Lex Fridman Podcast - Dava Newman: Space Exploration, Space Suits, and Life on Mars

Episode Date: November 22, 2019

Dava Newman is the Apollo Program professor of AeroAstro at MIT and the former Deputy Administrator of NASA and has been a principal investigator on four spaceflight missions. Her research interests are in aerospace biomedical engineering, investigating human performance in varying gravity environments. She has developed a space activity suit, namely the BioSuit, which would provide pressure through compression directly on the skin via the suit's textile weave, patterning, and materials rather than with pressurized gas. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on Apple Podcasts or support it on Patreon. This episode is presented by Cash App. Download it, use code LexPodcast. You get $10 and $10 is donated to FIRST, one of my favorite nonprofit organizations that inspires young minds through robotics and STEM education. Here's the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. 00:00 - Introduction 03:11 - Circumnavigating the globe by boat 05:11 - Exploration 07:17 - Life on Mars 11:07 - Intelligent life in the universe 12:25 - Advanced propulsion technology 13:32 - The Moon and NASA's Artemis program 19:17 - SpaceX 21:45 - Science on a CubeSat 23:45 - Reusable rockets 25:23 - Spacesuit of the future 32:01 - AI in Space 35:31 - Interplanetary species 36:57 - Future of space exploration

The following is a conversation with David Newman. She's the Apollo program professor at MIT and the former deputy administrator of NASA. And has been a principal investigator on four spaceflight missions. Her research interests are in aerospace biomedical engineering investigating human performance in varying gravity environments. She has designed and engineered and built

some incredible space suit technology, namely the biosuit that we talked about in this conversation. Due to some scheduling challenges on both our parts, we only had about 40 minutes together. An intrusion engineering style, she said, I talk fast, you pick the best questions, let's get it done. And we did. There's a fascinating conversation about space exploration and the future of spacesuits. This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast.

If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube, give it 5,000 Apple Podcasts, support it on Patreon, or simply connect with me on Twitter. Alex Friedman spelled F-R-I-D-M-A-N. For the first time, this show is presented by CashApp. The number one finance app in the App Store. CashApp is the easiest way to send money to your friends.

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When you sign up for cash app and use the promo code Lex Podcast, you'll instantly receive $10 and cash app will also donate $10 to first an amazing organization that I've personally seen inspire girls and boys to learn to explore and to dream of engineering about a world. Don't forget to use the code Lex podcast when you download cash app from the app store or Google Play Store today. And now here's my conversation with Deva Newman. You circumnavigated the globe on boat. So let's look back in history. 500 years ago, Ferdinand Magellan's crew was first to circumnavigate the globe.

But he died. I think people don't know like halfway through and so did 242 of the 260 sailors that took that three-year journey. What do you think it was like for that crew at that time heading out into the unknown to face probably likely death? Do you think they were filled with fear with excitement? Probably not fear. I think in all of exploration, the challenge and the unknown. So probably wonderment. And then just when you're really are sailing the world's oceans, you have extreme weather of all kinds.

When we were circumnavigating, it was challenging, a new dynamic, you really appreciate. Mother Earth, you appreciate the winds in the waves. So back to Magellan, his crew, since they really didn't have a three-dimensional map of of the globe, of the Earth when they went out, just probably looking over the horizon thinking, what's there? What's there? So I would say the challenge had to be really important in terms of the team dynamics, and that leadership had to be incredibly important. terms of the team dynamics on that leadership, had to be incredibly important, team dynamics, how do you keep people focused on the mission?

So you think the psychology, that's interesting, there's probably echoes of that in the space exploration stuff we'll talk about. Absolutely. So the psychology of the dynamics between the human beings on the mission is important. Absolutely. For our Mars mission, there's lots of challenges, technology, but since I specialize and keep my astronauts alive, the cycle of social issues, the psychology of a cycle social, team dynamics leadership, that's, you know, we're all people. So that's going

to be, that's always a huge impact. One of the top three, I think of any isolated confined environment and can any mission that is really pretty extreme. So your Twitter handles Dave Explore. So when did you first fall in love with the idea of exploration? Ah, that's a great question. Maybe as long as I can remember, as I grew up in Montana in the Rocky Mountains, in Helena and the capital and so literally, you know, Mount Helena was my backyard, was right up there. So exploring, being in the mountains, looking at caves, just running around, but always being in nature. So since my earliest memory, as I think of myself as kind of exploring

the natural beauty of the Rocky Mountains where I grew up. So exploration is not limited to any domain, it's just anything. So the natural domain of any kind, going out to the woods into the place you haven't been, it's all exploration. I think so. Yeah, I have a pretty all-encompassing definition of exploration. So what about space exploration?

When we first captivated by the idea that we little humans could venture out into the space, into the great unknown of space. So it's a great year to talk about that. The 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, as I was alive during Apollo, and specifically Apollo 11, I was five years old, and I distinctly remember that. I remember that humanity,

I'm sure I probably didn't know their names at the time. There's Neil Armstrong Buzz Alderman and never forget Michael Collins in orbit. No, those three men, you know, doing something that just seemed impossible, seemed impossible a decade earlier, even a year earlier, but so the Apollo program really inspired me. And then I think it actually just taught me to dream to any impossible mission could be possible with an a focus.

I am sure you need some luck, but you definitely need the leadership, you need the focus of the mission. So since an early age, I thought, of course, people should be inter-primatory. Of course, people, we need people on earth, and we're going to have people exploring space as well. So that seemed obvious, you're not that age. Of course. It opened it up. Before we saw a man on the moon, it was obvious to me at all, but once we understood that, yes, absolutely, astronauts, that's what they do. They explore. They go into space and they land on other planets or moons. So, again, maybe a romanticized philosophical question, but when you look up at the stars,

knowing that, you know, there's at least 100 billion of them in the Milky Way galaxy, right? So we're really a small spec in this giant thing that's the visible universe. How does that make you feel about our efforts here? I love the perspective. I love that perspective. I always open my public talks with a big Hubble Space Telescope. I mentioned looking out into it and you'd mention just now the solar system in the Milky Way,

because I think it's really important to know that we're just a small pill, blue dot. We're really fortunate. We're on the best planet by far. Life is fantastic here. No, we know of. You're confident this is the best planet. I'm pretty sure it's the best planet

the best planet that we know of. I mean, I started to my research as you know, in Mission Worlds and when will we find life? I think actually probably the next decade we find probably past life, probably the evidence of past life on Mars, let's say. You think there was pretty like once life on Mars or do you think there's currently, uh, I'm more comfortable saying probably 3.5 billion years ago, feel pretty confident there was life on Mars just because then it had an electromagnetic shield. It had atmosphere, has a wonderful gravity level 3 a 3 a.g.

Fantastic, you know, you're all super human human. We can all slam dunk a basketball I mean it's gonna be fun to play sports on Mars But so I think we'll find past that and a fossilized probably the evidence of past life on Mars Currently, that's again, we need the next decade the evidence is mounting for sure We do have the organics, we're finding organics, we have water, seasonal water on Mars, we used to just know about the ice caps, you know, North and South Pole.

Now we have seasonal water, we do have the building blocks for life on Mars. We really need to dig down into the soil because everything on the top surface is radiated, but once we find down, will we see any life forms? We see any bugs. I leave it open as a possibility, but I feel pretty certain that past life or fossilized life forms will find. And then we have to get to all these ocean worlds, these beautiful moons of other planets

since we know they have water. And we're looking for, since simple search for life, or follow the water, carbon-based life, that's the only life we know. There could be other life farms that we don't know about, but it was hard to search for them, because we don't know. So in our search for life, in the solar system,

it's definitely search, it's follow the water, and look for the building blocks of life. Do you think in the next decade, we might see hints of past life or even current life? I think so. That's it. Pretty optimistic. I'm pretty optimistic. Do humans have to be involved or can this be robots and rovers and

Probably teams. I mean, we've been at it on Mars in particular 50 years We've been exploring Mars for 50 years. Great data, right? Our images of Mars today are phenomenal Now we know how Mars lost this atmosphere, you know, we're starting to know because of the lack of the electromagnetic shield We know about the water in Mars. So we've been studying 50 years with our robots. We still haven't found it. So I think once we have a human mission there, we just accelerate things. It's always humans and our rovers and robots together. But we just have to think that 50 years we've been looking at Mars and taking images and doing the best science so we can. People need to realize Mars is really far away. It's really hard to get to.

It's this extreme, extreme exploration. We mentioned Magellan first, or all of the wonderful explorers and sailors of the past, which kind of are lots of my inspiration for exploration. Mars is a different ball game. I mean, it's eight months to get there. You're in half to get home. I mean, it's really extreme.

Heart environment and all kinds of ways. But the kind of organism might be able to see himself on Mars or kind of microorganisms, perhaps. Do you think? I remember that humans, we're host, right? We're host to all of our bacteria and viruses, right? Do you think it's a big leap from the viruses in the bacteria to us humans? the viruses in the bacteria to us humans. Put another way, do you think on all those moons, beautiful wet moons that you mentioned? You think there's intelligent life out there? I hope so. I mean, that's the hope, but we don't have the scientific evidence for that now.

I think all the evidence we have in terms of life existing is much more compelling, again, because we have the building blocks of life now. When that life turns into intelligence, that's a big unknown. If we ever meet, do you think we would be able to find a common language? I hope so. I haven't met yet. It's just so far. I mean, do physics display a role here? Look at all these exoplanets. 6,000 exoplanets. I mean, even the couple doesn't earthlike planets that are exoplanets that really look like habitable planets. These are very Earth-like.

They look like they have all the building blocks. I can't wait to get there. The only thing is they're 10 to 100 light years away. So scientifically, we know they're there. We know that they're habitable. They have everything going from, right? You know, we call them the Goldilocks Zone, not too hot, not too cold, just perfect for

how to have the ability for life. But now the reality is if they're 10 at the best, to 100, to thousands of light years away. So what's out there? But I just can't think that we're not the only one. So absolutely life, life in the universe, probably intelligent life as well. Do you think there needs to be fundamental revolutions in how we, the tools we use to travel through space in order for us to venture outside of our solar system? Or do you think the ways, the rockets, the ideas we have now, the engineering ideas we have now will be enough to venture out? Well, it's a good question right now, because getting speed of light is a limit.

We don't have a warp speed warp drive to explore our solar system to get tomorrow, explore all the planets. Then we need technology push, but technology push here is just advanced propulsion. It'd be great. I can get humans tomorrow's in say, you know, three to four months, not eight months. I mean, have the time, 50% reduction. That's great in terms of safety and wellness of the crew, orbital mechanic, but physics rules, orbital mechanics is still a-

Physics rules, physics rules, we can't do five physics. I love that. Invent a new physics, I mean, look at quantum theory. So, you never know. Exactly, I mean, we are always learning. So we definitely don't know all the physics that exists too, but we still have to, it's not science fiction. You know, we still have to pay attention to physics in terms

of our speed of travel for spaceflight. So you were the deputy administrator of NASA during the Obama administration. There's a current Artemis program that's working on a coup mission to the moon and then perhaps the Mars. What are you excited about there? What are your thoughts on this program? What are the biggest challenges do you think of getting to the moon, of landing to the moon once again,

and then the big step to Mars? Well, I love the moon program now, Artemis. It is definitely, we've been in lower-thorbit. I love lower-thorbit too, but I just, always look at it as three phases. So lower-thorbit, where we've been 40 years, so definitely time to get back to deep space, time to get to the moon. There's so much to do on the moon.

I hope we don't get stuck on the moon for 50 years. I really want to get to the moon, spend the next decade first with the lander, then humans. There's just a lot to explore, but to me, it's a big technology push. It's only three days away, so the moon is definitely the right place. So we kind of definitely the right place. So we kind of buy down our technology, we invest in specifically habitats, life support systems. So we need suits. We really need to understand really how to live off planet. We've been off planet and more or a bit, but still that's only 400 kilometers up, 250 miles. So we get to the moon,

it really is a great proving ground for the technologies and now we're in deep space. Radiation becomes a huge issue. Again, to keep our astronauts well in the lab. And I look at all of that investment for moon, moon exploration to the ultimate goal, the horizon goals we call it, to get people to Mars. But we just don't go to Mars tomorrow, right? We really need a decade on the moon, I think, investing in the technology is learning, making sure they astronaut their health, you know, they're safe and well, and also learning so much about Institute research, utilization,

ISRU, you know, Institute resource utilization is huge when it comes to exploration for the moon and Mars. So we need a test bed and to me it really is a lunar test bed, and then we use those same investments to think about getting people to Mars in the 2030s. So developing sort of a platform of all the kind of research tools of all the, what's the resource details that the, can you speak to that? Yeah. So I asked, are you, for the moon, it's, we'll go to the South Pole and fascinating. We have images of it. Of course, we know there's permanently shaded areas and like by Shackleton Crater,

and there's areas that are permanently in the sun. Well, it seems that there's a lot of water ice, you know, water that's trapped in ice, and the lunar craters. That's the first place you go. Why? Because it's water, and when you want to try to, it could be fuel, you know, life support system, so you kind of, you get, you go where the water is.

And so when the moon is kind of for resources, utilization, but to learn how to, can we make the fuels out of the resources that are on the moon? We have to think about 3D printing, right? You don't get to bring all this mass with you. You have to learn how to literally live off the land. We need a pressure shell. We need to have an atmosphere for people to live in. So all of that is going to bind down the technology, doing the investigation, doing the science

what, or the basically called lunar volatiles. You know, what is that ice on the moon? How much of it is there? What are the resources look like? To me, that helps us. That's just the next step in getting humans to Mars. You know, it's cheaper and more effective to sort of develop some of these difficult challenges. Like solve some of these challenges,

practice, develop, test, and so on on the moon. Absolutely. There's no Mars. Absolutely. And people are gonna love to, you know, you get to the moon, you get to, you have a beautiful Earth rise. I mean, you have the most magnificent view

of Earth being off planet. So it just makes sense. I think we're gonna have thousands, lots of people. Hopefully tens of thousands in low Earth orbit because the lower Earth orbit is a beautiful place to go and look down on the earth. But people want to return home. I think the lunar explorers will also want to do round trips and be on the moon, three-day

trip, explore, do science also because the lunar day is 14 days and lunar nights, also 14 days. So in that 28-day cycle, half of it is in light, half of it is in dark. So people would probably want to do a couple of week trips, month-long trips, not longer than that. What do you mean by people? What do you mean people explore? Explore?

Yeah, astronauts are going to be civilians in the future too. Not all astronauts are going to be government. Astronauts, actually, when I was at NASA, we changed. We actually got the law. Change to recognize astronauts that are not only government astronauts. Actually, when I was at NASA, we changed, we actually got the law, changed to recognize astronauts that are not only government employees, you know, NASA astronauts or European space agency astronauts or Russian space agency that astronauts because of the big push we put in the private sector that astronauts essentially are going to be astronauts to get over 100 kilometers up. And I think once you've done orbital, orbital

flight, then you're an astronaut. So a lot of private citizens are gonna become astronauts. Do you think one day you might step foot on the moon? I think it'd be good to go to the moon. I'd give that a shot. The Mars, I'm gonna, it's my life's work to get the next generation to Mars. That's you or even younger than you. My students' generation will be the Martian Explorers.

I'm just working to facilitate that, but that's not going to be me. Hey, the moon's pretty good. And it's a lot tough. I mean, it's still a really tough mission. It is an extreme mission. Exactly. It's great for exploration, but doable. But again, before Apollo, we didn't think getting humans to the moon was even possible. So we kind of made that possible, but we need to go back. We absolutely need to go back. We're investing in the heavy lift launch capabilities that we need to get there. We haven't had that, you know, since the Apollo days

since Saturn V. So now we have three options on the board. That's what's so fantastic. NASA has its, you know, space launch system. SpaceX is going to have its heavy capability and blue origin is coming along too with heavy lifts. So that's pretty fantastic from where I said, I'm the Apollo program professor. Today I have zero Heavy Lift Launch Capability.

I can't wait just in a few years, we'll have three different Heavy Lift Launch Capabilities. So that's pretty exciting. You know, your heart is perhaps with NASA, but you mentioned SpaceX and Blue Origin. What are your thoughts of SpaceX and the innovative efforts there from the sort of private company aspect?

Oh, they're great. Remember that the investments in SPACE-6 is government funding. It's NASA funding, it's the US Air Force funding, just as it should be, because you're betting on a company who is moving fast, has some new technology development. So I love it. So when I was in NASA, it really was under our public-private partnerships. So necessarily, the government needs to fund these startups.

Now SpaceX is no longer a startup, but it's been at it for 10 years. It's had some accidents, learned a lot of lessons, but it's great because it's the way you move faster. And also, some private industry folks, some private businesses will take a lot more risk. That's also really important for the government. What do you think about that culture risk?

I mean, sort of NASA and the government are exceptionally good at delivering sort of safe. Like there's a little bit more of a culture of caution and safety and sort of this kind of solid engineering. And I think SpaceX Wall has the same kind of stuff. It has a little bit more of that startup feel where they take the bigger risks. Is that exciting for you to see, seeing bigger risks in this kind of space? Absolutely.

And the best scenario is both of them working together. Because there's really important lessons learned, especially when you talk about human space fight, safety, quality assurance, these things are the utmost important, both aviation and space, you know, when human lives are at stake. On the other hand, government agencies, NASA can be European space agencies. You name it.

They become very bureaucratic, pretty risk averse, move pretty slowly. So I think the best is when you combine the partnerships from both sides industry necessarily has to push the government, take some more risks. You know, I got my smart risk or actually gave him an award at NASA for failing smart. Failing smart, I love that. You can kind of break open the culture and say, no, look at Apollo, that was a huge risk. It was done well. Also there's always a culture of safety, quality assurance, engineering, at its best.

But on the other hand, you want to get things done. And you have to also bring the cost down. Now, for when it comes to launch, we really have to bring the cost down and get the frequency up. And so that's what the newcomers are doing. They're really pushing that. So it's about the most exciting time that I can imagine for spaceflight. Again, little bit, it really is the democratization of spaceflight, opening it up. Not just because the launch capability, but the science we can do.

On a CubeSat, what you can do now, for those who used to be, you know, student projects that we would go through conceive, design, implement, and think about what a small satellite would be. Now, these are really advanced instruments. Science instruments that are flying on little teeny CubeSats that pretty much anyone can afford.

So there's not a, every nation, you know, every place in the world can fly a CubeSat. And so that's... What's a CubeSat? Oh, CubeSat is a, this is called OneU, and CubeSat we measure in terms of units. So, you know, just in terms of, I put my, both my hands here,

that's one unit, two units, so little small satellites. So CubeSats are for small satellites. And we actually go by mass as well. You know, small satellite might be 100 kilos, 200 kilos, all well under 1,000 kilos. CubeSats then are the next thing down from smallsats. Basically, you know, kilos, tens of kilos,

things like that. But kind of the building blocks, CubeSats are fantastic design, because it's kind of modular design. So I can take a one unit of CubeSat. And, you know, but what if I have a little bit more money and payload, I can take a one unit of CubeSat and, you know, what if I have a little bit more money and payload, I can fly three of them and just basically put a lot more instruments on it. But essentially, think about something the size of a shoe box, if you will. You know,

that would be a CubeSat. And those, how do those help empower you in terms of doing size, in terms of doing experiments? Oh, right now, there's, again, back to private industry, planet, the company is flying CubeSense and literally looking down on Earth and orbiting Earth taking a picture, if you will, of Earth every day, every 24 hours covering the entire Earth. So, in terms of Earth observations, in terms of climate change, in terms of our changing Earth,

it's revolutionizing because they're affordable. We can put a whole bunch of them up telecoms. We're all on our cell phones, and we have whole bunch of them up telecoms. We're all on our cell phones and GPS, we have our telecoms, but those used to be very expensive satellites, preventing that service. Now we can fly a whole bunch of modular CubeSats. So it really is breakthrough in terms of modularity as well as cost reduction. So that's one exciting set of developments. Is there something else that

you've been excited about in like reusable rockets perhaps that you've seen in the last few years? Yeah, well the reusability, you had other reusability is awesome. I mean, it's just the best. Now we have to remember the shuttle was a reusable vehicle. Yes. Which and the shuttle is an amazing narrow space engineer. You know what I mean, the shuttle is still the most gorgeous, elegant, extraordinary design of a space vehicle. It was reusable, it just wasn't affordable. But there was usability of it was really critical because we flew it up, it did come back.

So the notion of usability, I think, absolutely now what we're doing with, we, like global we, but with SpaceX and Borgian, suddenly rockets have recovering the first stages where if they can regain 70% cost savings, that's huge. And just seeing the control, you know, the being a control and dynamics person is just seeing that rocket come back and land. Oh, yeah, that's.

It never gets old. It's exciting every single time you look at it and take that's magic. So it's so cool. It's me. The landing is where I stand up. Start clapping. Just the control. Yeah, just the contrast to the algorithm. Just the control.

It goes and hit and that landing. It's gymnastics for rocket shifts. But to see these guys stick a landing is just wonderful. So every time I see the reusability and the rockets coming back and landing so for SIS is really exciting. So it is actually that's a game changer. We are in a new era of lower costs and a lot in the higher frequency and it's the world, not just NASA, it's many nations are really up in their frequency of launches. You've done a lot of exciting research, design, engineering on spacesuits.

What does the space suit of the future look like? Well, if I have anything to say about it, it'll be a very tight fitting suit. We use mechanical counterpressure to pressurize right directly on the skin. Seems that it's technically feasible. We're still at the research and development stage. We don't have a flight system, but technically it's feasible. So we do a lot of work in the materials. What materials do we need to pressurize someone?

What's the patterning we need? That's what our patents are in. The patterning, how we apply. This is a third of an atmosphere. Just to sort of take a look at that back. You have this incredible biosuit where it's tight fitting. So it allows more mobility and so on. So maybe even to take a bigger step back,

what are the functions that a spacesuit should perform? Sure. So start from the beginning, a spacesuit is the world's smallest spacecraft. So I really, that's the best definition I can give you. Right now we fly gas pressure, I choose, but think of developing and designing an entire spacecraft. So then you take all those systems and you shrink them around a person, provide them with oxygen debris, scrub out their carbon dioxide, you know, make sure they have pressure, they need a pressure environment until they've been. So really the space is a shrunken spacecraft in its entirety, has all the same systems. The communication as well, probably, like, communications, exactly. So you really thermal control, little bit of radiation, not so much radiation protection, but thermal control

humidity, oxygen debris. So all those life support systems, as well as the pressure production. So it's an engineering marvel, you know, the space suit set of flown because they really are entire spacecraft, they're a small spacecraft that we have around a person, but they're very massive, but 140 kilos of the current suit, and they're not mobility suits. So since we're going back to the moon in Mars, we need a planetary suit, we need a mobility suit. So that's where we've kind of flipped the design paradigm. I study astronauts, I study humans in motion, and if we can map that motion,

I want to give you full flexibility. You know, move your arms and legs. I really want you to be like an Olympic athlete, an extreme explorer. I don't want to waste any of your energy. So we take it from the human design. So I take a look at humans, we measure them, we model them, and then I say, okay, can I put a

space suit on them that goes from the skin out? So rather than a gas pressurized shrinking, that space craft around the person, say, here's how humans perform. Can I design a space suit literally from the skin out? And that's what we've come up with, mechanical counterpressure, some patterning. And that way, it can be order of magnitude less in terms of the mass and it should provide

maximum mobility for moon or Mars. What's mechanical counterpressure? Like how the heck can you even begin to create something that's tight fitting and still doesn't protect you from the elements and so on and the whole the pressure thing? That's the challenge. It's a big design challenge. We've been working on it for all. So you can either put someone in a balloon. That's one way to do it. That's conventional. That's the only thing that means the balloon that you go with that.

That's a gas pressure I suit. So put someone in a balloon. It's only a third of an atmosphere to keep someone alive. So that's what the current system is. So depending on what units you think in 30 kilopascals, you know, 4.3 pounds per square meter. So much less than the pressure that's on Earth. You can still keep a human alive with 0.3 and it's a live and happy. Live and happy. And you know, you mix the gases. Here, we're having this chat and we're at one sea level in Boston, you know, one atmosphere. But a suit.

A lot to general nitrogen. Our oxygen nitrogen to put a suit if we put someone to a third of an atmosphere. So from mechanical counter pressure now, so one way is to do it with a balloon, and that's what we currently have. Or you can apply the pressure directly to the skin. I only have to give you a third of an atmosphere. Right now you and I are very happy in one atmosphere, so if I put that pressure, a third of an atmosphere on you, I just have to do it consistently, you know, across all of your body and your limbs.

And it'll be a gas pressurized helmet. Doesn't make sense to shrink wrap the head. See the blue man group, that's a great act. But we don't need to, there's no benefits of like shrink wrapping. You put gas pressurized helmet because the helmet then the future of suits you asked me about, the helmet just becomes your information portal. So it will have augmented reality.

It'll have all the information you need should have, you know, the maps that I need. I'm on the moon. Okay. Well, hey, smart helmet. Then show me the map, show me the topography. Hopefully, it has the lab embedded too. If it has really great cameras, maybe I can see with that regular, that's just lunar dust and dirt.

What's that made out of? We talked about the water. So the helmet then really becomes this information portal is how I see Kind of the IT architecture the helmet is really allowing me to you know use all of my modalities of an explorer that I'd like to so cameras voiceover images if it were really good It would kind of be would have lab capabilities as well Okay, so the pressure comes from the body, comes from the mechanical pressure. It's fascinating.

Now what aspect, when I look at biosegistosis, you're working on sort of from a fashion perspective, they look awesome. Is that a small part of it too? Oh, absolutely, because the teams that we work with, of course, I'm an engineer, there's engineering students, there's design students, there's architects, so it really is a very much multi-disciplinary team. So sure, colors, aesthetics, materials, all those things we pay attention to. So it's not just an engineering solution, it really is a much more holistic, it's a suit, it's a suit, you're dressed in a suit.

It's a warm fitting. So we really have to pay attention to all those things. And so that's the design team that we work with, and my partner, Gita Rade, we're partners in this in terms of, if he comes from an architecture industrial design background, so bringing those skills to bear as well. We team up with industry folks who are in athletic performance and designers, so it really is a team that brings all those skills together.

So what role does the space who play in our long-term staying in Mars, sort of exploring the doing all the work that astronauts do, but also perhaps civilians one day, almost like taking steps towards colonization of Mars? What role does a space who play there? So you always need a life support system, pressurized habitat, and I like to say we're not going to Mars to sit around. So you need to suit. You're, You know, even if you land and have the

land, or you're not going there to stay inside, that's her darn share. We're going there to search for the evidence of life. That's why we're going to Mars. So you need a lot of mobility. So for me, the suit is the best way to give the human mobility. We're always still going to need rovers. We're going to need robots. So for me, exploration is always a suite of explorers. Some people are going to, some of the suite of explorers are humans, but many are going to be robots, smart systems, things like that. But I look at it as kind of all those capabilities together,

make the best exploration team. So let me ask, I love artificial intelligence. And I've also saw that you've enjoyed the movie Space Odyssey, 2001 Space Odyssey. Let me ask the question about how 9000 that makes a few decisions there that prioritizes the mission over the astronauts. Do you think from a high philosophical question that do you think how did the right thing of prioritizing the mission? I think our artificial intelligence will be smarter in the future. If for a Mars mission, it's a great question

of the reality, for a Mars mission, we need fully autonomous systems. We will get humans, but they have to be fully autonomous. And that's a really important, that's the most important concept, because there's not gonna be a mission control on Earth, you know, 20 minute time lag. There's just no way you're going to control it. So fully

autonomous, so people have to be fully autonomous as well, but all of our systems as well. And so that's the big design challenge. So that's why we test them out on the moon as well. When we have a, okay, a few second, you know, a three second time lag, you can test them out. We have to really get autonomous exploration down. You asked me earlier about Magellan Magellan and his crew they left right they were autonomous You know they were autonomous they left and they were on their own to figure out that mission Then when they hit land they have resources as instance you resource utilization and everything else they brought with them So we have to I think have that mindset for expression again back to the moon It's more the testing ground the proving ground with technologies

But when we get to Mars it's so far away that we need fully autonomous systems. So I think that's where AI and autonomy come in, really robust autonomy, things that we don't have today yet. So they're on the drawing boards, but we really need to test them out, because that's what we're up against. So fully autonomous, meaning like self-sufficient, they're still a role for the human in that picture. Do you think there'll be a time when AI systems just beyond doing fully autonomous flight control will also help or even take mission decisions like how did? That's interesting. It depends.

I mean, they're going to be designed by humans. I think as you mentioned, humans are always in the loop. I mean, we might be on Earth, we might be in orbit on Mars, maybe the systems that land us down on the surface of Mars. But I think we're going to get, we are right now, just on Earth-based systems, you know, AI systems that are incredibly capable and, you know, training them with all the data that we have now, you know, petabytes of data from Earth.

What I care about for the autonomy in AI right now, how we're applying it in research, is to look at Earth and look at climate systems. I mean, that's the, it's not for Mars to me today. Right now, AI is to eyes on Earth, all of our space data, compiling that, using supercomputers, because we have so much information and knowledge, and we need to get that into people's hands.

We need, first there's an educational issue with climate and our changing climate. Then we need to change human behavior. That's the biggie. So this next decade, it's urgent. We take care of our own spaceship, which is spaceship earth. So that's, to me, where my focus has been for AI systems using whatever is out there, kind of imagining also what the future situation is. It's a satellite imagery of Earth of the future. If you can hold that in your hands, that's gonna be really powerful. Well, that help people accelerate positive change

for Earth and for us to live in balance with Earth. I hope so. And kind of start with the ocean systems. So oceans to land to air and kind of using all the space data. So it's a huge role for artificial intelligence to help us analyze, like, all curating the data, using the data. It has a lot to visualizations as well.

Do you think, in a weird, dark question, do you think human species can survive if we don't become interplanetary in the next century, or a couple of centuries? Absolutely. We can survive. I don't think Mars' option be, actually. So I think it's all about saving space ship Earth and humanity. I simply put, Earth doesn't need us, but we really need Earth.

All of humanity needs to live in balance with Earth, because Earth has been here a long time before. We ever showed up, and it'll be here a long time after. It's just a matter of how do we want to live with all living beings, you know, much more in balance because we need to take care of the earth and right now we're not. So that's the urgency. And I think it is the next decade to try to live much more sustainably, live more in balance with earth. I think the human species has a great long optimistic future, but we have to act. It's urgent. We, you know, we have to change behavior. We have to we have to realize that we're all in this together It's just one blue bubble. It's for humanity

So when think people realize that we're all astronauts. That's the great news is everyone's been asking us to birth We're all on out. We're all astronauts of spaceship earth and you know And this is our mission. This is our mission to take care of the planet and yet as, as we explore out from our spaceship Earth here, out into the space, what do you think the next 50, 100, 200 years look like for space exploration? I'm optimistic. So I think that we'll have lots of people, thousands of people, tens of thousands of people who knows,

maybe millions in lower orbit. That's just a place that we're going to have people and actually some industry manufacturing, things like that, that dream. I hope we realize getting people to the moon so I can envision a lot of people in the moon. Again, it's a great place to go. Living or visiting. Probably visiting and living. If you want to, most people are going to want to come back to Earth, I think. But there'll be some people. And it's not such a long, it's a good view, it's a beautiful view. So I think that we will have, you know, many people on the moon as well. I think

there'll be some people you told me, wow, you know, hundreds of years out. So we'll have people will be interplanetary for sure as a species. So I think we'll be on the moon, I think we'll be on Mars. You know, Venus, no, it's already a runaway greenhouse gas. So not a great, great place for science, you know, Jupiter, all of, within the solar system, great place for all of our scientific probes. I don't see so much in terms of human physical presence. We'll be exploring them. We live in our minds there because we're exploring them and going on those journeys, but it's really our choice in terms of our decisions of how in balance we're going to be living

here on the Earth. When do you think the first woman, first person will step on Mars? Ah, step on Mars. Well, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure it happens in the 2030s. 2030. Say mid, you know, 20, mid, 20, you know, 2025, 2035 will be on the moon. And hopefully with more people than us. But first with, you know, if you ask us, it'll be global, international folks. But we really need those 10 years, I think, on the moon. And then so by the, by later in the decade in the 20, 30s,

we'll have all the technology and know how, and we need to get that, you know, human mission to Mars then. We'll live in exciting times, and David, thank you so much for leading the way. And thank you for talking today, really. Thank you, my pleasure. Thanks for listening to this conversation, and thank you to our presenting sponsor cash app.

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