Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / What will the DragonFly mission find on Titan?

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What will the DragonFly mission find on Titan? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:08
Speaker 1: Hey, or hey, you're a robotics expert. Right, Well, I
0:11
Speaker 1: have a PhD in robotics, so I think that might
0:14
Speaker 1: qualify me. Awesome. Well, how do you feel about using
0:18
Speaker 1: robots to explore space? I think it's great, better than
0:21
Speaker 1: than me. Yeah, because on some dangerous missions we send
0:25
Speaker 1: robots rather than people. But do you ever like worry
0:29
Speaker 1: about the robots. Well, we try not to program feelings
0:32
Speaker 1: into them, so I guess not so much. Even though
0:36
Speaker 1: the robots don't always make it. I think that's okay.
0:38
Speaker 1: You know, I think we are proud still what the
0:40
Speaker 1: robots achieved. I think it's weird sometimes though, that we
0:43
Speaker 1: never bring those robots home. We send them out to space,
0:46
Speaker 1: we run them into the ground, and then we just
0:48
Speaker 1: sort of abandoned them. Well, what do you think would
0:51
Speaker 1: be cool to bring them home and throw them a parade? Yeah?
0:54
Speaker 1: Maybe all the other robots would be so proud, But
0:57
Speaker 1: then who would clean up all the ticker tapes we
0:59
Speaker 1: have to send robots to clean up after the parade.
1:01
Speaker 1: Robots should make their own robots. That's how it all ends. Daniel,
1:19
Speaker 1: I am more handmade cartoonists and the creator of PhD comics.
1:23
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I'm looking forward
1:26
Speaker 1: to working with robotic physicists, with robot physicists or for
1:30
Speaker 1: robot physicists, which featured do you for see for science?
1:33
Speaker 1: Whatever gets us to the deep truths to the universe,
1:36
Speaker 1: I'm on board for that. Really, you would subjugate yourself
1:39
Speaker 1: to do AI overlords in exchange for the secrets of
1:44
Speaker 1: the universe. Yeah, I'm not gonna put my ego in
1:46
Speaker 1: front of revealing the truth about nature. None of this.
1:49
Speaker 1: I have to be in charge because I'm human, even
1:51
Speaker 1: though you're much smarter than I am. Absolutely not. I'm
1:55
Speaker 1: happy to work for a genius robotic physicist. Do you
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Speaker 1: think robots would be just it in the deep secrets
2:01
Speaker 1: of the universe? What would be their motivation? Yeah, that's
2:03
Speaker 1: a good question. We would have to program them to
2:06
Speaker 1: be interested. We have to like train robots to be
2:09
Speaker 1: excited about it, and then set them loose and hope
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Speaker 1: that the answers they find are things that we could
2:13
Speaker 1: even understand. I feel like we're so bad at raising
2:18
Speaker 1: children now. The idea of raising super intelligent robots doesn't
2:23
Speaker 1: sound like a good idea. Well, wouldn't you prefer to
2:26
Speaker 1: program children rather than raise them. That's what television is
2:31
Speaker 1: there for, Daniel, That's why they make kids TV shows.
2:35
Speaker 1: But anyways, welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain
2:38
Speaker 1: the Universe, a production of I Heart Radio, in which
2:41
Speaker 1: we try to understand the entire universe before our AI
2:45
Speaker 1: overlords do it for us. We think about all the
2:47
Speaker 1: crazy questions out there. Where is life, where could it start?
2:51
Speaker 1: What are tiny little particles doing anyway? What's going on
2:54
Speaker 1: inside the heart of a black hole? We take these mysteries,
2:58
Speaker 1: we join them with your curiosity, and we try to
3:00
Speaker 1: find explanations that make sense to you. Because the universe
3:04
Speaker 1: is huge and there's a lot to explore. There are
3:06
Speaker 1: a lot of mysteries out there in the vast reaches
3:09
Speaker 1: of space and other galaxies and other galaxy clusters and
3:13
Speaker 1: black holes, and there's also a lot of mystery right
3:16
Speaker 1: here in our own back yard universally speaking. Yeah, that's right.
3:20
Speaker 1: It's incredible how much of the universe we can see
3:22
Speaker 1: just from our tiny little perch on this rock. Using
3:25
Speaker 1: our incredible telescopes, we can see things that are super
3:28
Speaker 1: far away and answer really big and vast questions about
3:32
Speaker 1: the nature of the universe. But sometimes you want to
3:34
Speaker 1: get off your rock and you want to actually go
3:36
Speaker 1: to another place and get like up close pictures or
3:39
Speaker 1: see through cloud cover, or dip your robotic toe into
3:43
Speaker 1: some alien ocean and see what's actually there. Yeah, because
3:46
Speaker 1: it's sort of funny now that I think about it,
3:48
Speaker 1: the difference between how far we can see and how
3:52
Speaker 1: much of the universe we know about, and how much
3:55
Speaker 1: of it we've actually been to, which is almost nothing.
3:58
Speaker 1: Like we hardly ever left this little ball of rock
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Speaker 1: that we call her. Yeah, we've explored almost literally nothing
4:04
Speaker 1: of the universe. It's sort of like we're trapped on
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Speaker 1: this tower and we can look out these windows. We
4:09
Speaker 1: can see this incredible view right so far away, but
4:13
Speaker 1: it's so difficult to get anywhere. We've explored basically almost nothing.
4:18
Speaker 1: But you know, there are a few opportunities nearby. We
4:21
Speaker 1: can hop to one or two nearby towers. But yeah,
4:24
Speaker 1: we're basically in a little tower prison. Yeah. And also
4:26
Speaker 1: it's hard to get off your couch, you know sometimes,
4:29
Speaker 1: I mean it's a lot of work to get out
4:30
Speaker 1: of that tower. You have to like put together a rocket,
4:34
Speaker 1: you have to strap in. Is this your application to
4:37
Speaker 1: be an astronaut because it's not going very well. My
4:40
Speaker 1: application not to be drafted into space force. This might
4:44
Speaker 1: deferm an application. I don't think you have to apply
4:46
Speaker 1: to not be an astronaut. I think that happens automatically.
4:48
Speaker 1: But good luck. Well, it is fun because there are
4:51
Speaker 1: a lot of things in our backyard, in our own
4:54
Speaker 1: solar system that we don't know about, and a lot
4:56
Speaker 1: of fun places we could go and explore and maybe
4:59
Speaker 1: even visit one day. Yeah, and there are surprises around
5:02
Speaker 1: the corner. There are lots of weird things happening in
5:05
Speaker 1: our solar system, things that we don't understand, things we
5:07
Speaker 1: would like to see up close. And every time we
5:10
Speaker 1: open up a new kind of eyeball to the universe
5:13
Speaker 1: or land on a new surface, there's always something new
5:15
Speaker 1: and weird waiting for us, something that scientists didn't even
5:19
Speaker 1: know to look for, something that people are shocked to discover,
5:23
Speaker 1: something that teaches us something about life or how the
5:26
Speaker 1: universe works. So this is a very exciting time to
5:29
Speaker 1: be exploring our neighborhood solar system Lee speaking. Yeah, we
5:32
Speaker 1: don't even know that there is life at all in
5:35
Speaker 1: the solar system. There could be life in other planets
5:37
Speaker 1: or moons in our very own Solar system. Yeah. I
5:41
Speaker 1: think the history is sort of fun. Like for a
5:43
Speaker 1: long time people imagined there might be life nearby on Mars.
5:46
Speaker 1: It was sort of like, wow, there could be life everywhere,
5:49
Speaker 1: and then we sort of didn't see obvious signs. And
5:52
Speaker 1: I feel like the public impression is that, well, there
5:55
Speaker 1: isn't any life in the Solar System other than us.
5:57
Speaker 1: We have to look further. But now people are starting
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Speaker 1: to realize is that's not true. There are still lots
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Speaker 1: of opportunities to discover life in our Solar system, from
6:05
Speaker 1: sub surface water on Mars to some of these oceans
6:08
Speaker 1: of the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. There's all sorts
6:11
Speaker 1: of crazy stuff going on right here in our Solar system. Yeah,
6:15
Speaker 1: so today we'll be talking about a pretty cool project
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Speaker 1: that's happening right now, which is to send robots to
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Speaker 1: a moon of Saturn. That's right. It's very difficult to
6:26
Speaker 1: send people to actually walk on these surfaces to go
6:29
Speaker 1: take these long trips, so instead we send our future
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Speaker 1: robotic overlords on these missions to go and explore these
6:36
Speaker 1: services for us. Do you think there'll be a good
6:38
Speaker 1: excuse when they try to take over, would be like,
6:40
Speaker 1: but look, we send you to Mars. I mean, you
6:42
Speaker 1: can't complain that we never take you anywhere. I don't know.
6:46
Speaker 1: I don't know if that would be in the plus
6:47
Speaker 1: or in the minus callub Like, you know, do you
6:49
Speaker 1: think they'll think that we treated those robotic explorers well,
6:53
Speaker 1: you know, just having abandoned them on the service of Mark. Yeah,
6:56
Speaker 1: well what do dogs think about? Like? But anyway, so
6:59
Speaker 1: to be on the program and we'll be asking the question,
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Speaker 1: what will the Dragonfly mission fine on Titan? And the
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Speaker 1: Dragonfly mission is this super amazing, incredible robotic mission to
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Speaker 1: explore Saturn's moon Titan, which I am very excited about. Yeah,
7:19
Speaker 1: so that it's a lot of fun words. They're dragon
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Speaker 1: Fly Mission Titan. I feel like, you know, just be
7:25
Speaker 1: cool to say you work on this product. It does
7:27
Speaker 1: It sounds sort of like a future Michael Bay movie,
7:29
Speaker 1: doesn't it that? The Dragonfly Mission. Do you think Bruce
7:34
Speaker 1: Willis would would come out of retirement and is he retired?
7:37
Speaker 1: I don't know, he's not allowed to retire. I think
7:39
Speaker 1: there's an executive order preventing him from retiring. But this
7:42
Speaker 1: is a pretty exciting mission, and as usual, we were
7:44
Speaker 1: wondering how many people out there had heard of it
7:46
Speaker 1: or know what they're trying to find on that moon
7:49
Speaker 1: of Saturn. So Daniel went out there into the wilds
7:52
Speaker 1: of the internet to ask what will the dragon Fly
7:55
Speaker 1: mission find on Titan? And as usual, I am deeply
7:59
Speaker 1: grateful to those of you who are willing to answer
8:01
Speaker 1: random questions from a physicist without any preparation or looking
8:05
Speaker 1: up in reference materials. So thank you very much, And
8:08
Speaker 1: if you would like to participate and answer questions for
8:11
Speaker 1: future episodes without any briefing or preparation, please write to
8:15
Speaker 1: us two questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com. So
8:18
Speaker 1: here's what people had to say. I've heard that Titan
8:21
Speaker 1: might have liquid oceans of methane. I might discover or
8:27
Speaker 1: research alternative forms of life if a dragonfly wasn't tightened.
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Speaker 1: The first thing I'm sure that the dragonfly would realize
8:36
Speaker 1: I would see would be the space shuttle that brought
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Speaker 1: the dragonfly there. I'm guessing second thing probably would be
8:43
Speaker 1: the big Jupiter in the background in sky. But other
8:47
Speaker 1: than that, I don't really know. Like she didn't know
8:49
Speaker 1: there was a mission to Titan, but if I remember correctly,
8:53
Speaker 1: Tighten is a moon of Seton, and Seton has a
8:56
Speaker 1: crazy environment with diamonds floating around, so they were probably
9:00
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting compounds up there. I know there's
9:03
Speaker 1: a lot of ice locked into rings, so it would
9:08
Speaker 1: be interesting if the moon was harboring some complex organic molecules. Aliens,
9:15
Speaker 1: it looks like it is a focus of allness as
9:17
Speaker 1: mission for do they investigate the early soul system and information? Oh,
9:22
Speaker 1: I'm starting thinking like juven type of stories. Now my
9:27
Speaker 1: son finds something organic Chronos, but I don't think it
9:32
Speaker 1: can be called quite life. Um, but I'm seriously curious
9:38
Speaker 1: to find out. Maybe Dragonfly discovers the Titan is a
9:41
Speaker 1: much friendlier place than Mars, and then even Mask has
9:45
Speaker 1: to change his plants. All right, pretty cool? I like Aliens.
9:49
Speaker 1: Aliens was a good answer. Well, I'm with one of
9:52
Speaker 1: the listeners here who said they didn't even know there
9:55
Speaker 1: was a mission to Tail, and I did not know
9:56
Speaker 1: there was a mission to Tien. You know, usually people
9:58
Speaker 1: talk about Europa, which a moon of Jupiter, or that
10:02
Speaker 1: they talked about landing more things in our mood here
10:04
Speaker 1: on Earth, but time you don't really hear a lot about. Yeah,
10:07
Speaker 1: And one reason might be is that this mission is
10:09
Speaker 1: still sort of deep in the future. But you know,
10:11
Speaker 1: they take a long time to plan, to build, to organize,
10:15
Speaker 1: to actually arrive at these distant locations, and so it's
10:18
Speaker 1: like a twenty year life cycle of these missions, and
10:21
Speaker 1: so that's why it might not be in people's minds
10:24
Speaker 1: right now. Well, it's a twenty year mission for real.
10:27
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, it takes years just to get there, years
10:30
Speaker 1: to plan it, years to fund it. We're gonna be
10:32
Speaker 1: getting data from this thing in like twenty thirty six,
10:35
Speaker 1: oh my goodness. And we assume there's going to be
10:38
Speaker 1: a civilization here to receive those signals. Well, we're going
10:41
Speaker 1: to teach our robots to get those messages right so
10:43
Speaker 1: that they benefit from our work. Can have been our
10:46
Speaker 1: collective will Oh, by the way, some of your ancestors
10:50
Speaker 1: might be calling around. Pick up the call, that's right,
10:54
Speaker 1: and please can we be last authors on the paper
10:56
Speaker 1: you eventually write? But who would read the paper? Other computers? Yeah,
11:02
Speaker 1: I mean like it would be like that weird corner
11:03
Speaker 1: of YouTube were bought to make videos for other bots,
11:06
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, bots making science papers for other bots.
11:09
Speaker 1: That is the future for sure. Well, maybe a lot
11:11
Speaker 1: of people don't know what Titan actually is, or this
11:14
Speaker 1: might be the first time they hear that there's a
11:15
Speaker 1: moon on Saturn called Titan, Daniel, what do we know
11:18
Speaker 1: about the moon of Saturn called Titan. It's awesome, it's Titanic.
11:23
Speaker 1: I mean this thing is it's not a good that's
11:24
Speaker 1: not a good analogy then, I mean, it's not going
11:27
Speaker 1: to crash into an iceberg. I just mean that it's
11:29
Speaker 1: huge and awesome. Yeah, and and it has Leonardo de
11:32
Speaker 1: Capri in it. What could go wrong? That's right. We're
11:35
Speaker 1: gonna send Selene Dion actually to stand on it and
11:37
Speaker 1: sing as our first emissary to Titan. No, it's fifty
11:40
Speaker 1: percent bigger than our moon. It's bigger than Mercury. It's huge. Well,
11:46
Speaker 1: it's bigger than one of the planets in our solar system. Yeah, exactly.
11:49
Speaker 1: If it wasn't orbiting Saturn, then you would definitely call
11:52
Speaker 1: this thing a planet. And if you were standing on
11:55
Speaker 1: the surface of Saturday, if Saturn had a surface, this
11:58
Speaker 1: thing is so big that it would be twelve times
12:01
Speaker 1: larger in the sky of Saturn than our moon is
12:05
Speaker 1: in our sky. It would be huge. It would be huge, yes, exactly,
12:10
Speaker 1: So it would be pretty dramatic. Because Saturn has several moons,
12:13
Speaker 1: so you're saying, what is this one of those moons
12:15
Speaker 1: or is this the biggest one. This is one of
12:17
Speaker 1: those moons, and it's the biggest one and so dominate
12:20
Speaker 1: the sky of Saturn. You couldn't actually see it though
12:23
Speaker 1: from Saturn because Saturn is just so cloudy you can't
12:25
Speaker 1: see out through its atmosphere. But that's how big and
12:28
Speaker 1: that's how close it is too Saturn, So it's sort
12:30
Speaker 1: of a fundamental image. Saturn have like huge tides. Then
12:34
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking about the moon here. It affects the tides. Yeah, absolutely,
12:38
Speaker 1: Saturn squeezes Tighten and Tighten squeezes Saturn. And one of
12:41
Speaker 1: the reasons that Titan is so interesting is that it's
12:44
Speaker 1: not just a frozen ball. And part of that is
12:46
Speaker 1: because it gets this tidle squeezing from Saturn. Like also,
12:50
Speaker 1: some of the moons of Jupiter have this effect where
12:52
Speaker 1: they're getting pulled on by their home planet and that
12:54
Speaker 1: squeezes them and keeps them from breezing solid. And so
12:58
Speaker 1: just like some of those other moons, and we think
12:59
Speaker 1: that underneath the ground. On Titan, there are these vast
13:02
Speaker 1: oceans of liquid ammonia, but they're also might be liquid
13:07
Speaker 1: lakes on the surface of tight Wow, wait to do
13:10
Speaker 1: we have pictures of Titan? Have we ever like flown
13:13
Speaker 1: a satellite or probe nearby and taking pictures like kind
13:16
Speaker 1: of Google that you can Actually you can get pictures
13:19
Speaker 1: from the surface of Titan, because in two thousand and
13:22
Speaker 1: five we had a lander that landed on Titan. So
13:25
Speaker 1: this is the record for the most distant surface that
13:28
Speaker 1: we've ever landed an Earth probe on and it landed
13:32
Speaker 1: just in one spot. And one interesting thing about Titan
13:34
Speaker 1: is that it has a really dense atmosphere. Most of
13:36
Speaker 1: these moons have no atmosphere, and Tighten itself actually has
13:39
Speaker 1: a really dense atmosphere, but that makes it hard to
13:41
Speaker 1: see the surface from space. So we had an orbiter
13:44
Speaker 1: going around Tightened for a while taking pictures, but you
13:47
Speaker 1: couldn't really see the surface because of the dense cloud cover.
13:50
Speaker 1: It just sort of looks like Jupiter, though, did you
13:52
Speaker 1: see clouds? Yeah? Or Venus exactly. So we dropped a
13:55
Speaker 1: probe onto the surface and you can get this picture
13:58
Speaker 1: from the surface of Titan. I mean all you see
14:00
Speaker 1: basically as a plane with a bunch of rocks in it,
14:02
Speaker 1: but you can tell from how that service looks that like,
14:04
Speaker 1: you know, water used to flow on the surface and
14:07
Speaker 1: sort of awesome and fascinating to see a picture from
14:10
Speaker 1: a foreign surface. Wow. So we actually landed the probe.
14:13
Speaker 1: We we didn't just crash it like. It landed and
14:15
Speaker 1: took pictures. It landed and took like a picture and
14:18
Speaker 1: sent it back. But it was sort of stuck in
14:20
Speaker 1: one location, right, just landed and stuck. There wasn't a rover,
14:23
Speaker 1: couldn't move around, and so it was pretty exciting but
14:26
Speaker 1: kind of limited. So we have visited Titan before and
14:29
Speaker 1: we have landed something on it, but the Dragonfly mission
14:32
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about today is going to explore it
14:34
Speaker 1: in much more depth. And we think the Titan is
14:37
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. Tighten. We think actually looks a lot like Earth.
14:40
Speaker 1: I mean, there's like dunes and rivers and lakes. The
14:44
Speaker 1: sort of the geology of the surface we think is
14:46
Speaker 1: very similar to what Earth looks like. Oh wow. So wait,
14:49
Speaker 1: from space you can't see the surface because of the clouds,
14:52
Speaker 1: but once you're in it, you can sort of look
14:55
Speaker 1: around and see the landscape. Yeah, and from the surface
14:59
Speaker 1: you can do things like radar and stuff like that,
15:01
Speaker 1: and you can see that there are lakes on the surface.
15:04
Speaker 1: This is the only other place in the Solar System
15:06
Speaker 1: we know about that has surface liquid. Now it's not
15:09
Speaker 1: surface water. Most of this is like methane. So Tighten
15:13
Speaker 1: is sort of like Earth, but you take away all
15:15
Speaker 1: the water and you place it with liquid methane. Wow,
15:18
Speaker 1: that sounds like it would smell terribly exactly. But you
15:22
Speaker 1: have like methane lakes and methane rivers and methane rain,
15:26
Speaker 1: and you have wind. And you can see a lot
15:28
Speaker 1: of this stuff from the orbiter because you can see
15:31
Speaker 1: through the clouds using you know, some radar, etcetera. So
15:34
Speaker 1: we know that there are lakes on the surface. We
15:36
Speaker 1: know this stuff happening. This erosion is all this geology.
15:39
Speaker 1: It's fastened so it looks rocky like like here, like
15:42
Speaker 1: if you were it looks like a rocky landscape with
15:45
Speaker 1: pools of ammonia, yeah, exactly, and rivers you know, in rain,
15:49
Speaker 1: and all sorts of rivers of ammonia and lakes and
15:52
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff. I don't know if there are
15:54
Speaker 1: alien fish jumping up from idyllic lakes, you know, nest
15:57
Speaker 1: the lid mountains or anything. But that's sort of what
15:59
Speaker 1: the mission is aiming to look for. Wow, well, they're
16:02
Speaker 1: probably our fish. You're just holding your nose the whole time. Now,
16:06
Speaker 1: they're used to it. They love it. They think water
16:08
Speaker 1: smells terrible. All right, So then what is the atmosphere
16:13
Speaker 1: made out of? Is it like breathable air or is
16:15
Speaker 1: it poisonous gas? Well, like Earth's atmosphere is mostly nitrogen.
16:19
Speaker 1: It doesn't have oxygen in it, so we couldn't breathe it.
16:22
Speaker 1: But it's a very very dense atmosphere that actually plays
16:25
Speaker 1: a really big roles we'll talk about in a minute
16:27
Speaker 1: into how this Dragonfly mission works. All right, let's talk
16:31
Speaker 1: about the mission that's going to explore this moon on Saturn,
16:35
Speaker 1: and then actually, Daniel, you have an interview with the
16:38
Speaker 1: two leads of the project. Then they're going to fill
16:41
Speaker 1: us in on what it's like to lead this mission
16:44
Speaker 1: and to think about what to find on Titan. But
16:48
Speaker 1: first let's take a quick rate. All right, Daniel, we
17:03
Speaker 1: are sending dragons flying dragons to Tinan, well sort of,
17:09
Speaker 1: we're sending a drone. This thing is super awesome basically
17:13
Speaker 1: because all the advancements in drone technology here on Earth.
17:16
Speaker 1: You know, everybody has like a drone to do everything.
17:19
Speaker 1: We're now turning our robotic probes into other services into
17:23
Speaker 1: drones as well. So this is an actual NASA mission.
17:28
Speaker 1: It's on now and it's going to be on for
17:29
Speaker 1: the next twenty something years. And the idea is to
17:33
Speaker 1: send literally a drone, like a flying little machine to
17:36
Speaker 1: explore the surface of Tiny Yeah, exactly. It's an octocopter.
17:40
Speaker 1: It has eight of these rotors. Each one is like
17:42
Speaker 1: a meter wide, and it can fly around the surface.
17:46
Speaker 1: And the cool thing is that that allows to to
17:48
Speaker 1: like really explore the surface sort of the way a
17:51
Speaker 1: rover does, but without having to drive slowly from place
17:54
Speaker 1: to place. This thing can go like ten ms per second.
17:58
Speaker 1: That's like the speed of Usain Bolt, you know, So
18:00
Speaker 1: we can really explore the surface of Titan. Wow. Yeah,
18:03
Speaker 1: because I guess we send robots to Mars and but
18:06
Speaker 1: then they're really slow, right they are, and they can
18:09
Speaker 1: like they get stuck inside of holes, or they can't
18:12
Speaker 1: go over mountains or rocky terrain. So this is like
18:15
Speaker 1: a perfect solution. Yeah, and you know, I always wonder
18:18
Speaker 1: what that's like. I think that for the rovers on Mars,
18:20
Speaker 1: they have to have like meetings. They are like, how
18:22
Speaker 1: we're going to get around this rock? All right, we're
18:24
Speaker 1: gonna go this way. They want to turn left and
18:25
Speaker 1: they we're gonna stop, We're gonna turn right. And it's
18:27
Speaker 1: you know, pretty care and they have to be pretty
18:30
Speaker 1: crazy because you know, they flip this thing over and
18:32
Speaker 1: it's like a turtle on its back. So the drone
18:35
Speaker 1: is pretty awesome because, yeah, you can skip over stuff,
18:37
Speaker 1: you can really explore. But you can do a drone
18:39
Speaker 1: on Titan much more easily than you can do a
18:42
Speaker 1: drone on Mars for one really important reason, and that's
18:45
Speaker 1: because Titan has a very dense atmosphere. Right the dens
18:49
Speaker 1: or the air, the easier it is to you know fly, yeah, exactly.
18:52
Speaker 1: The reason that helicopters can't go to the top of
18:54
Speaker 1: Mount Everest, for example, is that the air gets too thin.
18:57
Speaker 1: They're like beating their rotor blades against nothing. And on
19:01
Speaker 1: Mars it's very difficult to build a helicopter, though they're
19:04
Speaker 1: going to try that, But on Titan it's a perfect
19:06
Speaker 1: application for a drone because there's really really thick atmosphere,
19:10
Speaker 1: so it's sort of more like swimming than flying. Plus
19:13
Speaker 1: the gravity is pretty low, so flying around Titan is
19:16
Speaker 1: really the best way to get around. So I guess
19:18
Speaker 1: it's smaller than Earth. So what's the gravity like on Titan. Yes,
19:23
Speaker 1: so Titan is like two of the mass of the Earth.
19:26
Speaker 1: So the gravity and Titan is definitely much much less,
19:29
Speaker 1: but the atmosphere is thicker than it is here on Earth.
19:33
Speaker 1: So it's really a great application for a drone. Wow,
19:35
Speaker 1: So does that mean it's like, you know, the gravity
19:38
Speaker 1: is what we have here, it's definitely a lot smaller.
19:40
Speaker 1: It depends also on the radius, right, So Titan is
19:43
Speaker 1: smaller than the Earth, and so that's going to enhance
19:45
Speaker 1: the gravitational factor. But so you know, approximately like a
19:48
Speaker 1: tenth of the gravity of Earth, but again a thicker atmosphere,
19:51
Speaker 1: and so that allows this thing to really like float
19:53
Speaker 1: around the surface and figure out like what's going on
19:56
Speaker 1: on Titan, what's here, what's there? What's exciting to look? Right?
19:59
Speaker 1: Catch ammonia, fish, sit by a lake, take some selfies.
20:05
Speaker 1: It's a fascinating project because they think they hope that
20:08
Speaker 1: the surface of Titan is a great place to answer
20:11
Speaker 1: questions like what did Earth used to look like? They
20:14
Speaker 1: see it. It's sort of like an early Earth. Really
20:16
Speaker 1: like our planet used to also be like this, like
20:20
Speaker 1: a full of ammonia and nitrogen. Well, it has a
20:22
Speaker 1: different atmosphere, right, we don't think that it had the
20:25
Speaker 1: same chemical composition. But it's sort of this progress of
20:28
Speaker 1: starting from hydrocarbons, how do you form the basis of life?
20:32
Speaker 1: How does that come together to make the chemistry you
20:34
Speaker 1: need and then eventually the biochemistry, And so Titan is
20:38
Speaker 1: sort of like, you know, behind the Earth in that process,
20:41
Speaker 1: and it gives us a window to understanding like what
20:43
Speaker 1: forms first, How did these things come together? I guess
20:46
Speaker 1: maybe one question is, you know, this sounds great, but
20:49
Speaker 1: drones run out of battery at some point and it's
20:52
Speaker 1: cloudy in Titan. How does this get any energy if
20:55
Speaker 1: it's flying around? Yeah, you can't use solar power, not
20:57
Speaker 1: just because it's cloudy young Titan, because remember or Saturn
21:00
Speaker 1: is really far away from the Sun and so the
21:02
Speaker 1: solar power is really really dim. So this thing has
21:06
Speaker 1: a pretty cool system. The drone itself has a lithium
21:09
Speaker 1: ion battery, just like the kind of things. You know,
21:11
Speaker 1: you're finding your laptop, then there's like a power station
21:14
Speaker 1: that can recharge it, and it's recharged by a radioactive
21:18
Speaker 1: thermoelectric generator. That's something that's basically a big pile of
21:23
Speaker 1: plutonium which is decaying radioactively and heating up a little
21:27
Speaker 1: system which turns that heat into electricity. It has like
21:31
Speaker 1: a nuclear power plant on it. Yes, exactly, So I
21:33
Speaker 1: got a nuclear power plant which is gonna last for
21:35
Speaker 1: a long long time, and then it can fly around
21:38
Speaker 1: for like ten kilometers and come back and then it's
21:40
Speaker 1: got a recharge, right, And this is not new. I
21:42
Speaker 1: think most of the mars rovers have a nuclear power plant, right, Yeah,
21:46
Speaker 1: this is not new. We even doing this for decades,
21:48
Speaker 1: powering distance systems with nuclear power plants, so that technology
21:52
Speaker 1: is pretty well established. Well. And then so how are
21:55
Speaker 1: we going to fly this thing around? Is it autonomous
21:57
Speaker 1: or is there like a joystick control? No, it's way
22:00
Speaker 1: too far away for us to control it in real time.
22:03
Speaker 1: Right at the time for light to get to tighten
22:06
Speaker 1: end back is tens and tens of minutes, So there's
22:09
Speaker 1: no way that you want to be flying this thing around.
22:11
Speaker 1: So it's gonna be pretty autonomous. It's gonna take a
22:13
Speaker 1: lot of AI and careful calculations to drive itself around.
22:17
Speaker 1: But you know, flying is simpler than driving because as
22:20
Speaker 1: long as you're above the obstacles, you know, you're mostly
22:23
Speaker 1: free to move around. But this thing also has to
22:26
Speaker 1: sort of land autonomously, and it's got this crazy plan
22:30
Speaker 1: for how to get down to the surface. Let's talk
22:32
Speaker 1: about that. How is it going to land on? Like
22:34
Speaker 1: are redeployed the little helicopter from space or are we
22:38
Speaker 1: landing like a launching pad and like a whole like
22:41
Speaker 1: mini spaceship and then the helicopter emerges from that. Yeah,
22:44
Speaker 1: it's pretty crazy. We're sending this thing that tight. It's
22:46
Speaker 1: gonna arrive in twenty six and it's got this like
22:49
Speaker 1: dual parachute system to come down closer to the surface,
22:54
Speaker 1: and then when it's about a mile from the surface,
22:56
Speaker 1: just over a kilometer actually, then the lander is going
22:59
Speaker 1: to be released for powered flight to the surface. So
23:02
Speaker 1: it's gonna fly itself down to the surface autonomously. It's
23:06
Speaker 1: gonna like figure out exactly where to land and how
23:08
Speaker 1: to get there and avoid boulders and all sorts. Of stuff.
23:11
Speaker 1: It's going to actually like fly itself to the surface,
23:14
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. And you know it's seventy light
23:17
Speaker 1: minutes from Earth, which means it's going to happen, and
23:20
Speaker 1: then we're just gonna wait an hour and ten minutes
23:23
Speaker 1: to hear about whether it crashed or whether it was
23:25
Speaker 1: successful or what. Wow, that's crazy, but I guess we're
23:29
Speaker 1: landing something like a little spaceship, and then the helicopter
23:32
Speaker 1: comes from that, or is the whole land or the helicopter,
23:35
Speaker 1: the whole lander is the helicopter. It's all in one.
23:38
Speaker 1: You could fly around, and then when the battery is exhausted,
23:41
Speaker 1: you can sit on the surface and slowly recharge the
23:45
Speaker 1: battery from the power plant. It uses power faster than
23:48
Speaker 1: the power plant generates it, so it operates in bursts
23:51
Speaker 1: while the battery recharges. And it's also plan that it's
23:54
Speaker 1: only going to explore it during titans daytime, so interesting
23:57
Speaker 1: often does the day happen in Titan? Well, now, un
24:00
Speaker 1: tightened last for a hundred and ninety two hours, it's
24:03
Speaker 1: like eight earth days. That sounds like a pretty good
24:05
Speaker 1: tap there exactly. So it's got a lot of time
24:08
Speaker 1: to sit there and recharge and for humans on Earth,
24:11
Speaker 1: like make a plan for the next exploration. So it's
24:14
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot of fun. And then the daytime
24:16
Speaker 1: last another hours. Wow, yeah, I don't think I can
24:20
Speaker 1: work that long. Even if you slept a hundred ninety
24:23
Speaker 1: two hours that would empower you. Maybe we should get
24:26
Speaker 1: a nuclear power plant inside you. Maybe that would help you. Yeah,
24:29
Speaker 1: that's what we all need. Some plutonium in our tiet
24:33
Speaker 1: all right, So that's pretty cool. So it's launching in.
24:37
Speaker 1: It's gonna take really nine years to get there. It's
24:41
Speaker 1: far away, right, the Solar system is huge, and this
24:44
Speaker 1: is basically the edge of the outer Solar System, and
24:47
Speaker 1: you know, to get there on a low budget, they're
24:50
Speaker 1: going to pass it by Earth a few times for
24:52
Speaker 1: gravitational assist, so you don't need to have as powerful
24:55
Speaker 1: a rocket. So yeah, it's gonna take a while to
24:57
Speaker 1: get there. It's not gonna ride for nine years. So
25:00
Speaker 1: what do the scientists do for nine years to just
25:03
Speaker 1: like take a break, like, all right, we'll go and
25:05
Speaker 1: grab some coffee. Come back in nine years. They think
25:08
Speaker 1: about all the mistakes they made in the design, and
25:10
Speaker 1: they worry, worry, worry sounds tough, no, And they make
25:14
Speaker 1: science plans for what they're gonna do when it lands.
25:16
Speaker 1: You know, they still have power to control with the
25:18
Speaker 1: choices it makes for how it's going to explore Titan,
25:21
Speaker 1: and so they just get to think about that. But
25:23
Speaker 1: that's a question I asked the scientists, so you'll enjoy
25:25
Speaker 1: hearing their answer. Yeah, because the drone will have a
25:27
Speaker 1: lot of cool instruments, like what kinds of things does
25:30
Speaker 1: it have? And what is it going to be looking for? Yeah, well,
25:33
Speaker 1: it's got cameras first of all, like tiny little cameras
25:35
Speaker 1: for looking at stuff close up, and then panoramic cameras
25:38
Speaker 1: because one of our questions is just like what does
25:40
Speaker 1: the surface look like? You know, most of it is
25:43
Speaker 1: shrouded by clouds. We've seen this one picture from this
25:46
Speaker 1: one spot that are pro landed, but we're just curious,
25:49
Speaker 1: like what does the surface look like? And then there's
25:52
Speaker 1: things like a mass spectrometer that's something that can take
25:54
Speaker 1: chemicals and tell you how heavy each molecule is, so
25:58
Speaker 1: you get an idea for like what's there, which elements
26:00
Speaker 1: are there, which like you know, organic molecules have come together.
26:04
Speaker 1: And then they want to measure the surface composition. So
26:07
Speaker 1: they have like a little gamma ray and a neutron
26:09
Speaker 1: spectrometer that can I D the surface composition, you know,
26:12
Speaker 1: bouncing things off of it and seeing how they react.
26:15
Speaker 1: And then they have a sized mometer something that's going
26:18
Speaker 1: to measure like the internal structure of titan listening basically
26:22
Speaker 1: for titan quakes. Wow, for like iceberg crashes just in case. Yeah,
26:27
Speaker 1: because they think that there's internal interesting structure and tighten.
26:30
Speaker 1: They think that there's a lot of ice and rock
26:32
Speaker 1: in there. But there might also be like huge oceans
26:35
Speaker 1: of liquid methane that burp up to the surface, that
26:38
Speaker 1: like crack up to the surface and make these cry
26:40
Speaker 1: o volcanoes, these volcanoes that shoot out water and methane vapor. Whoa.
26:45
Speaker 1: But it sounds like mostly it's just sort of too
26:47
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of great signs, but it's
26:49
Speaker 1: just really I mean, the big idea is just to
26:51
Speaker 1: go there and see what it's like, right, just to
26:53
Speaker 1: look around and see how it's different in the same
26:56
Speaker 1: from Earth. Yeah, exactly. It's a mission of exploration. You know.
26:59
Speaker 1: It's like the first time the humans ever walked on
27:02
Speaker 1: a new island or something. We just didn't know what
27:04
Speaker 1: we would find. And that's the excitement of exploration, is
27:06
Speaker 1: the potential for crazy surprises. So if what scientists thinks
27:11
Speaker 1: is happening on Titan is happening, they'll get a lot
27:14
Speaker 1: of fascinating measurements, will learn a lot about how life
27:17
Speaker 1: started in chemistry and all that cool stuff. But the
27:20
Speaker 1: really exciting thing about this, on top of you know,
27:22
Speaker 1: flying a drone on alien moon, is the possibility to
27:25
Speaker 1: see something weird, something new, something unexpected, something just like shocking.
27:30
Speaker 1: And I love imagining that first moment, you know, twenty
27:33
Speaker 1: years into the mission, when they're going to get the
27:35
Speaker 1: first picture back from the surface. It's gonna appear, you know,
27:39
Speaker 1: line by line on the screens and nassa, and they're
27:41
Speaker 1: gonna be there at the edge of their seats like, wow,
27:43
Speaker 1: what is this picture gonna show us? Yeah? Because they
27:46
Speaker 1: might even find life, right, Like, is that one of
27:49
Speaker 1: the things we're going to be looking for. Do they
27:50
Speaker 1: have instruments to look for life on Titan? Yeah? They
27:53
Speaker 1: might find life. You know, they might find very very
27:55
Speaker 1: simple life, you know, mcrobial life in these lakes, etcetera.
27:59
Speaker 1: And it's different. Well to identify life at all. You know,
28:02
Speaker 1: even here on Earth, if you take like a sample
28:05
Speaker 1: of water and you give it to a microbiologist and
28:07
Speaker 1: ask like, are there living things in here? Basically, they
28:10
Speaker 1: just like use microscopes and look up close and see
28:12
Speaker 1: if they see things wiggling. It's difficult to do on
28:15
Speaker 1: an alien surface with limited technology. What they plan to
28:18
Speaker 1: do is like you use the mass spectrometer to figure
28:20
Speaker 1: out like what molecules are being created, and then argue
28:23
Speaker 1: about whether or not those things can be created without life,
28:26
Speaker 1: sort of like how we thought we saw phosphing on Venus, Remember,
28:29
Speaker 1: and we think that fosphing is only made by life.
28:32
Speaker 1: If you see things on the surface that we think
28:34
Speaker 1: are only made by life, then you can argue life
28:37
Speaker 1: must be there. Otherwise you have to like actually find
28:39
Speaker 1: like a little microbe. But you know they have microscopic cameras,
28:43
Speaker 1: so maybe they'll actually see something wiggling. Well, that would
28:47
Speaker 1: be pretty cool picture. That would be a historic photograph
28:50
Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah. Alright, So Daniel, you talked to the
28:52
Speaker 1: two leads on the project, Dr Elizabeth Turtle and Dr
28:57
Speaker 1: Melissa Trainer, and they're they're the like the head to
29:00
Speaker 1: the project. Yeah, exactly, Elizabeth Turtle is the p I
29:03
Speaker 1: and she sort of runs the whole mission, the planning,
29:05
Speaker 1: the projects, sending the thing over. And Melissa Trainer is
29:08
Speaker 1: sort of the head scientists in terms of the instruments
29:10
Speaker 1: and what questions they're gonna be asking. And so I
29:13
Speaker 1: had a lot of fun talking to them about this
29:14
Speaker 1: mission and what it's like to work on a twenty
29:17
Speaker 1: year long project. All right, Well, let's get into your
29:19
Speaker 1: interview with the two leads to the Dragonfly mission, but
29:22
Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break. All right, we're talking
29:37
Speaker 1: about the Dragonfly mission to Tighten, which is to send
29:40
Speaker 1: a flying octocopter with the nuclear powered energy station now
29:47
Speaker 1: would fly around one of the moves of Saturn. Which
29:50
Speaker 1: is enough. I'm solved. It sounds like a pretty cool project.
29:53
Speaker 1: And Daniel, you talked to the two leads on the project,
29:55
Speaker 1: Dr Elizabeth Turtle and Dr Melissa Trainer about what it's
29:58
Speaker 1: like to work on this long term and exciting mission.
30:03
Speaker 1: I did. I was really glad that they took some
30:05
Speaker 1: time out of their busy schedules preparing for this crazy
30:08
Speaker 1: event in twenty years to talk to me about the science.
30:11
Speaker 1: All right, So here is Daniel's interview with the leads
30:13
Speaker 1: of the Dragonfly mission project. All right, so I'm very
30:24
Speaker 1: pleased to have two wonderful science guests on our program today.
30:27
Speaker 1: Be could you too introduce yourselves? Sure, I'm CZD Turtle.
30:30
Speaker 1: I'm at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, and I'm
30:33
Speaker 1: the principal investigator of the Dragonfly New Frontiers mission. To type,
30:38
Speaker 1: I'm a it's a trainer ever getting ASA out of
30:40
Speaker 1: Stage Flight Center, and I'm working with the v on
30:43
Speaker 1: the Dragonfly mission. Wonderful. Well, thanks very much for coming
30:46
Speaker 1: on our program and answering a bunch of our science questions.
30:49
Speaker 1: I want to dig into the science of your mission
30:51
Speaker 1: and how it's all going to work. But first I
30:53
Speaker 1: have a request from my daughter. She's eleven years old,
30:55
Speaker 1: and when I told her I was going to be
30:57
Speaker 1: interviewing you too, she said she had a question for you,
31:00
Speaker 1: which was how do you get to work on such
31:02
Speaker 1: a fun natha project? So maybe you could each tell
31:05
Speaker 1: us a little bit about how you got to be
31:07
Speaker 1: where you are. Sure, I've always been interested in the planets,
31:12
Speaker 1: you know, in the stars, and you know astronomy and
31:14
Speaker 1: planetary science, and so I studied a lot of science
31:19
Speaker 1: and math in high school and college. I majored in
31:23
Speaker 1: physics and college at M I T. And I then
31:27
Speaker 1: went on to graduate school in planetary sciences at the
31:30
Speaker 1: University of Arizona. And I've worked on a few different
31:34
Speaker 1: missions over the course of my career so far, including
31:37
Speaker 1: the Galleo mission that went to Jupiter and the Cassini
31:41
Speaker 1: mission that went to Saturn, and of course studied Tighten
31:44
Speaker 1: among lots of other things in the Saturnian System and
31:47
Speaker 1: the Europa Clipper mission, as well as Dragonfly and a
31:51
Speaker 1: few others as well along the way. Very cool, so
31:53
Speaker 1: you knew from the beginning the kind of things you
31:55
Speaker 1: wanted to study. Yeah, I've I've just always been interested
31:58
Speaker 1: in planetary science and astronomy. I can't remember learning the planets.
32:02
Speaker 1: I've always like they're part of my geography from before
32:06
Speaker 1: I remember learning. And Melissa sure so a lot like
32:10
Speaker 1: what did he said? I was always very interested in
32:13
Speaker 1: science and math um when I was in elementary school
32:16
Speaker 1: and in high school, but I decided to go ahead
32:19
Speaker 1: in major in chemistry as I really love doing hands
32:22
Speaker 1: on lab work. So my original thought wasn't necessarily that
32:26
Speaker 1: I would be sitting planets, although I felt fascinating. But
32:30
Speaker 1: when I went to graduate school, I was thinking I
32:32
Speaker 1: was going to study Earth's atmosphere to do atmospheric chemistry
32:37
Speaker 1: on Earth turns out Earth to planet, so a lot
32:41
Speaker 1: of the same rules and and interest supply, and I
32:46
Speaker 1: actually ended up doing a really interesting project that was
32:49
Speaker 1: studying the type of organic synthesis that happens entitens otmosphere
32:53
Speaker 1: and drawing connections not to Earth today, but to Earth
32:57
Speaker 1: billions of years ago, what the planet might have been
32:59
Speaker 1: like a long time go, and the atmosphere had a
33:01
Speaker 1: different composition and you might see chemistry like what we
33:04
Speaker 1: faund Titan. So I wasn't involved in any missions and
33:07
Speaker 1: I wasn't graduate school, but the type of work I did,
33:10
Speaker 1: I also studied some processes that we thought might be
33:13
Speaker 1: occurring in Mars is the atmosphere and the types of
33:16
Speaker 1: tools I used in the lab work I did, ultimately
33:19
Speaker 1: is how I got my job at Daughter's Face Flight
33:21
Speaker 1: Center and working in a group that builds instruments that
33:24
Speaker 1: go to other planets. So that's when I got involved
33:27
Speaker 1: first in the MSL mission or Curiosity as part of
33:31
Speaker 1: that science team. But my research interests and my real
33:35
Speaker 1: scientific you know, baby had always been tightened and studying
33:39
Speaker 1: Titans chemistry, and so that led me to working with
33:42
Speaker 1: When I first working with vide actually and others who
33:45
Speaker 1: are now on Dragonfly on a prior mission concept, that's
33:48
Speaker 1: when I sort of first got involved in thinking of
33:51
Speaker 1: new ideas for what we can do if we get
33:52
Speaker 1: to go back to Titan. And then ultimately we had
33:55
Speaker 1: the amazing opportunity to start conceiving of Dragonfly. Very cool
34:00
Speaker 1: tank to me directly to my next question, which is,
34:02
Speaker 1: what do you think are the most sort of important
34:04
Speaker 1: science questions that might be answered by the instruments that
34:07
Speaker 1: you're building on Dragonfly? What could we learn? What can
34:10
Speaker 1: this do that the two thousand five lander could not do?
34:13
Speaker 1: There are a lot of unanswered questions that remain after
34:17
Speaker 1: the Cassini and Huigan's missions in terms of different aspects
34:21
Speaker 1: of Titan. Titan is a very complex system like the Earth, right,
34:24
Speaker 1: it's a very you know, it's a very complex interconnected system.
34:29
Speaker 1: And you know, we have the Huigan's probe that descended
34:31
Speaker 1: down through the atmosphere, made a lot of measurements the
34:33
Speaker 1: atmosphere landed on the surface and provided some information in
34:37
Speaker 1: one view of the surface that was completely tantalizing. Uh.
34:41
Speaker 1: And of course the Cassini orbiter that really revealed the
34:44
Speaker 1: global geology of Titan and followed Titan through almost half
34:49
Speaker 1: a Titan year. The attorney in years twenty nine and
34:51
Speaker 1: a half years, and Cassini was active in this attorneying
34:55
Speaker 1: system for about thirteen years, so we got to watch
34:58
Speaker 1: the weather change on Titan over almost half a year
35:01
Speaker 1: and follow the seasonal changes. So there was a lot
35:04
Speaker 1: of information we gained, but they're really fundamental questions about
35:08
Speaker 1: Titan that remain, including what the materials on the surface are.
35:13
Speaker 1: The solid materials on the surface, we still don't really
35:16
Speaker 1: know their compositions even you know, even at the high level,
35:20
Speaker 1: we know that they're there organic materials and their materials
35:23
Speaker 1: with with water, ice, but not a lot of the details.
35:25
Speaker 1: And so that's really what we want to understand with Dragonfly,
35:31
Speaker 1: especially because the materials on Titan, the chemistry that's occurring
35:35
Speaker 1: on Titan maybe very much like the chemistry that occurred
35:38
Speaker 1: on the early Earth that eventually here on Earth led
35:41
Speaker 1: to biology. Because we can't always you know, study in
35:45
Speaker 1: the laboratory, and certainly can't study on Earth what those
35:48
Speaker 1: chemical processes work, because it's all kind of overprinted by biology.
35:52
Speaker 1: Here now, Titan, where these processes may be happening today,
35:56
Speaker 1: is a great laboratory for looking at what materials are available,
36:00
Speaker 1: and you know how far organic synthesis can progress in
36:03
Speaker 1: this kind of environment. Melissa, how about you? Which pieces
36:06
Speaker 1: of information are you most excited to learn when that
36:08
Speaker 1: thing lands on Titan? Which data you're going to look
36:10
Speaker 1: at first when it arrives specifically to my real true
36:15
Speaker 1: area of interest, I will say is in the surface
36:17
Speaker 1: composition and in looking at the types of organ and
36:21
Speaker 1: molecules that are there, and particularly ones not just that
36:25
Speaker 1: were produced in the atmosphere and potentially deposited on the surface,
36:29
Speaker 1: the ones that may have then undergone sort of advanced
36:34
Speaker 1: chemical processing towards things that would look familiar to us,
36:39
Speaker 1: like building blocks of life, things like amino acids or
36:42
Speaker 1: nuclear bases. You know, a lot of this is grounded
36:45
Speaker 1: in a combination of all the great discoveries that Cassini
36:48
Speaker 1: Higgins made, as well as just decades of lab work
36:52
Speaker 1: that has been done and trying to think through what
36:55
Speaker 1: are some of the key processes that might be happening
36:58
Speaker 1: on Titans, and we know that in the laboratory. If
37:01
Speaker 1: we take analogs of Titans organics and we let them
37:05
Speaker 1: sit in water for a while, even for cold temperatures,
37:08
Speaker 1: for a year or two, you can get some you know,
37:10
Speaker 1: molecules that are really important for like as we know it.
37:13
Speaker 1: And so the question is, you know, we know that
37:16
Speaker 1: process could happen, but did it? Does it? And there
37:20
Speaker 1: are times in Titans tasks where there would have been
37:22
Speaker 1: looked at water on the surface even as long as
37:24
Speaker 1: a thousand years or maybe even ten thousand years because
37:27
Speaker 1: of impacts or other events, And so what will we
37:31
Speaker 1: find if we're going and we're you know, drilling a
37:33
Speaker 1: sample out of one of those one of those locations.
37:35
Speaker 1: I love the mystery of these missions, like we did,
37:38
Speaker 1: There's so much we just don't know, such a blank
37:40
Speaker 1: canvas in our minds and in our ideas and in
37:42
Speaker 1: our understanding, and then we go and we actually get data.
37:46
Speaker 1: So then my question for you is what is your
37:48
Speaker 1: sort of most optimistic hope, what's your like fantasy scenario,
37:52
Speaker 1: best case scenario for what this thing sends back to us?
37:55
Speaker 1: Are you looking for, like pre biodic building blocks and
37:57
Speaker 1: amino acids that could stitch together into life, or you
38:01
Speaker 1: secretly hoping you're going to find microbes on the surface
38:03
Speaker 1: with your fantasy scenario for me finding like a ray
38:07
Speaker 1: of amino assets, a couple of different ones, maybe some
38:10
Speaker 1: other compounds that we know could have come out of
38:12
Speaker 1: this synthesis, this hydrolysis that that we're hoping took place,
38:16
Speaker 1: and hopefully we'll see just a wide array of them.
38:20
Speaker 1: That's my may not domestic hope. And then and then
38:23
Speaker 1: I'll bump it up a little bit and if we
38:24
Speaker 1: could see a sign of what we think of as
38:27
Speaker 1: an important biosignature for Earth, like with the amino assets
38:30
Speaker 1: we have, we carry the capability to look for an
38:33
Speaker 1: enhancement in one high reality or the other of molecules.
38:36
Speaker 1: So that's like the left handed versus right handedness you
38:39
Speaker 1: know on Earth for molecules that are in our bodies
38:43
Speaker 1: that comprise proteins and and d n A, the handedness
38:46
Speaker 1: is really important and it's a signature of life. Whereas
38:49
Speaker 1: when you find molecules to communo assets out and comments
38:53
Speaker 1: that are from a biotic synthesis, they typically have even
38:56
Speaker 1: amounts of both directionality versus, you know, all of one
39:00
Speaker 1: or all of the other. So if we found not
39:03
Speaker 1: only the kind of molecule we're we're looking for, but
39:05
Speaker 1: a big Carol enhancement, that would be amazing. I won't
39:08
Speaker 1: go so far as to suggest that we might find
39:12
Speaker 1: micro but that for me, that would be a fantastic,
39:15
Speaker 1: tremendous success and an amazing discovery. As Melissa says, it's
39:20
Speaker 1: fundamentally a chemistry mission to to understand the chemistry that's
39:23
Speaker 1: possible in these environments that we know have all the
39:26
Speaker 1: ingredients necessary for life as we know. It's certainly and
39:30
Speaker 1: I think it would be really fascinating if we see
39:32
Speaker 1: differences in the chemical components that are available in different environments.
39:38
Speaker 1: And one of the really exciting things about dragonflies that
39:40
Speaker 1: we can fly from place to place and explore very different,
39:43
Speaker 1: you know, places with very different geologic histories, and so
39:47
Speaker 1: if we see different chemical components available in those different
39:51
Speaker 1: places that have different histories, including deposits associated with an
39:54
Speaker 1: impact crater where liquid water and organic material may have
39:58
Speaker 1: been in contact for or extended periods of time, I
40:01
Speaker 1: think that would be fascinating. One of the other things
40:04
Speaker 1: that I'm really excited about is that we get to
40:06
Speaker 1: put the chemistry. We have these you know, the capability
40:09
Speaker 1: to measure the detailed composition, but we get to put
40:11
Speaker 1: that in the context of the Titan environment. And so
40:15
Speaker 1: we get to make measurements of the atmospheric parameters you know, temperature, pressure,
40:20
Speaker 1: method humanity, wind, etcetera. We get to take images and
40:24
Speaker 1: see the surface and the landforms and the geologic processes
40:28
Speaker 1: that dictate how the materials on the surface of Titan
40:33
Speaker 1: are transported and mixed together. And we even can make
40:38
Speaker 1: some geophysical measurements, including listening for Titan quakes to understand
40:42
Speaker 1: you know, the titans geologic activity. So I'm really excited
40:45
Speaker 1: that we get to put the chemistry into the context
40:48
Speaker 1: of Titan as a system. Very cool. Of course, all
40:51
Speaker 1: of the answers to these questions are years or more
40:53
Speaker 1: than a decade away. And while it's very exciting, how
40:57
Speaker 1: do you maintain your sort of emotional energy and excite
41:00
Speaker 1: it for a project when the arc of it is,
41:02
Speaker 1: you know, ten fifteen years, you're not going in day
41:05
Speaker 1: to day and getting answers to these questions even making
41:07
Speaker 1: progress on it. What keeps you motivated on a day
41:09
Speaker 1: to day basis, and the development cycle is also a
41:13
Speaker 1: long time. You know, our launch is scheduled in which
41:16
Speaker 1: seems like a long way away, but it's actually you know,
41:20
Speaker 1: we're really busy and every day there are new things
41:23
Speaker 1: going on and new tests and new design updates and
41:27
Speaker 1: things like that, and so is actually going to come
41:30
Speaker 1: really quickly because we've got so much to do between
41:33
Speaker 1: now and then. And you will listen what it keeps
41:34
Speaker 1: you excited every day? Um, Well, I think it's kind
41:37
Speaker 1: of touching on it. Um. It's true that the actual
41:40
Speaker 1: data that we get to tighten its far away, but
41:43
Speaker 1: in the development process, there's already so many little problems
41:47
Speaker 1: to solve or really fascinating questions, you know, to work
41:52
Speaker 1: just to make sure that we're developing the spacecraft on
41:54
Speaker 1: the instrument to do exactly what we want them to do.
41:57
Speaker 1: So you're constantly engage age in the exact type of
42:02
Speaker 1: problem solving and technical development that keeps resolved going. So
42:05
Speaker 1: I think that that's that's a big motivator for sure.
42:09
Speaker 1: Something that always impresses me and amazes me by these
42:11
Speaker 1: space missions is that once it's out there, you don't
42:13
Speaker 1: get to go and troubleshoot it and fix it. In
42:16
Speaker 1: my field, if something breaks in the particle accelerator, we
42:19
Speaker 1: can shut the thing down, we can go down there,
42:21
Speaker 1: we can replace it, we can you know, put volt
42:23
Speaker 1: meters on it. Whatever. But here it's gone. And it's
42:26
Speaker 1: such an intricate and elaborate and amazing project. So what
42:29
Speaker 1: part of it worries you the most? You know, which
42:32
Speaker 1: stage of like flying out there and the entry and
42:35
Speaker 1: turning on the actual rotors. Which part of it sort
42:38
Speaker 1: of from an engineering point of view do you think
42:39
Speaker 1: is the riskiest or is going to make you white
42:41
Speaker 1: knuckle at the most. Each stage of the mission has
42:44
Speaker 1: different risks associated with it, in different challenges you know.
42:47
Speaker 1: Right now, the thing that I see that we need
42:50
Speaker 1: to pay the most attention to is making sure all
42:53
Speaker 1: the different development pieces progressed together so that we get
42:56
Speaker 1: the information we need from each subsystem to be able
42:59
Speaker 1: to design of the other subsystems. Right, everything kind of
43:01
Speaker 1: has to happen at once, and so the timing and
43:04
Speaker 1: mountain is also really really crucial. And then you're right,
43:08
Speaker 1: once we launch, everything is up to Dragonfly, and uh,
43:12
Speaker 1: I expect each subsystem would think that they have the
43:14
Speaker 1: most challenges. Um, you know in terms of the you
43:18
Speaker 1: know that they're the most critical just because there's so
43:20
Speaker 1: many different pieces of it um and you just try
43:23
Speaker 1: to build in as much robustness and redundancy as possible.
43:26
Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons we have the X eight
43:28
Speaker 1: octocopter design with four cares of rotors, so that you know,
43:33
Speaker 1: even if something you know we're to go wrong and
43:35
Speaker 1: one of the rotors weren't work, we're still able to
43:38
Speaker 1: fly with the other seven. And so you just build
43:40
Speaker 1: as much, you know, as many contingencies into your design
43:43
Speaker 1: as possible and hope that you don't end up with
43:47
Speaker 1: pathological situations that you know, that go in a different
43:50
Speaker 1: direction than the expectations. And Molity have anything to add
43:54
Speaker 1: about which part of the mission is the most nerve
43:56
Speaker 1: wracking for you thinking through the sampling system, getting the
44:01
Speaker 1: surface samples and how we're going to measure the composition.
44:04
Speaker 1: So as maybe said, that's of course what I will
44:06
Speaker 1: will say has a lot of challenges. Um you know
44:11
Speaker 1: uh what challenging but also fun about that is if
44:14
Speaker 1: we don't know exactly what we're going to find, so
44:16
Speaker 1: that's where we're going to learn what the surfaces is
44:19
Speaker 1: comprised of and so our approach is to try to
44:24
Speaker 1: build as if you had the most probus and sort
44:27
Speaker 1: of flexible and adaptable system that we can using the
44:30
Speaker 1: information that we have, but then also being prepared when
44:34
Speaker 1: we get there. You know, we have an impressive payload,
44:37
Speaker 1: a really great complement of measurements that we can take
44:40
Speaker 1: before we even attempts to start drilling. You know, we
44:43
Speaker 1: can observe the surface visually, we get elemental measurements of
44:46
Speaker 1: the surface will be studying or the meteorology some of
44:49
Speaker 1: the surface properties. So we're gonna survice our whole arsenal
44:53
Speaker 1: as it is as we think through sampling or how
44:57
Speaker 1: we're going to measure a sample, and then on instrument
45:00
Speaker 1: side with the mesotometer, which is what's going to be
45:03
Speaker 1: measuring the molecular composition. You know, we try to think
45:06
Speaker 1: through how to be as flexible as possible, and to
45:09
Speaker 1: your point about worrying about well, what if something goes
45:12
Speaker 1: wrong and you can't go replace it, certainly um you
45:15
Speaker 1: instead have to learn how to work around it. And
45:17
Speaker 1: so we spend a lot of time on our team
45:19
Speaker 1: thinking through multiple failure scenarios or what could go wrong,
45:25
Speaker 1: and then what would we do to adapt And in
45:28
Speaker 1: some cases you identify an area while it would really
45:31
Speaker 1: helps us a lot if we've just put an extra
45:33
Speaker 1: valve here, you know, just in case. So we do
45:36
Speaker 1: a lot of that analysis is constantly a trade between
45:39
Speaker 1: making sure that we stay in the box, so to speak,
45:42
Speaker 1: with what are our size, our mass power, all those things,
45:44
Speaker 1: but also being ready for the unknowable kind of how
45:49
Speaker 1: do you figure out how to organize the technology for
45:52
Speaker 1: the mission, given that the mission takes so long to
45:54
Speaker 1: design and build. By the time you're actually ready to
45:57
Speaker 1: construct the thing, you know, technology has moved full word.
46:00
Speaker 1: Rotor blades are better, instruments are smaller, and a fifteen
46:04
Speaker 1: year time scale, you know, technology, by the time this
46:06
Speaker 1: thing arrives on Titan, it will be ridiculously out of date.
46:10
Speaker 1: Do you sort of freeze the engineering at some point
46:12
Speaker 1: when you're planning it and then you just move forward,
46:14
Speaker 1: or do you try to catch up as the field
46:16
Speaker 1: moves on as you're building it. You now, absolutely it's
46:18
Speaker 1: the former. Will freeze the design as we move forward
46:21
Speaker 1: and you're right by the time we get to Titan
46:23
Speaker 1: and we'll think, wow, that's that's old technology, right. The
46:28
Speaker 1: same way Galileo right in in two thousand was using
46:31
Speaker 1: a tape recorder, and my two thousand, most people weren't
46:35
Speaker 1: necessarily using tape recorders anymore. So you definitely see that.
46:40
Speaker 1: But one of the things that is a great advantage
46:43
Speaker 1: for dragon Play is that we can use existing technology
46:47
Speaker 1: to apply to the exploration of Titan, and so that
46:52
Speaker 1: makes the design more robust because we have knowledge of
46:57
Speaker 1: that hardware and those components because they have been used before.
47:02
Speaker 1: You know, in many cases like the mass spectrometer right,
47:05
Speaker 1: the mass spectrometer is based on the mass spectroumeter is
47:07
Speaker 1: currently sitting on Mars right and has has been operating there,
47:12
Speaker 1: and so we can take advantage of that to make
47:14
Speaker 1: sure that we understand how the hardware is going to work,
47:18
Speaker 1: how we need to build Dragonfly to support the instrumentation
47:22
Speaker 1: so that everything will work together in the Titan environment
47:25
Speaker 1: when we get there. But you're right, we'll look back
47:27
Speaker 1: and think, wow, that's that's old school. Yeah. One thing
47:31
Speaker 1: I sort of learned when I got into this business
47:33
Speaker 1: was there's a big difference between state of the arts
47:36
Speaker 1: and state of the flight. Something that is like the amazing,
47:40
Speaker 1: awesome instrument that you would even your laboratory that we
47:43
Speaker 1: think of the state of the art once you think
47:46
Speaker 1: about launching that off the planet and sending it out,
47:49
Speaker 1: you know, out into the outer source system or wherever
47:52
Speaker 1: you're going and landing and maybe kind of a you know,
47:54
Speaker 1: an intense environment and existing on a in this case
47:57
Speaker 1: and a body that has a servicember here of before
48:00
Speaker 1: Kelvin right, your fancy instrument in the lab is not
48:03
Speaker 1: gonna I'm not going to survive that. So we think
48:06
Speaker 1: about the cutting edge and spake flight instrumentation is different
48:10
Speaker 1: than the cutting edge and what we might be doing
48:12
Speaker 1: in our research. Wonderful. Well, then let me ask you
48:15
Speaker 1: one last question, which is a question we usually ask
48:17
Speaker 1: science fiction authors when they're on the program. But you
48:19
Speaker 1: guys are really reaching out into the edges of space
48:21
Speaker 1: and our understanding. So I'm curious what your thoughts are
48:24
Speaker 1: about this. What are your personal answers to the Fermi paradox,
48:27
Speaker 1: you know, even the vastness of space and the number
48:30
Speaker 1: of habitable planets out there and the age of the universe.
48:33
Speaker 1: Why do you think we haven't been contacted yet? Are
48:36
Speaker 1: we alone in the universe or is there life out
48:39
Speaker 1: there that just hasn't reached out to us for some reason,
48:41
Speaker 1: pure speculation, no scientific basis. Um. I think I think
48:46
Speaker 1: part of it is answered by part of your question, right.
48:49
Speaker 1: You know, even if there is life out there, there
48:51
Speaker 1: may well be. Space is vast and it takes a
48:55
Speaker 1: long time even for light to travel across space, and
48:59
Speaker 1: so that makes communication hard. I mean, from for dragonfly
49:04
Speaker 1: to kind of bring it back to dragonfly for a
49:06
Speaker 1: little bit, the time it takes to communicate with Dragonfly
49:10
Speaker 1: is sent ninety minutes depending on where Earth and Saturn
49:13
Speaker 1: are in their orbit, right, And so we have to
49:15
Speaker 1: be able to work with dragonfly, and Dragonfly has to
49:19
Speaker 1: be able to do everything it needs to do on
49:21
Speaker 1: its own because we can't communicate with it instantly, and
49:24
Speaker 1: that's just communicating with Saturn, right, And so I think
49:28
Speaker 1: the time scales involved with the spatial scale of the
49:31
Speaker 1: universe certainly complicates that. And I don't think we can
49:34
Speaker 1: read into the fact that we haven't been contacted the
49:38
Speaker 1: assumption that it's because there's no one trying. Well, that's optimistic.
49:43
Speaker 1: I think, how did you, Melissa. I agree with everything
49:45
Speaker 1: that we said, and also I take a very humble
49:49
Speaker 1: approach to it. And still wonder if we really know
49:52
Speaker 1: how to be listening, do we know what we're listening for?
49:55
Speaker 1: And this in general is the question that's important in
49:58
Speaker 1: the search for life. By the we're looking for intelligent
50:01
Speaker 1: life or whether we're just looking for microbial life that
50:04
Speaker 1: could be a little different than us. We always have
50:06
Speaker 1: to keep asking of ourselves the question do we know
50:09
Speaker 1: how to listen? Do we know what we're looking for?
50:11
Speaker 1: Do we know what we're listening for? If there was
50:14
Speaker 1: other life out there? And it's a field that you know,
50:16
Speaker 1: I think we're getting better and better at all the time,
50:19
Speaker 1: but it always requires that sort of humble approach. Very
50:22
Speaker 1: well said. All right, well, thank you both very much
50:24
Speaker 1: for your time and best of luck on the engineering
50:27
Speaker 1: and of course on the launch and the landing. Will
50:29
Speaker 1: all be on the edge of our seats in to
50:34
Speaker 1: hear what you guys learned. So thanks very much for
50:36
Speaker 1: coming on our program and sharing the excitement of your
50:38
Speaker 1: science with us. All right, pretty cool. I like what
50:49
Speaker 1: you said at the end about what it means to
50:51
Speaker 1: her to work on this, Yeah, exactly. I think this
50:54
Speaker 1: is personal for both of them. You know, we say
50:56
Speaker 1: on this program a lot that science has driven forward
50:59
Speaker 1: by individual people with their curiosity. And clearly this is
51:02
Speaker 1: a big project with a lot of people working on it,
51:04
Speaker 1: but it's driven forward by their personal curiosity. You know.
51:07
Speaker 1: They want to know the answers to these questions. They
51:10
Speaker 1: have burning questions about the universe, and it's their curiosity
51:13
Speaker 1: that's pushing forward the envelope of human knowledge. And it's
51:17
Speaker 1: exciting to see that in action, yeah, because you know,
51:19
Speaker 1: sort of like sending a robot with cameras is probably
51:22
Speaker 1: just as good as sending a human with cameras, you know,
51:25
Speaker 1: except again, you don't have to bring the robot back yet,
51:31
Speaker 1: you know, until our AI overloords make us bring it back,
51:35
Speaker 1: or maybe when we do eventually colonized Titan, we will
51:38
Speaker 1: find Dragonfly there piste off and waiting for us. Yeah,
51:42
Speaker 1: and it's going to be a nuclear arm so watch out.
51:47
Speaker 1: All right. Well, it's pretty exciting and it's a mission
51:50
Speaker 1: that's happening right now. You can sort of track it
51:52
Speaker 1: and follow its progress, I imagine, on the NASA website,
51:55
Speaker 1: So please check it out and send them good space vibes.
51:59
Speaker 1: That's right, And one last fun little tidbit about this
52:01
Speaker 1: project is that it started over dinner on a napkin
52:05
Speaker 1: between two scientists coming up with this crazy idea. So
52:08
Speaker 1: you know, next time you have some crazy idea, it
52:11
Speaker 1: might just turn into like a huge billion dollar twenty
52:15
Speaker 1: year mission to a surface in the Solar System. So
52:18
Speaker 1: keep thinking and keep being creative. Yeah, don't use napkins
52:21
Speaker 1: for wiping food of your mouth, just you know, keep
52:25
Speaker 1: them around in case you get cool billion dollars space
52:29
Speaker 1: ideas well. That was pretty exciting. Let's stay tuned and
52:32
Speaker 1: see what they find in twenty years. I'm excited to
52:35
Speaker 1: see that first picture. Thanks for joining us, see you
52:38
Speaker 1: next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and
52:48
Speaker 1: Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio.
52:52
Speaker 1: For more podcast from my Heart Radio, visit the I
52:55
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52:58
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