May 13, 2025 • 53 mins
This conversation explores the future of space exploration with Dr. Jeffrey Landis, NASA researcher at the John Glenn Research Center. We delve into innovative technologies for upcoming missions to Mars and beyond, highlighting in-situ resource utilization and the intersection of science fiction and reality.
• Insight into Dr. Jeffrey Landis's background and motivation for a career in science
• Discussion on solar power technologies and energy strategies used in Mars missions
• Examination of in-situ resource utilization for sustainable living on Mars
• Exploration of challenges and innovations for Venus exploration plans
• Consideration of the impact of science fiction on real-world scientific advancements
• Questions concerning human versus robotic capabilities in future space missions
• Reflection on the geopolitical implications of lunar colonization and exploration
• Overview of upcoming space missions and technological advancements in propulsion
You can follow the conversation's developments and explore more episodes with us or check out Dr. Landis's work for further discoveries in space.
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Web: https://goingoffworld.buzzsprout.com/
Thank you for joining me on this ongoing journey into the future. Until next time, stay curious, and always think forward.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Going Offworld, your gateway to the
cosmos beyond our Earth.
Join us as we embark on thisjourney together to the Moon,
mars, venus and beyond.
Welcome to Episode 4 of GoingOffworld.
I'm your host, steve Fisher.
Today, we're diving deep intothe future of space exploration
(00:22):
with Dr Jeffrey Landis, nasaresearcher at the John Glenn
Research Center, who spent hisentire career developing
technologies that will helphumanity explore the solar
system and beyond.
From innovative Mars missionsand solar-powered spacecraft to
wind-sailing vehicles, dr Landisshares fascinating insights
about how we can use localresources to sustain ourselves
(00:45):
in space.
As both a NASA scientist andacclaimed science fiction author
, he offers a unique perspectiveon turning science fiction
concepts into reality.
Whether you're curious aboutnuclear propulsion in space or
how it will power futuremissions, or even what it's like
to operate on Mars time, youwill not want to miss this
conversation about thetechnologies that will transform
(01:06):
space exploration.
Join us on this journey wherethe sky is not the limit and the
stars are just the beginning.
Welcome, jeff.
Nice to have you on.
So you know, as I always startthe podcast, you know you and I
have had a couple ofconversations and gotten to know
each other.
But for those who don't knowyou, could you kind of share
(01:29):
your background and talk aboutwhat inspired you to pursue your
career in science?
I would love to hear that.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Sure, let me talk a little bit about myself.
Sure, great, I'm Jeffrey Landis.
Right now I'm a researcher atthe John Glenn Research Center
in Cleveland, ohio.
We don't launch space missions.
Nobody calls home and saysCleveland, we have a problem.
We develop technology forfuture missions, both for
(01:59):
aircraft and for space.
So I've spent most of my careerlooking at technologies for
space and what we can do withfuture space missions.
With that said, I have beenfascinated by science and
technology, and specifically byspaceflight, ever since I can
(02:21):
remember.
Part of it is I've been ascience fiction reader all my
life.
So science fiction has beengiving us a vision of a future
world in which we can dowonderful things.
It gives us a view of theplanets as more than just little
dots in the sky, but placesthat we can go, places we can
(02:45):
find out about.
It gives us a view of theuniverse as a huge and marvelous
place.
So that's been part of it.
But part of it is I just lovelearning about the world,
learning about science, learningabout how things work and how
you can make things.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
That's great, and I know that you've been working on
a number of planetary projects.
Let's kind of move to likelet's talk about Mars first.
So the exploration robotics,the geyser, hopper and hero
you've worked on some reallyamazing projects.
Could you kind of share aboutwhat those were and how they
could change your understandingof Mars?
Share about what?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
those were and how they could change our
understanding of Mars.
Yeah, of course Mars has been asubject of fascinating research
in both science and, of course,in science fiction for years,
and we've been looking at thequestion what can we do on Mars?
(03:49):
I've spent a lot of my careeractually looking at solar power
on Mars and most of the missionsthat we have to Mars, up until
the Curiosity and Perseverancerovers, have been solar powered.
I was part of the MarsPathfinder and also the Mars
Exploration Rover missions,mostly looking at the solar
energy.
But then, back in thetechnology development, we've
(04:11):
been looking at what can we doin future missions to Mars.
One of the keys that we'rediscovering to moving out into
the solar system has been howcan we use the resources of
space?
So in human flight, at least upuntil now, we go into space and
(04:34):
we bring with us everythingthat we need.
But clearly, if we're going tomove out into the solar system
with settlements, to move outinto the solar system with
settlements with humans,ultimately we're going to have
to use the stuff that we canfind in space.
We can't bring everything fromEarth all of the time.
It's kind of the differencebetween going out on a camping
(04:57):
trip or going out to settle andlive somewhere.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So I want to talk about oh sorry go, oh sorry, go
ahead no, no go ahead.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Uh, yes, so the.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
That refers to the institute in c, in c2 I don't
know if I'm pronouncing itcorrectly resource utilization,
the isru.
So how would that beimplemented?
How could that be implementedon mars?
To it?
Because it's got it're right,it has a lot of impact, I
believe, on missions.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, one of the interesting conceptual
breakthroughs about Mars is thatthe resource which is easily
available everywhere on theplanet is the atmosphere.
So sometime in the 1980s peoplereally focused on the
atmosphere as the nextbreakthrough in how we can make
(05:54):
things for future missions.
Now it turns out forspaceflight.
What you really really needmost of is propellant.
You think, oh, humans needoxygen, humans need water,
humans need food.
That's all true, but all ofthat is sort of secondary to the
(06:14):
fact that you need huge amountsof rocket propellant on other
places and in Mars.
We looked at Mars and said, well, it's a carbon dioxide
atmosphere.
And there's two interestingthings people proposed for Mars.
(06:37):
The first was they discoveredthat in fact, it's relatively
straightforward technologicallyto just break one of the oxygen
atoms off of the carbon dioxidemolecule and you can then get
oxygen and that's anelectrolysis process.
That's pretty similar to whatyou've probably done in your
(06:58):
high school chemistry classwhere you put a couple of
electrodes in water and makehydrogen and oxygen.
It's the same thing, exceptyou're making carbon monoxide
and oxygen.
Now mostly people have beenfocused on well, oxygen is the
most important component ofrocket fuel, so we can make the
(07:19):
oxygen on Mars.
One of the researchers I workedwith at NASA, glenn, looked at
this and said hey, wait a second, we're also making carbon
monoxide.
Turns out.
Carbon monoxide can burn.
It's a flammable gas.
It's a little bit hard toignite.
It takes a little highertemperature to ignite, but once
you ignite it you can make acarbon monoxide oxygen rocket
(07:42):
engine, carbon monoxide oxygenrocket engine.
So with that technique you canmake both the fuel and the
oxidizer for a rocket.
Now the alternative techniquepeople have been looking at has
been saying well, if we justhave a source of hydrogen, we
can make methane and oxygen.
That's a better rocketpropellant.
(08:04):
But hydrogen is a little bitharder to get on Mars.
You either bring it from Earth,which is hard, or you could
drill into the soil and probablyget some water and electrolyze
the water.
But that's a little bit morecomplicated.
Now we're talking about a lotof Earth-moving equipment,
(08:24):
drills and things On a largescale.
That's obviously what you'd do,but on a smaller scale it's a
little bit more complex.
So we looked into what can wedo with a carbon monoxide oxygen
rocket engine and we said well,one thing we might want to do
is fly around, so we could makethe fuel on Mars.
(08:45):
Fly around and refuel ourselvesfrom the atmosphere with a
rocket powered hopper.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
I guess I have to say that now the people with the
helicopters have sort of beat usto that goal of flying around
on Mars, but at the time it wasquite a bit before the
helicopter had been invented, orat least before the Mars
helicopter had been invented.
So we were looking at arocket-powered hopper.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
I played with a simulator, a Mars simulator,
using scramjet technology.
Because of the lighteratmosphere, you can move fat, so
it's like very little movingparts.
Scramjet, because of thelighter atmosphere, you can move
fat, so it you know it's likevery little moving parts.
You know scramjet glider,basically that you could move
around and do all types ofconstruction, movement of
(09:37):
equipment.
I mean there's a lot of budget,you can do with it.
You know you, you hold and youmentioned solar earlier, you
hold a lot of patents, severalpatents related to photo,
photovoltaic tech.
Yeah, do you see that?
Like in terms of step within c2, like, would you power 3d
printing machine?
Would you power machines tocreate all those, those, like
(09:58):
you said, the mirth movie?
You'd have to make the thingsthere, right, you'd have to, but
you have to get the it's kindof chicken and egg right.
You have to get the materialsto make the things there.
Right, you'd have to, but youhave to get the it's kind of
chicken and egg right, you haveto get the materials to make the
things then get the materialsto make more things.
So what?
What advancements are excitingyou about this side, that side
of it and solar power and whatit can do?
Because you know, with the,with the probes, I know you've
(10:20):
worked.
You said you've worked on manyof the Mars rovers.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
What, excites you.
Well, power, of course, is thekey to everything.
Yeah, you can't really doanything in space without a
power source, and I'm a greatfan of appropriate technology.
Use the technology that'sappropriate for the mission.
So, any place where sunlight isavailable, if you've got the
(10:49):
sun, you really want to usesolar power.
Solar cells are lightweight andcheap and a reliable source of
power, and so the vast majorityof things sent into space are
solar powered.
That's mostly just because thevast majority of things sent
into space are pretty close tothe Earth.
Once you go into the far outersolar system, where there's not
(11:12):
much sunlight, nuclear powersystems look better.
Interestingly, if you're on themoon and you want to operate in
the dark, nuclear systems arelooking good as well, because
the moon has a 14-day nighttimeand that's awfully hard to
(11:32):
operate on batteries for 14 daysNot impossible, but hard.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
I had a.
Tesla.
I live in Boston.
I couldn't even drive fromVermont, so you know it's.
Well, yeah, and then wherewould I plug in?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
You know, yeah, yeah, yeah oh well sunlight at least
once every 24 hours.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Exactly Right.
Well, you know, I think youknow, talking about the, the,
the Rover, did it surprise theteam when I believe it was
Pathfinder right, that keptgoing like its end of life was
you know, because the solar, thewinds would just kind of clean
it off.
And did it surprise the teamhow long it went?
(12:16):
Was there something that wasjust like mind blowing, like
revealing?
Yeah, please, if anything share.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, the Spirit rover in particular surprised
everybody.
Our initial calculations, backbefore we had good data,
suggested that the dust would besticky enough that the Martian
winds would not blow it off.
But it turns out on Spirit.
(12:45):
Once we got to the summer andhad the windstorms come by, and
particularly the dust devils.
The very first day we saw dustdevils we also saw the power
jump up on those solar arraysand that was something we hadn't
expected.
It really helped the missionalong that we got a little bit
(13:06):
of help from Mars.
Mars liked us.
That's excellent.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Well, what other probes or exploration do you
think should be done in parallelto prepare for the manned
mission?
I don't want to say eventually,but hopefully will happen, you
know, within the next decade, inthe decade.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Well, I am still a huge advocate of in-situ
resource utilization, that wereally have to start going into
space and using the stuff we canfind there and stop bringing
everything from Earth.
That has not been a major focusof actual missions but there's
a lot of work going on invarious little corners of NASA
on trying to develop thattechnology for space resource
(13:57):
utilization.
We did a study actually oflooking at can we do the Mars
sample return mission by makingthe oxygen for a system on Mars
and it looked pretty good.
Eventually they didn't pickthat.
Of the six options that we cameup with, that wasn't the one
(14:20):
they chose, mostly because theywere saying, well, this is an
undeveloped technology and anytechnology that isn't the one
they chose, mostly because theywere saying, well, this is an
undeveloped technology and anytechnology that isn't flight
ready has some risk to it thatmaybe it won't work as well as
we think.
But my real push for NASA wouldbe let's get places and start
(14:44):
using the things that we canfind there.
We've done a lot of work atlooking at in situ resources.
We've looked at Mars.
Of course, a lot of people nowtalking about the moon, but
there's also Venus.
We're looking at ISRU on Venus,we're looking at in situ
resources on Titan.
We think we could fly a returnmission to Titan, and that's now
(15:09):
we're talking a billion milesaway, but we think we could make
our fuel on Titan and bring asample back.
So, really, power systems thatcan operate and in-situ resource
utilization are really the key.
Once we have that, we couldreally open up the solar system.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
You provided me a great segue because I was about
to move a little closer to Earthand talk about Venus.
So one of your, I think,incredibly innovative projects
is a wind-propelled rover forVenus exploration.
Is a wind-propelled rover forVenus exploration.
What are the challenges thatVenus presents compared to Mars?
And there's some basics,obviously, because of the heat,
(15:56):
but what are some uniquechallenges?
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah, venus and Mars are interesting because, other
than the fact that theatmosphere is carbon dioxide,
they're sort of opposite inevery possible way.
Venus the atmosphere is way toothick.
It has an atmospheric pressurethat's equivalent to temperature
is actually a real killertemperature.
It's really hard to make thingsoperate.
(16:28):
But despite that, nasa Glennhas been working on electronics
that operate at that 450 degreeC and we've solved a lot of
those problems.
We can make electronics.
We can't make everything, butwe can make some things.
(16:53):
So looking at that, well, infact when I was studying Venus,
the very first thing I wasstudying was solar-powered
airplanes for Venus.
That was back when the NASAadministrator was proposing well
, why don't we fly an airplaneon Mars for celebrating the
100th anniversary of the Wrightbrothers?
And in response to that I was alittle bit working on Mars
(17:14):
airplanes.
But looking at it I was sayingwait, why Mars?
The really nice place to flywould be Venus.
The really nice place to flywould be Venus If we can get
above the clouds, the weather'snice, the temperature's good and
there's plenty of solar energy.
So I did a bit of work onsolar-powered airplanes on Venus
.
That work never took off.
(17:36):
Sorry, no pun intended there,but nobody really said oh,
that's just what we need in theworld is a solar powered
airplane for Venus, although I'mstill a big advocate of that.
But then we started looking atVenus and saying well, can't we
get down to the surface?
Let's see what we can do on thesurface of Venus.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Is that where land sailing comes into play?
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yes, so the problem with the surface of Venus Is
that where land sailing comesinto play, yes, so the problem
with the surface of Venus is, at450 C solar cells don't work as
well as they do at roomtemperature and that thick
atmosphere cuts down the amountof sunlight reaching the surface
by a lot.
(18:23):
So you're not getting very muchpower on the surface of Venus.
So we said, well, we can makeelectronics that operates, we
can make solar cells thatoperate on Venus, but, man, you
don't get very much power.
You get a couple of watts ofpower, not the hundreds of watts
that you might need to driveacross the surface.
(18:45):
So we said, well, how can weuse the resources we have on
Venus?
What do we have on Venus?
What we have is a thickatmosphere.
So the thinking on the windsailor for Venus was let's drive
using that wind.
And it turns out people havedone that in Earth Both.
(19:15):
Actually, hundreds of years agothey made wind-powered wagons
that crossed the plains, andmore recently some people make
basically sort of sailingvessels that sail across the
deserts.
And we said well, we have athick atmosphere, let's make a
sail-powered rover.
So now we don't need to providepower to drive, we can drive
(19:35):
just by sailing across thesurface Looks like a good idea.
We're still working on some ofthe technologies that would
support doing that, so it's notsomething that we're quite ready
to do.
We still need some of thosehigh-temperature technologies,
but it still looks good.
It looks like something wecould do and I think that would
(19:58):
be actually a really coolmission.
That sounds like a greatmission.
It's basically a sailing vesselfor the planes of Venus.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
I would love to pilot that and I imagine they would
be someone piloting that wouldbe in an orbital platform, you
know, or you could pilot it froman orbital platform, you could
put basically all of the brainsin orbit.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yeah, so the sophisticated computers and
stuff would be in orbit and thenjust the simple electronics
would be on the surface of Venus.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Earlier guest of ours , guillermo Sonnlein, which is
how we connected.
He's obviously working on his,his, his venus.
Uh, the non-profit initiativeyeah, more you know earth, earth
to venus, um, and he talkedabout the livable uh layer for
(20:54):
humans yeah, and yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I mean, have you worked on any of the atmospheric
platforms in that way?
Are you familiar?
Can you speak to that?
Higher up in the atmosphere itgets cooler and at that level,
about 55, maybe 58 kilometersabove the surface, think of it
as, oh, about 30 miles up youget to that Earth-like
(21:32):
conditions where the temperatureis close to room temperature,
depending on how high you are,and the atmospheric pressure is
actually a little bit belowEarth's normal sea level
pressure, but not bad.
Of course, the atmosphere isstill carbon dioxide, so you
still do have to live in abubble that has an oxygen or an
(21:56):
oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
But that's easy, you don't have to you can walk
outside with a very thin suitand just the mask.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
right, you don't have to have a full Right.
You don't need a pressure suit,you just need to protect
yourself from the environment.
That's above the thick sulfuricacid clouds, but there's
probably still some prettycorrosive things in the
atmosphere even above the thickclouds.
You're sort of above the thickmiddle cloud layer but below the
(22:26):
thinner upper cloud layers, soyou'd want a suit that's not
going to be corroded by theatmosphere but you don't have to
live in a pressurized suitwhich is, as we've discovered,
very bulky and hard to deal with, suit which is as we've
discovered very bulky and hardto deal with.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, it's not exact parallels, but it does remind me
of Antarctica.
Like the elements there willkill you.
It's not corrosive but it'sdefinitely, you know,
hypothermic and deadly and youhave to you know, be ready for
that environment and kind of,you know, do live in a bubble, a
(23:11):
bit like you know, I think,myrtle, but you know so, with
the, with all theseopportunities and, like the nc2,
like the, the researchutilization that would happen,
making you know, make it whereyou live, make it where you are
right.
Actually, is this the kind ofthe tagline.
What do you think is the?
And?
We've been sending out theseprobes and we're trying to get
the manned missions up.
Obviously, spacex is doingtheir thing and NASA is doing
their thing.
What do you think is the nextmajor milestone in exploration?
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Well, the NASA program is all about going to
the moon and then from the moonmoving on to Mars, and I think I
certainly hope that we keep upmomentum on that, because it's
good to have a, it's good tohave a destination.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, I mean because not only just preparing as a
base to build and launch fromthere, but having a permanent
settlement Going back.
We haven't been back since the70s.
It's funny I collect a lot ofspace memorabilia.
When you look at the programand you look at the evolution
(24:19):
from Mercury to Apollo andSkylab and it's an era that
seems foreign to a lot of people, because a lot of kids don't
know that we, you know, we wentthere 50 years ago.
But to go back and now justestablish something, it's going
to be very interestinggeopolitically because the moon
doesn't belong to anyone fromthe.
The moon doesn't belong toanyone from the.
(24:47):
Indeed, you know, I mean whenyou watch shows like uh, excuse
me.
When you watch shows like uh,um, like you don't have to put
this back and see later, um, uh,oh, it's the alternate history
show, um, oh yeah, for allmankind.
Thank you when you when you see,when you watch shows like for
all mankind there, when you'rethere, it becomes territorial.
It's one thing to go there andexplore and all we're all
(25:10):
together and kumbaya, but itstarts to actually produce
resources like helium three, orbecome bases.
It's going to be very, um,interesting and, uh, I think, a
contested challenge forgeopolitically.
But that's just, that's been my, this is my take on it.
But you so you think that thatnext milestone is just getting
us back as a manned crew, youknow, just humans back on the
(25:34):
moon and just making it aregular, a useful, regular thing
.
I completely agree with you,because it becomes the base for
all the things we want to do.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yeah, we have to start somewhere, and I think the
moon is a good place to startbecause it's so close.
It's a three-day trip and not asix-month or a nine-month trip,
but I'm just hoping that wedon't stop there.
This is just the first waypointin a longer journey.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Well, it leads to the question of what you said we
can make some things, we can dosome things.
What do you think intechnological advancement will
be most transformative in thenext few decades?
What's going to support that?
You talked about nuclear power.
You know ships.
You talk there's fusion, whichis happening.
There's a lot happening.
(26:23):
What do you think is the mostyou know would be the most
transformative for us in thenext few decades, realistically,
Well, the transformation thatwe're seeing right now that's
very exciting is reusablespaceships.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
We tried to do that back in the 1980s with the space
shuttle, but it turned out itwas perhaps a step too far to
have a winged vehicle going intospace.
Try to reuse everything and tryto do that all without taking
any risk.
The second attempt to makereusable spaceships and that
(27:07):
will, if we get it right, bevery, very much a transformation
in the cost of getting to orbit.
Once we get to orbit, I wouldreally love to see some advanced
propulsion systems startingbeing used.
Chemical propulsion is great,but once you try to get high
delta V missions, high velocityemissions, you really really
would like something a bit moreenergetic.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
What is sort of?
Speaker 2 (27:31):
looking good would be nuclear propulsion.
There's sort of a long timebeen sort of a fear of anything
nuclear, but we have to getbeyond that.
Space is the place for usingnuclear energy, nuclear thermal
for high-thrust propulsion,nuclear power plants to energize
(27:54):
electric propulsion systems forlong-term exploration.
So I'm really excited that thatis back on the table.
People are now talking aboutsome very high-energy,
high-efficiency ways of movingthrough space.
I'd love to see a nuclearelectric system go out to
explore the outer planets, gopast Jupiter and looking at
(28:20):
Saturn, looking at Uranus andNeptune.
Once we get these nuclearelectric propulsion ships, the
solar system gets a lot easierto get to.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Yeah, and the system that comes to my mind is the
Orion project from the 60s,freeman Dyson you know, dropping
, dropping, youyson, droppingnuclear bombs down the throat to
increase speed.
But I think the fear there wasthat if it took off and it
exploded it would destroy alarge swath.
(28:53):
I think it comes down to wheredo they make the engine right?
If you have an orbital platformabove the moon, it's almost
like if you do something outsideof the house, like if you have
all the components, you can takethe uranium, you can take
(29:13):
everything up and then put ittogether and then it doesn't
have the.
The risk is reduced.
I think you're right.
Once they have the ships andthe, the propulsion systems are
(29:34):
going.
I'm a big propulsion person.
I think that's.
If I really got into being ascientist, that's probably what
I would have studied.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
That's definitely.
It's the key right to got toget around.
Yeah, the bomb-poweredspacecraft certainly was a wild
idea and sort of looksinteresting.
It's a little bit more, I think, beloved by science fiction
writers than by people who lookat the actual difficulties of
doing that sort of thing.
The current ideas for nuclearthermal rockets are more
(30:10):
evolutions of the old NERVArockets Rover and NERVA and
things where the interestingthing about those nuclear
propulsion is that they're notactually radioactive until you
turn them on.
So when you launch them it'sjust uranium.
You're launching essentiallychunks of uranium so they don't
(30:33):
start reacting.
You don't get the nuclearreaction until you.
You don't get the nuclearreaction until you turn them on
and there's what we call anuclear safe orbit and that's
the idea that you don't want toturn it on until it of a
meltdown.
Well, it's okay.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
There's something orbiting the Earth, but it won't
come down and won't threatenanybody on the ground.
You are a great segue person.
You're great at doing seguesbecause you talked about the
science fiction element of it.
So you are all.
The other half of you is youare a science fiction.
How did you get into writingscience fiction?
I know you've read, you'repassionate about it and you've
(31:32):
read it since you were a child.
I share that with you.
How did you get into writing?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Well, I was, of course, reading science fiction
ever since I was young, and then, actually, when I entered
graduate school, I thought well,you know, I've got to give
something back.
I've taken so much enjoymentout of all the stories that I've
read, well, why don't I trywriting some?
I was lucky enough that thethings that I wrote seemed to be
(32:01):
the sort of thing that theeditors and the public liked, so
I kept on writing.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
It was fun.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
It's a different way of playing with ideas, so it's
parallel to, but not identicalto, actually doing science.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
So there's the book you wrote Mars Crossing won the
Nebulon and the Hugo.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Tell us more about that book.
I have to say it was nominatedbut did not win.
It did win the Locus Award forfirst novels.
So it was considered the bestfirst novel, but not the best
novel of the year.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
That's a heck of a novel I wrote that one after the
Pathfinder mission.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I spent a lot of time on the Pathfinder mission just
working with the sort ofessentially living on Mars.
We were actually living on Marstime during the Pathfinder
mission and so I was just sortof saturated with Mars and it
really gives you the idea, Wow.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Tell me about Mars time.
What does it mean to live onMars time, on Earth?
Oh, sure?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah, mars is remarkable in that it has a day
that's almost the same as theEarth day.
It's the only planet thatrotates in just about 24 hours.
But it's not exactly 24 hours.
It's 24 hours and, I think, 39and a half minutes.
So, since we were operating asolar-powered spacecraft on Mars
(33:33):
, it wakes up with sunrise andgoes to sleep with sunset, so
the science team that'soperating it also has to live on
the same schedule as thespacecraft.
So we're living on a day that's24 hours and 40 minutes long.
(33:53):
So that means actually,interestingly, that when you get
up at Mars time and go to bedat Mars time, you drift through
Earth time at about 40 minutes aday.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
That's what I was going to ask you.
Basically, you drift 40 minuteslater.
So how did that work?
Did half of the team work to atleast get their circadian back
and then the other team wouldkind of take over?
Because to try and keep up, youwould you, you lose.
There would be a major effecton your brain chemistry and your
(34:27):
ability to sleep.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Well, actually, what they did is the first thing they
did is, in all of the scienceareas running the spacecraft,
they blacked out all the windows.
So when you're actually in theareas that we did planning for
the mission, you don't knowwhether it's dark or light
(34:50):
outside.
And yeah, we drifted throughtime Every day, getting up 40
minutes later.
Actually, I loved it.
I thought 40 minutes per day isall.
I ever wanted Another 40minutes to get everything done.
I was actually, of course, fromCleveland and living in
(35:12):
Pasadena where they were runningthe mission.
Nevertheless, I didn't havefriends and family and a support
system there.
The engineers that actuallylived in Pasadena kind of hated
it because they were out of syncwith their family, out of sync
with their children, et cetera.
So they eventually convinced usoh okay, we've been running on
(35:35):
Mars time for a month or two,let's switch back to Earth time
and just plan things further inadvance.
But I thought it was great.
I loved having an extra 40minutes a day.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
That was cool, so tell me about the.
How big Mars is.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
So it was a story about a mission to Mars, and
this is, in fact, not the firstmission to Mars.
It's hoping to be the firstsuccessful mission to Mars, and
I put my characters in asituation where they actually
have to go across Mars, in fact,pretty much going from equator
(36:29):
to pole of Mars.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Did they land in the wrong place?
Did they land Well?
Speaker 2 (36:35):
in the story.
They landed in a place buttheir return spaceship wasn't
working for sort of sillyreasons.
But they needed to find a placewhere there was a working
spacecraft.
And in the background of thestory there was a Brazilian
mission to Mars earlier thatfailed after landing on Mars but
(36:59):
had a working spaceship, but itwas up at the polar cap of Mars
.
It was not at the equator ornear the equator where the next
mission to Mars landed.
So they have to get from thenear equatorial regions of Mars
all the way up to the equator tofind a spaceship that is
(37:22):
actually working.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
So I wonder when did you and when did this publish?
When did you put this out?
When did this go out?
In the 90s?
Speaker 2 (37:28):
I think the first edition came out in 99.
Okay, and then the paperbackcame out a couple of years later
, and then the book club edition.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
So I keep wondering if Andy Weir was inspired by
your go to another ship.
Get off the planet.
It just reminds me of thatelement of that book which is an
excellent book on its own?
Yes, indeed, but it is.
But it's a fascinating storybecause, by de facto, you're
wanting to be an explorer, toland on Mars and have a
(38:01):
successful mission.
Now you're truly exploring theplanet because you have to make
the journey Right.
Yes, you have to explore.
You have to explore, not justtake some samples and go back
home.
We know the themes likesurvival, human ingenuity,
future, but what are the themesyou find most compelling to
(38:25):
explore?
I'm sure it's all of them, butis there something that really,
above all, really, that justdrives you in your writing?
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Well, to a large extent, what drives me is just
the thinking about you know,we're going to be going out
there, we're going to havetroubles we're going to have
both human and natural troublesand we have to learn to solve
our problems.
(38:55):
We need to find out what'sthere, what we can use, what the
resources are that would allowus to solve our problems.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
That's great.
So what would you give asadvice to aspiring science
fiction writers, me included,who want to incorporate
scientific realism?
That's the key, like yours andlike Andy's.
There's that accuracy in itwhich I think adds an element of
(39:31):
not only respect for the novel.
When you watch shows like theExpanse right, it's like there's
a certain you know theplausible reality of this thing
where it's really not that far.
So how do you incorporate thatin your story?
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Well, I think the main advice I give to people is
write what you're passionateabout.
Yes, so if you're passionateabout oh who knows, what
improvements in biology and whatfuture biology might be like
improvements in space flight,and if you're passionate about
whatever climate change, writewhatever fascinates you and then
(40:16):
when you're writing whatfascinates you, you're probably
going to be doing the researchanyway that will be influencing
your writing.
If you're fascinated aboutother planets, you're probably
watching with fascination all ofthe mission results.
(40:38):
You're saying, okay, here's themission to asteroid Bennu.
Wow, what are we learning aboutBennu?
What will we be learning aboutasteroid Psyche?
And what that does is?
It makes the research fun.
You really want to make itaccurate because it's what
(41:00):
you're fascinated about.
If you were fascinated I don'tknow about France you would hate
writing a book that reallyisn't true to the reality of
France.
So when you write what you'refascinated about, you will do
the research and you'll find itfun.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Well said, that's great advice.
So I'd love to shift to kind ofmore long-term stuff.
So like with your research whatare your long-term goals with
career Like, what are you hopingto accomplish in the years that
you're continuing to work?
Like, what do you hope to dowith the research?
Speaker 2 (41:49):
do with the research.
What I'm really hoping comesout of the research that we're
doing is flying bettertechnologies in space.
What we can do in space isalways limited by what we can do
technologically.
So I really would like to bringmore advanced technologies into
(42:10):
the realm where, yes, we haveit, it works, we can fly it and
it will give us morecapabilities.
That's sort of what we do at atechnology center.
The other thing that I've beendoing a lot of is looking at
what new and different types ofmissions can we do.
(42:32):
You know we talk about sort ofthe next generation mission,
what's next, but what's beyondthat?
What can we do as we go furtherand further into the future?
Can we do as we go further andfurther into the future?
So I've been sort of looking ateverything from Mercury
missions to near-sun missions,all the way to interstellar.
(42:55):
Where can we go?
What are our limits and how dowe expand those limits?
How do we make bettertechnologies limits and how do
we expand those limits?
How?
Speaker 1 (43:05):
do we make better technologies?
That leads to the question Iusually would ask in terms of
the long-term future, as youthink deeply about this a lot,
how would you envision thefuture of human space settlement
, let's say, 50 to 100 years?
It's all playing out.
What would that span look likein that end state?
(43:27):
Would we be interstellar?
Would we be interplanetary?
Speaker 2 (43:35):
I think 50 years is a little bit ambitious to be
interstellar.
I really do think that shouldbe our long-term goal, that
there's a lot of technologydevelopment.
I would love to see humanspermanently in space in 50 years
.
The question that everybody hasto deal with and it's a really
(43:56):
tough question is what canhumans do in space that robots
can't?
And that is a hard question Atthe moment.
The answer is humans are muchmore versatile.
Humans are much better.
I remember in the Pathfindermission there was a press
conference at the very end ofthe mission and Matt Golombek,
(44:19):
who was the principalinvestigator, the lead scientist
for the mission, one of thereporters asked him well, that
was a what was it?
An 80-day mission and the 80days that Pathfinder was
exploring Mars, how long wouldit have taken a human geologist
(44:39):
to do the same mission?
And Matt sort of looked offinto the distance for about two
seconds and said about anafternoon.
So humans are tremendously morecapable of robots.
But the problem is the robotsare getting better Every year.
(45:00):
The robots are getting betterand better and the humans aren't
.
So in 50 years we're going tohave tremendously capable robots
.
So the question we all have toanswer is what do the humans do?
Why do we need the humans inspace?
And I don't know if I have ananswer to that, other than the
(45:25):
answer that wherever we explore,humans should go there too.
Having the robots do theexploration is like having your
friend go on vacation and sendyou postcards.
That's fine, but that's not thesame as going there.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
Yeah, I look at it as an exploration partner.
Like you know, you use AI nowto help you figure something,
give you ideas.
You don't just use it or justsend the.
You think you're going tooutsource the task, but if there
are things that are a littlemore dangerous, but it needs, it
needs the guidance of a robot,it needs the help, like if it's
going to do mining work, therisk you can.
(46:04):
You can mitigate a lot of risksfor the human component, but
the human should still be there,right?
So I look at part of me as afuturist.
I always want to look at you,always look at possible futures,
and one is this I would thinkin the next decade is we're
going to see a technological notakin to the dot-com era, like a
(46:28):
bubble maybe.
Well, it could be a bubble, buta personal robot revolution,
because you see all thesecompanies starting to build them
and then they're starting toincorporate the gen AI systems
and as those things start toevolve and really get mature, I
mean, yeah, I really want arobot making pasta for me, but
(46:49):
if it's, you know, if my, if ithelps my mother, who's, you know
, by herself and it's a carerobot.
Right there there are a lot ofaspects to the companionship of
that and then the assistance ofthat and there's obviously the
ethics of you know and all that,but we won't have to get into
that in this podcast.
But it's a great point you make.
(47:11):
You talked about some of thethings of you think about
interstellar, you think of aninterplanetary.
What is a futuristic innovationto become reality?
What would that be?
I think I know.
But what would like if youcould have something come in
your lifetime?
What would that?
What would it be to come toreal, to pass that you've wanted
to exist?
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Oh, there's so many different things that could
transform our life through alarge banquet, much of which is
explored in science fiction.
If we were really going to gointerstellar, what we need is a
much more advanced propulsionsystem, and that would be far
(47:57):
beyond the nuclear rockets I wastalking about earlier.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
People have been talking about.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Yeah, the Alcubierre drive would be an interesting
thing, light El Coby air driveand not violate the principle of
requiring exotic matter.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
So essentially like the Star Trek.
The Star Trek's the sub light,the impulse drive in the
starship you know under underyeah.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
Yeah, they haven't really explained the impulse.
That's what I think.
I think it's just yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
Nuclear, some type of propulsion.
I thought it would be somethingfor the like a an efficient
nuclear drive.
You would you?
Speaker 2 (48:57):
would might pick.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
But, um, when you think of, when you think about
your uh you know, growing upreading science fiction and just
everything you've kind of takenin as a researcher, can you
think of one book that'sprofoundly influenced your
thinking about things in thefuture, like how you approach
(49:19):
your work?
What's really been an influencefor you, Like what's really
been an?
Speaker 2 (49:24):
influence for you?
Wow, of course there's so manyinfluences that's another one
that it's hard to pick a singlework.
I think the books of kind ofHeinlein and Arthur C Clarke
back when I was a kid notnecessarily even the ones that
(49:45):
you remember, but the ones thatare just talking about what
would it be like to live in aspacefaring civilization Things
like perhaps Heinlein's, theRolling Stones or some of
Clark's novels, even things likeA Fall of Moondust or Prelude
(50:06):
to Mars just talk about OK, wewill be living in space and
these are the things that we'llhave to deal with.
Of course, back then they had avery optimistic view of how
Earth-like the other planetswould be, and so I think we're
(50:28):
not going to be looking at swampmonsters in the swamps of Venus
unfortunately so, with that inthe past giving you that
motivation, what continues toinspire you to push the
boundaries in exploration.
Just all of the possibilitiesthat are out there inspire me.
(50:53):
Every day we're learning moreabout extrasolar planets, for
example, and also learning moreabout the planets in our solar
system, things that you know,partly with missions, partly
with the outgoing missions tothe asteroids, a lot of
interesting asteroid missions,looking at things like the Juno
(51:17):
mission to Jupiter and, ofcourse, the upcoming European
mission to Jupiter, and then,for that matter, the launch of
the Europa Clipper, hopefully inthe next month or so.
There's so much exciting thingswe're learning.
It's just fascinating to keepup with it.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
That's great.
Well, people are fascinatedfrom this conversation as we
wrap up here.
How do people stay updated withyour work?
How do they can check out yourresearch, your science fiction?
Where's the best place to findyou online and connect with you?
Speaker 2 (51:53):
Yeah, I do have to admit that I am terrible at
keeping up with my website.
I just don't keep updating mywebsite, but you can look at my
website, jeffrolandiscom.
It's easy to remember if youknow how to spell my name, but
(52:13):
otherwise, just looking at it, Ihave hundreds of scientific
papers online.
You can do a Google search or,of course, look at my Wikipedia
page, which I don't update butturns out other people every now
and then.
Do update it and show what I'mup to.
And you know lots of papers and, of course, the occasional
(52:38):
science fiction story as well.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
That's great.
Well, I want to thank you forbeing on the show today and just
uh, just thank you for sharingyour wisdom, your research and
all you're doing and just youknow it's great as we continue
to go you know, explore and getout there.
So thanks, thanks, thanks forbeing on doctor.
Okay, well, it's been fun,thank you.
Welcome to Going Offworld, your gateway to the
cosmos beyond our Earth.
Join us as we embark on thisjourney together to the Moon,
mars, venus and beyond.
Welcome to Episode 4 of GoingOffworld.
I'm your host, steve Fisher.
Today, we're diving deep intothe future of space exploration
(00:22):
with Dr Jeffrey Landis, nasaresearcher at the John Glenn
Research Center, who spent hisentire career developing
technologies that will helphumanity explore the solar
system and beyond.
From innovative Mars missionsand solar-powered spacecraft to
wind-sailing vehicles, dr Landisshares fascinating insights
about how we can use localresources to sustain ourselves
(00:45):
in space.
As both a NASA scientist andacclaimed science fiction author
, he offers a unique perspectiveon turning science fiction
concepts into reality.
Whether you're curious aboutnuclear propulsion in space or
how it will power futuremissions, or even what it's like
to operate on Mars time, youwill not want to miss this
conversation about thetechnologies that will transform
(01:06):
space exploration.
Join us on this journey wherethe sky is not the limit and the
stars are just the beginning.
Welcome, jeff.
Nice to have you on.
So you know, as I always startthe podcast, you know you and I
have had a couple ofconversations and gotten to know
each other.
But for those who don't knowyou, could you kind of share
(01:29):
your background and talk aboutwhat inspired you to pursue your
career in science?
I would love to hear that.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Sure, let me talk a little bit about myself.
Sure, great, I'm Jeffrey Landis.
Right now I'm a researcher atthe John Glenn Research Center
in Cleveland, ohio.
We don't launch space missions.
Nobody calls home and saysCleveland, we have a problem.
We develop technology forfuture missions, both for
(01:59):
aircraft and for space.
So I've spent most of my careerlooking at technologies for
space and what we can do withfuture space missions.
With that said, I have beenfascinated by science and
technology, and specifically byspaceflight, ever since I can
(02:21):
remember.
Part of it is I've been ascience fiction reader all my
life.
So science fiction has beengiving us a vision of a future
world in which we can dowonderful things.
It gives us a view of theplanets as more than just little
dots in the sky, but placesthat we can go, places we can
(02:45):
find out about.
It gives us a view of theuniverse as a huge and marvelous
place.
So that's been part of it.
But part of it is I just lovelearning about the world,
learning about science, learningabout how things work and how
you can make things.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
That's great, and I know that you've been working on
a number of planetary projects.
Let's kind of move to likelet's talk about Mars first.
So the exploration robotics,the geyser, hopper and hero
you've worked on some reallyamazing projects.
Could you kind of share aboutwhat those were and how they
could change your understandingof Mars?
Share about what?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
those were and how they could change our
understanding of Mars.
Yeah, of course Mars has been asubject of fascinating research
in both science and, of course,in science fiction for years,
and we've been looking at thequestion what can we do on Mars?
(03:49):
I've spent a lot of my careeractually looking at solar power
on Mars and most of the missionsthat we have to Mars, up until
the Curiosity and Perseverancerovers, have been solar powered.
I was part of the MarsPathfinder and also the Mars
Exploration Rover missions,mostly looking at the solar
energy.
But then, back in thetechnology development, we've
(04:11):
been looking at what can we doin future missions to Mars.
One of the keys that we'rediscovering to moving out into
the solar system has been howcan we use the resources of
space?
So in human flight, at least upuntil now, we go into space and
(04:34):
we bring with us everythingthat we need.
But clearly, if we're going tomove out into the solar system
with settlements, to move outinto the solar system with
settlements with humans,ultimately we're going to have
to use the stuff that we canfind in space.
We can't bring everything fromEarth all of the time.
It's kind of the differencebetween going out on a camping
(04:57):
trip or going out to settle andlive somewhere.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So I want to talk about oh sorry go, oh sorry, go
ahead no, no go ahead.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Uh, yes, so the.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
That refers to the institute in c, in c2 I don't
know if I'm pronouncing itcorrectly resource utilization,
the isru.
So how would that beimplemented?
How could that be implementedon mars?
To it?
Because it's got it're right,it has a lot of impact, I
believe, on missions.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, one of the interesting conceptual
breakthroughs about Mars is thatthe resource which is easily
available everywhere on theplanet is the atmosphere.
So sometime in the 1980s peoplereally focused on the
atmosphere as the nextbreakthrough in how we can make
(05:54):
things for future missions.
Now it turns out forspaceflight.
What you really really needmost of is propellant.
You think, oh, humans needoxygen, humans need water,
humans need food.
That's all true, but all ofthat is sort of secondary to the
(06:14):
fact that you need huge amountsof rocket propellant on other
places and in Mars.
We looked at Mars and said, well, it's a carbon dioxide
atmosphere.
And there's two interestingthings people proposed for Mars.
(06:37):
The first was they discoveredthat in fact, it's relatively
straightforward technologicallyto just break one of the oxygen
atoms off of the carbon dioxidemolecule and you can then get
oxygen and that's anelectrolysis process.
That's pretty similar to whatyou've probably done in your
(06:58):
high school chemistry classwhere you put a couple of
electrodes in water and makehydrogen and oxygen.
It's the same thing, exceptyou're making carbon monoxide
and oxygen.
Now mostly people have beenfocused on well, oxygen is the
most important component ofrocket fuel, so we can make the
(07:19):
oxygen on Mars.
One of the researchers I workedwith at NASA, glenn, looked at
this and said hey, wait a second, we're also making carbon
monoxide.
Turns out.
Carbon monoxide can burn.
It's a flammable gas.
It's a little bit hard toignite.
It takes a little highertemperature to ignite, but once
you ignite it you can make acarbon monoxide oxygen rocket
(07:42):
engine, carbon monoxide oxygenrocket engine.
So with that technique you canmake both the fuel and the
oxidizer for a rocket.
Now the alternative techniquepeople have been looking at has
been saying well, if we justhave a source of hydrogen, we
can make methane and oxygen.
That's a better rocketpropellant.
(08:04):
But hydrogen is a little bitharder to get on Mars.
You either bring it from Earth,which is hard, or you could
drill into the soil and probablyget some water and electrolyze
the water.
But that's a little bit morecomplicated.
Now we're talking about a lotof Earth-moving equipment,
(08:24):
drills and things On a largescale.
That's obviously what you'd do,but on a smaller scale it's a
little bit more complex.
So we looked into what can wedo with a carbon monoxide oxygen
rocket engine and we said well,one thing we might want to do
is fly around, so we could makethe fuel on Mars.
(08:45):
Fly around and refuel ourselvesfrom the atmosphere with a
rocket powered hopper.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
I guess I have to say that now the people with the
helicopters have sort of beat usto that goal of flying around
on Mars, but at the time it wasquite a bit before the
helicopter had been invented, orat least before the Mars
helicopter had been invented.
So we were looking at arocket-powered hopper.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
I played with a simulator, a Mars simulator,
using scramjet technology.
Because of the lighteratmosphere, you can move fat, so
it's like very little movingparts.
Scramjet, because of thelighter atmosphere, you can move
fat, so it you know it's likevery little moving parts.
You know scramjet glider,basically that you could move
around and do all types ofconstruction, movement of
(09:37):
equipment.
I mean there's a lot of budget,you can do with it.
You know you, you hold and youmentioned solar earlier, you
hold a lot of patents, severalpatents related to photo,
photovoltaic tech.
Yeah, do you see that?
Like in terms of step within c2, like, would you power 3d
printing machine?
Would you power machines tocreate all those, those, like
(09:58):
you said, the mirth movie?
You'd have to make the thingsthere, right, you'd have to, but
you have to get the it's kindof chicken and egg right.
You have to get the materialsto make the things there.
Right, you'd have to, but youhave to get the it's kind of
chicken and egg right, you haveto get the materials to make the
things then get the materialsto make more things.
So what?
What advancements are excitingyou about this side, that side
of it and solar power and whatit can do?
Because you know, with the,with the probes, I know you've
(10:20):
worked.
You said you've worked on manyof the Mars rovers.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
What, excites you.
Well, power, of course, is thekey to everything.
Yeah, you can't really doanything in space without a
power source, and I'm a greatfan of appropriate technology.
Use the technology that'sappropriate for the mission.
So, any place where sunlight isavailable, if you've got the
(10:49):
sun, you really want to usesolar power.
Solar cells are lightweight andcheap and a reliable source of
power, and so the vast majorityof things sent into space are
solar powered.
That's mostly just because thevast majority of things sent
into space are pretty close tothe Earth.
Once you go into the far outersolar system, where there's not
(11:12):
much sunlight, nuclear powersystems look better.
Interestingly, if you're on themoon and you want to operate in
the dark, nuclear systems arelooking good as well, because
the moon has a 14-day nighttimeand that's awfully hard to
(11:32):
operate on batteries for 14 daysNot impossible, but hard.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
I had a.
Tesla.
I live in Boston.
I couldn't even drive fromVermont, so you know it's.
Well, yeah, and then wherewould I plug in?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
You know, yeah, yeah, yeah oh well sunlight at least
once every 24 hours.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Exactly Right.
Well, you know, I think youknow, talking about the, the,
the Rover, did it surprise theteam when I believe it was
Pathfinder right, that keptgoing like its end of life was
you know, because the solar, thewinds would just kind of clean
it off.
And did it surprise the teamhow long it went?
(12:16):
Was there something that wasjust like mind blowing, like
revealing?
Yeah, please, if anything share.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, the Spirit rover in particular surprised
everybody.
Our initial calculations, backbefore we had good data,
suggested that the dust would besticky enough that the Martian
winds would not blow it off.
But it turns out on Spirit.
(12:45):
Once we got to the summer andhad the windstorms come by, and
particularly the dust devils.
The very first day we saw dustdevils we also saw the power
jump up on those solar arraysand that was something we hadn't
expected.
It really helped the missionalong that we got a little bit
(13:06):
of help from Mars.
Mars liked us.
That's excellent.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Well, what other probes or exploration do you
think should be done in parallelto prepare for the manned
mission?
I don't want to say eventually,but hopefully will happen, you
know, within the next decade, inthe decade.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Well, I am still a huge advocate of in-situ
resource utilization, that wereally have to start going into
space and using the stuff we canfind there and stop bringing
everything from Earth.
That has not been a major focusof actual missions but there's
a lot of work going on invarious little corners of NASA
on trying to develop thattechnology for space resource
(13:57):
utilization.
We did a study actually oflooking at can we do the Mars
sample return mission by makingthe oxygen for a system on Mars
and it looked pretty good.
Eventually they didn't pickthat.
Of the six options that we cameup with, that wasn't the one
(14:20):
they chose, mostly because theywere saying, well, this is an
undeveloped technology and anytechnology that isn't the one
they chose, mostly because theywere saying, well, this is an
undeveloped technology and anytechnology that isn't flight
ready has some risk to it thatmaybe it won't work as well as
we think.
But my real push for NASA wouldbe let's get places and start
(14:44):
using the things that we canfind there.
We've done a lot of work atlooking at in situ resources.
We've looked at Mars.
Of course, a lot of people nowtalking about the moon, but
there's also Venus.
We're looking at ISRU on Venus,we're looking at in situ
resources on Titan.
We think we could fly a returnmission to Titan, and that's now
(15:09):
we're talking a billion milesaway, but we think we could make
our fuel on Titan and bring asample back.
So, really, power systems thatcan operate and in-situ resource
utilization are really the key.
Once we have that, we couldreally open up the solar system.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
You provided me a great segue because I was about
to move a little closer to Earthand talk about Venus.
So one of your, I think,incredibly innovative projects
is a wind-propelled rover forVenus exploration.
Is a wind-propelled rover forVenus exploration.
What are the challenges thatVenus presents compared to Mars?
And there's some basics,obviously, because of the heat,
(15:56):
but what are some uniquechallenges?
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah, venus and Mars are interesting because, other
than the fact that theatmosphere is carbon dioxide,
they're sort of opposite inevery possible way.
Venus the atmosphere is way toothick.
It has an atmospheric pressurethat's equivalent to temperature
is actually a real killertemperature.
It's really hard to make thingsoperate.
(16:28):
But despite that, nasa Glennhas been working on electronics
that operate at that 450 degreeC and we've solved a lot of
those problems.
We can make electronics.
We can't make everything, butwe can make some things.
(16:53):
So looking at that, well, infact when I was studying Venus,
the very first thing I wasstudying was solar-powered
airplanes for Venus.
That was back when the NASAadministrator was proposing well
, why don't we fly an airplaneon Mars for celebrating the
100th anniversary of the Wrightbrothers?
And in response to that I was alittle bit working on Mars
(17:14):
airplanes.
But looking at it I was sayingwait, why Mars?
The really nice place to flywould be Venus.
The really nice place to flywould be Venus If we can get
above the clouds, the weather'snice, the temperature's good and
there's plenty of solar energy.
So I did a bit of work onsolar-powered airplanes on Venus
.
That work never took off.
(17:36):
Sorry, no pun intended there,but nobody really said oh,
that's just what we need in theworld is a solar powered
airplane for Venus, although I'mstill a big advocate of that.
But then we started looking atVenus and saying well, can't we
get down to the surface?
Let's see what we can do on thesurface of Venus.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Is that where land sailing comes into play?
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yes, so the problem with the surface of Venus Is
that where land sailing comesinto play, yes, so the problem
with the surface of Venus is, at450 C solar cells don't work as
well as they do at roomtemperature and that thick
atmosphere cuts down the amountof sunlight reaching the surface
by a lot.
(18:23):
So you're not getting very muchpower on the surface of Venus.
So we said, well, we can makeelectronics that operates, we
can make solar cells thatoperate on Venus, but, man, you
don't get very much power.
You get a couple of watts ofpower, not the hundreds of watts
that you might need to driveacross the surface.
(18:45):
So we said, well, how can weuse the resources we have on
Venus?
What do we have on Venus?
What we have is a thickatmosphere.
So the thinking on the windsailor for Venus was let's drive
using that wind.
And it turns out people havedone that in Earth Both.
(19:15):
Actually, hundreds of years agothey made wind-powered wagons
that crossed the plains, andmore recently some people make
basically sort of sailingvessels that sail across the
deserts.
And we said well, we have athick atmosphere, let's make a
sail-powered rover.
So now we don't need to providepower to drive, we can drive
(19:35):
just by sailing across thesurface Looks like a good idea.
We're still working on some ofthe technologies that would
support doing that, so it's notsomething that we're quite ready
to do.
We still need some of thosehigh-temperature technologies,
but it still looks good.
It looks like something wecould do and I think that would
(19:58):
be actually a really coolmission.
That sounds like a greatmission.
It's basically a sailing vesselfor the planes of Venus.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
I would love to pilot that and I imagine they would
be someone piloting that wouldbe in an orbital platform, you
know, or you could pilot it froman orbital platform, you could
put basically all of the brainsin orbit.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yeah, so the sophisticated computers and
stuff would be in orbit and thenjust the simple electronics
would be on the surface of Venus.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Earlier guest of ours , guillermo Sonnlein, which is
how we connected.
He's obviously working on his,his, his venus.
Uh, the non-profit initiativeyeah, more you know earth, earth
to venus, um, and he talkedabout the livable uh layer for
(20:54):
humans yeah, and yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I mean, have you worked on any of the atmospheric
platforms in that way?
Are you familiar?
Can you speak to that?
Higher up in the atmosphere itgets cooler and at that level,
about 55, maybe 58 kilometersabove the surface, think of it
as, oh, about 30 miles up youget to that Earth-like
(21:32):
conditions where the temperatureis close to room temperature,
depending on how high you are,and the atmospheric pressure is
actually a little bit belowEarth's normal sea level
pressure, but not bad.
Of course, the atmosphere isstill carbon dioxide, so you
still do have to live in abubble that has an oxygen or an
(21:56):
oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
But that's easy, you don't have to you can walk
outside with a very thin suitand just the mask.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
right, you don't have to have a full Right.
You don't need a pressure suit,you just need to protect
yourself from the environment.
That's above the thick sulfuricacid clouds, but there's
probably still some prettycorrosive things in the
atmosphere even above the thickclouds.
You're sort of above the thickmiddle cloud layer but below the
(22:26):
thinner upper cloud layers, soyou'd want a suit that's not
going to be corroded by theatmosphere but you don't have to
live in a pressurized suitwhich is, as we've discovered,
very bulky and hard to deal with, suit which is as we've
discovered very bulky and hardto deal with.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, it's not exact parallels, but it does remind me
of Antarctica.
Like the elements there willkill you.
It's not corrosive but it'sdefinitely, you know,
hypothermic and deadly and youhave to you know, be ready for
that environment and kind of,you know, do live in a bubble, a
(23:11):
bit like you know, I think,myrtle, but you know so, with
the, with all theseopportunities and, like the nc2,
like the, the researchutilization that would happen,
making you know, make it whereyou live, make it where you are
right.
Actually, is this the kind ofthe tagline.
What do you think is the?
And?
We've been sending out theseprobes and we're trying to get
the manned missions up.
Obviously, spacex is doingtheir thing and NASA is doing
their thing.
What do you think is the nextmajor milestone in exploration?
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Well, the NASA program is all about going to
the moon and then from the moonmoving on to Mars, and I think I
certainly hope that we keep upmomentum on that, because it's
good to have a, it's good tohave a destination.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, I mean because not only just preparing as a
base to build and launch fromthere, but having a permanent
settlement Going back.
We haven't been back since the70s.
It's funny I collect a lot ofspace memorabilia.
When you look at the programand you look at the evolution
(24:19):
from Mercury to Apollo andSkylab and it's an era that
seems foreign to a lot of people, because a lot of kids don't
know that we, you know, we wentthere 50 years ago.
But to go back and now justestablish something, it's going
to be very interestinggeopolitically because the moon
doesn't belong to anyone fromthe.
The moon doesn't belong toanyone from the.
(24:47):
Indeed, you know, I mean whenyou watch shows like uh, excuse
me.
When you watch shows like uh,um, like you don't have to put
this back and see later, um, uh,oh, it's the alternate history
show, um, oh yeah, for allmankind.
Thank you when you when you see,when you watch shows like for
all mankind there, when you'rethere, it becomes territorial.
It's one thing to go there andexplore and all we're all
(25:10):
together and kumbaya, but itstarts to actually produce
resources like helium three, orbecome bases.
It's going to be very, um,interesting and, uh, I think, a
contested challenge forgeopolitically.
But that's just, that's been my, this is my take on it.
But you so you think that thatnext milestone is just getting
us back as a manned crew, youknow, just humans back on the
(25:34):
moon and just making it aregular, a useful, regular thing
.
I completely agree with you,because it becomes the base for
all the things we want to do.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yeah, we have to start somewhere, and I think the
moon is a good place to startbecause it's so close.
It's a three-day trip and not asix-month or a nine-month trip,
but I'm just hoping that wedon't stop there.
This is just the first waypointin a longer journey.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Well, it leads to the question of what you said we
can make some things, we can dosome things.
What do you think intechnological advancement will
be most transformative in thenext few decades?
What's going to support that?
You talked about nuclear power.
You know ships.
You talk there's fusion, whichis happening.
There's a lot happening.
(26:23):
What do you think is the mostyou know would be the most
transformative for us in thenext few decades, realistically,
Well, the transformation thatwe're seeing right now that's
very exciting is reusablespaceships.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
We tried to do that back in the 1980s with the space
shuttle, but it turned out itwas perhaps a step too far to
have a winged vehicle going intospace.
Try to reuse everything and tryto do that all without taking
any risk.
The second attempt to makereusable spaceships and that
(27:07):
will, if we get it right, bevery, very much a transformation
in the cost of getting to orbit.
Once we get to orbit, I wouldreally love to see some advanced
propulsion systems startingbeing used.
Chemical propulsion is great,but once you try to get high
delta V missions, high velocityemissions, you really really
would like something a bit moreenergetic.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
What is sort of?
Speaker 2 (27:31):
looking good would be nuclear propulsion.
There's sort of a long timebeen sort of a fear of anything
nuclear, but we have to getbeyond that.
Space is the place for usingnuclear energy, nuclear thermal
for high-thrust propulsion,nuclear power plants to energize
(27:54):
electric propulsion systems forlong-term exploration.
So I'm really excited that thatis back on the table.
People are now talking aboutsome very high-energy,
high-efficiency ways of movingthrough space.
I'd love to see a nuclearelectric system go out to
explore the outer planets, gopast Jupiter and looking at
(28:20):
Saturn, looking at Uranus andNeptune.
Once we get these nuclearelectric propulsion ships, the
solar system gets a lot easierto get to.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Yeah, and the system that comes to my mind is the
Orion project from the 60s,freeman Dyson you know, dropping
, dropping, youyson, droppingnuclear bombs down the throat to
increase speed.
But I think the fear there wasthat if it took off and it
exploded it would destroy alarge swath.
(28:53):
I think it comes down to wheredo they make the engine right?
If you have an orbital platformabove the moon, it's almost
like if you do something outsideof the house, like if you have
all the components, you can takethe uranium, you can take
(29:13):
everything up and then put ittogether and then it doesn't
have the.
The risk is reduced.
I think you're right.
Once they have the ships andthe, the propulsion systems are
(29:34):
going.
I'm a big propulsion person.
I think that's.
If I really got into being ascientist, that's probably what
I would have studied.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
That's definitely.
It's the key right to got toget around.
Yeah, the bomb-poweredspacecraft certainly was a wild
idea and sort of looksinteresting.
It's a little bit more, I think, beloved by science fiction
writers than by people who lookat the actual difficulties of
doing that sort of thing.
The current ideas for nuclearthermal rockets are more
(30:10):
evolutions of the old NERVArockets Rover and NERVA and
things where the interestingthing about those nuclear
propulsion is that they're notactually radioactive until you
turn them on.
So when you launch them it'sjust uranium.
You're launching essentiallychunks of uranium so they don't
(30:33):
start reacting.
You don't get the nuclearreaction until you.
You don't get the nuclearreaction until you turn them on
and there's what we call anuclear safe orbit and that's
the idea that you don't want toturn it on until it of a
meltdown.
Well, it's okay.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
There's something orbiting the Earth, but it won't
come down and won't threatenanybody on the ground.
You are a great segue person.
You're great at doing seguesbecause you talked about the
science fiction element of it.
So you are all.
The other half of you is youare a science fiction.
How did you get into writingscience fiction?
I know you've read, you'repassionate about it and you've
(31:32):
read it since you were a child.
I share that with you.
How did you get into writing?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Well, I was, of course, reading science fiction
ever since I was young, and then, actually, when I entered
graduate school, I thought well,you know, I've got to give
something back.
I've taken so much enjoymentout of all the stories that I've
read, well, why don't I trywriting some?
I was lucky enough that thethings that I wrote seemed to be
(32:01):
the sort of thing that theeditors and the public liked, so
I kept on writing.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
It was fun.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
It's a different way of playing with ideas, so it's
parallel to, but not identicalto, actually doing science.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
So there's the book you wrote Mars Crossing won the
Nebulon and the Hugo.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Tell us more about that book.
I have to say it was nominatedbut did not win.
It did win the Locus Award forfirst novels.
So it was considered the bestfirst novel, but not the best
novel of the year.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
That's a heck of a novel I wrote that one after the
Pathfinder mission.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I spent a lot of time on the Pathfinder mission just
working with the sort ofessentially living on Mars.
We were actually living on Marstime during the Pathfinder
mission and so I was just sortof saturated with Mars and it
really gives you the idea, Wow.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Tell me about Mars time.
What does it mean to live onMars time, on Earth?
Oh, sure?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah, mars is remarkable in that it has a day
that's almost the same as theEarth day.
It's the only planet thatrotates in just about 24 hours.
But it's not exactly 24 hours.
It's 24 hours and, I think, 39and a half minutes.
So, since we were operating asolar-powered spacecraft on Mars
(33:33):
, it wakes up with sunrise andgoes to sleep with sunset, so
the science team that'soperating it also has to live on
the same schedule as thespacecraft.
So we're living on a day that's24 hours and 40 minutes long.
(33:53):
So that means actually,interestingly, that when you get
up at Mars time and go to bedat Mars time, you drift through
Earth time at about 40 minutes aday.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
That's what I was going to ask you.
Basically, you drift 40 minuteslater.
So how did that work?
Did half of the team work to atleast get their circadian back
and then the other team wouldkind of take over?
Because to try and keep up, youwould you, you lose.
There would be a major effecton your brain chemistry and your
(34:27):
ability to sleep.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Well, actually, what they did is the first thing they
did is, in all of the scienceareas running the spacecraft,
they blacked out all the windows.
So when you're actually in theareas that we did planning for
the mission, you don't knowwhether it's dark or light
(34:50):
outside.
And yeah, we drifted throughtime Every day, getting up 40
minutes later.
Actually, I loved it.
I thought 40 minutes per day isall.
I ever wanted Another 40minutes to get everything done.
I was actually, of course, fromCleveland and living in
(35:12):
Pasadena where they were runningthe mission.
Nevertheless, I didn't havefriends and family and a support
system there.
The engineers that actuallylived in Pasadena kind of hated
it because they were out of syncwith their family, out of sync
with their children, et cetera.
So they eventually convinced usoh okay, we've been running on
(35:35):
Mars time for a month or two,let's switch back to Earth time
and just plan things further inadvance.
But I thought it was great.
I loved having an extra 40minutes a day.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
That was cool, so tell me about the.
How big Mars is.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
So it was a story about a mission to Mars, and
this is, in fact, not the firstmission to Mars.
It's hoping to be the firstsuccessful mission to Mars, and
I put my characters in asituation where they actually
have to go across Mars, in fact,pretty much going from equator
(36:29):
to pole of Mars.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Did they land in the wrong place?
Did they land Well?
Speaker 2 (36:35):
in the story.
They landed in a place buttheir return spaceship wasn't
working for sort of sillyreasons.
But they needed to find a placewhere there was a working
spacecraft.
And in the background of thestory there was a Brazilian
mission to Mars earlier thatfailed after landing on Mars but
(36:59):
had a working spaceship, but itwas up at the polar cap of Mars
.
It was not at the equator ornear the equator where the next
mission to Mars landed.
So they have to get from thenear equatorial regions of Mars
all the way up to the equator tofind a spaceship that is
(37:22):
actually working.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
So I wonder when did you and when did this publish?
When did you put this out?
When did this go out?
In the 90s?
Speaker 2 (37:28):
I think the first edition came out in 99.
Okay, and then the paperbackcame out a couple of years later
, and then the book club edition.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
So I keep wondering if Andy Weir was inspired by
your go to another ship.
Get off the planet.
It just reminds me of thatelement of that book which is an
excellent book on its own?
Yes, indeed, but it is.
But it's a fascinating storybecause, by de facto, you're
wanting to be an explorer, toland on Mars and have a
(38:01):
successful mission.
Now you're truly exploring theplanet because you have to make
the journey Right.
Yes, you have to explore.
You have to explore, not justtake some samples and go back
home.
We know the themes likesurvival, human ingenuity,
future, but what are the themesyou find most compelling to
(38:25):
explore?
I'm sure it's all of them, butis there something that really,
above all, really, that justdrives you in your writing?
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Well, to a large extent, what drives me is just
the thinking about you know,we're going to be going out
there, we're going to havetroubles we're going to have
both human and natural troublesand we have to learn to solve
our problems.
(38:55):
We need to find out what'sthere, what we can use, what the
resources are that would allowus to solve our problems.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
That's great.
So what would you give asadvice to aspiring science
fiction writers, me included,who want to incorporate
scientific realism?
That's the key, like yours andlike Andy's.
There's that accuracy in itwhich I think adds an element of
(39:31):
not only respect for the novel.
When you watch shows like theExpanse right, it's like there's
a certain you know theplausible reality of this thing
where it's really not that far.
So how do you incorporate thatin your story?
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Well, I think the main advice I give to people is
write what you're passionateabout.
Yes, so if you're passionateabout oh who knows, what
improvements in biology and whatfuture biology might be like
improvements in space flight,and if you're passionate about
whatever climate change, writewhatever fascinates you and then
(40:16):
when you're writing whatfascinates you, you're probably
going to be doing the researchanyway that will be influencing
your writing.
If you're fascinated aboutother planets, you're probably
watching with fascination all ofthe mission results.
(40:38):
You're saying, okay, here's themission to asteroid Bennu.
Wow, what are we learning aboutBennu?
What will we be learning aboutasteroid Psyche?
And what that does is?
It makes the research fun.
You really want to make itaccurate because it's what
(41:00):
you're fascinated about.
If you were fascinated I don'tknow about France you would hate
writing a book that reallyisn't true to the reality of
France.
So when you write what you'refascinated about, you will do
the research and you'll find itfun.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Well said, that's great advice.
So I'd love to shift to kind ofmore long-term stuff.
So like with your research whatare your long-term goals with
career Like, what are you hopingto accomplish in the years that
you're continuing to work?
Like, what do you hope to dowith the research?
Speaker 2 (41:49):
do with the research.
What I'm really hoping comesout of the research that we're
doing is flying bettertechnologies in space.
What we can do in space isalways limited by what we can do
technologically.
So I really would like to bringmore advanced technologies into
(42:10):
the realm where, yes, we haveit, it works, we can fly it and
it will give us morecapabilities.
That's sort of what we do at atechnology center.
The other thing that I've beendoing a lot of is looking at
what new and different types ofmissions can we do.
(42:32):
You know we talk about sort ofthe next generation mission,
what's next, but what's beyondthat?
What can we do as we go furtherand further into the future?
Can we do as we go further andfurther into the future?
So I've been sort of looking ateverything from Mercury
missions to near-sun missions,all the way to interstellar.
(42:55):
Where can we go?
What are our limits and how dowe expand those limits?
How do we make bettertechnologies limits and how do
we expand those limits?
How?
Speaker 1 (43:05):
do we make better technologies?
That leads to the question Iusually would ask in terms of
the long-term future, as youthink deeply about this a lot,
how would you envision thefuture of human space settlement
, let's say, 50 to 100 years?
It's all playing out.
What would that span look likein that end state?
(43:27):
Would we be interstellar?
Would we be interplanetary?
Speaker 2 (43:35):
I think 50 years is a little bit ambitious to be
interstellar.
I really do think that shouldbe our long-term goal, that
there's a lot of technologydevelopment.
I would love to see humanspermanently in space in 50 years
.
The question that everybody hasto deal with and it's a really
(43:56):
tough question is what canhumans do in space that robots
can't?
And that is a hard question Atthe moment.
The answer is humans are muchmore versatile.
Humans are much better.
I remember in the Pathfindermission there was a press
conference at the very end ofthe mission and Matt Golombek,
(44:19):
who was the principalinvestigator, the lead scientist
for the mission, one of thereporters asked him well, that
was a what was it?
An 80-day mission and the 80days that Pathfinder was
exploring Mars, how long wouldit have taken a human geologist
(44:39):
to do the same mission?
And Matt sort of looked offinto the distance for about two
seconds and said about anafternoon.
So humans are tremendously morecapable of robots.
But the problem is the robotsare getting better Every year.
(45:00):
The robots are getting betterand better and the humans aren't
.
So in 50 years we're going tohave tremendously capable robots
.
So the question we all have toanswer is what do the humans do?
Why do we need the humans inspace?
And I don't know if I have ananswer to that, other than the
(45:25):
answer that wherever we explore,humans should go there too.
Having the robots do theexploration is like having your
friend go on vacation and sendyou postcards.
That's fine, but that's not thesame as going there.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
Yeah, I look at it as an exploration partner.
Like you know, you use AI nowto help you figure something,
give you ideas.
You don't just use it or justsend the.
You think you're going tooutsource the task, but if there
are things that are a littlemore dangerous, but it needs, it
needs the guidance of a robot,it needs the help, like if it's
going to do mining work, therisk you can.
(46:04):
You can mitigate a lot of risksfor the human component, but
the human should still be there,right?
So I look at part of me as afuturist.
I always want to look at you,always look at possible futures,
and one is this I would thinkin the next decade is we're
going to see a technological notakin to the dot-com era, like a
(46:28):
bubble maybe.
Well, it could be a bubble, buta personal robot revolution,
because you see all thesecompanies starting to build them
and then they're starting toincorporate the gen AI systems
and as those things start toevolve and really get mature, I
mean, yeah, I really want arobot making pasta for me, but
(46:49):
if it's, you know, if my, if ithelps my mother, who's, you know
, by herself and it's a carerobot.
Right there there are a lot ofaspects to the companionship of
that and then the assistance ofthat and there's obviously the
ethics of you know and all that,but we won't have to get into
that in this podcast.
But it's a great point you make.
(47:11):
You talked about some of thethings of you think about
interstellar, you think of aninterplanetary.
What is a futuristic innovationto become reality?
What would that be?
I think I know.
But what would like if youcould have something come in
your lifetime?
What would that?
What would it be to come toreal, to pass that you've wanted
to exist?
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Oh, there's so many different things that could
transform our life through alarge banquet, much of which is
explored in science fiction.
If we were really going to gointerstellar, what we need is a
much more advanced propulsionsystem, and that would be far
(47:57):
beyond the nuclear rockets I wastalking about earlier.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
People have been talking about.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Yeah, the Alcubierre drive would be an interesting
thing, light El Coby air driveand not violate the principle of
requiring exotic matter.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
So essentially like the Star Trek.
The Star Trek's the sub light,the impulse drive in the
starship you know under underyeah.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
Yeah, they haven't really explained the impulse.
That's what I think.
I think it's just yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
Nuclear, some type of propulsion.
I thought it would be somethingfor the like a an efficient
nuclear drive.
You would you?
Speaker 2 (48:57):
would might pick.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
But, um, when you think of, when you think about
your uh you know, growing upreading science fiction and just
everything you've kind of takenin as a researcher, can you
think of one book that'sprofoundly influenced your
thinking about things in thefuture, like how you approach
(49:19):
your work?
What's really been an influencefor you, Like what's really
been an?
Speaker 2 (49:24):
influence for you?
Wow, of course there's so manyinfluences that's another one
that it's hard to pick a singlework.
I think the books of kind ofHeinlein and Arthur C Clarke
back when I was a kid notnecessarily even the ones that
(49:45):
you remember, but the ones thatare just talking about what
would it be like to live in aspacefaring civilization Things
like perhaps Heinlein's, theRolling Stones or some of
Clark's novels, even things likeA Fall of Moondust or Prelude
(50:06):
to Mars just talk about OK, wewill be living in space and
these are the things that we'llhave to deal with.
Of course, back then they had avery optimistic view of how
Earth-like the other planetswould be, and so I think we're
(50:28):
not going to be looking at swampmonsters in the swamps of Venus
unfortunately so, with that inthe past giving you that
motivation, what continues toinspire you to push the
boundaries in exploration.
Just all of the possibilitiesthat are out there inspire me.
(50:53):
Every day we're learning moreabout extrasolar planets, for
example, and also learning moreabout the planets in our solar
system, things that you know,partly with missions, partly
with the outgoing missions tothe asteroids, a lot of
interesting asteroid missions,looking at things like the Juno
(51:17):
mission to Jupiter and, ofcourse, the upcoming European
mission to Jupiter, and then,for that matter, the launch of
the Europa Clipper, hopefully inthe next month or so.
There's so much exciting thingswe're learning.
It's just fascinating to keepup with it.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
That's great.
Well, people are fascinatedfrom this conversation as we
wrap up here.
How do people stay updated withyour work?
How do they can check out yourresearch, your science fiction?
Where's the best place to findyou online and connect with you?
Speaker 2 (51:53):
Yeah, I do have to admit that I am terrible at
keeping up with my website.
I just don't keep updating mywebsite, but you can look at my
website, jeffrolandiscom.
It's easy to remember if youknow how to spell my name, but
(52:13):
otherwise, just looking at it, Ihave hundreds of scientific
papers online.
You can do a Google search or,of course, look at my Wikipedia
page, which I don't update butturns out other people every now
and then.
Do update it and show what I'mup to.
And you know lots of papers and, of course, the occasional
(52:38):
science fiction story as well.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
That's great.
Well, I want to thank you forbeing on the show today and just
uh, just thank you for sharingyour wisdom, your research and
all you're doing and just youknow it's great as we continue
to go you know, explore and getout there.
So thanks, thanks, thanks forbeing on doctor.
Okay, well, it's been fun,thank you.
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