August 17, 2025 • 48 mins
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to control a laser on another planet? Dr. Nina Lanza does exactly that as a planetary scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she leads the ChemCam instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover.
With infectious enthusiasm, Nina takes us through her remarkable journey from a space-obsessed child who dreamed of "working on a spaceship with lasers" to a scientist who commands rovers on Mars. Her story reminds us that passion and persistence can transform seemingly impossible dreams into reality.
The conversation explores what planetary scientists actually do day-to-day and why studying Martian rocks matters. Nina explains the difference between Curiosity's mission to assess Mars' habitability and Perseverance's hunt for signs of ancient life, offering fascinating insights into how these rovers gather data using sophisticated laser technology that can analyze rocks from a distance.
Perhaps most captivating is Nina's firsthand account of the Curiosity rover's launch and landing. She vividly describes the anxiety of watching years of work blast off into space and the heart-stopping "seven minutes of terror" as the rover attempted its unprecedented landing using a sky crane system that had never been fully tested. These moments of scientific triumph come alive through her personal narrative.
Nina also dismantles stereotypes about scientists, confessing she "wasn't particularly good at school" and secured her first Mars job through relentless enthusiasm rather than perfect credentials. Her message is clear and encouraging: follow what you love learning about, and you'll find your path regardless of your starting point or age.
As we stand at the threshold of potentially discovering evidence of life beyond Earth, Nina makes a compelling case for continued investment in Mars exploration, particularly the Mars Sample Return mission. Her story exemplifies how human curiosity, persistence, and collaboration can extend our reach beyond our home planet and potentially answer one of humanity's most profound questions: are we alone in the universe?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the very first episode of no
Ordinary Monday.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
I'm so excited to launch thisshow for you guys.
Even in these early stages, Ihave a really fantastic lineup
of guests already.
I am your host, chris Barron,and I've been a documentary
filmmaker for around 14 years orso, and during that time I've
(00:26):
met so many inspiring peopledoing cool and unusual jobs.
So I thought this podcast wouldbe a great way to share their
stories and career insights withthe world.
So the way the show will workis each week, I sit down with a
guest who has an interestingcareer story.
We're going to explore how theygot there, what it's really
like behind the scenes, and thenwe're going to take a deep dive
(00:48):
into the single mostunforgettable experience of
their career.
And to kick us off, my firstguest spends her day searching
for traces of alien life onother worlds, namely Mars.
Dr Nina Lanza is a planetaryscientist at Los Alamos National
Laboratory.
That's the place where theyfirst developed the atomic bomb,
(01:09):
but these days they do thingslike support Mars missions with
specific technologies andresearch areas, one of which is
Nina's Mars laser, which we'regoing to get into.
I first met Nina when she wasone of the lead scientific
contributors on a documentaryseries I made a few years back.
She's a really, really fabulouscommunicator and just a lovely,
(01:30):
lovely person all around, soI'm really delighted that she
agreed to chat with me.
Make sure you stick around forher big story, where she relives
the most intense moment of hercareer the launch and then the
landing of the Curiosity roveron Mars.
I think it's sort of famouslyknown as the seven minutes of
terror.
Yeah, so, with all that said, Iam thrilled to bring you my
(01:52):
conversation with Nina.
Hope you enjoy.
You are listening to noOrdinary Monday.
Let's get to the show.
Nina Lanza, or should I say DrNina Lanza, what do you prefer?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
I'm a pretty casual person.
I do have a PhD, but it doesfeel like you know that was a
while ago and it doesn't definewho I am.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
So you know, just Nina is great.
Some people prefer it.
My wife, for example.
She's like I worked hard forthat PhD and people are going to
call me doctor.
She's like I worked hard forthat PhD and people are going to
call me doctor.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
You know I would say then, in that case, you know, if
there's a choice, then you knowit's always good to highlight
women's accomplishments andcredentials without making them
a big deal.
So yeah, let's go doctor.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Absolutely, dr Nina Lanza, welcome to the podcast.
How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Oh, I'm doing great Thanks, it's a beautiful morning
here in New Mexico it's justthat perfect sunny, but not yet
too hot.
It's lovely.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Amazing, Amazing.
Well, you and I actually, weknow each other from a previous
project.
We worked together on adocumentary series called Lift
the Ice, in which you werefantastic as one of the what we
call super contributors and ledone of the episodes called Alien
Ice, I think it was which isvery fitting for what it is you
(03:11):
do, because we sent you to oneof the northernmost islands in
the Arctic Circle in Canada.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Oh, yes, that was so much fun.
I cannot tell you.
It was such a fun project.
So that's the northernmostpoint I've been thus far Axel
Heiberg Island, to the MarsResearch Station, no less.
That's the McGill ArcticResearch Center.
So it was great to say that.
Maybe I was on Mars for amoment and it was just what an
(03:39):
amazing time to really learnabout what research others are
doing up there, just as I amthinking about research that I'm
also doing.
So, yeah, that was a super funproject.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Well, yeah.
So basically, speaking of Mars,I think we're a big great place
to start is if you just explainto us what you do.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
When people ask me what I do for a living, it
really depends on who I'mspeaking to.
You know, a lot of times I'lljust say you know, I work on a
spaceship on Mars.
That's true.
Sometimes I'll say I zap rockswith a laser on Mars.
If I'm speaking to aprofessional conference, I might
call myself a planetaryscientist, planetary scientist.
(04:30):
So I think, broadly speaking, Iam a geologist who works on
rocks on other planets,primarily Mars, and the way that
I do that is through ourremarkable rover missions, so we
can actually command our roversto go look at specific rocks
and tell us a little bit moreabout them.
So it's really the best jobever.
I mean, it's my childhood dream.
You know, my childhood dreamwas to work on a spaceship with
lasers, and I'm doing that now.
(04:52):
I never gave up the dream.
It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Did that come from watching a movie?
Or where spaceships and laserssounds like you watched a movie
and went.
I want to do that.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I am absolutely certain that it came in from the
cultural zeitgeist.
You know there's so manydifferent science fiction films
which show some version of that,and my parents were really big
nerds themselves.
It may surprise you that I comefrom a nerdy family, but you
know we've read a lot of sciencefiction.
We watched a lot of.
The original Doctor who serieshad a lot of excellent special
(05:26):
effects, as everyone canremember, some good pasted on
lasers, you know.
But so I would say that for me,the dream was, you know, to
really understand what was inthe universe using the tools
that I could imagine.
And and maybe you know I'vegotten lucky in that my
imagination has actually cometrue.
(05:46):
And how often does that happen?
I didn't really have a greatplan for what my spaceship would
be and what lasers were talkingabout, what would they even do,
but I knew that it wassomething that really called to
me, and so I would say it's morethan anything, I've always
wanted to be an explorer.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
So yes, basically you are a geologist.
Most geologists work on thisplanet.
What's wrong with Earth?
Why Mars or why other planets?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
There is nothing wrong with Earth.
In fact, I love Earth.
We live on such an incrediblyinteresting planet, not to
mention that it takes reallygood care of us.
So I love learning about Earthas well.
But for me, the way that I gotinto geology was wondering about
rocks on Mars.
Of course we had landed withViking and saw some images.
(06:43):
But for me you know, I was inhigh school at the time and I
saw these pictures and my mindwas blown.
It felt like a place that Icould go, that I could walk, and
that's when I first got aninkling.
Maybe rocks are kind ofinteresting.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Brilliant.
I mean, I educate as abiologist, so I'm a scientist of
sorts, but my dad was ageologist of sorts.
But my dad was a geologist andso I grew up, um, going on field
trips here.
We go camping in the mountainsand he would be, you know,
driving on the road, pointing atrocks here and there and say,
oh, look at this fold here, lookat that fault there, look at
(07:14):
this rock here, and then allthat kind of stuff.
And I have to be honest, I, Iguess I'm one of those that I I
never got it.
I was like what is thisobsession with rocks?
And you know, even later inlife I was like what is this
obsession with rocks?
And you know, even later inlife I'm like what is it about
rocks that get you so excited?
They're just rocks.
And from his point of view youmay, I'm curious to hear what
your thoughts on this but he wasjust like you know it's, each
(07:36):
of these rocks tells a story ofof the earth and you know how it
formed and you know all.
You look around a mountainrange and you see all these
different stories play out andblah, blah, blah.
But from your perspective I'mcurious, what is it about rocks
that gets you so excited.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
It's so funny that you tell this story right,
they're like oh rocks, who cares?
You know?
And because my mother was alsoan undergraduate major in
geology and so I too spent manya family road trip forced to
stop at road cuts and be likewhy are we looking at this?
It's just a rock who cares andnot caring at all and wondering
(08:12):
why it mattered, you know.
But I would say that I think ofcourse it's always hard for
your parents to introduce theirpassions to you because you are
predisposed to say they're lame,even if they are super cool.
So there's a little element ofthat, you know.
But I think that once Iunderstood what you could do
(08:34):
with geology, it really changedmy perspective.
And it's exactly like you saidevery rock tells a story and
that story can be extremelyexciting and it really depends
on the type of rock.
But you know, the reason weknow that life arose on Earth
about 4 billion years ago isfrom a rock.
That's the only evidence wehave left.
(08:57):
The only object left from thattime period is a rock, and in
that rock is this little tinypiece of mineralogy, morphology,
isotopic data that tells uslife was here.
That's amazing.
That is incredible that itcould tell you that, just this
little rock that maybe if youwere walking down the street
(09:17):
you'd kick it.
You're like ugh rock, get outof my way.
This rock has been through alot and has seen so many things
and would tell you them if youonly cared to look and listen.
And I feel like an example ofsort of how my perspective
really changed.
I decided to go to graduateschool in geology, having
literally never taken geologytricky, hard start.
(09:49):
But I remember very clearly oneof the very first geologic
field trips that I went on forstructural geology, a classic
geology course, and it turnedout it was like a road cut in
the back of the new Target, likethe store it's in a parking lot
, and I'm like why are we goingto the mall?
Because they had just cut opena hill.
And the professor's like allright, what do you see there?
And I was like I just see anexpanse of grayness, like, uh,
(10:14):
it looks like they use dynamite.
You know there's some drillholes.
But as I sat there he's likejust draw it, just draw what you
see.
As I sat there he's like justdraw it Just draw what you see,
as I sat there, I was like, waita second, I'm seeing there's
some really weird things in here, Like there's these big round
things and then there's somelines and they're bendy
(10:36):
underneath and you know what Iwas looking at?
It turns out I was looking atan ancient pillow basalt.
A pillow basalt is what happenswhen very hot lava flows into a
body of water and you can seethey form these pillows right,
Because they're very round andthey have the outside is
quenched glass and the insidecools more slowly.
(10:57):
But it's these big circularthings and, like you know, it
took me a really long time, Iwould say, of standing there in
the back of the Target parkinglot to actually see that.
And you know, I laugh nowbecause I'm like it's so obvious
(11:20):
and seeing whatever happens, tobe there without looking for
something or being judgmental orwondering how long we have
until we have to do our nextthing.
You'll be amazed at what yousee.
So you know, for me it's rocks.
I think for many people itcould also be rocks, but you
know, if you just spent a littleextra time looking at them, it
(11:40):
doesn't mean that you have to bea geologist, but I think rocks
can be amazing if you, if youtake the time just to look at
them brilliant everyone.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Just give rocks a bit more love when you're out out
for a walk.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
I mean, I try really hard not to be like, hey guys,
look at this rock, you know um,because I don't need to be that
person, but if somebody asked me, I am super ready to talk about
it yeah, my dad still does itto this day, by the way.
Love it.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
I think I sent him like literally earlier this week
.
I was like took a picture ofsomething and he was just like
that's some sort of.
It wasn't a bass hole, but Ithink it was something else.
Yeah.
Give your dad, my contactinformation.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
We will go for a hike .
It'll be a delight you can stayhome.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Okay, so I have something of an interesting
little surprise.
I was researching just for thisepisode a little bit into my
back catalog and I realized thatyou and I kind of had a weird
almost well, our careers kind ofcrossed about seven years ago
in an indirect way.
Let me just see if I can sharescreen really quickly.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I'm so excited for the surprise.
Can?
You see, yeah you're in themars, mars yard yeah, yeah, jpl.
Yes oh my gosh.
Yeah, wait, seven years ago.
Gosh, that would have been like, look at me, like we still
would have been.
Um, that's right before.
I mean, it's's in betweencuriosity and perseverance.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Yeah, so we were filming a documentary about,
weirdly, about the human brain,and we were sort of the last
episode was about technology andyou know those sort of how our
intelligence has helped us placethings on other planets and how
we've extended ourconsciousness, you know, across
worlds and all this kind ofstuff.
So it's kind of esoteric, butwe got to film with a presenter
(13:26):
in the Mars yard and this is, Ithought it was relevant because
this is your, you know your babyin an essence, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
That's right.
This is the Curiosity Double.
In fact I can't remember theyhave another name for her.
Oh gosh, I'm, I'm see, bad mom,I can't remember.
But yeah, no, this is.
This is such a cool, I mean,what a cool place for you know
folks here about the Mars yard,but it's really hard to
understand how incredible.
(13:54):
It is right, you have this fullmock-up of Curiosity rover, now
also the Perseverance roverthere's two of them and we can
drive them around in, you know,I'll say, a Mars-like
environment, as much as we canmake Pasadena, California,
Mars-like.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah, that's so cool that you were able to be there
and filming.
And did they let you drive itBecause you can.
If you have an iPhone, theysometimes let you drive it from
your phone.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
I think this was before.
Maybe they didn't let us driveit at that point.
I don't think.
This was before maybe theydidn't let us drive it at that
point.
I don't think it's okay.
It was just doing its thing, Ithink.
But yeah, I mean for anyonelistening just on the audio,
like I'll put this up on socialsand the website and stuff.
But Nina, just sort of describewhat your baby is.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Well, it's a very large baby, it turns out.
So the Curiosity rover is thelargest rover to have been sent
to Mars and that's, you know,rivaled by Perseverance, which
is a twin.
So this rover is, just when youlook at the chassis, it's about
the size of a Mini Cooper.
It's got six wheels and it'sgot this really interesting
(15:01):
suspension system.
So there's a lot of bars kindof holding the wheels to the
body, and that's called a rockerbogey system.
It allows the rover to driveover rocks that are pretty big.
You can see that it has a verytall mast.
I think it's about two meterstall, so maybe six-ish feet tall
for those Imperial unit lovers.
It's got my instrument, theinstrument that I lead, the
(15:25):
ChemCam instrument, right at thetop, which is about the size of
a large shoe box, and it's gotwhat is essentially just one eye
, a left eye, and this is whereour laser is fired from.
So we are right at the top likethe head of the rover.
You are not quite in the lineof fire in this frame, lucky for
(15:46):
you Lucky for me.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, I mean, if it did fire at me, what would I
feel?
Would it be lethal?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
No, not at all.
So this laser, it's not eyesafe.
So please never look at thelaser, because it does vaporize
the material that it touches.
That being said, it doesn'tvaporize very much.
Now, we want to keep every partof your eye, so don't ever
vaporize any part of your eye.
But but if it, like you see,your back is to the camera.
(16:12):
So if it decided to attack youfrom behind curiosity would
never do this, but you wouldprobably feel like a little like
a pinch, or you know, or almostnothing, right, because it is
ablating micrograms.
So the the laser um can befocused on a target up to seven
meters or 23 feet away.
So you're well within range, wecould absolutely get you.
But the spot size is only likeabout a half a millimeter in
(16:36):
diameter, depending on how faraway I'd say for you maybe a
little bit bigger, and that'snot very, not very big, it's
really really small and it'sjust.
You know.
Again, you don't want tovaporize any part of your body.
It's probably a mistake unlessit's done deliberately um like
lasik, but this is not lasik, soum, yeah, so so you you are
(16:57):
well within um, you know,actually striking distance for
many of the uh instruments on onthe rover right where you're
standing, even though you're notin direct contact with it.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
And would it be able to figure out what I'm made of?
There's a left arm.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
So you're a little far away from the yes.
Yes, absolutely so.
If again, we would never ablatea person, that would be totally
a safety mistake.
But if we were to do so, yes,we would see what your
constituent elements were madeout of.
So we vaporize material and webreak down the molecular bonds
(17:35):
into elements, and thoseelements they get pushed into
these higher electronic statesfrom the heat of the laser and
as they cool down they will emitphotons at characteristic
wavelengths.
What that means is, as it coolsdown, you'll see different
colors of light, and so ChemCamcan see.
(17:56):
We have a telescope on there,also through the left eye, that
can look at the color of lightthat we make when we vaporize a
little piece of your T-shirt,and then that can tell us with
our spectrometers what elementsare in that material, and that's
without ever touching you atall.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, and so I guess it's quite a good way of
explaining your day-to-day job.
Obviously, you have this rover,which is a Curiosity rover, and
then you also have the newerbig brother.
Big sister, the Perseveranceand the instruments that you
work on the cam on this one andthen, I think, the super cam on
the other one.
(18:34):
What I mean, day to day, whatare you guys doing?
You're going out there blastingrocks to figure out where
they're made from, butultimately, what's the hope?
What are you looking for?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
These two missions have different goals.
So the goal of Curiosity is toassess the past and present
habitability of the Martianenvironment.
So habitability is anenvironment in which life as we
understand it could exist.
It doesn't mean that we'relooking for life, it just means
that we're looking forenvironments that could support
(19:08):
life that we understand.
So so that's what curiosity isdoing.
So perseverance is actually isactually looking for signs of
ancient life.
We felt so confident aboutfinding a habitable environment
in Gale Crater, where Curiosityis, that NASA felt comfortable
enough to say this next rover,which is a twin, fraternal twin
(19:31):
of Curiosity, is going to belooking for signs of ancient
life in the rocks.
That's not to say there isn'tmodern current life on Mars, but
number one, we don't have theright instrument payload to
really assess that.
And number two, if it's there,it's not very abundant.
You know it's not very obvious.
That doesn't mean it's notimportant that we shouldn't look
(19:53):
for it.
It's just not the mission ofthat rover.
And in both cases, you know, allof this information that we're
gathering with both roversreally helps us understand how
to support a future humanmission.
Right, because we have a goodinsight into what Mars is like
today.
You know Curiosity has been onthe surface of Mars for almost
(20:14):
13 Earth years.
That's a lot of data, it's alot of knowledge.
You know Perseverance has beenon the surface for a little less
time, about four years but youknow that's still a long time to
gather information to say, ok,what are the hazards that we
didn't anticipate for a humanmission?
You know, what are some thingsthat we need to keep an eye out,
what are the resources?
There's all kinds of thingsthat we can learn for a future
(20:37):
human mission from these roboticmissions.
So that's all part of what we dofrom these robotic missions.
So that's all part of what wedo.
And then, just finally, the bigpart of Perseverance.
That is quite different fromCuriosity.
Perseverance is actually thefirst part of another mission,
which is Mars sample return,taking samples that are really
well documented, really wellstudied on Mars, and we're
(20:58):
packaging them up inanticipation of sending another
spacecraft to go pick them upand bring them back to Earth.
And this will be the very firsttime we have done sample return
from Mars.
So that is a big differencebetween the missions that, you
know, curiosity.
There's plenty of things I'dlove to package up and bring
back to Earth.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
But we won't be doing that, you know, whereas with
Persever, with perseverance, wehave this opportunity now if you
get them back here, you to putyou on the spot again, finding
life confident, optimistically,hopefully optimistic,
confidently optimistic.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, you know, people always have to be right
you know well, yes and no,because scientists are so
wishy-washy, aren't we right?
We Right.
We're like well, maybe.
And I'm just going to tell youthis little story before I
answer, because I remember I waslike living in some student
housing as a grad student and Ihad an infestation of house
centipedes, which are totallyharmless but like horrifying
(21:53):
because they've got those longlegs and are very fast.
So this guy came to my house tospray the house a little bit
and so he was just like makingconversation, what do you do?
Planetary science?
I'm studying Mars.
He's like so, are there aliens?
And I was like well, it's agreat question, you know there
could be.
And he's like stopflip-flopping.
(22:15):
Yes, or no, and I was like, ohmy gosh, like that's how most
people see us nerds.
It is yeah.
Because, was like oh my gosh,like that's how most people see
us nerds.
It is because we're notanswering your question.
Like how hard is that?
Speaker 1 (22:25):
where's the aliens?
Where are the?
Speaker 2 (22:27):
aliens.
Like I don't, I'd like there tobe an option c, which is I
don't actually know where thealiens are.
Um, you know, but I am we'relooking for evidence of them.
Yeah, that's right we, you know,I would say it is.
It is tricky to answer thequestion because I I would feel,
obviously I'm confident enoughthat we could find traces of
(22:48):
life on mars, that I spend themajority of my working hours
certainly trying to find them.
So I hope that's a thestatement of confidence in the
sense that I'm like, I think,think it is incredibly plausible
.
But I also, as a scientist,cannot commit to saying I know
they're there, I just have tofind them, because that's faith,
(23:10):
which there's nothing wrongwith that per se.
But in our field we're not hereto prove our preexisting beliefs
.
We're there to figure out whatis really there and we have
often been wrong and often beenthere.
And you know, we have oftenbeen wrong and often been
surprised, and that's why it'sso important to keep your mind
open to the possibilities, evenwhen those possibilities might
(23:31):
not be, as they don't feel, asexciting.
Maybe microbes didn't makethese rocks, but whoa, there was
some really weird chemistrythat we never thought existed on
mars and that doesn't exist onearth.
That's still really interesting.
I know, maybe less interestingto the public, but still we have
to view it in that way.
You know, like um, we, we haveto.
(23:52):
You know we are.
We are confident enough that weare spending our careers doing
this yeah, we will not commit toan answer when we don't have
one yet fair enough, fair enough, fair enough, um, okay,
brilliant.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Well, listen, you get up every morning and you work
on a instrument that is acountless number of miles from
earth, that cost multiplebillions of dollars.
Um, in that career that spanned, you know, a long, a long time
and you've done so much.
I mean, is there a significantmoment in all of that that you
(24:29):
would tell the grandkids or youknow that just feels like this
is you know something that isyou know it sticks with you as a
real career highlight orsomething like that?
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Yeah, oh, my goodness .
Yes, I mean, I mean there are,there have been so many
thrilling moments, you know, somany moments of discovery.
Um, there have been somemoments of despair of you know
where things are not working.
Um, you know, I would say, Iwould say that you know this
(24:59):
might be a little bit trite, butbut you know, just seeing our
instrument, our entire rover,leave Earth for the last time
was incredibly emotional andmeaningful and terrifying, you
know, because rockets don'talways launch well, sometimes
they blow up, and if this oneblew up, I mean that blows up
(25:19):
everything that we've beenworking on for many, many years.
At that point, and, of course,when we landed, you know that's
another really dangerous point.
But also it's the first viewthat we have, the first, when
the rover, you know, opens itseyes, so to speak, and sees you
know, where did we end up?
And just getting to see animage from this place for the
(25:41):
first time, being one of thefirst people to see this.
It's just there's nothing likeit.
That is discovery at its mostbasic, and so I think there's a
lot of emotions around that.
That's probably why I can stillremember what that felt like,
especially when we were landinggosh.
I couldn't even like sit in achair.
(26:02):
I was like kind of like.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
I mean walk us through that day, like from the
night, like the morning you wakeup or whenever it is like.
Just walk us through whathappened that day.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Well, so that day, that was August 12th 2012.
I guess it was August 6th inthe East Coast, so people
sometimes get this date, but Iwas on the West Coast because I
was at the Jet PropulsionLaboratory JPL.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
You're in the room in the control room.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
That's right, although I'll just note here
there's a lot of video thatshows the flight teams EDL,
entry, descent and Landing teamwith their light blue shirts and
they're celebrating.
Everyone's like where are you?
I'm like, no, no, no, thescientists are in the basement.
We are not as photogenic.
Okay, they put us lower in thebuilding, okay, but I'm there.
I'm there, just not visible inthose videos Also jumping up and
(26:55):
down.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
That's ridiculous so yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
So I would say that, you know, our biggest fear upon
launch was, you know, an anomalywith the launch vehicle.
Now, NASA has had a really goodtrack record for a long time,
but you know, two thirds ofMartian spacecraft have failed
in some way.
And some of them have failed,you know, before they left Earth
, and so I think, if I recallcorrectly, the launch pad that
(27:22):
we were on was right next to theone that SpaceX had been
renting and they had just had ananomaly and it was all like
charred out.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Oh man.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
And you're like, oh, like cool, and it was just a
kind of reminder that things canblow up.
It was a littleanxiety-inducing for me, you
know, and just being there, andyou know we had a few being
there and, and you know we wehad a few there's a launch
window that's about two weekswide and so they can scrub the
launch for any number of reasons.
(27:50):
In fact they did, you know, wethe first time, you know they
were like we're not going to dothis, the weather's bad, you
know.
So it's kind of like, and youget all hyped up and you're
there and then you're like, oh,I guess we're not going to do
this, you know.
But you know, when we wereactually sitting there and when
we did launch, you know theyhave a lot of pauses in the
countdown that's just to confirmthat things are working.
This is again, we're trying tobe as careful as possible when
(28:17):
they pause that timer.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
you're like, oh God, you're completely powerless as
well.
You're just sitting there likesweaty palms and all sorts I can
imagine.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yeah, and I'm literally just a bystander, I
can't do anything, I have nocontribution except for my
extreme anxiety.
So you know, yes, it's dangerous, yes, it's scary, yes, there
are 3, flight teams that havegone through so many anomalies
(28:44):
in their simulators, like somany, that they are ready.
They are ready to do theirutmost to solve those problems
on the fly.
And so I always remind myselfof that too, like there's just
so much practice and testingthat happens in advance.
We don't just get together oneday and we're like, oh, like I
wonder if this works.
I don't know, we're going tofind out, push the button.
(29:05):
You know there's a lot ofrehearsal that happens.
So that's that's how, that'show I kept my anxiety, you know,
to just a simmering medium isbecause I know, I know those,
those teams are so good.
And indeed, of course, spoileralert, it launched no problem at
(29:27):
all, um, and then it was alittle anticlimactic because
it's gone now, and now the onlyway we can track it, you know,
is is just um, you know we haveto log in, like anybody else,
and see, well, where is it?
and you know it was, uh like youknow six and a half months that
it was just cruising, you know,and there's different
milestones that we hit rightlike we're going to turn this on
at this time.
We're going to do this test,you know, and so each time that
(29:48):
happened, you know we would befurther excited.
You're like this is working,yeah, but then you have to just
wait.
You just have to wait, becausethe space is big.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
And then you came back to jpl for the landing,
which i'm'm sure was even justas stressful as the launch.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Absolutely yeah.
So the landing of Curiosity wasa never before tested
combination of techniques.
So people recall that theSpirit and Opportunity rovers
had these big bouncy balls right, they were just bouncing with
airbags.
Hilarious and totally effective.
But this rover was way toolarge for those airbags.
(30:22):
It would have popped them, andso they had to design a new
technique.
And so what this was?
We used the sky crane, whichseems crazy, right.
So you come into Mars, you'vegot this, basically this back
shell that's slowing.
You can aerobrake, so there's alot of friction from the
atmosphere, but they, there'snot a lot of atmosphere on mars,
(30:44):
so you really can't use it toslow yourself down enough.
So then you gotta pop thatshell off, and then the rover
was gonna be popped out of thiscontraption, lowered on a tether
on this, uh, sky crane, whichwas like a bunch of retro
rockets pointing downward, andso that was going to slow it
(31:05):
down enough so that it couldland very gently on this tether
on the surface, and then the skycrane would cut the tether and
go off to like fall not on therover, hopefully, fingers
crossed, you know.
Um, very complicated sequence ofthings, and it all had to be
autonomous, right, we could nothelp the rover through it and,
by the way, we really couldn'ttest the full.
(31:25):
We couldn't test this entirething, because the conditions on
Mars are different, so you cantest different components to
make sure that they work, butyou don't know how they work
together until you actually landon Mars.
So it was like that's like thefirst time the whole thing was
done.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Oh my God.
What was the feeling Like thefirst time where everyone was
like it survived.
What was the feeling that youand your team felt when you had
the good news?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I mean I had sort of two competing feelings, because
I was so excited and then I wasso tired, I was like, yeah, I
got to lie down, like cause Icause, holding anxiety into your
body is actually really, reallyexhausting.
So I'm just like, you know, wedid it guys, and then.
(32:17):
But then you know, once we, werealized that we were, we were
good, we had.
You know, there's a wholeseries of choreographed checks
that we've got to do.
We've got to unfold the mastright.
So ChemCam wasn't going to beeven usable until after that
mast comes up.
And it's a little scary becausethe mast is held down by these
(32:39):
bolts and they're explodingbolts to break them.
Oh, wow, yeah, right, by yourprecious instrument.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Delicate instrument.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yeah, With optics that you don't want to.
You know, blow up God.
So you know it's a little scary.
You're like I hope that worksout, you know, because it's
right there.
It's right there, so you'reblowing something up and then
you've got to lift the mast up,um, and then do the whole mass
checkout.
So you know it took I think ourfirst data were taken, um on
(33:09):
sol 13 of the of the mission.
So that's 13 days in, becausethat was the time where all the
check, the mast was up, we haddone all the checks and we were
ready to run our first officialsequence.
So that that 13 souls, that'slike almost.
That's like two weeks basically.
So but yeah, I mean like wewere so thrilled, we were so
excited.
We actually printed out thefirst spectrum that we ever got.
(33:31):
It was on a rock that we hadnamed Coronation, a very
glorious, auspicious name.
It's just honestly, just alittle rock.
Like you could hold it in yourhand.
You'd probably step on it ifyou went hiking.
It's just honestly, just alittle rock, like you could hold
it in your hand.
You'd probably step on it ifyou went hiking.
And we printed out the spectrumin this huge banner and then we
made it.
We just like put it in front ofour door so that everybody who
(33:52):
came into our instrument roomwould have to like duck under it
.
I'm like look at our data.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
It's amazing, we did it guys.
I mean, first things first.
I guess all of that experienceand you've now had plenty of
time to sort of digest on it buthas that, those experiences of
doing something so historic,something so monumental, like
what have you taken from that asan experience, anything you've
learned personally orprofessionally from it?
Speaker 2 (34:18):
I don't really want to sound trite, but honestly I
feel so lucky.
I feel like one of the luckiestpeople in the world because I
got to live this childhood dream, and in such a direct way.
You know, I got to work on aspaceship, I got to see it leave
Earth, I got to see it land onanother planet, and I'll always
(34:41):
feel like such a lucky personthat that got to be something
that I got to do and I got toexperience it, and I hope that I
can at least, you know, do mybest with that.
And what I mean by that is to,like you know, to do good
science and also to communicatescience to help other people,
you know who were not able to bethere.
(35:01):
There are people who weren'teven born who now have questions
about that.
You know my son wasn't born andyou know to tell him about it
and to help it, you know, tohelp him at least get a taste of
that, so that you know that hecan be ready to whatever his
spark moment is, whatever thatis, you know that he will be
ready to cherish it too.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah, brilliant, brilliant.
I mean, one of the big aspectsof your job, and indeed as a
scientist, is doing what you'redoing right now communicating
what you guys are doing.
You know, and I'm curious thatyou know conveying, spending
this time or making the effortto do this kind of stuff.
How important is that?
Whether it's inspiring like thenext generation of scientists,
(35:41):
or just helping peopleunderstand what you guys are up
to.
You're not just like some madscientist in a lab like
concocting weird things.
There's actually a genuinepurpose to it.
I mean, how important is thisact of science communication?
Speaker 2 (35:55):
I think science communication is an obligation,
and I feel that even more so,again, as a publicly funded
person.
You know it's my job to tellour taxpayers what did I do with
your money and like, why is itamazing?
And I'm happy to do that.
I love doing that.
I think there is amisconception that scientists
are separate from the sociallyawkward on average.
(36:16):
But we are human beings thatalso live within society.
We're everywhere.
You may know a scientist and youdon't know they're a scientist,
right?
You know we like to eat dinnerand go for walks.
(36:36):
You know we have interestsoutside of science too.
So we're not separate, right?
We're not different people.
We just often, you know, neverlet go of our childhood
curiosities, and that'ssomething that I think is a gift
, maybe also a curse, because wecan't let go of these little
questions that drive us crazy,and it's why we have to do
(36:57):
science.
But I think that you know thefact.
Communicating to folks, youknow here's what we're doing,
here's why it's so interesting,you know, be excited about it.
Why should anyone else beexcited about it?
And I am really excited aboutmars research.
So hopefully that is comingacross and people understand
that, you know and and sort offollowing on from that.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Like anyone listening to this who might be it could
be like a seven-year-old kid, orit could be someone who's in
their like mid-30s, who's stuckin a job.
They're like, oh, but thatsounds amazing.
Like anyone listening to this,like who would love to follow in
your footsteps or do somethingsimilar.
What kind of advice would yougive them for getting into this
(37:37):
industry?
Or whether it's specificallyplanetary science, or whether
you know science in general?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Well, I would say, first of all, don't worry about
how you're going to do it.
Right, I had no idea how I wasgoing to live my childhood dream
of working on a spaceship andyou know, yes, many adults.
They laughed.
Well, here we are right, and soI did not have a plan.
So, no matter where you are, ifyou're seven, if you're 37, you
(38:08):
know, you don't need to have itall figured out.
I would say, you know, if youknow what you love and you know
that this is what you want to do, then I would say, just follow
the opportunities.
A lot of people to feel like ohwell, you know, I just wasn't
very good at math or I wasn'tvery good at science in school,
(38:30):
so I wasn't cut out for that.
Just remember that being goodat school is not the same skill
set as being good at research.
Nobody believes me when I saythis, but I'm sure that someone
could find my transcripts.
I was not particularly good atschool.
I was not like the best studentat all, because you know,
there's a lot of things thatyou've got to do to get an a in
(38:52):
a class, okay, but what I do isnot the same skill set.
I've got to take a jumble ofinformation and make it make
sense and I've got to, like youknow, you know, be really
creative and finding connections.
Um so, yeah don't, don't countyourself out right.
And the thing is, is that likewhen I say, if you know, this is
what you want to do?
What I mean is so?
(39:13):
I want to give an example.
I had a mentor who told me okay, if you really want to figure
out what it is that you want todo, should you go to grad school
?
Should you not Make a list ofeverything that you love
learning about?
When nobody makes you do itright, it's not a homework
assignment.
So I my it's my real list.
Okay, my real list.
(39:33):
I was like oh, like, I lovescience fiction.
I read so much science fiction.
Um, I love spaceships, like,cause, spaceships are really
cool.
Uh, and I'm super into the ideaof aliens.
This is my list, okay.
And you, I was like, obviously Ishould be studying Mars, and
(39:54):
that's when I applied to gradschool to work on Mars research,
you know.
So don't, yeah, you don't haveto.
It doesn't have to be fancy,right?
You don't have to be like.
You know, I've got this verywell-formulated plan and it's
incredible.
I have, like you know, fivebullet points of like success
metrics.
You can just be like I lovespaceships, and then the next
(40:15):
step is just finding the ways tobe involved.
You don't need to start with afully formed job, right, you can
start by becoming an expert.
You know, even on your ownthere's so many resources
available, so you can startlearning and start honing that
and and then, as then, as youprogress, you're going to start
saying, hey, this is thedirection I want to go, you will
(40:36):
figure it out.
You don't have to have it allfigured out all at once.
I first got my first Mars job,actually by calling this very
prominent Mars scientist everyday for two weeks, like a crazy
person.
I know, I know.
So I was like wow, yeah, and Iwas very young and I didn't
totally appreciate how kind ofcrazy it was.
I was just really enthusiastic.
(40:57):
I also didn't appreciate thatthis guy is a very big name in
the field and um, I feel like Igot lucky, that he's actually a
really nice person.
Um, but I would call him andbecause I had read a little
article about him, I was likeI'll just call him up cause I
had read a little article abouthim.
I was like I'll just call himup and I leave him these
messages, or he would answer andhe's like oh, I don't have time
to talk.
I'm like great, I'll call youback.
Bye, like um, and then how oldwere you?
Speaker 1 (41:20):
at this point?
I was like 22, maybe barelysomething like that.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Like you know, not a baby, but I was like college age
, yeah, probably old enough toknow better, but I just, I was
just so excited to talk to himand he wasn't like saying stop
calling me.
There's finally the one time hewas like okay, seriously, why
do you keep calling me?
Speaker 1 (41:37):
and I was like your research is so interesting like
can I have a job?
Speaker 2 (41:39):
and he's like I will hire you as a student to work
for my colleague.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Stop calling okay, amazing, I'll hire you to stop,
to stop.
Please just stop calling, I'llhire you.
Yes, I mean that's, it's, but,but it worked, it totally worked
yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Well, and I, you know , I I actually got to work.
I mean, I still talk to him tothis day and he doesn't remember
it that way.
He's like no, you were really,you were so smart and I was like
I was crazy, I was weird, likeI know that, but like he, we're
still colleagues.
You know, he actually justrecently had, like it was like
um, an 80th birthday celebrationof his accomplishments and I
(42:16):
was one of the speakers thereand I got to be like you know
sweet you know, that's where itstarted.
And now, now here I am, I'mleading an instrument on a Rover
and, like it all started withthis one person who decided to
give this like weird nerd achance, you know, like on a
summer internship.
So you know I that's amazing,yeah.
So I mean I also tell peopleyou know you don't obviously
(42:36):
don't want to harass people, butyou know, I just didn't know to
stop because I was so excitedabout what he did and I wasn't
like I wasn't really demandingvery much, right, I was just
like I just want to talk to youand like, tell me about all
these things that you did andmaybe could I be your student.
And if he said no, it wouldhave been fine, amazing.
But he said yes, what have yougot to lose?
(42:57):
At the end of the day?
What have you got to lose?
I had nothing to lose.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Amazing, oh, fantastic.
Well, listen, nina, thank youso so much for taking the time
and your passion, as I saidbefore, is so infectious about
this subject and your career andobviously you know you're
extremely proud of all youraccomplishments and it's been
amazing.
So I mean just, I always liketo say at the end, I mean
anything that you would like toplug or anywhere people could
(43:23):
find you, or you know Twitter orthings like that what would you
like to plug?
Oh, sure?
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Yeah, well, I mean, I do have a website that I sort
of update.
It's minalanzacom, so you cancheck that out if you want.
I'm also on Instagram asvermillionplanet.
Yeah, I think, though, if Iwould leave folks with one
thought, I just, you know, Ithink right now, as we're
(43:48):
speaking, you know we have a lotof uncertainty in the future of
NASA in general and sort of ourfunding, and I just wanted to
remind folks that you know theyhave a say.
I think that, as I've said, youknow, mars sample return, I
think, is going to be soimportant for taking our
understanding of Mars to thenext level, because that'll be
(44:10):
finally be.
We will have these samples backhere on Earth in our
terrestrial laboratories.
And you know, maybe you don'tcare about rocks because you're
like we have plenty of rocks onEarth.
Well, if we want to send peopleto Mars, we have to understand
what rocks are there, and that'sbecause we need to understand
what resources are there forthose people.
We need to understand whathazards exist for those people
(44:54):
no-transcript, but I actuallythink that when folks see what
we can gain, and really for sucha bargain price, I would say I
think it's really worth it.
So I guess I just I hope folkscan join me in being on team
(45:14):
Mars sample return.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
Amazing, and I think that that actually extends
beyond just our Americanlisteners in Europe.
Obviously, the European SpaceAgency may or may not play a
role in that retrieval.
So if you're in Europe, you cando the same speak to your
lawmakers or yourrepresentatives that you may
know or I don't know.
Just do what Nina did and callBombard ESA until they go and
(45:39):
send a spaceship to go and getthe Mars samples.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Yes, yes, I mean, it's true.
So, yes, and thank you forbringing this up, because Mars
Sample Return is not a USmission.
It's a international mission,just like both rovers, curiosity
and Perseverance are bothinternational.
We have so many internationalpartners.
In fact, camcam and SuperCamare jointly run by the US and
(46:06):
France and France, right, soit's actually.
This is not an endeavor that'sdone by one nation, this is done
by the entire world.
And so you know, I think thosesamples they're not just going
to go to the United States,they're going to give knowledge
to everyone, and that's part ofour mandate is that we don't
keep secret data.
We actually give all of ourdata to the public, so anyone
who'd want to look at it canlook at it.
So, yeah, I think it's a reallyimportant part of our hopefully
(46:30):
, our our future, as we becomemore space faring as humans
ourselves and not just sendingour robotic scouts.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Brilliant.
Nina Lanza, thank you so muchfor taking the time for the
podcast.
It's been absolutely brilliantwith speaking with you, as
always thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
This has been such a fun conversation and, as always,
thank you for letting this hasbeen such a fun conversation and
, as always, thank you forletting me run wild and talk
your ear off about all thesethings that get me super excited
.
This has been fun.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Alrighty, see ya, and that is it for this first
episode.
I want to say a massive thankyou again to Nina for taking the
time to share her amazingstories with us and a huge thank
you to you all as well forlistening.
For photos, links and moreabout this episode, please head
(47:18):
to knowordinarymondaycom andlook for the episode page.
You can also find informationon our socials via Linktree.
Our handle isKnowOrdinaryMonday.
If you have questions or wantto share your own career story
with us, we'd love to hear fromyou.
Please get in touch via oursocials and you can also email
(47:39):
hello, hello at no ordinarymondaycom, or you can use the
submit your story page on ourwebsite.
And if you enjoyed this episode, please do two really quick
things for us give us a fivestar rating and review and tell
a friend.
It really helps us grow theshow and attract more amazing
(48:00):
guests and inspire new listeners.
And in next week's episode weexplore the crazy world of an
adventure cinematographer.
My guest is Emmy Award winnerKeith Partridge.
He takes us behind the scenesof some of the craziest stuff
he's ever done, most of itdangling perilously off a rope,
and then he also goes into thenear death experience that he
(48:22):
had high in the Peruvian Andes.
It's one you're not going towant to miss, so please
subscribe wherever you get yourpodcasts so you don't miss out
on the latest episodes.
This show is produced, hostedand edited by me, chris Barron.
Thank you so much for listeningand have a great Monday
everyone.
Hello and welcome to the very first episode of no
Ordinary Monday.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
I'm so excited to launch thisshow for you guys.
Even in these early stages, Ihave a really fantastic lineup
of guests already.
I am your host, chris Barron,and I've been a documentary
filmmaker for around 14 years orso, and during that time I've
(00:26):
met so many inspiring peopledoing cool and unusual jobs.
So I thought this podcast wouldbe a great way to share their
stories and career insights withthe world.
So the way the show will workis each week, I sit down with a
guest who has an interestingcareer story.
We're going to explore how theygot there, what it's really
like behind the scenes, and thenwe're going to take a deep dive
(00:48):
into the single mostunforgettable experience of
their career.
And to kick us off, my firstguest spends her day searching
for traces of alien life onother worlds, namely Mars.
Dr Nina Lanza is a planetaryscientist at Los Alamos National
Laboratory.
That's the place where theyfirst developed the atomic bomb,
(01:09):
but these days they do thingslike support Mars missions with
specific technologies andresearch areas, one of which is
Nina's Mars laser, which we'regoing to get into.
I first met Nina when she wasone of the lead scientific
contributors on a documentaryseries I made a few years back.
She's a really, really fabulouscommunicator and just a lovely,
(01:30):
lovely person all around, soI'm really delighted that she
agreed to chat with me.
Make sure you stick around forher big story, where she relives
the most intense moment of hercareer the launch and then the
landing of the Curiosity roveron Mars.
I think it's sort of famouslyknown as the seven minutes of
terror.
Yeah, so, with all that said, Iam thrilled to bring you my
(01:52):
conversation with Nina.
Hope you enjoy.
You are listening to noOrdinary Monday.
Let's get to the show.
Nina Lanza, or should I say DrNina Lanza, what do you prefer?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
I'm a pretty casual person.
I do have a PhD, but it doesfeel like you know that was a
while ago and it doesn't definewho I am.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
So you know, just Nina is great.
Some people prefer it.
My wife, for example.
She's like I worked hard forthat PhD and people are going to
call me doctor.
She's like I worked hard forthat PhD and people are going to
call me doctor.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
You know I would say then, in that case, you know, if
there's a choice, then you knowit's always good to highlight
women's accomplishments andcredentials without making them
a big deal.
So yeah, let's go doctor.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Absolutely, dr Nina Lanza, welcome to the podcast.
How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Oh, I'm doing great Thanks, it's a beautiful morning
here in New Mexico it's justthat perfect sunny, but not yet
too hot.
It's lovely.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Amazing, Amazing.
Well, you and I actually, weknow each other from a previous
project.
We worked together on adocumentary series called Lift
the Ice, in which you werefantastic as one of the what we
call super contributors and ledone of the episodes called Alien
Ice, I think it was which isvery fitting for what it is you
(03:11):
do, because we sent you to oneof the northernmost islands in
the Arctic Circle in Canada.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Oh, yes, that was so much fun.
I cannot tell you.
It was such a fun project.
So that's the northernmostpoint I've been thus far Axel
Heiberg Island, to the MarsResearch Station, no less.
That's the McGill ArcticResearch Center.
So it was great to say that.
Maybe I was on Mars for amoment and it was just what an
(03:39):
amazing time to really learnabout what research others are
doing up there, just as I amthinking about research that I'm
also doing.
So, yeah, that was a super funproject.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Well, yeah.
So basically, speaking of Mars,I think we're a big great place
to start is if you just explainto us what you do.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
When people ask me what I do for a living, it
really depends on who I'mspeaking to.
You know, a lot of times I'lljust say you know, I work on a
spaceship on Mars.
That's true.
Sometimes I'll say I zap rockswith a laser on Mars.
If I'm speaking to aprofessional conference, I might
call myself a planetaryscientist, planetary scientist.
(04:30):
So I think, broadly speaking, Iam a geologist who works on
rocks on other planets,primarily Mars, and the way that
I do that is through ourremarkable rover missions, so we
can actually command our roversto go look at specific rocks
and tell us a little bit moreabout them.
So it's really the best jobever.
I mean, it's my childhood dream.
You know, my childhood dreamwas to work on a spaceship with
lasers, and I'm doing that now.
(04:52):
I never gave up the dream.
It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Did that come from watching a movie?
Or where spaceships and laserssounds like you watched a movie
and went.
I want to do that.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I am absolutely certain that it came in from the
cultural zeitgeist.
You know there's so manydifferent science fiction films
which show some version of that,and my parents were really big
nerds themselves.
It may surprise you that I comefrom a nerdy family, but you
know we've read a lot of sciencefiction.
We watched a lot of.
The original Doctor who serieshad a lot of excellent special
(05:26):
effects, as everyone canremember, some good pasted on
lasers, you know.
But so I would say that for me,the dream was, you know, to
really understand what was inthe universe using the tools
that I could imagine.
And and maybe you know I'vegotten lucky in that my
imagination has actually cometrue.
(05:46):
And how often does that happen?
I didn't really have a greatplan for what my spaceship would
be and what lasers were talkingabout, what would they even do,
but I knew that it wassomething that really called to
me, and so I would say it's morethan anything, I've always
wanted to be an explorer.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
So yes, basically you are a geologist.
Most geologists work on thisplanet.
What's wrong with Earth?
Why Mars or why other planets?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
There is nothing wrong with Earth.
In fact, I love Earth.
We live on such an incrediblyinteresting planet, not to
mention that it takes reallygood care of us.
So I love learning about Earthas well.
But for me, the way that I gotinto geology was wondering about
rocks on Mars.
Of course we had landed withViking and saw some images.
(06:43):
But for me you know, I was inhigh school at the time and I
saw these pictures and my mindwas blown.
It felt like a place that Icould go, that I could walk, and
that's when I first got aninkling.
Maybe rocks are kind ofinteresting.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Brilliant.
I mean, I educate as abiologist, so I'm a scientist of
sorts, but my dad was ageologist of sorts.
But my dad was a geologist andso I grew up, um, going on field
trips here.
We go camping in the mountainsand he would be, you know,
driving on the road, pointing atrocks here and there and say,
oh, look at this fold here, lookat that fault there, look at
(07:14):
this rock here, and then allthat kind of stuff.
And I have to be honest, I, Iguess I'm one of those that I I
never got it.
I was like what is thisobsession with rocks?
And you know, even later inlife I was like what is this
obsession with rocks?
And you know, even later inlife I'm like what is it about
rocks that get you so excited?
They're just rocks.
And from his point of view youmay, I'm curious to hear what
your thoughts on this but he wasjust like you know it's, each
(07:36):
of these rocks tells a story ofof the earth and you know how it
formed and you know all.
You look around a mountainrange and you see all these
different stories play out andblah, blah, blah.
But from your perspective I'mcurious, what is it about rocks
that gets you so excited.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
It's so funny that you tell this story right,
they're like oh rocks, who cares?
You know?
And because my mother was alsoan undergraduate major in
geology and so I too spent manya family road trip forced to
stop at road cuts and be likewhy are we looking at this?
It's just a rock who cares andnot caring at all and wondering
(08:12):
why it mattered, you know.
But I would say that I think ofcourse it's always hard for
your parents to introduce theirpassions to you because you are
predisposed to say they're lame,even if they are super cool.
So there's a little element ofthat, you know.
But I think that once Iunderstood what you could do
(08:34):
with geology, it really changedmy perspective.
And it's exactly like you saidevery rock tells a story and
that story can be extremelyexciting and it really depends
on the type of rock.
But you know, the reason weknow that life arose on Earth
about 4 billion years ago isfrom a rock.
That's the only evidence wehave left.
(08:57):
The only object left from thattime period is a rock, and in
that rock is this little tinypiece of mineralogy, morphology,
isotopic data that tells uslife was here.
That's amazing.
That is incredible that itcould tell you that, just this
little rock that maybe if youwere walking down the street
(09:17):
you'd kick it.
You're like ugh rock, get outof my way.
This rock has been through alot and has seen so many things
and would tell you them if youonly cared to look and listen.
And I feel like an example ofsort of how my perspective
really changed.
I decided to go to graduateschool in geology, having
literally never taken geologytricky, hard start.
(09:49):
But I remember very clearly oneof the very first geologic
field trips that I went on forstructural geology, a classic
geology course, and it turnedout it was like a road cut in
the back of the new Target, likethe store it's in a parking lot
, and I'm like why are we goingto the mall?
Because they had just cut opena hill.
And the professor's like allright, what do you see there?
And I was like I just see anexpanse of grayness, like, uh,
(10:14):
it looks like they use dynamite.
You know there's some drillholes.
But as I sat there he's likejust draw it, just draw what you
see.
As I sat there he's like justdraw it Just draw what you see,
as I sat there, I was like, waita second, I'm seeing there's
some really weird things in here, Like there's these big round
things and then there's somelines and they're bendy
(10:36):
underneath and you know what Iwas looking at?
It turns out I was looking atan ancient pillow basalt.
A pillow basalt is what happenswhen very hot lava flows into a
body of water and you can seethey form these pillows right,
Because they're very round andthey have the outside is
quenched glass and the insidecools more slowly.
(10:57):
But it's these big circularthings and, like you know, it
took me a really long time, Iwould say, of standing there in
the back of the Target parkinglot to actually see that.
And you know, I laugh nowbecause I'm like it's so obvious
(11:20):
and seeing whatever happens, tobe there without looking for
something or being judgmental orwondering how long we have
until we have to do our nextthing.
You'll be amazed at what yousee.
So you know, for me it's rocks.
I think for many people itcould also be rocks, but you
know, if you just spent a littleextra time looking at them, it
(11:40):
doesn't mean that you have to bea geologist, but I think rocks
can be amazing if you, if youtake the time just to look at
them brilliant everyone.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Just give rocks a bit more love when you're out out
for a walk.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
I mean, I try really hard not to be like, hey guys,
look at this rock, you know um,because I don't need to be that
person, but if somebody asked me, I am super ready to talk about
it yeah, my dad still does itto this day, by the way.
Love it.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
I think I sent him like literally earlier this week
.
I was like took a picture ofsomething and he was just like
that's some sort of.
It wasn't a bass hole, but Ithink it was something else.
Yeah.
Give your dad, my contactinformation.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
We will go for a hike .
It'll be a delight you can stayhome.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Okay, so I have something of an interesting
little surprise.
I was researching just for thisepisode a little bit into my
back catalog and I realized thatyou and I kind of had a weird
almost well, our careers kind ofcrossed about seven years ago
in an indirect way.
Let me just see if I can sharescreen really quickly.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I'm so excited for the surprise.
Can?
You see, yeah you're in themars, mars yard yeah, yeah, jpl.
Yes oh my gosh.
Yeah, wait, seven years ago.
Gosh, that would have been like, look at me, like we still
would have been.
Um, that's right before.
I mean, it's's in betweencuriosity and perseverance.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Yeah, so we were filming a documentary about,
weirdly, about the human brain,and we were sort of the last
episode was about technology andyou know those sort of how our
intelligence has helped us placethings on other planets and how
we've extended ourconsciousness, you know, across
worlds and all this kind ofstuff.
So it's kind of esoteric, butwe got to film with a presenter
(13:26):
in the Mars yard and this is, Ithought it was relevant because
this is your, you know your babyin an essence, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
That's right.
This is the Curiosity Double.
In fact I can't remember theyhave another name for her.
Oh gosh, I'm, I'm see, bad mom,I can't remember.
But yeah, no, this is.
This is such a cool, I mean,what a cool place for you know
folks here about the Mars yard,but it's really hard to
understand how incredible.
(13:54):
It is right, you have this fullmock-up of Curiosity rover, now
also the Perseverance roverthere's two of them and we can
drive them around in, you know,I'll say, a Mars-like
environment, as much as we canmake Pasadena, California,
Mars-like.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah, that's so cool that you were able to be there
and filming.
And did they let you drive itBecause you can.
If you have an iPhone, theysometimes let you drive it from
your phone.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
I think this was before.
Maybe they didn't let us driveit at that point.
I don't think.
This was before maybe theydidn't let us drive it at that
point.
I don't think it's okay.
It was just doing its thing, Ithink.
But yeah, I mean for anyonelistening just on the audio,
like I'll put this up on socialsand the website and stuff.
But Nina, just sort of describewhat your baby is.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Well, it's a very large baby, it turns out.
So the Curiosity rover is thelargest rover to have been sent
to Mars and that's, you know,rivaled by Perseverance, which
is a twin.
So this rover is, just when youlook at the chassis, it's about
the size of a Mini Cooper.
It's got six wheels and it'sgot this really interesting
(15:01):
suspension system.
So there's a lot of bars kindof holding the wheels to the
body, and that's called a rockerbogey system.
It allows the rover to driveover rocks that are pretty big.
You can see that it has a verytall mast.
I think it's about two meterstall, so maybe six-ish feet tall
for those Imperial unit lovers.
It's got my instrument, theinstrument that I lead, the
(15:25):
ChemCam instrument, right at thetop, which is about the size of
a large shoe box, and it's gotwhat is essentially just one eye
, a left eye, and this is whereour laser is fired from.
So we are right at the top likethe head of the rover.
You are not quite in the lineof fire in this frame, lucky for
(15:46):
you Lucky for me.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, I mean, if it did fire at me, what would I
feel?
Would it be lethal?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
No, not at all.
So this laser, it's not eyesafe.
So please never look at thelaser, because it does vaporize
the material that it touches.
That being said, it doesn'tvaporize very much.
Now, we want to keep every partof your eye, so don't ever
vaporize any part of your eye.
But but if it, like you see,your back is to the camera.
(16:12):
So if it decided to attack youfrom behind curiosity would
never do this, but you wouldprobably feel like a little like
a pinch, or you know, or almostnothing, right, because it is
ablating micrograms.
So the the laser um can befocused on a target up to seven
meters or 23 feet away.
So you're well within range, wecould absolutely get you.
But the spot size is only likeabout a half a millimeter in
(16:36):
diameter, depending on how faraway I'd say for you maybe a
little bit bigger, and that'snot very, not very big, it's
really really small and it'sjust.
You know.
Again, you don't want tovaporize any part of your body.
It's probably a mistake unlessit's done deliberately um like
lasik, but this is not lasik, soum, yeah, so so you you are
(16:57):
well within um, you know,actually striking distance for
many of the uh instruments on onthe rover right where you're
standing, even though you're notin direct contact with it.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
And would it be able to figure out what I'm made of?
There's a left arm.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
So you're a little far away from the yes.
Yes, absolutely so.
If again, we would never ablatea person, that would be totally
a safety mistake.
But if we were to do so, yes,we would see what your
constituent elements were madeout of.
So we vaporize material and webreak down the molecular bonds
(17:35):
into elements, and thoseelements they get pushed into
these higher electronic statesfrom the heat of the laser and
as they cool down they will emitphotons at characteristic
wavelengths.
What that means is, as it coolsdown, you'll see different
colors of light, and so ChemCamcan see.
(17:56):
We have a telescope on there,also through the left eye, that
can look at the color of lightthat we make when we vaporize a
little piece of your T-shirt,and then that can tell us with
our spectrometers what elementsare in that material, and that's
without ever touching you atall.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, and so I guess it's quite a good way of
explaining your day-to-day job.
Obviously, you have this rover,which is a Curiosity rover, and
then you also have the newerbig brother.
Big sister, the Perseveranceand the instruments that you
work on the cam on this one andthen, I think, the super cam on
the other one.
(18:34):
What I mean, day to day, whatare you guys doing?
You're going out there blastingrocks to figure out where
they're made from, butultimately, what's the hope?
What are you looking for?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
These two missions have different goals.
So the goal of Curiosity is toassess the past and present
habitability of the Martianenvironment.
So habitability is anenvironment in which life as we
understand it could exist.
It doesn't mean that we'relooking for life, it just means
that we're looking forenvironments that could support
(19:08):
life that we understand.
So so that's what curiosity isdoing.
So perseverance is actually isactually looking for signs of
ancient life.
We felt so confident aboutfinding a habitable environment
in Gale Crater, where Curiosityis, that NASA felt comfortable
enough to say this next rover,which is a twin, fraternal twin
(19:31):
of Curiosity, is going to belooking for signs of ancient
life in the rocks.
That's not to say there isn'tmodern current life on Mars, but
number one, we don't have theright instrument payload to
really assess that.
And number two, if it's there,it's not very abundant.
You know it's not very obvious.
That doesn't mean it's notimportant that we shouldn't look
(19:53):
for it.
It's just not the mission ofthat rover.
And in both cases, you know, allof this information that we're
gathering with both roversreally helps us understand how
to support a future humanmission.
Right, because we have a goodinsight into what Mars is like
today.
You know Curiosity has been onthe surface of Mars for almost
(20:14):
13 Earth years.
That's a lot of data, it's alot of knowledge.
You know Perseverance has beenon the surface for a little less
time, about four years but youknow that's still a long time to
gather information to say, ok,what are the hazards that we
didn't anticipate for a humanmission?
You know, what are some thingsthat we need to keep an eye out,
what are the resources?
There's all kinds of thingsthat we can learn for a future
(20:37):
human mission from these roboticmissions.
So that's all part of what we dofrom these robotic missions.
So that's all part of what wedo.
And then, just finally, the bigpart of Perseverance.
That is quite different fromCuriosity.
Perseverance is actually thefirst part of another mission,
which is Mars sample return,taking samples that are really
well documented, really wellstudied on Mars, and we're
(20:58):
packaging them up inanticipation of sending another
spacecraft to go pick them upand bring them back to Earth.
And this will be the very firsttime we have done sample return
from Mars.
So that is a big differencebetween the missions that, you
know, curiosity.
There's plenty of things I'dlove to package up and bring
back to Earth.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
But we won't be doing that, you know, whereas with
Persever, with perseverance, wehave this opportunity now if you
get them back here, you to putyou on the spot again, finding
life confident, optimistically,hopefully optimistic,
confidently optimistic.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, you know, people always have to be right
you know well, yes and no,because scientists are so
wishy-washy, aren't we right?
We Right.
We're like well, maybe.
And I'm just going to tell youthis little story before I
answer, because I remember I waslike living in some student
housing as a grad student and Ihad an infestation of house
centipedes, which are totallyharmless but like horrifying
(21:53):
because they've got those longlegs and are very fast.
So this guy came to my house tospray the house a little bit
and so he was just like makingconversation, what do you do?
Planetary science?
I'm studying Mars.
He's like so, are there aliens?
And I was like well, it's agreat question, you know there
could be.
And he's like stopflip-flopping.
(22:15):
Yes, or no, and I was like, ohmy gosh, like that's how most
people see us nerds.
It is yeah.
Because, was like oh my gosh,like that's how most people see
us nerds.
It is because we're notanswering your question.
Like how hard is that?
Speaker 1 (22:25):
where's the aliens?
Where are the?
Speaker 2 (22:27):
aliens.
Like I don't, I'd like there tobe an option c, which is I
don't actually know where thealiens are.
Um, you know, but I am we'relooking for evidence of them.
Yeah, that's right we, you know,I would say it is.
It is tricky to answer thequestion because I I would feel,
obviously I'm confident enoughthat we could find traces of
(22:48):
life on mars, that I spend themajority of my working hours
certainly trying to find them.
So I hope that's a thestatement of confidence in the
sense that I'm like, I think,think it is incredibly plausible
.
But I also, as a scientist,cannot commit to saying I know
they're there, I just have tofind them, because that's faith,
(23:10):
which there's nothing wrongwith that per se.
But in our field we're not hereto prove our preexisting beliefs
.
We're there to figure out whatis really there and we have
often been wrong and often beenthere.
And you know, we have oftenbeen wrong and often been
surprised, and that's why it'sso important to keep your mind
open to the possibilities, evenwhen those possibilities might
(23:31):
not be, as they don't feel, asexciting.
Maybe microbes didn't makethese rocks, but whoa, there was
some really weird chemistrythat we never thought existed on
mars and that doesn't exist onearth.
That's still really interesting.
I know, maybe less interestingto the public, but still we have
to view it in that way.
You know, like um, we, we haveto.
(23:52):
You know we are.
We are confident enough that weare spending our careers doing
this yeah, we will not commit toan answer when we don't have
one yet fair enough, fair enough, fair enough, um, okay,
brilliant.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Well, listen, you get up every morning and you work
on a instrument that is acountless number of miles from
earth, that cost multiplebillions of dollars.
Um, in that career that spanned, you know, a long, a long time
and you've done so much.
I mean, is there a significantmoment in all of that that you
(24:29):
would tell the grandkids or youknow that just feels like this
is you know something that isyou know it sticks with you as a
real career highlight orsomething like that?
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Yeah, oh, my goodness .
Yes, I mean, I mean there are,there have been so many
thrilling moments, you know, somany moments of discovery.
Um, there have been somemoments of despair of you know
where things are not working.
Um, you know, I would say, Iwould say that you know this
(24:59):
might be a little bit trite, butbut you know, just seeing our
instrument, our entire rover,leave Earth for the last time
was incredibly emotional andmeaningful and terrifying, you
know, because rockets don'talways launch well, sometimes
they blow up, and if this oneblew up, I mean that blows up
(25:19):
everything that we've beenworking on for many, many years.
At that point, and, of course,when we landed, you know that's
another really dangerous point.
But also it's the first viewthat we have, the first, when
the rover, you know, opens itseyes, so to speak, and sees you
know, where did we end up?
And just getting to see animage from this place for the
(25:41):
first time, being one of thefirst people to see this.
It's just there's nothing likeit.
That is discovery at its mostbasic, and so I think there's a
lot of emotions around that.
That's probably why I can stillremember what that felt like,
especially when we were landinggosh.
I couldn't even like sit in achair.
(26:02):
I was like kind of like.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
I mean walk us through that day, like from the
night, like the morning you wakeup or whenever it is like.
Just walk us through whathappened that day.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Well, so that day, that was August 12th 2012.
I guess it was August 6th inthe East Coast, so people
sometimes get this date, but Iwas on the West Coast because I
was at the Jet PropulsionLaboratory JPL.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
You're in the room in the control room.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
That's right, although I'll just note here
there's a lot of video thatshows the flight teams EDL,
entry, descent and Landing teamwith their light blue shirts and
they're celebrating.
Everyone's like where are you?
I'm like, no, no, no, thescientists are in the basement.
We are not as photogenic.
Okay, they put us lower in thebuilding, okay, but I'm there.
I'm there, just not visible inthose videos Also jumping up and
(26:55):
down.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
That's ridiculous so yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
So I would say that, you know, our biggest fear upon
launch was, you know, an anomalywith the launch vehicle.
Now, NASA has had a really goodtrack record for a long time,
but you know, two thirds ofMartian spacecraft have failed
in some way.
And some of them have failed,you know, before they left Earth
, and so I think, if I recallcorrectly, the launch pad that
(27:22):
we were on was right next to theone that SpaceX had been
renting and they had just had ananomaly and it was all like
charred out.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Oh man.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
And you're like, oh, like cool, and it was just a
kind of reminder that things canblow up.
It was a littleanxiety-inducing for me, you
know, and just being there, andyou know we had a few being
there and, and you know we wehad a few there's a launch
window that's about two weekswide and so they can scrub the
launch for any number of reasons.
(27:50):
In fact they did, you know, wethe first time, you know they
were like we're not going to dothis, the weather's bad, you
know.
So it's kind of like, and youget all hyped up and you're
there and then you're like, oh,I guess we're not going to do
this, you know.
But you know, when we wereactually sitting there and when
we did launch, you know theyhave a lot of pauses in the
countdown that's just to confirmthat things are working.
This is again, we're trying tobe as careful as possible when
(28:17):
they pause that timer.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
you're like, oh God, you're completely powerless as
well.
You're just sitting there likesweaty palms and all sorts I can
imagine.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yeah, and I'm literally just a bystander, I
can't do anything, I have nocontribution except for my
extreme anxiety.
So you know, yes, it's dangerous, yes, it's scary, yes, there
are 3, flight teams that havegone through so many anomalies
(28:44):
in their simulators, like somany, that they are ready.
They are ready to do theirutmost to solve those problems
on the fly.
And so I always remind myselfof that too, like there's just
so much practice and testingthat happens in advance.
We don't just get together oneday and we're like, oh, like I
wonder if this works.
I don't know, we're going tofind out, push the button.
(29:05):
You know there's a lot ofrehearsal that happens.
So that's that's how, that'show I kept my anxiety, you know,
to just a simmering medium isbecause I know, I know those,
those teams are so good.
And indeed, of course, spoileralert, it launched no problem at
(29:27):
all, um, and then it was alittle anticlimactic because
it's gone now, and now the onlyway we can track it, you know,
is is just um, you know we haveto log in, like anybody else,
and see, well, where is it?
and you know it was, uh like youknow six and a half months that
it was just cruising, you know,and there's different
milestones that we hit rightlike we're going to turn this on
at this time.
We're going to do this test,you know, and so each time that
(29:48):
happened, you know we would befurther excited.
You're like this is working,yeah, but then you have to just
wait.
You just have to wait, becausethe space is big.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
And then you came back to jpl for the landing,
which i'm'm sure was even justas stressful as the launch.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Absolutely yeah.
So the landing of Curiosity wasa never before tested
combination of techniques.
So people recall that theSpirit and Opportunity rovers
had these big bouncy balls right, they were just bouncing with
airbags.
Hilarious and totally effective.
But this rover was way toolarge for those airbags.
(30:22):
It would have popped them, andso they had to design a new
technique.
And so what this was?
We used the sky crane, whichseems crazy, right.
So you come into Mars, you'vegot this, basically this back
shell that's slowing.
You can aerobrake, so there's alot of friction from the
atmosphere, but they, there'snot a lot of atmosphere on mars,
(30:44):
so you really can't use it toslow yourself down enough.
So then you gotta pop thatshell off, and then the rover
was gonna be popped out of thiscontraption, lowered on a tether
on this, uh, sky crane, whichwas like a bunch of retro
rockets pointing downward, andso that was going to slow it
(31:05):
down enough so that it couldland very gently on this tether
on the surface, and then the skycrane would cut the tether and
go off to like fall not on therover, hopefully, fingers
crossed, you know.
Um, very complicated sequence ofthings, and it all had to be
autonomous, right, we could nothelp the rover through it and,
by the way, we really couldn'ttest the full.
(31:25):
We couldn't test this entirething, because the conditions on
Mars are different, so you cantest different components to
make sure that they work, butyou don't know how they work
together until you actually landon Mars.
So it was like that's like thefirst time the whole thing was
done.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Oh my God.
What was the feeling Like thefirst time where everyone was
like it survived.
What was the feeling that youand your team felt when you had
the good news?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
I mean I had sort of two competing feelings, because
I was so excited and then I wasso tired, I was like, yeah, I
got to lie down, like cause Icause, holding anxiety into your
body is actually really, reallyexhausting.
So I'm just like, you know, wedid it guys, and then.
(32:17):
But then you know, once we, werealized that we were, we were
good, we had.
You know, there's a wholeseries of choreographed checks
that we've got to do.
We've got to unfold the mastright.
So ChemCam wasn't going to beeven usable until after that
mast comes up.
And it's a little scary becausethe mast is held down by these
(32:39):
bolts and they're explodingbolts to break them.
Oh, wow, yeah, right, by yourprecious instrument.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Delicate instrument.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yeah, With optics that you don't want to.
You know, blow up God.
So you know it's a little scary.
You're like I hope that worksout, you know, because it's
right there.
It's right there, so you'reblowing something up and then
you've got to lift the mast up,um, and then do the whole mass
checkout.
So you know it took I think ourfirst data were taken, um on
(33:09):
sol 13 of the of the mission.
So that's 13 days in, becausethat was the time where all the
check, the mast was up, we haddone all the checks and we were
ready to run our first officialsequence.
So that that 13 souls, that'slike almost.
That's like two weeks basically.
So but yeah, I mean like wewere so thrilled, we were so
excited.
We actually printed out thefirst spectrum that we ever got.
(33:31):
It was on a rock that we hadnamed Coronation, a very
glorious, auspicious name.
It's just honestly, just alittle rock.
Like you could hold it in yourhand.
You'd probably step on it ifyou went hiking.
It's just honestly, just alittle rock, like you could hold
it in your hand.
You'd probably step on it ifyou went hiking.
And we printed out the spectrumin this huge banner and then we
made it.
We just like put it in front ofour door so that everybody who
(33:52):
came into our instrument roomwould have to like duck under it
.
I'm like look at our data.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
It's amazing, we did it guys.
I mean, first things first.
I guess all of that experienceand you've now had plenty of
time to sort of digest on it buthas that, those experiences of
doing something so historic,something so monumental, like
what have you taken from that asan experience, anything you've
learned personally orprofessionally from it?
Speaker 2 (34:18):
I don't really want to sound trite, but honestly I
feel so lucky.
I feel like one of the luckiestpeople in the world because I
got to live this childhood dream, and in such a direct way.
You know, I got to work on aspaceship, I got to see it leave
Earth, I got to see it land onanother planet, and I'll always
(34:41):
feel like such a lucky personthat that got to be something
that I got to do and I got toexperience it, and I hope that I
can at least, you know, do mybest with that.
And what I mean by that is to,like you know, to do good
science and also to communicatescience to help other people,
you know who were not able to bethere.
(35:01):
There are people who weren'teven born who now have questions
about that.
You know my son wasn't born andyou know to tell him about it
and to help it, you know, tohelp him at least get a taste of
that, so that you know that hecan be ready to whatever his
spark moment is, whatever thatis, you know that he will be
ready to cherish it too.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah, brilliant, brilliant.
I mean, one of the big aspectsof your job, and indeed as a
scientist, is doing what you'redoing right now communicating
what you guys are doing.
You know, and I'm curious thatyou know conveying, spending
this time or making the effortto do this kind of stuff.
How important is that?
Whether it's inspiring like thenext generation of scientists,
(35:41):
or just helping peopleunderstand what you guys are up
to.
You're not just like some madscientist in a lab like
concocting weird things.
There's actually a genuinepurpose to it.
I mean, how important is thisact of science communication?
Speaker 2 (35:55):
I think science communication is an obligation,
and I feel that even more so,again, as a publicly funded
person.
You know it's my job to tellour taxpayers what did I do with
your money and like, why is itamazing?
And I'm happy to do that.
I love doing that.
I think there is amisconception that scientists
are separate from the sociallyawkward on average.
(36:16):
But we are human beings thatalso live within society.
We're everywhere.
You may know a scientist and youdon't know they're a scientist,
right?
You know we like to eat dinnerand go for walks.
(36:36):
You know we have interestsoutside of science too.
So we're not separate, right?
We're not different people.
We just often, you know, neverlet go of our childhood
curiosities, and that'ssomething that I think is a gift
, maybe also a curse, because wecan't let go of these little
questions that drive us crazy,and it's why we have to do
(36:57):
science.
But I think that you know thefact.
Communicating to folks, youknow here's what we're doing,
here's why it's so interesting,you know, be excited about it.
Why should anyone else beexcited about it?
And I am really excited aboutmars research.
So hopefully that is comingacross and people understand
that, you know and and sort offollowing on from that.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Like anyone listening to this who might be it could
be like a seven-year-old kid, orit could be someone who's in
their like mid-30s, who's stuckin a job.
They're like, oh, but thatsounds amazing.
Like anyone listening to this,like who would love to follow in
your footsteps or do somethingsimilar.
What kind of advice would yougive them for getting into this
(37:37):
industry?
Or whether it's specificallyplanetary science, or whether
you know science in general?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Well, I would say, first of all, don't worry about
how you're going to do it.
Right, I had no idea how I wasgoing to live my childhood dream
of working on a spaceship andyou know, yes, many adults.
They laughed.
Well, here we are right, and soI did not have a plan.
So, no matter where you are, ifyou're seven, if you're 37, you
(38:08):
know, you don't need to have itall figured out.
I would say, you know, if youknow what you love and you know
that this is what you want to do, then I would say, just follow
the opportunities.
A lot of people to feel like ohwell, you know, I just wasn't
very good at math or I wasn'tvery good at science in school,
(38:30):
so I wasn't cut out for that.
Just remember that being goodat school is not the same skill
set as being good at research.
Nobody believes me when I saythis, but I'm sure that someone
could find my transcripts.
I was not particularly good atschool.
I was not like the best studentat all, because you know,
there's a lot of things thatyou've got to do to get an a in
(38:52):
a class, okay, but what I do isnot the same skill set.
I've got to take a jumble ofinformation and make it make
sense and I've got to, like youknow, you know, be really
creative and finding connections.
Um so, yeah don't, don't countyourself out right.
And the thing is, is that likewhen I say, if you know, this is
what you want to do?
What I mean is so?
(39:13):
I want to give an example.
I had a mentor who told me okay, if you really want to figure
out what it is that you want todo, should you go to grad school
?
Should you not Make a list ofeverything that you love
learning about?
When nobody makes you do itright, it's not a homework
assignment.
So I my it's my real list.
Okay, my real list.
(39:33):
I was like oh, like, I lovescience fiction.
I read so much science fiction.
Um, I love spaceships, like,cause, spaceships are really
cool.
Uh, and I'm super into the ideaof aliens.
This is my list, okay.
And you, I was like, obviously Ishould be studying Mars, and
(39:54):
that's when I applied to gradschool to work on Mars research,
you know.
So don't, yeah, you don't haveto.
It doesn't have to be fancy,right?
You don't have to be like.
You know, I've got this verywell-formulated plan and it's
incredible.
I have, like you know, fivebullet points of like success
metrics.
You can just be like I lovespaceships, and then the next
(40:15):
step is just finding the ways tobe involved.
You don't need to start with afully formed job, right, you can
start by becoming an expert.
You know, even on your ownthere's so many resources
available, so you can startlearning and start honing that
and and then, as then, as youprogress, you're going to start
saying, hey, this is thedirection I want to go, you will
(40:36):
figure it out.
You don't have to have it allfigured out all at once.
I first got my first Mars job,actually by calling this very
prominent Mars scientist everyday for two weeks, like a crazy
person.
I know, I know.
So I was like wow, yeah, and Iwas very young and I didn't
totally appreciate how kind ofcrazy it was.
I was just really enthusiastic.
(40:57):
I also didn't appreciate thatthis guy is a very big name in
the field and um, I feel like Igot lucky, that he's actually a
really nice person.
Um, but I would call him andbecause I had read a little
article about him, I was likeI'll just call him up cause I
had read a little article abouthim.
I was like I'll just call himup and I leave him these
messages, or he would answer andhe's like oh, I don't have time
to talk.
I'm like great, I'll call youback.
Bye, like um, and then how oldwere you?
Speaker 1 (41:20):
at this point?
I was like 22, maybe barelysomething like that.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Like you know, not a baby, but I was like college age
, yeah, probably old enough toknow better, but I just, I was
just so excited to talk to himand he wasn't like saying stop
calling me.
There's finally the one time hewas like okay, seriously, why
do you keep calling me?
Speaker 1 (41:37):
and I was like your research is so interesting like
can I have a job?
Speaker 2 (41:39):
and he's like I will hire you as a student to work
for my colleague.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Stop calling okay, amazing, I'll hire you to stop,
to stop.
Please just stop calling, I'llhire you.
Yes, I mean that's, it's, but,but it worked, it totally worked
yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Well, and I, you know , I I actually got to work.
I mean, I still talk to him tothis day and he doesn't remember
it that way.
He's like no, you were really,you were so smart and I was like
I was crazy, I was weird, likeI know that, but like he, we're
still colleagues.
You know, he actually justrecently had, like it was like
um, an 80th birthday celebrationof his accomplishments and I
(42:16):
was one of the speakers thereand I got to be like you know
sweet you know, that's where itstarted.
And now, now here I am, I'mleading an instrument on a Rover
and, like it all started withthis one person who decided to
give this like weird nerd achance, you know, like on a
summer internship.
So you know I that's amazing,yeah.
So I mean I also tell peopleyou know you don't obviously
(42:36):
don't want to harass people, butyou know, I just didn't know to
stop because I was so excitedabout what he did and I wasn't
like I wasn't really demandingvery much, right, I was just
like I just want to talk to youand like, tell me about all
these things that you did andmaybe could I be your student.
And if he said no, it wouldhave been fine, amazing.
But he said yes, what have yougot to lose?
(42:57):
At the end of the day?
What have you got to lose?
I had nothing to lose.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Amazing, oh, fantastic.
Well, listen, nina, thank youso so much for taking the time
and your passion, as I saidbefore, is so infectious about
this subject and your career andobviously you know you're
extremely proud of all youraccomplishments and it's been
amazing.
So I mean just, I always liketo say at the end, I mean
anything that you would like toplug or anywhere people could
(43:23):
find you, or you know Twitter orthings like that what would you
like to plug?
Oh, sure?
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Yeah, well, I mean, I do have a website that I sort
of update.
It's minalanzacom, so you cancheck that out if you want.
I'm also on Instagram asvermillionplanet.
Yeah, I think, though, if Iwould leave folks with one
thought, I just, you know, Ithink right now, as we're
(43:48):
speaking, you know we have a lotof uncertainty in the future of
NASA in general and sort of ourfunding, and I just wanted to
remind folks that you know theyhave a say.
I think that, as I've said, youknow, mars sample return, I
think, is going to be soimportant for taking our
understanding of Mars to thenext level, because that'll be
(44:10):
finally be.
We will have these samples backhere on Earth in our
terrestrial laboratories.
And you know, maybe you don'tcare about rocks because you're
like we have plenty of rocks onEarth.
Well, if we want to send peopleto Mars, we have to understand
what rocks are there, and that'sbecause we need to understand
what resources are there forthose people.
We need to understand whathazards exist for those people
(44:54):
no-transcript, but I actuallythink that when folks see what
we can gain, and really for sucha bargain price, I would say I
think it's really worth it.
So I guess I just I hope folkscan join me in being on team
(45:14):
Mars sample return.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
Amazing, and I think that that actually extends
beyond just our Americanlisteners in Europe.
Obviously, the European SpaceAgency may or may not play a
role in that retrieval.
So if you're in Europe, you cando the same speak to your
lawmakers or yourrepresentatives that you may
know or I don't know.
Just do what Nina did and callBombard ESA until they go and
(45:39):
send a spaceship to go and getthe Mars samples.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Yes, yes, I mean, it's true.
So, yes, and thank you forbringing this up, because Mars
Sample Return is not a USmission.
It's a international mission,just like both rovers, curiosity
and Perseverance are bothinternational.
We have so many internationalpartners.
In fact, camcam and SuperCamare jointly run by the US and
(46:06):
France and France, right, soit's actually.
This is not an endeavor that'sdone by one nation, this is done
by the entire world.
And so you know, I think thosesamples they're not just going
to go to the United States,they're going to give knowledge
to everyone, and that's part ofour mandate is that we don't
keep secret data.
We actually give all of ourdata to the public, so anyone
who'd want to look at it canlook at it.
So, yeah, I think it's a reallyimportant part of our hopefully
(46:30):
, our our future, as we becomemore space faring as humans
ourselves and not just sendingour robotic scouts.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Brilliant.
Nina Lanza, thank you so muchfor taking the time for the
podcast.
It's been absolutely brilliantwith speaking with you, as
always thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
This has been such a fun conversation and, as always,
thank you for letting this hasbeen such a fun conversation and
, as always, thank you forletting me run wild and talk
your ear off about all thesethings that get me super excited
.
This has been fun.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Alrighty, see ya, and that is it for this first
episode.
I want to say a massive thankyou again to Nina for taking the
time to share her amazingstories with us and a huge thank
you to you all as well forlistening.
For photos, links and moreabout this episode, please head
(47:18):
to knowordinarymondaycom andlook for the episode page.
You can also find informationon our socials via Linktree.
Our handle isKnowOrdinaryMonday.
If you have questions or wantto share your own career story
with us, we'd love to hear fromyou.
Please get in touch via oursocials and you can also email
(47:39):
hello, hello at no ordinarymondaycom, or you can use the
submit your story page on ourwebsite.
And if you enjoyed this episode, please do two really quick
things for us give us a fivestar rating and review and tell
a friend.
It really helps us grow theshow and attract more amazing
(48:00):
guests and inspire new listeners.
And in next week's episode weexplore the crazy world of an
adventure cinematographer.
My guest is Emmy Award winnerKeith Partridge.
He takes us behind the scenesof some of the craziest stuff
he's ever done, most of itdangling perilously off a rope,
and then he also goes into thenear death experience that he
(48:22):
had high in the Peruvian Andes.
It's one you're not going towant to miss, so please
subscribe wherever you get yourpodcasts so you don't miss out
on the latest episodes.
This show is produced, hostedand edited by me, chris Barron.
Thank you so much for listeningand have a great Monday
everyone.
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