Today, Explained - Sailing a boat on an alien sea

Episode Date: March 11, 2019

SpaceX and Blue Origin have been driving much of the excitement around space travel for the past several years, but NASA got back in the game today. Dr. Ellen Stofan, the agency’s former chief scientist, explains what’s next for us, Mars, infinity and beyond. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The president of the United States released a new budget today. His vision for spending, which is essentially his vision for the country. Less than half a percent of that vision is about something far, far outside this country. Outside this planet, really. It's the tiny fraction of the U.S. budget that funds NASA. NASA used today's budget announcement from the president to talk about its vision for the country in space. Well, good afternoon and welcome to the Kennedy Space Center in the dawn of a new era in the exploration of the moon and Mars. And who are we kidding?

For the past few years, it's felt like all the exciting space news of a new era in the exploration of the moon and Mars. And who are we kidding? For the past few years, it's felt like all the exciting space news has been coming from companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin. Today, it felt like NASA got back in the game. First, they talked about something called the Gateway, which will permanently orbit the moon. The Gateway will enable crew to live and work

in deep space for months at a time and serve as an outpost for human missions to the lunar surface. But the Gateway is just step one. The moon is the proving ground. Mars is the horizon goal. Mars? Mars? You mean like the planet where we've been playing with rocks for like decades?

You know, I think what the public misses sometimes is what the broader strategy at Mars is because we've had a number of different spacecraft at Mars, both orbiters, landers like the recent InSight lander. We have the Mars 2020 rover that's planned. And, you know, I think people are like all these missions, maybe it seems a little not connected. Dr. Ellen Stofan is the director of the National Air and Space Museum, and she used to be NASA's chief scientist. But actually, there's this really strong scientific thread that NASA's been pursuing, something called Follow the Water. What was the history of water on Mars? Now, why water?

Water is critical to life. Life here on Earth evolved in the oceans. It stayed in the oceans for over a billion years. So what we've been trying to do on Mars is to say, was water stable on the surface? How long was it stable on the surface? How long was it stable on the surface? And then can we use the chemistry of the rocks to look for specific locations on Mars where water was persistent for very long periods of time? One thing we know about life is it needs water, evolution needs time, and for organisms to evolve to any complexity at all takes huge amounts of time. And so you really want that water to just not have been present on the surface for years, but millions of years.

And that's what we've been doing with all these spacecraft is gathering all the data, like detectives gathering lots of bits of evidence to put together a story in this search for life. Because of all those Mars missions, we know that water was persistent for very long periods of time on Mars, hundreds of millions of years. So that makes us really optimistic that life evolved on the planet. But the problem was, then Mars got cold, the water evaporated, the surface became radiated. So if life persisted, it probably went deep underground, or it went extinct. So we're talking about something that's not going to be easy to find. And so ultimately, from a scientific point of view, we've been following the water.

Now we understand that story fairly well. Now we're really looking for signs of ancient life. And as we do that more and more, we're going to need really smart, really flexible, really creative things on the surface to really break open a lot of rocks and find those ancient fossils. And I would argue that creative, flexible thing is a person. And so really it is, to me, ultimately, about getting a human mission to Mars, hopefully in the next 10 to 20 years, to really nail down this case of did life evolve beyond Earth? And if so, which we suspect it did, it makes scientific sense, how different is that life

from life on Earth? And what can we learn about life on Earth by being able to compare it to life that evolved somewhere else? What kind of life are we talking about? You know, this isn't going to be very exciting to the general public, but we're talking about microorganisms. Think pond scum, algae, single-celled, very, very uncomplicated life. We know that life evolved very, very rapidly after conditions stabilized on this planet. But it stayed very simple for over a billion years. And Mars just didn't have that much time. So we think we're looking for, you know, think single cell algae is the type of life we're looking for.

And I know most people say, oh, that's not very exciting. We want something that, you know, is a little green person or whatever. Sure. But again, we want to ask, what kind of cell structure does it have? Does that life that evolved elsewhere have DNA? Does it have RNA? And how can we use that information to understand life better on Earth, to understand viruses better on Earth, to understand bacteria better on Earth? That's going to help humanity.

So I think there's real benefits to this search that go beyond just, oh, this is cool science. You got me thinking about like the timeline of life on Mars. Are you saying it could have started well before the timeline of life on Earth? You know, it could have. These wet kind of Earth-like early Mars conditions were at around the same time that life evolved here on Earth. There is a theory out there that there could have been material actually exchanged between the two planets. So you could have had life only evolve one place and been transferred. What? I know it sounds like a crazy theory. Scientifically, it is possible. It can't be

rolled out. So for example, if we found ancient life on Mars that looked exactly like ancient life on Earth, same type of DNA, same type of RNA, we would be suspicious there had been material transfer. If it looks different, then we'll be convinced this is a second origination of life. There may be only very narrow pathways that life as we know it can go down. Right. But scientists are also really struggling, and this is the fun that scientists get to have, is really struggling with what would life as we don't know it, what would that look like? Would it use different amino acids than our DNA uses? DNA carries information. Are there other molecules that could do that that we haven't even

thought of yet? That's what we're looking for. So many possibilities. Really cool. Including that we are in fact the Martians. Yes. How do you prepare for infinite discovery for the unknown? You know, the scientific community has obviously really been struggling with that because we know how to look for life as it is on Earth. But how do you look for life when it might be so different from what we have here on Earth that you might miss it? And when are we going to get people down on Mars? You said maybe in 20 years? Right now, the goal would be to get humans to Mars sometime in the 2030s. Wow. Probably the late 2030s is the goal.

Getting to Mars is hard. You need a really big rocket to be able to give people that launch into space. You're out in a high radiation environment for long term, so we're still working on how best to protect our astronauts in that environment. We have work to do on the entry, descent, and landing technology at Mars. Mars has a very thin atmosphere.

So getting huge, heavy humans and all their equipment down onto the surface is something that technologically we're still working on. that seems kind of slow and kind of frustrating but at the air and space museum we've been celebrating the 50th anniversary of the apollo program we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills. And when you think that President Kennedy gave the country a goal of getting humans onto the surface of the moon within a decade, we accomplished it. Yes, at that point, NASA went up to 4% of the federal budget, not 0.4, but 4%. Big difference. But we started from, boy, scratch. I mean, when he gave that challenge to NASA, NASA had only been around for two years. Johnson Space Center didn't exist. Kennedy Space Center didn't exist. Huge infrastructure project, huge science technology challenges had to be overcome. And we did it. So I do hear people sometimes saying, oh, I don't know if we can make

it to Mars in 15 or 20 years. You're like, we could go in five if we really tried, you know, and spent the money. And that's not a light thing. Is that a good investment or is it better to do it in 10, 15, 20 years and spend the money at a more moderate pace, which fits in with the U.S. federal budget? That's the path that we're on and the path I think we should be on. But it's not a question of can we. It's when will we and how will we. When it comes to Mars, NASA has a pretty fleshed-out vision, even a mission. But what about everything else out there? I'm looking at you, Saturn.

NASA's plans way, way beyond Mars. That's next on Today Explained. Okay, so at the top of the show, I told you about this worst data breach ever. Equifax, what makes Equifax the worst data breach ever? Well, let me tell you. When Equifax got hacked, this door opened and it was left wide open for 76 days. And beyond that door inside this room was something like 145 million social security numbers hanging out with a bunch of unpatched bugs and passwords stored in plain text just sitting there for the taking. This is the subject of the podcast Breach, its second season, the Equifax story. This time it's personal. And it really, you know, it is personal.

Equifax is about you, your data, your social security number, your credit, your future. It's about your privacy. And it all straight up got got. So you might want to listen to a podcast about it. Subscribe to Breach. That's B-R-E-A-C-H in your podcast app right now. Ellen, I wonder how NASA it's worth spending money on this rather than, say, education or the environment down on Earth? I think you look at, is the science of the highest priority? And so to determine that, NASA actually turns that over to the National Academy of Sciences. And they actually bring

together the scientific community so that everybody knows NASA's doing what the scientific community thinks is the absolutely most important thing. I think NASA does really make a huge effort to show that when you invest dollars in NASA, you're actually investing in the U.S. economy. NASA technologies provide a huge amount of benefit to society. I was just reading something the other day that was talking about material that was in the Apollo spacesuits that's now in people's roofs all around the world. So certainly when people were developing the Apollo spacesuits, no one said, oh, that'd be cool material for roofing 50 years from now. NASA satellites are helping farmers around the world do a better job of farming. NASA data are helping us to understand the water cycle and whether countries are having

droughts and how we might cope with our changing climate. So there's tons of data every day being gathered that has a huge impact on people's everyday life here on Earth. And NASA is actually about 0.4% of the U.S. federal budget. So less than half a penny of every dollar goes to NASA. And I would argue what we get in return is huge. We're understanding the universe. We're understanding our solar system. We're understanding our planet and the challenges it's facing. You know, we've got humans in orbit around us on the International Space Station. All that for less than half a penny. I think that's a pretty good investment. How does the introduction of someone like Elon Musk and SpaceX factor into how NASA operates or how these missions operate? I mean, he seems to have generated a lot of excitement for doing

things that NASA did like decades ago. Well, you know, he has generated a ton of excitement, which I think is great. Five, four, three, two, one. There's no question it's had a positive effect on people believing what's possible and people moving forward. I will say he's a great partner of NASA's. He's a NASA contractor, right? He launches cargo up to the International Space Station.

He's contracted to start launching crew up to the space station. I think, though, his great contribution has really been trying to drive down the cost. You know, right now, one of the biggest challenges with space is the cost of getting material, whether it's a spacecraft or a human, off the surface of the Earth into space. If we can bring that cost down, like you see Musk trying to do with his reusable stages, you see Bezos doing at Blue Origin. If we can bring that cost down, all of a sudden it opens access to space up, the cost comes down, much more is possible, whether it's going to Mars or whether it's you want to go to the moon, no matter what you want to do. If you can bring that cost down, it benefits everybody.

Is there something that like he can do that NASA can't in like sending, I don't know, a convertible up into space and taking funny photos? And this is a live look at what's happening right now in space. That's Elon Musk's own Tesla convertible in orbit. The driver is a mannequin he's calling Starman. There's always been this, you know, gravity of a NASA mission, of an Apollo mission, of a Mars mission, of an International Space Station mission. And then you got this guy just like,

he seems like he's throwing things up there just for viral photos or for the fun of it. Yeah, and, you know, I have to admit, my kids gave me a coffee mug for Christmas that had a picture of the Tesla in fun of it. Yeah, and I have to admit, my kids gave me a coffee mug for Christmas that had a picture of the Tesla in space on it. I'm not immune to this. But, you know, NASA is using taxpayer dollars, which is your money and my money and everybody's money.

So NASA doesn't have money and in my mind shouldn't have money to do funny things. Gags. Let's call them gags. Okay. I'll call them gags. You did see some people cringe about it. I didn't. I thought it was fun and charming and lighthearted and I love all that. Did I wish there'd been maybe some student experiments attached to it? Yeah, of course.

But, you know, it's his company. He can do what he wants. NASA does what's right to do with taxpayer money. That being said, NASA does have some wild ideas, right? Things that might sound like pure science fiction to people. You came up with one of them, right? Are you comfortable talking about Titan? Yeah, though hopefully I won't cry.

Oh, gosh. Okay. So Titan is this amazingly cool moon of Saturn. First of all, you know, you're over 100 million miles away from the Earth out at Saturn, and yet you've got a moon of Saturn where it has an atmosphere. It's the only moon in the solar system that has a substantial atmosphere. And it actually rains. It has a complete cycle where it rains, it forms lakes and rivers, evaporates back up into the atmosphere, rains again.

So just like our water cycle here on Earth. But because you're so far out from the sun, and it's very, very, very, very, very cold, that's the scientific way of describing it, the fluid isn't water. It's actually liquid methane and liquid ethane. So basically liquid gasoline is what's a fluid. But it's, again, it's behaving just like water does.

And Titan is the only body in the solar system, besides Earth with open bodies of liquid. So it's got rivers that flow down into seas. It's got river deltas, you know, that go down into rivers. It's got valleys that have been carved by liquid methane and liquid ethane. It's this place that in some ways is so bizarrely Earth-like and yet different. Temperatures are different, materials are different, but the processes are the same.

And that gets the scientists really excited. Could there be life in Titan's seas? What if you just need a fluid? What if it doesn't have to be water? So going to Titan and exploring those seas would help us get a little further on this question of how Earth-like does it actually have to be for you to get life. A number of years ago, I proposed to land a boat, a floating spacecraft in one of these seas on Titan. I worked on it for like five years. We made it through an initial round of NASA selection. And in the end, we lost actually to the mission InSight

that just landed on Mars a couple of months ago. So it was personally crushing, you know, because I worked on this project for five years and it was so romantic, this idea of sailing a boat on an alien sea. You know, how can you beat that, right? And someday the mission will happen, but Titan's axis is tilted.

So it gets dark at the North Pole where the seas are until the mid-2030s. We really can't do that mission and probably until the late 2030s, and I'll be way too old. You know, so romantic sounding. Are there other interplanetary ideas we can tease? 50-year plans? 100-year plans? You know, one of my favorite NASA websites, it's called the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts, so NIAC, or NIAC.

And that's where NASA actually accepts proposals from people to investigate that are for things just like that. Submarines to go to Titan seas, little spacecraft that could spin almost a structure that could hold a giant telescope in space that would be able to image planets around other stars. So it's all these like cool things that you can say, should they really be spending money on things that might not happen for 50 years? But the idea is if you don't start pushing the technology now, they will never happen. Right. And so how can you kind of push really advanced, innovative ideas forward? It goes back to this, you know, are we alone? Can we find that Earth 2.0, that little blue marble around another star?

Can we show that there's life on planets beyond our solar system? Can we use data that we get about not just our solar system, but other solar systems that we're discovering every day with our telescopes to help us understand things like climate change, how our planet is changing, how typical is our solar system. These are all things that we're just on the beginnings of getting the data to understand. I wonder, you know, if you ask like any average person, what's the purpose of NASA? I imagine they'd say, you know, to explore space, to go up there and look around. But then the why sometimes feels like more of a philosophical or existential question.

Does NASA have a stock answer to the why? They have a mission statement, which is forgotten exactly what it is, but it's something like to expand knowledge of our solar system, our planet, and our universe for the benefit of humanity. And to me, it's also partially an inspiration role. What are we capable of? You know, we're literally, this is the better side of our natures, where we're looking upward and outward and answering these fundamental questions of why, you know, and how can we gather the data to answer these really fundamental questions? And then how can we gather data to make life better on this planet, whether it's understanding our climate, understanding asteroids that might come a little too close to us? You know, how can we help this planet move forward in the future by understanding it better?

Having seen what we've accomplished over my lifetime, it's just stunning. Then you step further back and you think that we made it from the sands of Kitty Hawk to the Sea of Tranquility in basically a single person's lifetime. When you think of the fact that Charles Lindbergh was there watching Apollo 11 launch, you know, that's amazing what humanity has done, what this country did in such a relatively short time period. And to me, it makes me extremely optimistic over what the next 50 to 100 years are going to bring. Dr. Ellen Stofan was once NASA's chief scientist and is now the John and Adrian Mars Director of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. I'm Sean Ramos from This Is Today Explained. Thanks for listening to the show. In case you're looking for another one to listen to,

you might want to check out the second season of Breach. It's all about the biggest, most disastrous data hack of all time, the Equifax hack. 145 million social security numbers were just hanging out there in the ether. Breach, like Beach with an R after the B. Season two is out now. The Equifax story, this time it's personal. Find it on your podcast app, the one you're using to listen to maybe this show right now.