StarTalk Radio - Putting Humans on Mars, with Mike Massimino – StarTalk All-Stars

Episode Date: August 9, 2016

What will it take to send people to Mars safely, and bring them home again? StarTalk All-Stars host Astro Mike Massimino and co-host Maeve Higgins find out from John Charles, the Chief Scientist at NASA’s Human Research Program. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

This is StarTalk. Hello, this is Mike Massimino talking to you from StarTalk All-Stars. I guess I'm actually an All-Star. Yeah. I haven't been an All-Star since I was 13 years old in Little League. That was 40 years ago. But I'm an All-Star again, and your host tonight. And I have with me my friend. Wait, can I'm an all-star again, and your host tonight, and I have with

me my friend, wait, can I call you my friend? Yes, please. Maeve Higgins is my new friend. No, we're friends, and she is a tremendous, great space enthusiast, but more important, a comedian, so she's going to keep us laughing. Yeah. I can't wait to do this show. Thank you for being here.

No, thank you for having me. You bet. Your home this show. Thank you for being here. No, thank you for having me. You bet. Your home is beautiful. Thank you. This is not my home, actually, but it is a nice place. In this episode, we have Jorn Charles, my friend from the Johnson Space Center. He is a chief scientist at the Johnson Space Center, and he's going to talk to us about putting people on Mars.

That's right. People like you and me, maybe not you and me, but people like us, real people. We want to send them to Mars. And John is the person that's going to make that happen. Is that right, John? Yeah, Mike, thanks very much.

No pressure there. Yes, I'm the chief scientist for the Human Research Program. There's a lot of chief scientists floating around NASA. I'm just one of them, but for the human research. All right.

So let's talk a little bit about this now, John. The human research program, you're the chief scientist for that. What exactly is the human research program, and what are you doing as chief scientist? Mike, the human research program is the way that we put the research together to send astronauts to Mars. The idea is that our work is focused with laser-like intensity on solving the problems of astronauts as they leave low Earth orbit and explore other destinations. We can talk about the moon, we can talk about asteroids, but the implicit goal is to send people to Mars. We've identified, let's say, 30-ish risks that need to be addressed as we send people beyond low Earth orbit, risks that relate to

their exposure to radiation and the effects of that, isolation and confinement. They'll be isolated and confined and autonomous. They'll be self-sufficient to the extent that nobody has ever been before. We have the ongoing issues of adaptation to weightlessness, the medical care, how do you take care of people, maybe there's just four or five or six people on this trip to Mars, how do you take care of them, how do they take care of themselves medically on a trip of two and a half years round trip from Earth to Mars? There's so, so, so many issues. When did you start your research program? Like when, when did it like start to be called the Human Research Program?

When did it start to be called the Human Research Program? The Human Research Program was initiated in 2005. That was just about the time that the Space Shuttle Program was going to start winding down. We had the last six years of shuttle missions. The Space Station Program was just getting wound up. The Space Station is our venue for the research that we're doing. And since then, our charter has been focused on sending astronauts beyond the Earth orbit, specifically to Mars. So did this cross over with your time as an astronaut then, Mike?

Apparently so. I was a shuttle astronaut back then in 2005. And, yeah, so, you know, they've been studying how humans can live and work in space. As John says, there's many aspects to that. And primarily, I think what we're focusing on today is how do you keep people healthy, healthy to withstand such a journey? And that's healthy, both physically healthy and mentally healthy because two weeks in space is one thing it has certain effects on the body and that's what with the human research program they started studying but really I think the bigger focus is space station as John is saying where

you're up there for longer periods of time and now for Mars you're going to be up there even even longer right right? Yeah. Your time as an astronaut crossed over with the beginnings of the human research, but the official human research program, is that right? So do you know if your time up there had any bearings on their research and what your time could have contributed to your knowledge, John? Well, I'm quite positive that we made measurements on Mike while he was an active astronaut. We seldom let any warm bodies get away from us, especially if

they're willing to come back a second time. That sounds very chilling. We never let any warm bodies get away from us. But you know, the thing is not just surviving. I'm pretty confident we can survive on a trip to Mars and survive on the way home. Our goal is to make sure people arrive on Mars so they can do a lot of work. And you saw how much work Matt Damon was doing in the movie. He was by himself. But even when he wasn't by himself, the whole crew was working hard. Our goal is to keep people in sufficient condition that they can work as hard as they've ever worked in their entire lives because it's going to be required on the Mars mission to justify the truly tremendous expense

and the multinational effort to get there. So our goal is not for you to get there to stumble down the ladder and plant a flag and then, you know, scuffle a little dust with your boots and get back in the rocket and blast off. Our goal is for you to be on Mars for up to 18 months, working very, very hard, finding whether there's life on Mars, whether there ever was life on Mars, understanding Mars as a planet, and essentially justifying the expense of the mission.

That's the challenge. So how long would the mission be altogether? Altogether, it's going to be 30 months, according to NASA's design reference mission. And bear in mind that this is not yet an approved program. These are study parameters. But we expect a mission to Mars will be on the order of two and a half years, 30 months long with about a six-month or so transit there,

which just coincidentally looks like a space station duration, 18 months on the planet. Talk about your layovers at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. This is an 18-month layover on Mars, and then a six- or seven-month layover on Mars, and then a six- or seven-month transit back to Earth, a total of two and a half years. John, there's 30 months that it's going to take to get there. You explained six, six to go, 18 there, six back. And there's only certain times we can go, or it could be even longer than that.

But why are we looking at those, those lengths of time and why aren't they not longer or shorter? Well, that's sort of the minimum, minimum inclusive mission. That's the transit from Earth to Mars is dictated by orbital mechanics. And the Earth and Mars have to be in the right position for the trajectory to get from one to the other. You'd hate to show up at Mars's orbit and Mars not be there. So there's only a certain number of times, you know, in the Earth year and the Mars year when they're in the right positions with each other. And you can either... That would be so awkward if you showed up to Mars and Mars was not there. It would be disappointing. It would be like the

worst barbecue ever. It'd be difficult to explain to Congress and your mom. But, you know, then you can either swing by Mars or just stay for maybe 30 days at the most and then come back to Earth. But the launch window for that return is rapidly closing by the time you get there. And if you do execute that quick return, you have to swing back through the inner solar system as close to the sun as Venus, which brings in problems with radiation exposure and heating and stuff like that, and still takes a long time to get back to Earth. So there's really, if you think about it, there's really not a convenient way to take a short trip to Mars. The shortest trip to Mars is going to be on the order of 500 days. And that's just a flyby, a swing past and then come straight back to Earth. And if it's

going to justify, like I say, the expense of getting there, you may as well spend enough time there to do something meaningful. And that's really once you stay past the first 30 days or so, you're committed to the 18 months. Right. And that window, I mean, so there's a sweet spot of when you can do it that quickly and get there in that six months. If you miss that window, you're waiting for a while, aren't you? Right. Exactly right. So there's these certain times when you can go and you can't miss the train.

It's so stressful. I mean, when you say that, like, do you know how much money has already been spent? Like when you say it's like a multinational effort and all this expense so far. Do you have an idea of that money? Well, you know, the expense is mostly up until now in research and development. So the space station is $100 billion worth of investment, as I'm understanding. Also the work in the Orion capsule, which will take the astronauts from the launch pad, presumably at Kennedy Space Center, up to the Mars transit vehicle, and then bring them back again at the end of the mission.

The space launch system, the next generation big rocket that's going to look like the Saturn V based on shuttle technology. You know, all those things have several billion dollars a year in budgets, and they've been spending for several years. But, you know, the Mars program itself is still in the study phase. And so nobody has actually told us to go to Mars yet. It would essentially be illegal for NASA to send somebody to Mars because Congress has not authorized that particular expenditure. So what we're doing, Congress has authorized us to research the problem,

and that's what we're doing now. What are your main research things? You mentioned the radiation problem. What else are you looking at? Well, other things are the psychological aspects. Imagine that's just you and four or five of your closest personal friends locked up in a vehicle the size of, let's say, a Winnebago or two for two and a half years face to face with only each other to look at. And the longer the mission goes up until the halfway point, you're going to be getting further and further from Earth. I think it would be good if you could choose who you went with. No? If it was like me, Michael Fassbender. I mean, who would you go with, Mike?

I'd go with you. You want to go? John willender. I mean, who would you go with, Mike? I'd go with you. You want to go? John will go. I don't know. They don't usually do that, though. You don't get to pick. No. That's why we have bosses.

They may pick. And then you say, why did you, what the heck? So that's probably going to be the tradition will continue. Yeah. How did they put these guys together? But, you know, John, we're going to move on to our cosmic query section. And we've got some related questions from our audience that Maeve will hit us up with now. So here's a question.

What kinds of people should be sent to Mars? And psychologists, journalists, medical doctors. What do you think, John? Well, my answer to that is NASA does a pretty good job of picking astronauts. And I'm not just brown nosing with Mike here, but it seems like that NASA can find people that are jet pilot, concert pianist, neurosurgeon, gourmet chefs. And you're going to need that kind of skill mix with a small group of people going to Mars. Let's say four or five or six people. You're going to want to have people that can do everything. Even a botanist might be a good idea.

There's probably going to be at least one doctor in the crew, probably several people trained at the emergency medical tech level. But you need to have people that are going to be good at fixing things because inevitably things will break. And there are people that are just good at fixing things and that's probably going to be the most important person on the crew. What about the teamwork personality aspect of it, John? You can be trained, but you're going to be away together for a long time. What about getting along? Well, I know NASA is very good at selecting highly motivated, highly driven, individualistic team players, people that know how to be individuals and do their job uniquely

and individually when it's required, but also how to blend into the team. At least I'm told that, Mike, you have the perspective that I don't. Maybe that's not that way. But I think we're going to find people that want to go to Mars, that are motivated to go to Mars, that have trained themselves their entire lives to go to Mars, will learn how to be both the star of the team and one of the team players. Yeah, that's what people ask me a lot when I talk to people. You know, when I talk to people, the question they ask is, how do you become an astronaut? And a lot of it is your skills and your capabilities technically, but it's also being a good team player and being willing to succeed and fail as a team. Help your buddies out when they need help and getting help from them when you need it and so on. And that sometimes is harder to find in people.

You can rate some of these other things, but it's hard to find someone that's going to be a good teammate. Is that like the psychology behind it? Do you look into that closely, John? I think you said that you feel like people would physically be able for the trip. But how big a priority is the kind of psychology behind the astronauts? Yeah, Maeve, we have several. is the kind of psychology behind the astronauts. Yeah, Maeve, we have several, nothing, you know, all of the risks are important, but we're really, several of them are long poles.

We say long pole in the tent and radiation exposure is a long pole in the tent, medical care, autonomous medical care, nutrition, food, but among the top four is psychology, the psychological aspects of long duration flight, both what happens inside of the person's psyche, inside your own head, and how you relate to other people. We're also very concerned about things like sleep quality. Believe it or not, we're worried about how much astronauts sleep, primarily because of concerns that sleep, if you don't get enough sleep,

you don't do a good job as an astronaut, and also because Mars has a different day-night cycle than Earth, and we're worried about people being able to synchronize their circadian rhythms on Mars. What's the cycle on Mars? Do you know? 24 hours and 38 minutes. It's 38 minutes. It's a half a time zone off each day.

So wait, so you get an extra, they would need to sleep more or less? Well, they would have 38 minutes at the end of each 24-hour cycle to figure out what to do for the next 38 minutes. But, you know, and each day is going to be a little bit long compared to your normal life on Earth. It turns out that some people can synchronize to that and some people can't synchronize to that. Some just, you know, blend in fine and some don't.

But your question was, what are we doing? What kind of research? We're doing research on all those topics. We're searching the individual and primarily how we can help the individuals stay focused and stay efficient and happy and productive, even in stressful circumstances. We're doing team research and we're doing sleep and circadian rhythm research, isolating people in labs, both in, say, in Harvard and Massachusetts or in Antarctica or in facilities elsewhere around the world. There's a lot to this, Maeve. It's not just a trip around the corner.

We're going a long way. One question that came up again and again is how do you keep people entertained? Say you're on this ship for six months getting there like and i guess a big part of life is like being happy being social being entertained a happy crew member is a productive crew member yeah what do you what do you think about that john well that's a that's a topic that we are believe it or not also investigating where we're searching that the goal is to have meaningful work to keep people motivated. Now, obviously, on the station and on a Mars vehicle, there's going to be a lot of mundane work.

There's going to be lots of housekeeping, lots of cooking and cleaning up, lots of scrubbing the toilet and scrubbing the walls and fixing things. It sounds like you're trying to put people off. Yeah, but on a Mars trip, there's also going to be a lot of simulations, a lot of the work that Mike did before flight will have to be done in flight of ongoing training because with a six-month transit, you don't want to train people to the peak of perfection, then give them a six-month vacation to forget everything they learned, then say, okay, today you land on Mars. I hope you remember how to do it. There'll be ongoing training during the entire time in flight. That's like in the summer

of a school, like you get the summer off. Right. That's like in the summer of a school. Like you get the summer off. Right. Everyone forgets what they learned. Yeah. You just, but it's, yeah, you want to do some things. We, even on the shuttle, we were only up there for two weeks, but when it came time to come home, we practiced, we had a little program to help us practice what we were going to do for, for landings.

And it was, it was kind of an important thing to do. A simulation. A simulation, yeah. And there's certain things you want really fresh in your mind, and that's it. But one thing that I heard John say I thought was really important was meaningful work. It needs to be something that you think is meaningful. You can't just say, all right, go around here and label all of your oranges.

It needs to be something that is meaningful. And a hobby. Some of my friends have come back from, I've never was on a long duration mission, but John, a lot of the guys, you probably heard this, a lot of men and women that come back say you need a hobby. And most of them like photography. They take a lot of photos of the planet and they do interesting things with cameras and videos and so on. And the social media part of it, contact with your family and so on to keep you going. Great. So this is a wider question.

What would the average day consist of for the new Mars settlers? Who did this question come from? This came from Jason Hoyerman through Facebook. Well, I think it's going to look very much like you saw Matt Damon's day. I mean, you're going to wake up in the morning and make sure the habitat is still intact and make sure your food crops are growing because we hope to be able to grow food on Mars to supplement the food that we're bringing with us. Yeah. And there's going to be, like I said, lots of important work to do outside the habitat in your spacesuit looking for evidence of life, looking for evidence to document the history of Mars. Probably going to send robots, rovers and other kinds of robots out first to find interesting places. And one of the interesting aspects of sending people to Mars to look for life is the possibility that sending people to Mars to look for life will be exactly the wrong thing to do.

Because astronauts, I'm sorry, Mike, astronauts are sloppy. Astronauts are leaky. Their spacesuits leak. They leak whatever's on the inside of the suit, which in this case might be microbes they brought with them from Earth. And wouldn't you hate to go sampling a source of potential life on Mars and find evidence of life and find out it came from Earth? So it's very possible we're going to send robots out first to find and sample the venues that might have life and even confirm there's life, and then send the astronauts out essentially to document it and clean it up or just make sure it's still intact so we leave it like we found it.

So all fascinating stuff. But we're going to have to take a short break. But we'll be right back with more Star Talk All-Stars. John, Charles, can you hang around a little bit longer? Glad to, Mike. All right, hang in there, John. We'll be right back.

Maeve, thanks. Sure. Hang in. We'll be right back. Hi, I'm Astro Mike, Mike Massimino, back with you on Star Talk All Stars with my co-host Maeve Higgins. Maeve's still here. Yep, here I am. And John Charles, our guest chief scientist on the human research program.

You're still with us, aren't you, John? Still with you, Mike. I'm not leaving. Excellent. And during the break, we were talking a little bit about, you know, games you could play when you were, or we could play now maybe, but games that we played as kids. And I remember this game I played called Melvin the Moon Man. And it was back in the 60s before Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, Melvin apparently did. And here we have it. See that graphic right there? One of our genius young people found this thing. But I played this game

when my parents went on vacation because they couldn't, they couldn't, you know, put up with me anymore. They took off and they shoved me off of my Uncle Romy and my Aunt Anne in Queens, New York, in College Point, Queens. And they dug this game because, you know, I was running around Queens causing trouble at that point. I was like, I was like four years old or something. And they gave me this game to play with Melvin the Moon Man.

What was the aim of the game? To get him to the moon? The name of the game was to keep me occupied. But you can get into a lot of trouble in Queens, New York, back in the 60s. As a four-year-old? New York City was a lot different back then, Maeve. You don't know what it was like. John, have you ever been to New York City back then? Not back then, but since then. It's a lot of fun now. But back then it was different. They had to keep me occupied. What would you say is more dangerous, Mars or Queens in the 1970s? Queens in the 1970s is really, you know, it's funny. I was at my Uncle Romeo's.

We were, I was getting ready to go work at the Marshall Space Flight Center. John, I know you've been down there a lot, haven't you? Yes, yes, I have. I was a grad student at MIT and I had this old car. It was a very rare car. It was called a disaster. There wasn't very many of them. And I had one old car. It was a very rare car. It was called a disaster. There wasn't very many of them. And I had one of these vehicles

and I had to drive from New York down to Huntsville, Alabama for the summer. And my Uncle Romeo's neighbor, this guy named Matty, was a mechanic. And I brought my, before I would go on a trip,

I brought it to Matty's house. We're out in the street there, you know, in front of my uncle's house, working on a car. I'm like, Matty, make sure this car works. And he's like, what's the matter? And I go, well, you know, I've got to make it all the way down to Alabama. I'm afraid something might happen if I get stuck on the way. He goes, you're worried about driving to Alabama? He goes, do you realize where you are standing right now?

So I think that, you know, in a lot of my emergency training and, you know, the survival training I did as an astronaut paled in comparison to navigating the New York City subway system. Keeping a cool head. So I think, John, you guys should work that into your,

can you work into some kind of navigating New York into working into going to Mars? I'm just wondering how you fit in at Huntsville. I did. I did fine. Huntsville how you fit in at Huntsville. I did, I did fine. Huntsville was great.

I loved Huntsville, Alabama and I think I fit in okay. As far as I know, I was all right. I didn't cause too much trouble there. But what are we talking about? We're talking about

going to Mars. And about like humans going to Mars. Humans going to Mars. I'm so like curious about the movie that you've mentioned a few times already, John the Martian. And I understand that, like, Andy, did he get advice from NASA at some point?

Like, it seems to be quite realistic, no? I think he talked to the scientists and engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory there in Pasadena, not far from where he lives. Atlantis engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory there in Pasadena, not far from where he lives. So I think he got a lot of first class advice on sending robots to Mars and what it was like to send people to Mars. What did you know? I get asked that question about that movie almost all the time. You know, whenever I speak there, what I know about gravity or the Martian that I like it. And from my perspective, John, I just when I look, see a space movie, I just try to look and see if the astronaut was cool. To me, George Clooney was cool.

Yeah, he was. I don't really know. Whatever. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of science things wrong with it. But as long as George Clooney looked cool, that was fine. Matt Damon was cool. He got stuck with an antenna in the chest and sewed himself up. Now, I would look at that and I would go, ah! And I would scream.

But people think because I'm an astronaut, I would very coolly pull it out of my chest and sew myself up. Matthew McConaughey, you know, that guy needed a drink. He was a little bit too intense. I was a little disappointed with that movie, Interstellar. But I just look at the way the astronaut's portrayed. If he's cool or he or she's cool, I'm good with it. But, John, what did you think about the movie The Martian? I'm sure you get questions all the time about that. What was your opinion? Well, I enjoyed it. I thought it was probably the best space movie

since 2001, and we can argue about whether it was better than 2001. My wife says she prefers not to go to space movies with me because all I do is huff and puff and roll my eyes audibly, usually during the entire movie. But she said I behaved myself well this time. In fact, the only snide comment that either of us made was one she made during one of the climactic EVA scenes. She noticed the astronaut was not tethered to the spacecraft. And she said, that would never happen. How could that possibly, how could they make a movie with that in it? But otherwise, I thought it was a lot of fun. Andy has said that the opening event, the wind that blows everything around and causes the problem, couldn't happen on Mars.

The atmosphere is too thin, and the dust is not sandy, grainy, granular like that. It's more the texture of smoke particles. And he said, I asked him that question during a Q&A one time, and he said, yes, I know, but I needed to start the movie somehow, and that's how I chose to do it. Did you just show up at a Q&A like a regular citizen? Like he didn't know that you had all this. No, no, no.

He actually came to Johnson Space Center and did a series of book talks and Q&As for all of his nerds. So he was very well prepared for the audience and we all loved him. Yeah, John was a plant. Yeah, yeah. He was going in and saying, hey, what was wrong? But that was right. And the EVA

scene, the spacewalking scene at the end, as soon as you mentioned that, my son and I saw it together and he said the same thing. He goes, Dad, what kind of spacewalk are they doing? Even my son, you know, my son was picked up on it yesterday. It was very unprofessional the way they were untethered at the end. But you were like, but wasn't it cool when he pulled the antenna out of it?

Don't worry about that. Matt Damon was a cool astronaut. This one's approved. I mean, it must be great PR, right? That's when you see a great movie about space, it makes you think highly of NASA for some reason. I think so. What do you think, John?

I think that was good for us, wasn't it? I agree. We certainly used it for a lot of publicity. We tried to link a lot of the one-year mission space station work to it and things like that. So, yeah, I thought it was great. John, but there's also this serious part to what the movie portrayed, which was how do you keep a crew alive? Now, he was in a survival situation, but still, there must be a lot of parallels with the

work you're doing to what you saw in that movie, right? Food and water and life support and so on, yeah? Exactly. Well, I mean, the food was one of the, actually, the potato was like another supporting actor in the whole movie. And your buddy- That's like in the whole history of Ireland. But Mike, your pal, Don Pettit.

Potatoes are huge for us. Have you heard what Don Pettit said about potatoes in space, though, Mike? No, Don Pettit is one of my best friends. And a very entertaining guy and a genius. Very rare for an astronaut, let me add. What did he say this time? Don Pettit said he's never seen a potato on a space station or on the shuttle that was not

sliced and had its eyes cut out. So there's no way a potato in space would have been able to grow and produce more potatoes. But Don did actually grow stuff in space, and he are growing stuff on the space. But Don grew his own. He grew a sunflower and he grew a squash.

Yeah, it was kind of on his own. But he did his own little experiment. But they have grown also lettuce on the space station as well. On purpose, yeah. We have special seeds we fly up to do that kind of research to eventually lead to growing fresh. No, I knew it was on purpose. I didn't think it was like an accidental. No, what I'm saying is some guys grew it.

Some astronauts might do things because they're interested in their own experiments. But this was the, the lettuce was a real growing. The lettuce was a real project that they had and was successful. So you can't to grow your own food in space. Yeah. Yeah.

And then eat the results. And then eat the results. And they're good. Hopefully. Go ahead. I was just going to ask about water. Yeah. That's what I was going to ask.

Like, how on earth could you provide water for people on Mars? Could you find it there? What's going to happen there? Well, you have to bring it with you, probably, at least the starter kit for water. And then the point is, with any luck, you can generate water out of in situ resources. And, of course, what you have on Mars in situ is carbon dioxide. It's a very thin atmosphere, but it's almost completely carbon dioxide. And if you bring along the right kind of machinery that knows how to crack carbon dioxide,

and if you brought along a tank of hydrogen with you, you can get oxygen and water out of the reaction of carbon dioxide and hydrogen using chemistry that is far beyond my capability to explain, but it's a possibility. you, you can get oxygen and water out of the reaction of carbon dioxide and hydrogen using chemistry that is far beyond my capability to explain, but it's a possibility. So if you're there for the long term, you've got to plan ahead and either bring stuff with you or make it from local resources. You're also going to recycle it, aren't you, John? I mean, that's what we're doing on this. As my friend Don Pettit, who we referred to earlier, describes

today's coffee is tomorrow's coffee. You drink something, you pee it, and then you drink it again. That explains Starbucks. There's a couple steps in between there, by the way. But that's going to be the plan

too, I would assume, right, John? Exactly right. Exactly. And what would it look like to live? Like, where would you live in Mars? Like, what would it look like? What would your, you know, I was going to say tent. That's because I've seen the movie. But like, where would you sleep and live? Habitat.

Your habitat. Yeah, that's the word. Yeah, the habitat would probably look very much like you saw in the movie, and that was actually based on a habitat that we're doing studies in on the ground, which was, of course, primarily designed for studies back in the deserts. So it's probably going to look something like a repurposed spaceship. It might be inflatable. It might be rigidized.

Certainly, we're only just now doing research on the right way to do that, so there's no final answer yet. It sounds like the Burning Man Festival. I don't know if you ever sent anybody on a research trip to Burning Man where you have to bring your own water and tents and everyone is really spaced out. Yeah. Woodstock. Right. All right. I think we're moving on to the queries. Yeah. What do we got? We got any good questions? Yeah, some really good questions. All right. I think we're moving on to the queries.

Yeah. What do we got? We got any good questions? Yeah. Some really good questions. One is for you actually, Mike. And this is from Emerald Nutmeg on Instagram. I don't know if that's the real name.

Emerald Nutmeg? Pretty cool name. Yep. Pretty cool person too. Because they say, yo, astro mizike, peace my dude. That's how they open really yep okay if you were standing in front of the future astronauts prior to boarding their ship to mars what advice or parting words would you give them bring me back a souvenir really that's what the first i would be

worried about me first what advice would i give them and john may have some good advice for him too i would think but my my advice is my advice that I give to all my friends, the newer guys especially. And it's kind of interesting. I was a former astronaut. There's some of my friends I flew with. And there's also some of the newer people that are flying for the first time. And I tell them, enjoy it. Take a look out the window for me.

Because it is an extraordinary experience. And you never want to take it for granted. And I don you never want to take it for granted. And I don't think astronauts do take it for granted. I think we do a pretty good job of appreciating what we get to do. But we never can appreciate it enough. And so my advice to them is you've been given the opportunity to do something great and just enjoy it as much as you can. Look out the window as much as you can and look out the window for me.

And they usually say they'll do that for me and then I'm jealous that they're looking out the window and I'm not. But that would be my advice. John, what do you have for them? I can't improve on that, Mike. I always say, you know, if Mars is not in your travel plans, you're on the wrong spaceship.

But other than that, I think you've said it all. Okay, we've got another question. This one is from Matthewthew dolenkoff is it um is it ethical to pollute a planet with humans john see that's a another topic that is actually being studied did you did you know that mar that uh nasa has a planetary protection officer and i don't think they wear the dark suits and the dark sunglasses, but they actually do pay attention to the issues of contaminating Mars. And NASA also has or has a contract with an ethicist, somebody that advises us on exactly those issues. So we have to decide as a society whether going to Mars and determining whether there's a life on Mars and the importance of that

and think of the philosophical implications of that. But does that justify what will inevitably be a change in the way that life can live on Mars? And I'm thinking, you know, even of things like microbes, certainly nothing large enough to scuttle across a picture, a TV camera frame or something like that. But just what are the ethical implications? Those questions are still being discussed. So you have, I didn't know that NASA had an ethicist on there. What other kind of queries do they deal with, I wonder, this ethicist that works for NASA?

We worry about things like the ethical limits to the research we can do in flight. When does it become coercion? Mike can describe this a little bit better probably, but the, the idea of putting somebody in space is a tremendous motivator to sign up for almost anything that somebody like me would like them to do. And when is, what are the ethical limits? Yeah.

We will eat dirt. Right. I will do anything to fly in space when not so much anymore, because I've been there, but that it is an extremely good motivator. And, uh, but, and so you have to be careful. And that's why a lot of times, uh, we need, uh, people like John and other scientists and our management to almost protect us from, uh, cause astronauts will, will want to do their job and do almost anything. And we'll sometimes take risks that our management would not feel comfortable with.

And so we had one of our sayings was you never ask the crew whether or not they're ready to fly because their answer is yes. And so they can't say, well, they've said they would go. That's not, you need someone to make those decisions for you because the crew is motivated to go and they're ready to go, whatever the case may be. And you're talking about the, one of the things we learned, John, in my training as an astronaut was leave no trace. And we would actually go on expeditions to different parts of the world.

We did a kayaking trip, a canyoneering trip, and so on. It was always this, if anyone listening is familiar with camping and leave no trace means you don't leave any of your stuff behind. And I mean, anything you take yourself with you and you don't leave any trace that you were there. And that's, I think the,

what we would be doing on Mars as well. Have to. Yeah. So we have like 30 seconds. Can we get a quick one in there? Yep. And what is the latest generation of propulsion that excites you the most? That is from Dane Wright in Facebook. Boy, anything that gets you to Mars faster is better.

For our purposes, the less time spent traveling, the more time on Mars is better, just because you're not exposing people to the deep space radiation and the weightlessness and factors like that. But sadly, we're looking at chemical propulsion or perhaps nuclear thermal propulsion, which might cut a month or so off the trip time, but no warp drive yet, as far as I can tell. But that's what we need. Hey, we're going to have to wrap up this part, but stick around.

Jordan, got some more time? Yes, sir, I sure do. I'm going to force you to stay here, and we'll be right back with more StarTalk All Stars and more of the questions from our audience. Welcome back. This is Mike Massimino with Star Talk All Stars here with Maeve Higgins. Maeve, thanks for hanging around. Sure.

And my good friend, John Charles in Houston. Mike, I'm glad to be here. I'm glad you stuck around for a little bit more. We're going to continue to talk about sending people to Mars, and John is working that big time for real, trying to get us there. John, how do you weigh in on sending people versus robots? We've got the rover up there and, you know, people think, oh, robots can do it. Why are we sending people? Why are we doing

this in the first place? Why would we want to send people to Mars? You know, one of the best comments I heard about that was by one of the PIs on one of the rovers, one of the investigators who actually sponsored the rover, and he said, essentially, I'm sending a rover because I can't go myself. And he says, but if you look at the work that's done by a rover in a month, an astronaut could do it in about a minute. So the question is about efficiency and productivity and independence and things like that. The rovers are remarkably productive over an extremely long period. How many years have the rovers been running around far beyond their 90-day warranty period? And that's great.

If you're happy with that kind of productivity and throughput for a bargain price, which is what the rovers give you, then that's a good program to send to Mars. And notice that in the discussion between astronauts and robots on Mars, so far the robots are winning. There are no astronauts on Mars, and look at all the stuff we've learned. But there's got to be some benefit to having people, boots on the ground for a long period of time, skilled observational scientists, people that know what to look for, people that notice differences, you know, all the work that's done by the people all in the rover mission control back on the earth, except they're able to do it constantly in real time, instead of having to wait for the 20 to 40 minute radio lag to send instructions to the rover. I don't think it's either or, I think it's both. I think you can see tremendous value to rovers and robots on Mars. And there has to be some tremendous value to putting people on Mars as

well. Yeah, I saw some statistics somewhere about the amount of ground they covered on the moon with people in just a couple days compared to the years with rovers on Mars and how much more efficiently you can get or how people can get around so much quicker and do so much more when you have people on site. So it's not like just an ego thing where... No, it's not. It's not just fun and games, is it, John? No, it's not. It's not fun and games.

Right. But what about the private, you know, that there's like a race on between, you know, NASA and then like SpaceX programs? What do you think about that? Are they going to... If you could arrange it so that like you could just go and be a tourist on Mars, could that happen even before you? You know, that's very interesting.

SpaceX and Elon Musk will be unveiling his detailed plans at a conference in Guadalajara, Mexico in September, late September, early October. And I'll be there, so I'm anxious to hear what those plans are. There is almost nothing that Elon Musk cannot do when he sets his mind to it. And I would sure like to see somebody like him take on the problems of going to Mars. All I can say is, as we plan these expeditions to Mars, and probably not until the mid 2030s at the earliest, we've identified lots of potential problems. And I think people expect their national space program, people expect NASA to be as risk-tolerant and risk-averse as possible.

That is, we don't want to send people on risky expeditions at the government's expense. We send people on these incredibly expensive expeditions to bring back benefits to life on Earth, and those benefits include knowledge of the universe, knowledge of the solar system. Other folks may not have the same motivations. I'm not saying that Musk is any less interested in safety than we are, but he probably has different motivations for getting there, and I think he's interested actually in colonizing Mars, which is not NASA's charter. NASA's intention is to bring everybody home that we send there eventually. So there's a difference, you know, it's sort of apples and oranges.

home that we send there eventually. So there, that's a difference, you know, sort of apples and oranges. We, NASA is cooperating and collaborating with Mr. Musk on his plans. We're going to get tremendous data back if he's ever actually able to send a red dragon to Mars and potentially it'll benefit NASA's own expeditions in the future. Well, you're going to be there for the announcement, John. So I think you're going to be a plant once again. That's right. Keep them honest. I can just see you at the conference with a newspaper with holes in it cut out. Hey, what is it? Here I am.

But he wants to go. He's thinking he's going to go. He's going to try to take a shot the next time that the window is open to get there in a short amount of time, right, in 2018. So let's see what he can come up with. That would be great. He says he's going to send a red dragon in 2018 and in 2020 and in 22 and 2025, he says

he's going to send his Mars colonial transporter. So we'll see how that works. All right. Well, we'll look forward to hearing it. And I'm glad you're going to be there to keep him honest. What about these, like, for example, some of these analogs that we have where people are pretending like they're on Mars and trying to learn stuff. You know, for example, there's something called HI-SEAS, the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation.

Right. What's the story with these guys? Well, there's a facility. And when you say Hawaii, you have to understand it's not in the tropical, lush, beautiful Hawaii. It's on the side of an extinct volcano in Hawaii. So it looks very much like the moon or Mars and is probably not very picturesque. But NASA is interested. NASA has funded a study at high seas.

Not the entire facility, but one investigator's work. And we also have our own analog facility here at the Johnson Space Center called HIRA, the Human Exploration Research Analog, Space Center called HIRA, the Human Exploration Research Analog, where we isolate groups of four people, crews of four people for up to 60 days at a time to document the psychological aspects of isolation and primarily not just to torment these people, but primarily to test treatments and countermeasures. I like how you say not just to torment these people. Of course, that's part of it. That's a feature, but that's not the purpose.

The purpose is to understand how we can keep them functioning healthy, happy, productive, efficient for long periods of time. We're also interested in the work the Russians have done in their chamber in Moscow, where they isolated people for 500 days a few years ago. And there's other facilities in Antarctica. You know, there's several bases in Antarctica. There's other Arctic bases. NASA is funding research in all these places. Did you say that the Russians did that? They isolated people for 500 days as part of their research?

Yes, the Russians, the Institute of Biomedical Problems. It was not the Gulag, by the way. This is different. This is a plush facility in a facility in Moscow. It's actually got wood paneling. It's very pretty. And I think the high seas people, that program, they have people there for up to a year. Wow.

Yeah. Exactly right. So there's a lot of these things going on. Some of them, what do you think about some of these plans that send people to Mars, this one-way trip? You talked about getting people back. And I remember when I was, when Joe and I, when I flew on the shuttle, I got, because there's a government program, we got travel orders. You know, maybe like every time you go, Jordan, you get travel orders, right?

Every time you go somewhere. And it says, you know, from Johnson's, you know, from Houston to San Francisco for a conference and return. So since it's a government operation, when I went to space, I got travel orders. And it said, from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, to low-Earth orbit and return. I am not joking. I still have these travel orders, right? And return. And return.

And I was really grateful to see that it said, and return. But some of these people have got this idea you're going to go on a one-way trip and people are going to hang out. And what do you think about that, John? I'm not a big fan of that plan. I don't think it's a good idea in general, and I'm not really impressed with that particular effort in particular. Right. There's a lot of zany stuff going on where, you know, it's not an easy thing to do or else we would have already done it. And it's not that easy to get there.

And going on this one-way trip, I don't think i don't think it's a good it's a good besides mike the point you made with the travel orders is you don't get reimbursed unless you come back to the home state the home spot so that's right you need to get paid you want to make sure you get your pernium and you're gonna you'll be able to they're gonna take money up there you're gonna have to come back for that all right so we're we've got maybe about a half minute a half minute left here so i'm gonna put you on left here. So I'm going to put you on the spot. I'm going to put you on the spot here. Are we actually going to go, John? What are we waiting for here? Because we had one of my colleagues who's a newer astronaut was saying that, you know, the new class of astronauts, they say they're going to send them to Mars.

They said the same thing to my astronaut class 20 years ago. We're going to go or what? What's the story? I'm convinced we're going to go. I hope it's in the 2030s. It is inconceivable that humans will not go to Mars. I hope it's NASA humans. I hope NASA is the agency that does it. But at some point, sometime, some agency and some administration and some nationality will decide it's the right time to go. I think NASA is doing the right thing by analyzing the risks and making it as safe and as efficient and as productive as possible to justify what will be a very large cost. But inevitably, somebody will go. There you are. What do you think, Maeve? We're ready.

He sounds like he's ready. Not ready yet, actually, but we will be ready. All right, it's time for the lightning round. Okay. Rapid fire. So, Johnny, you ready? I'm ready. Okay, so Maeve's going to ask this question. I'm going to hit this bell. I think I'm just going to hit it whenever I want, but apparently there's some method to it. When I'm going to hit this thing, it's really great.

You know, I rode my bike here today, and this bell drives people crazy. I have a bell on my bike. In New York City, it's necessary because people are always in the way. Get out of the way, and you just do this. Hey, do you wear your space helmet when you're on your bike?

No, I wear a bike helmet helmet and I need more than that. It's one of the most dangerous things. I'm glad I got here. Same. New York City's dangerous. All right, on bicycle. All right, so here we go. We're going to do this.

I'm going to ring this bell, I guess, for the next question or whenever appropriate. Hit us, lightning round. Okay, here's the lightning round. This question is from Jonathan Laird. He got in contact with us through Facebook, and he is asking Mike, and then after I'm going to put the question to you, John, if given the opportunity,

would you personally like to be among the first humans to colonize, move to, or visit Mars? Two parts. I would, yes, I want to go visit. I want to come home. John? Mike, I don't want to go to Mars. I would like yes, I want to go visit and I want to come home. John? Mike, I don't want to go to Mars. I would like to go to the moon and I would like to go to the space station, but Mars is too far away and too dirty.

There you have it. You don't want to go to Mars. I want to go to Mars. Who wants to send other people there? What kind of example is that? Scratch that answer. I can't believe it. Who wants to send everybody else?

The guy that knows most about it wants to send somebody else. There's something wrong with that. All about it wants to send somebody else. There's something wrong with that. All right. It's too far away. Okay. The next one is from Brandon, and he contacted us on Snapchat. This question, John, this is for you.

Could we use artificial gravity by either spinning a habitation unit around a central support or by counterweighting it with another mass? Yes. Yes, the answer is yes. And we're studying that. The Human Research Program is investigating whether that's a good way to provide countermeasures for people in space and whether it's cost effective. So yes, yes, yes. Great. There was a bell. Go.

Troy Hsu on Snapchat. What should mankind's first words on Mars be? A reference to Armstrong or not? What do you think, Mike? What do I think? Neil Armstrong thought of that stuff after he landed on the moon because he didn't want to get distracted what you know that story john that's right so i asked that question he did not get a publicist his wife no one thought of that he took

care of it after he landed so i think what you should do is get there first and then be inspired instinct okay great next question this is from taylor lund um mass and higgs oh this is you and me okay uh my question is would it make more logistical sense to build a possible settlement above ground or to dig out a subterranean network of tunnels and caverns that would be protected from the environment as well as give explorers access to subterranean geology can i just say yes i'm not going to answer that question i don't have a clue yes and i will say will say, I don't care. I just want to go. So we're going to leave it. John, what do you say?

I'd say tunnels. I'm all for tunnels. Tunnels. Okay. The next one, Raduley Alexandru from Facebook. Will you have the possibility to meet the Mars rover? Who will have a what? Will you have the possibility to meet the Mars rover?

I guess whenever somebody goes to Mars, will they get to meet the rover? John? It's a big planet. It depends on how good your aim is when you land. There you are. But will it still be there if we get there 100 years from now? The stuff on the moon is still there. That's right.

It'll be there for a long time. It'll be there for a long time. So, yes, just got to get there. Last question. Okay, Thinking Big. This is from J-Law on Instagram. If the magnetic field is what protects us here on Earth, is there any way in the future that we could come up with a way to mimic that on Mars?

What do you think, John? That's a great question. In fact, guess what? We're looking at that in the human research program and trying to understand exactly what the magnetic field's protective effects are. But I think for a short term, at least, we're okay even without a magnetic field. Yeah, but that is one thing that's helped us on Earth live here, isn't it, John? That they don't have on Mars. It's a big deal. It protects us. Exactly.

And, yeah, it's not so subtle. That's really important. Yeah, it's like magnetic field, coffee, Instagram. We need all those things. Yes, Instagram. What else? Bell. I'm going to hit the bell.

Okay, great. Okay, this one. Do you think, this is from Joshua and Mikael. 30 seconds. Do you think future colonies on Mars will be international communities, or could they be like an American colony, a Chinese colony, a Brazilian colony, etc.? I think they're going to be international just because of the cost and the expense of getting there. I don't think any one nation wants to pay that huge bill,

but who knows what will happen after they get there. Maybe they'll split up into national colonies afterwards. I think they're going to be international because this way we can pull food But who knows what will happen after they get there. Maybe they'll split up into national colonies afterwards. I think they're going to be international because this way we can pull food from all the different cultures and it'll be better eating and share the expense. And I think they're also going to have a component of commercial companies too. All right. That's it. End of the lightning round.

Great job, guys. You won. Your prize is a trip to Mars. This was great. John, you've got to go back to work now and get us to Mars. All right, Mike. I'm on it. We're all counting on you. We've got plenty of volunteers just here in this building in New York City alone.

So we're counting on you. Thank you very, very much for joining us, John. I know you're a busy guy, and we really appreciate it. You coming and sharing with us and having some fun today. Thank you. Thanks for asking me. Thank you, John. Bye. Thanks, babe.

And Maeve, of course, great to have you here. Yeah, so good to be here. Thank you very much for letting me in. Good luck cycling home. Yeah, somebody care. I'm going to ring this bell. I'm going to take this bell with me and ring it and get people out of the way as I go down the Hudson Greenway here in the beautiful New York City. It's a beautiful day.

And for all of you listening out there, thank you for listening to us. This is StarTalk All-Stars Mike Massimino signing off. It's been a blast. This is StarTalk.