In the first episode of Spark Science, we talk with Dr. Melissa Rice about the Mars Curiosity Rover, the geology of Mars, Missions to Mars and Mars related movies!
Image Courtesy of NASA
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[♪ Blackalicious rapping Chemical Calisthenics ♪]
♪ Neutron, proton, mass defect, lyrical oxidation, yo irrelevant
♪ Mass spectrograph, pure electron volt, atomic energy erupting
♪ As I get all open on betatron, gamma rays thermo cracking
♪ Cyclotron and any and every mic
♪ You’re on trans iridium, if you’re always uranium
♪ Molecules, spontaneous combustion, pow
♪ Law of de-fi-nite pro-por-tion, gain-ing weight
♪ I’m every element of brown
Dr. Regina DeGraaff: Welcome to Spark Science, sharing stories of human curiosity. This is our first ever episode. My name is Regina Barber DeGraaff. I teach physics and astronomy at Western Washington University.
And here next to me is my co-host, and also sixth grade classmate, Jordan Baker. And I’m gonna let him introduce himself a little bit.
Jordan Baker: Hello. My name is Jordan Baker. I do improv at the Upfront Theatre in Bellingham, Washington.
Regina DeGraaff: Awesome. And this is our first ever guest on Spark Science and she is Dr. Melissa Rice, who is a science team member of the NASA Curiosity Rover mission, and she’s also an assistant professor of Planetary Science at Western Washington University with me. And why do you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself — about your position, let’s say, at Western.
Melissa Rice: Sure. I have a joint position between the geology department and the physics and astronomy department. My expertise is in Mars, which involves rocks that are not on the Earth. So I’m kind of in this dead space between geology and astronomy.
But I teach classes in both departments and I still work on the NASA Mars Rover missions, the Curiosity mission, which you mentioned, as well as the Opportunity mission, which has been chugging along on Mars for more than 11 years now.
Regina DeGraaff: So what’s the difference between the Curiosity mission and the Opportunity mission?
Melissa Rice: About 1500 pounds.
Regina DeGraaff: Okay.
Melissa Rice: So the Opportunity mission was —
Regina DeGraaff: So not a lot, right?
Melissa Rice: Not a lot, not a lot. [Laughter.] No they’re totally different if you look at them, they’re like apples and oranges. They’re both six-wheeled robots driving across the surface Mars, but Opportunity went to Mars, landed in 2004 with a twin rover, Spirit. They were cute little rovers. People tell me they look like Wall-E. They had two little eyes and solar panels that made them look like they had wings.
But Curiosity was the next generation rover — big beefy rover, weighs 2000 pounds, and it’s all white. It doesn’t have solar panels. It carries its own nuclear power source, so it looks like it has a big butt sticking out the back of it.
Regina DeGraaff: Right. And he looks like he has a monocle, right? Like the big Curiosity —
Melissa Rice: Yeah.
Regina DeGraaff: He has a camera that kind of makes —
Melissa Rice: Looks like it has a big cyclops eye on top of it.
Regina DeGraaff: Right, yes.
Melissa Rice: I think it’s interesting that you used “he.”
Regina DeGraaff: Oh, yes! It’s because I’m sexist. [joke/joking] [laughter]
Melissa Rice: Well it’s definitely the biggest, beefiest rover out there so —
Jordan Baker: She mentioned the big butt, so I would assume female!
Regina DeGraaff: Oh god!
Melissa Rice: Oh, now who’s sexist!
Regina DeGraaff: We’re both sexist! I remember seeing a picture of Curiosity and having the head kind of is boxy and he has this long neck — or it has a long neck. It does not have gender, you are right.
But it had like kind of a picture of a cartoonish version and it had a monocle kind of, and I don’t know.
Melissa Rice: Yeah exactly. So Curiosity, it still has two eyes, but they’re under the big boxy thing. And the box has a single large camera in it. It’s actually a telescope.
Regina DeGraaff: Oh okay!
Melissa Rice: And it’s a telescope and it’s also a laser that shoots holes in rocks.
Regina DeGraaff: Right.
Jordan Baker: Yes!
Melissa Rice: Yeah so —
Jordan Baker: That’s what I’m talking about! That’s the Mars stuff I wanna hear about! [laughter]
Regina DeGraaff: Right so, there’s a robot on Mars that has a laser shooting out of its — near its eyeballs.
Melissa Rice: Shooting out of its big cyclops eyeball at the top of its head.
Regina DeGraaff: Alright, so —
Melissa Rice: I have a friend who calls it —
Jordan Baker: What does it, what does it eat after it shoots with the laser? [laughter]
Regina DeGraaff: Well I think it’s solar powered, so it eats sun, right?
Jordan Baker: Oh.
Melissa Rice: No, no. This one —
Regina DeGraaff: Oh it’s not solar powered!
Melissa Rice: It’s nuclear powered.
Regina DeGraaff: You’re right, I wasn’t listening!
Melissa Rice: It eats radioactive decay particles.
Regina DeGraaff: Right.
Melissa Rice: No, but I have a friend who calls that laser the “FLOIFH,” which stands for Freaking Laser on its Freaking Head.
Jordan Baker: Nice. It’s sort of a Dr. Evil sort of thing.
Regina DeGraaff: Oh yeah.
Jordan Baker: “Frickin’ lasers on the –”
Melissa Rice: An illusion to that, yeah.
Regina DeGraaff: On the sharks, right?
Jordan Baker: Yeah, yeah.
Regina DeGraaff: Or on the dolphins. Or is it the sharks? I don’t remember.
Jordan Baker: Every animal should have a warm meal.
Regina DeGraaff: Every — yeah, you’re right! You’re right.
So your students at Western — because not a lot of people know this, but there’s a lot of undergraduate research that happens at Western Washington University. — WWU, I’ll just say that.
So some of them can actually look at data that came directly from Curiosity, right? Like straight up recent stuff. So what do your students do? I’m just guessing right now.
Melissa Rice: Yeah, no. So, my students can do that, but it’s not cause they’re special because they work with me. It’s cause everybody can look at the data immediately after it comes down from Curiosity.
Regina DeGraaff: Really? Oh, that’s right. You were telling me about that, yeah.
Melissa Rice: Yeah, so most of the pictures — all of the pictures from Curiosity’s engineering cameras go online immediately after they get down here to Earth. So I don’t get to see them any sooner than you do. They just go directly up to the NASA JPL website and anyone can go online and see them immediately.
Regina DeGraaff: Okay. Wow.
Melissa Rice: So, you know, I like to think when I come into work and I look at the newest images from the rover that maybe I am the first person to ever see this new vista of Mars. But these images have been online sometimes for hours and it’s probably someone in Australia who’s got up way before I did who gets to be that real first person to see something new on Mars.
Regina DeGraaff: But you do get to tell the rover where to go, right?
Melissa Rice: That I do get to do. Or I get to provide input into where the rover’s going to go.
Regina DeGraaff: Is it a democracy? Is there a vote on where it goes?
Melissa Rice: There is a democracy, yeah. So we spend the first two hours of our day making a plan for what the rover’s going to do tomorrow. And there are usually a couple dozen scientists on the phone line giving input and trying to make these decisions about what we’re gonna do. And if there’s ever head-butting, then we bring it to a vote.
Regina DeGraaff: Mmkay. So I wanna take a second, though — I wanna go back though. I wanna go back to when you were an undergrad, or even before that. Like what made you really interested in Marsology, right? So it’s not geology, right? It’s like Marsology.
Melissa Rice: Yeah we call it Martian geology.
Regina DeGraaff: Okay.
Melissa Rice: But no, I’m with you though that it really should be Marsology. And there are all of these Earthcentric terms that we use that are —
Regina DeGraaff: Like my gendercentric term earlier.
Melissa Rice: Yeah. Well you know, that tickled me because I’m so used to hearing people call these rovers “she” out of the tradition ships are called “she.”
Regina DeGraaff: Oh really?
Melissa Rice: And ships are always female.
Regina DeGraaff: Right, right. And cars —
Melissa Rice: And these robots are really ships of exploration.
Regina DeGraaff: Of course.
Melissa Rice: So we refer to them as “she.”
Jordan Baker: That means I was right.
Regina DeGraaff: You were right, you were right! Jordan was — he’ll always be right every episode. [laughter]
Melissa Rice: Okay, good to set that precedent now. [laughter]
Regina DeGraaff: I will be wrong and he will be right. So yeah, I was probably one of the first people that called it a he that you’ve heard?
Melissa Rice: That I’ve heard.
Regina DeGraaff: Wow. Well that makes me feel better.
Jordan Baker: Well you were thinking Monopoly with the monocle.
Regina DeGraaff: I was thinking Monopoly. I was thinking Mr. Pennybags, right?
Jordan Baker: Yep.
Regina DeGraaff: Which wouldn’t be rich if he had penny bags, right? Anyway, let’s get back. Let’s get back to your childhood.
Melissa Rice: Yes, back to childhood.
Regina DeGraaff: To Monopoly! Yes. So when were you interested in planetary science? When did that start?
Melissa Rice: Not really until college.
Regina DeGraaff: Oh really? Okay, so I was right with undergrad.
Melissa Rice: Yeah, yeah. I was interested in science beforehand, but I went to college not really knowing what I would do. I didn’t declare a major in astronomy and physics until late in my junior year.
Regina DeGraaff: Oh wow that’s really late.
Melissa Rice: And so, yeah. I was kind of pushing it. And even then I didn’t really know much at all about Mars until I was a senior in college and I heard a talk at MIT by one of the then NASA administrators — someone who worked at NASA headquarters who was giving an overview talk of new results from the Mars Global Surveyor mission.
Regina DeGraaff: Mmkay.
Melissa Rice: And that mission had some of the best pictures ever taken of Mars, let alone any other planetary surface. And there were pictures that he showed of ancient streambeds and gullies and all of this evidence that I had not been aware of that Mars was once a place with water all over it — running water, standing bodies of water, and water that might’ve been there for long periods of time.
And so that was the first time I had really heard anyone talk about Mars as a realistic place where life might have emerged.
Regina DeGraaff: Right.
Melissa Rice: Not a science-fiction where the world’s aliens, little green men kind of a thing, but —
Regina DeGraaff: Mars Attacks, the movie.
Melissa Rice: Yeah. Not so much that, but real possibilities that there could’ve been life.
Jordan Baker: So what interested you was basically the history of Mars?
Melissa Rice: Yeah, exactly!
Jordan Baker: Like how it was.
Melissa Rice: And I think that’s what interests most people who study Mars. Mars as it is today, it’s like the worst place on Earth times 100. You know, it’s 100 times drier than the driest spot on this planet. It is extremely cold temperatures — on average are -70 to 100. So it’s a pretty nasty place.
Regina DeGraaff: Fahrenheit or Celsius?
Melissa Rice: Fahrenheit.
[♪ Janelle Monae singing Wondaland ♪]
Regina DeGraaff: You’re listening to Spark Science, sharing stories of human curiosity. If you’re just joining us, my name is Regina Barber DeGraaf, here with my co-host Jordan Baker, and our special guest, Melissa Rice, who is here from Mars.
[♪ Janelle Monae singing Wondaland ♪]
♪ Early late at night
Melissa Rice: So yeah. Mars today is this cold, dry, barren desert place. It’s a pretty awful place. But it’s Mars as it was billions of years ago in its past that is what drives me and a lot of my colleagues to go and explore it. Because three billion years ago and before, Mars might’ve been a much more Earth-like place — a place with weather, a place with clouds, and rain, and snow, and lakes, and rivers, and something that would seem a lot more familiar to us.
Jordan Baker: So is that why you’re going to study it? Maybe you think like, this may be our future. We’re gonna be -70 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit negative, like cold, like — are we trying to get information on where we could be going, or?
Melissa Rice: Yeah. So comparing the Earth to Mars and also to Venus is understanding three examples of what can possibly happen to a planet. So the Earth is kind of the goldilocks planet; it’s not too hot, it’s not too cold, it’s just right for life right now.
Mars might’ve been more like Earth, but it’s gone in one extreme direction. It’s become extremely cold, extremely dry, extremely dead. And Venus has gone in completely the opposite direction. Venus might very well have been a more Earth-like place earlier on too. But now it has a runaway greenhouse effect, it’s extremely hot, the surface is hot enough to melt lead, and the atmosphere is incredibly thick, and it’s just too hot for liquid water or any forms of life to survive.
So could the Earth go in one direction or another? I don’t know. They’re both pretty extreme examples, but I think we would be irresponsible not to try and figure out how a planet can go in one direction or the other because we’re starting to see hints of change on our own planet.
Regina DeGraaff: Right. So what you are looking at with your data — are you looking at basically the life that was on the planet? Or is there still a change of any reservoirs of water? Cause I know that like NASA’s phrase is, “Follow the water,” right? That’s how we’re gonna find life on other planets: follow the water.
So is there still any amounts of water still on Mars that may have some information or is that not happening?
Melissa Rice: Yeah. So we know there are small amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere. And on certain cold nights, that water vapor can condense onto the ground. And we’ve even seen frost form on the surface. But we don’t think that there’s really enough life to sustain anything living on the surface.
Regina DeGraaff: Okay.
Melissa Rice: Even the hardiest little microbes probably have a very very small chance at being able to survive on the surface. But if you go deeper and deeper beneath the surface, it’s gonna get warmer and warmer. And eventually there may be a place where there are reservoirs of liquid water underneath the surface of Mars. And those are the places where, if there is any life hiding out on Mars today, it’s probably deep deep down where the last remnants of liquid water are.
Regina DeGraaff: Right. So I mean, I was trying to look on the internet about this place called NASA Watch, and it basically kind of pools together a whole bunch of NASA press releases. And I just looked for the phrase, “Life on Mars,” specifically, and over a thousand hits came up.
So what I’m trying to ask is like, how has the history changed? Like when NASA was looking for life on Mars, has it eventually gotten to the part where it just thinks, I’m just gonna look at the history? Or like you’re saying, is it still holding out for something actually on Mars?
Melissa Rice: Yeah. We are not really holding out hope —
Regina DeGraaff: Okay. [laughing]
Jordan Baker: Dang it!
Melissa Rice: For existing life on Mars. I mean it’s — I’m not gonna close any doors here.
Regina DeGraaff: Right.
Melissa Rice: Anything’s possible. But what we’re more actively looking for are signs that life had ever been on Mars.
Regina DeGraaff: Right.
Melissa Rice: So when we — you know, the exciting discoveries that I think might be possible in my lifetime are finding fossil evidence for microbial life preserved in ancient rocks on Mars, or finding other biosignatures, which are basically fingerprints that something living — some type of biology had been present on Mars at some point in the past.
Personally, I’m not holding out any hope that we’re gonna find E.T. on Mars today. But we might find the dead remnants of his brethren.
Regina DeGraaff: Okay. Dead E.T.
Melissa Rice: Yeah, but, you know, not 60 years ago it was pretty much accepted that Mars was a place that likely had life, and that Mars was a place that probably still had some kind of vegetation.
Regina DeGraaff: Right.
Melissa Rice: Maybe not little green men, but at least lichens and mosses. And the early astronomers who were looking at Mars with their newfangled telescopes were seeing what they thought were seasonal changes on the surface due to vegetation blooming and coming in and out of season.
It turned out that those seasonal changes that they saw was just dust blowing around on the dry surface of Mars.
Regina DeGraaff: Oh wow.
Melissa Rice: But in the 1950s, it wasn’t crazy to think that there had been ancient, even intelligent life on Mars, and that today there was still some kind of living vegetation.
It really wasn’t until NASA sent its first missions to orbit around Mars in the early 1960s that we saw that there were no intelligent beings who had built canals on Mars, that the surface was largely a dead cratered landscape and not the kind of ancient civilization preserved on the surface that some early astronomers had thought. And that’s also when we saw that there really was nothing at all living in the surface — no evidence for vegetation, even the most primitive kind.
Regina DeGraaff: Wow.
[♪ Janelle Monae singing Wondaland ♪]
♪ Paint mysteries
♪ The magnificent droid plays there
♪ Your magic mind
♪ Makes love to mine
♪ I think I’m in love, angel
Jordan Baker: You’re listening to Spark Science, sharing stories of human curiosity. If you’re just joining us, my name is Jordan Baker. I’m here with Regina Barber DeGraaff and we’re talking with Melissa Rice.
[♪ Janelle Monae singing Wondaland ♪]
♪ Take me back to Wondaland
♪ I gotta get back to Wondaland
♪ Take me back to Wondaland
♪ Me thinks she left her underpants
♪ Oh, take me back to Wondaland
♪ I gotta get back to Wondaland
♪ Take me back to Wondaland
♪ Me thinks she left her underpants
Regina DeGraaff: Yeah, I remember we’re roughly all the same age — you know, 60.
Melissa Rice: Mhmm.
Regina DeGraaff: No. [laughing] In our early 30s. I remember the rover mission in the 90s. Do you remember that Jordan?
Jordan Baker: Nope! [laughing]
Regina DeGraaff: Okay. Well when Jordan and I were in high school — I think it was in 1997 when the first little rover went on.
Melissa Rice: Yeah, the Sojourner rover.
Regina DeGraaff: So I was obsessed with that. And I remember thinking it looked exactly like Arizona. Like Mars looks like Arizona.
Melissa Rice: Yeah.
Regina DeGraaff: But I’m really interested in like how these missions are progressing. Like you said the two that you’re associated with are just very different. But what is it gonna be like in the future? What are future missions gonna look like?
Melissa Rice: So the next mission is going to look exactly the same.
Regina DeGraaff: Okay. [laughing]
Jordan Baker: Alright!
Regina DeGraaff: We love ruts.
Jordan Baker: Redundancy.
Regina DeGraaff: Yeah. Redundancy is good sometimes.
Melissa Rice: It’s called Mission Heritage.
Jordan Baker: Ah.
Regina DeGraaff: Is it really? Wow okay.
Melissa Rice: Yeah. But it’s going to be a completely different rover. It’s just going to look the same.
Regina DeGraaff: Okay.
Melissa Rice: So it’s going to use the same big boxy white body as curiosity. It’s going to have the same kind of power source, that same big butt. It’s gonna have the same tall neck with its cyclops eye at the top.
Regina DeGraaff: Laser eye.
Melissa Rice: Laser eye.
Regina DeGraaff: Okay.
Melissa Rice: But instead of having all of these very sophisticated scientific instruments inside the body of the rover, this rover’s going to have a different set of instruments and it’s going to have the capability to drill into rocks, extract little core samples, and store those core samples of rocks in some kind of protective tube or vile, and store those on the surface of Mars so that the next mission will land next to it, pick up those rocks, and eventually bring them back to Earth.
Regina DeGraaff: So we are actually thinking about making missions that launch off of Mars.
Melissa Rice: We are.
Regina DeGraaff: Oh. I did not know this.
Melissa Rice: Yeah. And so, the next big leaps in our understanding of Mars are gonna happen from bringing rocks back here on Earth.
Regina DeGraaff: Right.
Melissa Rice: And it really has to because there’s only so much technology we can send to Mars. We really, in order to keep pace with technology, in order to do the most detailed investigations, and do our due diligence, we have to do that in laboratories here on the Earth.
And so the next big step is to bring rocks back. And the next rover that’s going in 2020 — it’s not gonna have the capability to launch anything off of Mars, but it’s going to select the best rock samples we possibly can, get them stored up, get them in a nice little pile so that eventually the next mission will be able to bring some fuel with it so that it can land, pick up those rock samples, and then launch off of Mars.
Jordan Baker: So right now they’re all staying on Mars? It’s like a used car lot. Like they’re all just hanging out there?
Melissa Rice: Yeah it’s like a rover graveyard on Mars.
Jordan Baker: Awesome.
Regina DeGraaff: Well they’re not all dead though, right?
Melissa Rice: They’re not, they’re not.
Regina DeGraaff: It’s not a graveyard. It’s like a elderly home or something.
Melissa Rice: That’s true.
Regina DeGraaff: Yeah.
Melissa Rice: It’s like a graveyard/convalescent home for rovers. But, you know —
Regina DeGraaff: People have good lives there.
Jordan Baker: Right, leaking oil —
Regina DeGraaff: It’s like a community. It’s not, you know, necessarily assisted living. But anyway —
Jordan Baker: They all have coffee.
Melissa Rice: At least their bodies aren’t decomposing up there, you know?
Regina DeGraaff: Yeah they’re having a good time!
Melissa Rice: It’s a pretty dry, sterile environment. So we might be able to go up there and give them a jumpstart someday.
Regina DeGraaff: That’s true, just like Wall-E. You were just alluding to Wall-E. So this mission that’s gonna come and launch off — is that gonna be a manned mission?
Melissa Rice: Probably not.
Jordan Baker: Or femaled.
Regina DeGraaff: Oh yeah. Sexism!
Melissa Rice: A “human spaceflight mission.”
Regina DeGraaff: Yeah, human. Yeah. Uh, probably not is what you’re saying?
Melissa Rice: Probably not.
Regina DeGraaff: Mmkay.
Melissa Rice: I think it’s going to be exorbitantly more expensive to send humans on that mission to collect these rocks and bring them back. And I think it’s gonna be really important that we can demonstrate, at least once, that we can bring something we sent to Mars back before that something is a live human being.
Regina DeGraaff: Right. [laughter] That is very true.
Melissa Rice: Yeah. So I think it’s gonna be two parts. You know, it’s gonna be a big part science — getting those rocks back to Earth so that we can do the kinds of detailed investigations we need to do in order to really advance our understanding of Mars.
And it’s also gonna be a technology demonstration to show that we can land precisely at a location on Mars, launch away from Mars, and travel back to Earth safely.
Jordan Baker: Couldn’t the little Curiosity or whatever it’s called — couldn’t it just hook a bunch of rocks onto like a bottle rocket and then just shoot it out into the atmosphere? Do you guys not have like a bottle rocket technology?
Regina DeGraaff: No, no. I don’t think it could get enough thrust. I don’t know.
Melissa Rice: Yeah.
Regina DeGraaff: What do you think Melissa?
Melissa Rice: We probably need a little more power than a bottle rocket.
Jordan Baker: Alright.
Melissa Rice: Just a little bit.
Regina DeGraaff: Just live hoverboards.
Jordan Baker: It’s an idea. You can give it to ’em.
Melissa Rice: Okay. I’ll pass that along. [laughter]
Jordan Baker: Yeah. Thank you.
Regina DeGraaff: Bottle rockets, yes. So aside from Mars, I know Mars is your love — but like, is there any other planetary, you know — be it a moon or a planet that we are planning to go to, to take similar data?
Melissa Rice: Mm. Well Mars has the advantage of being pretty close to the Earth.
Regina DeGraaff: Right.
Melissa Rice: So it only takes seven to nine months to travel, to send our rovers from the Earth to Mars. Anywhere else we want to go in the solar system that is equally as interesting from a perspective of past or presence life on another world — for those questions, we need to go to the outer solar system — the moons of Saturn, like Enceladus, the moons of Jupiter, like Europa. Those are the other great candidates for places that might be habitable worlds — places with liquid water that might, even today, have some kind of life within them.
But to get there, that’s a matter of years to decades.
Regina DeGraaff: So, how long would it take to get to Europa?
Melissa Rice: There are different concepts, but on the order of a decade.
Regina DeGraaff: Oh wow.
Melissa Rice: And it’s not just the Earth to Europa distance. It’s in order to save fuel, it makes a lot of sense to slingshot your spacecraft around the planets. So it makes sense to get what we call a “gravity assist,” which is basically flying around another planet, like the Earth or Mars, in order to get a boost of gravity. Kind of some free propulsion, slingshotting the spacecraft into the outer solar system. But in order to do that, in order to get that free gravitational assist, that free slingshot, we have to do orbits around other bodies and that’s what takes a long time.
[♪ Janelle Monae singing Wondaland ♪]
Regina DeGraaff: You’re listening to Spark Science, sharing stories of human curiosity. If you’re just joining us, my name is Regina Barber DeGraaff, and I’m here with my co-host, Jordan Baker, and our wonderful guest, the Martian, Melissa Rice.
Jordan Baker: That’s a long time to spend on a spaceship. I mean if there was some guy on there for a decade —
Melissa Rice: Yeah. Well that’s why we’re not talking about sending humans that far yet. But there are advances happening in spacecraft propulsion. Ion propulsion, for example, is a way to get things far out there in the solar system directly. So it could happen within our lifetime, but it’s still gonna be a long journey.
Regina DeGraaff: What is your opinion on manned missions to Mars?
Melissa Rice: I’ll tell you my opinion of human missions to Mars.
Regina DeGraaff: Right, sorry! Again! I’m terrible! “Human” missions to Mars, yes.
Melissa Rice: My opinion is it should happened. It should’ve happened 40 years ago. And I hope to see it happen in my lifetime. I think it really has to happen in order to give NASA’s human spaceflight program direction and a real goal. I think that’s something that NASA is struggling with right now. What is the purpose of our humans in space? What’s the big picture here? What’s the end goal? And I think Mars really is the logical next place to go, the next big goal, and we just need to get a commitment financially and philosophically to get out there.
Regina DeGraaff: What’s your opinion on manned missions — human missions?
Jordan Baker: Human missions.
Regina DeGraaff: Jordan.
Jordan Baker: I’m not quite sure. You said that we should’ve done it already. Is there something that is like holding us back from doing it other than the financial backing?
Melissa Rice: It’s really just finances.
Jordan Baker: It’s not like a secret — like they had the technology the whole time.
Melissa Rice: Right. Or we found the super intelligent apes there!
Jordan Baker: Right, yeah.
Melissa Rice: No, it’s just political will in order to give NASA the money that it requires. I mean this is tens of billions of dollars we’re talking about over multiple decades to plan and execute this mission to Mars. And I think we had good momentum in our space exploration in the 1960s with the Apollo program. And it would have logically happened more most easily and it could’ve come directly out of the Apollo program. And it was always NASA’s intention to go from the moon and then beyond. And Mars was always the logical next step.
And ever since the 1960s, NASA has been saying, “We will get humans to Mars in 20 years.” And that was the plan in the 60s following on behind the Apollo missions to the moon. And now here we are in the year 2015 and we are still saying, “We’ll get humans to Mars in 20 years.” NASA’s goal is the mid-2030s for a human mission to Mars.
Jordan Baker: Is this like a race like the space race was between the Soviets and us? Are they sort of that little competition again with like Russia or something?
Regina DeGraaff: Yeah is there anybody else?
Jordan Baker: Is there another competition to get there?
Melissa Rice: Yeah. Well there is no competition. And the competition kind of fizzled out and I think that’s why we never have gotten to Mars. It’s cause we got to the moon because there was that intense political motivation with the space race to show our technological dominance to get there first.
And once that competition, that political driver — once the bottom fell out from under that, you know, these are some of the negative side effects of world peace. [laughter]
We no longer have this strong —
Regina DeGraaff: If we just didn’t have peace, we’d have already gone to Mars. [laughter]
But there is also the other issue. I mean, there’s so many articles about radiation and how that’s a major drawback. Are you saying that that’s not as big as it is played out to be?
Melissa Rice: In terms of something —
Regina DeGraaff: A human mission.
Melissa Rice: That would make it difficult to get humans to Mars. Yeah, no radiation — it is gonna be a big deal. A lot of things are gonna be a big deal. But there’s nothing, aside from the money, that is going to be insurmountable or that is preventing us from going.
So the radiation — humans are going to experience a lot of it on that interplanetary journey. And they’re going to significantly increase their risk of cancer. And it’s going to significantly increase their risk of dying in a rocket explosion. And so, I think that, you know, we’re going to have to accept a lot of those risks. But I think that our astronauts and I think the public is going to be willing to accept those risks in order to do something so bold.
Jordan Baker: So, we’re talking about Austin Powers earlier. Is there in some sort of a cryogenic human freezing we can do so they don’t get as much radiation? Or is that sort of just a mythical Hollywood –.
Melissa Rice: Yeah. So there is no cryogenic hibernation that we can put people in.
Jordan Baker: Dang it!
Melissa Rice: I know! That’s just kind of the easy way out that every Hollywood movie about space travel takes is, “Ah just freeze ’em and they go to sleep for 20 years.”
Jordan Baker: Right.
Regina DeGraaff: Yeah. Even if they were frozen, they would still experience that radiation. You need like something to shield them from that radiation.
Melissa Rice: They would have to be frozen in lead.
Regina DeGraaff: Right right, like Han Solo, you know?
Melissa Rice: Ah.
Regina DeGraaff: Yeah. Actually —
Melissa Rice: That’s why they did that!
Regina DeGraaff: But [laughter] — so if they were just sleeping — like if you just had a spaceship and everyone was sleeping, I mean, everyone would still get radiation.
Jordan Baker: Or just lay some lead blankets over them like an x-ray.
Regina DeGraaff: Like at the dentist.
Jordan Baker: Yes, yes! Just get them dentist blanket bibs.
Regina DeGraaff: Right. Yes. But yeah, it’s funny that you ask that, Jordan, because there was an astronaut that was speaking at Western recently. And she’s also asked that question over and over and over again. And she’s like, “No it doesn’t work.”
But there’s also bone loss when you’re in space. She was talking about — hopefully we can get her on the show.
Jordan Baker: Like osteoporosis?
Regina DeGraaff: Yeah.
Jordan Baker: Like grandma?
Regina DeGraaff: Yeah. And they have to workout how many hours? I don’t know if you went to the — Melissa, if you went to the talk?
Melissa Rice: No I didn’t make that talk.
Regina DeGraaff: Yeah, she said you have to exercise like two hours a day, four hours a day — we have to just get her on and fact check this.
Melissa Rice: Definitely.
Regina DeGraaff: But yeah. No, there’s many, many things, but I think Melissa you’re right. I mean, if we’re — you know, space travel is dangerous. There were rockets that blew up. All this stuff could happen, but astronauts are willing to take that risk. And there are humans out there that are willing to take that risk. There are humans that are signing up now that say they wanna die on Mars, you know? So —
Melissa Rice: Yeah.
Regina DeGraaff: And never come back — never do that, you know, launching off of Mars. They’re okay if that never happens.
Melissa Rice: Right. There will be a never-ending line of people willing to sign up for that one-way trip.
Regina DeGraaff: Mmhm.
Melissa Rice: Knowing that they never will return. And I think that’s a fundamental part of who we are as a species. We are people who explore, right? Our ancestors have gotten into boats and sailed to the ends of the ocean, not knowing if the ends of the Earth were there. That’s what we do. That’s what has separated us from all of our predecessors and the Neanderthals. We are the species that goes out there just because we can. That has worked for us.
Jordan Baker: Because we’re curious?
Regina DeGraaff: Yeah. Curious.
Melissa Rice: Because we are curious.
Jordan Baker: We have curiosity.
Regina DeGraaff: Oh yeah! Like Curiosity. Oh my gosh.
Jordan Baker: You’re welcome.
Regina DeGraaff: Thank you, Jordan.
So I’m gonna end this with a question that I hate being asked of me. So I’m gonna ask you this question.
Melissa Rice: I’ll thank you in advanced for it.
Regina DeGraaff: Yeah, yeah. [laughing] I teach astronomy and I am constantly being asked if I like certain astronomy-related movies like Interstellar. Still haven’t seen it. Have you seen it, Jordan?
Jordan Baker: No.
Regina DeGraaff: Excellent.
Jordan Baker: Never even heard of it.
Regina DeGraaff: Really? [laughter] So I haven’t seen Interstellar, but I wanna know — do you have a favorite Mars-related movie? Because I know I do.
Melissa Rice: Oh.
Regina DeGraaff: Yeah. I do.
Melissa Rice: Can I guess Mars Attacks?
Regina DeGraaff: It is Mars Attacks. [laughter]
Jordan Baker: Woah!
Regina DeGraaff: You mean the movie I alluded to earlier, or mentioned earlier? What about you, Jordan before we hear Melissa’s favorite Mars-related movie.
Jordan Baker: It’d probably have to be Mars Attacks, but I don’t really know any other movies.
Melissa Rice: Are there other watchable Mars movies?
Regina DeGraaff: Oh my god, maybe there isn’t. [laughter]
Melissa Rice: Maybe there’s not. I mean there was — was it Red Planet with Val Kilmer?
Regina DeGraaff: Oh yes, there is. Red Planet.
Melissa Rice: So I have a certain love for that movie just because the way that they land the astronauts on Mars in that movie is exactly how they landed the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which was in no way meant to be a way to get human beings onto the surface of Mars.
So this is what they did: They dropped them down with a parachute to lower them down.
Regina DeGraaff: Val Kilmer?
Melissa Rice: Val Kilmer, yeah. So he’s being lowered down in a parachute.
Regina DeGraaff: Mmhm.
Melissa Rice: But then, before he hits the ground, a bunch of airbags inflate around his spacecraft. The parachute detaches and Val Kilmer, inside of all these airbags, hits the ground and bounces and bounces and bounces, and rolls and rolls and rolls, until he comes to a stop.
Regina DeGraaff: Is it a coincidence that the rover did this and Val Kilmer did it? Or what —
Melissa Rice: I think not.
Regina DeGraaff: Really?
Melissa Rice: So I think this is one of the first Mars movies to come after Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars. They used this airbag system. It sounded crazy, but it worked. Big success. Got a lot of attention in the media.
And then this movie came along and said, “Oh, well that’s how NASA lands things on Mars now. Let’s use that.” But what an awful way to get yourself down to the surface of Mars! Bouncing and bouncing and bouncing, and rolling and rolling and rolling.
Regina DeGraaff: Right. Well, you’d be very sick.
Melissa Rice: You would be.
Regina DeGraaff: Yes. But it’s good because most movies and shows like Star Trek — they kind of inspire space exploration and inspire space innovation. And I think it’s kind of cool that it was the other way around in this movie, you’re saying, Red Planet.
Melissa Rice: Yeah.
Regina DeGraaff: Yeah. That’s very interesting.
Melissa Rice: Yeah. I think so too. And I think Wall-E was definitely inspired by the design of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. Everyone tells me when I give talks about the rovers and I show the pictures, they say, “Oh it looks just like Wall-E.” And I wanna say, “No, Wall-E looks just like them!”
Jordan Baker: Ooh, plot twist!
Regina DeGraaff: Yeah.
Melissa Rice: So there is gonna be a Mars movie coming out.
Regina DeGraaff: Oh!
Melissa Rice: Have you heard of this book, The Martian?
Regina DeGraaff: It’s from Ray Bradberry, right? Or is that a short story?
Melissa Rice: That’s The Martian Chronicles.
Regina DeGraaff: Yeah okay. Then no. [laughing]
Melissa Rice: So there’s a New York Times best selling kind of adventure book out right now called The Martian. And it’s actually really entertaining and the Mars science is not half bad. And I’ve heard they’re gonna make a movie out of that starring Matt Damon.
Regina DeGraaff: Matt Damon.
Melissa Rice: So this has potential. I’m gonna get my hopes up. This has potential to be an actually good Mars movie.
Regina DeGraaff: Well I’m gonna look out for that.
Melissa Rice: Fingers crossed.
Regina DeGraaff: And maybe finally watch Interstellar. Maybe. But I wanna thank you, Melissa, for coming to talk to us.
Jordan Baker: Yes, thank you.
Regina DeGraaff: And yeah. And being our first guest ever.
Jordan Baker: [gasps]
Regina DeGraaff: Yeah. I’m so excited.
Melissa Rice: Well thank you for allowing me to share my curiosity.
Regina DeGraaff: [laughing] So much curiosity! Alright.
[♪ Blackalicious rapping Chemical Calisthenics ♪]
♪ Lead, gold, tin, iron, platinum, zinc, when I rap you think
♪ Iodine nitrate activate
♪ Red geranium, the only difference is I transmit sound
♪ Balance was unbalanced then you add a little talent in
♪ Careful, careful with those ingredients
♪ They could explode and blow up if you drop them
♪ And they hit the ground
[End of podcast.]