Danny Jones Podcast - #400 - Astrobiologist: What NASA Isn’t Telling Us About Mars | Alyssa Carson

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

Watch every episode ad-free & uncensored on Patreon: https://patreon.com/dannyjones Alyssa Carson is a pilot and astrobiologist training with NASA to become one of the first humans to visit Mars. Her scientific research focuses on Mars exploration, the latest space technology, and the quest for discovering life on Mars. SPONSORS https://whiterabbitenergy.com/?ref=DJP - Use code DJP for 20% off. EPISODE LINKS https://www.instagram.com/nasablueberry https://www.driventoexplorefilm.com FOLLOW DANNY JONES https://www.instagram.com/dannyjones https://twitter.com/jonesdanny OUTLINE 00:00 - The first human to go to Mars 06:13 - How NASA uses SCUBA for training 11:25 - NASA's timeline for Mars missions 16:37 - Possible windows for Mars launche 19:14 - Nuclear propulsion technology 28:07 - 2033 could be the year we go to Mars 30:37 - Organisms that can survive in space 40:14 - Alyssa addresses moon landing conspiracies 44:15 - Apollo 17 missions' UFO encounters 54:10 - Why Mars rovers won't discover life 55:50 - Where astrobiologists are looking for life in space 01:02:07 - Best areas on Mars for civilization 01:10:19 - Terraforming Mars 01:14:34 - The problem with Venus 01:21:44 - The danger of space junk 01:24:20 - Decommissioning the ISS 01:27:13 - Using reusable rockets for Mars missions 01:31:17 - Research done on the ISS 01:32:17 - Evidence of ancient Mars civilization 01:37:43 - Alyssa's "Driven to Explore" documentary 01:44:03 - Scuba diving in San Diego 01:47:54 - Artemis vs. Apollo missions 01:52:24 - Alyssa's PhD research Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Are you really going to be the first person to go to Mars? Sure you want to do that? Yeah, I don't know, obviously, but I will certainly put in a good effort to do it. I think I've always had an interest in wanting to contribute to the space industry. And really for me, I think I've done a lot to almost separate my dreams and ambitions from like things that I can control. And so I had this initial interest in wanting to become an astronaut, get involved in space, locked in super quick with the idea of wanting to go to Mars, mostly because I thought that was my only option.

Like when I was a kid in hearing about how, you know, we've already sent people to the moon. I was like, well, when I grew up, Mars is the only option that I can go to. Like, that's the only thing I'm going to be able to do if I want to be an astronaut. So got super locked in on Mars. And, you know, as like I got more and more interested, I think I started understanding of, okay, here's what I can do to work towards becoming an astronaut. And then also at like what point is it, you know, okay, it's someone else making that decision. You know, I can do all this work to make the best resume possible.

And then at that point, I'll give it my best effort. But at the end of the day, it's someone choosing those things, right? I'd have to apply to the astronaut selection process, get selected. And then even from there, I mean, depending on which mission you get selected on. So I think really my dreams have focused so much on the things that I can control. and then we'll see. Yeah, didn't, I saw recently that Elon actually scrapped his goal to go to Mars. And now he like dialed it back to the moon.

He's like, we need to go to the moon first. Did you see that? Yeah, he did. What did you think about that? You know, I think that Mars was almost like jumping the gun a little bit with a lot of ambitions that they're worth surrounding it. I mean, Mars has been a hot topic. I mean, for so long. It's just been such an area of interest.

Obviously, Mars is literally the most studied planet second to Earth. So we've just sent so many rovers, satellites, things we've learned so much about the planet. And so that's created such this interest and draw to it. And I think that there's, even still today, I think there's still some challenges that, especially technology challenges and just the aspect of, you know, keeping humans alive for that extent of time on a long-term mission. And so there's just a lot of things to figure out. So I think a lot of these like early ideas of wanting to go to Mars, as I said, was almost jumping the gun just because there was still so many issues to figure out before we could get there or like put a hard date on it. I think there's been a lot of improvements in that area.

You know, I think that we've made a lot of progress and making like a mission to Mars more realistic. And there's been, you know, it's starting to become more and more of a possibility. But yeah, I think it makes perfect sense that we're kind of like going back to the moon first testing a lot of these systems because I mean geez it's been since the 1970s that we've done deep space travel and sure that's different technologies that's a different type of space travel you know different periods of time in space obviously it's a whole new rocket whole new systems all that has to get tested first so I do think it's a good call but yeah I think finally maybe a little sense came to to what it takes to actually do the Mars mission yeah so explain like what your goal is

as far as like being becoming like an actual astronaut. Like how did it like how much training have you been through? And like what does it take to be like one of the people that gets chosen? And who does the choosing? Yeah. So I think that for me, my first interest was just wanting to become an astronaut. I didn't really know when an astronaut was inherently.

I mean, I started learning a little bit about the space industry. And then when I was young, I went to space camp in Huntsville. And that was like my dad always says like that was my Disney world. Like you got to ride simulators. you got to meet astronauts. And so I felt like I was learning so much about the space industry

from just going to camp there. And I think that's when I started forming like, okay, there's like different jobs, right? You can be a scientist, you can be a pilot, you can be a doctor. There's so many different routes you can go. And then that's when I think I started shifting, okay, an astronaut isn't really a job that you can pursue, right?

You can't go to college and study astronauting. And so then I was like, okay, what do I want to do from there? And I didn't really know. I mean, it started just like an inquisatory thing of like, what do I want to do? Like, would I want to be a pilot? Would I want to go to the military? Would I want to just do science? And so really my childhood was figuring a lot of those things out and almost trying different

things. But it was through like a lot of like almost physically trying them and figured out that I really was interested in a lot of the science aspect of it. Now I'm an astrobiologist, so I fell really into the field of astrobiology. and that was just kind of natural progression of figuring out what these interests were. And then from there, working on building that resume to apply to the astronaut selection process. So NASA has an astronaut selection process that they open up every few years. It's usually at random.

So it's not like they're always in need of astronauts, right? Because they already have astronauts. So it's mostly just when they're in need for a new class, they'll open that selection process up, send in an application. And really, there's not too many requirements. So, you know, you have to hold at least a master's. You have to... Really? Yes.

So you just have to have a master's in some sort of STEM. If you're coming from more of a pilot background, I think it's like a thousand hours, like flight hours. Have a little work experience and then you're eligible to apply. So there's not many requirements in order to apply. So I took that as, okay, how can I build the best resume? What are things I can do to almost enhance that? because it's like, I have a master's.

Well, so does 18,000 of the other applicants, right? And so it's starting to now try to differentiate yourself in that way. Yeah. So that's really what I was looking into, trying to find these, like, unique opportunities to almost add stuff to the resume. And, yeah, so I mean, I guess as far as things that I've done or been interested in, I mean, I did, like, scuba diving and skydiving as, like, an aspect of learning more about some of those, like, less gravity environments. So, you know, NASA uses, like, underwater to simulate, like, long duration microgravity in a way. They, like, train underwater in Houston in their pool, so, like, learning some of those environments. I got involved with IAS, which is, like, a citizen science research institute.

So it's, like, normal people, but it's conducting, like, real research. So with them, I got to work with a spacesuit company, try on spacesuits, got to do microgravity flights, atmospheric imaging. also. And I think that really like was a lot of the beginning that got me super interested in research, which is why I'm in a PhD program now and like heavily pursuing, I guess, the research side of things. So yeah, a lot of those just experiences were really, I guess, to build on the resume, but really just genuine interest in a lot of these different fields. And I feel like I learned a wide variety of like different fields within the space industry and then slowly found like my

niche within it. Now, when you say it is scuba diving, did you have? actually go into like those giant pools where they put you in those like big contraptions and spin you around and stuff? Yeah. So I've done, you know, obviously like normal scuba diving. And then so I did that. I've also done like the Aquanaut certification, which is where you like stay underwater for a full 24 hours. And so you go inside of like, I mean, you're in a facility, but it's still submerged. So it's almost like living inside of a scuba tank is how they describe it in terms of like the effect on your body and like you're living in that environment. So I did that, which was honestly really cool. Got pizza delivered down there, which is awesome. So it's like,

you're like in a bubble underwater. You're like in like a facility, but it's like fully submerged. It was like 30 feet down. So I did that as like a way to honestly just understand living in like a habitat environment. But as far as what you're talking about with the, you know, the big pools, Not the one at NASA Johnson, but I did do a very similar. We were almost creating a mock-up of very similar. So like our own version of that. And we had like a full contraption underwater. It was in a big pool.

Rather than using spacesuits, I was involved in kind of the initial testing of the system. So we were in full scuba gear, but using like a full face. So the where you can, you know, still have communications built in. And we did like a simulation of testing, like a spacewalk underwater. So we had like the build out and they were eventually going to take that to then use for like space suit testing. But I was helping them with that like initial getting it all built and put together. So that was really fun. Were you like the only, how old were you when you did that?

Um, that was probably a few years ago. So maybe 2021, 22 is. So. For sure the youngest person. Um, yeah. I was, I've almost almost any and everything that I've done. I've certainly been. gap between you and the next person. Yeah, I've certainly been the youngest at like everything,

but it's been, I don't know, it's been fun. I think that a lot of the time I've been able to like really show that like young people can have really serious interests in a lot of these fields. And so, you know, very grateful to, to IAS because when I like first, first started with them, I was only like 15 and they were like still open to having me involved in things. And so they've just been so wonderful and including me. And a lot of the, this. And yeah, like the idea of being one of the first people to go to Mars is pretty scary. Like, do you still think about it the same way now that you did when you were like 16? I mean, I guess yes and no. I mean, I think that I really do think about like my interest

in wanting to become an astronaut and even with the Mars thing. You know, I really just want to, as a goal, contribute to the space industry in any capacity. And whatever makes. the most sense. You know, I think my goals really align with obviously the overarching goals. I want the best people who go on that first mission to Mars to be the best possible candidates. So, you know, I don't know for sure if that's me. I would love to, you know, tell you that I'm for sure going to go. But I think really, for me, I really want the success of the space industry. And I want to be able to contribute to it. And, you know, if that ends up becoming a part of the mission, then that's great. If that is a part of, like, the research that aids in the mission,

that's great too. And so I think that that's really, I think, the biggest difference from like a lot of those initial goals to like where I am now is, you know, I just think that the space industry is such a unique one that I just feel like I've learned so much about it and it's such a community and it's such a space that I think is really important that we continue to pursue and continue to succeed in. And so I think that's why my interest now are so much of just whatever the success and whatever the best case scenario is. for us continuing that exploration, I think is what's most important. Yeah. So, like, what are the logistics of actually, actually, before I actually that, so Elon pulled it back to the moon, but is NASA still, does they still have a plan or like a schedule as far as at least trying to get to Mars? So NASA, I think is still interested in Mars. There's not, I guess, official statement or timeline, but a lot of the current Artemis program is setting up a potential. for a Mars mission. And so they certainly are still interested, but it may be like a joint effort. So I mean, even with a lot of the current Artemis program and going back to the moon, it is joint efforts with commercial companies.

So I'm pretty sure like the lander systems and everything for the lunar mission is coming from like commercial companies. So some parts are NASA, some parts are commercial companies, which really is not that surprising. NASA has always used like private contractors. I mean, Lockheed Martin. I mean, it's kind of that same aspect, except now you're having SpaceX Blue Origin be some of those contractors. So it's certainly a collaborative effort.

So I think, you know, the same thing may be true with the mission to Mars. You know, parts of it may be NASA. It may be a NASA rocket, but then, you know, commercial other systems, Habitat, you know, SpaceX having being the provider of the habitat system or like the lander system. So I think it's certainly going to be a collaborative effort. As far as timeline goes, I mean, NASA has stated they are. working on getting back to the moon, having the next Artemis three will test those lander systems. Artemis four plans to land on the moon, and then we'll kind of see from there. I know that they want to establish permanent presence is the term that they're saying for the moon. So some

sort of habitat system, some, you know, whatever they claim as like, you know, so who knows how many missions that will take to accomplish their goal of permanent presence, and then Mars will certainly come in, but they're still certainly working on a lot of the technologies and ideas of getting to Mars. So I would certainly not count them out for permission. Yeah, the Artemis thing was so funny to me because when I had Tim Dodden here, the guy from everyday astronaut and he was when he was here, they were supposed to launch it like the following week and they kept pushing it because of weather and all that stuff. And they eventually did it on April Fool's Day. I was joking with some of my friends.

And I was like, was there, I would love to be in those meetings in NASA and just be a fly in the wall to like understand. Was there any logical, technical reason they couldn't do it on the second? Like, why the first? Yeah, you know, I think that they just didn't care that it was April Fool's day. I'm sure they had to have thought of that. Yeah, I think they certainly. Can we do the second? They certainly did. Yeah, I mean, really, so the launch windows are just placed solely for the sake of, like, trajectories.

So, like, if we launch, which days can we launch and have the correct trajectory that they're going to accomplish their mission? And so that's why, you know, there was only a few days of the each month that they could potentially launch on. And it's funny because you could say, like, yeah, sure, we could have done it on the second. But then it also, what if the first would have launched, but then the second got scrubbed and the third got scrubbed. Now we're pushed to May, May even June. Who knows? And so you want to take advantage of any good opportunity that you have. And so because there was no guarantee we could have gone on the second.

There could have been weather delays. It could have been anything. And so it's really just making the most of any opportunity you can to keep the mission moving forward. Because, I mean, as you said, it was already delays from other issues. And it was supposed to go on February, then March. And so it was really just taking advantage of the best possible moment. And I mean, it was like a to-a-te, almost like perfect launch. It launched like at the beginning of the launch window.

I mean, it was crazy. And I think they used the thruster from the space shuttle, I think, or the engines from the original space shuttle, which is kind of nuts. Yeah, so they were, I know for sure they were refurbishing a lot of the old engines from the space shuttle program. And that was like a big part of kind of with the Artemis program as a whole. And then, I mean, even, I mean, there's a lot of. refurbishing, which is kind of good to see because they're, you know, the space industry has been

almost wasteful, you could say in a way. Looking back at like the history of it, you know, the amount of stuff that is spent and having to build a whole new rocket for every mission. And that's been a big advantage, I think, too, of like commercial space. It's brought in a lot of, like, the reusability. But I mean, even like the Orion spacecraft that the astronauts just flew in, that will get refurbished and potentially used on another Artemis mission. So we'll take a look at it and try to reuse it again. enjoy watching our show on Spotify or YouTube and you want to be more involved. I encourage you to please come check out our Patreon community. Not only does our Patreon community get every episode you see

on YouTube early, fully uncensored and ad-free, but we're also doing Patreon exclusive episodes as well as live Q&As and you can get your personal questions answered by our guests every single week. For me, being able to collaborate and communicate back and forth with our Patreon community every week has been huge. And this is my way of saying thank you for the cost of a cup of coffee a month. Now back to the show. How many windows of opportunity are there to launch to Mars every year? Isn't it, isn't it true? There's only a few of them. Yeah. So it's pretty like minimal. I mean, it's really I mean, I don't know if I'd have like an exact number. It really just depends on like the way the planets are orbiting. Because right, sometimes Mars is really far away from us and sometimes it's much closer to us. And so you'd want to launch at like the closest possible opportunity. And, you know, sometimes. there's an opportunity to launch. It may not be like the best opportunity, but like you can launch. But certainly like calculating those trajectories, that's a little past my pig, right? I don't know. That's, uh, that's what, uh, all the really smart people do. What's this say, Stevo?

Well, this is basically what she's talking about. Yeah. Because, uh, because the planets are so slow to rotate. Okay. There's like a sweet spot and then you have to wait until the next year. Oh, yeah. It's on the other side of the sun. Yeah, so you're almost like playing a game of like catch up. So like when you launch, you're just trying to catch up to where Mars is like going to be at like a later point. And I mean, it's the same thing that they do with like when they send like satellites or like anything to Mars, right? It's always trying to make sure that you align because I think currently NASA plans to send a new satellite to Mars in 2028. And that's going to be going and testing a new, I guess, propulsion system.

That's going. Oh, really? Mm-hmm. So they're going to be looking at nuclear propulsion for this mission. And that's a potential that I know has been talked about for a while because they're trying to look at reducing the timeline of getting to Mars because that's the biggest, I would say, personally, and is the biggest issue with getting to Mars is how long it takes to get there. Yeah, how long does it currently take with our current technology?

Yeah. So, like, current engines and stuff, you're looking like six to nine months is like the timeline. And then obviously if you were to have a human mission, you'd want to stay there for a little chunk of time. And then obviously with the trajectories, you may even end up being there for a long time before you're able to come back. And then another six to nine months, I mean, it's just a really, really long mission. And that's what I think makes it challenging. I think that, you know, we're used to having astronauts in space for a year. You know, astronauts have lived on the International Space Station for a year at a time.

But it's really just how long the mission is compared to what we've seen before. And I think that if we're able to shorten the timeline to Mars and make it a more reasonable timeline, then the mission becomes a lot more possible. Yeah. So tell me about this nuclear propulsion stuff. I've never heard of this. Yeah. So it was... Have we ever used it before?

No, I think this mission to Mars is going to be the first that they're like really using it for. And that is going... It was like recently the NASA administrator said because he kind of was aligning or laying out some of the plans for like the next Artemis missions and then also mentioned this Mars mission. So like I said, I think it's planned for 2028. We'll see if that timeline gets met. But I do know that it has this satellite being launched. Yes, yes.

Yeah. So it's going to just kind of be testing this propulsion system, which I know is something that has been worked on for a while. Because a lot of what I was like hearing was that the big goal was to try to reduce a mission to Mars timeline from six months to six weeks to make it a way more reasonable timeline. So that was the ultimate goal. So I'm not sure if this will, I guess we'll see whenever this mission goes, you know, how long it takes and how much of an improvement this propulsion is. But I do know that it's been a big goal for a long time.

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And what are some of the other, like, biggest hurdles as far as traveling to Mars other than the time, right? Because the time is an insane one. Yeah. You kind of have to be like, to be the person that's going to be willing to do that, you kind of like you got to be able you got to be willing to kiss your whole life goodbye right because there's a good chance you're not going to come back yeah i think for like a mission to mars i think yeah i personally think timeline is our number one biggest issue just because a lot of the other issues that are with the mars mission we've semi combated them before or like maybe not to the extent of like a mission to mars but there's been almost like similar scenarios.

I think at least for the first missions, I don't think there's going to be a possibility of a one-way mission, at least especially from NASA themselves. So unless it's like Elon or like a private industry pursuing some sort of one-way, I don't think NASA will ever do a one-way mission. No. So they have always been, I guess the core of their goal is to, you know, have this scientific expedition,

scientific discovery, and then bring the astronauts home. So I don't think Mars will be different, and I don't think they will do a Mars mission until the option of a return is possible. So, you know, I think that if they're pursuing a Mars mission, it's because there's, like, the means of coming back. So we'll see if that delays the timeline and making sure that we have more technology to get there,

and, you know, that maybe opens room for, I guess, commercial endeavors if they have that interest. But yeah, I think a lot of the Mars mission will certainly be a multi-way. But not to say that a one way isn't possible in the future, but I think that for like the first missions will certainly have returns. Yeah. And then the radiation must be a huge problem. Yeah, I think radiation would certainly be the next, you know, second to the timeline,

just because, yeah, it's dangerous. And it is certainly a challenging one. I know that a big idea, especially, for on the moon, you know, is looking at having like habitats and stuff subsurface. So going, like having the actual habitat be beneath the surface. So that way you have the actual surface of Mars protecting you from some of that radiation while you're there. And then there's also been a bunch of ideas of like actually protecting the capsule or like whatever you're in. But obviously there's plenty of ideas, but nothing's like set in stone. What is this, Steve? Oh, this is an

article about it. Yes. History and mysteries surround NASA's 2028. nuclear Mars mission, fission-powered spaceflight. A 60-year dream would supercharge the outer solar system exploration. So is this going to literally be like a nuclear detonation when it launches? Okay, nearly all of today's space missions rely on chemical rockets, which require vast quantities of heavy fuel and are comparatively slow. Instead, nuclear electric propulsion, NEP relies on fission to generate heat, which gets converted to electricity via a gas turbine.

This power, in turn, ionizes a gas propellant into a plasma that shoots continuously out of the thrusters. Wow. Yeah, so I would say, so the actual, like, satellite system that they're using for this, that's going to have the nuclear propulsion. The actual rocket that's launching off of Earth will not have nuclear. So they'll still launch it from Earth as if it was, like, normal. And then they'll deploy the actual satellite that has,

the nuclear propulsion and then that satellite will then take off to Mars using the nuclear propulsion. So it will essentially get like turned on. How far will the rocket go? Probably just a low Earth orbit. And the satellite will have a separate propulsion system that will shoot it into Mars. Yeah. So almost all like rockets are just going to be like your vessel to get to space. Once you're in space, because so much of the rocket gets like used up just by the time it gets to space. So that's why even like with the Artemis mission, the solid rocket boosters, they're spent. They get taken off. They jettison.

You know, kind of the big core stage, that gets jettisoned. You use up all that fuel. The hardest part about getting to space is living Earth. Just because all of that gravity, you need so much thrust, you need so much fuel. That's the hard part. That's why rockets are so big and they take so much fuel. But once you're in space, you know, you have much more flexibility. You don't have all those forces fighting you.

So more than likely they'll use, you know, I mean, they may even use like a SpaceX rocket or a NASA rocket. or, you know, Delta heavy, whatever it takes for the satellite to just get it to space, and then they'll deploy it and it's going to be using that nuclear power to actually get to Mars. And that's going to be the interesting part. And for the Mars mission, once you have to refuel in like that, in like orbit or something? So I think it just kind of depends on what the mission's going to look like. I mean, there's possibilities. I mean, you could have a case where you go from Earth to the moon.

know, maybe do like a fuel stop. Depending on how big of a vessel you have actually going to Mars, you could have enough fuel to go there. So I think it just kind of depends on what it ends up looking like. I know some ideas have been like almost having like a miniature international space station almost being like the vessel of going to Mars. So like you'll launch and then you'll dock with almost this miniature space station. And then that's going to be the thing going to Mars.

So it just depends on what logistically works. I mean, again, with the Mars mission, since it's so theoretical, there's so many ideas of possibilities of what we could do with sending humans to Mars. But like obviously nothing's been like concrete selected for it. Right. How much testing and trial and error and how much experimentation is being done or floated around on how to logistically get people there safe? Like do they do you know if they know like will you go to sleep for the six months? that you're traveling there and go into like a hibernation or like how much of that stuff has actually

been thought about? Yeah, I think there's been a lot. I think space is as a whole, it's always long term. You can't do anything fast in the space industry. Not a single idea or a single thing that we see happen is, you know, a quick endeavor. I mean, even you look at the Artemis mission that just launched, right? The Artemis mission, or I guess you can even go back to Artemis 1, which didn't have humans on it, but it was the start of the Artemis program. I mean, that was in, you know, a few years ago. And that has been an endeavor since the space shuttle program ended in 2011. So from 2011 to now is how long it's taken to, you know, build this new rocket, get it going, actually have it on the launch pad and make it a reality. And so it's really funny because like from

someone that like, here's so much of like what's going on the space industry, you know, the public's like, oh my gosh, this rocket just shot up overnight, and now it's taking astronauts? Like, is it safe? But, you know, it's been tested for, you know, over 10 years now. And so it's been an endeavor that's been happening. And the Mars mission is no different. I mean, there's a lot of also just like academic research that goes into a lot of this too. So like universities, I mean, there's people that will do like human studies and you do like analog missions and they have humans practicing that human, human interaction of how would it be to be in a Mars habitat for that period? of time. And so there's a lot of those different types of research that's been, I mean,

happening for many years. And I think we'll continue to kind of gather that data in preparation for a future Mars mission. Right. And so in 23, I believe it, I read something that said Earth is going to be the closest it's ever been to Mars in like thousands of years. So that would be the optimal window, 233. But that seems. very aggressive. Yeah, no, I'm 100% agree. I mean, I've heard 233 for a really long time with how much it kind of aligns. And just from a trajectory standpoint and how much of a benefit it would be that Mars is closest to Earth and closer than it has been in a really long time. I do agree that I think 233 is a very ambitious goal up to this point. And I think

it's, you know, space travel again, it's such a slow process. And so, So, you know, things, anytime something gets like delayed or push back, it just kind of makes it more difficult. So I guess we'll see. You never know. But I would think that, especially from NASA's perspective, if they are planning to have some sort of permanent presence or, I guess, Habitat thing by 2028 on the moon. And that's going to be some of those initial missions to the moon. then, you know, a 20, 33, you know, mission just seems way too close to a lot of these, like, lunar missions. Yeah.

Well, it would be probably a better if you could launch from the moon, you know? Yeah. If you could set up launch pads on the moon or somehow get enough resources there, it would be probably far easier. Yeah. So, I mean, I think that that's been a big idea. And that's why it almost shifted, you know, for a while. I mean, what we see today as the Artemis program has been definitely reworked a lot of times. Because originally after the space shuttle program ended, we had what was called the Constellation Program.

Then that got scrapped. And then it's kind of slowly merged into what we see as current day Artemis. And I think a lot of the initial ideas was going to be, let's go to Mars. And then after looking into going to Mars, it was then, okay, wait, maybe we're going back to the moon first. Maybe the moon is like a launch pad to Mars. And so it's just been a lot of iterations of what this is going to look like. And I think that that's why kind of we're at the point of we are going back to the moon. We're going to kind of reestablish ourselves as, you know, doing deep space travel, you know,

accomplishing something that has been done, but in a new way with new technologies and then see how we can utilize that as a resource for even deeper spaceflight. And this just popped into my head. I remember this when I talked to Tim Dodd was we found there was this article that talked about this discovery of this fungus. Have you seen it? This Chernobyl fungus that was found in Chernobyl where there was a nuclear meltdown decades ago. And allegedly there's this like fungi that's growing in like ground zero of Chernobyl. And they found that it actually eats radiation. So they're hypothesizing that. This mysterious black fungus could be used in the space capsules where they're transporting these people across deep space and it could protect them from the radiation. Show the first, what is the first paragraph of it say? Mold found at the site of Chernobyl nuclear disaster

appears to be feeding off radiation. So they're thinking that they could use this to shield the space travels from the cosmic rays. insane. Yeah, I mean, honestly, this is a lot of, I mean, my current research and kind of what I do within astrobiology is certainly like that melting pot between microbiology and space travel. So, you know, working with organisms in space-like environments. And so honestly, organisms, I think, are so fascinating and which is why I've kind of gone into this route of research. But I think it's something that we are certainly going to learn more about. I mean, even aside from, you know,

using organisms to maybe eat radiation, we're also learning a lot of organisms that are able to survive on the outside of the International Space Station and survive in the vacuum of space. And they are, yeah, so there's been, a lot of this is also kind of more, you know, current and academic research, but they did like an experiment. I go to an astrobiology conference, and so it's really fun to kind of hear a lot of these, like, new, like, research studies. but they were having astronauts like swab the outside of their gloves, like while they were outside on an EVA. And then they're basically growing that to see if anything is coming out.

I mean, tardigrates have always been a big area of conversation, which is basically this organism that is that they've put on the outside of the International Space Station. And it just survives. It comes back. It certainly, it's able to put up with the radiation. It's able to really evolve. Organisms, they adapt so quickly and they're able to adapt obviously much more quickly than humans are. And so I think that that's certainly a big area of interest.

And that's one of the things that fascinates me so much about the astrobiology field and really bringing in organisms because, honestly, they're much more adaptable than we are. And so if they're able to, you know, survive in these environments, then you learn so much about those systems and how those work and see, you know, how that can be used for other. things. Now we have not found any evidence of any kind of like microorganisms on Mars yet, right? So yeah, we have not. So my research specifically does look at the potential of organisms growing, especially in like a past Mars situation. Because from when we know about current day Mars, it's not great. It does look pretty inhabitable. You know, you have the radiation, which is your bigger issue. But looking at Mars is past, we think it used to be a lot more similar to Earth. So in like the early stages of Mars and the formation of the solar system, we think, you know,

it used to have liquid water. We think it used to be much more habitable. And so by looking at that, we can also test organisms in those environments to see how, how they react and if they would be able to survive. So organisms that we know of here that already survive and maybe some unique environments, are they then able to survive in those unique environments like we saw on early day Mars? Well, Elon was saying that there's so much ice on Mars, not even at the polls, like all around Mars that's just covered in dust. He said if you were to heat up that planet, he believes that you would have mild deep oceans covering about 40% of it. And he thinks that about four billion years ago, it was a blue planet just like Earth. And that we possibly came.

Are we, I think there's a large consensus of astrobiologists that believe life started on Mars. Yeah, there certainly is a theory of, you know, if Mars used to be more similar to Earth, then, you know, was that maybe somewhere that humans used to survive. But we know, we know for sure. And I mean, again, Mars is such a well-studied planet at this point. But we really are learning a lot about, you know, how much water was on Mars and where it came from. And we also think, you know, Mars used to be more in that, like, habitable zone. So we think of, you know, Earth being in the habitable zone where you can't have liquid water.

And so we think Mars used to be a little bit more in that habitable zone. Closer to where Earth is. Right. And then it's kind of slowly shifted outward, kind of in the formation of things. And again, geological timelines. I mean, this is over the span of millions and millions of years. But, you know, with the way we used to or think Mars used to look, it just used to have a lot more potential, especially than what we see from today. So that's why there's always been that interest in what could be there or what used to be there. And yeah, there's still a lot of interests, I think.

There's kind of a bit of a balance, I guess, because my research is certainly in the possibility of microorganisms that used to live on Mars or even, you know, if there's any way to find things. And we're still discovering stuff. I mean, we recently just discovered a whole new slew of new minerals that the Curiosity rover just discovered. honestly it was a new paper that just came out. They found some minerals that we hadn't classified yet. And so that was really interesting to look at. On Mars? Yeah, so they're constantly sampling Mars with the rovers.

And so with that, they are collecting new samples. And some minerals we've seen in like meteorites that have come from Mars. And then some we've seen with like other, you know, collections. But this one had a few new ones. And so that's been really interesting. So there's still so much we don't know. So it's so hard because it's easy to jump to so many conclusions. And really, science as a whole is always jumping to conclusions, I guess.

You almost have to roll with some unknowns. But yeah, we're still learning so much about Mars that we didn't even know previously. So it's going to be interesting in why a lot of interest is in a human mission, right? Because we have these rovers. They're discovering a lot of stuff that we didn't know about the planet. But rovers have such long timelines, right? because of like the time delay between Earth and Mars. So if you were to send a message to Mars, right?

Yeah, how fast can we send those messages? It's usually about like 15 minutes when Mars is like pretty close to us. It can get like upwards to like longer to like 30-ish minutes. We can't do it at light speed? No, not quite that fast. Usually there is usually about a 15-ish minute time delay that a lot of the people that work with the rovers also have to deal with. So you have to think of the rovers as such an incredibly slow process. Yeah.

Because if you're like move forward two feet, 15 minutes later it hears it, it does that, then, you know, 15, another 15 minutes later, it's like, I successfully move two feet. So like in the span of like maybe even minimally 30 minutes, you've moved like a couple feet. So it just is such a slow process. And that's really been a big, one of the big benefits about potentially sending humans rather than kind of some of the more robotic technology that we have there is that a human can actually, oh, that rock looks interesting. Let's collect that. Let's do this. Let's do this experiment. Yeah. We would have to get like some, some SpaceX Starlink satellites going.

So we could get some super high speed broadband Wi-Fi, you know? Better the technology. Yeah, I mean, I think that. I think even light speed communication would still be like a few minutes. Yeah, I think certainly, I mean, that area is one to improve. I don't think it's like a, you know, if we can't get that working, I don't think it's going to completely, you know, make it to where the mission isn't possible. I think we've learned to adapt with like the timelines that we currently have, but yeah, it certainly doesn't make it easy and if there's any room to improve there. But kind of the big, I guess, back and forth within, especially my field is also the idea of planetary protection, right? Because we want to send humans to really uncover a lot of these things that we want to learn about Mars and maybe the possibility of past life. But then you also, I guess, run into the potential of contamination. And you don't want to potentially find.

something that we think was past life on Mars, but then it's like, oh. Bring it back here? Well, not even that, but even just we think we found life on Mars, but just someone touched a rock. And it's like our own organisms. And so it's like very much an element of like keeping things separate. And even like the rope like all of the robotic technology that we've sent to the planet, I mean, there's assumptions that there's been, you know, we can only get things so

sterile and we hope that things are as sterilized as possible. But there's also the potential of like, did we send anything on any of these? rovers. And so it's just very much keeping those things separate. So that way, if you make the grand claim that you found, you know, life on Mars, it's serious and not just something that happened to get sent there. Yeah, totally. I would be more afraid of like those astronauts bringing some crazy shit back here. Well, it's so funny because I certainly think that Mars will kind of be in that way, almost like the progression of what happened when astronauts first went to the moon. You know, when astronauts came back from those lunar missions, they were quarantined for like 20 something days

because they didn't know if there was like a moon virus or like a moon bug or, you know, we had no idea what, you know, especially even like scientifically, like we just didn't really know much about those environments. And so they were like quarantined for so many days post the mission. And now it's funny because, you know, we're like, okay, yeah, they're fine to go to the moon. There's, have you, how, have you, I know you're like a, you're a legit person, scientist, scholar. Have you ever paid attention to like the crazy moon stuff, like the history of like, like the interviews they did and like paid attention to some of like the fringe kind of theories that people go out there with, like the all the occult ties to those people and like the theories of maybe they faked it, maybe they filmed it. Like look at the post the press conference post interview. They look like they saw a ghost like weird stuff. Have you paid attention to that stuff? Go on down those rabbit holes? holes or no? Yeah, I mean, I guess I've always been, I guess, combated. Anytime you have an interest in space, I think you get combated with, you know, with the moon landing not being real is probably the most common. Yeah, I mean, I think that for me, especially with like the moon

landings, I think one of the things that we have on the moon that's the most concrete is like one of the prisms that the Apollo missions left. So prisms. Yeah. So, yeah, like a mirror. So, one of the missions had one of those. And there's even been like universities to like do the test where you can like shoot a laser at the prism and like you'll see it bounce back because we know the location of that mission. So I think that there's so much to combat. And I think, you know, the hard. Well, the argument there is couldn't you get that there with a robot? Yes.

Yeah, certainly. I think I think that one of the difficult parts about the space industry and especially kind of, I guess, defending a lot of the things that happened in the space industry is. It's also hard to, there's so much, I guess, scientific complexity to it that doesn't always translate down to the general public. And I think that that is, you know, it's a big challenge, but, you know, I think that that's why it is so important to talk about the space industry and kind of really explain a lot of what's going on and kind of the efforts because, you know, you hear even, you know, I was even thinking about it with like the NASA live stream of like the Artemis mission. I mean, they certainly try, but I mean, even listening to live stream, I'm sure so many people are like, what are they saying? You know, like if you're not really in tune with a lot of the complexities, then it's hard to, I guess, keep up with like what even is going on. That's why I love talking to people like you because like you have a foot in both worlds. And I often think about it.

Like the people who are like living and eating and breathing in this world of for this example, like in NASA or like working on rockets. shit all day who don't pay attention to YouTube or podcasts or anything like that. You can see how it could be two separate parallel universes of information, right? Like they don't pay attention to anything that these people are talking about on the internet. And the internet, there's like a complete and total disconnect. Right. So someone like you can kind of like, I have a foot in both worlds, be like, okay, you can kind of connect some dots here or see where there's stuff missing.

Yeah. And I think that's a big challenge. I mean, as I was saying, like, and the importance of bringing, you know, that to the general public, right? There's no point in doing science if we're not all learning from it, right? And that's the whole goal of scientific endeavors. And especially like even coming now from like a research standpoint, I mean, digesting a research paper is not for the week and not for, you know, they're all so, so focused on like their very specific research topic. And so sometimes it's, you know, and you have to get through these layers to really understand what's happening.

And I think that that's that's really important, you know, to be able to. to take what we're learning and then bring it down to to a level that really is understood very commonly. Right. Did you see these UFO files that just came out and they dropped the thing about the Apollo 17 mission where they saw the UFOs? Yeah, I have not had, I guess, too much time since like a lot of this has like fully dropped because I think I saw there's like 160 something files or something. Yeah, there's a lot. The Apollo stuff is crazy. Yeah, I think. I think I'm very much looking forward to seeing some of this. I mean, I think there's, you know, you always have to remember that NASA is a government

agency, of course. And so I think that there's no surprise that there's elements to a lot of the missions that maybe we don't get to see or maybe aren't as public knowledge. But, you know, I think that that's almost anything governmental. And so, every government does that. You almost have to expect that when you're looking at, you know, NASA who is a government agency. You know, we are learning a lot, but obviously I'm sure there's plenty more that we don't. But yeah, I'm excited to...

Oh, what are these, the photos? This is one of the photos. Oh, CBS, okay, okay. So this is, they're publishing the photo from the actual files that the government dropped. Right. Saying that in 1972 during the Apollo 17, that was the last mission, right? So, so, yeah, the Apollo 17 mission shows three dots in a triangular formation and lower right quadrants of the lunar sky that is clearly visible upon magnification of the image.

The Defense Department said in the caption of the image. The Pentagon said that there is no consensus about the nature of the anomaly. But the guys, the astronauts were saying that it looked like the 4th of July outside the window. They said that these things were like jagged, zooming all around like fireworks in the sky. Yeah, it's insane. And this stuff is like, because there's always been that one of the conspiracies about the moon is that they went there and they saw, they saw UFOs or aliens or whatever and told him not to come back. And like that was, I think they said that Buzz Aldrin said that at one point, but then people thought that they were, he was being taken out of context. But like this stuff now that the government's like confirming it is kind of crazy.

Yeah, it is certainly interesting. I mean, like I said, I'm very, I'm very interested to kind of read, you know, lot more because I mean it's funny because they're it's so difficult because it's almost a back and forth I mean obviously I guess with these they've been kind of looking at this material for you know since the 70s but with with space travel since there are so many unknowns I remember this story from one of the early one of the early missions I'm trying to remember it may have been like a Gemini mission so this was like when they would go to space but you know they weren't necessarily going anywhere they were just learning about you know the really early mission

And one of the things was one of the astronauts made like a comment and was like it looks like there's fireflies out there like Where we're getting like stuff outside the window like we don't know what it is we think it's like fireflies like it kind of looks like that And then they like later figured out it was like the like tank like dumping the urine like out and they were in as it was like hitting the vacuum space That's what they were seeing and so it's so funny because it's like you have two extremes right you have one extreme where it's like literally the most simple solution to the issue And then you have like the other extreme, which is like aliens coming for you. So it's just, it's so funny because I think it's it's always such either one or the other. Right. It's always hard to find like I think the balance in a lot of these things. But that's like the thing about like how this stuff evolves over time is like six years ago you'd get laughed out of a room for talking about UFOs. And now like the government's literally saying it they're real within like three week time span. So it's like you can't write those. You can't write that stuff off anymore. That stuff. It's like legit science now. Yeah, I mean, I would say that it's always been interesting to me that, you know, the idea of aliens has ever been almost like a fully laughing matter just because, I mean,

I think for me, I've always believed that there has to be something somewhere, right? The universe is just so vast. And so it's been interesting to kind of see that progression because, you know, I think the concept of, you know, whether they're here or not or whatever else, sure. But the concept that there ever has been aliens, I think. should certainly be something that is pretty agreed upon that the universe is just so big. That would be so crazy to think that we're the only ones out there. Yeah, totally.

What is this, Steve? Oh, this is Jesse Michaels. Okay, so I don't know if you're familiar with Jesse Michaels. He's my friend who has a podcast and he covers like the whole history of NASA. He's like a super nerd historian on all of this stuff. He's freaking incredible. And he knows more about like the history of the space program and rocket propulsion than anyone I've ever met. And he goes around the world interviewing these people. And he's interviewed

like heads of the different NASA's of different countries all over the world. And this guy was a Japanese guy who was the head of one of the Japanese space programs, I think. And he's also a NASA historian. And he was close to Eugene Sernan, who was on Apollo 17. So here, there's headphones. We can listen to this clip. And I think there's captions on us. They're going to have to read captions. Okay, go ahead. Buzz Aldrin, do you think that we went to the moon in 1969? And then do you think there's anything we don't understand about that story? Did they see UFOs along the way?

Because... He says they saw UFO, I'm sure of it. Why are you sure? He says he knew Captain Eugene. concerned in. This is why did Apollo end with Apollo 17? They were planning 18 and 19.

Now, how did 17% do you know the real reason they stopped at 17? I want to know the real reason they stopped at 17. His answer was, they told me never to come back. Really? It was sent directly to my brain. Never come back again.

And were any reasons for not coming back again that they cited? I beg you, save humanity on Earth. I was told not to get in their way. Why? They told us our research and us our our own

our not to interfere with their activities we're some of some of some if

there's a lot of get in it's to come from to get to be that

to that so do you think the extraterrestrials were using the moon as a way to research

the Earth Oh, 38,000 from a more since I'm seen a person

that's I'm not he believes the moon was artificially created. Anyways, crazy story

from a guy who was friends with Eugene Sernan on Apollo 17. You know? Yeah,

and I think there's also so many factors. I mean, a lot of ending the Apollo program

too certainly came to a big funding issue as well. Yeah, yeah, totally. Because I mean, that's another big factor that you have to consider with the space industry. It's like, well, why don't we do this and why don't we do that? I mean, even just looking at it financially, it's insane.

I mean, during the Apollo program, NASA had 4% of the government budget. Yeah. And now it has half of 1%. And so it's like, you know, even just from a money standpoint, it's like, yeah, if we had 4% of the government budget, there probably could be a lot of advancements and a lot of, a lot more happening with like deep space. So I think there's definitely a balance to it

and it's coming from government funding as well. Yeah, and also the context back then during this the whole space race is we were just trying to like flex and prove we could get humans there first. It was more of just like theatrics. Yeah. Like there was no, there's no real, there's no real logical reason you would want to put humans there.

Like it's not safe, it's not efficient, like it's better have robots there doing that stuff because they can be more efficient. They can do just as good of a job as a human. I mean, we have hands with fingers on them and like we're we're not great for those environments. And it's also like really not safe. So like why just why do it? Why do it again? There's really no reason other than the fact to prove that we could actually do it. It would be much more efficient to do it with robots. Yeah, I mean, certainly the Apollo program and during that Apollo stage was solely coming from the space race standpoint. I mean, that was every step of the way. I mean, that was every step of the way from literally the first satellite in space was a space race. I mean, it was not even

just the human aspect of it. It was, you know, who can send the first satellite, who can send the first animal, who can send the first man, who can send, like, it was every single stage was a space race. And a lot of it came from like fear, too. I mean, if you go back to like Sputnik that, that Russia had sent up, you know, it was, it was a fear, you know, that, that, you know, All Sputnik did was beep, but we didn't know that. And so it was coming from a place of fear is like, oh, well, we also have to be at that point. So there was just so much fear surrounding it, which like perpetuated this full, like, space race that, that came to the point of going all the way to the moon. Yeah.

Going back to the micro microbes and the bacteria and stuff on Mars, those rovers that are on the surface of Mars, how deep do they dig and excavate? Yeah, not deep. And that's kind of a big challenge when it comes to looking for life on Mars. So you have to almost consider having a life or a search for life focused mission is not going to be very possible at this point. Just because, you know, we don't actually know that there's life. So it's almost like jumping the gun. And so that's why with Mars a lot of these rovers, their goal is to study the planet geologically. So it's just there to look at the minerals, what's there, have a lot of.

better understanding. And then from there, maybe we can progress to like, oh, well, this is, we didn't even know it was possible to have life or if there would be any type of environment capable of supporting life. So that's why a lot of these rovers, their main objective is to study geologically. And so they're going maybe an inch down whenever they make these samples. So they have some little core samples, an inch maybe a couple inches, but it's really not going very far. But that's certainly a big challenge from like the astrobiological standpoint, because if you are looking for life, we certainly think that our best place to look on Mars is the deep subsurface. And so in order to really have a very good understanding of that possibility, you would almost

need more of like a drill type of mission that's actually exploring the subsurface. But we just aren't quite at a point yet. And then also the money of a life, you know, focused mission is probably going to be pretty challenging to get that like fully funded. So it almost, a lot of, missions that do have an astrobiology aspect to it, it's almost in tandem. So your big missions right now within the world of astrobiology is going to be, they're looking at Europa and they're looking at Titan are the two big ones. So that's where they're currently looking at almost like the highest possibility of finding some kind of life. So Europa Clipper is the mission that's going to Europa, which is a moon of Jupiter. And that one kind of has one of the

biggest areas of interest because we think it has a subsurface ocean. So it is, you know, we think it's a liquid subsurface ocean. It's just covered with like a sheet of ice on the exterior. So Europa Clipper is going to study a little bit more about the moon itself. But then there's like an aspect of it that kind of dips a little bit more into astrobiology and seeing the potential because the first step isn't just looking for life itself. It's like, okay, is there liquid water? Is there carbon? Is there oxygen? Is there things that we think are important to life and then kind of going from there. And then Titan is a similar story. That one, that one hasn't launched yet, but it's called Dragonfly. And that mission is going to Titan, which is a moon of

Saturn. And it doesn't have liquid water, but what it does have is liquid methane and ethane. So we think that there is, so it has lakes and it has these liquid lakes. And so anytime that there is like liquid, that is very interesting. So you would probably find a type of life that would be very different to what we know of as life because obviously it's in a very different environment, you know, living in liquid methane. But there is also that area of interest that has the possibility of life being different. But again, that mission's going to really study more about Titan. There's just like that little snippet of like for, is there a possibility of some sort of microbial life that could survive in that environment? So astrobiologist kind of tacked on to

kind of some of these missions as like a sub area of research, but it's certainly not like the main focus of them. Don't they also speculate that there could be life living in the rings of Saturn? Yeah, I mean, I think that. Have you heard that? Am I crazy? I mean, I wouldn't be surprised just because there certainly is, I mean, especially once you bring in the microbe aspect of it, They're so much more resilient and there's so much more adaptable that you really can explore so many different areas. I mean, there's also ideas of like, is there life in Venus's atmosphere? Is there a possibility, you know? So there's almost you can take so many different environments.

But, you know, we're slowly learning more about these places. And I mean, even, you know, talking about, you know, like Saturn or even some of the moons out in the, you know, of Jupiter and Saturn and out in the deep solar system, we've had so few. things even fly by them, that it's crazy. You know, we've had like a few things fly by. Jupiter had Juno, which was really the main mission to study Juno, or to say Jupiter. And then Saturn had Cassini, which is really our one main satellite that went and studied Saturn. And the New Horizon went to Pluto. So it passed by those. But really, there's so little data. And so that's why some of these upcoming missions are also really important for actually looking at some of these possibilities. And what was that asteroid they just found some stuff on?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that was really cool because we collected or basically with that mission was super awesome because they went to the asteroid, collected a sample from it and then brought that sample back to Earth. And so that was really something that is super fascinating because we have such little samples from places.

The only other place other than that asteroid that we have a true sample from is the moon. because, you know, astronauts were able to bring something back. And so that's why even talking about the conversation of Mars is really difficult because we don't have a sample from Mars. We don't have something to truly study. There's also meteorites, but those have been, like, altered, you know, by going through Earth's atmosphere. And so they can't be a true reflection of what's on Mars. And so we don't have an actual true sample, which is why studying Mars can be difficult

because you're really trying to use, you know, simulation material, you know, regolith, which is like, assimilate like a simulation of what we think Mars a soil is like. We know some of the materials there to study, but, but really you're not getting a full picture unless you have a direct sample from the planet. Steve, what was the, what was the actual thing they found on that, on that Benu asteroid? It was like a, do you remember? It was like a, um, a protein maybe or? Yeah, yeah. That one surprised me.

I mean, they found like a lot of, like a lot of carbon, um, based like or, they may have been organic materials. which I know is hard to find. Yeah, we had this guy on here who was talking about it. And I remember it like blowing my mind. Like how did they freaking land that thing on the asteroid, pick up a sample and then take off and come back? So crazy.

I think it must have been going fast. It was really cool. Yeah, actually, so this like astrobiology conference I go to, we had like a panel of some people from the project come and like talk about like the sample and the challenge of gain in and even some of like the prototyping and figuring out, you know, how to like collect the sample. And certainly a very interesting. Amino asses. That's what it was. That was the Assyrus Rex mission. Yes. So the fundamental building blocks of proteins, the amino acids. So that's a big deal. Yeah. It certainly is. I mean, I think what's

what's so crazy to think about is that there's actually such an abundant amount of material in space. And, you know, even like oxygen, we're like, we need oxygen. Well, oxygen's everywhere, right? Like, all this stuff is everywhere. Like, you can find a lot of these things. It's just, is it in that perfect environment, perfect storm to then turn into life, you know? And a lot of those materials are there. And a lot of the simple building blocks are there out in the universe.

And they're pretty abundant. But it's just, you know, does it all come together in actually forming life? Right. And then like when it, going back to, Mars like when you determine how do you determine like which parts that if people were to go there where they would stay like where first of all where do we have the rovers is there a specific part we have the rovers so i know for sure curiosity is in gale crater and that was so really a lot of the target sites currently for the rovers have been looking at the potential of water on mars so

they've been looking at places that look like it used to have water and that's been a lot of target sites is like you know that looks like it could have been a river delta let's go send a rover there to see if those materials are, you know, similar to something you would see in a river delta here on Earth. And so it's a lot of those like comparison studies. So that's been a big target of what they've been looking at. Yeah. I mean, for looking at life, you know, there certainly are regions that we think have like, I guess a higher probability of like where life could have formed, especially in Mars's past. And that's really just looking at, you know, looking back at the conditions that that we think Mars had.

where would have like the best best options. Yeah, Elon said he wanted to build a city in Arcadia. Yeah, there's. Why would that, why would Arcadia be good? I don't know anything about that location. I know. So what, from what I've like recently been reading, I do know one of the biggest pushes right now for life is

Acidalia, Planitia, I think is the area on Mars that they think, you know, based on kind of the history of Mars would have the most potential. But it's also kind of a, twofold with human landing. So as I mentioned with, you know, the potential of like you contaminating the surface. We almost have these like special regions

that we think have like higher potential. And it's like, do we send the humans directly there? Or yes. You're both right. Yeah. Arcadia plantation. Go back to the, go to the picture down there so we can see.

So is it like less mountainous or what's so great about this area? There certainly is different. Okay, flatland, go out, scroll up a little tiny bit. Flatland, frozen water, decent sun, and rich history. Maybe the place where humans make their second home. Wow. Yeah, I mean, certainly I think also staying somewhat near.

Obviously, the equator is going to be warmer than like the poles. And so, but I do know that the northern hemisphere in general has been a big area of interest for a lot of these places. But it also just really depends on like the actual. actual scientific goals of that human mission, you know? And so one human mission, I mean, similar to like what happened with the moon, they didn't all go land in the same spot, right? And so it could also be a balance there of like, oh, we want to learn about X, Y, Z,

let's send them here. We want to go learn about this other thing. Let's send things there. And I know that, I mean, even with like the next missions to the moon, they're currently like scouting potential, like, landing sites for Artemis 4. Oh, really? I heard they wanted to do it near the polls. Yeah, I've heard definitely some ideas.

I don't know if it's like fully selected yet, but, but yeah, I think it's certainly going to be a bit different than some of the like previous landing sites that we've seen before. And then the other thing about Mars is like it's got to be like the amount, not only the radiation that you get there has to be really bad. But I'm sure it's going to be a huge lack of like sunlight you're getting. So we would have to have a way to like get obviously we evolved here Um over however long to receive you know we're based it's not just the gravity but it's also like the chemical makeup the oxygen the the amount of light that we get is a huge part of it Which like fuels our mitochondria which fuels everything in our bodies and like if we're not getting the right amount of sunlight or UV light that's going to be really detrimental compounding with the radiation and all that so like it's you know There's going to, I'm sure like the, the medical side of this stuff is going to be really difficult to deal with. Yeah, I mean, I will say one of the benefits of looking at Mars.

And, you know, sometimes, you know, when looking at Mars really is the only kind of next place that we can go to as far as like proximity to us. And it makes the most sense. But another benefit is Mars is realistically kind of similar to Earth in a lot of ways, right? Like, it's a little bit smaller than Earth. I mean, the gravity is one third, which, you know, it's less. But certainly that's something, I mean, having astronauts live in microgravity for a year, certainly something that's been like research for a while of those effects to your body. Yeah, aren't there really big, like hormonal effects?

There's also kind of one of the best things that we have was the twin study that they did. The Kelly twins, where one was in space for a year. And, I mean, there's a lot of things that I think are still being learned about of like the true effects. of that. I mean, obviously one of the big ones is like bone density and like, you know, actually being physically strong because you're not using your, your bones and your muscles nearly as much, which is why like exercise is so important and like really pushed. So like astronauts will exercise every single day in order to try to stay as strong as possible in those environments. Yeah, one of the twins came back shorter, I think. Yeah. And I mean, it's just whenever you're

on earth, right, you're constantly fighting grass. You don't feel like you're working out right now, but you are, right? Your muscles and your bones are fighting against gravity. And so anything that you do, they're constantly working. And when you get put in that space environment, they're no longer doing that. And so it's figuring out ways, you know, how can we exercise and still use those muscles to, you know, still not maintain what it's like on Earth, but still maintain it a little bit better. A day on Mars is like 24 hours and like 30 minutes.

So like the days are a little bit longer, but... Only 30 minutes longer. Yeah. Their actual like days are very similar to Earth. So there's a lot of similarities. So you get a similar circadian rhythm. Yeah, it's really not too big of a leap, which is another kind of benefit with Mars is that, you know, there are differences, of course, and like living on Mars. But it wouldn't necessarily be the biggest extreme that we could see.

Yeah, I'd be curious. I mean, it's how many miles, how many miles away is Mars? Oh, gosh. How many millions of miles? It's a million mile? More than a million? Steve, that's a quick Google search for you, bud. I have no idea actually off top of my head the miles of it.

I know it on the scale of like football fields. It's a thousand times the moon, right? You know it in football fields? Yeah. Like if the, if like the moon or if the earth was basketball, it'd be like 300 football fields. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's crazy.

Yeah. 140 million miles. Yeah. That's the other thing. There's always like those fluctuations. Yes. Right. So the distance is constantly.

constantly changing as both planets orbit the sun, ranging from a minimum of 33 million miles. Wow, that's a huge difference. Yeah. And maximum 250 million miles. And that's why the trajectories are so important, right? You certainly don't want to launch when you have 250 million miles to go across. So, yeah, that would suck.

I think that's almost one of the craziest things about the space industry as a whole is like people not grasping really how far things are. I mean, even with the moon, right? You know, you look up at the night sky and you're like, the moon's right there. But it takes, you know, multiple days to get to the moon. Even just going somewhere like our closest possible place to go is still far away. Yeah, totally.

And then what about like the time dilation stuff? Like an interstellar when they're at that planet and like every minute here is 10 years on Earth? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that would certainly. That would certainly be a case for like deeper space travel. So, yeah. Within like the scale that we're traveling to like the moon and Mars and that sort of thing,

I would like consider a lot of those things more irrelevant. That's more like in a different star system. Right. Like if you're going like outside of our solar system, I think it would be like something to consider. But like within our solar system, yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't consider it like a big issue. And then like terraforming Mars, do we have to detonate nukes on the poles or do you do like can you put like some big mirrors in orbit to like heat it up or like yeah you know the idea of terraforming has been like talked about for so long and it really is like a question of you know are all

of these ideas even possible but yeah i mean it's it's crazy because like yeah probably the best solution to it would be to nuke the whole planet which is just insane like why is that even like a conversation um but yeah that would probably be like your your main way of of being able to actually heat up an entire planet. Because again, you know, the scale that you're talking about and terraforming an entire planet, I mean, Mars is smaller than Earth, but it's still a big planet, you know, and to fully change the entire dynamic of the planet, I mean, that is just like such a challenge. And of course, you know, then it becomes like, is that even something that we want to be doing?

Like, who's to say that we can just go and go crazy and start doing stuff like that? And so, I think the aliens are getting mad that we have nuclear weapons on Earth. Imagine what they're going to do when we start nuking Mars. Yeah, we're going to get a full invasion. Yeah, I certainly,

I don't know if that route to terraforming is really a realistic approach. And, you know, I think that that's a challenge with even the conversation of terrorforming. You know, even if you were to choose that endeavor and humans were to do that, it would still take, you know,

so long to like, for everything to, slowly come back to like a normal state and it's such a long long process and like you know fully transforming a planet into something else and you know then you have like even more radiation on the planet i mean it would sounds just like potentially a disaster so anybody have any better ideas honestly i don't think so at the moment i think like the full idea of terraforming is so theoretical right now that yeah I think if there someone were to come up with a better idea I think any other idea would be would be better so yeah well we'll see well you had to figure out a way to melt the ice right

yeah I mean the biggest yeah the biggest case is going to be you know warming up the planet I mean that's like you're going your task number one is going to be warming up the planet a big goal is you'd want to start forming like a thicker atmosphere right because mars is atmosphere so thin and And so let's say you went to Mars right now and you just started pumping, you had all these, like, things pumping oxygen or whatever. That oxygen is just going to leave the planet. You're not actually, like, it's not insulated in a way to kind of hold a lot of those gases in. And so the big goal is going to be, you know, you're going to need like an active magnetosphere. You're going to need like an atmosphere that's really holding a lot of that stuff in to start forming a planet.

And that's, those are the challenges. And, I mean, again, even just like the timeline of terraforming. even with crazy ideas. It's just such a long period of time. So, yeah, it's certainly a far-fetched idea. From everything you're saying, it does sound like so far, all of these ideas are very theoretical and not being tested as much as we think. So just based on that alone, it's like, are you optimistic?

Like, if you were to gamble on it, do you think that we would make it there in our lifetimes? To Mars? Yeah. I think it is 100% impossible in our lifetime that we're going to send humans to Mars. Yeah. I don't think that a lot of what the ideas of terraforming, a lot of that is, I guess, more so down the line of like long term, like sending people to like stay on Mars, perhaps.

Like we'd want Mars to be more like Earth if, you know, you were like living there for long periods of time. That seems kind of. Yeah. That I think is outside of. our lifetime. I don't think we're going to be like having Mars as like a second place to live and like a second earth within our lifetime. I don't think that's necessarily possible. But I think the initial missions there and kind of maybe even starting some of the groundwork

of even understanding how to stay on Mars. I think it's certainly possible to see a human mission to Mars within the lifetime. How close is Venus to us? Venus is pretty close to the next one, right? Right. But it's closer to the sun. Right. So if you look Venus on either side of us is Venus and Mars. And Venus is much more of like a similar size to Earth. The issue with Venus is it's the hottest planet in our solar system. And it is a basically. It's hotter than the one that's closer to the sun. Yes. So there's Mercury, which is the closest. But Venus is hotter. It has a extremely thick atmosphere. And so it has a ton of greenhouse gases that are constantly heating up the planet. And it's also still like we think volcanically active. And so there is a lot of heat. So it's certainly hotter than Mercury, even though it's technically further from the sun because of how thick the atmosphere is.

And even our understanding of Venus is pretty minimal because we've had or we've tried to land, you know, multiple countries have sent things to Venus to try to attempt to land on it. And we get like one image and then it's just burned to a crisp. And yeah, we're not able to actually get a whole lot. So we know pretty minimal. It's also very high.

pressure, which is really challenging when it comes to technology and landing there. And so that's why Mars is certainly the direction to go just because of how like dangerous Venus is in terms of... Well, I mean, if Mars was at one point like Earth and in that sort of Goldilocks zone, then reason would suggest that Venus will one day be in that same sort of zone that Earth is in now, right? Yeah, you know, there is, there is an idea of, you know, like how the, the planets are like moving over time. And that's, that's something that scientists are kind of learning about by looking at other solar systems, right? We can understand a lot more about how our solar system is eventually going to look by looking at solar systems that are older than ours.

And, like, what are they currently doing? And so that's a lot of really trying to compare what we know about our current solar system and then kind of having that as comparison to to other places. So looking at places with like similar sun to our sun, seeing how those solar systems are evolving, and then we can kind of start making assumptions. I mean, of course, there's the overarching, you know, we know our son's not going to last forever. We know Earth is not going to last forever. You know, you can't have a sun that's just never going to die. It's eventually going to run out of fuel. And again, very long, long periods of time here. But, you know, we know that the sun can't just burn forever. And so that's really where a lot of these, I

of, you know, living on Mars or terraforming or kind of pushing towards deep space come from is because we know Earth isn't going to be a place that humans can live forever and ever and ever and ever. You know, our solar system will reach a point where, you know, the sun just won't be able to have fuel anymore and supply that heat and without any heat, you know, the Earth isn't going to be very habitable anymore. And so that's why there is ideas of space travel being so important. It's like, how do we get to a point, you know, over, you know, the, you know, the next millions and millions of years to where we're at a point that we can survive something like that. Or like develop a space platform to where you don't have to rely on a planet.

Yeah, I mean, of course. I mean, then you start talking, of course, in like sci-fi and like, you know, all the ideas that come from that. But that's really where all of it comes from, right? Because we know for sure that our solar system isn't like sustainable forever. And so it's, it's that idea of like if humans were to continue past that, there's going to have to be some sort of solution, whether it's moving somewhere else, living somewhere else into like a younger solar system, or, you know, like you said, just like living in space fully. Right. And it's interesting, like the more that technology advances here, the more we learn about what's happening out there. Like with one of those latest

satellites or telescopes. Yeah, the James Webb. Was it the James Webb or was it? I don't remember which one. The one that discovered the interstellar objects that were coming through. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's James Webb. Yeah. James Webb. Yeah, it's looking deeper or like, obviously like, again, when you look into space, you're kind of looking into the past. And so it's James Webb has like looked further than anything else we've had. Okay.

And it's getting some of those like early images. Right. Because we're kind of almost like looking into the past and looking into kind of the beginnings of the universe. Because it's like it's crazy that the first interstellar object that we've discovered our image was in 2019, I think. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you're talking. Yeah.

Yeah. you're talking about probably Hubble was kind of our our initial telescope that was looking at a lot about that and then our current one well James Webb was kind of the next iteration of of Hubble so it's newer technology and it's able to like look further and look with like crisper images so we're getting much better images of like the early early universe yeah and so what what was the name of the telescope that discovered the the umuamua I think it was or the three I the third one the Atlas one? It makes you wonder once we start getting like crazy super sophisticated satellites, you know, because this stuff is advancing at an incredible rate. So like we've only seen three now, but imagine when we're able to get telescopes that are like 10 times more advanced than our current most powerful ones,

we're going to see these things everywhere and realize that we're constantly being bombarded by all these crazy things that were we were missing before. Yeah, I mean, we're, It was named after the telescope. Oh, it's called the Atlas Telescope. NASA funded Atlas. Asteroid. Okay, so yeah.

Okay, you're talking about like a ground-based system. It's called the asteroid terrestrial impact last alert system. That's a comforting name. Located in Rio Herato, Chile. Interesting. Oh, I remember him saying it was in Chile. This is like a ground-based system. And then Hubble and James Webb are in space.

Yeah. James Webb, one of the cool things about it, it's like at a what's called like a Lagrange point. So where it's set, it's basically like where the gravities equal out a bit. So there's like certain points in our solar system that almost like the gravity's balance. Like you think of like, you know, how Earth has its gravity that orbits the moon. And then obviously the sun has more gravity. So we orbit the sun. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so we kind of have these points where those like balance out. So it's kind of further out in like away from Earth than a lot of like other systems that we have. So like Hubble didn't necessarily go that far, but James Webb is kind of at this like further point. Yeah. Yeah. It's super cool because it's it's not necessarily as as like insulated by Earth and a lot of things. It's much further in space. Isn't there how many satellites do we have orbiting Mars?

Oh gosh. We have the reconnaissance one, right? The reconnaissance orbiter. Yeah. I mean. And that one took a good photo of the three eye Atlas when it passed by it. I remember it got pretty close to there. Yeah, I mean, gosh, there probably has to be like 50.

That's one of the things that freaks me out is like the amount of satellites that we put into outer space. Like we're littering space. Yeah, 100%. Have you seen the Kessler syndrome? Have you heard? I just learned about this the other day. Yeah, I have. It's insane.

There's like thousands and thousands of objects where it's like a shotgun blast of stuff. Right. That's just rotating our planet. Yeah. Space junk is quite literally one of the biggest and most concerning things. I think that we have in with the space industry because one thing that you don't want to humans don't want to get themselves into is trapping ourselves here. Right.

Right. We can't get out. Right. And I mean, even if you think about like the movie like Wally, right, they like go through this like wall of like junk whenever they like leave the planet. And that's something that certainly is like a concern. You don't want it to get to this point where. The irony.

Yeah. You just trap yourselves here. Yeah. We're focused so much on getting off the earth. we ended up creating our own prison. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think space junk is like a really big issue. And it's going to be interesting to see over the next few years if that's something that

that these government agencies that, you know, are putting a lot of this stuff into space, if that's something that becomes more of a priority to them or if it becomes more of like a commercial endeavor where like someone has a system to like clean up space. Yeah. But it's certainly going to be interesting to see how that evolves. Because, I mean, from just what we've already done so far, there's so much space junk. And it's even, you know, the idea of just things that no longer work, right? You could have had a fully functioning satellite, but it's only going to have so long of a lifespan.

Maybe it works for 10 years. Maybe it works for 20 years. But it's going to reach a point where it's dead. Yeah. Those satellites aren't going to last forever. And so you kind of hit a point where, you know, then it becomes junk. And then you run the risk of it hitting something else. And those things are tracked, but, you know, sometimes you can't track.

something that's like a little piece of paint. Yeah. They're supposed to decommission them by like crashing them into the ocean, right? Well, there's a lot of ideas about how to get rid of space junk, really a big idea is like how we kind of push them back towards the atmosphere and basically the the junk would burn up in Earth's atmosphere. Oh, they would just burn up. Yeah. So rather than like them fully like crashing into the ocean, it's kind of like using Earth's

atmosphere as a way to to burn up that material. You need some sort of system that's going to knock it out of its current orbit and towards Earth. And that's kind of the challenge is, you know, what's going to do that? Who's going to do that? Go around and kind of have this cleanup. Will that work with the International Space Station when they try to decommission that? Yeah. Honestly, I don't know.

I know that, you know, a big. Yes. You know, with the idea of like decommission it, I know there is the idea of like deorbiting it. And with that, it could be, you know, parts of it gets burned up in the atmosphere and then parts of it does like come all the way and like land in the ocean. Yeah, I don't know. Find out when they're supposed to decommission that thing or what are the plans with the international space? Were they? Were they really?

And why didn't they? Can you find out? Like, what are the plans for it? I know that originally like they were going to sell the international space station to Axiom. And then Axiom was going to take it over. And now Axiom wants to, which is a private company, and now they would rather basically build their own space station rather than, I think, taking over the current space station. But, I mean, the interrational space station is like the size of a football field. So it is a...

Is it really? It's very large. So it is a big thing to decommission. And, yeah, I don't know. I have a lot of, I think, conflicting. Did they build it out there? So that was the point of the space shuttle program. So NASA had the space shuttle program.

It built the International Space Station and it launched satellites. It launched Hubble. That was the point of it to build a space station. I'm just learning this today. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, I saw 2030 was the big year that they were looking at. Okay.

So the end of 2030 is when they planted and did decommission it. Yeah. And so part of it is going to like burn up in the atmosphere. But obviously it probably won't be able to burn up an entire football size piece of material. So some of that will certainly crash land. So kind of before the international space station and the space shield program, NASA had Skylab, which was like originally, I guess, some sort of space. And that was originally trying to figure out how do you live in space. So after the moon, it was like, okay, now how do we live in space?

And Skylab was kind of the initial, like a very small module about figuring out how to live in space. And astronauts would go up to Skylab. They would probably stay there for like a few months. And then once the idea of Skylab happened, it was like, okay, how do we create a more permanent version? And then that's when the idea of like building a full international space station came about. And then the space shuttle was a reusable vehicle that could go on multiple missions and kind of help in contributing and building to this like much larger space station that could be used for science. But yeah, I mean, there was 135 space shuttle missions. So it was a massive.

just massive program that did a lot of stuff. But yeah, it was through the space shuttle that we were able to have the National Space Station. Will we use reusable rockets to get to Mars when we decided to go there? Or where would do expendable rockets? You know, I think it's going to be probably a mix of kind of what we're seeing currently with the Artemis mission

where parts of it are reusable. But as a whole, the entire rocket isn't reusable. Right. So I think that's kind of, I mean, even with the space shuttle, it's considered NASA's most reusable rocket that it did, but still the external tank was trashed every single time. And so that, you had 135 of those that were built. So it's almost...

And where did they all go? Those burned up in the atmosphere. Yeah. And so because that went, that was still attached pretty high up. You know, they wouldn't jettison that until they were almost like in space. And so that one would burn up in the atmosphere, whereas everything else was reused for that rocket. So I think, you know, it's difficult to have something that's, you know, 100% reusable. So I think it's going to be like a combination for when we look at what's going to take people to Mars where parts of it are reusable and parts of it are not.

Especially if the idea is that you like launch from some vehicle and then dock on something else that takes you to Mars. I'm sure that almost like back and forth may be a reusable vehicle. Yeah. Well, it does seem like such a better, like such a better idea to do it from the moon. If you could figure out how to get, how to build something on the moon where you could get all the stuff on these big rockets that could be, it would be much easier to have reusable rockets if you launched them from the moon. And if you could get enough stuff to Mars where you could be self sustainable, right? Like that's the goal, right? To be to make it sustainable to stay there and not have to constantly have shipments coming all the time.

You want to create factories there. You want to build the stuff you need there. and use either the resources that are already there if we can find them or have enough. I mean, you need probably like a million tons of stuff to like be there before you can actually have a sustainable place for people to live. Yeah. And I think a big idea too is like a lot of that would be sent beforehand. Like before you were to ever send a mission with humans on it, you're sending a lot of these like pre-missions almost to have like a lot of that already landed on the surface. And then like once humans arrive, they have this like.

stuff there. So like a habitat, for instance, you would like send that beforehand rather than like sending humans to go build, like build a habitat for when like they first arrive. So a lot of that material would be like prior missions. And like solar panels, you need probably a ton of solar panels. You know, satellites that are doing whatever like maybe reflecting more sun back or like even if we can find like some natural resources there like maybe some like natural gas that could be frozen that we could like melt or, you know, there's got to be, there's got to be resources there that we could tap into and utilize to do manufacturing. Yeah. And I think that a lot of that has already been learned about with the International Space Station. I mean, of course, we do have some supply missions,

you know, of course, that goes to the International Space Station. But as a whole, I mean, it's had to be relatively self-sustaining in a way just because those supply missions are so expensive. And so it's like even just to send like a gallon of water to the International Space Station is so, expensive. And so it's like it has to be in a way to a degree self-sustaining. And so even though that there are supply missions, there's so much like reusability that is important. And I think the International Space Station has been such an integral part about learning about living in space and like living for like long durations and sustainability within space. That's why I feel like I always have like such conflicting ideas about them getting rid of the International Space Station,

just because I think it's one of our greatest human feats that we've been able to have a international work environment in space that has done so many scientific studies, has been able to teach us so much about living in space. And I mean, again, even just the sheer size of it, it's incredible that we built something like that, just orbiting around the earth. And it's such an incredible piece of technology. Yeah, well, what is still being, like, is there any, like, research currently being done there now? Like what sort of like groundmaking research can you do up there? Yeah. So I mean, they probably have missions that like rotate to the National Space Station like every six months. I think they just had the, I think it was really only a few weeks ago.

They had the new crew launch to the National Space Station. So there's constantly people up there. They're constantly working, learning about, again, things that will be useful for going to the moon, going to Mars to learning how to grow like plants in space. They do a lot of research there, working in microgravity. It kind of just depends on, I guess, what is currently, like, scientifically interesting. But, yeah, there's always really something going on up there. And so that's why – and it's, you know, again, still an international endeavor.

There's still, you know, people from multiple countries up on the National Space Station working. And, yeah, it's something I think is so easily forgotten. Like, there's always people up there, and it has been since the Space Station kind of got created. Yeah. What I really want to know is what the hell are those things on Sedonia and those anomalies on the surface of Mars that we see? Like there's these shapes, these geometric, not geometric, but they're like perfectly square shapes. There's like something that looks like a pyramid there. There's like another thing that looks like a face.

Like these anomalies are crazy. And I wish they would send something there, some sort of a vehicle or reconnaissance something there to like look at that stuff and see what. it is because damn there's that one that that one anomaly looks so much like a pyramid and like some of them look man made yeah yeah certainly i think kind of the biggest thing with some of these like interesting features on the surface of mars is really just like wanting to actually get something actually to it um to actually get better images and yeah yeah so how big would that thing be Steve, that pyramid on Sedonia, the Rosetta Stone, do they have an idea of like what the size of it would be? Because like if we know that life was here one time or if we know at the very least that this planet was

was able to sustain life, you know, billions of years ago, who's to say that there wouldn't have been some sort of a civilization there that was technological or advanced in some way? You know, there's this hypothesis called the Silurian hypothesis that this guy, Adam Frank, came up with, which is basically like if we wanted to figure out if there was a previous like industrial civilization on Earth, like before our recorded history, how would we find out? Well, the hypothesis is like, we wouldn't. We would have no evidence of that. There could be a completely like super hyper advanced industrial civilization living right here. on Earth millions and millions of years ago. And over time, you know, through like all the cycles of Earth and the catastrophes that have

washed across Earth and, you know, just all that time, we would have, we would have no, no clue. It would just all that evidence would be gone. So what's to say that couldn't have happened here if life was happening? If this place was habitable for life back then. Okay. So this says the DNM pyramid, a prominent feature in the Sedonia region of Mars, first image. image in 1976 is a large eroded messa roughly, okay, it's five miles. Wow. Significantly

larger than the Great Period of Mugiza, which is about 1.5 miles. Yeah, I mean, if you think about Mars and the stuff that we've seen on Mars, I mean, Mars has some very large features. I mean, Olympus Mons that's on Mars is three times. What did you just say? Olympus Mons. It's like the big, it's in like all your typical images of Mars. Mars, like the big, like, volcano. Okay. And it is, we think, three times taller than Mount Everest. Whoa.

And then, so, yeah, Olympus Mons is kind of that big, massive feature on Mars. So is this, like, the biggest mountain on Mars? Yes. It's like a giant pimple on the face of Mars. Yes, this is certainly one of the biggest feature. So if you just look up, like, you know, the surface of Mars, like you're going to see Olympus Mons there. And look how much bigger it is than Mount Everest. Yeah.

That's nuts. Yeah, we think it's three times as big. And then even Valus Marinaris, which is the canyon that's on Mars. Yeah. You know, we think it's like the size of the entire United States. So it is, we think. Yeah, this planet is smaller than our planet. Yes, Mars is smaller.

So Mars does have some very large features to it, which I think is super interesting. because there's there's really some stuff that uh that we have big interest in and just you know how how these features came to be um but yeah very much larger features than than what's on earth yeah i'm super curious of how we can start getting like deep core samples of these parts of mars that dig down and do some like serious excavations of it and see what what we can pull out because we would learn so much from that yeah and wouldn't that be easier than getting humans there yeah you know i certainly agree i think that um i would think some sort of, you know, drill or, you know, investigation into the subsurface is really

important and really going to lend itself and help understand maybe some of the things that we still don't know about Mars. I would see it as something maybe, you know, before a human mission, but, you know, really it's just, I don't know who's going to be doing that. You know, at the moment, it doesn't sound like NASA has any plans of doing, like, a deep subsurface mission. So it's, it's, it's, it's a, unsure, you know, maybe there's another agency that does something. I think that's really the question of who's going to do it. And then that will kind of maybe direct the timeline. But I think, like, at the moment, if I were to guess, I think NASA's goals would maybe lend itself more to just like a

human mission and then maybe a plan of like human doing like a drill investigation or research. But, but I'm not sure. It's certainly, I think, a big important thing that will kind of maybe start seeing within the next bit of time and understanding more about Mars from the subsurface's standpoint. Right, right. So did you ever, like, did you ever talk to any of these astronauts that did any of these recent moon missions, like this Artemis stuff and all this? Like, how many astronauts have you talked to that have actually, like, been on space trip, space trip? Not just, like, have you been talking to any of the Apollo astronauts? I've met a lot of them over, over periods of time. You know, we're certainly getting to a point now where a lot of the Apollo astronauts are passing away.

I think has been kind of unfortunate. But yeah, I've certainly met a lot of them over time. I think they're all very great people. I haven't met anyone from like the most recent Artemis mission or like the most like recent crew that did the lunar flyby. So I haven't met any of them. But I mean, I guess over time I've met a good handful of astronauts. So that, I don't know if you told this. You might have told me this story before we started recording about your trip.

So you watched the Artemis shuttle launch in Cape Canaveral. And then you basically drove across the country and watched them splash down in off the coast of San Diego. Is that right? Yeah. So I did a documentary, which is titled Driven to Explore. And the goal of it was really having like a similar mission to the Artemis II mission, but on Earth. And so since the Artemis II mission was a 10-day mission from launch to splashdown, we had a similar 10-day mission on Earth where we were in Cape Canaveral for the launch and got to see that.

And then the second it launched, we hit the road and drove cross-country and ended up in San Diego for the splashdown on April or at the end of those 10 days. And really the goal of it was to go and meet women in STEM kind of along the way. and hear some of their stories. So we had some interviews with women that worked on the SLS. Maybe they worked on the capsule. Maybe they worked on the actual rocket itself. We met women that were just kind of scientists in their own fields in the space industry. And it was really fun.

Yeah, we got to learn a little bit about different fields that women have or are representing in. And really a lot of this, too, because since Christina Cook was really becoming the first. woman to go the furthest that there's ever been and really all the astronauts honestly on the Artemis 2 went further than any other previous moon mission as far as like how far they went around the moon it was just very cool to kind of bring a lot of that journey to some of the the cool stuff happening on earth as well and then when you got to california you realized you couldn't actually see them splash down they were too far offshore yeah so we kind of knew from the beginning that the splash down is a little difficult to see because i mean a lot of stuff

you know has always kind of splashed down off the coast of San Diego. So it kind of depends on the mission about how far offshore Because we were reading that depending on the day and visibility sometimes you can see it a little bit Sometimes you can hear like hear them break through like the sound barrier But really it depends on how offshore that they are and like how offshore the capsule is For this Artemis mission they were certainly pretty far out there So we just watched kind of the live stream for the actual splash down as kind of like a conclusion and we did we went scuba diving off the coast of San Diego as well for the documentary and we got to see the vessel that was bringing the Orion capsule back so whenever

they splashed down in the ocean the astronauts were in the capsule and they had a Navy vessel also out there kind of near where they splashed down they sent like a smaller boat out to the capsule and that's what recovered the astronauts and got them out the capsule and then they brought them to the Navy vessel is like their initial medical check before like sending them to Houston. And then that vessel will then brought the capsule back in because the capsule will then hopefully get refurbished and used for another Artemis mission. So they took it, towed it in. And so the Navy vessel, you know, was obviously out in the water a little bit longer tugging

that, uh, that big. And you saw that ship come in? Yeah. The Navy vessel was probably, honestly, really not too far from us. We just kind of got lucky from the site that we went to to go scuba diving. We got a call in on the vessel that the dive captain was like, if you guys want to look, the Navy ship just called in and said that they're entering the area. And so we got to see it kind of off in the distance.

Has any civilian ever seen one of those things splashed down? Have there ever been non-clear people out there, like fishing and seen this thing come out of the sky? I would say no, mainly just because of how offshore it is. it's like 60 miles offshore. 16? 60. Oh, 60. Yeah. So it's pretty far out. There's a lot of fishermen out there.

Yeah, I mean, I would certainly not say never. But I'm sure there is obviously a lot of like searches of the air because they have the Navy vessel. They have obviously helicopters going around because they're trying to spot the capsule as it's coming down as soon as possible. They probably make it like a, they probably rope it off. Yeah, like a no perimeter. No entry. let anybody enter it, right? And I mean, it's crazy how timed all of this is, right?

I mean, the splash down, they splashed down at, like, the literal minute that was predicted per, like, the trajectory of the mission. So it was insane because it's all calculated, right? They know when the astronauts are going to come in and splash down. I mean, I think it was like 5.07 p.m. or whatever it was. It was like that, and that was the time that they splashed down. So it was very, very much calculated. But yeah, it was a very, very fun trip.

And I'm very excited, obviously now moving into post-production with the documentary, but very fun to kind of be able to keep up with the Artemis II mission while kind of being on our own kind of mission across the country. And it was fun because you felt more involved every step of the way because so many people will watch the launch, but really that's just the beginning of the mission. Right. And so there's so many crucial steps at every step of the way,

like when they did their engine burns, actually start their lunar trajectory. I mean, there's a lot of, a lot of parts of the mission that were like big steps. What did you see scuba diving in San Diego? That's a place I would never imagine going scuba diving. Yeah, it was actually my first time ever like scuba diving on the West Coast. Yeah, it was pretty creepy. Yeah, we went to a kelp forest, actually.

Which was pretty cool because I'd never run to like a kelp forest before. But yeah, there's lots of sea lions, a lot of wildlife, actually, which was interesting. None of them got like too close to us, but it was funny because. We were like diving and then like maybe. How deep? We didn't go too deep. We probably around 40, 45 feet. Just to get to the bottom of where we were.

Did you go off the beach or like off a cliff or something? No, we just took a dive boat out. They had like they had like a location that, you know, depending on what you want to see, you know, they have like different spots that they typically bring divers. So like for this kelp forest spot, we like went to where they typically go and like diving. So we just like went to a particular kelp forest and then we just like jumped off the boat from there. Oh my God, it had to be so crazy. It's very cold.

I've seen footage. I've never scuba dived. I've surfed through kelp forest, but I've never scuba dived in a kelp forest before. It was a bit challenging because I had never scuba diving in a kelp forest either. It's cold. It's really cold and you can get like tangled pretty quick. Yeah. And so that was certainly a new, a new situation to kind of learn and adapt to.

But also the cold was really interesting because they, I feel. like they kept warning us, you know, since we had never dove in, you know, off the West Coast about how cold it is and like kind of the shock. Well, we were at the surface for a good while just kind of getting set up and everything. I was like, I don't think the water's that bad. And then when we went down to the bottom, I was like, I'm freezing. Oh my gosh. The temperature dropped so quickly as we like descendant. I was like, oh my gosh, they were not kidding. This is, this is freezing. And the bottom was like 40 feet? Yeah. So it was like 40 to 45 feet was at the bottom. We went all the way down.

Okay, so you're pretty close to the shore then. Yeah, yeah. We really weren't too far. Mainly just for like time of like the documentary and like filming. We weren't trying to like spend an hour going like super far out. So just for our own timelines, we did something like near pretty near the shore. Yeah. Yeah.

That's just like that whole part of like the whole west coast of California. Like they're so like it gets so deep. It's so cold. There's like the ocean is so kind of like unpredictable over there. And then like also you have nuclear submarines coming in and out of like the inlets there like down, especially down like in the Newport area I've seen. And yeah, it can just get hairy out there. So I've like never been interested in like going like scuba diving or free diving over

there. Kind of like I prefer the Caribbean. The water's warmer. It's super clear. No nuclear submarines. Yeah. Well, I mean, prior to that, really I had done most of my diving out in Florida. And so Florida is the best place for it.

Florida is a much more comfortable and like stable environment to go scuba diving in. So that was certainly a new adventure. Yeah, here in the Bahamas and like everywhere in between around here is much more friendly. Yeah, it was super cool. And I'm very glad because like, I mean, really the Artemis 2 mission with there being like humans on board, I think really drew a lot of attention. And I think is, I think it's just really cool to see. I mean, realistically, this was not only the first time we have sent humans back to the moon since the 1970s. but also like really the first time we've had NASA astronauts launching from a NASA vehicle in, you know, since the space shuttle.

Because after the space shuttle ended, obviously NASA astronauts were going to the International Space Station via Russia. And NASA was like paying for their tickets on Soyuz. And then when SpaceX came into play, then SpaceX was essentially used as the charter vehicle to the International Space Station. And so this was really the first time we've had NASA astronauts on a NASA vehicle. on a NASA vehicle in in quite some time. And they didn't even touch the moon. They just went around it. Yeah, they went.

How many years has it been since, what was it? 72. Was the Apollo 17? 17. Yeah, 72 was the last time that we went out that far. And then again, this trajectory was a little bit further. So if you think about in comparison to the Apollo days, because I think that was a big conversation, right,

with Artemis 2. It was like, why are they just going to the moon? Like, how silly? And, you know, when you think about it, it. Everyone, you know, thinks about Apollo 11 that landed on the moon. But there was eight, nine, and ten that all went to the moon, but didn't land. And those were really like those preparation missions. So they were testing the rocket. Literally Apollo 10 practiced almost like descending on the moon. And they were like, we can see it. We want to land. Like let us land.

And there wasn't like enough fuel to like land and like launch because that wasn't the actual goal of that mission. And so that's what we're seeing now with Artemis too. This was really one of those first missions to go to the moon, kind of practice this new trajectory, because this was a different trajectory than like what Apollo 11 did. And so test the systems. They were testing the life support systems. This is the first time this capsule has ever had humans in it and had to sustain humans for 10 days. And so you're really practicing all those systems before you're just jumping in and landing on the moon. So it's been 60 years since we first, well, to touch down and had humans on the surface of the moon.

What was the, Steve, Google this. What was the time between the first airplane? The first time we ever flew with a plane, humans ever had a powered aircraft. What was the time? Find out the year that happened. 1903. So almost the same amount of time to 1969. So from the first airplane to going on the freaking moon was the same time between the last time we landed on the moon to now pretty much.

That's kind of crazy to think about. Yeah. No, it is really crazy. And I think really like, you know, the space industry has really progressed, but just in a very different way. Yeah, yeah. It's just like it's just progressed within low Earth orbit rather than deep space. But yeah, it is really insane to think about like how long it's been since like we went. And I think it's a really exciting time, especially for people interested in the space industry,

because I think we're just going to see more and more progress. And especially, I think, with a lot of the current pushes for building, you know, some sort of permanent presence on the moon. And I think the Artemis missions are just going to be kind of a pretty heavy force of, you know, continuation of like, we'll just see missions more frequently than we have. If I was going to go to Mars, I would maybe ask. Like, if it's okay if I go to the moon first. Like, can I just try the moon first? Just as like a warm up. Yeah, you know, well, it's really funny because with like the Artemis 2, the three NASA astronauts that were on that mission were veterans.

They've been to the National Space Station. They've been to space multiple times. The Canadian, it was his first ever mission. And so it was his first mission. And he went further than any humans ever gone before. So it's really crazy kind of someone like that balance between like what's, like, what's, more important. I know like with a mission to Mars, it's almost like the same idea, right? Do you have someone who has experience and has like done a mission before? Or is it, you know, with the timeline of how

long the mission to Mars is, do you want someone that's never been to space before and they've never had any effects of microgravity on their body? They maybe have more of like a fresher from like almost more of a medical standpoint of like they've never had any effects because of living in microgravity to their body because of like the duration of the trip. But again, a lot of that's really just going to depend, I think again, on like the timeline. Just raw dog it. Full send. First time, baby, go all the way. Yeah. And I mean, even with like a mission to Mars, right, you're going to need such a diverse group of, you know, you're probably going to want someone who's more of a geologist to actually do some of

the research that you get there. You're obviously going to want someone who's very experienced, a good pilot. I mean, there's just so many different roles to think about when you're at actually like there and making a human mission to Mars. Right, right. Um, now in like so currently you're studying as an you're studying to be like a master getting a master's in astrobiology. Is that correct? I'm getting my PhD in your PhD. Yeah. So I'm a three years into a PhD program. Okay. Um, and it's sorry. I don't know anything about this stuff. No, you're all good. I barely graduated high school. You're all good. Yeah. I mean, so I went straight, I guess, the lay down was I went straight from undergrad to a PhD program.

So I essentially skipped a master, skipped over the master's. How did you do that? It's actually really common in a lot of the more, I guess, science fields. They don't really require you to have a master's to pursue like a PhD program, which I think is just one, not very well known. And two, just I certainly didn't know about it. I actually applied as a master's student. And then when I was trying to work with the professor that I wanted to work with,

He was only interested in PhD students. And I certainly understand it a lot more now because of a master's is so short that it's hard to really conduct meaningful research within only two years. And so he was saying, you know, by the time you get trained on all the stuff to use for your research, you're graduating. And so it's certainly an interest of them to kind of have PhD students who are going to be around longer. And so they get like more research under their belt. So, yeah, I'm in a PhD program in space and planetary science, but all of my research is still within astrobiology. So my bachelor's degree was directly in astrobiology, and then all of my current research interests are still astrobi. And, yeah, just continuing through the PhD program and conducting my research, which is all about microbes and Mars and that connection and contributing to that kind of gap in the field.

and at the moment really just continue with that and then post post PhD either staying within academia or working in the industry, but again within research either way. And I'm officially, I guess, eligible to apply to the astronaut selection process whenever it opens up again. So since their requirement is you have to have at least a master's, like the PhD equivalent to that would be at least two years into your PhD program. So I would be eligible to apply whenever it opens. So would probably give it a stab whenever they open it back up as like my first, I guess, true application to NASA selection process. The people that you're working with that you're like rubbing shoulders with at your college that are pursuing these PhDs and stuff like astrobiology, what sort of jobs in the industry do they typically go for? And like what sort of companies hire them?

Are we talking to, like, private aerospace or? Yeah, it really depends. You know, we have someone who's about to graduate and he's looking at a job with the Smithsonian. We have some people that pursue, like, government. So maybe even a little outside of, you know, just the space realm, but maybe just, like, working on, like, you know, bio materials for some government project. Privately, I mean, it really is just depending on your area of research, because we're all pretty different, right? I mean, my research focuses are, you know, that microbiology in Mars, but we have some people that study Pluto, some people that have a focus on Venus. You know, it kind of just depends on what your area focuses.

And then also money is a big thing, too. So that's why it's kind of hard to tell, especially for me at this point, whether I would stay within academia or pursue industry. Because a lot of the funding for this comes from, like, grants and, like, interest in that science topic. And so that is very ever evolving. Because like sometimes, you know, right now, Mars maybe isn't as big of a topic within astrobiology as like Europa is. So it's kind of always evolving

to what the current most fascinating topic within the field is. And so you certainly kind of flow a little bit with it. And where do most of the grants come from? A lot of them are like NASA grants. So like kind of the NASA budget also determines a lot of that. and like which division within NASA you fall into,

so you can apply for NASA grants. Sometimes there's more just like general science grants, like NSF, kind of just funding a certain science interest. So that's kind of the main areas to look into. What about like companies like Lockheed or like the Aerospace Corporation or any of these types of companies? Do they ever give grants to you guys? Certainly, but it really, again, depends on like your science interest.

So, I mean, if you're working in like material science or like, for example, if, you know, because since engineers are so focused on like the actual equipment rather than like the actual direct science you get out of it, a lot of material science can certainly get like funding from those areas because, you know, you're actually testing that equipment in those environments. But as far as like direct science, a lot of that may be not so much since the engineering is just the actual vehicle rather than like the actual task that will be, you know, happening in space. Right, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for doing this. Yeah.

It's been fun. Yeah. Love talking about space. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where can people find out more about you or like follow you? Do you have a website or anything like that? Yeah, so all of my like socials and everything is under NASA blueberry. So website as well, NASA blueberry.

Nassau blueberry. NASA blueberry. That's your handle. That is my handle. Had it ever since I started, started social media, which honestly. just started out as posting photos for the family. But since I always had kind of an interest in space, I was kind of posting what me and my dad were up to over the summer in like camps and stuff.

And Blueberry is kind of like a nickname. So call signs are really common within like the space industry where you get like a sign to call sign. And you like don't choose it. And whenever I was going to space camp, I wanted one of like the blue flight suits that I saw everyone wearing. But I couldn't fit in any of them. So my dad bought this like knockoff really dark shade of blue and I really stuck out. And so everyone started calling me blueberry and it like stuck and everyone just kind of kept,

oh, look, blueberries back. And so it just kind of naturally became a nickname. I love it. That's very, that's very cool. Well, I hope you can find out if the UFOs and the aliens are real and let us know. Please let me know. Don't keep it a secret. I'll certainly keep you updated when I figure it out.

I certainly think as far as like finding something out there, I think microbes are going to be the first thing that we find. Yes. Well, microbe counts to me. In my book, that's an alien. I agree. So let me know. I will. Awesome.

Thanks again for doing this. Thank you. All right. Good night, everybody.