Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / How can we bring rocks back from Mars?

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How can we bring rocks back from Mars? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:08
Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, have you been ordering stuff online a lot lately. Yeah,
0:12
Speaker 1: you know, like everyone, I've been clicking on websites rather
0:16
Speaker 1: than visiting stores. Yeah, you don't need a mass when
0:18
Speaker 1: you click. I guess it is pretty amazing how inexpensive
0:21
Speaker 1: it is these days to get stuff sent to your
0:23
Speaker 1: house from around the world. Even if it comes from
0:25
Speaker 1: the other side of the planet. It can just be
0:28
Speaker 1: like a few cents per gram to ship it to
0:31
Speaker 1: your house. Yeah, you know, I wonder when we can
0:33
Speaker 1: start ordering stuff from even further away. I've been trying
0:37
Speaker 1: to order some moon rocks. I wonder how much is
0:39
Speaker 1: the shipping on those things. Well, I heard NASA spent
0:42
Speaker 1: about three hundred thousand dollars per gram to get some
0:46
Speaker 1: moon rocks. But you know, I think it's cheaper if
0:48
Speaker 1: you have prime. You know, Jeff Bezos is starting his
0:51
Speaker 1: own rocket company, so he's probably gonna link that up
0:55
Speaker 1: and make it super cheap. Yeah. Why visit other planets
0:57
Speaker 1: when you can just order a little bit of him online? Hi,
1:15
Speaker 1: am or Hey, I'm a cartoonist and the creator of
1:17
Speaker 1: PhD Comics. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and I
1:22
Speaker 1: would love to have a little bit of Jupiter delivered
1:24
Speaker 1: to my house. Really, isn't Jupiter mostly gas? So you
1:29
Speaker 1: just wanted like a canister or just to like release
1:31
Speaker 1: it in your home, to know that you breathe it
1:33
Speaker 1: in a little bit of Jupiter. Well, you know, Jupiter
1:35
Speaker 1: is mostly gas, but some of that gas is in
1:37
Speaker 1: a really weird state, like metallic hydrogen. And that makes
1:41
Speaker 1: me really curious. I really want to see what metallic
1:43
Speaker 1: hydrogen looks like. It doesn't need to be like super
1:46
Speaker 1: under pressure. Hey, these are all engineering details. I just
1:49
Speaker 1: want the metallic hydrogen or to my house. I'm just
1:52
Speaker 1: clicking and waiting. I want a little bit of that
1:54
Speaker 1: gas from the red eye of Jupiter, like it is
1:58
Speaker 1: the gas. Also read what's going on there? I think
2:01
Speaker 1: we did a whole podcast episode on that one, like
2:03
Speaker 1: I should listen to it. But welcome to said podcast.
2:06
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of I
2:09
Speaker 1: Heart Radio in which we let you stay at home
2:11
Speaker 1: and order in information about the whole universe delivered to
2:15
Speaker 1: your ears without any effort on your part. We talk
2:18
Speaker 1: about things in the universe that are super far away.
2:21
Speaker 1: We talked about the tiny particles that are swimming inside
2:25
Speaker 1: your body. We talk about everything and anything, and we
2:28
Speaker 1: try to explain all of it to you. That's right.
2:30
Speaker 1: We try to bring the universe and the cosmos and
2:33
Speaker 1: everything in between to your brain free of charge, because
2:38
Speaker 1: wondering belongs to everybody, and the questions that you have
2:41
Speaker 1: about space and physics and the universe are the questions
2:44
Speaker 1: that everybody has, and the same questions that scientists want
2:48
Speaker 1: answers to, because we're all still learning about the universe,
2:51
Speaker 1: and part of that learning is exploring, is going out
2:54
Speaker 1: into the cosmos, into other planets, into the stars, and
2:58
Speaker 1: figuring out what's going on and what is there for
3:01
Speaker 1: us to discover. And sometimes it's so depressing to think
3:04
Speaker 1: that we've explored such a tiny little fraction of our universe.
3:09
Speaker 1: You know, we've barely gotten off this planet to explore
3:12
Speaker 1: the Moon, to land a few rovers on Mars. It's incredible,
3:16
Speaker 1: what a tiny little dot of the universe we have
3:18
Speaker 1: been able to explore so far. But what a dot
3:20
Speaker 1: it is. It's a pretty cool dot, and we're lucky
3:24
Speaker 1: that there is something to explore. I mean, right in
3:26
Speaker 1: our neighborhood, right next door, there's an amazing planet, Mars,
3:31
Speaker 1: that really has a lot of tantalizing and fascinating scientific question. Yeah,
3:35
Speaker 1: Mars is awesome, and so we'd like to know a
3:38
Speaker 1: little bit more about what is there on Mars. I
3:41
Speaker 1: mean we can see it, but so far we haven't
3:43
Speaker 1: been able to really, I don't know, study it up close.
3:46
Speaker 1: It's pretty hard because it's so far away. And all
3:48
Speaker 1: we've been able to do so far is send our
3:51
Speaker 1: robots there and have them do science. But that's sort
3:54
Speaker 1: of like trying to do science with a ten foot
3:56
Speaker 1: poll or a ten million mile long pole, and that's
4:00
Speaker 1: not easy to do. That's kind of a philosophical question,
4:03
Speaker 1: isn't it, Daniel, Like if you send a robot out
4:06
Speaker 1: to explore something, have you explored it technically? Like if
4:09
Speaker 1: the robot touches Mars, did you touch Mars? That humans
4:13
Speaker 1: touch Mars? Yeah, I mean if you have a robotic hand,
4:15
Speaker 1: you consider it part of yourself. If you touch something
4:18
Speaker 1: with that hand, then it's part of you. And so
4:20
Speaker 1: this is just like a spatially disconnected prosthetic, right, think
4:25
Speaker 1: about the rovers as part of your body. Then. Yeah, philosophically,
4:28
Speaker 1: I've been on Mars. I wonder if the Mars were
4:30
Speaker 1: over would disagree. When he gets to the point that
4:34
Speaker 1: it can disagree, it's no longer part of your body.
4:37
Speaker 1: It has its own Twitter account. Do you know that
4:39
Speaker 1: the Mars rover has its own Twitter account? It has
4:41
Speaker 1: more followers than I do. Yeah, but did get off
4:44
Speaker 1: its couch, Daniel, And actually, you know went somewhere. It
4:48
Speaker 1: has accomplished more in its life than I ever will.
4:50
Speaker 1: That's true. But yeah, we'd love to know more about
4:52
Speaker 1: Mars and whether or not it had life on it,
4:55
Speaker 1: like bacteria or who knows what else we could discover
4:58
Speaker 1: that Mars had, but it's really hard to do it
5:00
Speaker 1: from here, and even to do it through robots. It
5:03
Speaker 1: is challenging, and it's amazing to me how open this
5:06
Speaker 1: question remains. You know, through history we thought, oh, maybe
5:09
Speaker 1: Mars has life on it. Then we took a closer look,
5:11
Speaker 1: where like, actually it looks pretty dry. They're like, wait, no,
5:14
Speaker 1: there is water on there. Maybe there are microbes, and
5:17
Speaker 1: so keep going up and down, and it's fascinating to
5:19
Speaker 1: me that this planet, this one that the closest to us.
5:22
Speaker 1: We still don't know the answer. If there is life
5:25
Speaker 1: on Mars, is it's similar to Earth? Did it come
5:27
Speaker 1: to Earth from Mars, or to Mars from Earth, or
5:30
Speaker 1: to both planets from somewhere else. It's an incredibly important question,
5:34
Speaker 1: and it's right there, it's so accessible. Yeah, that's a
5:38
Speaker 1: huge question, right, But they're not Life on Earth actually
5:41
Speaker 1: started on Mars. Because it's possible that there was life
5:44
Speaker 1: on Mars and then got knocked off on an asteroid
5:47
Speaker 1: and then flew here and landed on Earth, and that's
5:50
Speaker 1: how life started Earth. That's a theory, right, That is
5:53
Speaker 1: a theory, and it's not just the plot of a
5:55
Speaker 1: science fiction novel. It's potentially actually plausible, and it's a
5:59
Speaker 1: kind of question that we could answer if we had
6:02
Speaker 1: deeper access to rocks on Mars. Right, we could all
6:05
Speaker 1: be Martians. Martians could all be Earthlings. Who knows, we
6:09
Speaker 1: could all be Jovians. Yeah, but it'd be great to
6:12
Speaker 1: answer that question. And I think the only way we're
6:13
Speaker 1: going to answer that question is to actually go there
6:16
Speaker 1: and take a close look at the rocks and the
6:19
Speaker 1: soil and to like actually like take a super microscope
6:22
Speaker 1: to it and see if we see any little critters
6:24
Speaker 1: in there. That's right, But sending scientists to Mars is
6:27
Speaker 1: unfortunately still many many years away, decades probably if ever.
6:32
Speaker 1: It's really hard, but we've done it with some things
6:35
Speaker 1: in space, like for example, we've gone to the Moon
6:37
Speaker 1: and gone and rock from the Moon and brought them
6:40
Speaker 1: back to Earth. I think you can order them online, right,
6:42
Speaker 1: I don't think you can order them online. No, you can. Can.
6:46
Speaker 1: You get on eBay and like a bid on a
6:48
Speaker 1: piece of moon rock. I think anything you buy on
6:50
Speaker 1: eBay is not going to be actually moon rocks, so
6:53
Speaker 1: please don't waste your money. But we did actually bring
6:57
Speaker 1: rocks back from the Moon, and those rocks have been
7:00
Speaker 1: an incredible treasure trove of science. Were like still thinking
7:03
Speaker 1: of new things to do to those rocks, to learn things,
7:07
Speaker 1: to figure out answers to new questions about the science
7:10
Speaker 1: of the Moon. So it's incredibly valuable to have here
7:13
Speaker 1: in our Earth laboratories a sample from the Moon or
7:17
Speaker 1: from somewhere else. Yeah. I have actually held in moon rock.
7:21
Speaker 1: I was at JPO of visiting ones and they let
7:23
Speaker 1: me hold a little bit of moon dust, And did
7:25
Speaker 1: you feel transported? I accidentally breedd them in and sneeze
7:30
Speaker 1: had to go in there for a second. That sounds
7:34
Speaker 1: like the opening scene of a terrible science fiction novel.
7:38
Speaker 1: Or he gets infected by a Moon based pathoge and
7:40
Speaker 1: that's why I have superpowers. You gained the Moon's proportional
7:45
Speaker 1: strength again, the ambility to moon people. You cause tides. Right,
7:49
Speaker 1: you'd be a some sort of lunar superhuman. That's right.
7:51
Speaker 1: I'm like the villain in the next Appman movie. That's right,
7:55
Speaker 1: You're like the DC version of Magneto. Right, you insulted
7:59
Speaker 1: me twice over there. You just confuse the DC character
8:02
Speaker 1: with the Marvel character. No, I'm trying to bring one
8:05
Speaker 1: from the other, right, Like Magneto controls medals, and so
8:08
Speaker 1: lunar Jorge controls tides right in the DC universe. But anyways,
8:13
Speaker 1: so the question is, can we just go to Mars,
8:15
Speaker 1: pick up some rocks and bring them back and then
8:17
Speaker 1: study them, and then we would know if life potentially
8:20
Speaker 1: came from another planet. That would be incredible. And so
8:22
Speaker 1: to be on the program, we'll be asking the question,
8:29
Speaker 1: can we bring rocks back from Mars? Or more optimistically,
8:34
Speaker 1: how can we bring rocks back from Mars? Oh, so
8:38
Speaker 1: you're feeling good. You feel like it's not an if question,
8:40
Speaker 1: it's not a physics question, right, there's nothing in physics
8:43
Speaker 1: that prevents us from moving rocks from Mars to Earth.
8:46
Speaker 1: It's definitely an engineering question, and as you'll hear, it's
8:49
Speaker 1: a tricky one. So, as usually, we were wondering how
8:52
Speaker 1: many people out there had thought about this question or
8:55
Speaker 1: wonder whether or not it's possible to bring something back
8:58
Speaker 1: from Mars. So Daniel and out there into the wilds
9:01
Speaker 1: of the Internet to ask people how can we retrieve
9:04
Speaker 1: rocks from Mars to study them on Earth. So these
9:07
Speaker 1: are the answers I got from random folks on the
9:10
Speaker 1: Internet who were willing to speculate baselessly without any googling
9:14
Speaker 1: about the questions. I asked them, if you'd like to
9:17
Speaker 1: participate and hear your voice on the podcast at some
9:19
Speaker 1: point in the future, please write to us two questions
9:22
Speaker 1: at Daniel and Jorge dot com. Here's what people had
9:25
Speaker 1: to say. I think that we should send a rocket
9:27
Speaker 1: to Mars, and then maybe the Mars wherever the acrono
9:30
Speaker 1: Mars should take the rock samples and put them inside
9:34
Speaker 1: the rocket, and then we could somehow program the rocket
9:37
Speaker 1: to fly back on its own. Perseverance is on his
9:40
Speaker 1: way there right now, and hopefully the next generation of
9:42
Speaker 1: Perseverances will be able to bring them back to study.
9:45
Speaker 1: I thought that that was part of the upcoming Mars mission,
9:50
Speaker 1: or maybe for the next mission to have some sort
9:53
Speaker 1: of return capsule. It's really difficult to get things back
9:57
Speaker 1: from Mars, so I imagine that probably have to send
10:01
Speaker 1: some sort of probe there that would then have to
10:03
Speaker 1: do a lot of the analysis they're on Mars. I
10:07
Speaker 1: think the new Perseverance wherever you can actually collect unstored
10:10
Speaker 1: Mars rocks for a future mission to achieve and bring
10:13
Speaker 1: back to Earth. I'm envisioning maybe we send something to
10:16
Speaker 1: like enter into Mars's orbit that can maybe send down
10:19
Speaker 1: an explosive heads the surface, sends out a bunch of particulates.
10:24
Speaker 1: The probe gathers these particulates and then breaks out of
10:28
Speaker 1: the orbit goes back to Earth. We can gather samples
10:31
Speaker 1: from Mars for study on Earth, kind of how we
10:34
Speaker 1: went to the Moon, except all robotically right, and instead
10:38
Speaker 1: of a lamb, we have a mam. Well, I know
10:40
Speaker 1: we already have a mission going there, and I believe
10:43
Speaker 1: what they're going to do is h do little core
10:45
Speaker 1: samples and then somehow package them and leave them for
10:49
Speaker 1: a recovery mission. Al Right, a lot of excitement about
10:52
Speaker 1: this idea. I feel, yeah, a lot of excitement. People
10:55
Speaker 1: are like, I don't know, but it sounds cool. Somebody
10:58
Speaker 1: out there is like, let's just nuke Mars, and I
11:00
Speaker 1: have the feeling they were just waiting for the opportunity.
11:04
Speaker 1: Is that a fellow physicist? I feel like that sounds
11:08
Speaker 1: like an efficient solution to a physicist. You don't think
11:11
Speaker 1: an engineer would be like, let's just shoot a string
11:13
Speaker 1: of nuclear weapons at this thing to guide it back
11:15
Speaker 1: to Earth. I think you mean a freshman engineer would
11:20
Speaker 1: be like, maybe there's a better way, that's right, and
11:22
Speaker 1: also would probably destroy the samples and pollute them with radiation,
11:26
Speaker 1: so it might undermine the very science that we're trying
11:29
Speaker 1: to do. Right, that's probably a huge part of it, right,
11:31
Speaker 1: like not contaminating. Oh yeah, that's a big deal. All right, Well,
11:35
Speaker 1: let's dig into this topic. Let's get some samples of
11:39
Speaker 1: it and retreat it and bring it to Earth. So Daniel,
11:41
Speaker 1: first of all, I guess talk about why we would
11:45
Speaker 1: want to get rocks from Mars. I mean, I know
11:47
Speaker 1: that it would be great to study them, but you know,
11:50
Speaker 1: why can't we just study them there. Well, we can
11:52
Speaker 1: do a lot of studying on the surface of Mars,
11:54
Speaker 1: and we have rovers that do that, but it's tricky.
11:57
Speaker 1: You want to do some science on a rover, you
12:00
Speaker 1: have to pick an instrument which can survive like launch
12:03
Speaker 1: and transit and landing on Mars, and then can get
12:08
Speaker 1: set up automatically without any like a grad students tinkering
12:11
Speaker 1: with it. You know, every cutting edge lab that I'm
12:14
Speaker 1: aware of here on Earth, the most powerful instruments are
12:17
Speaker 1: delicate instruments, and they require like experts tweaking them and
12:20
Speaker 1: massaging them to make them work and to calibrate them.
12:23
Speaker 1: So for something to work on a rover has to
12:25
Speaker 1: be really robust, and that really limits the kinds of
12:29
Speaker 1: signs that you can do. Yeah, I guess you need
12:30
Speaker 1: a lab. And it's tricky to handle these samples and
12:33
Speaker 1: to do the the signs, right, that's right. If you
12:36
Speaker 1: had your hands on Martian samples like right now, there's
12:39
Speaker 1: like a hundred things you would want to do to
12:41
Speaker 1: it right away, but only a few of those ever
12:44
Speaker 1: make it onto a rover, so you're really limited. And
12:47
Speaker 1: then you get the answers back, you're like, oh, look
12:49
Speaker 1: it has this weird thing in it. Now I want
12:50
Speaker 1: to check with my other funky instrument. But you can't
12:53
Speaker 1: do that kind of thing all in advance. When you
12:55
Speaker 1: send your rover over, you have to plan very far
12:58
Speaker 1: in advance exactly what you're gonna do to every sample.
13:00
Speaker 1: You can't respond to what you've learned with new ideas,
13:04
Speaker 1: whereas if you bring the rocks back, then you can
13:06
Speaker 1: keep coming up with new ideas. And also you have
13:09
Speaker 1: access to future instruments. Right, cool techniques we're going to
13:12
Speaker 1: develop in ten years or in twenty years that we
13:14
Speaker 1: haven't even thought of. Now we have the rocks here,
13:18
Speaker 1: rather than sending the machines there, then we can use
13:21
Speaker 1: new machines on old rocks, right, Because I guess it's
13:24
Speaker 1: you know, it's really hard to take stuff to Mars, right,
13:28
Speaker 1: I mean, like every gram cost like a million dollars
13:30
Speaker 1: or something, and these lab equipment machines are really big.
13:34
Speaker 1: Sometimes they are really big, and a lot of the
13:37
Speaker 1: engineering challenges of building a rover or how to miniaturize, right,
13:41
Speaker 1: how to make these things really small. It's got to
13:43
Speaker 1: be like the size of a shoe box and fit
13:45
Speaker 1: on the edge of a stick and be totally robust,
13:48
Speaker 1: Like you have to just be able to send it
13:50
Speaker 1: one command and it boots up and starts up. It's
13:52
Speaker 1: gonna have a little bit of AI in there to
13:54
Speaker 1: get itself going. Right. You can't just like crawl out
13:57
Speaker 1: there with your screw driver and fix it right once
13:59
Speaker 1: you send it, it's gone. You can't just call I
14:02
Speaker 1: T to fix it, and they'll say, have you tried
14:04
Speaker 1: turning it off and turning it on again? Did you
14:08
Speaker 1: update your Windows installation like I can. It's on Mars.
14:11
Speaker 1: I can't even turn it on enough. No, And you
14:14
Speaker 1: can't even like drive something on Mars. Remember these rovers
14:18
Speaker 1: operate semi autonomously because Mars is so far away that
14:23
Speaker 1: it takes light minutes to get there. So you can't
14:25
Speaker 1: have the kind of feedback loop you need to real
14:28
Speaker 1: time drive something on Mars. It's like you drive forward,
14:31
Speaker 1: you stop, you take a picture, you send it back
14:34
Speaker 1: to the folks in NASA. They figure out what to
14:36
Speaker 1: do next. And so having it be so far away
14:39
Speaker 1: makes it really limited. It has to survive a trip
14:41
Speaker 1: to Like launching from the Earth into space is not easy, right,
14:46
Speaker 1: Like there's huge forces and you know you're basically strapped
14:49
Speaker 1: onto a giant explosion. It has to survive that. And
14:52
Speaker 1: also the landing on Mars, which can be pretty tough,
14:54
Speaker 1: like sometimes they just fall into the ground and bounce around,
14:58
Speaker 1: and it has to survive that. That's the landing strategy.
15:01
Speaker 1: That's the design strategy, right. I mean, remember all those
15:04
Speaker 1: movies about astronaut training, Like they put those folks through
15:07
Speaker 1: some tough stuff. They spin around, they shake them a lot. Basically,
15:11
Speaker 1: take your most sensitive science instruments and put them through
15:14
Speaker 1: astronaut training to see if they have the right stuff.
15:17
Speaker 1: Most of the time, it's just gonna fall apart. Like
15:20
Speaker 1: you go into a random geology or microbiology lab here
15:23
Speaker 1: on Earth. Most of those instruments are very delicate. They
15:26
Speaker 1: don't let people in there poking and products. So you're right,
15:29
Speaker 1: surviving all the shaking and the landing and all that stuff.
15:32
Speaker 1: It's not easy. So this whole categories of instruments, nobody
15:35
Speaker 1: has figured out how to miniaturize and make robust enough
15:38
Speaker 1: to send to Mars. Okay, so it would be a
15:40
Speaker 1: lot better for science if we could bring some Mars
15:43
Speaker 1: rocks back so we can study them, and you know,
15:46
Speaker 1: you can do a whole bunch more tescent. You could
15:49
Speaker 1: on a robot in Mars, but it's really hard and
15:52
Speaker 1: apparently it can't just study meteors from Mars. Like that's
15:55
Speaker 1: another possibility, but it's not, as I guess. Fresh. Yeah,
15:58
Speaker 1: the amazing thing is that we actually already have Mars rocks, right,
16:02
Speaker 1: like what yeah, what you were talking about sort of
16:04
Speaker 1: as a joke, actually happens. Sometimes big rocks hit the
16:08
Speaker 1: surface of Mars right impact creators and stuff gets thrown
16:12
Speaker 1: out into space. You know, this can be really big
16:15
Speaker 1: impacts and some of those rocks get tossed out into
16:18
Speaker 1: space and eventually a small fraction of them hit the
16:21
Speaker 1: surface of the Earth and then are recovered. And how
16:23
Speaker 1: do we know they're from Mars? So they had like
16:25
Speaker 1: a maide in Mars tag or well they went through customs, right,
16:29
Speaker 1: and so we can tell they just look at the
16:31
Speaker 1: forms they I mean, can you tell, like does it
16:34
Speaker 1: have a special like queue of red or something? You
16:37
Speaker 1: can tell because of the geology, every object in the
16:40
Speaker 1: Solar System has a different history and a different composition
16:43
Speaker 1: and that tells you where it comes from. And so
16:45
Speaker 1: when you get a meteor from outer space, when you've
16:47
Speaker 1: got a chunk of space rock. First of all, you
16:50
Speaker 1: can tell it the space rock because of what it's
16:51
Speaker 1: made out of. It's made of stuff you don't find
16:54
Speaker 1: on Earth. And then you can tell roughly where it
16:56
Speaker 1: came from based on the details of what's in it.
16:59
Speaker 1: And so most of the rocks that land on Earth come,
17:01
Speaker 1: for example, from the asteroid Belt, and we can tell
17:03
Speaker 1: based on the blend of metals and also the organization
17:06
Speaker 1: of the metals in them that tells you something about
17:08
Speaker 1: its history, like when it was last melted and how
17:11
Speaker 1: long it's been frozen for. And some of these things
17:13
Speaker 1: have composition and geology that's only consistent with the surface
17:17
Speaker 1: of Mars. Interesting. So, yeah, we have like dozens of
17:20
Speaker 1: these objects that have landed on the Earth from Mars,
17:23
Speaker 1: which is fascinating and incredible and wonderful opportunities to do science.
17:27
Speaker 1: But it's not good enough, right, Yeah, you need like
17:30
Speaker 1: fresh rocks, Like those asteroids are kind of stale. They've
17:33
Speaker 1: been floating around face and who knows where they came from.
17:36
Speaker 1: It's not just that you need fresh rocks, it's that
17:39
Speaker 1: you need to know where they came from, Like it's
17:41
Speaker 1: just a random sample. You don't know where on Mars
17:43
Speaker 1: it came from, so you can't really like fit it
17:45
Speaker 1: into your science picture of what's going on on Mars.
17:48
Speaker 1: Which you'd like is to have a rover travel around
17:50
Speaker 1: and make judicious decisions and say, I'm gonna get a
17:52
Speaker 1: little bit of this kind of rock, and I see
17:54
Speaker 1: where it is. It's on the downflow of a slope.
17:57
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get that piece of rock over there, and
17:59
Speaker 1: I know the scientific context. It's sort of just like
18:02
Speaker 1: getting a piece of pottery and having no idea where
18:05
Speaker 1: it was dug up from. It's much less valuable scientifically.
18:09
Speaker 1: It's also kind of like when you go to a
18:10
Speaker 1: Las Vegas bouffet. You know you want judiciously pick a
18:12
Speaker 1: little bit from everything and know where you got it from,
18:14
Speaker 1: so you can go back and get the stuff you liked.
18:18
Speaker 1: That's right, and so you know what made you throw
18:20
Speaker 1: up and what you yeah, yeah, alright. So it sounds
18:26
Speaker 1: like it would be a lot better if we can
18:28
Speaker 1: get go to Mars, get some rocks, bring them back,
18:31
Speaker 1: and then study the heck out of him to answer
18:32
Speaker 1: these big questions about life in the Solar System and
18:35
Speaker 1: about Mars and the history of Mars. But it's a
18:38
Speaker 1: tough problem, and so let's talk about how we would
18:40
Speaker 1: actually do that and what has been and is being
18:43
Speaker 1: done to do it. But first let's take a quick break,
18:58
Speaker 1: all right, Daniel, we are souvenir shopping in the Solar System.
19:02
Speaker 1: We're trying to get some original, authentic rocks from Mars.
19:08
Speaker 1: But it's a tough problem because Mars is really far away,
19:11
Speaker 1: and you don't just have to get the rocks. You
19:12
Speaker 1: have to come back with them. You've got to come
19:14
Speaker 1: back with the rocks. Right, Like we've done the one
19:16
Speaker 1: way thing. We've sent something to Mars and it's dug
19:19
Speaker 1: up rocks and studied them, but they're still on the
19:22
Speaker 1: surface of Mars, and so now we need to do
19:25
Speaker 1: the second bit, the round trip, to come home and
19:28
Speaker 1: deliver them to scientists in a pristine condition, so that
19:31
Speaker 1: we can finally answer some of these incredible, longstanding science questions. Right,
19:35
Speaker 1: And I feel like the problem is it's not just double,
19:38
Speaker 1: it's like squared, because you know, it's hard enough to
19:41
Speaker 1: take off from a planet and land on another planet,
19:44
Speaker 1: but now you're gonna do it again, take off from
19:46
Speaker 1: there and land here. But it still has to be
19:49
Speaker 1: the same machine that you send out, like the same
19:51
Speaker 1: machine you send out has to do both of those things. Yeah,
19:54
Speaker 1: it's complicated, and it's not just squared as you're gonna hear.
19:57
Speaker 1: There's a lot of moving parts. It's more like to
19:59
Speaker 1: the ninth power or something. It's pretty ridiculous little dance
20:03
Speaker 1: of machines that we have to get working all together
20:05
Speaker 1: to get those rocks back from Mars. And you know
20:08
Speaker 1: what you just said, Nobody has ever done that before.
20:11
Speaker 1: We've never successfully launched a rocket from the surface of
20:15
Speaker 1: another planet. Right, Well, we've done it for the Moon,
20:17
Speaker 1: but the Moon is kind of easy to take off from.
20:19
Speaker 1: That's right. The Moon is pretty low gravity, and it's
20:21
Speaker 1: not a planet, and it's not remote, right, there's somebody
20:24
Speaker 1: in there driving that thing. So now we have to
20:27
Speaker 1: remotely launch from the service of another planet. I mean,
20:31
Speaker 1: that's hard enough to do from Earth. So yeah, it's
20:33
Speaker 1: a big challenge. Luckily you volunteered to go tomorrows right now.
20:36
Speaker 1: I volunteered to press the big red button. When the
20:38
Speaker 1: time comes, Oh yeah, first to take off, to take
20:42
Speaker 1: a button or the Abordan whatever. Man just put a
20:44
Speaker 1: big red button in front of me and I will
20:46
Speaker 1: hit it. That's my job. That's how these podcasts get started.
20:51
Speaker 1: You hit a big red button. Hey, you don't get
20:52
Speaker 1: to live your dream if you don't ask for it.
20:54
Speaker 1: So this is my official request to get invited to
20:57
Speaker 1: press the big red button NASA button pusher. All right,
21:01
Speaker 1: but you've actually tried before, Like, this is not a
21:03
Speaker 1: crazy idea that you and I just came up with
21:05
Speaker 1: here on the podcast. The US the Soviets have been
21:08
Speaker 1: trying to do this for really like fifty years. Yeah,
21:12
Speaker 1: and they've been trying and failing. But the failures have
21:15
Speaker 1: been political and financial. It's not like we've sent a
21:18
Speaker 1: mission that's attempted to do this and then not succeeded.
21:21
Speaker 1: The mission has been thought up and planned and organized
21:24
Speaker 1: and then canceled many times in the past. The Soviets
21:28
Speaker 1: thought about in the seventies, but they couldn't get their
21:30
Speaker 1: rockets to work. NASA had a plan in nineteen seventy
21:33
Speaker 1: nine that was canceled because it was too complicated. And
21:37
Speaker 1: then recently NASA and the European Space Agency had a
21:42
Speaker 1: plan that was in twenty twelve that people thought was
21:44
Speaker 1: going to happen, but then it was aborted again because
21:46
Speaker 1: it was too complicated and too expensive. This cancel culture
21:50
Speaker 1: is out of hand. Daniel, Yeah, and I think that
21:52
Speaker 1: especially was really traumatic for the sort of Mars science community.
21:56
Speaker 1: People really believed that that one was going to be
21:58
Speaker 1: the one. It was finally going to come to fruition.
22:01
Speaker 1: So when that was canceled it was a bit like
22:02
Speaker 1: the super Conducting super Collider was for particle physics. It
22:05
Speaker 1: left a bit of like PTSD on the community. There
22:08
Speaker 1: a little bit more cynicism than there was before. So
22:11
Speaker 1: it sounds like people get excited about it, they start
22:14
Speaker 1: the program, but then they realize it's too hard, so
22:16
Speaker 1: they cancel. It is that, and it's happened over and over.
22:20
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of a political problem though, because
22:22
Speaker 1: it's one of these projects that takes years or decades
22:25
Speaker 1: to pull off. So even if you're committed to spending
22:28
Speaker 1: a lot of money over many years, you need all
22:31
Speaker 1: the people who are in charge after you to stay
22:34
Speaker 1: committed to not have their priorities changed, and so it
22:37
Speaker 1: takes consistent support over many, many years for this kind
22:41
Speaker 1: of thing to actually happen. All right, So there was
22:43
Speaker 1: a big program at NASA that got canceled in twelve
22:47
Speaker 1: but now now it's sort of been revived. Right now,
22:49
Speaker 1: there is some activity at NASA to actually do this.
22:53
Speaker 1: That's right, it has been revived. There's a new plan,
22:56
Speaker 1: and it's a pretty reasonable plan in comparison with the
22:59
Speaker 1: other crazy plans, although I think you'll still find it
23:02
Speaker 1: fairly absurd and amazing. This is the level headed conservative
23:06
Speaker 1: This is the least ridiculous plan that we have going.
23:10
Speaker 1: So how they pitched it to to Congress. We have
23:12
Speaker 1: a new, less ridiculous plan. You guys are gonna love
23:15
Speaker 1: it now, less crazy. And the most exciting part is
23:19
Speaker 1: that the first part of it has already launched. Like
23:22
Speaker 1: the first element of this multi stage plan to bring
23:26
Speaker 1: rocks back from the service of Mars is already on
23:28
Speaker 1: its way to the red plan. Wait, what is this
23:33
Speaker 1: is already happening. It's already happening. They have a new
23:36
Speaker 1: clever strategy, which is they break it up into pieces
23:39
Speaker 1: and so they're easier to sell. And the first piece
23:42
Speaker 1: works no matter what, Like, the first piece is something
23:44
Speaker 1: you want to do, even if you're not going to
23:45
Speaker 1: bring the rocks back. Oh, I see they're cleverer now
23:49
Speaker 1: about the mission planning. Yeah, they're a little bit more cynical,
23:53
Speaker 1: I guess you could say, or more experienced. And so
23:55
Speaker 1: this first piece is a rover that launched on July's
23:58
Speaker 1: the Perseverance Rover here, and it's a this year, yeah,
24:02
Speaker 1: just a few weeks ago, and it's on the way
24:04
Speaker 1: to Mars now. And it's an awesome piece of technology.
24:07
Speaker 1: You may have heard about it. It's going to be
24:09
Speaker 1: the heaviest rover ever landed on Mars. It's going to
24:12
Speaker 1: have a little helicopter on the top of it that
24:15
Speaker 1: can fly up the first helicopter operate on the surface
24:18
Speaker 1: of Mars. That is so sci fi. Yeah, it's gonna
24:20
Speaker 1: be really cool. It's have a little laser on it.
24:22
Speaker 1: But most importantly, it's going to have a device that
24:25
Speaker 1: can drill into the surface of Mars and extract cores,
24:29
Speaker 1: which it can then store in a little sample container.
24:32
Speaker 1: I feel like now we're getting to really transform or territory,
24:36
Speaker 1: you know, like we're sending a box and then when
24:38
Speaker 1: the box lands, it's gonna transform into a drilling machine
24:42
Speaker 1: with lasers and a helicopter. That's right, it's Optimist Prime.
24:47
Speaker 1: That's what they should have called it. That's right. Forget
24:49
Speaker 1: Perseverance or something inspiring. Just go with optimist prime. Yeah,
24:52
Speaker 1: So this thing is going to have a year's long
24:54
Speaker 1: mission and it's going to drive around and it's going
24:57
Speaker 1: to collect like rock course from maybe thirty nine in
25:00
Speaker 1: different locations. And each one is pretty small, you know,
25:03
Speaker 1: they're like a centimeter wide and a few centimeters long.
25:06
Speaker 1: But that's gold for scientists down here. To have a
25:09
Speaker 1: few cubic centimeters of rock from several dozen locations around Mars,
25:14
Speaker 1: it's incredibly valuable. So it is a rover like the
25:17
Speaker 1: ones we've sent before, and it's going to run around
25:20
Speaker 1: and collect samples and then keep them keep them in
25:22
Speaker 1: like a box. So it's got its own science mission.
25:25
Speaker 1: It's a good idea anyway, even if mar sample return
25:28
Speaker 1: doesn't happen. But then it's going to collect these rocks
25:31
Speaker 1: and it's going to put them in a little sample
25:33
Speaker 1: container and then it's going to leave them on the
25:35
Speaker 1: surface of Mars for the next stage to come and retrieve.
25:38
Speaker 1: Wait what it's going to be littering. It's going to
25:42
Speaker 1: be preparing a gift for us. Man, it's not trash,
25:46
Speaker 1: but why not collect them? But it's gonna really leave
25:49
Speaker 1: them out where it would find them. Yeah, it's going
25:51
Speaker 1: to steal up in tubes and then it's going to
25:53
Speaker 1: leave it out where the next mission can come and
25:56
Speaker 1: collect it. But why not bring them all together so
25:58
Speaker 1: that it's easier to pick up. No, it's going to
26:00
Speaker 1: collect them all into one container. Oh, I see, and
26:02
Speaker 1: then leaves the container there, sees it all nice, and
26:06
Speaker 1: then the next stage is going to come and pick
26:08
Speaker 1: it up. And so if you're keeping track, there's three
26:10
Speaker 1: major stages to this mission. Stage one is perseverance. Go
26:14
Speaker 1: and create the samples, pack them up in the container,
26:17
Speaker 1: leave it on the surface. It's also going to study them,
26:20
Speaker 1: but also going to leave them there. Okay. The next
26:23
Speaker 1: stage is to get it off the surface of Mars,
26:26
Speaker 1: all right, And each of these is like a different mission.
26:29
Speaker 1: It's kind of I think that's when you're saying, like,
26:31
Speaker 1: don't put it all in one mission that could fail,
26:33
Speaker 1: but do one mission and if that one succeeds, then
26:35
Speaker 1: do the next mission, and that one succeeds to the
26:37
Speaker 1: next mission. Yes, So there's three separate launches from Earth,
26:41
Speaker 1: Like we're sending three different devices from Earth. They're all
26:45
Speaker 1: going to work together to make this happen. Three different transformers.
26:48
Speaker 1: The first one lands on the service and makes these samples.
26:51
Speaker 1: The next one is I think maybe the craziest, and
26:55
Speaker 1: it's the one that's going to land on the surface
26:56
Speaker 1: of Mars and then it's going to deploy a mini rover,
27:00
Speaker 1: like a little rover that just runs out, picks up
27:03
Speaker 1: the sample container, comes back, loads that into a rocket
27:09
Speaker 1: that it has landed on the surface of Mars, wraps
27:12
Speaker 1: out all up, and then launches from the surface of Mars,
27:16
Speaker 1: sends the sample container up into space. So on a
27:20
Speaker 1: rocket will be sending another rocket and a launching pad,
27:23
Speaker 1: and a launching pad and a little tiny retriever robot
27:26
Speaker 1: and a mini rover. Yeah, exactly. So the job of
27:29
Speaker 1: this thing is to land there, pick up the sample
27:32
Speaker 1: container and it has a robotic arm that will take
27:34
Speaker 1: it from the rover and put it into the rocket
27:37
Speaker 1: and then yeah, remote launch from the surface of another planet.
27:41
Speaker 1: Maybe the most valuable sample ever to be collected. This
27:45
Speaker 1: feels kind of comical to me, like, you know, like
27:48
Speaker 1: this giant machine lands, opens up up, there's another rocket
27:51
Speaker 1: in there. This little robot comes out, picks up something,
27:56
Speaker 1: runs back, sticks it in the rocket, and then just
27:59
Speaker 1: launches back somehow that it feels comedic, something like something
28:03
Speaker 1: out of a cartoon. It does seem a little Looney Tunes. Yeah,
28:06
Speaker 1: you're right, and if this thing works, it definitely needs
28:08
Speaker 1: that sort of like comedic music in the background to inspire.
28:11
Speaker 1: You know, it'll be pretty funny. But this is not
28:17
Speaker 1: set to go for another five years or so, So
28:20
Speaker 1: we're talking about launching this next bit in six So wait,
28:26
Speaker 1: so there must be working on it now, like it's
28:27
Speaker 1: being built right now. It's being built right now, So
28:31
Speaker 1: Perseverance will have years on the surface of Mars to
28:34
Speaker 1: collect these samples. And also we'll have an idea like
28:37
Speaker 1: how did that go right, how well are things going?
28:39
Speaker 1: We could change our plan based on where Perseverance is
28:42
Speaker 1: or how things go for Perseverance, or what it learns,
28:44
Speaker 1: or how the sample container looks um and so that's
28:48
Speaker 1: another part of it. You build in these delays so
28:50
Speaker 1: you can change your plans as things develop. So, yeah,
28:53
Speaker 1: they're working on that now and they will launch it
28:55
Speaker 1: in and the ideas they would arrive on the surface
28:59
Speaker 1: of Mars in twenty twenty eight. Remember it's a two
29:01
Speaker 1: year trip, and then grab it and launch it out
29:04
Speaker 1: into space. But it only has the power to get
29:07
Speaker 1: it into orbit around Mars. It can't bring all the
29:10
Speaker 1: way back to Earth. Oh, that's still just phase two.
29:13
Speaker 1: That's just phase two, right, The actual looney Tunes crazy
29:17
Speaker 1: comedic value comes in the next day. All right, let's say,
29:20
Speaker 1: let's phase three. So phase three as we launch a
29:23
Speaker 1: third rocket from Earth and this one at the same
29:26
Speaker 1: time as we're launching the second one, but this one
29:29
Speaker 1: just stays in orbit around Mars. This is called the
29:32
Speaker 1: Earth return orbiter. So this one is a concurrent, like
29:35
Speaker 1: we're not gonna wait for the second one to finish.
29:37
Speaker 1: We're gonna send two and three. It's like filming the
29:39
Speaker 1: sequels at the same time. Yeah, exactly. So the third
29:43
Speaker 1: one hangs at in orbit and it helps communicate and
29:45
Speaker 1: do a bunch of stuff. And then it's most important
29:48
Speaker 1: job is to catch the sample container. Because the surface
29:53
Speaker 1: rocket is going to launch from the surface of Mars
29:56
Speaker 1: and get out near orbit. Right, it can't go all
29:59
Speaker 1: the way out actually out into space, and the one
30:01
Speaker 1: that's in orbit has to lower itself down to lower orbit.
30:05
Speaker 1: And then they're going to pass the sample container from
30:08
Speaker 1: one rocket to the orbiter. Robots are going to do this.
30:11
Speaker 1: Robots are going to do this in space, you know,
30:16
Speaker 1: Sending Daniel is starting to seem a lot easier, I know.
30:20
Speaker 1: And the sample container it has no like radio beacon,
30:23
Speaker 1: has no tracker on it has no transmitter, has no thrusters,
30:27
Speaker 1: is just an inert white ball and the orbiter just
30:30
Speaker 1: has to catch it. Doesn't have like a GPS on
30:33
Speaker 1: it even or it's just white. They're like, let's make
30:37
Speaker 1: it white then you can see it in space. Right. Wow,
30:41
Speaker 1: that is audacious to say the least. But I guess
30:44
Speaker 1: my question is why can't the rocket just go straight
30:46
Speaker 1: into orbit? You can't put in a fuel on it
30:49
Speaker 1: or something or what. That definitely takes a lot more
30:51
Speaker 1: power to get all the way into orbit. And so yeah,
30:54
Speaker 1: I mean you have to launch this thing from Earth
30:55
Speaker 1: and then send it to Mars. And so there's a
30:58
Speaker 1: lot of risks and costs here that they're trying to balance.
31:00
Speaker 1: And this was what they decided was the least crazy plan.
31:05
Speaker 1: I guess it would be a lot to like land
31:08
Speaker 1: a rocket that can make it all the way back
31:10
Speaker 1: to Earth. I guess this is smartyr to like, you know,
31:13
Speaker 1: make this rocket smaller and then save the spaceship part
31:17
Speaker 1: of it for another phase. Yeah, and now the part
31:20
Speaker 1: the orbiter only ever has to live in space. It
31:22
Speaker 1: doesn't have to go down to the surface. So you
31:24
Speaker 1: have one thing that's dedicated to going down to the surface,
31:27
Speaker 1: it's good at that, and another thing that's dedicated at
31:29
Speaker 1: orbiting Mars, catching this soccer ball with the most valuable
31:33
Speaker 1: cargo humans have ever created, and then flying on its
31:37
Speaker 1: own all the way back to Earth. It sounds like,
31:39
Speaker 1: you know, kind of like a whole bunch of robots
31:41
Speaker 1: that together make one big robot. Yeah, it's a bit
31:44
Speaker 1: of a Rube Goldberg machine. Right. They should have called
31:46
Speaker 1: this the Rube Goldberg Mars Mission. It's pretty hilarious. All right. Well,
31:50
Speaker 1: let's get into what happens next phase three, but first
31:55
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. All right, Daniel, we are
32:10
Speaker 1: talking about transformers in Mars and robots that we're gonna
32:15
Speaker 1: send there and work together on their own to land
32:18
Speaker 1: on Mars, get some rocks, shoot them back up into space,
32:22
Speaker 1: hand it off, and then bring it back. So that's
32:24
Speaker 1: phase three, is bringing the samples from Mars. Fact, that's right,
32:28
Speaker 1: that's phase three. So it has to catch this soccer
32:31
Speaker 1: ball in orbit around Mars. Right, it like opens a
32:35
Speaker 1: door on the side of the ship and the ball
32:36
Speaker 1: just like drifts in because remember the ball is not powered,
32:40
Speaker 1: so it just has to like match it in orbital
32:42
Speaker 1: speed and get in front of it and then slow
32:44
Speaker 1: down a little bit and just sort of like mate
32:46
Speaker 1: with this thing. Yeah, it's gonna catch it. It's gonna
32:50
Speaker 1: catch it, and it has to then keep it somehow sterile.
32:54
Speaker 1: It can't like let the sample contain or anything that
32:57
Speaker 1: was on it infect the rest of the ship. Oh
33:00
Speaker 1: I see. It had to catch it and isolated, catch
33:03
Speaker 1: it and isolated fly it all the way back to Earth. Right,
33:07
Speaker 1: that's not that big a deal. You just had sort
33:09
Speaker 1: of point in the right direction and have enough power left.
33:11
Speaker 1: And then it has to drop it off on Earth. Wow,
33:15
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna drop it off or it's gonna land.
33:16
Speaker 1: It's not gonna land here on Earth. It's just going
33:18
Speaker 1: to drop it off, and the sample container is essentially
33:21
Speaker 1: just gonna fall to the surface. They were like, should
33:24
Speaker 1: we add parachutes or something to slow it down? But
33:27
Speaker 1: that seemed too complicated. They're like, no, can't you just
33:31
Speaker 1: call like uber to pick it up or build a
33:35
Speaker 1: huge catcher's mit or something. Well, why not build another
33:38
Speaker 1: robot to go up there and catch it? Why not? Well,
33:41
Speaker 1: they thought this was simplest, and you know, they already
33:43
Speaker 1: used up their quota of crazy robots on this mission.
33:46
Speaker 1: So they're just gonna toss it into what the ocean. No,
33:48
Speaker 1: it's gonna land on the surface and land around ninety
33:51
Speaker 1: miles per hour on the surface, and it's not going
33:54
Speaker 1: to explode or vaporize. It's not going to vaporize that.
33:57
Speaker 1: It should be able to survive that. And you know,
33:59
Speaker 1: the samples themselves shouldn't be that delicate, right, It's not
34:02
Speaker 1: like they're glass containers or you know, anything that's gonna break.
34:06
Speaker 1: It's just rocks were bringing back. I thought they were
34:08
Speaker 1: going to be on like, you know, test tubes, but
34:10
Speaker 1: I guess you want something would have been more sturdy. Yeah,
34:14
Speaker 1: But the question is like can we keep it safe
34:16
Speaker 1: and contained? We're basically shipping a chunk of mars onto
34:20
Speaker 1: the surface of the Earth, and we want to isolate
34:23
Speaker 1: it so that we can study it for well a
34:24
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. One is like who knows what's in
34:27
Speaker 1: that thing? And if there really is like weird life
34:29
Speaker 1: on Mars. The last thing we want to do is
34:31
Speaker 1: like eradicate all life on Earth because we imported some pathogen.
34:35
Speaker 1: Didn't wrap it into plastic bag. First, I've seen that movie.
34:39
Speaker 1: It's pretty good unless you're living it. But the other
34:41
Speaker 1: thing is we want to keep it sterile so that
34:43
Speaker 1: if we do, like find weird bugs in it that
34:45
Speaker 1: are similar to bugs on Earth, we want to know
34:48
Speaker 1: they came from Mars and not from like the Utah
34:50
Speaker 1: Desert where it landed. Wow. Well, this seems like a
34:52
Speaker 1: super audacious and amazing and incredible plan. And Daniel, you
34:57
Speaker 1: actually got to talk to somebody who works on this
35:00
Speaker 1: so ready from NASA. Yeah, there's incredible excitement in the
35:02
Speaker 1: community for this project. People are hoping beyond hope that
35:06
Speaker 1: they'll get that get their hands on some of these rocks.
35:09
Speaker 1: So I reached out to Dr Nina Lanza. She's a
35:12
Speaker 1: Mars rover instrument scientist. She built some of the things
35:15
Speaker 1: that are going on Perseverance right now, and I asked
35:18
Speaker 1: her a bunch of fun questions about this project. Yeah,
35:21
Speaker 1: it's a great interview, so we'll play that for you
35:24
Speaker 1: right now. So here's Daniel talking to Dr Nina Lanzon
35:27
Speaker 1: Mars Rover instrument scientist. So it's my pleasure to be
35:31
Speaker 1: talking to Dr Nina Lanza Um. Would you introduce yourself
35:35
Speaker 1: for our listeners. Sure, I'm Nina lanza I work at
35:39
Speaker 1: Los Alamos National Laboratory and I'm a planetary scientist. Awesome,
35:43
Speaker 1: And so our question today are mostly about getting your
35:46
Speaker 1: hands on samples from Mars or the signs you can
35:49
Speaker 1: do with stuff on Mars. So my first question has
35:53
Speaker 1: to do with the rovers that we have over there
35:55
Speaker 1: and that we're sending over there. What do you think
35:57
Speaker 1: of the most important scientific stens that those instruments on
36:01
Speaker 1: the rovers are asking? Well, it's important to remember that
36:05
Speaker 1: each of these missions had a different goal and they
36:09
Speaker 1: would they build on each other. Right, So, when we
36:12
Speaker 1: first started sending rovers to Mars um and and even Landers,
36:15
Speaker 1: you know, we didn't know a lot. We know a
36:17
Speaker 1: lot more after all the missions we've done. So initial
36:20
Speaker 1: missions were just to figure out, you know, what's on Mars,
36:23
Speaker 1: what's it like? And subsequent missions have been trying to
36:27
Speaker 1: find out the details of that. What has the history
36:30
Speaker 1: of Mars been like, you know, in terms of climate,
36:32
Speaker 1: in terms of geology. Now we're asking questions about habitability,
36:37
Speaker 1: is or was the Martian environment habitable in a way
36:40
Speaker 1: that we understand. So habitability is not looking for life,
36:44
Speaker 1: but rather places where life as we understand it, could exist.
36:47
Speaker 1: And so now after our most recent missions, you know,
36:51
Speaker 1: we feel really confident that Mars was absolutely a habitable
36:54
Speaker 1: place in the past, and it's kind of habitable now
36:58
Speaker 1: for certain arestrial microbes um and so our next goal
37:03
Speaker 1: is to find out whether or not life ever existed
37:07
Speaker 1: in the past on Mars, and so that's really exciting.
37:10
Speaker 1: So I think it's not that one of those questions
37:13
Speaker 1: is more or less important. It's really that they are
37:16
Speaker 1: building upon each other, and so are the questions that
37:19
Speaker 1: are being asked by these rovers or instruments designed for
37:22
Speaker 1: these rovers that are inspired specifically by things you learned
37:25
Speaker 1: on previous generations, like we saw this and now we
37:28
Speaker 1: have a follow up question. Oh certainly, gosh, And there's
37:31
Speaker 1: so many examples of that. I mean, there are some
37:34
Speaker 1: big questions. For example, we've seen from remote sensing these
37:38
Speaker 1: huge mineral provinces, specifically clay minerals and carbonates, maybe less
37:43
Speaker 1: huge on the carbonates, right, We've seen these from orbit,
37:46
Speaker 1: and so the question is can we ground through this
37:49
Speaker 1: and find this on Mars in a geologic context that
37:51
Speaker 1: we can interpret. We've certainly found quite a bit of
37:54
Speaker 1: clay on the surface with the curiosity rovers, so yeah, success,
37:59
Speaker 1: But now we're looking for those pesky carbonates. Carbon rates
38:02
Speaker 1: are predicted to have formed on Mars, but we've never
38:05
Speaker 1: really encountered them in any kind of abundance, and so
38:08
Speaker 1: it's one of these ongoing mysteries. And so as we
38:11
Speaker 1: have moved forward looking at Mars and detail with curiosity,
38:15
Speaker 1: we still haven't seen all that mighty carbon rates. So
38:17
Speaker 1: it's still this question why not, And we're hoping to
38:21
Speaker 1: answer that with the perseverance were over and its new
38:23
Speaker 1: landing site, Geserro Crater. Cool. So, I know, when you
38:26
Speaker 1: start a project, you have sort of like optimistic hopes
38:29
Speaker 1: for what you know might happen, or fantasy is about
38:32
Speaker 1: data you might collect or whatever. So if you let
38:35
Speaker 1: your imagination run wild and you hit all the home runs,
38:37
Speaker 1: it's like the best case scenario for what you could
38:40
Speaker 1: discover using these rovers. Well, I think it would be
38:44
Speaker 1: just incredible and paradigm shifting if we could find signs
38:49
Speaker 1: that life existed somewhere not Earth. Right, we know there's
38:53
Speaker 1: life on Earth, you know about how did it start?
38:55
Speaker 1: We don't really understand a lot about our own origins,
38:58
Speaker 1: and we don't know how common it is. Right now,
39:00
Speaker 1: we only have one example of life on a planet,
39:03
Speaker 1: and that's our planet. If we could find evidence of
39:06
Speaker 1: life on a different planet, to be remarkable and incredible,
39:10
Speaker 1: what would that look like in terms of the rovers
39:13
Speaker 1: that we have now or the rovers that are in route,
39:15
Speaker 1: what would that discovery look like? I mean, we're not
39:17
Speaker 1: talking about little critters waving to the cameras, right, I mean,
39:21
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty clear that there is a macroscopic
39:24
Speaker 1: life on Mars right there, trees, There's no dinosaurs. We
39:27
Speaker 1: would have seen those things. So now the question is
39:30
Speaker 1: microscopic life. Was it there? It isn't there? So those
39:33
Speaker 1: are actually two different questions and we have to have
39:36
Speaker 1: different approaches to answer those questions. Right. The Perseverance Rover
39:40
Speaker 1: is looking for signs of past life and there's a
39:42
Speaker 1: lot of ways to do that, and we use the
39:45
Speaker 1: same techniques that we do on Earth. How do we
39:48
Speaker 1: know when life began on Earth and what were the
39:50
Speaker 1: signs that it left? So that's our best way of
39:53
Speaker 1: analyzing Mars rocks to find out if there was life
39:57
Speaker 1: in the past. I think our best bet, you know,
40:00
Speaker 1: he's going to be bringing these samples back to Earth.
40:04
Speaker 1: We have some incredible rovers and they're having great hayloads
40:07
Speaker 1: of these instruments that just do great things, and they're
40:10
Speaker 1: doing them remotely. It's just amazing what we can do.
40:13
Speaker 1: But it doesn't compare to our gold standard instruments that
40:15
Speaker 1: we have on the Earth, and so there are questions
40:18
Speaker 1: that we can never answer with our current hayloads. So
40:21
Speaker 1: we're going to need to just get that sample back
40:23
Speaker 1: into the laboratory, take a look at it, and then
40:26
Speaker 1: we'll probably want to do different analyzes. Right, we don't
40:29
Speaker 1: know what we're going to see, and so we don't
40:30
Speaker 1: know what the next steps will be. And that's the
40:33
Speaker 1: excitement and the fun part about doing science like this
40:36
Speaker 1: is that you can only predict the first few steps,
40:40
Speaker 1: but it's the next steps are all dependent on what
40:43
Speaker 1: you find. And why can't we just do those studies
40:46
Speaker 1: on Martian meteors, you know, bits of Mars that have
40:48
Speaker 1: been blasted off and landed here already. We're very lucky
40:51
Speaker 1: that Mars has sent us about hundred and fifty pieces
40:54
Speaker 1: of itself. So we didn't actually have to go to
40:56
Speaker 1: Mars to get those pieces of Mars. So thank you Mars.
41:00
Speaker 1: The problem with those meteorites, though, is that they don't
41:03
Speaker 1: have any context. Right, they fell out of the sky.
41:06
Speaker 1: We don't know where they came from on Mars. It's
41:10
Speaker 1: very hard to make statements about geology and a broad
41:14
Speaker 1: sense if you only have a hand sample. Right. As
41:17
Speaker 1: a geologist, people come to me all the time with
41:19
Speaker 1: some random rocks. They're like, what's this. I'm like, well,
41:22
Speaker 1: I could tell you some things, but you know, you
41:25
Speaker 1: just picked that up off of the ground. Where did
41:26
Speaker 1: it come from? What was the broader context? We need
41:29
Speaker 1: that context to really be able to answer these questions
41:31
Speaker 1: about Mars. That's why sample return is so exciting because
41:34
Speaker 1: we know exactly where it came from. We have documented
41:38
Speaker 1: that location very well, and so then when we get
41:41
Speaker 1: results from that sample, we can then integrate that into
41:44
Speaker 1: a larger context. That makes a lot of sense. And
41:47
Speaker 1: so if there are creators alive on Mars and little
41:50
Speaker 1: microubs and we sample them by chance and those samples
41:53
Speaker 1: come back to Earth, they are we imagining that those
41:57
Speaker 1: things could still be you know, alive and wiggling. We
42:00
Speaker 1: measure like you know, metabolic activity in the sample that
42:03
Speaker 1: returns to Earth from Mars. If there are things living
42:06
Speaker 1: near the surface of Mars, they have got to be
42:08
Speaker 1: amazing because the radiation environment on Mars is terrible. You know,
42:12
Speaker 1: it's um Mars doesn't have a magnetic field because it
42:15
Speaker 1: doesn't have a dynamo in its core, and so the
42:18
Speaker 1: surface environment is just it's pretty icky for life. There's
42:21
Speaker 1: a lot of life on Earth that could probably handle it,
42:24
Speaker 1: but it's it's not that common. So so I would
42:26
Speaker 1: say the chances of us finding extant Martians in the
42:31
Speaker 1: near subsurface where we can access it with the rover,
42:34
Speaker 1: it's very, very low. But we have to prepare for
42:37
Speaker 1: that possibility. So one of the things that's really critical
42:41
Speaker 1: that we do before our samples come back is to
42:44
Speaker 1: prepare their housing facility. There are a few facilities on
42:48
Speaker 1: Earth that already are ready for this. A notable one
42:51
Speaker 1: is at Johnson Space Center, which is the main pository
42:55
Speaker 1: for all the Apollo samples from the Moon. Because we
42:57
Speaker 1: had the same questions about the Moon, you know, who
42:59
Speaker 1: knows what's up there? And it turns out that the
43:01
Speaker 1: Moon is a pretty sterile place which was out and
43:04
Speaker 1: maybe that was easy to predict in in retrospect, but
43:07
Speaker 1: you know, we had no idea, so we had to
43:09
Speaker 1: take really a lot of precautions to protect both the
43:12
Speaker 1: samples and earth from each other. And so we'll have
43:15
Speaker 1: to do the same for a MAR sample return mission.
43:19
Speaker 1: And so we know from our experience with Apollo and
43:22
Speaker 1: also just bioscience in general, you know the best methods
43:25
Speaker 1: for doing that. And so I think that facilities are
43:27
Speaker 1: going to either be constructed or old ones retrofitted to
43:31
Speaker 1: be able to handle these new samples. Awesome. Well, I
43:34
Speaker 1: hope that happens. I've been reading a little bit about
43:37
Speaker 1: the history of these missions, and I note that you know,
43:40
Speaker 1: MAR sample return has been discussed for decades and even
43:44
Speaker 1: planned and then canceled and replanned and recanceled. Do you
43:47
Speaker 1: think this latest plan by NASA and s A is
43:50
Speaker 1: likely to actually happen or do you think the political
43:53
Speaker 1: climate where we change administrations and government every few years
43:57
Speaker 1: makes it difficult to pull off a long term product. Well,
44:00
Speaker 1: it's certainly above my pay grade to make political predictions,
44:03
Speaker 1: so I can't really speak to that, but um, it's true.
44:07
Speaker 1: That these missions are really big, they require incredible amounts
44:11
Speaker 1: of collaboration over long periods of time, and they require
44:14
Speaker 1: quite a bit of funding. So that is what we
44:17
Speaker 1: need the most. I don't think that anything is impossible
44:20
Speaker 1: for us if we work together. I think that we've
44:23
Speaker 1: really come up with a great plan that has a
44:24
Speaker 1: high likelihood of success. The question is whether or not
44:28
Speaker 1: we want to fund that, and that's not up to
44:30
Speaker 1: to me as an individual. If it were would be
44:32
Speaker 1: funded right now, but you know, we have to make
44:34
Speaker 1: sure that this is aligned with our taxpayers desires. Um
44:39
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things that go into that and
44:40
Speaker 1: is this where we want to put our priorities. I
44:43
Speaker 1: would note that NASA it's not funded at the levels
44:46
Speaker 1: that most people think right when I like to play
44:48
Speaker 1: this game like what percentage of the total US budget
44:51
Speaker 1: is NASA getting and people are like twent and I'm
44:55
Speaker 1: like that's great. I know, of like that would be amazing,
45:01
Speaker 1: you know, but unfortunately, at its maximum, NASA has never
45:04
Speaker 1: gotten more than one percent of the totally US budget.
45:06
Speaker 1: It's much lower than that now, you know. So we
45:08
Speaker 1: are doing all of this work with really very little funding,
45:13
Speaker 1: which is amazing. We don't really need that much more
45:16
Speaker 1: funding to make a sample return mission from Mars reality.
45:19
Speaker 1: So that's that's what I would say. I would say,
45:21
Speaker 1: you know, maybe it feels like it's a little bit
45:23
Speaker 1: of extra money now, but the I think the rewards
45:26
Speaker 1: would be incredible and it would absolutely be worth the
45:28
Speaker 1: price tag. I agree with you. I think it's incredible
45:30
Speaker 1: when we have the capability to do something and the
45:33
Speaker 1: only thing that limits us is the money. It's like,
45:36
Speaker 1: you're at the universe is like knowledge shop, and you
45:38
Speaker 1: could just buy this information about the universe and the
45:41
Speaker 1: money is there, but they're spending it on aircraft carriers.
45:44
Speaker 1: So we need those two, We need them all, We
45:46
Speaker 1: need all the things, but we could just you know,
45:49
Speaker 1: I think people think of it as more expensive than
45:51
Speaker 1: it really is. It really is a bargain. What we
45:54
Speaker 1: can do really is. So let's say this mission happens.
45:57
Speaker 1: There are several parts to it which seemed a little
45:59
Speaker 1: you know, of wracking. Bit's being transferred from one to
46:02
Speaker 1: the other. Say this happens. Which part is the most
46:06
Speaker 1: nail biting for you? Which is the moment where you're like,
46:09
Speaker 1: you know, holding your breath hoping that it works. I
46:11
Speaker 1: think for me, the most anxiety ridden part of any
46:14
Speaker 1: mission is launching and landing. Those are the hardest parts
46:17
Speaker 1: that we do. It's really hard to launch something off
46:20
Speaker 1: of another planet and get it onto another planet safely.
46:24
Speaker 1: And so you know, we've we've done this now for
46:28
Speaker 1: many missions successfully, right, but we can never guarantee that
46:31
Speaker 1: it's going to always work out well. I think we
46:33
Speaker 1: have a good track record, but we're gonna be trying
46:35
Speaker 1: to do some very different things with sample return that
46:39
Speaker 1: we've never tried before, and that is we've got to
46:41
Speaker 1: first get our rover perseverance to Mars. So we're already launching,
46:46
Speaker 1: We've already launched off of Earth and now we're en
46:48
Speaker 1: route to Mars. We're gonna land on Mars. Then that
46:51
Speaker 1: rover has to gather samples, and then we're gonna launch
46:54
Speaker 1: another spacecraft that's gonna get into orbit around Mars, and
46:57
Speaker 1: then that spacecraft is going to launch a lander with
46:59
Speaker 1: a little fete strover, and that rover is gonna pick
47:01
Speaker 1: up our samples and then get back to this lander
47:04
Speaker 1: and then launch off of Mars. This is all by itself,
47:07
Speaker 1: by the way, no help from us. Then it's gonna
47:10
Speaker 1: rendezvous with that orbiting spacecraft, and then that spacecraft is
47:12
Speaker 1: going to come back to Earth. That's very complicated. I
47:17
Speaker 1: think we can absolutely do it. It's absolutely feasible, but
47:20
Speaker 1: there's quite a bit of risk there, and especially because
47:22
Speaker 1: we can't operate this in real time, these systems have
47:25
Speaker 1: to be somewhat autonomous. So then imagine that it's here.
47:29
Speaker 1: We have Mars samples there, sterile or pristine. They're in
47:32
Speaker 1: the laboratory, and you're the first person to get cracked
47:35
Speaker 1: at them. Right, what's the first thing you do to
47:37
Speaker 1: those samples? What's the first question you want to answer? Oh,
47:40
Speaker 1: my goodness, that is such a I mean, if I'm
47:42
Speaker 1: the first person to see them, I don't know if
47:44
Speaker 1: I could keep it from my friends. I have to
47:45
Speaker 1: invite everybody over so we can all look at this together,
47:48
Speaker 1: I think. I mean, the first step for bringing back
47:51
Speaker 1: samples like this is you must triage them. So we
47:53
Speaker 1: need to get a general sense what kind of rock
47:55
Speaker 1: is this, what kind of minerals? You know, just basic characteristics,
47:59
Speaker 1: because is that will then tell you what the next
48:02
Speaker 1: question should be. You know, if you have a rock
48:04
Speaker 1: that appears to be igneous, so from a volcano. The
48:08
Speaker 1: next questions are going to be, you know, more about
48:11
Speaker 1: how did vulcanism evolve in this place, you know, what
48:14
Speaker 1: kind of volcano reduced this material, and then what happened
48:18
Speaker 1: to it next. If you get a sedimentary sample, totally
48:21
Speaker 1: different questions. You're like, Okay, so now this is sedimentary.
48:24
Speaker 1: Was it emplaced in water? What kind of water? You know,
48:27
Speaker 1: what's the nature of the properties of that fluid, and
48:30
Speaker 1: then what kind of other minerals were precipitating there, and
48:33
Speaker 1: what does that tell us about the habitability of that
48:36
Speaker 1: environment and what kind of things could actually utilize you know,
48:40
Speaker 1: what are the energy sources that might have been there.
48:42
Speaker 1: So so I think like, depending on the first canister
48:45
Speaker 1: that I open, you know, you go in a different direction.
48:48
Speaker 1: So I'm hoping that we get some sedimentary materials that
48:53
Speaker 1: are high in manganese, and we'll know that before they
48:56
Speaker 1: come back from ours because we will select these very carefully,
48:59
Speaker 1: So that would probably be something that will already know.
49:02
Speaker 1: So I would pick, you know, my favorite canister to
49:05
Speaker 1: open first so that I could follow my favorite questions.
49:08
Speaker 1: And for me, I'm really interested in understanding, you know,
49:10
Speaker 1: are there bio signatures that are preserved in sedimentary materials
49:15
Speaker 1: on Mars. So these are chemical or mineralogical or even
49:19
Speaker 1: morphological features that are left by life that can tell
49:24
Speaker 1: us something about what it was doing. Um, and then
49:27
Speaker 1: it can also, depending on the age of the rock,
49:28
Speaker 1: tell us when it was doing that. So those are
49:31
Speaker 1: the questions that I don't want to answer first. All right, wonderful.
49:33
Speaker 1: Well I can hear your enthusiasm and it makes me
49:36
Speaker 1: excited to get these samples back here. So thanks again
49:42
Speaker 1: for coming out of program and for telling us about it. Yeah,
49:45
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. It's been great chatting. All right,
49:48
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. She's amazing. It sounds like it's totally possible,
49:52
Speaker 1: Like this might work, Daniel. It's basically a question of
49:54
Speaker 1: politics and money and then you know a little bit
49:57
Speaker 1: of luck, like if we actually commit to doing thing
50:00
Speaker 1: and to sending this thing over there, we have a
50:02
Speaker 1: reasonable chance of it working. Really, you know, something of
50:06
Speaker 1: missions to Mars fail. But that's a reasonable chance. Is
50:11
Speaker 1: that our hit rate, Yeah, that's our hit rate, and
50:14
Speaker 1: I think we have the best hit rate of any
50:15
Speaker 1: country on Earth. But it's still it's tricky, it's far away.
50:18
Speaker 1: These things are complicated. But remember what NASA has pulled
50:21
Speaker 1: off like they have done amazing things like the sky
50:24
Speaker 1: crane landing on Mars and all sorts of stuff. So
50:27
Speaker 1: this some pretty awesome engineers over there. I trust them.
50:30
Speaker 1: I think they deserve a couple of billion. Yeah, yeah,
50:33
Speaker 1: you're saying that. The biggest challenges just keeping this project funded,
50:36
Speaker 1: because you know it takes years and years. It's like
50:39
Speaker 1: a twenty year project, fifteen year project. Yeah. If the
50:42
Speaker 1: samples do return, they'll be back here in twenty one
50:46
Speaker 1: and so it just needs constant funding. And you know
50:49
Speaker 1: how it is these days with politics. New administration comes in,
50:52
Speaker 1: first thing they love to do is cancel the projects
50:54
Speaker 1: from the previous administration, and so it has to be
50:58
Speaker 1: consistently supported by multiple branches of government in order to survive. Well, sure, yeah,
51:04
Speaker 1: let's give him all the billions. I mean not all
51:06
Speaker 1: of the billions, but a few of the billions. I
51:09
Speaker 1: think of the things we could learn. I'm always frustrated
51:12
Speaker 1: when there are opportunities to learn something important and deep
51:15
Speaker 1: about the universe and the only barrier is money, money
51:18
Speaker 1: that we have. I would totally go into the Universe
51:21
Speaker 1: knowledge Shop and spend lots of billions of dollars to
51:24
Speaker 1: learn things about the universe. You would totally press that
51:26
Speaker 1: red by now, but Mars rock by now. Sample of
51:31
Speaker 1: gas from Jupiter by now. Secrets of the universe. Click
51:34
Speaker 1: click click deliver tomorrow please next day delivery please. All right? Well,
51:42
Speaker 1: Dr Lanson was definitely excited. We're excited, and good luck
51:45
Speaker 1: to the Mars scientists who are working on this and
51:47
Speaker 1: tune in one. Well we'll break down for you the
51:50
Speaker 1: incredible discoveries made by Mars. Sample return. That's right today
51:55
Speaker 1: on episode three thousand, Daniel and Horror Explained Auniverse. Remember
51:59
Speaker 1: that time we interviewed one of the scientists. No, it
52:02
Speaker 1: will be two robots. Two robots will have taken over
52:04
Speaker 1: the podcast by then, and together they'll transform into an
52:09
Speaker 1: awesome podcast actually making good jokes that end up on
52:14
Speaker 1: a trump All right, well, thanks for joining us. Hope
52:17
Speaker 1: you enjoyed that. See you next time. Thanks for listening,
52:28
Speaker 1: and remember that. Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is
52:31
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. Or more podcast from
52:34
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