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Are We Ready For Mars What Do The Engineers Think From Mark Shelhamer · Arroe Collins Like It's Live

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  Speaker 1: I know it always seems kind of fun just to
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  Speaker 1: jump onto Spotify or iHeartRadio and, oh, there's my favorite podcast.
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  Speaker 1: But what would happen if that one author that you've
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  Speaker 1: got for a podcast host is actually hosting 21 different podcasts?
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  Speaker 1: It's the thing. We're all doing a network of podcasts.
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  Speaker 1: That's why I always say go to their websites, arrow.net, A-R-R-O-E.net.
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  Speaker 1: It's that one place where you can find four stories.
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  Speaker 1: You've got your favorite park. You've got your favorite place
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  Speaker 1: of solitude. Where are you writing this down to preserve
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  Speaker 1: for a future self? A little bit too heavy for
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  Speaker 1: you today? Oh, it's not when you go to Forest Stories.
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  Speaker 1: Only on Arrow.net. A-R-R-O-E dot net. Enjoy your exploration. Hello
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  Speaker 1: and good morning. How are you doing today?
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  Speaker 2: Very good. How about you?
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  Speaker 1: Very excited to share a conversation with you because I've
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  Speaker 1: been blessed with the opportunity over the past five years
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  Speaker 1: to speak with so many NASA astronauts about this journey
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  Speaker 1: toward Mars. And they are all so fired up. And
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  Speaker 1: then when you come up with a book like this,
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  Speaker 1: I'm going, oh, my God, let it spread. Let it spread.
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  Speaker 1: Get it into the hearts of everybody.
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  Speaker 2: Excellent. So I see I'm not going to have any
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  Speaker 2: trouble generating enthusiasm here.
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  Speaker 1: Well, see, and the thing about it is that as
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  Speaker 1: much as we go, are we ready for Mars? I
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  Speaker 1: want people to ask the question, are we ready to
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  Speaker 1: get ready to go to Mars? Because it really is
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  Speaker 1: showcasing that the number of times, I mean, look at
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  Speaker 1: how many of these ships that are trying to lift
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  Speaker 1: off the planet and don't do it. They explode. And
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  Speaker 1: I'm going, oh, my God, I'm living what they did
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  Speaker 1: back in the early days of space.
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  Speaker 2: Yep. It's challenging, no question. And you hope to get
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  Speaker 2: the bugs worked out before you start sending humans.
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  Speaker 1: Now, engineering for Mars, I mean, this isn't something that
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  Speaker 1: you blink your eyes like bewitched and suddenly it all appears.
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  Speaker 1: What have the steps been like for you? And then
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  Speaker 1: to document it, I mean, this right here is something
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  Speaker 1: that's very, very true to our heart, but we need
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  Speaker 1: to be educated as to really get into it even more.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're making the point, which is basically my
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  Speaker 2: life and career, that Mars is going to be technologically challenging,
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  Speaker 2: but really it's a human endeavor as much or more
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  Speaker 2: than a technological endeavor. So to your question about what
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  Speaker 2: do we need to prepare, what are we doing, what
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  Speaker 2: should we be doing, we need to be taking the
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  Speaker 2: human very, very seriously today. Humans are both, we say,
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  Speaker 2: the weakest and the strongest elements of a Mars mission.
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  Speaker 2: Weakest in the sense that humans are fragile, right? You
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  Speaker 2: need to protect them. You need to be fed. You
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  Speaker 2: have food, clothing, water, exercise, things like that. But when
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  Speaker 2: things go wrong in space, which they do on a
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  Speaker 2: regular basis, medical things, engineering things, it's the humans that
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  Speaker 2: are going to give the mission the resilience to that
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  Speaker 2: it needs the ability to deal with the unknown and
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  Speaker 2: to take advantage of aspects. Serendipitous scientific observations, for example,
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  Speaker 2: while you're exploring the Martian surface or environment. So these
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  Speaker 2: are good reasons that you want to be sending humans,
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  Speaker 2: but you need to be able to prepare them so
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  Speaker 2: that they're able to do the job.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you know, for the longest time, I always thought,
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  Speaker 1: and even the astronauts said, the human has to be
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  Speaker 1: the first one there, not the android. But the thing is, though,
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  Speaker 1: is that I just seen those photos from China this
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  Speaker 1: past week with all of those AI technically driven androids
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  Speaker 1: they've got. It's like, no, I don't want them up there.
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  Speaker 1: I don't want Star Wars on Mars. I want humans
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  Speaker 1: on Mars. What is the reality of that? Is it
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  Speaker 1: going to be robots up there? Do you think it's
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  Speaker 1: going to be us?
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  Speaker 2: So I want humans on Mars, too, and it's going
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  Speaker 2: to be both, almost certainly. You know, clearly we have robotic,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, this is what you're talking about, right? We
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  Speaker 2: have robotic probes of various kinds. And artificial intelligence is,
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  Speaker 2: you know, it's a cliche to say that its capabilities
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  Speaker 2: are improving dramatically every day. So robotic probes, artificial intelligence,
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  Speaker 2: machine learning will be able to do amazing things. But really,
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  Speaker 2: you're in the domain of the unexpected. You really will
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  Speaker 2: benefit by having human eyes there to deal with things
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  Speaker 2: that you just didn't think about before you designed the mission.
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  Speaker 2: But these are technical and scientific things. There are other
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  Speaker 2: reasons to send humans into space. And one of the
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  Speaker 2: best single things that I've heard– it's not my own idea.
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  Speaker 2: It comes from an MIT report from some years ago.
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  Speaker 2: It says– Sending people into space expands the human experience. Boy,
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  Speaker 2: can you imagine having people on Mars? That is just
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  Speaker 2: going to open our eyes to just what we are
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  Speaker 2: capable of doing.
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  Speaker 1: You just instantly just gave me my childhood back because
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  Speaker 1: it's not just up there that we would be expanding.
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  Speaker 1: When I was a kid, I would tip over the
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  Speaker 1: doghouse and that doghouse was my spaceship to get to Mars.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, we, we are thinking about it. You can
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  Speaker 1: see it in kids' eyes today. We all want to
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  Speaker 1: get there. We just have to use our imaginations and
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  Speaker 1: then build it. Yep.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely true. So I think it was, it may have
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  Speaker 2: been Norm Augustine who said that, uh, two things that
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  Speaker 2: really fascinate kids dinosaurs in space and i haven't seen
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  Speaker 2: too many dinosaurs lately.
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  Speaker 1: The name of the book are you ready for mars
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  Speaker 1: i am but are you let's find out more from
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  Speaker 1: mark shellhammer coming up next wouldn't it be great if
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  Speaker 1: we really did see somebody on mars during our days
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  Speaker 1: on this planet We are back with Mark Shellhammer. You
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  Speaker 1: bring up a huge word here, and a lot of
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  Speaker 1: people don't understand this, and I don't understand why they're
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  Speaker 1: not getting a grip on it. Psychological. That is a
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  Speaker 1: big word that you're putting a lot of studies in.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's be clear. I don't do a lot
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  Speaker 2: of the psychological studies myself. We try to include some
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  Speaker 2: of the components, psychological stress of various kinds, into other
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  Speaker 2: studies that we do. And that alone is somewhat new.
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  Speaker 2: But yeah, make no mistake, the psychological aspects of a
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  Speaker 2: space flight, like going to Mars, are going to be, well,
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  Speaker 2: we don't know because we don't have evidence from that
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  Speaker 2: exact situation, but likely to be very challenging. Just one,
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  Speaker 2: I remember that, well, sometimes when I say in my talks,
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  Speaker 2: If I'm in a conference room or a small room,
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  Speaker 2: I say, you know, look around the room and pick
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  Speaker 2: three of your favorite people here in the room and
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  Speaker 2: everybody else leaves. Lock the doors. Nobody gets in or
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  Speaker 2: out for three years. That's just one of the one
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  Speaker 2: of the potential psychological burdens. But also, you're going to
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  Speaker 2: be so far away from Earth. So something called the
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  Speaker 2: Earth out of view effect. It's theoretical now because we
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  Speaker 2: haven't done it. But Earth is going to not look
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  Speaker 2: like the pale blue dot, not like the blue marble.
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  Speaker 2: It's just going to look like one other object in
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  Speaker 2: the sky. Oh, my God. And there are pictures of this, right,
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  Speaker 2: from Mars. And what will be the? the logical consequences
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  Speaker 2: of just looking up there and saying, geez, that really
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  Speaker 2: is far away. We are really on our own.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I'm so glad that you brought that up, because
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  Speaker 1: one of the things that I wanted to talk about
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  Speaker 1: was the delayed communication. I had no clue that this
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  Speaker 1: even existed until I picked up your book, because I
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  Speaker 1: just figured, ah, we got AT & T. We'll have
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  Speaker 1: a clear signal all the way up to Mars.
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  Speaker 2: Right. Well, the signal may be clear, but it's going
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  Speaker 2: to be late. Wow. Right. Finite speed of light, electromagnetic radiation.
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  Speaker 2: So the one way distance, one way time lag at
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  Speaker 2: Mars could be up to 22 minutes. So your urgency
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  Speaker 2: and you call for help. Forty four minutes later, the
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  Speaker 2: answer comes back. And if it's an answer you don't like.
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  Speaker 2: or you phrased the question poorly, you know, the crew
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  Speaker 2: has to be, we have to build in autonomy for
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  Speaker 2: these crews. They need to be able to deal with
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  Speaker 2: the unexpected in place without waiting for an answer from home.
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  Speaker 2: That's a change in mindset and a change in capabilities.
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  Speaker 2: And that's assuming that Earth and Mars are not on
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  Speaker 2: opposite sides of the sun at the time, in which
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  Speaker 2: case you're not talking to each other at all. Mm-hmm.
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  Speaker 1: So I got to bring this up, and I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to be the wacky one, only because I really did
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  Speaker 1: like the Matt Damon Mars movie because I felt like
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  Speaker 1: it was the most authentic I've ever seen. But somebody
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  Speaker 1: who has lived it, was it the authentic? Because I
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  Speaker 1: want to go back and study it, but at the
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  Speaker 1: same time, I want to have your book in my
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  Speaker 1: hand calling it out. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So I loved that movie, read the book, too. Authentic.
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  Speaker 2: Hard to say if it's authentic because we haven't sent
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  Speaker 2: people to Mars. And I can't speak to the agricultural part.
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  Speaker 2: I had a lot of potatoes involved there. So I
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  Speaker 2: wouldn't want to verify that aspect. But I'll tell you
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  Speaker 2: one thing that does ring true from what I have
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  Speaker 2: seen in history and my own explorations. When you send
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  Speaker 2: people into space, not just people, space missions in general,
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  Speaker 2: it's just, it's one thing after another, as somebody said
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  Speaker 2: about history, right? So things go wrong, and the unexpected
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  Speaker 2: goes wrong, and that's what that movie was all about.
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes he had to struggle with systems that were designed
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  Speaker 2: to do one thing. Well, you know, guess what? They're
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  Speaker 2: not going to do that thing anymore. We have to,
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  Speaker 2: and Apollo 13 was the same idea. The resilience to
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  Speaker 2: be able to make up new solutions on the spot,
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  Speaker 2: that was incredible. Now, one thing that I thought was
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  Speaker 2: lacking in some veracity was when the crew found out
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  Speaker 2: that good old Matt was stranded somewhere, on Mars, and
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  Speaker 2: they told the rest of his crew, well, you guys
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  Speaker 2: have been in space for an awful long time, but geez,
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  Speaker 2: you have the chance now to extend your mission for whatever,
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  Speaker 2: X number of years. Are you ready to go? Of course,
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  Speaker 2: a crew would say yes, but the fact that they
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  Speaker 2: said yes without any hesitation, boy, that would be a
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  Speaker 2: little bit hard to believe. Because, you know, that's a
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  Speaker 2: demanding mission, and when you have it in your mind
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  Speaker 2: that It's time to go home, and we are on
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  Speaker 2: our way home, and we're going home, and home is
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  Speaker 2: just a month away, a week away, a day away.
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  Speaker 2: And you say, no, guess what? It's three years away.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
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  Speaker 2: Boy, that's a psychological burden that I just could not comprehend.
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  Speaker 2: So the idea that people would just say, oh, yeah, sure,
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  Speaker 2: that's no problem. I don't know if that's realistic.
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  Speaker 1: Where can people go to find out more about everything
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  Speaker 1: that you're doing? Because I want them to be able
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  Speaker 1: to grow with you when it comes to this subject
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  Speaker 1: of Mars, that it's not the fantasy journey that we think.
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  Speaker 1: And that's what I love about your book. It's very
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  Speaker 1: real to me, and I cherish that.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you. We tried to convey that, right, the hope
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  Speaker 2: and optimism, because we can do this. But there's still
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  Speaker 2: a lot we need to know. And we can do that, too.
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  Speaker 2: We can learn these things. There are people studying it.
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  Speaker 2: One thing, you can go to my website, my official,
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  Speaker 2: formal Hopkins website, which is www.jhuhsl, which is Johns Hopkins
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  Speaker 2: University Human Space Flight Lab,. space. And you'll find some
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  Speaker 2: things there and links to other things. NASA has a
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  Speaker 2: tremendous website. NASA is very... very transparent about the things
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  Speaker 2: that they do. So you can see that the way
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  Speaker 2: that they look at these problems of human face and
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  Speaker 2: how they prioritize them. And interesting things like how the
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  Speaker 2: priorities of different biomedical, psychological, medical, logical issues, how they
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  Speaker 2: change depending on what's called the design reference mission. Are
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  Speaker 2: you going to land on Mars? Are you going to
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  Speaker 2: orbit Mars? Are you going to do this? Are you
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  Speaker 2: going to do that? And you can see how things change,
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  Speaker 2: the relative importance of various things changes, which just gives
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  Speaker 2: you some insight that, boy, these are really demanding, challenging
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  Speaker 2: things we're trying to do. And they depend on the circumstances.
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  Speaker 1: You got to come back to this show any time
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  Speaker 1: in the future. You really have my attention, dude. Man,
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  Speaker 1: please come back any time.
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  Speaker 2: You know where to find me i am ready i
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  Speaker 2: will not be on mars for foreseeable future so i'm
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  Speaker 2: not your.
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  Speaker 1: Disposal will you be brilliant today okay
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  Speaker 2: Sir i'll do my best