Martian Moves: Perseverance's Journey and Fashionable Microbes in Space

In this episode of SpaceTime, we explore significant advancements in space exploration and innovative scientific projects.
Perseverance Rover's New Journey
After nearly five years on Mars, NASA's Perseverance Rover is on the move again, heading to a new site on the rim of Jezero Crater named Lac du Charm. Having traversed over 40 kilometres and collected vital rock core samples, the rover is undergoing extensive evaluations to ensure its longevity, with engineers confident it can operate until at least 2031. We discuss the rover's advanced autonomous driving capabilities and its mission to uncover signs of past microbial life.
Fashion Meets Science: Microbial Fabrics
A groundbreaking project is set to merge fashion and science by sending specially designed fabrics made from bacteria into space. These innovative materials will change colour in response to radiation exposure, potentially protecting astronauts from harmful levels of UV radiation and offering new applications for skin cancer prevention on Earth. Lead researcher Giles Ballet shares insights into how this technology could revolutionise both space exploration and everyday fashion.
Expedition 73 Crew Returns
The Expedition 73 astronauts have safely returned to Earth after an eight-month mission aboard the International Space Station. Their journey has contributed to over 250 experiments, including advancements in bioprinting and remote robotic operations. We also discuss the implications of recent challenges faced by Russia's manned space program.
www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com
✍️ Episode References
Journal of Science
NASA Reports
Nature Communications
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spacetime-your-guide-to-space-astronomy--2458531/support.
(00:00:00) This is Space Time Series 28, Episode 151 for broadcast on 24 December 2025
(00:00:47) NASA's Perseverance Rover begins a new journey on Mars
(00:12:30) Innovative microbial fabrics set to be tested in space
(00:19:15) Expedition 73 crew returns safely to Earth after eight months in orbit
(00:24:05) New study suggests humans have been using fire for 400,000 years
(00:27:30) Technology tips for buying the right printer for your needs

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Spacetime Series twenty eight, episode one hundred and
fifty one, for broadcast on the twenty fourth of December
twenty twenty five. Coming up on Space Time, NASA's Mass
Perseverance Rover finally moving to a new location on the
rim of jest Row Crater using microbes to make space fashion.
Looks like those one designed silver space suits from the

(00:21):
sci fi movies of the fifties won't be making a
comeback after all, and the expedition seventy three astronauts returned
safely to Earth following their eight months stay aboard the
International Space Station. All that and more coming up on Spacetime.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Welcome to space Time with Stuart gary.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Well.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
After nearly five years on the surface of the Red planet,
NASA's Mars Perseverance Rover is finally moving on to a
new location on the rim of Jesuro Crater, which has
been dubbed Lactisharm. The six wheel car sized morbile laboratory
has traveled over forty kilometers across the crater floor, climbing
the River Delta sediments and along the crater rim. As

(01:19):
well as continuing with its scientific mission. Manager has been
evaluating the Rovers durability and testing its subsystems to see
how they're coping. Like its older canterpart rover Curiosity, which
has been exploring Gel Crater on a different part of
Mars since twenty twelve, Perseverance has had to deal with
extremes in temperature, dust, and terrain. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

(01:41):
in Passing into California, which built both Rovers, has been
testing an identical counterpart to Perseverance back on Earth in
order to tell how well its Martian twin is dealing
with its environment. And the good news is JPL's just
certified the rotary actuators which turned the rovers wheels for
another sixty kilometers. Next it'll be brake testing. It's sort

(02:03):
of like a full regio check for the rover. In fact,
over the past two years, engineers have been extensively evaluating
nearly all the vehicle subsystems in the same way, and
their conclusion is that they believe Perseverance will be able
to keep operating until at least twenty thirty one. Perseverance
Deputy project manager Stevelee from JPL says the tests is
showing the rover is in excellent shape. Perseverance has been

(02:27):
driving through a Jezero crater side of an ancient lake
and river system where it's been collecting scientifically compelling rock
core samples, and back in September, the rover grabbed a
sample of a rock which would be nicknamed Chava Falls,
which scientists believe may intend a potential fingerprint of past
Microbia life. In addition to a hefty suite of six

(02:48):
scientific instruments, Perseverance has more autonomous driving capabilities than past rovers,
including an autonomous planning tool known as Enhanced Autonomous Navigation
or e NAV. The software looks up if the fifteen
meters ahead of the rover for potential hazards. It then
or by itself, chooses a path without obstacles and tells
Perseverance's wheels how to steer there. Engineers at JPL meticulously

(03:12):
plan each day of the rover's activities on Mars, but
once the rover actually starts driving, it's on its own
and sometimes has to react to the unexpected obstacles in
its terrain. Now, pass rovers could do this to some degree,
but not if the obstacles were all clustered near each other. Also,
they couldn't react as far in advance, and that resulted

(03:34):
in the vehicles driving a lot slower while approaching sand pits, rocks,
and ledges. In contrast, NAPS algorithms evaluate each rover will
independently against the elevation of the terrain, trade offs between
different routes, and keep in or keep out areas marked
by human operators for the path ahead. In fact, more
than ninety percent of the rovers journey on Mars has

(03:57):
relied on autonomous driving, making it possible to quickly collect
at averse range of samples. Meanwhile, a new study reported
in the journal Science claims three samples collected by Perseverance
in the geological area known as the margin unit, which
is along the inner edge of Jesuro Crater, may be
useful for showing how ancient rocks from deep inside the

(04:17):
Martian interior interacted with water in the atmosphere when they
reach the surface, in the process helping to create conditions
which would have been supportive for life had it ever
existed there. Between September twenty twenty three November twenty twenty four,
Perseverance ascended some four hundred meters along the margin unit,
studying rocks along the way, especially those containing the mineral olivine.

(04:39):
Scientists use minerals as timekeepers because crystals within them can
record details about the precise moment conditions in which they formed.
Gesro Crater in the surrounding area holds huge reserves of olivine,
which form at high temperatures and typically deep within the planet,
and so offer a snapshot of what's going on in
a planets Interior scientists think the margin unit's olivine was

(05:03):
made in an intrusion, a process where magma pushes into
underground layers and cools into igneous rock. In this case,
erosion later exposed that rock to the surface, and there
it could interact with water from the crater's ancient lake
system and with carbon dioxide, which was abundant in the
early Martian atmosphere, and these interactions form new minerals known

(05:24):
as carbonates, and carbonates can preserve science of past life,
along with clues as to how Mars's atmosphere has changed
over time. In fact, it was the combination of oliven
in carbonate which was a major factor in NASA's decision
to choose Gold Crater as a landing site in the
first place. Together the olivin in carbonates record the interplay

(05:45):
between rock, water, and atmosphere inside the crater, including how
each changed over time. The Margin unit's olivine appears to
have been altered by water at the base of the unit,
where it would have been submerged, but the higher perseverance went,
the more the olivine bought textures associated with magma chambers
like crystallization and fewer science of water alteration. Now, as

(06:07):
perseverance leaves the Margin unit bound for Lactoshan, mission, managers
will have a chance to collect new olivine rich samples
and compare the differences between the two areas. This is
space time still to come using microbes to make space fashions,
and the expedition's seventy three crew have returned safety to
Worth following an eight month long tour of duty aboard

(06:30):
the International Space Station. All that and more still to
come on space time. A new project that fuses fashion

(06:53):
and science is set to send bacteria to space, and
the outcome could create radiation sensitive fabrics, preventing skin cancers
on Earth and protecting space explorers on the Moon. To
achieve all this, scientists have teamed up with fashion designers
to make fabrics painted with specially designed dyes made from
different types of bacteria. When this multi layered multicolored fabrics

(07:16):
exposed to radiation and ultraviolet light, the dyes in each
layer fade, revealing the layer below and leaving visible evidence
of the level of radiation they've absorbed. In the future,
fabrics painted with the dye could be used in space missions,
helping space explorers to terminate a glance if they've been
exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, and they could also

(07:37):
be used here on Earth in clinical settings providing radiation
sensitive scrubs and aprons. In fact, could even be used
in everyday fashions to create colour ch engine clothes to
help people monitor the exposure to sunlight, thereby helping to
reduce the risk of skin cancer. The studies lead author,
Giles Ballet from the University of Glasgow says exposure to

(07:57):
radiation breaks up the pigments in the bacteria in the
same way similar exposure to radiation in humans breaks up DNA.
For the bacteria it means a reduction in their color saturation,
but of course for people it means greater risk of
genic mutations and cancers. So far, the authors have developed
fabrics using six different bacteria based colors. There's a red, yellow,

(08:19):
type of pink, a blue, and an orange. Harmless bacteria
naturally produce different pigments for various protective purposes. The bacteria
are then applied to the fabric using specialized needles and
three D printing techniques in the process creating very precise
patterns and layers. When the bacteria die, they leave behind
only their protective pigments in the process, creating a stable

(08:43):
color fast fabric that responds predictably to radiation exposure. Now,
once in orbit, regular images of the fabric during the
year long space mission will show the changes in the
color of the pigments as the satellite is exposed to
months of radiation in loweth orbit. And if this mission
goes as plants and we also hope to launch a
more ambitious project which would take a larger piece of

(09:04):
fabric to the surface of the Moon in twenty twenty
eight and that would be the first Scottish build hardware
to reach the lunar surface. The patch would be equipped
with a dedicated camera and microscope to enable mission managers
to broaden their understanding of how the diary reacts to
long term exposure to the Moon's harsh radiation environment, and
the data they collect about the radiation exposure patterns would

(09:25):
then be used to help support safety measures for future
manned larner missions. This report from the University of Glasgow.

Speaker 4 (09:32):
We started the projects with a really small part of
money from the impact Exeration accounts from the Universe of
Glasgow to investigate how to put my technology into the
fashion garments of Katy Tombing. We wanted to bring space engineering,
macrobilogy and artists together to try to do some outreach

(09:53):
in a defund manner. But on the way to that
we actually invented a brilliant new technology. First of a kin,
that is allowing us to have a two dimensional dosimetter.
You could cover full spacesuits with this fabric and that
will actually measure the radiation not just on one point
like it's done now, but on the full body and

(10:14):
you also direct visual feedback for the astronauts to understand
what those of radiations they've been exposed to. That really
leads us also to applications on Earth for the staff
at NHS Enough Care, but also for workers in the
nuclear industry. The project is centered around the fact that

(10:34):
small bacterias produces pigments to protect themselves against radiation.

Speaker 5 (10:40):
Part of the work that we do is pigmented bacteria
that is used to dye textiles in a more sustainable ways.
Instead of using synthetic dyes that contaminate water streams. Bacteria
can be used as a natural alternative. The same way
humans produce melanin or different types of proteins that make
our hair curly or straight back, can produce these compounds

(11:02):
that then create this pigment. So, for example, an orange
bacteria has kerotine. Carrots also have kerotine. It's what makes
them orange. So it's a chemical compound that the bacteria produces,
and that is the color that we're using.

Speaker 4 (11:16):
You can stuck that up, so you will have different
layers with different painting for each layer. And when you
expose all of that to outer space, this will be
bleached by radiation cosmic radiation X ray UV and so
the layers will bleach one by one, revealing the layers below.
And so if you're taking a term laps of it,
you will be able to see color fading, shape changing,

(11:39):
everything like that.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
So I'm working on creating the design of the colors
of the bacteria on the fabric, and especially the fading element,
because the more fade we get, the more we can
understand the effect of the radiation on the bacteria. What
I want is a result which is visually interesting, I

(12:02):
don't want to say beautiful, but visually interesting, but also
functional and useful, so we get some data from it,
and that's what I'm really trying to balance.

Speaker 4 (12:13):
We are working with a startup in brack or spinning arounds.
They are hosting this experiment with us, and so the
idea is that we're going to send this brick that
everything will be moushed together inside the rocket. It's going
to be in space in February twenty twenty six and
release for its own mission in Mass twenty twenty six.

(12:33):
And so once it will be released by itself, we
will have the camera inside the main part of the
spacecraft imaging our fabric made with pigments. And the idea
is if we are able to get good enough data
on this mission, then we'll be able to send a
larger sample, a larger experiment on the surface of the
Moon to prepare the exploration of the Moon by the

(12:54):
new astronauts. This is really possible thanks to its amazing
bioprinter which is here are the Mikainoberog facility of the
Advanced Research Center.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
And in that report from the University of Glasgow we
heard from space technology lecturer Giles Ballet, microbiologist kier At Tucker,
and fashion designer Katie Tubbing. This is space time still
to come. The Expedition seventy three crew returned safely to
Earth following an eight month long mission aboard the International
Space Station, and later in the science report, a new

(13:26):
study finds that humans have been making and using fire
for at least three hundred and fifty thousand years, earlier
than previously thought. All that and more still to come
on space time. The Expedition seventy three crew have returned

(13:54):
safely to Worth following an eight month long tour of
duty board the International Space Station. Their Sawyers MS twenty
seven capsule touched down on the frozen Kazakh Steps just
three hours after departing from the orbiting our post. Their
replacement Expedition seventy four crew arrived on station two weeks
earlier aboard their Sawyer's MS twenty eight spacecraft, and that

(14:16):
may well wind up being the last man Sawyer's launched
for quite some time after their rocket's jet blast destroyed
key structural components of the launch pad during the liftoff.
The Russian Federal Space Agency at os Cosmos says repairs
to the facility could take over a year, and Moscow
has no other launch complexes designed to handle manned spacecraft.

(14:37):
Ross Cosmos has already dulled back their manned launch frequencies
to just one flight every eight months due to Kremlin
budget cuts. That compares to NASA's manned space program, which
has been flying crews to the space station every six
months using SpaceX Dragon spacecraft under the agency's Commercial Crew program.
While on station, the expedition seventy three crew were involved

(14:57):
in more than two hundred and fifty experiments. Included studying
the behavior of bioprinted tissues containing blood vessels in microgravity
that will help advance space based tissue production to treat
patients on Earth. They also evaluated the remote commanding of
multiple robots in space for the Surface Avatar study that
could support the development of robotic assistance for future exploration missions,

(15:20):
and they worked on developing in space manufacturing of DNA
mimicking nanomaterials which could improve drug delivery technologies and support
emerging therapeutics in regenerative medicines. This is space time and

(15:49):
time that to take another brief look at some of
the other stories making use in science this week with
the Science Report. A new study has shown that people
who experience intense and prolonged grief after the loss of
a loved one are more likely to die over the
following ten years. A reporting the journal Frontiers in Public
Health looked at one thousand, seven hundred and thirty five

(16:10):
people in Denmark who had recently lost a partner, a parent,
or a close loved one. They studied these people over
a ten year period see how the intensity and duration
of their symptoms of grief impacted their physical and mental health.
The authors found that six percent of the group experienced
high levels of grief symptoms. Those people had an eighty
eight percent higher risk of death compared to those with

(16:32):
lower grief symptoms. People experiencing intense grief also used more
healthcare services, especially around therapy and medications for mental health,
although this link disappeared by about eight years. Archaeologists have
found that humans were already making and using fire three
hundred and fifty thousand years earlier than previously thought. The

(16:53):
authors found baked clay, heat chatted flint axes, and pieces
of pyrite stone used to create sparks a disused clay
pit in England dating back some four hundred thousand years.
The authors were able to prove that the clay was
subjected to temperatures are more than seven hundred degrees celsius
on repeated occasions at the same location, and that indicates

(17:14):
a campfire or hearth being used by people several occasions,
and therefore it wasn't simply a case of burning due
to wildfire. The findings reported in the journal Nature suggests
the site wasn't made by homosapiens, but more likely by
some of the oldest Neanderthal groups. The authors believe the
discovery's clear evidence that hominids were creating controlling fire four

(17:35):
hundred thousand years ago, and that has implications for human
development and evolution. A new study shows that one in
ten boys between the ages of ten and eighteen meet
the clinical diagnostic criteria for computer game addiction, also known
as Internet gaming disorder. The findings reported in the General
Addiction also indicate that while boys are more easily hooked

(17:58):
on gaming. Just one to two percent of girls developed
this kind of problem. The studies authors say the reason
is simply a case of boys being far more competitive
than girls. Previous research has already shown that the brain
releases dopamine in its reward center when you do activities
you enjoy, like gaming. This release increases when you expect
a positive experience and when the expectation is actually met.

(18:22):
The new findings are based on the study of eight
hundred and twelve young people in the city of Totdheim, Norway,
who were followed up five times from the age of
ten to eighteen, with participants roughly equally divided between boys
and girls. The authors found that the proportion who were
heavily involved in gaming increases from the age of ten
to about the age of sixteen, but it then starts

(18:43):
to fall again by the age of eighteen. Well, of course,
tomorrow's Christmas, and if like me, you're a last minute shopper,
well maybe the thing your loved one really wants is
a new printer. Stop smiling. We're being serious here, quite honestly,
if you are looking for a print, you need to
ask yourself a couple of questions, how often will you
be using it? What features do you really need? With

(19:06):
a quick guy to buying the right printer, we're joined
by technology editor Alex Saharov right from Tech Advice Start Life.

Speaker 6 (19:13):
The salesman was saying that it should run out of ink,
you just buy a whole new printer. But the problem
with that is that new printers come with starter cartridges
that only have a small amount of ink in side,
so of enough to get you going and do a
few prints. And then you buy brand new ink cartridges
which have the larger amount of ink inside, but are
still quite small compared to the amount of pages you

(19:33):
can get from a laser printer with toner, which is
powdered black ink. And if you buy a color laser printer,
I mean the cost of the cartridges can be quite
expensive compared to just buying a cheap and simple inkjet printer.
But with a color laser printer, the tona never dries
up because it's powder, whereas with ink cartridges the ink
and dry up. Now we do have the problem of

(19:55):
the smaller ink cartridges having ink that can cost more
than a bottle of domper and new or if you
would buy the same volume, So the ink is quite expensive.
And although you do have third party inks that you
can buy from various stores, the printer companies always say
that they have developed inks that lubricate the system and
don't clog things up, and they're designed to work properly.

(20:16):
But I've personally noticed that if I've got one of
these ink tank eco tank printers from a brother or Cannon,
I mean they're fantastic that they're designed for you to
have a family with lots of kids printing, or to
be used in offices, small officers and businesses. If you're
just going to print once or twice a year, you
either get yourself a black and white laser printer. But
if you need color and it's only very rarely, well,

(20:38):
if it's rarely, you can go to an office works
or one of the stores that has printers there that
you can just bring a us bastic. But the other option,
of course, is just to buy a cheap inkjet printer,
because if it does clog up, well, you can always
have a brand new cartridges to hand, and the printers
do have cleaning cycles. But this is where I was
HARKing back to the fact that you have these eco
tank ink tank type printers that can have a year

(20:58):
or two worths of ink insight, depending and how much
printing you do, but they're designed to deliver that a
year long at least up to two years with EPSOM
level of printing on a constant basis, because they have
these ink tanks that your body, these little botles of
ink about twenty bucks a pop for each color, pull
them in and just keep going. You don't have to
buy the little ink cartridges that have the heads there.
But I have noticed that those if you don't use them,

(21:19):
because I'm a bit like you, I only print rarely.
If you don't use them for a long time in
there ten o clock and then you've got to run
twenty or thirty cleaning cycles to get rid of the line.
So if you're just an everyday individual user that prints rarely,
well you just buy one of these cheap printers. I've
seen them for sale as little as twenty bucks sometimes
on sale at some of those big cheap department stores
because they're getting rid of old models. And if it

(21:41):
does play up, yeah, it can be easier just to
go get a whole another one, you know, a new
one of those plug it in and off you go.
But if you do have a more serious amount of
printing to be done, and you've got a family with
kids where you have a small business that's always printing stuff,
then definitely the best way to go is to get
one of these eco tank slash ink tank type printers
from Cannon and Brother which do a fabulous job epsom

(22:02):
as well. You know, they do this fabulous job of
delivering lots of ink at a low cost. You do
pay more upfront for the printer. You'll be paying two, three, four,
five hundred bucks depending on you know, whether it has
a printer and a scanner and a multi sheet feeder
and double started printing. And you know, there's various models
out there, so the high higher volume used. Definitely one
of the eco tank style printers. Individual use just one
of the cheap ones, and you know, if you feel

(22:23):
like buying a spare cartridge.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Off you go.

Speaker 6 (22:25):
And if not, you've always got the ability to go
to office work sort of best buy if you're in
the US, that sort of place where they have laser
printers that you can bring a little USB stick in
and pay whatever it costs per paget you're printing done.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
That's alex Oharavroyd from Take Advice, Start Life, and this
space Time, and that's the show for now. Space Time

(23:00):
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(23:20):
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(23:40):
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Speaker 2 (23:43):
You've been listening to Spacetime with Stuart Gary. This has
been another quality podcast production from bytes dot com.