WEBVTT - How can we bring rocks back from Mars? 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:12.320 Hey, Daniel, have you been ordering stuff online a lot lately. Yeah, 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:16.080 you know, like everyone, I've been clicking on websites rather 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:18.239 than visiting stores. Yeah, you don't need a mass when 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:21.440 you click. I guess it is pretty amazing how inexpensive 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:23.640 it is these days to get stuff sent to your 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:25.760 house from around the world. Even if it comes from 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:28.400 the other side of the planet. It can just be 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:31.120 like a few cents per gram to ship it to 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:33.479 your house. Yeah, you know, I wonder when we can 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:37.160 start ordering stuff from even further away. I've been trying 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:39.519 to order some moon rocks. I wonder how much is 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:42.480 the shipping on those things. Well, I heard NASA spent 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:46.559 about three hundred thousand dollars per gram to get some 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:48.440 moon rocks. But you know, I think it's cheaper if 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.800 you have prime. You know, Jeff Bezos is starting his 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:55.120 own rocket company, so he's probably gonna link that up 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:57.640 and make it super cheap. Yeah. Why visit other planets 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:15.800 when you can just order a little bit of him online? Hi, 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:17.840 am or Hey, I'm a cartoonist and the creator of 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:22.120 PhD Comics. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and I 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:24.680 would love to have a little bit of Jupiter delivered 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:29.319 to my house. Really, isn't Jupiter mostly gas? So you 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:31.759 just wanted like a canister or just to like release 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:33.440 it in your home, to know that you breathe it 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:35.440 in a little bit of Jupiter. Well, you know, Jupiter 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:37.520 is mostly gas, but some of that gas is in 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:41.160 a really weird state, like metallic hydrogen. And that makes 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:43.600 me really curious. I really want to see what metallic 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:46.639 hydrogen looks like. It doesn't need to be like super 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:49.560 under pressure. Hey, these are all engineering details. I just 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:52.200 want the metallic hydrogen or to my house. I'm just 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:54.600 clicking and waiting. I want a little bit of that 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:58.080 gas from the red eye of Jupiter, like it is 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:01.600 the gas. Also read what's going on there? I think 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:03.440 we did a whole podcast episode on that one, like 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:06.400 I should listen to it. But welcome to said podcast. 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:09.200 Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of I 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:11.440 Heart Radio in which we let you stay at home 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:15.640 and order in information about the whole universe delivered to 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:18.799 your ears without any effort on your part. We talk 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:21.680 about things in the universe that are super far away. 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:25.280 We talked about the tiny particles that are swimming inside 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.040 your body. We talk about everything and anything, and we 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:30.120 try to explain all of it to you. That's right. 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:33.440 We try to bring the universe and the cosmos and 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:38.240 everything in between to your brain free of charge, because 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:41.160 wondering belongs to everybody, and the questions that you have 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:44.680 about space and physics and the universe are the questions 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:48.720 that everybody has, and the same questions that scientists want 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.720 answers to, because we're all still learning about the universe, 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:54.520 and part of that learning is exploring, is going out 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:58.280 into the cosmos, into other planets, into the stars, and 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:01.720 figuring out what's going on and what is there for 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:04.880 us to discover. And sometimes it's so depressing to think 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:08.799 that we've explored such a tiny little fraction of our universe. 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:12.359 You know, we've barely gotten off this planet to explore 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:16.120 the Moon, to land a few rovers on Mars. It's incredible, 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:18.760 what a tiny little dot of the universe we have 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:20.880 been able to explore so far. But what a dot 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:24.520 it is. It's a pretty cool dot, and we're lucky 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:26.920 that there is something to explore. I mean, right in 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:31.320 our neighborhood, right next door, there's an amazing planet, Mars, 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:35.240 that really has a lot of tantalizing and fascinating scientific question. Yeah, 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:38.000 Mars is awesome, and so we'd like to know a 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.000 little bit more about what is there on Mars. I 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:43.440 mean we can see it, but so far we haven't 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:45.920 been able to really, I don't know, study it up close. 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:48.880 It's pretty hard because it's so far away. And all 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:51.200 we've been able to do so far is send our 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.400 robots there and have them do science. But that's sort 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:56.440 of like trying to do science with a ten foot 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:59.960 poll or a ten million mile long pole, and that's 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.120 not easy to do. That's kind of a philosophical question, 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:05.920 isn't it, Daniel, Like if you send a robot out 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:09.840 to explore something, have you explored it technically? Like if 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:12.960 the robot touches Mars, did you touch Mars? That humans 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:15.520 touch Mars? Yeah, I mean if you have a robotic hand, 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.520 you consider it part of yourself. If you touch something 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:20.560 with that hand, then it's part of you. And so 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:25.160 this is just like a spatially disconnected prosthetic, right, think 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:28.560 about the rovers as part of your body. Then. Yeah, philosophically, 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:30.800 I've been on Mars. I wonder if the Mars were 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:34.000 over would disagree. When he gets to the point that 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:36.239 it can disagree, it's no longer part of your body. 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:39.400 It has its own Twitter account. Do you know that 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:41.760 the Mars rover has its own Twitter account? It has 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:44.920 more followers than I do. Yeah, but did get off 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:47.960 its couch, Daniel, And actually, you know went somewhere. It 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:50.200 has accomplished more in its life than I ever will. 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:52.640 That's true. But yeah, we'd love to know more about 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.200 Mars and whether or not it had life on it, 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:58.880 like bacteria or who knows what else we could discover 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:00.800 that Mars had, but it's really hard to do it 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:03.640 from here, and even to do it through robots. It 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:06.480 is challenging, and it's amazing to me how open this 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:09.640 question remains. You know, through history we thought, oh, maybe 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:11.880 Mars has life on it. Then we took a closer look, 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:14.600 where like, actually it looks pretty dry. They're like, wait, no, 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:17.640 there is water on there. Maybe there are microbes, and 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:19.960 so keep going up and down, and it's fascinating to 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:22.480 me that this planet, this one that the closest to us. 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:25.960 We still don't know the answer. If there is life 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:27.880 on Mars, is it's similar to Earth? Did it come 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:30.600 to Earth from Mars, or to Mars from Earth, or 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:34.560 to both planets from somewhere else. It's an incredibly important question, 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:38.000 and it's right there, it's so accessible. Yeah, that's a 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:41.200 huge question, right, But they're not Life on Earth actually 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:44.240 started on Mars. Because it's possible that there was life 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:47.640 on Mars and then got knocked off on an asteroid 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:50.520 and then flew here and landed on Earth, and that's 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.680 how life started Earth. That's a theory, right, That is 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:55.560 a theory, and it's not just the plot of a 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.240 science fiction novel. It's potentially actually plausible, and it's a 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:01.960 kind of question that we could answer if we had 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:05.360 deeper access to rocks on Mars. Right, we could all 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:09.760 be Martians. Martians could all be Earthlings. Who knows, we 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:12.080 could all be Jovians. Yeah, but it'd be great to 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:13.960 answer that question. And I think the only way we're 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:16.200 going to answer that question is to actually go there 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:19.359 and take a close look at the rocks and the 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:22.520 soil and to like actually like take a super microscope 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:24.920 to it and see if we see any little critters 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:27.560 in there. That's right, But sending scientists to Mars is 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:32.200 unfortunately still many many years away, decades probably if ever. 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:35.080 It's really hard, but we've done it with some things 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.680 in space, like for example, we've gone to the Moon 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:40.000 and gone and rock from the Moon and brought them 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:42.200 back to Earth. I think you can order them online, right, 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:46.080 I don't think you can order them online. No, you can. Can. 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:48.160 You get on eBay and like a bid on a 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:50.600 piece of moon rock. I think anything you buy on 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:53.359 eBay is not going to be actually moon rocks, so 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:57.440 please don't waste your money. But we did actually bring 0:06:57.600 --> 0:06:59.960 rocks back from the Moon, and those rocks have been 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.800 an incredible treasure trove of science. Were like still thinking 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:06.760 of new things to do to those rocks, to learn things, 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:10.240 to figure out answers to new questions about the science 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:13.800 of the Moon. So it's incredibly valuable to have here 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:17.280 in our Earth laboratories a sample from the Moon or 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.560 from somewhere else. Yeah. I have actually held in moon rock. 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:22.960 I was at JPO of visiting ones and they let 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:25.000 me hold a little bit of moon dust, And did 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:29.280 you feel transported? I accidentally breedd them in and sneeze 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:34.400 had to go in there for a second. That sounds 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:37.000 like the opening scene of a terrible science fiction novel. 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:40.880 Or he gets infected by a Moon based pathoge and 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:44.960 that's why I have superpowers. You gained the Moon's proportional 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:49.120 strength again, the ambility to moon people. You cause tides. Right, 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:51.760 you'd be a some sort of lunar superhuman. That's right. 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:55.120 I'm like the villain in the next Appman movie. That's right, 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:59.800 You're like the DC version of Magneto. Right, you insulted 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:02.720 me twice over there. You just confuse the DC character 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:05.600 with the Marvel character. No, I'm trying to bring one 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:08.200 from the other, right, Like Magneto controls medals, and so 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:13.400 lunar Jorge controls tides right in the DC universe. But anyways, 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:15.320 so the question is, can we just go to Mars, 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:16.960 pick up some rocks and bring them back and then 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:20.120 study them, and then we would know if life potentially 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:22.760 came from another planet. That would be incredible. And so 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:24.600 to be on the program, we'll be asking the question, 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:34.040 can we bring rocks back from Mars? Or more optimistically, 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:38.200 how can we bring rocks back from Mars? Oh, so 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:40.280 you're feeling good. You feel like it's not an if question, 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:43.080 it's not a physics question, right, there's nothing in physics 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:46.320 that prevents us from moving rocks from Mars to Earth. 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:49.640 It's definitely an engineering question, and as you'll hear, it's 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:52.440 a tricky one. So, as usually, we were wondering how 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:55.120 many people out there had thought about this question or 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:58.120 wonder whether or not it's possible to bring something back 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.240 from Mars. So Daniel and out there into the wilds 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:04.360 of the Internet to ask people how can we retrieve 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:07.920 rocks from Mars to study them on Earth. So these 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:10.000 are the answers I got from random folks on the 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:14.440 Internet who were willing to speculate baselessly without any googling 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:17.320 about the questions. I asked them, if you'd like to 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:19.920 participate and hear your voice on the podcast at some 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:22.800 point in the future, please write to us two questions 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.440 at Daniel and Jorge dot com. Here's what people had 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:27.640 to say. I think that we should send a rocket 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:30.840 to Mars, and then maybe the Mars wherever the acrono 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:34.679 Mars should take the rock samples and put them inside 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:37.760 the rocket, and then we could somehow program the rocket 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:40.480 to fly back on its own. Perseverance is on his 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:42.760 way there right now, and hopefully the next generation of 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:45.520 Perseverances will be able to bring them back to study. 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:50.440 I thought that that was part of the upcoming Mars mission, 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:53.680 or maybe for the next mission to have some sort 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:57.280 of return capsule. It's really difficult to get things back 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:00.960 from Mars, so I imagine that probably have to send 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:03.880 some sort of probe there that would then have to 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:07.480 do a lot of the analysis they're on Mars. I 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:10.840 think the new Perseverance wherever you can actually collect unstored 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:13.280 Mars rocks for a future mission to achieve and bring 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:16.280 back to Earth. I'm envisioning maybe we send something to 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.760 like enter into Mars's orbit that can maybe send down 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.719 an explosive heads the surface, sends out a bunch of particulates. 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:28.000 The probe gathers these particulates and then breaks out of 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:31.400 the orbit goes back to Earth. We can gather samples 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:34.040 from Mars for study on Earth, kind of how we 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:38.600 went to the Moon, except all robotically right, and instead 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:40.840 of a lamb, we have a mam. Well, I know 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:43.000 we already have a mission going there, and I believe 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:45.360 what they're going to do is h do little core 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:49.680 samples and then somehow package them and leave them for 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:52.880 a recovery mission. Al Right, a lot of excitement about 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:55.199 this idea. I feel, yeah, a lot of excitement. People 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:58.000 are like, I don't know, but it sounds cool. Somebody 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:00.439 out there is like, let's just nuke Mars, and I 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:04.559 have the feeling they were just waiting for the opportunity. 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:08.200 Is that a fellow physicist? I feel like that sounds 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:11.079 like an efficient solution to a physicist. You don't think 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:13.560 an engineer would be like, let's just shoot a string 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:15.960 of nuclear weapons at this thing to guide it back 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:20.240 to Earth. I think you mean a freshman engineer would 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:22.360 be like, maybe there's a better way, that's right, and 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:25.920 also would probably destroy the samples and pollute them with radiation, 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:29.199 so it might undermine the very science that we're trying 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:31.719 to do. Right, that's probably a huge part of it, right, 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:35.640 like not contaminating. Oh yeah, that's a big deal. All right, Well, 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:39.040 let's dig into this topic. Let's get some samples of 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:41.880 it and retreat it and bring it to Earth. So Daniel, 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:44.360 first of all, I guess talk about why we would 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.040 want to get rocks from Mars. I mean, I know 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:49.959 that it would be great to study them, but you know, 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:51.960 why can't we just study them there. Well, we can 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:54.400 do a lot of studying on the surface of Mars, 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:57.560 and we have rovers that do that, but it's tricky. 0:11:57.920 --> 0:11:59.840 You want to do some science on a rover, you 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:03.560 have to pick an instrument which can survive like launch 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:08.040 and transit and landing on Mars, and then can get 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:11.280 set up automatically without any like a grad students tinkering 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:14.040 with it. You know, every cutting edge lab that I'm 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:16.959 aware of here on Earth, the most powerful instruments are 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:20.360 delicate instruments, and they require like experts tweaking them and 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:23.439 massaging them to make them work and to calibrate them. 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:25.760 So for something to work on a rover has to 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:29.120 be really robust, and that really limits the kinds of 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:30.760 signs that you can do. Yeah, I guess you need 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:33.800 a lab. And it's tricky to handle these samples and 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:36.079 to do the the signs, right, that's right. If you 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.280 had your hands on Martian samples like right now, there's 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:41.280 like a hundred things you would want to do to 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:43.920 it right away, but only a few of those ever 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:47.120 make it onto a rover, so you're really limited. And 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:49.160 then you get the answers back, you're like, oh, look 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:50.959 it has this weird thing in it. Now I want 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.680 to check with my other funky instrument. But you can't 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:55.840 do that kind of thing all in advance. When you 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:58.199 send your rover over, you have to plan very far 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:00.720 in advance exactly what you're gonna do to every sample. 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:04.000 You can't respond to what you've learned with new ideas, 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:06.839 whereas if you bring the rocks back, then you can 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:09.000 keep coming up with new ideas. And also you have 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:12.439 access to future instruments. Right, cool techniques we're going to 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:14.680 develop in ten years or in twenty years that we 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:17.559 haven't even thought of. Now we have the rocks here, 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:21.040 rather than sending the machines there, then we can use 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:24.360 new machines on old rocks, right, Because I guess it's 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:28.080 you know, it's really hard to take stuff to Mars, right, 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:30.720 I mean, like every gram cost like a million dollars 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:34.720 or something, and these lab equipment machines are really big. 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:36.920 Sometimes they are really big, and a lot of the 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:41.080 engineering challenges of building a rover or how to miniaturize, right, 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:43.640 how to make these things really small. It's got to 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:45.760 be like the size of a shoe box and fit 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.680 on the edge of a stick and be totally robust, 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:50.280 Like you have to just be able to send it 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:52.640 one command and it boots up and starts up. It's 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:54.560 gonna have a little bit of AI in there to 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:57.520 get itself going. Right. You can't just like crawl out 0:13:57.520 --> 0:13:59.800 there with your screw driver and fix it right once 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:02.120 you send it, it's gone. You can't just call I 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:04.920 T to fix it, and they'll say, have you tried 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:08.120 turning it off and turning it on again? Did you 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:11.160 update your Windows installation like I can. It's on Mars. 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:14.400 I can't even turn it on enough. No, And you 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:18.160 can't even like drive something on Mars. Remember these rovers 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:22.960 operate semi autonomously because Mars is so far away that 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:25.760 it takes light minutes to get there. So you can't 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:28.720 have the kind of feedback loop you need to real 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:31.880 time drive something on Mars. It's like you drive forward, 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:34.080 you stop, you take a picture, you send it back 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:36.720 to the folks in NASA. They figure out what to 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:39.560 do next. And so having it be so far away 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:41.880 makes it really limited. It has to survive a trip 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:46.080 to Like launching from the Earth into space is not easy, right, 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:49.000 Like there's huge forces and you know you're basically strapped 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:52.000 onto a giant explosion. It has to survive that. And 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:54.480 also the landing on Mars, which can be pretty tough, 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:58.440 like sometimes they just fall into the ground and bounce around, 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.480 and it has to survive that. That's the landing strategy. 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.760 That's the design strategy, right. I mean, remember all those 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:07.480 movies about astronaut training, Like they put those folks through 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:11.280 some tough stuff. They spin around, they shake them a lot. Basically, 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:14.520 take your most sensitive science instruments and put them through 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:17.040 astronaut training to see if they have the right stuff. 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:19.920 Most of the time, it's just gonna fall apart. Like 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:23.440 you go into a random geology or microbiology lab here 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:26.320 on Earth. Most of those instruments are very delicate. They 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.240 don't let people in there poking and products. So you're right, 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.200 surviving all the shaking and the landing and all that stuff. 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.520 It's not easy. So this whole categories of instruments, nobody 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:38.400 has figured out how to miniaturize and make robust enough 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:40.400 to send to Mars. Okay, so it would be a 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:43.520 lot better for science if we could bring some Mars 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.440 rocks back so we can study them, and you know, 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:49.160 you can do a whole bunch more tescent. You could 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:52.239 on a robot in Mars, but it's really hard and 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:55.560 apparently it can't just study meteors from Mars. Like that's 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:58.880 another possibility, but it's not, as I guess. Fresh. Yeah, 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:02.680 the amazing thing is that we actually already have Mars rocks, right, 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:04.760 like what yeah, what you were talking about sort of 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.840 as a joke, actually happens. Sometimes big rocks hit the 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:12.560 surface of Mars right impact creators and stuff gets thrown 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:15.280 out into space. You know, this can be really big 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:18.280 impacts and some of those rocks get tossed out into 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:21.240 space and eventually a small fraction of them hit the 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:23.800 surface of the Earth and then are recovered. And how 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:25.840 do we know they're from Mars? So they had like 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.280 a maide in Mars tag or well they went through customs, right, 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:31.240 and so we can tell they just look at the 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:34.720 forms they I mean, can you tell, like does it 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.640 have a special like queue of red or something? You 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:40.040 can tell because of the geology, every object in the 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:43.240 Solar System has a different history and a different composition 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:45.640 and that tells you where it comes from. And so 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:47.840 when you get a meteor from outer space, when you've 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:50.120 got a chunk of space rock. First of all, you 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:51.880 can tell it the space rock because of what it's 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:54.040 made out of. It's made of stuff you don't find 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:56.440 on Earth. And then you can tell roughly where it 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:58.840 came from based on the details of what's in it. 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:01.320 And so most of the rocks that land on Earth come, 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:03.400 for example, from the asteroid Belt, and we can tell 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:06.760 based on the blend of metals and also the organization 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:08.640 of the metals in them that tells you something about 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:11.240 its history, like when it was last melted and how 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:13.720 long it's been frozen for. And some of these things 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:17.440 have composition and geology that's only consistent with the surface 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:20.320 of Mars. Interesting. So, yeah, we have like dozens of 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.320 these objects that have landed on the Earth from Mars, 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:27.640 which is fascinating and incredible and wonderful opportunities to do science. 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:30.280 But it's not good enough, right, Yeah, you need like 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:33.200 fresh rocks, Like those asteroids are kind of stale. They've 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:36.760 been floating around face and who knows where they came from. 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:39.119 It's not just that you need fresh rocks, it's that 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:41.320 you need to know where they came from, Like it's 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:43.399 just a random sample. You don't know where on Mars 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:45.199 it came from, so you can't really like fit it 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:47.959 into your science picture of what's going on on Mars. 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:50.399 Which you'd like is to have a rover travel around 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:52.639 and make judicious decisions and say, I'm gonna get a 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:54.680 little bit of this kind of rock, and I see 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:57.320 where it is. It's on the downflow of a slope. 0:17:57.440 --> 0:17:59.560 I'm gonna get that piece of rock over there, and 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:02.560 I know the scientific context. It's sort of just like 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:05.840 getting a piece of pottery and having no idea where 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:09.080 it was dug up from. It's much less valuable scientifically. 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:10.320 It's also kind of like when you go to a 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:12.879 Las Vegas bouffet. You know you want judiciously pick a 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:14.920 little bit from everything and know where you got it from, 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:18.359 so you can go back and get the stuff you liked. 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:20.560 That's right, and so you know what made you throw 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:26.159 up and what you yeah, yeah, alright. So it sounds 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:28.520 like it would be a lot better if we can 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:31.000 get go to Mars, get some rocks, bring them back, 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:32.800 and then study the heck out of him to answer 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:35.679 these big questions about life in the Solar System and 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:38.199 about Mars and the history of Mars. But it's a 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:40.440 tough problem, and so let's talk about how we would 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.120 actually do that and what has been and is being 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:45.840 done to do it. But first let's take a quick break, 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:02.119 all right, Daniel, we are souvenir shopping in the Solar System. 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:08.000 We're trying to get some original, authentic rocks from Mars. 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:10.960 But it's a tough problem because Mars is really far away, 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:12.840 and you don't just have to get the rocks. You 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:14.400 have to come back with them. You've got to come 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:16.320 back with the rocks. Right, Like we've done the one 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:19.600 way thing. We've sent something to Mars and it's dug 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:22.800 up rocks and studied them, but they're still on the 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:25.399 surface of Mars, and so now we need to do 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:28.080 the second bit, the round trip, to come home and 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:31.800 deliver them to scientists in a pristine condition, so that 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:35.920 we can finally answer some of these incredible, longstanding science questions. Right, 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:38.760 And I feel like the problem is it's not just double, 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:41.560 it's like squared, because you know, it's hard enough to 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:44.240 take off from a planet and land on another planet, 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:46.520 but now you're gonna do it again, take off from 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:49.040 there and land here. But it still has to be 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:51.680 the same machine that you send out, like the same 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:53.960 machine you send out has to do both of those things. Yeah, 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:57.040 it's complicated, and it's not just squared as you're gonna hear. 0:19:57.040 --> 0:19:59.240 There's a lot of moving parts. It's more like to 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:03.160 the ninth power or something. It's pretty ridiculous little dance 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:05.640 of machines that we have to get working all together 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:08.600 to get those rocks back from Mars. And you know 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:11.359 what you just said, Nobody has ever done that before. 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:15.080 We've never successfully launched a rocket from the surface of 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:17.520 another planet. Right, Well, we've done it for the Moon, 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:19.720 but the Moon is kind of easy to take off from. 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:21.880