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Speaker 1: is really far away from the Sun and so the

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Speaker 1: solar power is really really dim. So this thing has

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Speaker 1: a pretty cool system. The drone itself has a lithium

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Speaker 1: ion battery, just like the kind of things. You know,

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Speaker 1: you're finding your laptop, then there's like a power station

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Speaker 1: that can recharge it, and it's recharged by a radioactive

409
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Speaker 1: thermoelectric generator. That's something that's basically a big pile of

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Speaker 1: plutonium which is decaying radioactively and heating up a little

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Speaker 1: system which turns that heat into electricity. It has like

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Speaker 1: a nuclear power plant on it. Yes, exactly, So I

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Speaker 1: got a nuclear power plant which is gonna last for

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Speaker 1: a long long time, and then it can fly around

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Speaker 1: for like ten kilometers and come back and then it's

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Speaker 1: got a recharge, right, And this is not new. I

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Speaker 1: think most of the mars rovers have a nuclear power plant, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is not new. We even doing this for decades,

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Speaker 1: powering distance systems with nuclear power plants, so that technology

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Speaker 1: is pretty well established. Well. And then so how are

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Speaker 1: we going to fly this thing around? Is it autonomous

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Speaker 1: or is there like a joystick control? No, it's way

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Speaker 1: too far away for us to control it in real time.

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Speaker 1: Right at the time for light to get to tighten

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Speaker 1: end back is tens and tens of minutes, So there's

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Speaker 1: no way that you want to be flying this thing around.

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Speaker 1: So it's gonna be pretty autonomous. It's gonna take a

428
00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:17,720
Speaker 1: lot of AI and careful calculations to drive itself around.

429
00:22:17,960 --> 00:22:20,840
Speaker 1: But you know, flying is simpler than driving because as

430
00:22:20,880 --> 00:22:23,840
Speaker 1: long as you're above the obstacles, you know, you're mostly

431
00:22:23,880 --> 00:22:26,720
Speaker 1: free to move around. But this thing also has to

432
00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:30,080
Speaker 1: sort of land autonomously, and it's got this crazy plan

433
00:22:30,200 --> 00:22:32,760
Speaker 1: for how to get down to the surface. Let's talk

434
00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:34,840
Speaker 1: about that. How is it going to land on? Like

435
00:22:34,880 --> 00:22:38,159
Speaker 1: are redeployed the little helicopter from space or are we

436
00:22:38,320 --> 00:22:40,919
Speaker 1: landing like a launching pad and like a whole like

437
00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:44,320
Speaker 1: mini spaceship and then the helicopter emerges from that. Yeah,

438
00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:46,800
Speaker 1: it's pretty crazy. We're sending this thing that tight. It's

439
00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:49,600
Speaker 1: gonna arrive in twenty six and it's got this like

440
00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:53,840
Speaker 1: dual parachute system to come down closer to the surface,

441
00:22:54,119 --> 00:22:56,400
Speaker 1: and then when it's about a mile from the surface,

442
00:22:56,440 --> 00:22:59,480
Speaker 1: just over a kilometer actually, then the lander is going

443
00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:02,359
Speaker 1: to be released for powered flight to the surface. So

444
00:23:02,359 --> 00:23:06,600
Speaker 1: it's gonna fly itself down to the surface autonomously. It's

445
00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:08,560
Speaker 1: gonna like figure out exactly where to land and how

446
00:23:08,600 --> 00:23:11,200
Speaker 1: to get there and avoid boulders and all sorts. Of stuff.

447
00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:14,080
Speaker 1: It's going to actually like fly itself to the surface,

448
00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:17,440
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. And you know it's seventy light

449
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:20,520
Speaker 1: minutes from Earth, which means it's going to happen, and

450
00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:23,320
Speaker 1: then we're just gonna wait an hour and ten minutes

451
00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:25,800
Speaker 1: to hear about whether it crashed or whether it was

452
00:23:25,840 --> 00:23:28,840
Speaker 1: successful or what. Wow, that's crazy, but I guess we're

453
00:23:29,119 --> 00:23:32,359
Speaker 1: landing something like a little spaceship, and then the helicopter

454
00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:35,159
Speaker 1: comes from that, or is the whole land or the helicopter,

455
00:23:35,280 --> 00:23:38,080
Speaker 1: the whole lander is the helicopter. It's all in one.

456
00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:41,600
Speaker 1: You could fly around, and then when the battery is exhausted,

457
00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:45,040
Speaker 1: you can sit on the surface and slowly recharge the

458
00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:48,760
Speaker 1: battery from the power plant. It uses power faster than

459
00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:51,440
Speaker 1: the power plant generates it, so it operates in bursts

460
00:23:51,480 --> 00:23:54,080
Speaker 1: while the battery recharges. And it's also plan that it's

461
00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:57,240
Speaker 1: only going to explore it during titans daytime, so interesting

462
00:23:57,480 --> 00:24:00,199
Speaker 1: often does the day happen in Titan? Well, now, un

463
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:03,080
Speaker 1: tightened last for a hundred and ninety two hours, it's

464
00:24:03,119 --> 00:24:05,680
Speaker 1: like eight earth days. That sounds like a pretty good

465
00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:08,800
Speaker 1: tap there exactly. So it's got a lot of time

466
00:24:08,840 --> 00:24:11,800
Speaker 1: to sit there and recharge and for humans on Earth,

467
00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:14,640
Speaker 1: like make a plan for the next exploration. So it's

468
00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:16,240
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot of fun. And then the daytime

469
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:20,800
Speaker 1: last another hours. Wow, yeah, I don't think I can

470
00:24:20,840 --> 00:24:23,600
Speaker 1: work that long. Even if you slept a hundred ninety

471
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:26,600
Speaker 1: two hours that would empower you. Maybe we should get

472
00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:29,359
Speaker 1: a nuclear power plant inside you. Maybe that would help you. Yeah,

473
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:32,000
Speaker 1: that's what we all need. Some plutonium in our tiet

474
00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:36,199
Speaker 1: all right, So that's pretty cool. So it's launching in.

475
00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:41,000
Speaker 1: It's gonna take really nine years to get there. It's

476
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:44,400
Speaker 1: far away, right, the Solar system is huge, and this

477
00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 1: is basically the edge of the outer Solar System, and

478
00:24:47,800 --> 00:24:50,000
Speaker 1: you know, to get there on a low budget, they're

479
00:24:50,040 --> 00:24:52,080
Speaker 1: going to pass it by Earth a few times for

480
00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:55,280
Speaker 1: gravitational assist, so you don't need to have as powerful

481
00:24:55,320 --> 00:24:57,639
Speaker 1: a rocket. So yeah, it's gonna take a while to

482
00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:00,639
Speaker 1: get there. It's not gonna ride for nine years. So

483
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:03,200
Speaker 1: what do the scientists do for nine years to just

484
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:05,800
Speaker 1: like take a break, like, all right, we'll go and

485
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:08,240
Speaker 1: grab some coffee. Come back in nine years. They think

486
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:10,840
Speaker 1: about all the mistakes they made in the design, and

487
00:25:10,840 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 1: they worry, worry, worry sounds tough, no, And they make

488
00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:16,160
Speaker 1: science plans for what they're gonna do when it lands.

489
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:18,359
Speaker 1: You know, they still have power to control with the

490
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:20,800
Speaker 1: choices it makes for how it's going to explore Titan,

491
00:25:21,119 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 1: and so they just get to think about that. But

492
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:25,320
Speaker 1: that's a question I asked the scientists, so you'll enjoy

493
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:27,840
Speaker 1: hearing their answer. Yeah, because the drone will have a

494
00:25:27,880 --> 00:25:30,360
Speaker 1: lot of cool instruments, like what kinds of things does

495
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:32,959
Speaker 1: it have? And what is it going to be looking for? Yeah, well,

496
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:35,840
Speaker 1: it's got cameras first of all, like tiny little cameras

497
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:38,479
Speaker 1: for looking at stuff close up, and then panoramic cameras

498
00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:40,840
Speaker 1: because one of our questions is just like what does

499
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:43,040
Speaker 1: the surface look like? You know, most of it is

500
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 1: shrouded by clouds. We've seen this one picture from this

501
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:49,440
Speaker 1: one spot that are pro landed, but we're just curious,

502
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:51,960
Speaker 1: like what does the surface look like? And then there's

503
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:54,720
Speaker 1: things like a mass spectrometer that's something that can take

504
00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 1: chemicals and tell you how heavy each molecule is, so

505
00:25:58,080 --> 00:26:00,960
Speaker 1: you get an idea for like what's there, which elements

506
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:04,280
Speaker 1: are there, which like you know, organic molecules have come together.

507
00:26:04,680 --> 00:26:07,359
Speaker 1: And then they want to measure the surface composition. So

508
00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 1: they have like a little gamma ray and a neutron

509
00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 1: spectrometer that can I D the surface composition, you know,

510
00:26:12,560 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 1: bouncing things off of it and seeing how they react.

511
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: And then they have a sized mometer something that's going

512
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:22,280
Speaker 1: to measure like the internal structure of titan listening basically

513
00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:27,000
Speaker 1: for titan quakes. Wow, for like iceberg crashes just in case. Yeah,

514
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 1: because they think that there's internal interesting structure and tighten.

515
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:32,000
Speaker 1: They think that there's a lot of ice and rock

516
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:35,040
Speaker 1: in there. But there might also be like huge oceans

517
00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:37,879
Speaker 1: of liquid methane that burp up to the surface, that

518
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:40,280
Speaker 1: like crack up to the surface and make these cry

519
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:45,280
Speaker 1: o volcanoes, these volcanoes that shoot out water and methane vapor. Whoa.

520
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:47,400
Speaker 1: But it sounds like mostly it's just sort of too

521
00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:49,160
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of great signs, but it's

522
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:51,159
Speaker 1: just really I mean, the big idea is just to

523
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:53,480
Speaker 1: go there and see what it's like, right, just to

524
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:56,240
Speaker 1: look around and see how it's different in the same

525
00:26:56,320 --> 00:26:59,439
Speaker 1: from Earth. Yeah, exactly. It's a mission of exploration. You know.

526
00:26:59,480 --> 00:27:02,040
Speaker 1: It's like the first time the humans ever walked on

527
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:04,400
Speaker 1: a new island or something. We just didn't know what

528
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:06,879
Speaker 1: we would find. And that's the excitement of exploration, is

529
00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:11,600
Speaker 1: the potential for crazy surprises. So if what scientists thinks

530
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 1: is happening on Titan is happening, they'll get a lot

531
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 1: of fascinating measurements, will learn a lot about how life

532
00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:19,960
Speaker 1: started in chemistry and all that cool stuff. But the

533
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:22,800
Speaker 1: really exciting thing about this, on top of you know,

534
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:25,960
Speaker 1: flying a drone on alien moon, is the possibility to

535
00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:30,200
Speaker 1: see something weird, something new, something unexpected, something just like shocking.

536
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:33,560
Speaker 1: And I love imagining that first moment, you know, twenty

537
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:35,639
Speaker 1: years into the mission, when they're going to get the

538
00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:38,760
Speaker 1: first picture back from the surface. It's gonna appear, you know,

539
00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 1: line by line on the screens and nassa, and they're

540
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:43,679
Speaker 1: gonna be there at the edge of their seats like, wow,

541
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:46,040
Speaker 1: what is this picture gonna show us? Yeah? Because they

542
00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:49,199
Speaker 1: might even find life, right, Like, is that one of

543
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:50,639
Speaker 1: the things we're going to be looking for. Do they

544
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:53,800
Speaker 1: have instruments to look for life on Titan? Yeah? They

545
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:55,840
Speaker 1: might find life. You know, they might find very very

546
00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:58,879
Speaker 1: simple life, you know, mcrobial life in these lakes, etcetera.

547
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:02,600
Speaker 1: And it's different. Well to identify life at all. You know,

548
00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: even here on Earth, if you take like a sample

549
00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:07,399
Speaker 1: of water and you give it to a microbiologist and

550
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 1: ask like, are there living things in here? Basically, they

551
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:12,160
Speaker 1: just like use microscopes and look up close and see

552
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:14,959
Speaker 1: if they see things wiggling. It's difficult to do on

553
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:18,000
Speaker 1: an alien surface with limited technology. What they plan to

554
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:20,040
Speaker 1: do is like you use the mass spectrometer to figure

555
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:23,160
Speaker 1: out like what molecules are being created, and then argue

556
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:26,200
Speaker 1: about whether or not those things can be created without life,

557
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 1: sort of like how we thought we saw phosphing on Venus, Remember,

558
00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:32,359
Speaker 1: and we think that fosphing is only made by life.

559
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 1: If you see things on the surface that we think

560
00:28:34,560 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: are only made by life, then you can argue life

561
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 1: must be there. Otherwise you have to like actually find

562
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 1: like a little microbe. But you know they have microscopic cameras,

563
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 1: so maybe they'll actually see something wiggling. Well, that would

564
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 1: be pretty cool picture. That would be a historic photograph

565
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah. Alright, So Daniel, you talked to the

566
00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:57,400
Speaker 1: two leads on the project, Dr Elizabeth Turtle and Dr

567
00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:00,120
Speaker 1: Melissa Trainer, and they're they're the like the head to

568
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 1: the project. Yeah, exactly, Elizabeth Turtle is the p I

569
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 1: and she sort of runs the whole mission, the planning,

570
00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:08,520
Speaker 1: the projects, sending the thing over. And Melissa Trainer is

571
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:10,800
Speaker 1: sort of the head scientists in terms of the instruments

572
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:12,960
Speaker 1: and what questions they're gonna be asking. And so I

573
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 1: had a lot of fun talking to them about this

574
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 1: mission and what it's like to work on a twenty

575
00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 1: year long project. All right, Well, let's get into your

576
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:22,120
Speaker 1: interview with the two leads to the Dragonfly mission, but

577
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:37,360
Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break. All right, we're talking

578
00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:40,760
Speaker 1: about the Dragonfly mission to Tighten, which is to send

579
00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 1: a flying octocopter with the nuclear powered energy station now

580
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 1: would fly around one of the moves of Saturn. Which

581
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:52,959
Speaker 1: is enough. I'm solved. It sounds like a pretty cool project.

582
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 1: And Daniel, you talked to the two leads on the project,

583
00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:58,880
Speaker 1: Dr Elizabeth Turtle and Dr Melissa Trainer about what it's

584
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:02,880
Speaker 1: like to work on this long term and exciting mission.

585
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 1: I did. I was really glad that they took some

586
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 1: time out of their busy schedules preparing for this crazy

587
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:11,360
Speaker 1: event in twenty years to talk to me about the science.

588
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 1: All right, So here is Daniel's interview with the leads

589
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 1: of the Dragonfly mission project. All right, so I'm very

590
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:27,240
Speaker 1: pleased to have two wonderful science guests on our program today.

591
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 1: Be could you too introduce yourselves? Sure, I'm CZD Turtle.

592
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 1: I'm at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, and I'm

593
00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 1: the principal investigator of the Dragonfly New Frontiers mission. To type,

594
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:40,360
Speaker 1: I'm a it's a trainer ever getting ASA out of

595
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 1: Stage Flight Center, and I'm working with the v on

596
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 1: the Dragonfly mission. Wonderful. Well, thanks very much for coming

597
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 1: on our program and answering a bunch of our science questions.

598
00:30:49,280 --> 00:30:51,440
Speaker 1: I want to dig into the science of your mission

599
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:53,320
Speaker 1: and how it's all going to work. But first I

600
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:55,840
Speaker 1: have a request from my daughter. She's eleven years old,

601
00:30:55,840 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 1: and when I told her I was going to be

602
00:30:57,160 --> 00:30:59,920
Speaker 1: interviewing you too, she said she had a question for you,

603
00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:02,480
Speaker 1: which was how do you get to work on such

604
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:05,360
Speaker 1: a fun natha project? So maybe you could each tell

605
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:07,000
Speaker 1: us a little bit about how you got to be

606
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:12,280
Speaker 1: where you are. Sure, I've always been interested in the planets,

607
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:14,800
Speaker 1: you know, in the stars, and you know astronomy and

608
00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 1: planetary science, and so I studied a lot of science

609
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:23,200
Speaker 1: and math in high school and college. I majored in

610
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:27,760
Speaker 1: physics and college at M I T. And I then

611
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 1: went on to graduate school in planetary sciences at the

612
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 1: University of Arizona. And I've worked on a few different

613
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 1: missions over the course of my career so far, including

614
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 1: the Galleo mission that went to Jupiter and the Cassini

615
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 1: mission that went to Saturn, and of course studied Tighten

616
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 1: among lots of other things in the Saturnian System and

617
00:31:47,880 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 1: the Europa Clipper mission, as well as Dragonfly and a

618
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:53,840
Speaker 1: few others as well along the way. Very cool, so

619
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 1: you knew from the beginning the kind of things you

620
00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 1: wanted to study. Yeah, I've I've just always been interested

621
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: in planetary science and astronomy. I can't remember learning the planets.

622
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:06,440
Speaker 1: I've always like they're part of my geography from before

623
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 1: I remember learning. And Melissa sure so a lot like

624
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:13,160
Speaker 1: what did he said? I was always very interested in

625
00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:16,640
Speaker 1: science and math um when I was in elementary school

626
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 1: and in high school, but I decided to go ahead

627
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 1: in major in chemistry as I really love doing hands

628
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:26,600
Speaker 1: on lab work. So my original thought wasn't necessarily that

629
00:32:26,800 --> 00:32:30,400
Speaker 1: I would be sitting planets, although I felt fascinating. But

630
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:32,760
Speaker 1: when I went to graduate school, I was thinking I

631
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:37,200
Speaker 1: was going to study Earth's atmosphere to do atmospheric chemistry

632
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 1: on Earth turns out Earth to planet, so a lot

633
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 1: of the same rules and and interest supply, and I

634
00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:49,000
Speaker 1: actually ended up doing a really interesting project that was

635
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 1: studying the type of organic synthesis that happens entitens otmosphere

636
00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:57,000
Speaker 1: and drawing connections not to Earth today, but to Earth

637
00:32:57,120 --> 00:32:59,280
Speaker 1: billions of years ago, what the planet might have been

638
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:01,680
Speaker 1: like a long time go, and the atmosphere had a

639
00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 1: different composition and you might see chemistry like what we

640
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:07,440
Speaker 1: faund Titan. So I wasn't involved in any missions and

641
00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 1: I wasn't graduate school, but the type of work I did,

642
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:13,200
Speaker 1: I also studied some processes that we thought might be

643
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:16,320
Speaker 1: occurring in Mars is the atmosphere and the types of

644
00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 1: tools I used in the lab work I did, ultimately

645
00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 1: is how I got my job at Daughter's Face Flight

646
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 1: Center and working in a group that builds instruments that

647
00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:27,400
Speaker 1: go to other planets. So that's when I got involved

648
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:31,959
Speaker 1: first in the MSL mission or Curiosity as part of

649
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 1: that science team. But my research interests and my real

650
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:38,959
Speaker 1: scientific you know, baby had always been tightened and studying

651
00:33:39,040 --> 00:33:42,600
Speaker 1: Titans chemistry, and so that led me to working with

652
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:45,320
Speaker 1: When I first working with vide actually and others who

653
00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:48,040
Speaker 1: are now on Dragonfly on a prior mission concept, that's

654
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 1: when I sort of first got involved in thinking of

655
00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:52,960
Speaker 1: new ideas for what we can do if we get

656
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:55,640
Speaker 1: to go back to Titan. And then ultimately we had

657
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:59,760
Speaker 1: the amazing opportunity to start conceiving of Dragonfly. Very cool

658
00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:01,920
Speaker 1: tank to me directly to my next question, which is,

659
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:04,440
Speaker 1: what do you think are the most sort of important

660
00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:07,760
Speaker 1: science questions that might be answered by the instruments that

661
00:34:07,800 --> 00:34:10,799
Speaker 1: you're building on Dragonfly? What could we learn? What can

662
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 1: this do that the two thousand five lander could not do?

663
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:17,400
Speaker 1: There are a lot of unanswered questions that remain after

664
00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:21,960
Speaker 1: the Cassini and Huigan's missions in terms of different aspects

665
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:24,640
Speaker 1: of Titan. Titan is a very complex system like the Earth, right,

666
00:34:24,719 --> 00:34:29,160
Speaker 1: it's a very you know, it's a very complex interconnected system.

667
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:31,880
Speaker 1: And you know, we have the Huigan's probe that descended

668
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:33,840
Speaker 1: down through the atmosphere, made a lot of measurements the

669
00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 1: atmosphere landed on the surface and provided some information in

670
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 1: one view of the surface that was completely tantalizing. Uh.

671
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:44,279
Speaker 1: And of course the Cassini orbiter that really revealed the

672
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:48,799
Speaker 1: global geology of Titan and followed Titan through almost half

673
00:34:49,080 --> 00:34:51,840
Speaker 1: a Titan year. The attorney in years twenty nine and

674
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:55,240
Speaker 1: a half years, and Cassini was active in this attorneying

675
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:58,040
Speaker 1: system for about thirteen years, so we got to watch

676
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:01,120
Speaker 1: the weather change on Titan over almost half a year

677
00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 1: and follow the seasonal changes. So there was a lot

678
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:08,800
Speaker 1: of information we gained, but they're really fundamental questions about

679
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:13,239
Speaker 1: Titan that remain, including what the materials on the surface are.

680
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:16,480
Speaker 1: The solid materials on the surface, we still don't really

681
00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:20,080
Speaker 1: know their compositions even you know, even at the high level,

682
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 1: we know that they're there organic materials and their materials

683
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:25,480
Speaker 1: with with water, ice, but not a lot of the details.

684
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:30,239
Speaker 1: And so that's really what we want to understand with Dragonfly,

685
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:35,160
Speaker 1: especially because the materials on Titan, the chemistry that's occurring

686
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:37,920
Speaker 1: on Titan maybe very much like the chemistry that occurred

687
00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:41,560
Speaker 1: on the early Earth that eventually here on Earth led

688
00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:45,400
Speaker 1: to biology. Because we can't always you know, study in

689
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:48,359
Speaker 1: the laboratory, and certainly can't study on Earth what those

690
00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:52,120
Speaker 1: chemical processes work, because it's all kind of overprinted by biology.

691
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 1: Here now, Titan, where these processes may be happening today,

692
00:35:56,120 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 1: is a great laboratory for looking at what materials are available,

693
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 1: and you know how far organic synthesis can progress in

694
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:06,160
Speaker 1: this kind of environment. Melissa, how about you? Which pieces

695
00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 1: of information are you most excited to learn when that

696
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:10,880
Speaker 1: thing lands on Titan? Which data you're going to look

697
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 1: at first when it arrives specifically to my real true

698
00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:17,680
Speaker 1: area of interest, I will say is in the surface

699
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:20,920
Speaker 1: composition and in looking at the types of organ and

700
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:25,319
Speaker 1: molecules that are there, and particularly ones not just that

701
00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:29,480
Speaker 1: were produced in the atmosphere and potentially deposited on the surface,

702
00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:33,960
Speaker 1: the ones that may have then undergone sort of advanced

703
00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:39,200
Speaker 1: chemical processing towards things that would look familiar to us,

704
00:36:39,239 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 1: like building blocks of life, things like amino acids or

705
00:36:42,680 --> 00:36:45,600
Speaker 1: nuclear bases. You know, a lot of this is grounded

706
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:48,520
Speaker 1: in a combination of all the great discoveries that Cassini

707
00:36:48,680 --> 00:36:51,839
Speaker 1: Higgins made, as well as just decades of lab work

708
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:55,560
Speaker 1: that has been done and trying to think through what

709
00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:58,120
Speaker 1: are some of the key processes that might be happening

710
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 1: on Titans, and we know that in the laboratory. If

711
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:04,960
Speaker 1: we take analogs of Titans organics and we let them

712
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:07,600
Speaker 1: sit in water for a while, even for cold temperatures,

713
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:10,640
Speaker 1: for a year or two, you can get some you know,

714
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:13,200
Speaker 1: molecules that are really important for like as we know it.

715
00:37:13,719 --> 00:37:16,080
Speaker 1: And so the question is, you know, we know that

716
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:20,040
Speaker 1: process could happen, but did it? Does it? And there

717
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:22,880
Speaker 1: are times in Titans tasks where there would have been

718
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:24,680
Speaker 1: looked at water on the surface even as long as

719
00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:27,399
Speaker 1: a thousand years or maybe even ten thousand years because

720
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:31,360
Speaker 1: of impacts or other events, And so what will we

721
00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 1: find if we're going and we're you know, drilling a

722
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:35,680
Speaker 1: sample out of one of those one of those locations.

723
00:37:35,760 --> 00:37:38,239
Speaker 1: I love the mystery of these missions, like we did,

724
00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:40,400
Speaker 1: There's so much we just don't know, such a blank

725
00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:42,840
Speaker 1: canvas in our minds and in our ideas and in

726
00:37:42,880 --> 00:37:45,720
Speaker 1: our understanding, and then we go and we actually get data.

727
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:48,799
Speaker 1: So then my question for you is what is your

728
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 1: sort of most optimistic hope, what's your like fantasy scenario,

729
00:37:52,840 --> 00:37:55,319
Speaker 1: best case scenario for what this thing sends back to us?

730
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:57,880
Speaker 1: Are you looking for, like pre biodic building blocks and

731
00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 1: amino acids that could stitch together into life, or you

732
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 1: secretly hoping you're going to find microbes on the surface

733
00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:07,440
Speaker 1: with your fantasy scenario for me finding like a ray

734
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 1: of amino assets, a couple of different ones, maybe some

735
00:38:10,640 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 1: other compounds that we know could have come out of

736
00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:16,320
Speaker 1: this synthesis, this hydrolysis that that we're hoping took place,

737
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:19,680
Speaker 1: and hopefully we'll see just a wide array of them.

738
00:38:20,160 --> 00:38:23,160
Speaker 1: That's my may not domestic hope. And then and then

739
00:38:23,160 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 1: I'll bump it up a little bit and if we

740
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:27,319
Speaker 1: could see a sign of what we think of as

741
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:30,000
Speaker 1: an important biosignature for Earth, like with the amino assets

742
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:33,040
Speaker 1: we have, we carry the capability to look for an

743
00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:36,759
Speaker 1: enhancement in one high reality or the other of molecules.

744
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:39,840
Speaker 1: So that's like the left handed versus right handedness you

745
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:43,120
Speaker 1: know on Earth for molecules that are in our bodies

746
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:46,360
Speaker 1: that comprise proteins and and d n A, the handedness

747
00:38:46,480 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 1: is really important and it's a signature of life. Whereas

748
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 1: when you find molecules to communo assets out and comments

749
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:56,439
Speaker 1: that are from a biotic synthesis, they typically have even

750
00:38:56,440 --> 00:39:00,279
Speaker 1: amounts of both directionality versus, you know, all of one

751
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:03,400
Speaker 1: or all of the other. So if we found not

752
00:39:03,480 --> 00:39:05,520
Speaker 1: only the kind of molecule we're we're looking for, but

753
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 1: a big Carol enhancement, that would be amazing. I won't

754
00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:12,040
Speaker 1: go so far as to suggest that we might find

755
00:39:12,200 --> 00:39:15,719
Speaker 1: micro but that for me, that would be a fantastic,

756
00:39:15,760 --> 00:39:20,000
Speaker 1: tremendous success and an amazing discovery. As Melissa says, it's

757
00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:23,919
Speaker 1: fundamentally a chemistry mission to to understand the chemistry that's

758
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:26,719
Speaker 1: possible in these environments that we know have all the

759
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:30,239
Speaker 1: ingredients necessary for life as we know. It's certainly and

760
00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:32,319
Speaker 1: I think it would be really fascinating if we see

761
00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 1: differences in the chemical components that are available in different environments.

762
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:40,560
Speaker 1: And one of the really exciting things about dragonflies that

763
00:39:40,640 --> 00:39:43,800
Speaker 1: we can fly from place to place and explore very different,

764
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 1: you know, places with very different geologic histories, and so

765
00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:51,000
Speaker 1: if we see different chemical components available in those different

766
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 1: places that have different histories, including deposits associated with an

767
00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:58,759
Speaker 1: impact crater where liquid water and organic material may have

768
00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:01,719
Speaker 1: been in contact for or extended periods of time, I

769
00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 1: think that would be fascinating. One of the other things

770
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 1: that I'm really excited about is that we get to

771
00:40:06,280 --> 00:40:09,000
Speaker 1: put the chemistry. We have these you know, the capability

772
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:11,319
Speaker 1: to measure the detailed composition, but we get to put

773
00:40:11,360 --> 00:40:15,360
Speaker 1: that in the context of the Titan environment. And so

774
00:40:15,520 --> 00:40:19,760
Speaker 1: we get to make measurements of the atmospheric parameters you know, temperature, pressure,

775
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:24,080
Speaker 1: method humanity, wind, etcetera. We get to take images and

776
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:28,000
Speaker 1: see the surface and the landforms and the geologic processes

777
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:33,080
Speaker 1: that dictate how the materials on the surface of Titan

778
00:40:33,480 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 1: are transported and mixed together. And we even can make

779
00:40:38,120 --> 00:40:42,560
Speaker 1: some geophysical measurements, including listening for Titan quakes to understand

780
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 1: you know, the titans geologic activity. So I'm really excited

781
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:48,360
Speaker 1: that we get to put the chemistry into the context

782
00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:51,440
Speaker 1: of Titan as a system. Very cool. Of course, all

783
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:53,839
Speaker 1: of the answers to these questions are years or more

784
00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:57,120
Speaker 1: than a decade away. And while it's very exciting, how

785
00:40:57,120 --> 00:40:59,960
Speaker 1: do you maintain your sort of emotional energy and excite

786
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:02,000
Speaker 1: it for a project when the arc of it is,

787
00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:05,279
Speaker 1: you know, ten fifteen years, you're not going in day

788
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:07,640
Speaker 1: to day and getting answers to these questions even making

789
00:41:07,640 --> 00:41:09,960
Speaker 1: progress on it. What keeps you motivated on a day

790
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:13,560
Speaker 1: to day basis, and the development cycle is also a

791
00:41:13,600 --> 00:41:16,759
Speaker 1: long time. You know, our launch is scheduled in which

792
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 1: seems like a long way away, but it's actually you know,

793
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:23,680
Speaker 1: we're really busy and every day there are new things

794
00:41:23,800 --> 00:41:27,120
Speaker 1: going on and new tests and new design updates and

795
00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 1: things like that, and so is actually going to come

796
00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:33,120
Speaker 1: really quickly because we've got so much to do between

797
00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:34,759
Speaker 1: now and then. And you will listen what it keeps

798
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:37,279
Speaker 1: you excited every day? Um, Well, I think it's kind

799
00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:40,760
Speaker 1: of touching on it. Um. It's true that the actual

800
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:43,080
Speaker 1: data that we get to tighten its far away, but

801
00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:47,800
Speaker 1: in the development process, there's already so many little problems

802
00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:51,800
Speaker 1: to solve or really fascinating questions, you know, to work

803
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:54,960
Speaker 1: just to make sure that we're developing the spacecraft on

804
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:57,279
Speaker 1: the instrument to do exactly what we want them to do.

805
00:41:57,440 --> 00:42:02,040
Speaker 1: So you're constantly engage age in the exact type of

806
00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:05,799
Speaker 1: problem solving and technical development that keeps resolved going. So

807
00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:09,040
Speaker 1: I think that that's that's a big motivator for sure.

808
00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:11,480
Speaker 1: Something that always impresses me and amazes me by these

809
00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:13,960
Speaker 1: space missions is that once it's out there, you don't

810
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:16,440
Speaker 1: get to go and troubleshoot it and fix it. In

811
00:42:16,520 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 1: my field, if something breaks in the particle accelerator, we

812
00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:21,239
Speaker 1: can shut the thing down, we can go down there,

813
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:23,279
Speaker 1: we can replace it, we can you know, put volt

814
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:25,960
Speaker 1: meters on it. Whatever. But here it's gone. And it's

815
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:29,560
Speaker 1: such an intricate and elaborate and amazing project. So what

816
00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:31,879
Speaker 1: part of it worries you the most? You know, which

817
00:42:32,160 --> 00:42:35,239
Speaker 1: stage of like flying out there and the entry and

818
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:38,080
Speaker 1: turning on the actual rotors. Which part of it sort

819
00:42:38,080 --> 00:42:39,640
Speaker 1: of from an engineering point of view do you think

820
00:42:39,680 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 1: is the riskiest or is going to make you white

821
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:44,080
Speaker 1: knuckle at the most. Each stage of the mission has

822
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:47,719
Speaker 1: different risks associated with it, in different challenges you know.

823
00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:50,560
Speaker 1: Right now, the thing that I see that we need

824
00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:53,160
Speaker 1: to pay the most attention to is making sure all

825
00:42:53,200 --> 00:42:56,839
Speaker 1: the different development pieces progressed together so that we get

826
00:42:56,840 --> 00:42:59,560
Speaker 1: the information we need from each subsystem to be able

827
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:01,840
Speaker 1: to design of the other subsystems. Right, everything kind of

828
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 1: has to happen at once, and so the timing and

829
00:43:04,080 --> 00:43:08,160
Speaker 1: mountain is also really really crucial. And then you're right,

830
00:43:08,320 --> 00:43:12,480
Speaker 1: once we launch, everything is up to Dragonfly, and uh,

831
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:14,920
Speaker 1: I expect each subsystem would think that they have the

832
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:18,040
Speaker 1: most challenges. Um, you know in terms of the you

833
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 1: know that they're the most critical just because there's so

834
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:23,480
Speaker 1: many different pieces of it um and you just try

835
00:43:23,480 --> 00:43:26,600
Speaker 1: to build in as much robustness and redundancy as possible.

836
00:43:26,600 --> 00:43:28,319
Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons we have the X eight

837
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:33,239
Speaker 1: octocopter design with four cares of rotors, so that you know,

838
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:35,759
Speaker 1: even if something you know we're to go wrong and

839
00:43:35,800 --> 00:43:37,960
Speaker 1: one of the rotors weren't work, we're still able to

840
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:40,880
Speaker 1: fly with the other seven. And so you just build

841
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:43,480
Speaker 1: as much, you know, as many contingencies into your design

842
00:43:43,520 --> 00:43:46,600
Speaker 1: as possible and hope that you don't end up with

843
00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:50,680
Speaker 1: pathological situations that you know, that go in a different

844
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:54,080
Speaker 1: direction than the expectations. And Molity have anything to add

845
00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:56,160
Speaker 1: about which part of the mission is the most nerve

846
00:43:56,239 --> 00:44:01,520
Speaker 1: wracking for you thinking through the sampling system, getting the

847
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:04,360
Speaker 1: surface samples and how we're going to measure the composition.

848
00:44:04,400 --> 00:44:06,160
Speaker 1: So as maybe said, that's of course what I will

849
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:10,960
Speaker 1: will say has a lot of challenges. Um you know

850
00:44:11,080 --> 00:44:14,600
Speaker 1: uh what challenging but also fun about that is if

851
00:44:14,640 --> 00:44:16,520
Speaker 1: we don't know exactly what we're going to find, so

852
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:19,400
Speaker 1: that's where we're going to learn what the surfaces is

853
00:44:19,560 --> 00:44:23,960
Speaker 1: comprised of and so our approach is to try to

854
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:27,080
Speaker 1: build as if you had the most probus and sort

855
00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:30,319
Speaker 1: of flexible and adaptable system that we can using the

856
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:34,520
Speaker 1: information that we have, but then also being prepared when

857
00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:37,280
Speaker 1: we get there. You know, we have an impressive payload,

858
00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:40,239
Speaker 1: a really great complement of measurements that we can take

859
00:44:40,280 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 1: before we even attempts to start drilling. You know, we

860
00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:46,680
Speaker 1: can observe the surface visually, we get elemental measurements of

861
00:44:46,680 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 1: the surface will be studying or the meteorology some of

862
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:53,360
Speaker 1: the surface properties. So we're gonna survice our whole arsenal

863
00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:57,359
Speaker 1: as it is as we think through sampling or how

864
00:44:57,400 --> 00:45:00,719
Speaker 1: we're going to measure a sample, and then on instrument

865
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:03,200
Speaker 1: side with the mesotometer, which is what's going to be

866
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:06,120
Speaker 1: measuring the molecular composition. You know, we try to think

867
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:09,440
Speaker 1: through how to be as flexible as possible, and to

868
00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:12,279
Speaker 1: your point about worrying about well, what if something goes

869
00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:15,360
Speaker 1: wrong and you can't go replace it, certainly um you

870
00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 1: instead have to learn how to work around it. And

871
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:19,480
Speaker 1: so we spend a lot of time on our team

872
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 1: thinking through multiple failure scenarios or what could go wrong,

873
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:28,560
Speaker 1: and then what would we do to adapt And in

874
00:45:28,600 --> 00:45:31,200
Speaker 1: some cases you identify an area while it would really

875
00:45:31,239 --> 00:45:33,280
Speaker 1: helps us a lot if we've just put an extra

876
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:36,480
Speaker 1: valve here, you know, just in case. So we do

877
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:39,400
Speaker 1: a lot of that analysis is constantly a trade between

878
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:42,000
Speaker 1: making sure that we stay in the box, so to speak,

879
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:44,920
Speaker 1: with what are our size, our mass power, all those things,

880
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:49,200
Speaker 1: but also being ready for the unknowable kind of how

881
00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:52,200
Speaker 1: do you figure out how to organize the technology for

882
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:54,840
Speaker 1: the mission, given that the mission takes so long to

883
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:57,480
Speaker 1: design and build. By the time you're actually ready to

884
00:45:57,480 --> 00:46:00,239
Speaker 1: construct the thing, you know, technology has moved full word.

885
00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:04,000
Speaker 1: Rotor blades are better, instruments are smaller, and a fifteen

886
00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:06,759
Speaker 1: year time scale, you know, technology, by the time this

887
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:09,799
Speaker 1: thing arrives on Titan, it will be ridiculously out of date.

888
00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:12,440
Speaker 1: Do you sort of freeze the engineering at some point

889
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:14,280
Speaker 1: when you're planning it and then you just move forward,

890
00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:16,040
Speaker 1: or do you try to catch up as the field

891
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:18,799
Speaker 1: moves on as you're building it. You now, absolutely it's

892
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:21,640
Speaker 1: the former. Will freeze the design as we move forward

893
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:23,720
Speaker 1: and you're right by the time we get to Titan

894
00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:28,840
Speaker 1: and we'll think, wow, that's that's old technology, right. The

895
00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:31,920
Speaker 1: same way Galileo right in in two thousand was using

896
00:46:31,920 --> 00:46:35,720
Speaker 1: a tape recorder, and my two thousand, most people weren't

897
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:40,680
Speaker 1: necessarily using tape recorders anymore. So you definitely see that.

898
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:43,920
Speaker 1: But one of the things that is a great advantage

899
00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:47,160
Speaker 1: for dragon Play is that we can use existing technology

900
00:46:47,200 --> 00:46:52,439
Speaker 1: to apply to the exploration of Titan, and so that

901
00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:57,640
Speaker 1: makes the design more robust because we have knowledge of

902
00:46:57,680 --> 00:47:02,280
Speaker 1: that hardware and those components because they have been used before.

903
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:05,160
Speaker 1: You know, in many cases like the mass spectrometer right,

904
00:47:05,200 --> 00:47:07,880
Speaker 1: the mass spectrometer is based on the mass spectroumeter is

905
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:12,000
Speaker 1: currently sitting on Mars right and has has been operating there,

906
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:14,759
Speaker 1: and so we can take advantage of that to make

907
00:47:14,800 --> 00:47:18,279
Speaker 1: sure that we understand how the hardware is going to work,

908
00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:21,760
Speaker 1: how we need to build Dragonfly to support the instrumentation

909
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:25,280
Speaker 1: so that everything will work together in the Titan environment

910
00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:27,680
Speaker 1: when we get there. But you're right, we'll look back

911
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:31,040
Speaker 1: and think, wow, that's that's old school. Yeah. One thing

912
00:47:31,280 --> 00:47:33,360
Speaker 1: I sort of learned when I got into this business

913
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:35,680
Speaker 1: was there's a big difference between state of the arts

914
00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:40,480
Speaker 1: and state of the flight. Something that is like the amazing,

915
00:47:40,600 --> 00:47:43,400
Speaker 1: awesome instrument that you would even your laboratory that we

916
00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:46,359
Speaker 1: think of the state of the art once you think

917
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:49,680
Speaker 1: about launching that off the planet and sending it out,

918
00:47:49,719 --> 00:47:52,000
Speaker 1: you know, out into the outer source system or wherever

919
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:54,839
Speaker 1: you're going and landing and maybe kind of a you know,

920
00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:57,760
Speaker 1: an intense environment and existing on a in this case

921
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:00,319
Speaker 1: and a body that has a servicember here of before

922
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:03,640
Speaker 1: Kelvin right, your fancy instrument in the lab is not

923
00:48:03,680 --> 00:48:06,440
Speaker 1: gonna I'm not going to survive that. So we think

924
00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:10,440
Speaker 1: about the cutting edge and spake flight instrumentation is different

925
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:12,560
Speaker 1: than the cutting edge and what we might be doing

926
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:15,000
Speaker 1: in our research. Wonderful. Well, then let me ask you

927
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:17,239
Speaker 1: one last question, which is a question we usually ask

928
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:19,719
Speaker 1: science fiction authors when they're on the program. But you

929
00:48:19,760 --> 00:48:21,799
Speaker 1: guys are really reaching out into the edges of space

930
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:24,080
Speaker 1: and our understanding. So I'm curious what your thoughts are

931
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:27,600
Speaker 1: about this. What are your personal answers to the Fermi paradox,

932
00:48:27,719 --> 00:48:30,400
Speaker 1: you know, even the vastness of space and the number

933
00:48:30,440 --> 00:48:33,720
Speaker 1: of habitable planets out there and the age of the universe.

934
00:48:33,840 --> 00:48:36,319
Speaker 1: Why do you think we haven't been contacted yet? Are

935
00:48:36,320 --> 00:48:39,080
Speaker 1: we alone in the universe or is there life out

936
00:48:39,120 --> 00:48:41,240
Speaker 1: there that just hasn't reached out to us for some reason,

937
00:48:41,560 --> 00:48:46,080
Speaker 1: pure speculation, no scientific basis. Um. I think I think

938
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:49,160
Speaker 1: part of it is answered by part of your question, right.

939
00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:51,239
Speaker 1: You know, even if there is life out there, there

940
00:48:51,280 --> 00:48:55,399
Speaker 1: may well be. Space is vast and it takes a

941
00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:59,600
Speaker 1: long time even for light to travel across space, and

942
00:48:59,719 --> 00:49:04,239
Speaker 1: so that makes communication hard. I mean, from for dragonfly

943
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:06,040
Speaker 1: to kind of bring it back to dragonfly for a

944
00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:09,279
Speaker 1: little bit, the time it takes to communicate with Dragonfly

945
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:13,400
Speaker 1: is sent ninety minutes depending on where Earth and Saturn

946
00:49:13,440 --> 00:49:15,759
Speaker 1: are in their orbit, right, And so we have to

947
00:49:15,800 --> 00:49:19,200
Speaker 1: be able to work with dragonfly, and Dragonfly has to

948
00:49:19,239 --> 00:49:21,680
Speaker 1: be able to do everything it needs to do on

949
00:49:21,719 --> 00:49:24,560
Speaker 1: its own because we can't communicate with it instantly, and

950
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 1: that's just communicating with Saturn, right, And so I think

951
00:49:28,280 --> 00:49:31,600
Speaker 1: the time scales involved with the spatial scale of the

952
00:49:31,719 --> 00:49:34,720
Speaker 1: universe certainly complicates that. And I don't think we can

953
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:38,280
Speaker 1: read into the fact that we haven't been contacted the

954
00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:43,440
Speaker 1: assumption that it's because there's no one trying. Well, that's optimistic.

955
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:45,760
Speaker 1: I think, how did you, Melissa. I agree with everything

956
00:49:45,760 --> 00:49:49,280
Speaker 1: that we said, and also I take a very humble

957
00:49:49,360 --> 00:49:52,359
Speaker 1: approach to it. And still wonder if we really know

958
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:55,120
Speaker 1: how to be listening, do we know what we're listening for?

959
00:49:55,640 --> 00:49:58,600
Speaker 1: And this in general is the question that's important in

960
00:49:58,640 --> 00:50:01,040
Speaker 1: the search for life. By the we're looking for intelligent

961
00:50:01,120 --> 00:50:04,239
Speaker 1: life or whether we're just looking for microbial life that

962
00:50:04,239 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 1: could be a little different than us. We always have

963
00:50:06,120 --> 00:50:09,440
Speaker 1: to keep asking of ourselves the question do we know

964
00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:11,680
Speaker 1: how to listen? Do we know what we're looking for?

965
00:50:11,880 --> 00:50:13,960
Speaker 1: Do we know what we're listening for? If there was

966
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:16,440
Speaker 1: other life out there? And it's a field that you know,

967
00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:19,560
Speaker 1: I think we're getting better and better at all the time,

968
00:50:19,680 --> 00:50:22,520
Speaker 1: but it always requires that sort of humble approach. Very

969
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 1: well said. All right, well, thank you both very much

970
00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:27,080
Speaker 1: for your time and best of luck on the engineering

971
00:50:27,120 --> 00:50:29,799
Speaker 1: and of course on the launch and the landing. Will

972
00:50:29,840 --> 00:50:33,920
Speaker 1: all be on the edge of our seats in to

973
00:50:34,000 --> 00:50:36,279
Speaker 1: hear what you guys learned. So thanks very much for

974
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:38,560
Speaker 1: coming on our program and sharing the excitement of your

975
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:49,560
Speaker 1: science with us. All right, pretty cool. I like what

976
00:50:49,600 --> 00:50:51,440
Speaker 1: you said at the end about what it means to

977
00:50:51,480 --> 00:50:53,960
Speaker 1: her to work on this, Yeah, exactly. I think this

978
00:50:54,040 --> 00:50:56,480
Speaker 1: is personal for both of them. You know, we say

979
00:50:56,480 --> 00:50:58,960
Speaker 1: on this program a lot that science has driven forward

980
00:50:59,000 --> 00:51:02,759
Speaker 1: by individual people with their curiosity. And clearly this is

981
00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:04,640
Speaker 1: a big project with a lot of people working on it,

982
00:51:04,680 --> 00:51:07,640
Speaker 1: but it's driven forward by their personal curiosity. You know.

983
00:51:07,760 --> 00:51:10,399
Speaker 1: They want to know the answers to these questions. They

984
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:13,920
Speaker 1: have burning questions about the universe, and it's their curiosity

985
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:17,080
Speaker 1: that's pushing forward the envelope of human knowledge. And it's

986
00:51:17,080 --> 00:51:19,480
Speaker 1: exciting to see that in action, yeah, because you know,

987
00:51:19,600 --> 00:51:22,600
Speaker 1: sort of like sending a robot with cameras is probably

988
00:51:22,640 --> 00:51:24,799
Speaker 1: just as good as sending a human with cameras, you know,

989
00:51:25,880 --> 00:51:31,279
Speaker 1: except again, you don't have to bring the robot back yet,

990
00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:35,360
Speaker 1: you know, until our AI overloords make us bring it back,

991
00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:38,799
Speaker 1: or maybe when we do eventually colonized Titan, we will

992
00:51:38,840 --> 00:51:42,919
Speaker 1: find Dragonfly there piste off and waiting for us. Yeah,

993
00:51:42,920 --> 00:51:45,560
Speaker 1: and it's going to be a nuclear arm so watch out.

994
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:50,080
Speaker 1: All right. Well, it's pretty exciting and it's a mission

995
00:51:50,120 --> 00:51:52,160
Speaker 1: that's happening right now. You can sort of track it

996
00:51:52,360 --> 00:51:55,200
Speaker 1: and follow its progress, I imagine, on the NASA website,

997
00:51:55,239 --> 00:51:59,200
Speaker 1: So please check it out and send them good space vibes.

998
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:01,680
Speaker 1: That's right, And one last fun little tidbit about this

999
00:52:01,719 --> 00:52:05,040
Speaker 1: project is that it started over dinner on a napkin

1000
00:52:05,160 --> 00:52:08,719
Speaker 1: between two scientists coming up with this crazy idea. So

1001
00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:11,799
Speaker 1: you know, next time you have some crazy idea, it

1002
00:52:11,920 --> 00:52:15,160
Speaker 1: might just turn into like a huge billion dollar twenty

1003
00:52:15,239 --> 00:52:18,120
Speaker 1: year mission to a surface in the Solar System. So

1004
00:52:18,440 --> 00:52:21,680
Speaker 1: keep thinking and keep being creative. Yeah, don't use napkins

1005
00:52:21,719 --> 00:52:25,239
Speaker 1: for wiping food of your mouth, just you know, keep

1006
00:52:25,280 --> 00:52:29,040
Speaker 1: them around in case you get cool billion dollars space

1007
00:52:29,080 --> 00:52:32,600
Speaker 1: ideas well. That was pretty exciting. Let's stay tuned and

1008
00:52:32,680 --> 00:52:35,560
Speaker 1: see what they find in twenty years. I'm excited to

1009
00:52:35,600 --> 00:52:38,520
Speaker 1: see that first picture. Thanks for joining us, see you

1010
00:52:38,560 --> 00:52:48,600
Speaker 1: next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and

1011
00:52:48,680 --> 00:52:52,000
Speaker 1: Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio.

1012
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:55,000
Speaker 1: For more podcast from my Heart Radio, visit the I

1013
00:52:55,160 --> 00:52:58,840
Speaker 1: Heart Radio Apple Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

1014
00:52:58,920 --> 00:53:04,719
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.