Going Off World: EP 3 - Cruising the Red Planet with Dr. Tanya Harrison - Going Off World: Moon, Mars, Venus, and beyond

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Going Off World, your gateway to the
cosmos beyond our Earth.
Underwriting provided by theWaypaver Foundation.
Join us as we embark on thisjourney together to the Moon,
mars, venus and beyond.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome to the podcast.
Nice to have you on, doc.
I like to call you Doc,everyone Doctor, so you know a
good way to start.
This is always you know thepeople that don't know you.
To kind of go into yourbackground, Can you share a bit
about that and what inspired youto pursue a career in planetary

(00:38):
science?
I think your story is reallycompelling.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Sure, really compelling.
Sure, my career has kind ofbeen all over the place, but I
have been really focused onwanting to work in space since I
was about five years old, basedon a lot of influences, but
mostly things like Star Trek,the Next Generation because that
started when I was pretty youngand the book the Magic School
Bus Lost in the Solar System.
But it wasn't until 1997, whenthe Pathfinder mission landed on

(01:06):
Mars, that my interest wentfrom kind of space in general to
Mars specifically.
Nasa released an animated GIFof images that Pathfinder took
of the tiny little Sojournerrover driving off the lander
platform and onto the surface ofMars, and this was a huge deal
at the time, like animated GIFswere not a thing all over the

(01:27):
internet.
Obviously, pathfinder was thefirst mission that even had a
website, which is mind blowingto think about now.
But seeing this littleanimation I thought this is the
coolest thing I've ever seen.
I have to work on Mars roversand so you know, kind of fast
forward.
After my master's degree I endedup working in mission
operations for cameras on a fewdifferent missions, including

(01:51):
Curiosity, mars Acquaintance,orbiter, perseverance and
Opportunity.
Then I ended up kind ofpivoting a little bit into the
commercial space sector, firstworking at Arizona State
University for something calledthe New Space Initiative, where
their goal was to link academia,industry and government in

(02:12):
Arizona, mostly to doengineering and science
development for missions,instruments, things like that.
And through that role, we wereinterfacing with a lot of new
space companies.
Somewhat early in the new spaceindustry in terms of, you know,
if you went out and askedpeople what companies could you

(02:32):
name, probably the only onesthat would come to mind would be
SpaceX, virgin Galactic, maybeBlue Origin for people that are
kind of more in the know.
So it was a great way to surveythe landscape and see, you know
, this is like 2016,.
What was going on at the time?
What companies were doing what,who seemed like they were
legitimate, who were just peoplewith a lot of money and an idea

(02:53):
but maybe didn't have anythingto execute on it yet.
And through that I gotconnected with planets and I
ended up kind of shifting awayfrom Mars and focusing on earth.
So I came in as their head ofscience strategy, first focused
on federal researchers and theneventually expanding to the
global research community.
And now I'm working in anotherposition with kind of trying to

(03:18):
do this linkage again of notacademia but researchers,
industry and government againfor innovation in this new space
sector.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Wow, that's quite a journey.
A few things to kind of linkinto, I mean, next Generation.
You know I grew up with theoriginal series, with my father
watching it with my dad, and, ofcourse, you know, tng for those
who are Star Trek fans.
You know TNG for those who areStar Trek fans, uh, you know
that was a profoundly new showbecause it was the first that

(03:52):
you know really brought back.
There were a few, there weremovies, but a new cast and, uh,
you know a lot of new adventuresand you know it, it definitely
sparked a lot of people'sinterest in, uh, outer space and
just just in general, I thinkthe space industry at that time
was very much, very quiet.
There wasn't a lot happening.
You know there's shuttlemissions, but it wasn't just

(04:16):
part of the.
There isn't a lot of excitement, I, you know it's funny.
You mentioned the Mars rovers.
What was the one that was, Iwould say, in 2010,?
What was the big one?
Was it Curiosity?
Was that the one with the bigcameras?
What was the one operating in2010,?

(04:39):
The one that went on forever?

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Oh, that was Opportunity.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
Opportunity.
I was at a conference inSeattleattle called nomdex.
It was once a year and theperson who drove the rover who
drove that rover was speakingand shared a photo of the first
view of earth, like from, fromanother planet, like it was the

(05:05):
view of earth from.
It was just incredible Just seethe sun, to see the earth.
The first view of earth fromanother planet, the first photo
of earth from another planet.
It was very profound and I wasjust uh.
I'll never forget seeing thatit's uh.
I could see why your passion isthere, cause, I mean, that's
where we're headed to manyplanets.

(05:27):
You know we're hopefully to bea multi-planetary species.
You know your experiences inyour personal and professional.
You know how they shaped yourvision for the future of space
exploration.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah, it's a big question.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, I like big questions, A lot of ways to go,
a lot of directions to go in.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
I feel like my visions have shifted over time
as I've gotten older and gottenmore experience in different
areas.
So I really am appreciative ofthe fact that you know I didn't
just go in and stick in one veryspecific career the whole time
I've been in space.
It's given me an appreciationfor you know, some of the things
that government does reallywell, some of the things that

(06:12):
research does really well, someof the stuff that commercial
sector does really well, becausethey've all got their pros and
cons.
I think my biggest view for thefuture is all of those groups
working together to try to pushforward a really innovative and
inclusive future for all ofhumanity.
We have a really greatopportunity here to be very

(06:38):
intentional about the way thatwe decide to do these things.
So how are we going to explore?
What are the priorities that wehave?
Where do we want to go?
Um, how can we do it sustainably, so that we don't just kind of
end up in a situation wherewe're, you know, traipsing
around the solar system andwrecking places as we go and
then suddenly we can't livethere anymore and we got to go

(06:59):
to the next place?
So, really thinking about, like, what does it mean to bring as
many voices to the table aspossible, to think about, you
know, what is sustainability?
What are the priorities that weshould have as a species as we
expand beyond the earth, beyondjust what you know a scientist

(07:20):
might think the priorities arefor the moon, or what a
commercial company that'sinterested in, you know mining
helium-3, or you know aphilosopher or somebody that
studies cultural history aroundwhat different people in history
have thought about the moon.
Like getting all those peopletogether to think about like hey
, this is a massive step for ourspecies.

(07:41):
Like we should really thinkabout how we're going to do this
that's great.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Well, that leads us to the creation of epic.
So let's talk about that.
Where did that kind of?
Or the incubation of theincubation of that, where did
that come from?
And you know, is you'rebuilding this, what's the
mission, the mission and thevision for this?

(08:08):
I mean explain obviously whatit stands for, but yeah, kind of
kind of give people abackground or on, that would be
great.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
Yeah, so EPIC is the Earth and Planetary Institute of
Canada and the goal is?
There's three different goals.
There's the subversive goal oftrying to create more jobs for
scientists, particularly inCanada, because we have a big
brain drain problem with peoplegetting degrees in many fields,

(08:37):
but in this case, earth andplanetary related sciences, and
then they end up going to placeslike the United States because
there's a lot more opportunitiesthere when it comes to the
space sector and climatetechnology and stuff like that.
So I wanted to help support theCanadian new space sector and
climate tech, while also tryingto kind of change the success
metrics by which we measurescience, and this was kind of

(08:59):
inspired by some of the workthat I did at Planet with some
of our external collaborators.
We had a case in early 2020,like shortly after the pandemic
started, when there were allthese supply chain shutdowns
around the world.
The government of Togo inAfrica approached a group called
NASA Harvest, which is NASA'sfood security arm, run out of

(09:23):
the University of Maryland, butit's a consortium of a bunch of
different partners atuniversities, companies and a
few different governmentagencies, and the Ministry of
Agriculture in Togo askedHarvest if they could make a map
of all the cropland in thecountry to proactively
distribute aid to farmers,because they were worried that

(09:44):
the supply chain shutdowns weregoing to lead to a ripple effect
of food insecurity in thecountry, so they wanted to help
farmers boost their domesticproduction.
We worked with NASA Harvestalmost 24-7 for 10 days and then
in 10 days we're able todeliver these maps to the
government and they use that todistribute over 50,000

(10:05):
interest-free loans tosmallholder farmers.
And it was amazing to seeresearch leading to action in
the real world, and I think,especially when it comes to
earth science and planetaryscience, you don't see that
happen very often.
Scientists are judged by interms of their career success.

(10:26):
If you're working at auniversity, how many papers have
you published that year?
What is the so-called impactfactor of the journal you're
publishing in?
So how prestigious is thatjournal?
Things that don't necessarilytranslate to did the work that
you did actually have an impactin the real world, and
especially when it comes toearth sciences.

(10:46):
When we're dealing with aclimate crisis and like
especially in Canada likeCanada's literally on fire right
now it's very selfish of ascientist to think that our
responsibility stops at writingthat paper.
So I wanted to take inspirationfrom seeing these scientists
working with the right partnersin, in this case, government,

(11:09):
but it could also be a nonprofit, it could be a community
organization, it could bepoliticians or, sorry, local
stakeholders to get the resultsof research implemented in the
world somehow implemented in theworld somehow.
You can also do that throughcommercialization.
So did you invent an idea or aconcept as a researcher that

(11:29):
could, if you put it into theright hands, be commercialized
into something that could solvea problem?
So the goal with Epic is to nothave researchers that are
judged by how many publicationsthey're pumping out, but
connecting them with the rightpeople to figure out what does
your community actually need,what does the world need in

(11:50):
terms of climate solutions orinnovating for the moon and Mars
, or living on the space station, any of that kind of stuff, so
that we can make sure that we'redoing research that matters at
the end of the day.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
That's a great segue to the future of space
exploration.
You know we can talk about theearthbound problems, but they
are extrapolations of, you know,space and the livability of it.
So there's three areas ofsustainability and equity and
ethical considerations.

(12:24):
Yeah, so let's talk aboutsustainability.
I have my own ideas, but I wantto hear yours.
Why is sustainability such acrucial aspect of space
exploration?

Speaker 3 (12:39):
So a big consideration is that I think on
Earth we are so used to havingaccess to a ton of resources
whether that is food or energyor people and we lose all of
that in space.
Everything that you use is sucha limited resource that needs
to be replenished somehow,whether that is through some

(13:02):
kind of in-situ resourceutilization.
If you're on a place like themoon or Mars, or if you're on a
space station, you're sendingthat stuff up from Earth.
There's a huge cost to that.
So try to figure out how canyou live as sustainably as
possible in the place where youare living, and can we take
lessons from that and apply themback to Earth so that we can

(13:24):
live more sustainably here andrealize that the sort of view
that we have that the resourceshere are infinite, even though
we know that they're not, wekind of live like they are in a
lot of cases, and so shiftingour mindset to think about these
extremely constrainedenvironments, like living on a
space station or living on Mars,can help us approach these

(13:45):
problems in a way that's alittle more exciting and
interesting to deal with them.
I like to think of the example,since I used to work at ASU
Arizona State University.
If you task somebody withdesigning a water reclamation
system for Phoenix, they'reprobably not going to come up
with as creative of ideas as ifyou say, design me a water
reclamation system for Mars.

(14:06):
But in both cases you'redealing with a desert type
climate.
Mars is just a cold desertinstead of a burning hot desert,
but the scarcity of water is asimilar situation, but there's
still way more water in genics.
So getting people to think incontext of solving for space, it

(14:26):
lets our imaginations run wilda little bit, and then we can
take that and say, oh, that idea, we could actually apply that
also somewhere here on Earthwhere we're running into a very
similar or the exact sameproblem.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah, I worked a lot with Singularity startups.
They would come through theiraccelerator and singular
university, had this program fora long time and they would
always be about their moon shotsright, creating their, and
there were brilliant scientistsand entrepreneurs, but they
would have material scientistswho kind of we're going to build
habitats on mars and this Isaid this on another podcast,
but it's like let's build themin africa.

(15:00):
It's like let's tell you yougot to test it out here, but it
also applies because they're, ifyou can solve it here, there's
maybe some modifications, but itdoes have, you know,
commercialization, applicabilityon on earth.
Well, you know, you mentionedMars and you mentioned the moon.
You mentioned space station.
Like, what do you think are thebiggest challenges?
Is it like re?

(15:21):
Is it it sounds like it'srecyclability, reclamation and
just recreation or creation,like you know, generation of
something.
Those are the three things thatcome to my mind, you know.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
Yeah, I mean the moon .
You're sort of lucky in thatEarth is close enough.
By that you could sendresources there that you can't
get natively on the moon.
It's just very expensive to dothat.
So how you want to definesustainability in terms of the
moon could be a little variable.
Do you need it to be everythingthat you can utilize on the

(15:54):
moon, or is it okay to send somestuff from the Earth?
When you look at Mars, though,that's far enough away and hard
enough to get there, in thegrand scheme of things, that
it's not practical to like haveto keep sending shipments of
food and water and oxygen.
So we started to do someexperiments there for things
like.
There's an instrument on thePerseverance rover called MOXIE,

(16:15):
the Mars Oxygen In-SituResource Experiment.
I always forget what it standsfor.
It's an oxygen generatormounted on the rover and it's
meant to be a skill test ofbuilding larger versions of this
experiment that pulls in carbondioxide, pulls apart,
essentially, the carbon and theoxygen, sequesters the carbon

(16:37):
and releases breathable oxygenback into the air.
Mars also has a lot of waterthat we can utilize in terms of
water in the atmosphere andwater buried beneath the surface
in the form of ice, massive icedeposits on Mars, so there's a
lot more that we can takeadvantage of there compared to
the moon.
So I think a lot of the issuesthat we're going to run into are

(17:00):
actually more social thantechnological.
Are actually more social thantechnological, or social and
biological?
We only have a very limitedamount of data in terms of how
microgravity, or low gravity,affects the human body.
We don't really have any dataon how it would affect
development of a child if youwere trying to raise them in
another environment, which wouldbe pretty critical if we're

(17:22):
going to live somewhere elsebeyond Earth.
As a species, we do a lot ofexperiments in analog habitats
here on the Earth to understandwhat the social dynamics are in
these isolated environments.
But part of me feels like evenif you were in this fake habitat
you know, at the top of avolcano in Hawaii, pretending

(17:43):
you're on Mars there's stillsome part of you that has to
know I'm still on Earth and ifanything went wrong we can call
911 or we can get out of thishabitat Like there's still a
safety net there.
But there's some point when youare on your way to Mars that if
something goes wrong, likethere's nothing you can do.
We're.
We don't have ships that canfly around like on Star Trek,

(18:06):
right?
So you're just stuck in thisline, in in your sort of
slingshot between the Earth andMars and you have to finish your
, your journey.
There's nothing you can do.
So how would people respond tothose kinds of situations when
it's literally life and death onthe line and there's no one
that can help you except for you?
I mean, at some point you'reeven too far away from Earth to

(18:28):
have any real-time communicationwith anybody other than the
people that are in your crew and, if you're talking early, crews
where it might be six, 10people.
If you only can talk to six to10 people for five years of your
life, like I feel like youmight go a little bit insane.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, it's kind of like having permanent roommates
and you can't get away from them, can't even go out.
You know the bar and you knowget some space, you know there's
no alone time, kind of reallyit's a really big spaceship,

(19:09):
kind of really um was a reallybig spaceship, yeah.
So you know, what do you thinkof the?
You know you mentioned water onmars.
I've often wondered why wehaven't sent probes to dig, go
below the aquifer like realmining, like mining mining rigs,
to kind of get a better senseof site location where we can
get water.
You know, and then at the sametime, like send a you know, I
know they've built them, butlike scramjet type of aircraft,

(19:30):
that can you know they can flythrough the Martian atmosphere
to start some type of LIDAR, youknow, kind of scanning the like
, trying to figure out wherethere might be places to base.
Maybe you have information onthat.
So but uh, I'd wonder.
I've wondered some of thatbecause that's a the huge aspect
of sustainable, you know, likeyou said, resources, that you

(19:52):
can't be shipping water, rightdo you?

Speaker 3 (19:55):
what are your thoughts on?
Yeah, go ahead sorry water isreally heavy too, so like that's
, yes, we still.
We still have to deal with that.
The nice thing is with Mars, wehave two spacecraft in orbit
that have ground penetratingradar on board, and so we've
been able to use those.
One is a European mission, marsExpress and the other one is
NASA mission Mars CondescensionOrbiter and they've given us a

(20:17):
really detailed picture of whatthe sort of deep subsurface
looks like.
So we're talking like tens tohundreds of meters down, which
would be really easy for us todrill on the earth, but that's
really hard for us to do on Mars.
You would need giganticindustrial equipment to be able
to get that deep.
So we've sent some rovers thatcan scratch at the surface, like

(20:40):
the Phoenix lander back in 2008, dug little trenches and
exposed some ice there, whichwas our first real confirmation
that there was ice so close tothe surface.
So there's plans now for amission called Mars Ice Mapper
that Canada is slated to buildthe main radar instrument for
because it's one of the thingsthat Canada's really known for
in space is radar expertise wehave a whole constellation

(21:02):
called RadarSat that images theEarth every day.
So they want to take thatheritage and send it to Mars and
that will tell us what sort ofthe upper 10 meters of the
subsurface looks like and we canfigure out where is the shallow
ice.
The ice would be easy, in therelative sense, for astronauts
to get to.
We can kind of guess where thoseplaces are based on like to use

(21:26):
a technical term morphology theshapes of stuff on the surface,
because ice leaves verycharacteristic features, so we
could see things like oldglaciers that have slowed on the
surface of mars and they're notflowing anymore, from what we
can tell, because it's so cold,but we can see just the shape of
like oh, this is a glacier, andthen, thanks to the radar data,

(21:48):
we could confirm oh, there'sstill ice in there.
So we used a lot of thatinformation to try to pick
candidate human landing sites.
With SpaceX back in the day,they held these Mars landing
site workshops where theyinvited a handful of Mars
experts to come in, for I thinkwe did it for four years, and

(22:09):
each year there was a differentfocus area of what we would talk
about, and a lot of humanlanding site selection and ice
accessibility were big parts ofthis, and so if you search for
the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiterhigh-rise camera online, there
are some photos that have thecaption on them.

(22:30):
This is like candidate SpaceXlanding site or candidate human
landing site, one of the two.
Those areas will show you someof the icy spots that we kind of
discussed as a group would bereally great for humans to land
at in terms of being able to digdown to that buried ice.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
That's great.
I think a lot of people aregoing to check that out because
I didn't know everything.
You can't know everything.
It's great to understand that.
But as a planetary scientist,when you look at Mars, what do
you put in your best conjecture,with kind of crossing with
science, like, what do you thinkhappened to Mars?
What do you think the historyof Mars has been?
It's like, was it, I don't know, a couple million years ago it

(23:10):
was.
My theory is that it was likeit was oceans, it was more green
it had.
I think there's something upwith the core, like it lost its
gravitational field, which makesyou know the people that want
to terraform Mars.
You kind of need gravity, youneed a gravitational, you need
to change the construct of theplanet.
You know to like really green,you know terraform it, but

(23:33):
that's just my opinion.
But like because they have allthat ice to have these rivers,
like it just seemed like therewas something no-transcript.

(23:59):
And what would you like to knowonce we kind of get there?

Speaker 3 (24:04):
What would you like to know?
Oh, kind of get there.
What would you like to know?

Speaker 2 (24:07):
oh, man, I want to know everything but it's big
questions, right yeah, uh.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
Well, I mean, we have a really good picture of kind
of the evolution of mars overtime thanks to the number of
missions that we've sent there.
So we know that early on it'sin its history it was very
earth-like, it was a lot warmer,it was wetter.
We can see on the surface likeancient channels.
All over the place we can seecraters that used to be lakes.

(24:33):
Um, two, I mean two of therovers are driving in those
crater lakes right now.
I'm looking at rocks that tellus about the chemical
composition of what the lakeswould have been when the water
was still there.
So we know that all of thiswater also had the right
chemical conditions for life tothrive.
But it looks like somewherearound sort of three and a half

(24:55):
billion years ago Mars startedto make this shift from being a
warm and wet planet to this coldpolar desert that we see today,
and it probably is tied to thecore solidifying.
So one of the big things thatour liquid core here on Earth
does is the sloshing around ofall that liquid metal generates
a protective magnetic field.

(25:15):
It protects us from radiation,but it also protects the
atmosphere from being strippedaway into space and at Mars, the
hypothesis for a long time hadbeen well, it's a smaller planet
, it cooled off faster since theformation of the solar system,
and so, as that happened, itlost its magnetic field, and so
then the solar wind was able tojust slowly start stripping the

(25:37):
atmosphere away into space.
That lowers the atmosphericpressure, it lowers the
temperature, and so a lot of thewater on the surface either
just evaporated into space orpermeated into the ground into
ice, and we can see that icetoday.
We were able to confirm thatthis is happening in about 2014,
2015, with NASA's MAVEN mission, which is specifically designed

(25:59):
to study the atmosphere of Mars.
So a lot of people probablyhaven't heard about it because
it's not a mission that's takingcool pictures of the surface
like we're used to seeing.
It literally is just likemeasuring how much of the
atmosphere is blowing away overtime and taking some cool-ish UV
images of the atmosphere, butnot the kind of stuff that
people usually tend to see inlike press releases very much,

(26:21):
and so with this mission, wewere actually able to measure
the atmospheric loss rate.
So Mars is actually losing itsatmosphere into space at a rate
of about a kilogram or two everysecond.
So the point that you made aboutterraforming is really
important here.
If you're going to try toterraform Mars, in the sense
that you want people to be ableto live on the surface without a

(26:41):
spacesuit as if they were onEarth, you'd have to be
generating your atmosphere at afaster rate than it is being
lost to space.
But that also means that thatatmosphere you're generating is
now a non-renewable resource,because the atmosphere of Mars
is already very thin to beginwith.
It's kind of the equivalent ofbeing at about 130,000 feet up
here on the Earth, so higherthan you can slide an airplane,

(27:05):
higher than you can breathe as ahuman, obviously.
So there's still a lot ofatmosphere.
It would take a long time todeplete it.
But again, we should be learningour lesson from here on earth
about non-renewable resourcesand be like okay, if there's a
way that we can do this moreefficiently, that makes a lot
more sense.
So it makes much more sense onMars to live in these habitats

(27:27):
where you can be recycling theair, you can have CO2 scrubbers.
You're just working with whatyou have, and that will be much
more stable at the end of theday than trying to terraform the
entire planet to become Earth2.0.
To become Earth 2.0.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
Well, it sounds like if it's losing the atmosphere,
is there going to become a timewhere it becomes a dead like
there's none, there's nothingleft, and it almost sounds like
we have.
If we're going to have along-term habitat, it's almost
like we have to produce stuffenough to keep it in a

(28:01):
stabilized but even if we're notterraforming it which may come
later if we have more resourcesto do it but again you're still
going to be facing loss.
It's like you got to keep the.
You know, got to keep the.
I was thinking of the cast ironstove.
You got to keep that stoked inorder to heat the house, right?
It's like you know I got tokeep feeding it a little.
You know bit of wood, littlebit of wood, right?
Yeah.

(28:22):
How did that?
I mean, it's not the way of ananswer, but it sounds like it's
going to be one to kind ofmaintain our livability, because
it could Well.
How long?
When would the atmosphere begone?
Are we talking a hundred, likea thousand years, a hundred
thousand years, a million years,like it'll be just done as a
planet?

Speaker 3 (28:41):
That's a good question years, million years,
like it'll be just done as aplanet question.
I it's probably like many manymillions of years down the line
in terms of, like, what'scurrently there.
I've actually I haven't donethe math, but uh, now I'm
curious to take a look.
So it's not something.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
That's what I do give you some homework.
So that's no, I think it's, youknow, because it makes me think
of shows like the expanse,right, which is like you know
they try to, at least probablythe most.
I would say that's probably theshow that's got the most
practical use of physics and therealities of it, versus like
firefly, which is near and dearto my heart as a show, but it's
like you know they theyterraformed a planet in, like

(29:15):
you know, 100 years or 50, likejust doesn't.
It doesn't work like that.
So, unless there's leaps oftechnology where we're not even
talking about, um, you know, Icould get into, you know, the
opposite of that is the runawayof like venus, which is kind of
where you know is with the, withthe venus foundation.
I know that guillermo and rohan,which is which you've worked

(29:37):
with and you've spoken at, how,uh, you know, is that kind of?
Will that ever cool down again?
It's like, will that overpassage of time, or is it going
to get get, is it going to go inthe other direction, cause it's
close, you know, is it therunaway greenhouse or could we
even cool it like could weactually bombard it and try and
cool it down?

(29:57):
you know, you know, so not tosay we're talking about bad
sci-fi movies like the Core orSnowpiercer or something.
But could we try and do that tokind of affect its livability
or usability for us beyondfloating platforms?

Speaker 3 (30:15):
Yeah, I mean there's certainly more resources to work
with there.
In terms of the atmosphere,yeah, of the atmosphere, um yeah
, and the way that venus orbits,it kind of generates its own
like weird induced magneticfield, so it has some protection
.
But if you started trying tolike thin out the atmosphere to
make it so that humans couldlive on the surface, then you're

(30:37):
going to lose some of that.
So there's like all thesedifferent factors at play, and I
think it's for any planet,whether it's Earth, venus, mars
I think that we haven't as aspecies truly appreciated how
interconnected systems are as awhole, like on Earth.
You know our relatively newunderstanding of how important

(30:58):
fungi and mycelial networks areto like the health of entire
forests, or the role thatcertain types of bacteria play
in our own bodies, like theseare things that we've only known
about for a few years relativeto like all of science that that
humans have been doing, and so,um, actually the bacteria is
something that comes up in someexperiments on the space station

(31:21):
now is how does the microbiomein our body change in
microgravity?
Because that wasn't somethingthat was really appreciated as
being so impactful to how ourbody functions, and now we
understand like bacteria mightbe related to, you know, certain
types of mental health issues.
It's certainly related to a lotof gut issues in people.

(31:42):
I think there was an ISSInternational Space Station
study where they were looking athow your microbiome influenced
your risk of developing certaintypes of cancers.
So there's so muchinterconnectedness in our
ecosystem that we don'tunderstand very well yet, and so

(32:04):
for me, I'd say that's one ofmy personal biggest arguments
against terraforming in the nearterm is we don't even
understand how all this stuffworks here.
So if we start going and tryingto figure out, like just
playing, like we know, what'sgoing on on another planet, it
feels like a potential recipefor disaster.
But you know it could also be asafer place for us to practice

(32:26):
some of that kind of stuffbefore we try to do.
You know, if we got to a pointon Earth where we needed really
radical geoengineering to combatclimate change, you know, if
you practice in the atmosphereof Venus like maybe less
consequential than trying to dothat here uh, consequential than
trying to do that here.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
Well, and it's like we know we're talking about
terraforming.
It's like it's not that we knowanybody lives there, but it's
like it brings up the issues ofethics.
Right, when you think about howwe advance in space exploration
, what ethical issues do youbelieve need more attention?
I mean, there's things on hereon Earth, but just things to

(33:04):
consider, you know, with ethics.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
Yeah, I think a couple of big ones that I think
about quite a bit at least, areas a geologist, but I know that
this is also really aligned witha lot of indigenous worldviews
too.
Is that?
Is that, you know, we talkabout these other planets like
we have some inherent right tochange them to suit us, and it's

(33:31):
a very like human-centric viewat the same time.
You know, for me, as ageologist, looking at mars, the
question that comes to my mindis well, doesn't mars have a
right to exist as a place thatwas never designed for us to
live there Like we we probablylike evolved on this planet.

(33:52):
You know, maybe there was somepanspermia going on, we don't
really know, but regardless,like we are very much designed
to live here, and so is it rightfor us to just assume that
anything else we come across isthere for us to change, to suit
our needs, to extract theresources for us to use.
I think there's a little in mymind.

(34:15):
There's a little bit of adifference between going
somewhere to live there andutilizing the resources to live
there versus the idea of, say,extracting resources from
another place to come back andutilizing the resources to live
there versus the idea of, say,extracting resources from
another place to come back anduse it on earth.
Because I think that's when westart to hit the antithesis of
sustainability, like if ourspecies has gotten to a point
where we require the resourcesof other planets and asteroids

(34:37):
to sustain our lifestyle, that,like I feel like that's
something where we need to sitdown, have some serious
reflection on like okay, what,what could we be doing to not
require that?
But at the same time, does thatlimit our development as
species?
So it's really tricky.
Um, the other side of it, Ithink kind of ties back to what

(34:57):
we're talking about earlier intaking into account multiple
worldviews.
There was some controversypretty recently with a
commercial lunar mission thatwas carrying human remains on
board.
That mission didn't end upmaking it to the lunar surface,
but the Navajo Nation kind ofprotested to NASA saying, hey,

(35:17):
you said that you were going toconsult us about cultural
viewpoints when it came toutilization of the moon and you
didn't talk to us about, like,cultural viewpoints when it came
to utilization of the moon andyou didn't talk to us about this
.
And nasa's response was likethe quote that I saw was almost
verbatim like well, this is acommercial mission, so we don't
have any control over what theydo on the moon.
And technically that's true,that kind of regulation doesn't

(35:37):
come from nasa.
That comes from, like the.
Uh, there's a commercialregulation group, like in the
government, that deals with thatstuff, but the general public
doesn't know that, like ingeneral, people think space,
they think of NASA.
So I think that the answer tothat question could have been
handled a little bit better.
But it does raise the questionof you know the moon as a public

(35:58):
good and like part of humanhistory, human religion,
mythology, mythology, like allthis kind of stuff.
And suddenly we're at a pointwhere it's it could potentially
turn into the wild west, likeanybody that can get there can
do whatever they want.
And, uh, some of this is whatinspired um, I think people only

(36:19):
hear the audio of this and notsee video.
But next to to me is a bookthat I wrote, called For All
Humankind.
It was my friend, danny Bednar.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
This is video and audio.
There'll be a video version.
Okay, people are watching nowas they see.
So yeah, the audio will be out,but yeah, there's the books
behind you.
Your book is For All Humankind.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
Yeah, that book is.
Do you want to talk about thatbook behind you?
Yeah, so the inspiration herewas to hear stories from people
who watched or listened to theapollo 11 moon landing live as
it happened, but were not peopleinvolved in space.
We've heard the stories all thetime about people that got
inspired by ap Apollo and theywent on to become engineers or
planetary scientists, astronauts.
I wanted to know how did thismoment in human history impact

(37:08):
everybody else, and specificallynot just people that didn't go
into space as a career, butpeople that were not from the US
or the USSR, so people thatwere not invested in the space
race from a political standpoint.
And I wanted to see like whatwas this broader cultural impact
?
Did people see this as a humanachievement or an American

(37:30):
achievement?
Did they feel inspired?
The way that the dialogue inAmerica tends to be around
Apollo Like?
Was that inspiration a globalthing?
And the stories were remarkablyconsistent, like the people that
we talked to range from youknow a woman who was a
five-year-old girl in ruralIndia at the time to a

(37:54):
44-year-old Holocaust survivorfrom Lithuania who had, after
the war, immigrated to SouthAfrica, saw stuff was not going
well there politically.
He's like I know where thisgoes, and he immigrated to
Canada.
And then you have a bunch ofother like age ranges and
countries in between, and justthe consistency of all these
people saying like this wassomething that we thought was

(38:16):
going to bring humanity together.
We had a brighter view of thefuture because of this.
Multiple people were like Ifelt like I was a part of this,
even though they had no personalconnection to the united states
or the space race or space atall.
So that gives me so much likehope and like a lot of
heartwarming feelings to seelike, okay, we were able at one

(38:40):
point to bring everybodytogether, united around this
idea of humans going into spaceand doing something bigger than
ourselves, bigger than like asingle country, bigger than just
the ideas of, like, theminutiae of Earth, and so I
think people want to be engagedin that conversation.
They want to think about like,what will this look like as

(39:03):
humans go back into space?
So, making sure that we haveways for those voices to be
heard and we actually, you know,do more than give the lip
service of saying, yeah, okay,you wrote us a report or you
sent us some comments, that'sgreat.
What can we actually do to makesure that we listen to these
other voices and then take thatstuff into account in the
planning?
That, I think, is the harderpart, and I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
I don't have a great answer as to how to fix that
part, because we're not doing agreat job of incorporating all
the voices to begin with justyet.
Yeah, I want to touch on thatin a second.
It reminds me of at the KennedySpace Center, in the museum
where you have the bottom of theSaturn V, you can see how big
it is.
There's front pages from allover the world.
I use my Google Translate tosee them and you can see the

(39:57):
landing, how much the globalevent that it was.
So I think there's two facetsto it the global event that it
was and what you know.
So I think there's two facetsto it.
I think there's one, thehumanity aspect, and two, the
military-industrial complexaspect or the superpower
dominance aspect, which you cansee in the For All Mankind,
which is an excellent show.
If you all haven't seen it, Iassume probably most listeners

(40:18):
have, but it's if the Sovietslanded on the moon first and the
space race never stopped, andit's amazing to see what kind of
would have maybe played out thehumanity.
I think it's definitely it wasa shared experience, no matter
who you were.
I think at that level ofachievement and as a human race,

(40:38):
there's unique things thatbring us together as a, as a, as
humanity.
I think it's there and I thinkit's.
It's a shame there wasn't moreof a quest to kind of go further
.
But that ties it to the secondpart, which is the superpower
dominance, the real reason itkind of went it because it was
this viewed as a threat ofdropping missiles from space or,

(41:00):
you know, communications orjust another.
I mean constantly the Cold Warturning into a hot war, the
Third World War, and it wasinteresting.
It was like well, just becauseyou landed on the moon, is it
really over?
So did it?
Just kind of like when you knowyou cross the ticker tape and
you stop.
I also think that it's come outnow too, is the russians

(41:21):
technology was they might havegotten the leg up on the early
stuff, but the real complexities, if you look at the if anybody
studied the apollo program, youknow, you do it's.
It's a perfect example of whenwe build things today and you
iterate on it.
Right, they did, and you'reseeing this even with spaceship
one.
Right, it's like they get upinto orbit and they figure that
part out, then they do a spacewalk, then they connect the

(41:41):
lemon.
They do these?
The last thing is actually, youknow they go to the moon, but
they circle it.
They come back the you know.
So they don't just like go.
Russians just wanted to likeshoot into space and go, and I
think that was the biggestfundamental engineering uh
difference in the approach to it.
And, uh, many people in theSoviet side is is, you know,

(42:05):
apollo one we lost, but they, alot of people died uh trying
that bad approach.
You know, and you talked aboutthe aspect of uh, you know more.
You know people travel.
We have the new programs forthe astronauts, but that's just
not going to be enough.
I I mean, how can we get the?

(42:26):
How can we ensure that thisbenefits all of humanity?
Like, how can we get peopleinto being a part of this more?
Like you know, I stray awayfrom the inclusivity words or
diversity.
It's just about people thatreally want to be a part of this
and really participate.
How do they?
What do you think are things wecan do over the next decade to

(42:49):
really kind of change the game?
Because you're going to need alot of people.
You're going to need lawyers,you're going to need, you know,
entrepreneurs.
You're going to need all kindsof people, not just, you know,
scientists and test pilots,right what?

Speaker 3 (43:01):
are your thoughts on that.
I think the stuff you justlisted off is really important
in terms of helping peoplerealize that being involved in
the space program is far beyondjust being an astronaut or just
being one of those people inmission control with the headset
on.
I think that's what peopleobviously think of when you
think of space.
I remember when I was a kid, myone of my parents kind of uh

(43:26):
like discouraged me fromstudying space like in
university because they're likewell, you're never going to be
an astronaut, so that's going tobe useless.
Uh, I'm really glad that thatturned out to not be the case.
Um, but it's true, I would nothave been able to be an
astronaut for many reasons,partly because I am too short to
be an astronaut.

(43:48):
Although maybe that's differentnow with commercial astronauts.
But anyway, yeah, there's somany ways to be involved in the
space sector and even just 10years ago, the opportunities
were so much more limited.
There were, you know, corporatelawyers and accountants and
admin folks at, you know, thebig prime companies and at
places like nasa.
But now you have so manycompanies out there like we.
We have graphic designers inthe field.

(44:09):
There's a few people onlinethat are really well known for
just being launch photographers.
Like that is their role.
They work for rocket lab orthey work for spacex and they
photograph the launches.
Like I feel like that would havebeen my other dream job if I
hadn't done mars rovers.
Like just data photographlaunches.
How cool is that?
Um, you have sales people.
You have, yeah, I'm trying tothink of like basically at some

(44:32):
point, everything that we haveon earth we're going to need in
space.
You know, medical doctors,veterinarians at some point, I'm
sure people are going to wantto be like, hey, if I'm going to
a space hotel, I'd love tobring my dog with me, you know.
So, figure out if we can dothat and really making sure that
people understand.
Like I feel like a lot of peoplekind of exclude themselves

(44:54):
pretty early on, say because Iread this all the time.
When I talk to people they'relike oh yeah, I love space but I
wasn't good at math and so Ididn't try to pursue it as a
career.
Or you know, I didn't reallythink I'd be a very good
engineer, so I went into somecompletely unrelated fields,
that's.
I did terribly in calculus incollege and I still got to work

(45:14):
on bargeovers.
So I'm sure teachers hate itwhen I say that to their
classrooms, but I want people tounderstand like, just because
you work in the space programdoesn't mean you're some kind of
super genius by portraying itas this idea that it's a bunch
of really smart people.
They're mostly just reallypassionate.
That's not to say that peopleare dumb, but I think we we

(45:35):
attach this level ofintelligence to the whole field.
That on the one hand is kind ofcool if people are like oh my
god, you must be so smart, buton the other hand I think it,
you know, scares some peopleaway if they feel like they're
not smart enough to be involved.
And I think space is reallyunique in that it is a group of
such passionate people.
I feel like that level ofexcitement about your job and

(45:58):
like living what you do.
I don't see that a lot of otherfields like, uh, it's a special
place to be, and so trying toget more people to be a part of
that vision and mission and likewant to be part of crafting the
future for humanity.
I think like we should be doingeverything we can to encourage

(46:19):
people to be involved if theywant to, in whatever way they
can or want to contribute.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
Yeah, and it's not in this.
This segues to kind of the.
The working in the business ofspace is that space is not just
an industry, it's a place.
You know it's, it's and youknow.
You talked about the resourcesand I kept thinking about a
intergalactic manifest destiny.
It's like trying to feel likeyou need to capture those.

(46:45):
But the business of space hasalways fascinated me as an
entrepreneur, as just someonewanting to be that astronaut Not
strong with STEM, not strongwith math, right, we will need
artists, we will need people tocapture the beauty of humanity.
I mean, that's hopefullysomething I can do.

(47:07):
It's what I'm trying to do withthis podcast is capture the
voices in this, you know, thatare helping, you know, bring us,
to bring us off world Right.
And you know there's two rolesI think that I want to explore
with you is one as a scientist,the other is kind of a
consultant, right?
So as a scientist, you talkedabout the Mars rover, being

(47:29):
working on those projects.
What's it like to be a missionsoperations specialist?
Like working in space?
Like what is it like to do thatkind of job?
What's a day in the life First?
Like what is the job and likewhat's a day in the life first,
like what is the job?
And like what is a day in thelife?
Is it just getting coffee,staring at screens?
Like what, what is the, what isthe work?
I think it would be reallyhelpful for people that you know
they they kind of try andimagine and I think it's a bit

(47:52):
far other mental models to knowwhat it, what, what it is about.

Speaker 3 (47:56):
So, yeah, I mean it's very unique, right?
So people ask a lot of the timeand I remember at one point
somebody was saying, oh, youshould have a live stream camera
that's set up in missioncontrol for curiosity, I think
it was, and I kind of laughedand I was like, oh, you'd
probably be really boredwatching it, because you know
we're not sitting there drivingthe Rover with a joystick or

(48:16):
anything like that.
Know, the time delay betweenearth and mars is too big.
So, um, it's very differentdoing operations for a satellite
versus a rover.
But for the rovers, um, it'ssort of this daily thing that
it's very routine.
Like you would come in in themorning and, uh, you basically
package up all the commands thatyou want the rover to do for a

(48:37):
single day and send them all atonce, and then you wait for the
commands to execute.
The rover generally sends thedata back to one of the
satellites in orbit and thenthose satellites in orbit of
Mars.
Then those satellites will sendit back to the Earth.
So when you come in in themorning, like for me, for
Opportunity, for example, I wasthe payload downlink lead for

(48:58):
the pan cams, like the coloreyes of the rover, so my job
would be to come in in themorning, pull down all the
images that come back from Marsovernight on Earth and then step
through those images and lookat them both from the standpoint
of kind of an engineer, like isthe camera functioning properly
?
Looking at all the telemetrydata that came in along with it
to see if it's operating withinthe right temperatures.

(49:20):
Did it do everything we askedit to do?
Because it was so late in theopportunity mission.
At that point the rover was notfully functional.
Sometimes it would have what wecall amnesia events.
So like you would ask it totake 15 images and it might take
seven of them, and so you'dcheck and see which ones came
back and which ones didn't, andthen kindly ask the rover to do
the missing ones.
And then you would also look atthe images from the standpoint

(49:43):
of a geologist.
Is there anything in this imagethat's telling me something
important about the history ofMars, telling me something that
we should be connecting with oneof the other instrument teams
on board to say like hey, couldwe shoot this rock with one of
the spectrometers, or should wedrive closer to this rock and
take some closer images?
Stuff like that.

(50:04):
And then there's a lot ofteleconferences where, like, all
the different teams are sittingthere, we're debating about,
like, which targets we want tolook at, what to do that day,
and you're basically arguingover every single watt of power,
because the power determineseverything that we can do on
Mars.
We're so power constrained.
Compared to doing stuff onEarth With satellites, the power

(50:27):
is not so much an issue becausewe've got these big solar
panels, but in both cases we'rereally limited by downlink.
So how much data can we sendback between Earth and Mars when
Mars is really close?
I'm trying to remember what adata rate might be, generally
speaking, like an average datarate between Earth and Mars
would be on par with a dial-upmodem.

(50:48):
So we are limited in the amountof data we can collect and send
back.
So, as a mission operationsperson, a lot of what you're
doing is planning around theavailable downlink for that week
, depending on how close Earthand Mars are to each other, and
doing a lot of data triage.
Like, okay if the mission wereto die tomorrow, because you

(51:09):
always have to operate underthat assumption.
What is the most importantthing for you to accomplish
today in terms of science, interms of tactical goals, when it
comes to the rover and in termsof science.
In terms of tactical goals whenit comes to the rover, and in
terms of taking certain thingsinto account, like what time of
year is it?

(51:29):
What does the shadowing looklike?
You don't want to take apicture of something if it's
going to be in deep shadow andyou can't see your feature of
interest.
So, planning around all thosethings, there's a lot of
different factors to take intoaccount.
I think people probably assumethe satellites are just orbiting
and like taking pictures ofwhatever's beneath them, because
that's what we do a lot on theEarth with things like Landsat

(51:50):
from NASA.
But on Mars, because of thislimitation of how much data we
can send back, having a human inthe loop to make those
decisions is really criticalfrom a science standpoint.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
You know that's great , and it kept prompting me to
ask you about, you know, theconsulting side of this, where
you are kind of now right, it'slike you know, epic.
I was fascinated by this assomeone who builds products Like
Epic offers science as aservice, a new kind of sass you
know it's like, instead ofsoftware as a service, it's so

(52:24):
you know, can you explain thatin a bit more detail, like that
would be?
It's trying to, kind of, forthose might see the term or hear
like what does that mean?
It seems like it's a new newversion, unless it's, you know,
I can't find any reference, socould.
So could you go into that alittle more detail?

Speaker 3 (52:42):
Yeah, I mean, it's basically what kind of the way
you just put it, like it'sfancier way to say consulting.
But the idea is that usuallyscience is driven by, like a
particular government grantprogram or a particular space
mission and there's moneyattached to being able to do
research with the data from thatmission.
But that doesn't necessarilymean that that type of research

(53:04):
has a practical, real-worldapplication.
A lot of that stuff is fundedfor scientists to write papers,
and that's still important.
I'm not trying to bashfundamental research that's very
important but that's somethinguniversities are really good at.
Universities are not very goodat operating at a pace that is
useful to industry.
I interviewed a bunch ofdifferent CEOs and CTOs and

(53:28):
other leadership folks atdifferent companies about trying
to work with universities andwhat the pain points were, and
the common theme that came upwas they're just not fast enough
.
There's too many competingpriorities when you're trying to
work with students andprofessors because they have a
thousand other things on theirplate.
So the idea behind creatingthis independent institute that
is not affiliated with theuniversity is you can have

(53:50):
people that are tasked to doscientific research for R&D
purposes with governmentpartners, with industry partners
, and you can do it as fast asthey need it to go, because you
don't have a grad student that'salso trying to write their
thesis at the same time, or aprofessor that is also bogged
down with a ton ofadministrative duties for their

(54:10):
department.
These are just people that aregonna do the science that needs
to be done to be applied in thereal world.
The flip side to that is thatmeans you need somebody coming
in to do this work with a bit ofa different mindset.
It's not going to be the typeof scientist that's looking to
become, you know, the worldleading expert in like a hyper
niche research area.
You are coming in knowing thatthis is more of an applied

(54:34):
research type focus at the endof the day.
But I think people just reallywant to be motivated by a vision
.
A lot of the time, andespecially if you have become a
scientist like I think, you justwant to do research.
I don't think everybody goesinto it wanting to become, you
know, some prestigious tenuredprofessor somewhere, because
there are a lot of downsides toacademia too, like beyond being

(54:55):
overloaded.
That could be.
It's a whole podcast on its own, so we won't get into that.
But if you've ever been inacademia, you know.
So trying to create a newpathway that is, like you know,
a different place and adifferent way of doing science,
so that it's more beneficial forgetting stuff out in the real
world, like that's the goal atthe end of the day, that's great

(55:18):
.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
So what's one question you wish people would
ask you about your work Like andhow?
And what would you?
How would you answer?

Speaker 3 (55:28):
Oh, man, trying to think of something I wish they
would ask that people don't ask,cause I feel like, in general,
people ask really good questions.
Um, I think one that I do getasked a lot but I think is

(55:49):
important for people to ask andfor us to talk about is the why,
you know, why are we doing allthis in the first place you get
that common question of like whyare we spending money on space
when there's so many problemshere on the earth but one?
it's because they don'tnecessarily see a direct
application one.
Even if we stop spending moneyon space tomorrow, it would not
solve most of the problems thatwe have here on the earth.
Because our problems are social, they're kind of endemic,

(56:12):
because we as a species are justnot good at cohabitating with
each other a lot of the time.
So how do we fix that?

Speaker 2 (56:19):
um again, that could be a whole other podcast on its
own, um, but also I've alwayssaid, like aliens, aliens don't
want anything to do with usbecause we're a backwater planet
that just engages in tribalwarfare.
So we're kind of, hey, we splitthe atom, but hey, we're kind
of, you know, and is it in ournature to always be that you
know, you don't know, we don'tknow, I don't know?

Speaker 3 (56:41):
yeah, I feel like you know, we keep creating science
fiction where we hope that likean alien species you know, like
star trek it's the vulcans comesdown and unites us.
It's like, oh, there'ssomething bigger than just us
and like that's the thingthat'll be the catalyst.
It's like, well, could we dothat without the aliens?

(57:09):
Like why can't we just figureout how to be better as a
species on our own?
Like let's just try a littlebit harder.
Or how much you use satellitedata in your day-to-day life
through GPS or the weather appand stuff like that.
The real fundamental thingbehind a lot of this, at least
when you're talking to ascientist why are you doing this
?
It's because we want to answerthat question of whether or not

(57:30):
we're alone in the universe.
And I think Mars is aparticularly good example of
this, because we know that itused to be very Earth-like at
the same point in the history ofthe solar system as the time
that life arose on Earth.
So if you have two planets thatare right next to each other in
the same solar system with theright conditions for life as we

(57:52):
know it to thrive, and you hadlife on both planets, and then
life on Mars died off becauseit's turned into this very
inhospitable place we see today.
That seems like kind of anexpected answer, like okay, we
now know there's a sample set oftwo of what it takes for life
to thrive, and maybe it's justfragile enough that changing the

(58:17):
parameters to the point of Marswas too fast or too much for
life to survive.
But I think the moreinteresting answer would be if
we keep looking on Mars and wefind out that Mars never had
life Again.
Two planets right next to eachother in the same solar system
with the same conditions tellsus that something really special

(58:38):
happened here that didn'thappen on Mars.
So what was that?
Tells us that something reallyspecial happened here that
didn't happen on Mars.
So what was that Like?
What happened here that doesn'tseem to have happened anywhere
else in our solar system to makeEarth so special?
So even though we're going toall these other planets and
moons and we're studyingexoplanets and studying the
stars, at the end of the dayit's to put humanity and Earth
in the context of the universeand to understand our own

(59:01):
existence.
That's hard to quantify as likean economic benefit or a
technology spinoff, because it'snot.
I think it's totally okay forus to say that we are doing this
because we want to understandthe universe and people want to
understand.
They ask questions about thisconstantly, every time I give a

(59:23):
talk or you see comments onYouTube videos about big
existential things for theuniverse.
This is something that peopleare curious about, whether
they're five or 105.
They want to understand wherewe came from and what else is
out there, and I think thatthat's beautiful.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
And it ties into like it was your work, it was
forward.
What do you?
What are your long term goals,like taking that perspective of
life for Epic and your research?
Like, what are you going to befocusing on to support that?

Speaker 3 (59:56):
I think for me, the two big things that I've been
really focused on I've kind ofmentioned them already, but like
getting science out into theworld because I think then
people will have a betterunderstanding and appreciation
for what research can do andhopefully try to break down some

(01:00:26):
of these perceptions of youknow, research in the academic
sense being this ivory towerthat isn't, you know, a place
for everybody to inhabit.
I think it's important to haveas many people participating in
the scientific process as wantto be, because asking more
questions and getting moreperspectives does nothing but
good when it comes to trying todo research, does nothing but
good when it comes to trying todo research.
And then that kind of ties tothe greater overall vision of
getting more people involved inhelping us create this journey

(01:00:47):
and craft the vision of humansas we move into our next level,
becoming an interplanetaryspecies.
How do we get people to want tobe involved in that, to feel
like they're a part of it, tofeel like their voices are being
heard and that they want toparticipate in that process and
not just viewing it as somethingwhere, oh, I'm not smart enough

(01:01:08):
or I'm not rich enough, orwhatever their perception might
be as to what it means toexplore space.
You know, how can we break downthose barriers and try to
recapture more of that Apolloera spirits which I feel like
we've lost in society today?
Just there's so many otherthings going on.

(01:01:30):
It's hard to get people unitedaround something, and certainly
for more than five seconds insomeone's attention span.
But I feel like we did, did itbefore and that was sort of the
takeaway message in, likewriting the the apollo book was
we've done this before, so Ifeel like that means we as a
species have the capability todo this again that's.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
That's a great kind of segue into kind of the future
of human space settlement,cause I I agree with you.
I mean we're, if you're in, ifyou understand generational
theory or you kind of can kindof subscribe to that kind of
work.
We're in a crisis period wasstarted in around 2008,.
Probably take 20, you know,probably another couple of years
and then you know, and then wego to a new cycle, kind of like

(01:02:16):
the way the fifties, you knowkind of that excitement that you
know newness, the fresh kind ofthe spring, if you will, versus
our this winter, and I thinkthat changes people's.
Things are a lot of kind of likethe new, the new institutions
have formed a kind of a new kindof way of the world, the world
order, not conspiratorial, justthe way the world will be safe

(01:02:37):
for the next, you know, under200 years, with that kind of
positivity coming back andprobably the excitement of going
to Mars and getting everybodykind of re-engaged that way and
kind of making it more social,more engaged, like you said,
like people in the neighborhoodand people talked about it, but
like real global communicate,like sharing this experience as
a humanity.
I think that's exciting and it'sa different way we can do it

(01:02:59):
and even just having, you know,interviews with the astronauts
as they go, or it's just there'ssuch a difference.
But like, let's go 500, sorry,50 or a hundred years out, how
do you, what do you envisionlike the human space settlement,
you know, in that kind of whatdo you think will kind of just
in generalities, what do youthink will kind of just in
generalities?
What do you think if we areable to re-engage, or just what

(01:03:20):
do you think the play is notapart from the Vulcans which is
supposed to happen in 2063?
But you know, I don't want thatone, because that means world
war, that means decimated planet.
I'm good, like you know.
So what do you think the worldwill, what do you think things
will be like?
So what?
Do you think?
the world will what do?

Speaker 3 (01:03:39):
you think things will be like?
I think this is going to soundlike a cop-out answer, but I
think it's going to be hard forus to predict when it comes to
space, because I don't thinkthat 10, 15 years ago we would
have adequately predicted wherespace is right now.
Just the advance that we'veseen from things like SpaceX

(01:04:00):
launching and landing at like aweekly or sub weekly cadence,
the number of companies thathave just I feel like I
shouldn't use the word explodedin this context, but I mean it
in a good way, you know andthey're building entire
constellations of satellitesthat can just like do all sorts
of stuff in Earth's orbit.
And now we have companies thatare focused on mars and venus

(01:04:22):
and going back to the moon, andso, like we went from a period
where it didn't feel like awhole lot was happening.
You know, it's just kind oflike, oh, the shuttle's
launching back to the spacestation again, like people
didn't really care all that muchunless they were already a
space nerd.
So getting to a point now where, like there's a renewed
excitement about the fact thatthere's so much happening in

(01:04:45):
space, feels really positive.
So I think if things keep goingon this upward trajectory of,
you know, more frequent launches, more companies are popping up.
We're seeing investment fromcountries around the world
forming new space agencies,which is really incredible.
Like my hope is that, you know,we will see a sustained human

(01:05:06):
presence on the moon within 50years.
I think we'll probably start tosee, at the very least, like a
scientific outpost on Mars,maybe something kind of akin to
what we've got in Antarcticaakin to what we've got in
Antarctica.
Whether that's long enough forus to have full-on cities, I

(01:05:31):
think the skeptical part of methinks that's a little too soon,
because the old view would havebeen well, we need a lot of
political backing and governmentmoney to make that happen.
But now you have billionairesthat are funding this kind of
stuff and I feel like thatreally changes the game too.
Uh, you know, elon musk doeseverything that he does because
you know, regardless of whatyour opinions are of him, like

(01:05:52):
he is genuinely focused on thatgoal of wanting to go to mars
and starting all these othercompanies and all these things
he do does he does in service tothat goal that he has, and
that's just something thatgovernments don't have the
ability to do.
They can't maintain good focus,generally speaking, across
different administrations.

(01:06:12):
Everybody wants to have theirown vanity project, especially
when it comes to space.
So these space billionaires havekind of opened up a new lane
for stuff to happen, like theycan keep a focused goal and
funnel as many of theirresources as they want to into
making these things happen, andso that, like as a whole, has

(01:06:34):
probably been really good forreinvigorating the space sector.
So are we going to see morepeople doing that?
Are we going to see, like thelegacy of some of these people
carry on?
Like you know, if people likemusk and bezos are dead in 50
years or when they die, likewhat, what happens to those
companies?

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
or we have life extension and they live.
You know they can live 500years, right they?

Speaker 3 (01:06:58):
that's true.
Yeah, isn't bezos investing inthat kind of stuff too?
Maybe he'll figure that out.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
I just I just keep thinking of altered carbon,
where you have meths which arelike methuselahs.
You know like they, you know therich live forever and yeah.
So I think you're exactly right.
You're the first person andI've interviewed that really
guess I call it.
You know he's building thecomplete ecosystem to go to Mars
, but he's proven it out.

(01:07:23):
Like there's people that wanttunnels you know to, to
transport you and enter in thecity of Los Angeles, or there's,
you know, starlight for the forpeople here on earth, like X is
all these things.
Everything he does is, like yousaid, in service.
He is creating the essentiallylike the robots they're.
He is creating the essentiallylike the robots.
They're going to be the cheaplabor to do things on Mars,

(01:07:43):
right, the dangerous stuff too.
It's all there, it doesn't heEarth?
Earth is the way that makesmoney and gets it funded and
gets investors in, but the real,the real outcome, the long game
, is Mars, right?
Yeah, I agree, you have a verygood sense of things.
I think you're right about theresearch stations, the Moon Bay.
Yeah, I think that's true.
You know it's been a, you knowit's.
As we kind of start to kind ofclose this conversation, I want

(01:08:06):
to have you back because there'sso many other things we can
rich, things we can dive into.
But you know, I'd love to kindof kind of do a little bit of
our rapid fire, one of thethings that I like to ask people
and there's a lot of differentquestions, but you know you
talked about your book, likewhat are, what is one book
that's really profoundlyinfluenced your thinking, and

(01:08:31):
you know, about the future.

Speaker 3 (01:08:32):
What has it really impacted you About the future?
It's not a book about space,but it's called.
I always forget the subtitle.
It's like wayfinding the artand science of how humans

(01:08:52):
navigate the world, or somethingto that effect in the subtitle.
Um, it's a book that goes intoboth the history and the
neuroscience of how humansinteract with the world around
them through, uh like on theground, exploration in three
different cultures and lookingat, like the historical ways of
navigating so one was Polynesianseafarers, one was um

(01:09:16):
indigenous communities in theCanadian Arctic and the other
one was Aboriginal communitiesin Australia and looking at how
the way that these differentcultures navigate impact your
brain and like how all of oursenses are incorporated into how
we experience the world.
Like that book fundamentallychanged the way that I interact

(01:09:38):
with the world around me.
Like, um, I very rarely wearheadphones when I go for walks
now because it talked about theimpact of like the sounds around
us and how that helps thingsbetter imprint into our limbic
system.
Basically for memory smells ofthings really imprint on our
memory and so seeing how muchthe multisensory experience

(01:10:02):
impacts our memory andnavigation and just emotion in
general got me really thinkingabout how is the sensory
deprived environment of being inspace or living in a habitat on
the moon or on Mars like.
How is that going to impact ourbrains and the way that we
interact with the world?

(01:10:23):
It really got me thinking.
I feel like I rave about thatbook to people constantly.
If you want to maybe changeyour perspectives on the world,
I highly recommend it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:34):
That's a great recommendation.
What's the one thing you'velearned in your career that you
wish you knew when you started?

Speaker 3 (01:10:45):
I wish I knew that if I wanted to work on Mars rovers
, I should have studiedengineering and geology rather
than going into astronomy at thebeginning.
I don't regret it, but it wouldhave been a more direct path.
That's good.

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
I don't regret it, but it would have been a more
direct pass.
That's good.
Well, what advice would yougive those who are starting out
like thinkers, innovators, whowant to make that impact?

Speaker 3 (01:11:10):
What advice would you give them?
I would say go for it.
Like the space community is soenthusiastic and generally
really supportive and, like youknow, all nerds on board kind of
thing.
So find your way in.
Yeah, find your way in, findyour people like, start building
that community and, you know,chase that goal because it's,

(01:11:31):
it's worth it.
It's the thing that's going tomake you happy at the end of the
day.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
So how would you?
This legacy question I alwayslove to ask people because it's,
even if you're young and earlyin your career, in your career
but how would you?
This legacy question I alwayslove to ask people because it's,
even if you're young and earlyin your career, but how would
you want your work to be?

Speaker 3 (01:11:48):
remembered, like what impact do you hope it has on
the world?
Other people find opportunities, especially students, and then
kind of watch them grow intotheir dream careers.
I find that really rewarding.
Maybe that's the part of methat was meant to be a professor
, I don't know.
So I think I would like to beremembered for helping to create

(01:12:10):
opportunities for other people,to really grow the number of
people that we see in space andthe impact that those people are
having because they can do morethan just one person that's
great.

Speaker 2 (01:12:25):
So let's be kind of like so how do people you know
stay updated with your work, thedevelopments with epic and just
your research in general?
So, like all the things aboutyou, like how we can, how people
can connect with you uh, I'mreally easy to find on.

Speaker 3 (01:12:39):
Pretty much any social media platform is at
Tanya of Mars T-A-N-Y-A, so mywebsite, tanyaharrisoncom, and
if you have questions that youwant answered, we'll say about
Mars, but you can put otherstuff in there too.
I have a forum ataskthemartiancom and I'm going
to start using those questionsto create some video content.

(01:13:02):
It's been up for a little while.
I haven't done it yet becauseI've been in like nomad mode,
but once that is over, I canstart digging into people's
questions.
So definitely looking forwardto seeing what people submit
there.

Speaker 2 (01:13:14):
That's great.
Well, thank you for being onthe show and it's been a
pleasure to learn about you andyour journey, so thanks a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
Thanks so much for having me.
Thanks for listening to GoingOffworld.
You can find us on all themajor podcast platforms and at
wwwbaduoffworldpodcastcom, aswell as on YouTube under Going
Offworld.
You can also learn more aboutthe Waypaver Foundation at
waypaverfoundationorg.
See you next time.

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Going Off World: EP 3 - Cruising the Red Planet with Dr. Tanya Harrison

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Going Off World: EP 3 - Cruising the Red Planet with Dr. Tanya Harrison