March 10, 2021 • 57 mins
Perseverance and Ingenuity. Sometimes it's all about alignment. It just so happens that this planetary alignment happened in the middle of a global pandemic. Mars reached opposition in October 2020, a "mere" 38.6 million miles away from Earth. A rare opportunity to launch a rover seeking signs of ancient life to collect samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and soil) for a possible return to Earth. So, the many scientists and engineers involved in the Mars 2020 Mission persevered, finding ways to continue their innovative work and successfully launch the Perseverance Rover on July 30, 2020.
On February 18, 2021, it landed. Now, more than 144 million miles away, this amazing technology is sending back incredible images of the red planet. Next up, the Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity, will test powered flight on another world for the first time.
This week we're talking about this spectacular accomplishment, one that sparks the imagination about humankind's capacity for perseverance and ingenuity, with Rob Sullivan, Principal Research Scientist at the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, and Co-Investigator with Mastcam-Z and MEDA on the Mars 2020 mission.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
We are experiencing a paradigm shift, a fundamental
change in the way we usually dothings.
We are intentionally choosing tosee the silver lining
opportunity arises.
We can shine a light on thethings that weren't working well
(00:25):
on those things that weren'treally working at all, we can
regroup reevaluate andre-engineer it's time to explore
new patterns and paradigms thosethat inspire us to rise above
the chaos and explore how theconditions of today and take us
(00:47):
to a better tomorrow patternsand paradigms the pattern
podcast from Hudson Valleypattern for progress, your
listening to season two, episode10, perseverance and ingenuity
the mission to Mars with yourhost pattern, president and CEO,
Jonathan Dropkin.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Hi everyone, and welcome to patterns and
paradigms.
We hope you enjoyed theinterview with access supports
for livings CEO and presidentRon Colivida in which we
explored some of the changesthat have taken place in working
with people with disabilities inthis new COVID world.
(01:30):
Please remember to subscribe toour podcast and take a moment to
share an episode with a friendbubble or trend.
So in keeping with today'sguest, we are in the midst of a
I'm going to just have to callit what it is a trend.
When it comes to space travel.
(01:52):
We have NASA with projects toMars and soon the moon.
Um, there's a team of astronautstraining now for three missions
known as Artemis in which wewill be landing the first woman
(02:12):
on the moon.
And in fact, all of the seniorpositions related to this
project are being led by women.
I really commend to yourattention.
The episode on 60 minutes onMarch seven is when it aired,
(02:35):
um, to see what this project isabout.
Now, in addition to NASA, thereis the efforts from the private
sector like Elon Musk, andthere's one in which he's
collaborating with NASA.
And then sometimes he is workingon his own rockets, which appear
(02:56):
to be less expensive, but verymuch, um, in this trend of space
exploration.
In fact, Elon Musk will shortlybe putting civilians into space.
So after what appeared to be apublic hiatus of talking about
(03:17):
space travel, it seems to be atrend that's coming back before
I introduce our guests to talkabout space.
I wanted to take a moment to askmy partner had pattern, Joe
Chakka what's up, Joe, Hey Joedidn't.
We just finished the UlsterCounty housing project.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
We did Jonathan.
Last week, we finalized theUlster County housing action
plan, and it was released tothe, to the public pattern put
months and months of veryintense work into 144 page
report.
We looked at data anddemographics and local need to
show how intense the need is fora range of housing options
(04:02):
across the entire County patternalso created individual housing
snapshots for each municipalitywithin the County.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Wait, Joe, that sounds quite elaborate.
How long did you work on this?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Oh, let's see.
We started that project almost ayear ago and it was, it was very
intense.
We put many hours into this.
We did a lot of interviews.
We did a lot of analysis ondata.
We did mapping, we did ananalysis of demographics and we
came out with a very high levelaction plan that really consists
(04:42):
of five.
What I would call basicelements.
What they're very intense.
The first one establishingUlster County housing task
force.
The second one was to establishpartnerships and collaborate
with developers for scatteredsite redevelopment.
The third was increased.
(05:02):
The supply of supported andtransitional housing throughout
the County.
The fourth create a housingsmart communities initiative,
similar to the climate smartinitiative.
And the fifth would beestablishing a housing fund for
Ulster County.
Each one of these has pages ofinformation, best practices and
(05:25):
recommendations on how toimplement.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
And I think you also mentioned that there's a profile
for each municipality within, sothey could go to the full report
to find that
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Absolutely online and Ulster county's website and the
planning department, there is asnapshot and each one is 10 or
11 pages.
And we did a deep dive on everymunicipality throughout the
County on housing.
And it really shows the profileof need.
It shows how the demographicschanged, and it's a tool that
(05:59):
really lays the foundation formunicipalities to create their
own local strategic plan forhousing.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Well, Joe, that's just another great effort in
housing and you know, I thinkthanks to your work, we've been
able to show why housing isn'tan afterthought to economic
development.
We actually have economicdevelopers talking about the
need for housing to be locatednearby.
(06:29):
I mean, we not, not us.
We're not going to take creditfor this, but lo and behold,
Amazon actually has a pooledmoney set aside for assisting
people with housing, becausethere's a recognition that there
is a housing crisis in thiscountry.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Well, that's right.
And I would encourage ourlisteners to go to the report
and read the narrativedescribing how affordable
housing and all market ratehousing is interest intricately,
linked to economic developmentand workforce development.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Today, we're going to be talking with Rob Sullivan.
Rob is the senior researchassociate and co-investigator
for the ongoing mission to Mars,which landed a Rover on the
planet on February 18th, knownas perseverance.
Rob is a professor at theCornell center for astrophysics
(07:28):
and planetary science.
And we couldn't be more thrilledthat he's figured out how to
spend time with us.
Now that's not so easy since Robhad to adjust his time to Mars
time.
And we're going to talk a bitabout what that means now, one
other point, why is thisimportant to pattern for
progress, a mission to Mars?
(07:49):
I think that I can sum it up injust one, thought it sparks the
imagination.
And that's how I view spacetravel, which is, imagine the
possibilities.
And if we could just get thatlittle spark ignited in all of
(08:10):
our listeners and all the peoplethroughout the Hudson Valley and
in our region, then it's a goodthing.
And so what better way to do itthan to talk about just an
incredible feat if you likedthis episode, um, please let us
know by contactingus@patternforprogress.org slash
(08:33):
podcast.
Hi, Rob, and welcome to patternsand paradigms.
How are you doing and how, howhas COVID effected your life?
Let's just get that out of theway.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
I've been fortunate with family.
We've been able to stay healthy.
Uh, we've been very rigorousabout, uh, being careful wearing
masks, trying to do all theright things.
So, uh, compared to a lot ofpeople, we have come out well,
but we've been very, verycareful.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
All right.
So that's all good news.
All right.
Your position at Cornell little,did I know someone who thinks he
knows everything about New Yorkstate?
Um, so why don't you tell meabout your position at Cornell
and the, the unit or section ofCornell that you work for
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Sure.
I work in the department ofastronomy and their research arm
in our sort of greater astronomydepartment here at Cornell.
There's several of us who workon the perseverance Rover right
now and are also involved withother space flight projects.
It's just, uh, an emphasis thatour department has had really
for decades to be involved withactive space flight program.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Did the pandemic do anything to the scheduling of
this mission in terms of, Idon't know, it affected
everything else in life.
So
Speaker 4 (09:46):
The way we time a mission to Mars, Mars kind of
calls the shots in that.
Mars is always out there.
And of course we're always here.
It seems like we should be ableto go anytime we want, but it
turns out there are certaintimes of how the planets to lie,
where you can be very efficientin getting to Mars.
You can get the most scientificpayload for the investment that
(10:08):
you make in your rocket and thenthe fuel it requires.
And so it's kind of up toorbital mechanics when you need
to launch, which means COVID ornot.
We had to be ready to go duringthe original launch window,
which was July of 2020, right inthe middle of the pandemic.
And so some very courageous andhardworking engineers, as well
(10:28):
as the scientists who helpedthem on the side had to keep
going and get the payloadinstruments, assembled,
calibrated, get them bolted ontothe Rover, get the Rover in
shape, constructed thoroughlytested and shipped to Cape
Canaveral for launch all ontime.
We could not delay that becauseof COVID.
(10:48):
So, uh, NASA leadership was verysupportive of these efforts and,
uh, gave the team everythingthat we could think of to try
and get the job done in the timewe needed, because if we missed
the launch window in July of2020, we would have had to wait
two more years, which isextremely expensive.
And also there are certainthings about the Rover that
(11:11):
wouldn't be in as good shape twoyears from now as they would
when they're actually designedto be ready for launch.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
All right.
So let's, let's just for ourlisteners.
So Mars is how far away.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Well, it kind of varies when you get on a good
day.
Every couple of years, it getsas close as 35 million miles.
Um, but Mars is a, Marvin isactually not quite as round as
earth.
So even when we have a closeapproach, it's called
opposition.
When Mars has pride in the skyand shines down all that long
it's brilliantly red, thebrightest thing, the sky, except
for the moon, those oppositions,that distance varies.
(11:44):
I don't know the number of myhead, right.
And I think 35 million is, ispretty close, close as it gets.
But most of the time the planetsaren't lined up that way.
They're not lined up that waythat now.
And so I can look it up for you,but I think Mars is probably
over a hundred million milesaway, right from us right now.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
So it's sort of more of an elliptical orbit and
therefore it, it could vary thedistance.
Okay.
Yep.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
You started in your mind's eye.
If you've got a couple ofhula-hoops one smaller than the
other, they're pretty round.
You just drop them.
Right on top of each other, theinner one would be earth.
The next outer one would beMars, but the Martian hula hoop
is a little bit out of whack.
It's not quite round it'selliptical.
So where are you cross pathswith a planet?
Is w whether it's sort of on thenarrow side of the ellipse or
(12:28):
the fatter side,
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Say it's 35 million.
Alright.
Yeah.
That's, it's not around thecorner and you have been
involved in this mission and itlands 35 million miles away.
If I remember it correctly,everyone was cheering because it
landed perfectly.
Yeah.
I mean, people have a hard timeparallel parking.
(12:49):
I mean, you said this thing 35million miles and all right.
So give me a sense of the team.
Cause you mentioned to me,there's hundreds of people that
work on this all over the place.
So if you can give me a sense ofwhere is everybody
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Well, the credit for the landing event, which most
people are familiar with fromthe news, not so much what the
scientists are doing now, butthe landing event, which is well
publicized really goes to theengineers.
Um, and they are, I reallyadmire the integrity of how the
engineers do their job.
They are so accountable for whatthey do in the way they do it.
(13:24):
You know, if there are twogroups of engineers working on
two sub-assemblies for monthsand months and months just
everything's been blueprintedand machine with exactness and
sub-assemblies are, are ready togo each one, each side, and
they're ready to be boltedtogether.
And you know, this has been on acalendar for months.
And when they go to do that, oneof the bolt holes is off by a
(13:46):
little bit.
And so it, it doesn't gotogether.
The engineers that do this arethe kind of people that wouldn't
start pointing fingers at theothers.
I know your interface is raw.
How did, how would you put ahole there when the boats all
spots?
These engineers, the kinds ofpeople that their first instinct
is to look at their own workvery rapidly.
(14:06):
Oh my gosh, did I screw up?
And if so, how did I let theteam down?
Because the only thing worse, Ithink, than, than making a
mistake is having someone elsepointed out for you.
They want to all in one breath,figure out what went wrong and
here's the recovery plan.
They just have so much integrityand accountability.
And I think that's the only wayyou could pull off what they
(14:29):
did, which is to take a vehicle,the size of sort of a mini
Cooper, like car blasted off theearth, have a cross millions of
miles and landed with precisionon the surface of another
planet.
You're going from thousands ofmiles an hour in seven and a
half minutes to touchdown, youknow, very, very slow speed at
(14:49):
just the right altitude.
It's just fabulous, fabulousachievement.
And I give them all the creditas customers.
The scientists are justcustomers.
We're just so grateful for whatthey do and how they've done it.
And I should say that we decidedto have lots of practice tests,
how to use the vehicle, becauseremember efficiency is very
(15:10):
important.
We can't waste a moment.
Once we're on Mars, you have touse the vehicle as thoroughly,
as carefully, as efficiently aswe can.
So there are all these teststhat we do call operational
readiness tests, where it's alldone virtually now with COVID.
So it's pretty weird, but allthese tests where you get
practice images that come backfrom a copy of the Rover, that's
(15:32):
in a sort of gymnasium sizedtest bed, a JPL it's, you know,
it's on gravel and there, youcan see the walls and the camera
pictures.
And you know, sometimes thereare people sitting at a desk in
some corner of the room whileyou're carrying out this test,
trying to pretend you're onMars.
And then February 18th happens.
And if someone like me issitting in their office, just
(15:53):
like they were during all thoseweeks of tests and using the
same software, but then thepicture that comes back is not
the same old picture of, youknow, some gravel part of a
floor in a lab with someonesitting in the background,
operating the Rover.
It's Mars, it's this alienplanet, hun, you know, more than
(16:13):
a hundred million miles away atthat point.
And it's shocking.
It's just shocking.
Everything's the same on thecomputer screen, except you're
looking at Mars right there nextto the Rover wheel.
And in that moment you realizeall the great work that's been
(16:34):
done by so many hardworkingpeople during a pandemic to make
that possible.
And that was like,
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah.
And, and, and I could, you know,I can feel your emotion about
it.
I get to just be a cheerleaderon the side going isn't that
remarkable.
Someone asked me, why would I dothis as a podcast here in the
Hudson Valley?
And I said, if I could ignitethe interest of anybody, not,
(17:05):
not even in space travel, butignite imagination.
Yeah.
And then spark that to, well,how do we do something?
I don't care what the, um, thefield is for me, you know, it is
about, okay, it's problemsolving.
(17:26):
It's Imagineering, it's allthese words.
And, you know, I, I just findthat the precision and the
number of people that went intothis, I, I do feel your emotion
about this, which is, it is justremarkable.
Um, and I'm only sorry that ithappened in the middle of a
pandemic in the middle ofpolitical polarization and all
(17:47):
the other issues, because I feelas if the country should have
been watching that moment.
And yeah,
Speaker 4 (17:54):
I think a lot of people were, and I'm, it's hard
to rate.
It's hard to guess how thingsmight've been different if we
had not been in a pandemic, butmy personal sense of it is that
we could really use some goodnews.
Uh, the news cycle has beenmonotonously discouraging for
certainly during the pandemic,even depending on your point of
(18:17):
view, even before that.
And here's something, an eventthat is totally non-partisan,
it's international, it's aninternational team.
It's not just our country orsome part of the country.
And a lot of people had to workvery hard to accomplish
something very difficult, kindof on behalf of civilization in
our future.
(18:38):
And oftentimes I think in thenew cycle that we paid attention
to civilization, doesn't look sogood.
Sometimes some of the thingsthat we get caught doing, and
this is an instance, I thinkthat might have been perhaps
more welcomed if there than ifthere hadn't been a pandemic to
see a group of people who'veworked very hard for a very
(19:02):
difficult goal, actually achieveit on behalf of everyone,
including students who can takea look at this and say, you
know, one day could I do, howcould I participate in something
that will make a differencedecades in the future?
Um, someone like me, I'm justlucky enough to participate.
Like I said, I'm a happyscientific customer, the
(19:23):
engineers.
I really want to throw thecredit to them.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Now, when you say happy to participate.
So let me see.
I found an article in the, if,if a cute voice from 2014, that
was entitled six crazy things,Cornell university professors
are working on.
And there you are withco-investigator Alex Hayes has
working on the mask camp, XE therovers zoomable mass mounted
(19:53):
camera system.
All right.
Help me figure out and help mylisteners figure out what was it
exactly that you were working onin 2014?
This is, you know, seven yearsago.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Yeah.
It's a kind of indication of howlong it takes for these projects
to first of all, get them readyto fly.
That has to be very carefullyprepared and then to fly them.
So in any case, mass Kimsey is a, can we clear my throat for a
moment?
Picture the Rover as, uh, asyour surrogate or your listeners
surrogate on Mars.
(20:28):
It's about two meters tall.
That's about the height of, uh,a lot of people walking along
the surface, it's got an arm,it's got to have eyes and mass
Kimsey are the eyes, the it's acolor camera.
It's actually a little bitbetter than the human eye in
some respects, because it's gotfilter wheels on each that see
wavelengths, not just the oneswe can see, but also the
(20:52):
wavelengths that machines cansee a little bit into the
infrared that can helpdistinguish compositions a bit
more than we can with just oursort of red to green, to blue, a
spectrum that we can.
And it zoomable so that we don'thave to drive quite as far to
see things close up around us,um, that helps us understand our
(21:12):
terrain much better and moreefficiently than if we had to
drive everywhere to see thingsclose up.
The zoom lens has helped that.
And I said lenses because thereare two of them just like most
humans who have two working eyesand can see stereo.
So can mask cams, either twoidentical cameras mounted a
about the same height as, as atall adult would.
(21:35):
And instead of walking acrossMars, they're being carried by
six wheels.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
So the images that I see, and I would say to anyone
that needs to understand thecool factor, go look for the
March 2nd edition of the NewYork times, the science section,
where there's this two pagespread of the surface of Mars.
And this is no longer just like,you know, Oh wait, that's where,
(22:01):
you know, Tom cruise, the badguys came from and you know, in
his movie, you know, um, but itis, it is.
So the images that I'm lookingat your camera is taking those
images.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
There are other cameras on board too.
I'd have to look carefully atthe caption for the, uh, the
Sunday, the New York timesarticle, but there are other
cameras to the mass cam, Zcameras are the, the main
science cameras up on the mass,but we also have some navigation
cameras that aren't as high asresolution, but they're good
enough to take images far enoughadvanced that will help guide
(22:41):
how we drive the Rover.
It's got a wider field of view.
So you can take in more of theterrain, even if it's lower
resolution and make stereo mapsthat will help.
What's called the Rover planets,kind of the engineers who are in
charge of driving the Rover, no,the train where it's safe to go
and where it's not safe to go.
So they can project drivesseveral tens of meters, perhaps
(23:02):
even more if the train allowsand we need to get where we're
going fast, because we've got alot to do during the prime
mission, we've got to collectall these samples and they have
to be wisely chosen, and they'regoing to be spread apart several
kilometers along our traverse.
So it's important that we havenavigation cameras that help
that they're also hazardavoidance cameras.
And these are not mounted on themask.
(23:24):
They can't be pointed or aimedor swiveled around their body
mounted bolted on down to theRover Donald on the Rover down
low.
They look for things that might,uh, be good for the arm to look
at.
They're very close.
They can be close range.
And there are some hazardavoidance cameras on the rear,
too.
There's some obstructions on therear of the deck, which can get
(23:45):
in the way of the view of themast, but the rear has it avoids
cameras can see.
So they're also all kinds ofother cameras that are used
during EDL that's entry,descent, and landing that's that
seven and a half minutes wherewe transitioned from a
spacecraft to a Rover.
And some of the most spectacularimages that have been spread on
the web so far are from thosecameras.
(24:06):
Looking up as the parachutedeploys, looking down as we sort
of plummet toward Mars, almostan earthward, but that would
have been wrong right towardMars toward our landing site.
And we have not had cameras thatdo those things before on
previous rovers, we didn't, wedidn't know.
We just hoped that things wouldwork.
We had a little bit of telemetrytelling us things were going
(24:26):
well, unfortunately they were.
But these cameras that I justmentioned about looking up or
looking down during landing,it's a very risky part of, of
the mission and getting the verybest possible data to see what
worked, what barely worked.
It needs a little bit of tuning.
The next time you tried this,what, you know, did something
deploy late to something, deployearly, something deploy, not
(24:49):
when we flipped the way itthought we would.
That's what those cameras werefor.
And I've not heard the finalanalysis, the engineers probably
going to scrutinize every pixelof every image that came back
from those EDL cameras.
But I've not heard anythingthat, that didn't go extremely
well during EDL.
So, uh, I can only pass alonggood news, the same good news
(25:11):
that you and perhaps your, yourlisteners already know about the
EDL worked superbly.
Well, again, hats off to theengineers.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
All right.
So the, the, the help me out.
So the mission or the Rover iscalled perseverance, and then,
then there's this helicoptercalled ingenuity.
So what, what's that?
And how does that work?
Yeah,
Speaker 4 (25:38):
So, so the rovers got their names, uh, from, uh, a
competition among schoolchildren at various ages.
And I forget now the names andages of who won, but one student
, uh, pick perseverance, andthere was an essay contest.
And another student pickedingenuity.
I happened to trip over thenames a little bit.
(25:58):
They're new to me because wedidn't have those names until
for years we've been working onthis.
It's just Mars, 2020 and thehelicopter and the names were
picked, you know, I think rightaround launch.
So I'm still getting used tothem.
And frankly, they're an awfullot of syllables.
Mars, 2020 are just, the roversis easy for me that helicopter.
(26:19):
I didn't know what that is, butthat's how they got their names
about the helicopter.
Um, it's just a test demo.
It's not part of the scientificpayload, but the Martian
atmosphere as your listenersmight know is extremely thin.
It's about one 80th, the densityof the atmosphere on earth.
(26:39):
So even if it had a lot ofoxygen in it, we still, there
still wouldn't be enough tobreathe.
So making a helicopter is prettydifficult.
You've got to have those bladeson earth, whirl around, you
know, with the tremendouswhopping copping flopping sound
of a helicopter when it goes bythat's just brute force, those
helicopter blades beating theair downward, uh, lifting the
(27:01):
helicopter into the air.
In fact, the helicopter blade isactually in cross section like a
wing, like an airplane's wing.
So on Mars, how do you do thatwith an atmosphere?
That's one 80th is dense.
Well, the answer is you makethose blades go very, very fast,
much faster than helicopterblades on earth and to set
(27:21):
expectations.
This is not a, you know, a Hueythat you can step into.
This is a little tinycontraption.
It looks like a drone really interms of, okay.
Okay.
And it's powered with a smallsolar panel and, uh, which means
it can't fly all day long.
It goes up, it flies for a fewminutes, comes down, it's got a
couple of cameras on it.
(27:42):
One of which is a gray scale.
In other words, it's black andwhite.
And it's designed really fortaking pictures of the surface
as the helicopter flies, whereit compares one picture after
another to try and find, toconfirm where it is in the sky.
Is it, is it sliding to the leftor the right?
Or is it going up or down is outof the things in the, in the
(28:03):
gray scale picture, gettingbigger or smaller, but the
pictures that we're likely toget back from it, uh, are from,
uh, a color camera that takespictures, not quite straight
down a little bit off to theside.
And, uh, we'll be lookingforward to seeing those
pictures, but it's, uh, it's,it's, it's a test demo.
And so one of the things thatwe're going to be doing when the
(28:23):
helicopters flying is monitoringit very carefully, but not right
next to it, because we don'twant to get a hit.
If the helicopter flight goesunexpectedly, we'll be
monitoring it.
Using mass Kimsey.
The zoom function on the lensesmeans we can park a safe
distance away and do a standoff,uh, video typing to do video of
(28:47):
the helicopter, attempting tofly.
So all that is not really beendone on earth.
Of course it only works on Marsif it works at all.
So all these things have to cometogether and we'll see how the
experiments go.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Okay.
So let me see if I've got it.
Use the imagery of a drone isthe helicopter pre-programmed.
So that it's just going to dosomething at a specific time, or
are we actually controlling thehelicopter here on earth somehow
(29:22):
through the magic ofengineering?
Yeah.
Well, the, um,
Speaker 4 (29:27):
It's a little bit of both, but I think what you're
you might be asking is, are we,joysticking the helicopter real
time?
Unfortunately we can't one waylight time.
Uh, let me see if I can look itup, right.
It is about 12 minutes, 49seconds, which means if your
helicopter goes up and youwanted to control it, your
(29:50):
command to steer at one way oranother prevented from crashed.
And we get there about 12minutes, 49 seconds too late.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
So, okay.
Speaker 4 (29:59):
So the engineering helicopter is kind of like the
Rover in that.
One of the things we, we, wedon't joystick the Rover while
it's driving across the surface,either because of the same
problem, we send it somecommands like a shopping list.
If you will, of instructionsthat it's supposed to carry out
over its day and the Rover willdo we ask it to do, but using
(30:21):
commands that we send it aheadof time, the Rover is kind of
smart in that it takes picturesonce in a while, say when it's
driving to make sure it's notdriving over a cliff, there,
there, there are certain failsafes on board.
But for the most part, we haveto make up our minds the day
before and what the Rover'sgoing to do on it's next day on
Mars.
(30:42):
And that's why it takes so mucheffort is because we have to
stay ahead of the Rover.
If we fail to get our decisionsmade and our plans made and all
those turn into very carefullyconstructed, uh, Rover commands
and get that, as they say,uplinked or sent to the Rover in
time for when it wakes up, weblow it.
(31:03):
We've missed a Mars day ofactivity.
It goes into what's called arun-out sequence, which does
some good things.
And it looks at the sky measuresa few things that it can do
pretty safely without a lot ofground in the loop, as they say,
but we were all considered awaste of a martial day if we
ever let that happen.
So that's how the Rover works.
We have to get thoseinstructions ready every single
(31:25):
day, which means we've got tolook at the very latest stuff
from the, from Mars to make surethat the instructions fit those.
He was there a dog bone in ourwork volume.
Well, maybe we shouldn't drive.
Maybe we should stop and take alook at that.
Um, is it, is it an Outlander,for example, the helicopter is
kind of the same way in that.
We have to tell what to do say,okay, you're on your own at
(31:49):
10:00 AM.
I'm just making this up.
I'm not sure this is the trueflight plan.
I want you to turn yourself onand fly straight up two meters
hover for 30 seconds and comeback down again in the very same
spot.
And the helicopter is smartenough through its black and
white camera to know when it'smoved upward about two meters.
(32:12):
And if it's starting to drift,it follows us instructions.
So that's how we fly thehelicopter.
We have to command it to do endto end what it's going to do
when its flight ahead of time.
We can't change its mind whileit's flying and steer it towards
something that we happen to beseeing in real time.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Um, okay.
So one of the things that youand I, and I probably got this
wrong, but it was, we had a syncup when I was looking for a time
to speak with you.
Yeah.
The timing of when I could speakto mattered.
Can you explain that?
And
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, sure.
So the Martian day is a littlebit longer than earth day, which
means if we want to keep theRover busy and make our
deadlines, we have to keep upwith it on it's time schedule,
not our own.
And that means if you want tofollow the Marsh and rovers day,
which is a little longer thanours.
(33:09):
After a couple of weeks, yourealize you're working in the
middle of the night, it's kindof like, uh, going on jet lag
about 39, 40 minutes every day.
Your time zone is shifting bythat amount.
So it's kind of a big deal.
It's more than an inconvenience,uh, in that people from fatigue,
(33:29):
they shouldn't be runningrovers.
They shouldn't be sequencingrovers if they're tired.
And so an effort is made by alot of people on these missions
to get onto Mars timepermanently, at least for as
long as we operate on Mars time.
And that can be problematic.
Uh, they're all kinds of bodyclock issues that, that don't
sync up.
(33:49):
And we've, we've been briefedabout, uh, you know, be careful
when you're driving.
If you get off shift at seven inthe morning, and you've been on
shift that the solid before, andyou're done at six in the
morning or five, and you've beendoing this for several, several
days, you don't realize howtired you can get.
So they're all kind of ways tosort of fight this back, but
(34:10):
there, there are rules to,you're not supposed to be out of
shift for more than four days ata time.
The complication now with allthat.
And it's, it's not a perfectthing, no matter how many
guidelines you follow for, fordealing with Mars time.
In, for instance, when I just,uh, when you, you get off shift
and you come out the brightsunlight, he doesn't want to go
to bed, you go back to yourhotel and, uh, you know, there's
(34:32):
lit light leaking into theshades, all kinds of problems
like that.
But with Kohler, with thepandemic, we're all working from
home.
And we can't ask our families togo into Maurice time.
They've got to attend school andthey've got jobs too.
So a lot of us are dealing withMars time, not as in a pure
fashion, as we might berecommended, just not realistic
(34:55):
as for myself, I sleep when Ican I take naps when I have to,
uh, try and align things sothat, you know, when I'm on
shift, I'm on shift.
And, uh, I'm not doing that athome.
I'm, I'm one of the few peopleI'm allowed to go into my
office, partly because I don'thave the bandwidth at home to
support flight operations, butpartly too, because I'm not
(35:16):
starting my family in the middleof the night.
I mean, when I wake up at two inthe morning to get on shift or
something like that, yeah.
My alarm goes off, but my wifegets back to sleep.
Otherwise I'm out of there.
I get into the office and that'swhere I do my work.
And that's happening for theteam, you know, throughout the
team.
They're just trying to handleMars time as best I can.
It's a little bit more difficultwith, with the pandemic.
(35:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Which is which personalizes, what is your
experience as part of the teamin a way that I don't think
myself for any listener,whatever.
Imagine, um, okay.
I think when we were talkingearlier, you were explaining to
me that there's sort of like ashelf life for what is land the
(35:59):
Rover.
I mean, you have to get done,sir.
What is, what am I trying to saythere that
Speaker 4 (36:05):
Well, um, machines wear out, especially complicated
machines.
Um, the Mer rovers, I don't knowif your listeners are familiar
with those.
These were launched to land onMars in 2004, each one of them,
there, there are two of them onopposite sides of the planet.
Um, there were supposed to havea 90 day mission, but because of
again, great engineering, theylasted a lot longer eventually.
(36:30):
Uh, one of the wheels and asecond wheel broke on one of
these rovers.
And so the mobility was westopped and we couldn't drive to
someplace where we could tiltthe solar panels enough, you
know, a slope and survive thenext Marshall winter.
There are solar powered.
Um, so things break, um,uncomplicated vehicles.
(36:54):
And it can be very ungraceful.
If you lose a wheel, even if theother five are working, you
can't drive anymore.
At least not well, but you'redragging that wheel, which we
did with the Rover spirit forawhile.
Uh, your high gain antenna.
That's your sort of your, yourdish antenna, if you will, that
allows lots of communication.
If that doesn't work, it's, it'sgot an asthma myth and elevation
(37:16):
control that allows pointing.
If, if that doesn't work now,your communications are down to
a small fraction of what theyotherwise would be, which means
that the data that you give backis a small fraction of what
otherwise would be.
Um, if that mast, I was talkingabout where mass Kimsey is
mounted, if that stops beingable to swivel or get stuck in
(37:36):
some awkward position, thatcould be the end of the mission.
All of these different thingscan go wrong on this Rover.
We don't know how the missionwill end, uh, which what will
fail first.
We do know that that day willcome and that's why every single
day we're on the surface.
It's just, it's a great gift.
It's a humbling gift that wehave to make the very most stuff
(38:00):
.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Now, did I read somewhere that like in 20, 26 or
so like five years from nowbegins this other set of rockets
or something that is heading toMars to retrieve something?
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Yeah.
The perseverance mission, theMars 2020 mission is really just
the first step of a much granderenterprise.
Recall the course back a longtime ago.
You and I are old enough torecall the Apollo missions.
How was she to kid?
You were just a kid.
And the reason we went toactually collect moon is because
(38:37):
it's very difficult to do allthe scientific analysis on the
surface of the moon.
You've got to take your bulkyinstruments that might take up
as much room as an entire labarea on earth, and somehow
miniaturized them.
So back in the sixties, well, weobviously can't do that.
Let's bring the samples back andwe'll have the samples forever
(38:59):
and we can analyze them fordecades.
And we're going to get betterlab instruments, you know,
decades from now.
We'll be glad we have thesesamples and it'll be this
treasure for civilization for,for forever.
Well, we can't do that on Marsbecause we can't fly astronauts
there to just land and pick upsamples like we did with Apollo.
It's simply too far toochallenging, but perhaps we
(39:21):
could use robots to get thesesamples back.
Well, it's, it's tricky becauseit's so much further than the
moon 240,000 miles to the moon,35 million miles to Mars on a
good day.
Most of the time, far, farworse.
So the idea is that the Mars2020 Rover perseverance will do
(39:43):
lots of analysis along itstraverse and choose carefully
about 30 or so, perhaps fewersamples of the terrain that it
is traversing across and putthose into little samples, uh,
containers about the size of apenlight and then take those
samples to one place wherethey're probably safe enough
(40:06):
intended to be safe enough for afollow-on mission to come down
and land a little Rover.
We'll crawl off that futuremission, come over, scoop up all
the samples that our roverscarefully prepared.
Bring them back to that.
Lander it'd be a small rocket onthat, that Lander, that rocket
will take the samples and launchthem up to Marsh and orbit.
(40:29):
Never done that before.
And another orbiter will comealong and find them in Marsha
orbit and contain them and takethem back to earth where they'll
be delivered probably to theUtah desert and be picked up and
we'll have those samplesforever.
What could possibly go wrong?
(40:49):
Right.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Well, I, you know, that's my next question, Rob,
which is like, you know, so havethere been any surprises good or
bad or that you're that andanything obvious, like, like
fine.
I, I'm not really asking you totell me what went wrong because
goodness knows there could be agood zillion things that could
(41:11):
go wrong, but what surprised youthat went, right?
You know, like maybe that youwere like uncertain that you
were going to be able to do Xand it worked,
Speaker 4 (41:22):
Uh, well, lots and lots of things have gone right
so far.
Okay.
Um, more than most peopleexpected a complicated vehicle,
that's had to endure the shockof being onboard a rocket as it
launches the cruel environmentof space for seven months.
And then in seven and a halfminutes being slowed down from
several thousand miles an hourto land on the Martian surface,
(41:45):
which is very inhospitable.
It gets extremely cold at night,which is not good for
electronics.
And a lot of other things likemoving parts, all kinds of
things can go wrong.
Um, so far the vehiclecheckouts, first thing we do
after we land, we raise themask, we exercise the arm.
Uh, we've done a little bit ofdriving our first driving over
(42:06):
the last couple of days,everything has worked amazingly
well.
Uh, there are no anomalies thatI know of, and I did not expect
to be talking to anyone at thispoint in the mission and being
able to say that now theengineers are closer to the
mission, may know of somethings, but they be telling the
operations team, if there areanything we needed to worry
(42:27):
about or postpone or delay whilethey checked something out
because they are priority rightnow and the mission checking out
the vehicle, making sure it'sready to go for the science
mission that we have a plan.
And they're going to turn overthe keys to us and say, okay,
everything's working or perhapstwo weeks from now, we've
discovered something isn'tworking quite right.
And they'll say, well,everything's working, but except
(42:48):
for this, you're going to haveto do a work around on that.
But so far everything has goneamazingly well, again, hats off
to the engineers.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Well, and to everyone involved in this, now something
dawned on me, which I shouldknow the answer to, but I didn't
see it anywhere.
So for the six or seven monthsthat it took to get to Mars, we
were there, you know, speakingof cameras, were there images
being sent back during theflight of the universe?
(43:21):
Well,
Speaker 4 (43:21):
Sort of in that like mass cam Z for instance, and a
lot of the other instrumentshave very short checkout
sequences, a liveliness checksto make sure they're doing well.
We don't do that often becausefrankly, there's not much we can
do.
If we discover a problem, it'sjust good to be aware of it as
soon as something might be goingwrong, but those pictures are
(43:43):
taken while the Rover is stillinside.
It's it's it's capsule, if youwill, heat shield and there's
container protect it.
And so we can't see outside, wecan't see Mars getting big in
the windshield, so to speak, um,or watching earth recede in the
distance as we fly away from it.
These are images that, uh, noone, but the engineers and the
(44:07):
scientists close to theinstruments would be excited
about getting back a black imagethat with the right temperatures
and, and just, we expect is morelike a sigh of relief than some
sort of a grand aestheticadventure in terms of an image
on board of spacecraft, uh,approaching Mars.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Um, any sense yet?
I mean, one of the things, if myhistory is right about the whole
Apollo, which is why, you know,people celebrate landing on the
moon, but honestly it wastechnology invented along the
way that was then shared and hadapp applications in life, on
earth.
(44:46):
Anything like that yet from thiseffort to go to Mars.
Speaker 4 (44:53):
That's a great question.
And I'm not sure I have a goodanswer because the technology
kind of goes both ways in that.
Um, you invent new technologywhen you have to, when, when the
mission that the, the thingyou're trying to achieve, forces
you to just can't do it off theshelf.
Okay.
We gotta go invent, but thatalso makes it riskier and more
(45:13):
expensive.
And so in space flight, there'ssomething to be said for using
off the shelf technology thatyou've already flown in space,
if you can, if it's availableand if it will do the job.
So it, it's kind of a mix of youinvent where you must, but be
very sure of it, uh, before youfly it on anything that that's
(45:34):
going to matter.
And if you can use technologythat's already been developed
that can be verified to workunder marshal conditions that
can sometimes be quicker andtherefore cheaper because of
course the taxpayers paying forit to get you to Mars safely.
So it's a bit of both.
And I, I don't have a specific,a more specific answer to your
question on that.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Um, I want to say what's next for you, but I don't
think that's the right questionbased on this interview.
It's clear that, um, the nextcouple of months, or, you know,
almost a year is going to bespent now having gotten there
understanding, you know, you'repart of the operations team.
(46:15):
So that's the short term.
I think if you want to call itthat after years of trying to
get to this point, but is theresomething else now that you say,
all right, now we did that.
Could we do this?
Is there anything that everoccurred to you that, you know,
or still happily doingsomething, which I just think is
(46:39):
incredible?
Speaker 4 (46:40):
Well, the one thing about this mission is that it
changes.
So what you are doing on thesurface of Mars two weeks ago is
usually different from whatyou're doing on Mars two weeks
into the future.
For instance, uh, we, we landedin a crater, I believe about 45
kilometers across it's calledJazeera.
But the important thing is thathe was once full of water.
(47:02):
We know that because there's ariver Delta into it.
Think of your viewers mightthink in their mind's eye.
Oh yeah.
Delta.
I liked the Mississippi Deltaexactly.
When you've got water thatdrains across half a continent,
like the Mississippi Missourisystem, it picks up a lot of
sediment.
And when that water reaches theocean, it slows down because it
(47:23):
just, you know, flowing fast andit empties in the Gulf of
Mexico.
When the, when the water slowsdown, it can't carry as much of
that sediment.
So it just drops it.
And that's what makes the Delta,the Delta grows outward as the
river continues to carrysediment from the continent.
So Delta does take a long timeto build up.
(47:43):
And there's one in Jezreelcrater where we are right now.
That's why we flew there.
And so our mission is going tochange from where we are in the
landing spot, which is somethingthat the landing system kind of
chose is safe.
In real time.
During that seven and a halfminutes, we have to survey
what's the floor of the craterMadoff.
It was, this is once all underwater.
(48:04):
It may have had a lot ofsediment that's been stripped
away.
And then we're going to go overto the river Delta itself, or
what's left of it.
It's kind of beat up.
It's got impact craters on itbecause it's been sitting out in
the Marsh environment for a longtime, but there's still a lot of
the Delta left somewhere inthose layers could be clues as
to whether or not life arose onMars, or was it beginning to
(48:24):
develop?
So what we're doing now, whichwe just, we're still really in
our landings.
We're not that far where I thinkwe're within about 30 meters or
so of where we landed.
And we're trying to set up forthe helicopter exercise.
We need to get that done beforewe can sort of hit the road, so
to speak and get on with themain science goals, the mission.
(48:45):
So right now we're, we'rechecking out if in the long
range mask MC images, where's agood, safe place for the
helicopter to operateperformance is flight tests, new
support that, but the scienceteam is already looking ahead is
still okay after that, where dowe go?
What's the most efficienttraverse to sample all the main
units that we can and get thosesamples prepared in those
(49:08):
penlight containers I wastalking about.
And so that by the time of theend of the prime mission, about
two years from now, uh, we willhave done most of what we set
out to do because there's awhole other mission.
After that, outside the crater,there are some areas.
In fact, it was a runner-uplanding site inside Jezreel
crater, outside Cesaro crater.
(49:29):
If the Rover survives longenough, there's a place where
Hotsprings perhaps ancientvariation.
Hotsprings once effected thegeology.
It's a interesting hypothesisbecause we don't see deposits
like that in many other placeson Mars.
That's why it almost beat outJazearra the crater interior
itself as a landing sitecandidate.
So we'd like to combine twomissions with one, explore the
(49:53):
Delt, the river Delta, wherethere was standing water for a
long time on the marshalsurface.
And then if we can survive longenough, get outside the crater
and explore that other site,which is not exactly next door,
but if we're careful andambitious, maybe we can reach it
in time to do some great sitesthere too.
So it changes the missionchanges depending on what phase
(50:15):
of it you're in.
If I'm totally immersed in this,it's not going to feel like
doing the same old thing everyday.
That's for sure.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
All right.
Um, Rob, let me ask you, um, itwas a couple of days after the
landing.
I think NASA released the video,which said, which anyone could
go look at, is there a websitethat if my listeners say, Oh
man, this is as cool as I thinkit is, but, um, you know, is
(50:41):
there some place they can gofor?
Are there new images beingposted or other ways for people
to follow along?
Speaker 4 (50:48):
Yeah.
Right now that's beingestablished and I've been so
immersed in flight operationsthat I have not been paying
enough attention to how thosewebsites are evolving.
I know that it's a high priorityfor the mass Campsie principal
investigator Jim bell, who usedto actually be a Cornell
professor.
Um, I used to play softball withhim really great person.
(51:08):
He is a high priority for him toget those images out to the
public.
Anyone the whole world, uh, canjust pick up the data and make
mosaics there.
There's a whole community outthere that scoops up these
images faster than we can andmakes all kinds of wonderful
products and post them all overthe web.
So they're likely to be severalsites right now.
If you could do a search onperseverance images or surface
(51:32):
of Mars, Mars, 2020, you'dlikely to come up with lots of
places.
There'll be some official sitesthat are getting established
that I, I don't know the statusof right now, but they're likely
to be all kinds of otherproducts that people have used
the data already for, to makewonderful mosaics, immersive,
uh, products that are justwonderful.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
All right.
Last question then.
And then, cause I'm, I'm stilltaking this all in when you were
a kid, is this at all what youhad in mind as something you
wanted to do?
Speaker 4 (52:03):
It's a great question.
And, um, I suppose differentpersons would answer, you know,
with their personal experience,but, uh, this answer might come
out a little strange, but hereit is.
I remember watching the old starTrek reruns as a kid.
I mean, they were in reruns thenyoung enough, not that young,
(52:24):
but young enough that they werereruns it, not original.
And I remember sort of,self-consciously thinking, this
is where we're going to end upone day.
It's inevitable.
I mean, all the different,different people on the bridge.
There's a hoorah from Africa andthere was a Russian helmsman.
You know, the cold war arebitter enemies that he's
(52:46):
brushing and he's on the bridge.
He's steering the ship forgoodness sake and, and, uh, Sulu
from Asia.
And there were women and mentogether and they, they worked
so hard and well together tosolve problems and explore the
greater university just seemslike that's where things are
headed.
It was inevitable.
And, and yet I was aware thatsociety wasn't in good shape
(53:12):
compared to that ideal.
And that we, you just, as a kidin school, you could read about
how long it took women in thiscountry to get the right to
vote.
It's embarrassing.
It took decades and generations.
Um, and, and the logic was rightfrom the very beginning and yet
(53:32):
it took generations for that tohappen.
And so there's this in my mind,this uneasy competition between
how much we can change andimprove and how slow and
stubborn we are about itsometimes.
But space exploration was thissign that maybe if we have a
(53:53):
little fraction or resources topeel off and have a small number
of people go explore some partof the solar system go to the
moon.
Maybe we are really emerginginto something much better than
just another species on ourplanet, maybe.
And to be a part of that was away to assure myself in some way
(54:16):
that in fact it was true.
We really are coming of agewhere we're much more than just
another mammalian species wheresomething better than that.
We're not just a bundle ofinstincts that we've inherited
from three and a half billionyears of evolution and
competitive ecosystems wherewe're better than that.
We can consciously strive to dothings that don't make us eat
(54:39):
more food, or provide bettershelter or beat up our enemies.
We could do something greaterthan that.
And if we are doing that, thenno matter how bad we are in the
new cycle and a given day, atleast we can point to space
exploration as a way of saying,you know, as a species we're on
our way to do something a littlebit better, and maybe it stops
(54:59):
and starts, but it's happening.
And I wanted to be a part ofthat somehow if I could, but
honestly, I think I've been morelucky than good.
Um, it takes luck.
I think for someone like me toget to do what I've been doing
for so long, I've been on Rovermissions.
Now, since, since before themurders landed in 2004, I was on
(55:20):
Pathfinder in 1997.
Um, I helped with the Galileoprobe to Jupiter before that,
um, you know, it can all beskill or talent.
I, I work with people every daythat I'm in awe of their, their
talent, their capabilities,their maturity, their they're
just who they are, theircharacter.
(55:40):
Uh, I've got a lot to live up toevery day with the people online
that I work with.
I don't feel as good as themmost of the time, I'm trying to
live up to their standards.
So I think it takes some lucktoo.
And I've been very lucky.
And I, when I was a kid growingup, I, I kind of knew that it
would have to be very, verylucky indeed for me to be
involved with the kind of thingthat I am today.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
Rob Sullivan, thank you so much for spending a
little bit of time explainingthings that are just miraculous
to me, but doing it in a waythat hopefully our listeners
understand it.
I wish you the team, theengineers, the operational team
continued
Speaker 4 (56:24):
Success.
And thanks again.
Thanks for inviting me on.
I've been listening to some ofyour podcasts.
It's a wonderful, wonderful setof podcasts.
I'm really quite interested inyour group and deserves a lot of
credit.
I'll thank you, right.
Speaker 1 (56:37):
Appreciate it.
Thank you for tuning in topatterns and paradigms the
pattern podcast.
For more information about thisepisode, visit our website
pattern for progress.org forwardslash podcast.
We are experiencing a paradigm shift, a fundamental
change in the way we usually dothings.
We are intentionally choosing tosee the silver lining
opportunity arises.
We can shine a light on thethings that weren't working well
(00:25):
on those things that weren'treally working at all, we can
regroup reevaluate andre-engineer it's time to explore
new patterns and paradigms thosethat inspire us to rise above
the chaos and explore how theconditions of today and take us
(00:47):
to a better tomorrow patternsand paradigms the pattern
podcast from Hudson Valleypattern for progress, your
listening to season two, episode10, perseverance and ingenuity
the mission to Mars with yourhost pattern, president and CEO,
Jonathan Dropkin.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Hi everyone, and welcome to patterns and
paradigms.
We hope you enjoyed theinterview with access supports
for livings CEO and presidentRon Colivida in which we
explored some of the changesthat have taken place in working
with people with disabilities inthis new COVID world.
(01:30):
Please remember to subscribe toour podcast and take a moment to
share an episode with a friendbubble or trend.
So in keeping with today'sguest, we are in the midst of a
I'm going to just have to callit what it is a trend.
When it comes to space travel.
(01:52):
We have NASA with projects toMars and soon the moon.
Um, there's a team of astronautstraining now for three missions
known as Artemis in which wewill be landing the first woman
(02:12):
on the moon.
And in fact, all of the seniorpositions related to this
project are being led by women.
I really commend to yourattention.
The episode on 60 minutes onMarch seven is when it aired,
(02:35):
um, to see what this project isabout.
Now, in addition to NASA, thereis the efforts from the private
sector like Elon Musk, andthere's one in which he's
collaborating with NASA.
And then sometimes he is workingon his own rockets, which appear
(02:56):
to be less expensive, but verymuch, um, in this trend of space
exploration.
In fact, Elon Musk will shortlybe putting civilians into space.
So after what appeared to be apublic hiatus of talking about
(03:17):
space travel, it seems to be atrend that's coming back before
I introduce our guests to talkabout space.
I wanted to take a moment to askmy partner had pattern, Joe
Chakka what's up, Joe, Hey Joedidn't.
We just finished the UlsterCounty housing project.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
We did Jonathan.
Last week, we finalized theUlster County housing action
plan, and it was released tothe, to the public pattern put
months and months of veryintense work into 144 page
report.
We looked at data anddemographics and local need to
show how intense the need is fora range of housing options
(04:02):
across the entire County patternalso created individual housing
snapshots for each municipalitywithin the County.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Wait, Joe, that sounds quite elaborate.
How long did you work on this?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Oh, let's see.
We started that project almost ayear ago and it was, it was very
intense.
We put many hours into this.
We did a lot of interviews.
We did a lot of analysis ondata.
We did mapping, we did ananalysis of demographics and we
came out with a very high levelaction plan that really consists
(04:42):
of five.
What I would call basicelements.
What they're very intense.
The first one establishingUlster County housing task
force.
The second one was to establishpartnerships and collaborate
with developers for scatteredsite redevelopment.
The third was increased.
(05:02):
The supply of supported andtransitional housing throughout
the County.
The fourth create a housingsmart communities initiative,
similar to the climate smartinitiative.
And the fifth would beestablishing a housing fund for
Ulster County.
Each one of these has pages ofinformation, best practices and
(05:25):
recommendations on how toimplement.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
And I think you also mentioned that there's a profile
for each municipality within, sothey could go to the full report
to find that
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Absolutely online and Ulster county's website and the
planning department, there is asnapshot and each one is 10 or
11 pages.
And we did a deep dive on everymunicipality throughout the
County on housing.
And it really shows the profileof need.
It shows how the demographicschanged, and it's a tool that
(05:59):
really lays the foundation formunicipalities to create their
own local strategic plan forhousing.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Well, Joe, that's just another great effort in
housing and you know, I thinkthanks to your work, we've been
able to show why housing isn'tan afterthought to economic
development.
We actually have economicdevelopers talking about the
need for housing to be locatednearby.
(06:29):
I mean, we not, not us.
We're not going to take creditfor this, but lo and behold,
Amazon actually has a pooledmoney set aside for assisting
people with housing, becausethere's a recognition that there
is a housing crisis in thiscountry.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Well, that's right.
And I would encourage ourlisteners to go to the report
and read the narrativedescribing how affordable
housing and all market ratehousing is interest intricately,
linked to economic developmentand workforce development.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Today, we're going to be talking with Rob Sullivan.
Rob is the senior researchassociate and co-investigator
for the ongoing mission to Mars,which landed a Rover on the
planet on February 18th, knownas perseverance.
Rob is a professor at theCornell center for astrophysics
(07:28):
and planetary science.
And we couldn't be more thrilledthat he's figured out how to
spend time with us.
Now that's not so easy since Robhad to adjust his time to Mars
time.
And we're going to talk a bitabout what that means now, one
other point, why is thisimportant to pattern for
progress, a mission to Mars?
(07:49):
I think that I can sum it up injust one, thought it sparks the
imagination.
And that's how I view spacetravel, which is, imagine the
possibilities.
And if we could just get thatlittle spark ignited in all of
(08:10):
our listeners and all the peoplethroughout the Hudson Valley and
in our region, then it's a goodthing.
And so what better way to do itthan to talk about just an
incredible feat if you likedthis episode, um, please let us
know by contactingus@patternforprogress.org slash
(08:33):
podcast.
Hi, Rob, and welcome to patternsand paradigms.
How are you doing and how, howhas COVID effected your life?
Let's just get that out of theway.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
I've been fortunate with family.
We've been able to stay healthy.
Uh, we've been very rigorousabout, uh, being careful wearing
masks, trying to do all theright things.
So, uh, compared to a lot ofpeople, we have come out well,
but we've been very, verycareful.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
All right.
So that's all good news.
All right.
Your position at Cornell little,did I know someone who thinks he
knows everything about New Yorkstate?
Um, so why don't you tell meabout your position at Cornell
and the, the unit or section ofCornell that you work for
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Sure.
I work in the department ofastronomy and their research arm
in our sort of greater astronomydepartment here at Cornell.
There's several of us who workon the perseverance Rover right
now and are also involved withother space flight projects.
It's just, uh, an emphasis thatour department has had really
for decades to be involved withactive space flight program.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Did the pandemic do anything to the scheduling of
this mission in terms of, Idon't know, it affected
everything else in life.
So
Speaker 4 (09:46):
The way we time a mission to Mars, Mars kind of
calls the shots in that.
Mars is always out there.
And of course we're always here.
It seems like we should be ableto go anytime we want, but it
turns out there are certaintimes of how the planets to lie,
where you can be very efficientin getting to Mars.
You can get the most scientificpayload for the investment that
(10:08):
you make in your rocket and thenthe fuel it requires.
And so it's kind of up toorbital mechanics when you need
to launch, which means COVID ornot.
We had to be ready to go duringthe original launch window,
which was July of 2020, right inthe middle of the pandemic.
And so some very courageous andhardworking engineers, as well
(10:28):
as the scientists who helpedthem on the side had to keep
going and get the payloadinstruments, assembled,
calibrated, get them bolted ontothe Rover, get the Rover in
shape, constructed thoroughlytested and shipped to Cape
Canaveral for launch all ontime.
We could not delay that becauseof COVID.
(10:48):
So, uh, NASA leadership was verysupportive of these efforts and,
uh, gave the team everythingthat we could think of to try
and get the job done in the timewe needed, because if we missed
the launch window in July of2020, we would have had to wait
two more years, which isextremely expensive.
And also there are certainthings about the Rover that
(11:11):
wouldn't be in as good shape twoyears from now as they would
when they're actually designedto be ready for launch.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
All right.
So let's, let's just for ourlisteners.
So Mars is how far away.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Well, it kind of varies when you get on a good
day.
Every couple of years, it getsas close as 35 million miles.
Um, but Mars is a, Marvin isactually not quite as round as
earth.
So even when we have a closeapproach, it's called
opposition.
When Mars has pride in the skyand shines down all that long
it's brilliantly red, thebrightest thing, the sky, except
for the moon, those oppositions,that distance varies.
(11:44):
I don't know the number of myhead, right.
And I think 35 million is, ispretty close, close as it gets.
But most of the time the planetsaren't lined up that way.
They're not lined up that waythat now.
And so I can look it up for you,but I think Mars is probably
over a hundred million milesaway, right from us right now.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
So it's sort of more of an elliptical orbit and
therefore it, it could vary thedistance.
Okay.
Yep.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
You started in your mind's eye.
If you've got a couple ofhula-hoops one smaller than the
other, they're pretty round.
You just drop them.
Right on top of each other, theinner one would be earth.
The next outer one would beMars, but the Martian hula hoop
is a little bit out of whack.
It's not quite round it'selliptical.
So where are you cross pathswith a planet?
Is w whether it's sort of on thenarrow side of the ellipse or
(12:28):
the fatter side,
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Say it's 35 million.
Alright.
Yeah.
That's, it's not around thecorner and you have been
involved in this mission and itlands 35 million miles away.
If I remember it correctly,everyone was cheering because it
landed perfectly.
Yeah.
I mean, people have a hard timeparallel parking.
(12:49):
I mean, you said this thing 35million miles and all right.
So give me a sense of the team.
Cause you mentioned to me,there's hundreds of people that
work on this all over the place.
So if you can give me a sense ofwhere is everybody
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Well, the credit for the landing event, which most
people are familiar with fromthe news, not so much what the
scientists are doing now, butthe landing event, which is well
publicized really goes to theengineers.
Um, and they are, I reallyadmire the integrity of how the
engineers do their job.
They are so accountable for whatthey do in the way they do it.
(13:24):
You know, if there are twogroups of engineers working on
two sub-assemblies for monthsand months and months just
everything's been blueprintedand machine with exactness and
sub-assemblies are, are ready togo each one, each side, and
they're ready to be boltedtogether.
And you know, this has been on acalendar for months.
And when they go to do that, oneof the bolt holes is off by a
(13:46):
little bit.
And so it, it doesn't gotogether.
The engineers that do this arethe kind of people that wouldn't
start pointing fingers at theothers.
I know your interface is raw.
How did, how would you put ahole there when the boats all
spots?
These engineers, the kinds ofpeople that their first instinct
is to look at their own workvery rapidly.
(14:06):
Oh my gosh, did I screw up?
And if so, how did I let theteam down?
Because the only thing worse, Ithink, than, than making a
mistake is having someone elsepointed out for you.
They want to all in one breath,figure out what went wrong and
here's the recovery plan.
They just have so much integrityand accountability.
And I think that's the only wayyou could pull off what they
(14:29):
did, which is to take a vehicle,the size of sort of a mini
Cooper, like car blasted off theearth, have a cross millions of
miles and landed with precisionon the surface of another
planet.
You're going from thousands ofmiles an hour in seven and a
half minutes to touchdown, youknow, very, very slow speed at
(14:49):
just the right altitude.
It's just fabulous, fabulousachievement.
And I give them all the creditas customers.
The scientists are justcustomers.
We're just so grateful for whatthey do and how they've done it.
And I should say that we decidedto have lots of practice tests,
how to use the vehicle, becauseremember efficiency is very
(15:10):
important.
We can't waste a moment.
Once we're on Mars, you have touse the vehicle as thoroughly,
as carefully, as efficiently aswe can.
So there are all these teststhat we do call operational
readiness tests, where it's alldone virtually now with COVID.
So it's pretty weird, but allthese tests where you get
practice images that come backfrom a copy of the Rover, that's
(15:32):
in a sort of gymnasium sizedtest bed, a JPL it's, you know,
it's on gravel and there, youcan see the walls and the camera
pictures.
And you know, sometimes thereare people sitting at a desk in
some corner of the room whileyou're carrying out this test,
trying to pretend you're onMars.
And then February 18th happens.
And if someone like me issitting in their office, just
(15:53):
like they were during all thoseweeks of tests and using the
same software, but then thepicture that comes back is not
the same old picture of, youknow, some gravel part of a
floor in a lab with someonesitting in the background,
operating the Rover.
It's Mars, it's this alienplanet, hun, you know, more than
(16:13):
a hundred million miles away atthat point.
And it's shocking.
It's just shocking.
Everything's the same on thecomputer screen, except you're
looking at Mars right there nextto the Rover wheel.
And in that moment you realizeall the great work that's been
(16:34):
done by so many hardworkingpeople during a pandemic to make
that possible.
And that was like,
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah.
And, and, and I could, you know,I can feel your emotion about
it.
I get to just be a cheerleaderon the side going isn't that
remarkable.
Someone asked me, why would I dothis as a podcast here in the
Hudson Valley?
And I said, if I could ignitethe interest of anybody, not,
(17:05):
not even in space travel, butignite imagination.
Yeah.
And then spark that to, well,how do we do something?
I don't care what the, um, thefield is for me, you know, it is
about, okay, it's problemsolving.
(17:26):
It's Imagineering, it's allthese words.
And, you know, I, I just findthat the precision and the
number of people that went intothis, I, I do feel your emotion
about this, which is, it is justremarkable.
Um, and I'm only sorry that ithappened in the middle of a
pandemic in the middle ofpolitical polarization and all
(17:47):
the other issues, because I feelas if the country should have
been watching that moment.
And yeah,
Speaker 4 (17:54):
I think a lot of people were, and I'm, it's hard
to rate.
It's hard to guess how thingsmight've been different if we
had not been in a pandemic, butmy personal sense of it is that
we could really use some goodnews.
Uh, the news cycle has beenmonotonously discouraging for
certainly during the pandemic,even depending on your point of
(18:17):
view, even before that.
And here's something, an eventthat is totally non-partisan,
it's international, it's aninternational team.
It's not just our country orsome part of the country.
And a lot of people had to workvery hard to accomplish
something very difficult, kindof on behalf of civilization in
our future.
(18:38):
And oftentimes I think in thenew cycle that we paid attention
to civilization, doesn't look sogood.
Sometimes some of the thingsthat we get caught doing, and
this is an instance, I thinkthat might have been perhaps
more welcomed if there than ifthere hadn't been a pandemic to
see a group of people who'veworked very hard for a very
(19:02):
difficult goal, actually achieveit on behalf of everyone,
including students who can takea look at this and say, you
know, one day could I do, howcould I participate in something
that will make a differencedecades in the future?
Um, someone like me, I'm justlucky enough to participate.
Like I said, I'm a happyscientific customer, the
(19:23):
engineers.
I really want to throw thecredit to them.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Now, when you say happy to participate.
So let me see.
I found an article in the, if,if a cute voice from 2014, that
was entitled six crazy things,Cornell university professors
are working on.
And there you are withco-investigator Alex Hayes has
working on the mask camp, XE therovers zoomable mass mounted
(19:53):
camera system.
All right.
Help me figure out and help mylisteners figure out what was it
exactly that you were working onin 2014?
This is, you know, seven yearsago.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Yeah.
It's a kind of indication of howlong it takes for these projects
to first of all, get them readyto fly.
That has to be very carefullyprepared and then to fly them.
So in any case, mass Kimsey is a, can we clear my throat for a
moment?
Picture the Rover as, uh, asyour surrogate or your listeners
surrogate on Mars.
(20:28):
It's about two meters tall.
That's about the height of, uh,a lot of people walking along
the surface, it's got an arm,it's got to have eyes and mass
Kimsey are the eyes, the it's acolor camera.
It's actually a little bitbetter than the human eye in
some respects, because it's gotfilter wheels on each that see
wavelengths, not just the oneswe can see, but also the
(20:52):
wavelengths that machines cansee a little bit into the
infrared that can helpdistinguish compositions a bit
more than we can with just oursort of red to green, to blue, a
spectrum that we can.
And it zoomable so that we don'thave to drive quite as far to
see things close up around us,um, that helps us understand our
(21:12):
terrain much better and moreefficiently than if we had to
drive everywhere to see thingsclose up.
The zoom lens has helped that.
And I said lenses because thereare two of them just like most
humans who have two working eyesand can see stereo.
So can mask cams, either twoidentical cameras mounted a
about the same height as, as atall adult would.
(21:35):
And instead of walking acrossMars, they're being carried by
six wheels.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
So the images that I see, and I would say to anyone
that needs to understand thecool factor, go look for the
March 2nd edition of the NewYork times, the science section,
where there's this two pagespread of the surface of Mars.
And this is no longer just like,you know, Oh wait, that's where,
(22:01):
you know, Tom cruise, the badguys came from and you know, in
his movie, you know, um, but itis, it is.
So the images that I'm lookingat your camera is taking those
images.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
There are other cameras on board too.
I'd have to look carefully atthe caption for the, uh, the
Sunday, the New York timesarticle, but there are other
cameras to the mass cam, Zcameras are the, the main
science cameras up on the mass,but we also have some navigation
cameras that aren't as high asresolution, but they're good
enough to take images far enoughadvanced that will help guide
(22:41):
how we drive the Rover.
It's got a wider field of view.
So you can take in more of theterrain, even if it's lower
resolution and make stereo mapsthat will help.
What's called the Rover planets,kind of the engineers who are in
charge of driving the Rover, no,the train where it's safe to go
and where it's not safe to go.
So they can project drivesseveral tens of meters, perhaps
(23:02):
even more if the train allowsand we need to get where we're
going fast, because we've got alot to do during the prime
mission, we've got to collectall these samples and they have
to be wisely chosen, and they'regoing to be spread apart several
kilometers along our traverse.
So it's important that we havenavigation cameras that help
that they're also hazardavoidance cameras.
And these are not mounted on themask.
(23:24):
They can't be pointed or aimedor swiveled around their body
mounted bolted on down to theRover Donald on the Rover down
low.
They look for things that might,uh, be good for the arm to look
at.
They're very close.
They can be close range.
And there are some hazardavoidance cameras on the rear,
too.
There's some obstructions on therear of the deck, which can get
(23:45):
in the way of the view of themast, but the rear has it avoids
cameras can see.
So they're also all kinds ofother cameras that are used
during EDL that's entry,descent, and landing that's that
seven and a half minutes wherewe transitioned from a
spacecraft to a Rover.
And some of the most spectacularimages that have been spread on
the web so far are from thosecameras.
(24:06):
Looking up as the parachutedeploys, looking down as we sort
of plummet toward Mars, almostan earthward, but that would
have been wrong right towardMars toward our landing site.
And we have not had cameras thatdo those things before on
previous rovers, we didn't, wedidn't know.
We just hoped that things wouldwork.
We had a little bit of telemetrytelling us things were going
(24:26):
well, unfortunately they were.
But these cameras that I justmentioned about looking up or
looking down during landing,it's a very risky part of, of
the mission and getting the verybest possible data to see what
worked, what barely worked.
It needs a little bit of tuning.
The next time you tried this,what, you know, did something
deploy late to something, deployearly, something deploy, not
(24:49):
when we flipped the way itthought we would.
That's what those cameras werefor.
And I've not heard the finalanalysis, the engineers probably
going to scrutinize every pixelof every image that came back
from those EDL cameras.
But I've not heard anythingthat, that didn't go extremely
well during EDL.
So, uh, I can only pass alonggood news, the same good news
(25:11):
that you and perhaps your, yourlisteners already know about the
EDL worked superbly.
Well, again, hats off to theengineers.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
All right.
So the, the, the help me out.
So the mission or the Rover iscalled perseverance, and then,
then there's this helicoptercalled ingenuity.
So what, what's that?
And how does that work?
Yeah,
Speaker 4 (25:38):
So, so the rovers got their names, uh, from, uh, a
competition among schoolchildren at various ages.
And I forget now the names andages of who won, but one student
, uh, pick perseverance, andthere was an essay contest.
And another student pickedingenuity.
I happened to trip over thenames a little bit.
(25:58):
They're new to me because wedidn't have those names until
for years we've been working onthis.
It's just Mars, 2020 and thehelicopter and the names were
picked, you know, I think rightaround launch.
So I'm still getting used tothem.
And frankly, they're an awfullot of syllables.
Mars, 2020 are just, the roversis easy for me that helicopter.
(26:19):
I didn't know what that is, butthat's how they got their names
about the helicopter.
Um, it's just a test demo.
It's not part of the scientificpayload, but the Martian
atmosphere as your listenersmight know is extremely thin.
It's about one 80th, the densityof the atmosphere on earth.
(26:39):
So even if it had a lot ofoxygen in it, we still, there
still wouldn't be enough tobreathe.
So making a helicopter is prettydifficult.
You've got to have those bladeson earth, whirl around, you
know, with the tremendouswhopping copping flopping sound
of a helicopter when it goes bythat's just brute force, those
helicopter blades beating theair downward, uh, lifting the
(27:01):
helicopter into the air.
In fact, the helicopter blade isactually in cross section like a
wing, like an airplane's wing.
So on Mars, how do you do thatwith an atmosphere?
That's one 80th is dense.
Well, the answer is you makethose blades go very, very fast,
much faster than helicopterblades on earth and to set
(27:21):
expectations.
This is not a, you know, a Hueythat you can step into.
This is a little tinycontraption.
It looks like a drone really interms of, okay.
Okay.
And it's powered with a smallsolar panel and, uh, which means
it can't fly all day long.
It goes up, it flies for a fewminutes, comes down, it's got a
couple of cameras on it.
(27:42):
One of which is a gray scale.
In other words, it's black andwhite.
And it's designed really fortaking pictures of the surface
as the helicopter flies, whereit compares one picture after
another to try and find, toconfirm where it is in the sky.
Is it, is it sliding to the leftor the right?
Or is it going up or down is outof the things in the, in the
(28:03):
gray scale picture, gettingbigger or smaller, but the
pictures that we're likely toget back from it, uh, are from,
uh, a color camera that takespictures, not quite straight
down a little bit off to theside.
And, uh, we'll be lookingforward to seeing those
pictures, but it's, uh, it's,it's, it's a test demo.
And so one of the things thatwe're going to be doing when the
(28:23):
helicopters flying is monitoringit very carefully, but not right
next to it, because we don'twant to get a hit.
If the helicopter flight goesunexpectedly, we'll be
monitoring it.
Using mass Kimsey.
The zoom function on the lensesmeans we can park a safe
distance away and do a standoff,uh, video typing to do video of
(28:47):
the helicopter, attempting tofly.
So all that is not really beendone on earth.
Of course it only works on Marsif it works at all.
So all these things have to cometogether and we'll see how the
experiments go.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Okay.
So let me see if I've got it.
Use the imagery of a drone isthe helicopter pre-programmed.
So that it's just going to dosomething at a specific time, or
are we actually controlling thehelicopter here on earth somehow
(29:22):
through the magic ofengineering?
Yeah.
Well, the, um,
Speaker 4 (29:27):
It's a little bit of both, but I think what you're
you might be asking is, are we,joysticking the helicopter real
time?
Unfortunately we can't one waylight time.
Uh, let me see if I can look itup, right.
It is about 12 minutes, 49seconds, which means if your
helicopter goes up and youwanted to control it, your
(29:50):
command to steer at one way oranother prevented from crashed.
And we get there about 12minutes, 49 seconds too late.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
So, okay.
Speaker 4 (29:59):
So the engineering helicopter is kind of like the
Rover in that.
One of the things we, we, wedon't joystick the Rover while
it's driving across the surface,either because of the same
problem, we send it somecommands like a shopping list.
If you will, of instructionsthat it's supposed to carry out
over its day and the Rover willdo we ask it to do, but using
(30:21):
commands that we send it aheadof time, the Rover is kind of
smart in that it takes picturesonce in a while, say when it's
driving to make sure it's notdriving over a cliff, there,
there, there are certain failsafes on board.
But for the most part, we haveto make up our minds the day
before and what the Rover'sgoing to do on it's next day on
Mars.
(30:42):
And that's why it takes so mucheffort is because we have to
stay ahead of the Rover.
If we fail to get our decisionsmade and our plans made and all
those turn into very carefullyconstructed, uh, Rover commands
and get that, as they say,uplinked or sent to the Rover in
time for when it wakes up, weblow it.
(31:03):
We've missed a Mars day ofactivity.
It goes into what's called arun-out sequence, which does
some good things.
And it looks at the sky measuresa few things that it can do
pretty safely without a lot ofground in the loop, as they say,
but we were all considered awaste of a martial day if we
ever let that happen.
So that's how the Rover works.
We have to get thoseinstructions ready every single
(31:25):
day, which means we've got tolook at the very latest stuff
from the, from Mars to make surethat the instructions fit those.
He was there a dog bone in ourwork volume.
Well, maybe we shouldn't drive.
Maybe we should stop and take alook at that.
Um, is it, is it an Outlander,for example, the helicopter is
kind of the same way in that.
We have to tell what to do say,okay, you're on your own at
(31:49):
10:00 AM.
I'm just making this up.
I'm not sure this is the trueflight plan.
I want you to turn yourself onand fly straight up two meters
hover for 30 seconds and comeback down again in the very same
spot.
And the helicopter is smartenough through its black and
white camera to know when it'smoved upward about two meters.
(32:12):
And if it's starting to drift,it follows us instructions.
So that's how we fly thehelicopter.
We have to command it to do endto end what it's going to do
when its flight ahead of time.
We can't change its mind whileit's flying and steer it towards
something that we happen to beseeing in real time.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Um, okay.
So one of the things that youand I, and I probably got this
wrong, but it was, we had a syncup when I was looking for a time
to speak with you.
Yeah.
The timing of when I could speakto mattered.
Can you explain that?
And
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, sure.
So the Martian day is a littlebit longer than earth day, which
means if we want to keep theRover busy and make our
deadlines, we have to keep upwith it on it's time schedule,
not our own.
And that means if you want tofollow the Marsh and rovers day,
which is a little longer thanours.
(33:09):
After a couple of weeks, yourealize you're working in the
middle of the night, it's kindof like, uh, going on jet lag
about 39, 40 minutes every day.
Your time zone is shifting bythat amount.
So it's kind of a big deal.
It's more than an inconvenience,uh, in that people from fatigue,
(33:29):
they shouldn't be runningrovers.
They shouldn't be sequencingrovers if they're tired.
And so an effort is made by alot of people on these missions
to get onto Mars timepermanently, at least for as
long as we operate on Mars time.
And that can be problematic.
Uh, they're all kinds of bodyclock issues that, that don't
sync up.
(33:49):
And we've, we've been briefedabout, uh, you know, be careful
when you're driving.
If you get off shift at seven inthe morning, and you've been on
shift that the solid before, andyou're done at six in the
morning or five, and you've beendoing this for several, several
days, you don't realize howtired you can get.
So they're all kind of ways tosort of fight this back, but
(34:10):
there, there are rules to,you're not supposed to be out of
shift for more than four days ata time.
The complication now with allthat.
And it's, it's not a perfectthing, no matter how many
guidelines you follow for, fordealing with Mars time.
In, for instance, when I just,uh, when you, you get off shift
and you come out the brightsunlight, he doesn't want to go
to bed, you go back to yourhotel and, uh, you know, there's
(34:32):
lit light leaking into theshades, all kinds of problems
like that.
But with Kohler, with thepandemic, we're all working from
home.
And we can't ask our families togo into Maurice time.
They've got to attend school andthey've got jobs too.
So a lot of us are dealing withMars time, not as in a pure
fashion, as we might berecommended, just not realistic
(34:55):
as for myself, I sleep when Ican I take naps when I have to,
uh, try and align things sothat, you know, when I'm on
shift, I'm on shift.
And, uh, I'm not doing that athome.
I'm, I'm one of the few peopleI'm allowed to go into my
office, partly because I don'thave the bandwidth at home to
support flight operations, butpartly too, because I'm not
(35:16):
starting my family in the middleof the night.
I mean, when I wake up at two inthe morning to get on shift or
something like that, yeah.
My alarm goes off, but my wifegets back to sleep.
Otherwise I'm out of there.
I get into the office and that'swhere I do my work.
And that's happening for theteam, you know, throughout the
team.
They're just trying to handleMars time as best I can.
It's a little bit more difficultwith, with the pandemic.
(35:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Which is which personalizes, what is your
experience as part of the teamin a way that I don't think
myself for any listener,whatever.
Imagine, um, okay.
I think when we were talkingearlier, you were explaining to
me that there's sort of like ashelf life for what is land the
(35:59):
Rover.
I mean, you have to get done,sir.
What is, what am I trying to saythere that
Speaker 4 (36:05):
Well, um, machines wear out, especially complicated
machines.
Um, the Mer rovers, I don't knowif your listeners are familiar
with those.
These were launched to land onMars in 2004, each one of them,
there, there are two of them onopposite sides of the planet.
Um, there were supposed to havea 90 day mission, but because of
again, great engineering, theylasted a lot longer eventually.
(36:30):
Uh, one of the wheels and asecond wheel broke on one of
these rovers.
And so the mobility was westopped and we couldn't drive to
someplace where we could tiltthe solar panels enough, you
know, a slope and survive thenext Marshall winter.
There are solar powered.
Um, so things break, um,uncomplicated vehicles.
(36:54):
And it can be very ungraceful.
If you lose a wheel, even if theother five are working, you
can't drive anymore.
At least not well, but you'redragging that wheel, which we
did with the Rover spirit forawhile.
Uh, your high gain antenna.
That's your sort of your, yourdish antenna, if you will, that
allows lots of communication.
If that doesn't work, it's, it'sgot an asthma myth and elevation
(37:16):
control that allows pointing.
If, if that doesn't work now,your communications are down to
a small fraction of what theyotherwise would be, which means
that the data that you give backis a small fraction of what
otherwise would be.
Um, if that mast, I was talkingabout where mass Kimsey is
mounted, if that stops beingable to swivel or get stuck in
(37:36):
some awkward position, thatcould be the end of the mission.
All of these different thingscan go wrong on this Rover.
We don't know how the missionwill end, uh, which what will
fail first.
We do know that that day willcome and that's why every single
day we're on the surface.
It's just, it's a great gift.
It's a humbling gift that wehave to make the very most stuff
(38:00):
.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Now, did I read somewhere that like in 20, 26 or
so like five years from nowbegins this other set of rockets
or something that is heading toMars to retrieve something?
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Yeah.
The perseverance mission, theMars 2020 mission is really just
the first step of a much granderenterprise.
Recall the course back a longtime ago.
You and I are old enough torecall the Apollo missions.
How was she to kid?
You were just a kid.
And the reason we went toactually collect moon is because
(38:37):
it's very difficult to do allthe scientific analysis on the
surface of the moon.
You've got to take your bulkyinstruments that might take up
as much room as an entire labarea on earth, and somehow
miniaturized them.
So back in the sixties, well, weobviously can't do that.
Let's bring the samples back andwe'll have the samples forever
(38:59):
and we can analyze them fordecades.
And we're going to get betterlab instruments, you know,
decades from now.
We'll be glad we have thesesamples and it'll be this
treasure for civilization for,for forever.
Well, we can't do that on Marsbecause we can't fly astronauts
there to just land and pick upsamples like we did with Apollo.
It's simply too far toochallenging, but perhaps we
(39:21):
could use robots to get thesesamples back.
Well, it's, it's tricky becauseit's so much further than the
moon 240,000 miles to the moon,35 million miles to Mars on a
good day.
Most of the time, far, farworse.
So the idea is that the Mars2020 Rover perseverance will do
(39:43):
lots of analysis along itstraverse and choose carefully
about 30 or so, perhaps fewersamples of the terrain that it
is traversing across and putthose into little samples, uh,
containers about the size of apenlight and then take those
samples to one place wherethey're probably safe enough
(40:06):
intended to be safe enough for afollow-on mission to come down
and land a little Rover.
We'll crawl off that futuremission, come over, scoop up all
the samples that our roverscarefully prepared.
Bring them back to that.
Lander it'd be a small rocket onthat, that Lander, that rocket
will take the samples and launchthem up to Marsh and orbit.
(40:29):
Never done that before.
And another orbiter will comealong and find them in Marsha
orbit and contain them and takethem back to earth where they'll
be delivered probably to theUtah desert and be picked up and
we'll have those samplesforever.
What could possibly go wrong?
(40:49):
Right.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Well, I, you know, that's my next question, Rob,
which is like, you know, so havethere been any surprises good or
bad or that you're that andanything obvious, like, like
fine.
I, I'm not really asking you totell me what went wrong because
goodness knows there could be agood zillion things that could
(41:11):
go wrong, but what surprised youthat went, right?
You know, like maybe that youwere like uncertain that you
were going to be able to do Xand it worked,
Speaker 4 (41:22):
Uh, well, lots and lots of things have gone right
so far.
Okay.
Um, more than most peopleexpected a complicated vehicle,
that's had to endure the shockof being onboard a rocket as it
launches the cruel environmentof space for seven months.
And then in seven and a halfminutes being slowed down from
several thousand miles an hourto land on the Martian surface,
(41:45):
which is very inhospitable.
It gets extremely cold at night,which is not good for
electronics.
And a lot of other things likemoving parts, all kinds of
things can go wrong.
Um, so far the vehiclecheckouts, first thing we do
after we land, we raise themask, we exercise the arm.
Uh, we've done a little bit ofdriving our first driving over
(42:06):
the last couple of days,everything has worked amazingly
well.
Uh, there are no anomalies thatI know of, and I did not expect
to be talking to anyone at thispoint in the mission and being
able to say that now theengineers are closer to the
mission, may know of somethings, but they be telling the
operations team, if there areanything we needed to worry
(42:27):
about or postpone or delay whilethey checked something out
because they are priority rightnow and the mission checking out
the vehicle, making sure it'sready to go for the science
mission that we have a plan.
And they're going to turn overthe keys to us and say, okay,
everything's working or perhapstwo weeks from now, we've
discovered something isn'tworking quite right.
And they'll say, well,everything's working, but except
(42:48):
for this, you're going to haveto do a work around on that.
But so far everything has goneamazingly well, again, hats off
to the engineers.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Well, and to everyone involved in this, now something
dawned on me, which I shouldknow the answer to, but I didn't
see it anywhere.
So for the six or seven monthsthat it took to get to Mars, we
were there, you know, speakingof cameras, were there images
being sent back during theflight of the universe?
(43:21):
Well,
Speaker 4 (43:21):
Sort of in that like mass cam Z for instance, and a
lot of the other instrumentshave very short checkout
sequences, a liveliness checksto make sure they're doing well.
We don't do that often becausefrankly, there's not much we can
do.
If we discover a problem, it'sjust good to be aware of it as
soon as something might be goingwrong, but those pictures are
(43:43):
taken while the Rover is stillinside.
It's it's it's capsule, if youwill, heat shield and there's
container protect it.
And so we can't see outside, wecan't see Mars getting big in
the windshield, so to speak, um,or watching earth recede in the
distance as we fly away from it.
These are images that, uh, noone, but the engineers and the
(44:07):
scientists close to theinstruments would be excited
about getting back a black imagethat with the right temperatures
and, and just, we expect is morelike a sigh of relief than some
sort of a grand aestheticadventure in terms of an image
on board of spacecraft, uh,approaching Mars.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Um, any sense yet?
I mean, one of the things, if myhistory is right about the whole
Apollo, which is why, you know,people celebrate landing on the
moon, but honestly it wastechnology invented along the
way that was then shared and hadapp applications in life, on
earth.
(44:46):
Anything like that yet from thiseffort to go to Mars.
Speaker 4 (44:53):
That's a great question.
And I'm not sure I have a goodanswer because the technology
kind of goes both ways in that.
Um, you invent new technologywhen you have to, when, when the
mission that the, the thingyou're trying to achieve, forces
you to just can't do it off theshelf.
Okay.
We gotta go invent, but thatalso makes it riskier and more
(45:13):
expensive.
And so in space flight, there'ssomething to be said for using
off the shelf technology thatyou've already flown in space,
if you can, if it's availableand if it will do the job.
So it, it's kind of a mix of youinvent where you must, but be
very sure of it, uh, before youfly it on anything that that's
(45:34):
going to matter.
And if you can use technologythat's already been developed
that can be verified to workunder marshal conditions that
can sometimes be quicker andtherefore cheaper because of
course the taxpayers paying forit to get you to Mars safely.
So it's a bit of both.
And I, I don't have a specific,a more specific answer to your
question on that.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Um, I want to say what's next for you, but I don't
think that's the right questionbased on this interview.
It's clear that, um, the nextcouple of months, or, you know,
almost a year is going to bespent now having gotten there
understanding, you know, you'repart of the operations team.
(46:15):
So that's the short term.
I think if you want to call itthat after years of trying to
get to this point, but is theresomething else now that you say,
all right, now we did that.
Could we do this?
Is there anything that everoccurred to you that, you know,
or still happily doingsomething, which I just think is
(46:39):
incredible?
Speaker 4 (46:40):
Well, the one thing about this mission is that it
changes.
So what you are doing on thesurface of Mars two weeks ago is
usually different from whatyou're doing on Mars two weeks
into the future.
For instance, uh, we, we landedin a crater, I believe about 45
kilometers across it's calledJazeera.
But the important thing is thathe was once full of water.
(47:02):
We know that because there's ariver Delta into it.
Think of your viewers mightthink in their mind's eye.
Oh yeah.
Delta.
I liked the Mississippi Deltaexactly.
When you've got water thatdrains across half a continent,
like the Mississippi Missourisystem, it picks up a lot of
sediment.
And when that water reaches theocean, it slows down because it
(47:23):
just, you know, flowing fast andit empties in the Gulf of
Mexico.
When the, when the water slowsdown, it can't carry as much of
that sediment.
So it just drops it.
And that's what makes the Delta,the Delta grows outward as the
river continues to carrysediment from the continent.
So Delta does take a long timeto build up.
(47:43):
And there's one in Jezreelcrater where we are right now.
That's why we flew there.
And so our mission is going tochange from where we are in the
landing spot, which is somethingthat the landing system kind of
chose is safe.
In real time.
During that seven and a halfminutes, we have to survey
what's the floor of the craterMadoff.
It was, this is once all underwater.
(48:04):
It may have had a lot ofsediment that's been stripped
away.
And then we're going to go overto the river Delta itself, or
what's left of it.
It's kind of beat up.
It's got impact craters on itbecause it's been sitting out in
the Marsh environment for a longtime, but there's still a lot of
the Delta left somewhere inthose layers could be clues as
to whether or not life arose onMars, or was it beginning to
(48:24):
develop?
So what we're doing now, whichwe just, we're still really in
our landings.
We're not that far where I thinkwe're within about 30 meters or
so of where we landed.
And we're trying to set up forthe helicopter exercise.
We need to get that done beforewe can sort of hit the road, so
to speak and get on with themain science goals, the mission.
(48:45):
So right now we're, we'rechecking out if in the long
range mask MC images, where's agood, safe place for the
helicopter to operateperformance is flight tests, new
support that, but the scienceteam is already looking ahead is
still okay after that, where dowe go?
What's the most efficienttraverse to sample all the main
units that we can and get thosesamples prepared in those
(49:08):
penlight containers I wastalking about.
And so that by the time of theend of the prime mission, about
two years from now, uh, we willhave done most of what we set
out to do because there's awhole other mission.
After that, outside the crater,there are some areas.
In fact, it was a runner-uplanding site inside Jezreel
crater, outside Cesaro crater.
(49:29):
If the Rover survives longenough, there's a place where
Hotsprings perhaps ancientvariation.
Hotsprings once effected thegeology.
It's a interesting hypothesisbecause we don't see deposits
like that in many other placeson Mars.
That's why it almost beat outJazearra the crater interior
itself as a landing sitecandidate.
So we'd like to combine twomissions with one, explore the
(49:53):
Delt, the river Delta, wherethere was standing water for a
long time on the marshalsurface.
And then if we can survive longenough, get outside the crater
and explore that other site,which is not exactly next door,
but if we're careful andambitious, maybe we can reach it
in time to do some great sitesthere too.
So it changes the missionchanges depending on what phase
(50:15):
of it you're in.
If I'm totally immersed in this,it's not going to feel like
doing the same old thing everyday.
That's for sure.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
All right.
Um, Rob, let me ask you, um, itwas a couple of days after the
landing.
I think NASA released the video,which said, which anyone could
go look at, is there a websitethat if my listeners say, Oh
man, this is as cool as I thinkit is, but, um, you know, is
(50:41):
there some place they can gofor?
Are there new images beingposted or other ways for people
to follow along?
Speaker 4 (50:48):
Yeah.
Right now that's beingestablished and I've been so
immersed in flight operationsthat I have not been paying
enough attention to how thosewebsites are evolving.
I know that it's a high priorityfor the mass Campsie principal
investigator Jim bell, who usedto actually be a Cornell
professor.
Um, I used to play softball withhim really great person.
(51:08):
He is a high priority for him toget those images out to the
public.
Anyone the whole world, uh, canjust pick up the data and make
mosaics there.
There's a whole community outthere that scoops up these
images faster than we can andmakes all kinds of wonderful
products and post them all overthe web.
So they're likely to be severalsites right now.
If you could do a search onperseverance images or surface
(51:32):
of Mars, Mars, 2020, you'dlikely to come up with lots of
places.
There'll be some official sitesthat are getting established
that I, I don't know the statusof right now, but they're likely
to be all kinds of otherproducts that people have used
the data already for, to makewonderful mosaics, immersive,
uh, products that are justwonderful.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
All right.
Last question then.
And then, cause I'm, I'm stilltaking this all in when you were
a kid, is this at all what youhad in mind as something you
wanted to do?
Speaker 4 (52:03):
It's a great question.
And, um, I suppose differentpersons would answer, you know,
with their personal experience,but, uh, this answer might come
out a little strange, but hereit is.
I remember watching the old starTrek reruns as a kid.
I mean, they were in reruns thenyoung enough, not that young,
(52:24):
but young enough that they werereruns it, not original.
And I remember sort of,self-consciously thinking, this
is where we're going to end upone day.
It's inevitable.
I mean, all the different,different people on the bridge.
There's a hoorah from Africa andthere was a Russian helmsman.
You know, the cold war arebitter enemies that he's
(52:46):
brushing and he's on the bridge.
He's steering the ship forgoodness sake and, and, uh, Sulu
from Asia.
And there were women and mentogether and they, they worked
so hard and well together tosolve problems and explore the
greater university just seemslike that's where things are
headed.
It was inevitable.
And, and yet I was aware thatsociety wasn't in good shape
(53:12):
compared to that ideal.
And that we, you just, as a kidin school, you could read about
how long it took women in thiscountry to get the right to
vote.
It's embarrassing.
It took decades and generations.
Um, and, and the logic was rightfrom the very beginning and yet
(53:32):
it took generations for that tohappen.
And so there's this in my mind,this uneasy competition between
how much we can change andimprove and how slow and
stubborn we are about itsometimes.
But space exploration was thissign that maybe if we have a
(53:53):
little fraction or resources topeel off and have a small number
of people go explore some partof the solar system go to the
moon.
Maybe we are really emerginginto something much better than
just another species on ourplanet, maybe.
And to be a part of that was away to assure myself in some way
(54:16):
that in fact it was true.
We really are coming of agewhere we're much more than just
another mammalian species wheresomething better than that.
We're not just a bundle ofinstincts that we've inherited
from three and a half billionyears of evolution and
competitive ecosystems wherewe're better than that.
We can consciously strive to dothings that don't make us eat
(54:39):
more food, or provide bettershelter or beat up our enemies.
We could do something greaterthan that.
And if we are doing that, thenno matter how bad we are in the
new cycle and a given day, atleast we can point to space
exploration as a way of saying,you know, as a species we're on
our way to do something a littlebit better, and maybe it stops
(54:59):
and starts, but it's happening.
And I wanted to be a part ofthat somehow if I could, but
honestly, I think I've been morelucky than good.
Um, it takes luck.
I think for someone like me toget to do what I've been doing
for so long, I've been on Rovermissions.
Now, since, since before themurders landed in 2004, I was on
(55:20):
Pathfinder in 1997.
Um, I helped with the Galileoprobe to Jupiter before that,
um, you know, it can all beskill or talent.
I, I work with people every daythat I'm in awe of their, their
talent, their capabilities,their maturity, their they're
just who they are, theircharacter.
(55:40):
Uh, I've got a lot to live up toevery day with the people online
that I work with.
I don't feel as good as themmost of the time, I'm trying to
live up to their standards.
So I think it takes some lucktoo.
And I've been very lucky.
And I, when I was a kid growingup, I, I kind of knew that it
would have to be very, verylucky indeed for me to be
involved with the kind of thingthat I am today.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
Rob Sullivan, thank you so much for spending a
little bit of time explainingthings that are just miraculous
to me, but doing it in a waythat hopefully our listeners
understand it.
I wish you the team, theengineers, the operational team
continued
Speaker 4 (56:24):
Success.
And thanks again.
Thanks for inviting me on.
I've been listening to some ofyour podcasts.
It's a wonderful, wonderful setof podcasts.
I'm really quite interested inyour group and deserves a lot of
credit.
I'll thank you, right.
Speaker 1 (56:37):
Appreciate it.
Thank you for tuning in topatterns and paradigms the
pattern podcast.
For more information about thisepisode, visit our website
pattern for progress.org forwardslash podcast.
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