How Are We Going To Survive On Mars? | Spark

foreign successes and failures come and go Mars continues to give up her secrets invisible clouds are revealed with ultraviolet light and the search for the source of methane continues with exomars prepare to land humans on the red planet getting there is one thing staying long term is another and we really conquer this planet [Music] [Music] [Music] a joint European and Russian EXO Mars made a successful launch with great Applause and journeyed uneventfully to Mars our instrument is devoted to the measurement of Trace gases by measuring the solar radiation passing through the chains some scientists are trying to determine the local origins of methane gas is it a sign of life we're interested in looking at where the trace gases may be coming from so for example if if methane is there in abundance and you see it locally coming from a particular place you'd like to know whether it's whether it's got a volcanic origin whether it might be old gases that have been trapped in ice that is then that's then released due to sublimation processes things like that it doesn't have to be biology and it's important to recognize here that I'm a little bit of a skeptic you know I don't I don't go for this life business I try to keep the other guys honest pixel Mars made a perfect orbit in session around Mars and commenced flexing its considerable technological muscle [Music] [Music] returning high resolution images and stereoscopic observations enabling highly detailed three-dimensional maps to be created [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] however the mission didn't go entirely to plan the Lander half of the probe the ski apparently Lander made an ideal separation from the Orbiter and commenced a textbook descent [Music] I think that's an interesting thing this one piece will make 52 layers watch on mobile devices or the big screen all for free no subscription required foreign function does expected all systems go the drogue shoot then the main were deployed correctly then the curse of Mars struck one seconds worth of aronia's data was passed on to the onboard guidance and navigation control system when this odd data was merged into the computer's algorithm it generated a false altitude reading placing the Lander below ground level this triggered the premature release of the parachute and back shell breaking thrusters fire that the Landers on ground systems began operating thinking it had landed unfortunately it was still 3.7 kilometers in the air and the universal laws of gravity took over the Lando smashing helplessly into the ground satellites overhead soon located the parachute and back shell and then the Lander itself looking like a squashed bug on a windscreen [Music] the Lander was however a technology demonstrator and the problems that arose could be quickly remedied so Esa is still fully confident of the technology and will proceed with the next Lander containing the exomars 2020 Rover with the latest analytical technology the Rover will drill down as far as two meters into the Martian soil looking for those elusive microbes [Music] [Music] this is the interact Centaur Rover from Esa it can be remotely controlled from orbit by Isa astronauts has its own version they are one of the tools for future investigations on Mars proof of concept in Earth orbit will make it a reliable tool on Mars astronauts can maneuver the robot to a test table then perform very fine operations with a number of tools and devices could even help assemble hardware and habitats on the Martian surface while astronauts orbit overhead says Curiosity Rover continues its epic journey across Gale crater covering over 14 kilometers in its three years of operation it will soon be replaced by its smarter Big Brother Mars 2020 Rover built on the same configuration the 2020 Rover looks strikingly similar to curiosity with some improvements a landing Hazard redirect feature to avoid any Rocky landings New wheels and Treads for better climbing audio microphones to hear what's going on and a rock core sampling drill one of the main goals of the Mars 2020 Mission will be to determine the potential habitability of the planet for human visitors scientific instruments on board include an advanced stereoscopic imager environmental sensors for temperature wind speed and direction pressure humidity and dust particle size and shape soul is an x-ray fluorescent spectrometer for chemical analysis of Martian soil room facts are ground penetrating radar to study subsurface geology and Sherlock and UltraViolet laser spectrometer for the study of fine-scale mineralogy and organic compounds the final instrument package is Moxie a technology demonstrator designed to generate oxygen from the carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere a critical piece of Kit of humans are going to survive on Mars It Will generate oxygen for fuel and breathing Mars's atmosphere is predominantly carbon dioxide plus stress amounts of argon nitrogen oxygen and carbon monoxide its mean pressure is 600 Pascal that's about 1.6 of Air's air pressure at sea level so another vital piece of equipment is the space suit in the future I'm looking forward to spacesuits that are much more of a tool for the astronauts that is more integrated with a human and is less of a encumbrance and more of a health several spacesuit designs are underway there are many specific requirements the flexibility to walk and move on a low gravity planet for example and the ability to bend down and pick things up they must also be able to illuminate the way forward ease of access for donning the suit is important as are clear they are pressure garment and thermal insulator for the low pressure and temperatures on Mars the latest prototypes like the Z2 and the pxs are going through extensive development for surface use the Z2 meets the walking and flexibility requirements pxs is a more traditional style of suit but also quite flexible [Music] foreign [Music] responsibilities on this spacesuit is the suit control assembly and that's the box that sits right here on the front of the suit and it allows the crew member to control their life support components such as their Cooling and their pressure and it also controls a lot of the electronics such as the radio and the volume and they can see some of the data that's coming back and forth from the suit computer to that display so one of the great things about this job is that after designing the box I'm able to get into the suit since it's one of the smaller sizes and we can actually see what the limitations are you know with my own hands and and eyes and not just hear that second hand from another test subject that would be looking at the same data and then to take that back and then to go build the next prototype and you know incorporate the changes that need to be made so that it works better the next time [Music] thank you foreign for surviving on the Martian surface is power the sunlight reaching Mars is just a little more than half of what we receive on Earth in addition there are regular dust storms and solar power may not be sufficient of itself it will have a role to play but other sources of electric power may be required NASA has been developing fission power plants for such requirements working on two systems the less powerful technology demonstrator unit for spacecraft and surface operations requires watts of power numbered in the tens or 100s [Music] kilo power addresses the need for surface power from 1 to 10 kilowatts for human habitats and scientific exploration in the harsh environments of Mars and Beyond [Music] the Journey to Mars is a long one not in kilometers as such but where the scientific Technical and Engineering hurdles that need to be overcome are concerned what are the things they need to know to be able to safely land live and return from Mars the scientific knowledge the technologies that we need that can make human exploration of Mars happen are within our grasp In Our Lifetime we actually can see humans land and work on Mars a major step in this direction of planning has been the definition of what we call human exploration zones this is a region we will land we will live we will use resources in many different ways and we want to go to a variety of scientifically exciting locations do it in ways that humans and only humans can do one drawback humans are fragile to function correctly they have a specific set of requirements atmospheric pressure air to breathe water and food for nourishment rest and sleep and protection from radiation ours offers very few but it does have an abundance of radiation Mars habitats have been the subject of years of engineering and Technical research NASA has even thrown open the doors to students and Architects to help design and develop suitable accommodation foreign [Music] there are minimum requirements around the number of occupants and length of stay with limits on payload weight and mass using local resources like sand rock and Ice to develop habitats has been strongly recommended [Music] the 3D print competition threw up some very good ideas and Designs some of which NASA is developing further foreign [Music] the three finalists were team lava hive [Music] team gamma [Music] and team space exploration architecture and clouds architecture office of New York oh [Music] [Music] their Ice House included all the components required to assemble the habitat in situ on Mars the vehicle lands at the designated site and deploys several robots and water storage assets the robot set about building a secure base utilizing local sand centered together with lasers an inflatable plastic membrane is then deployed along with internal air locks the robots Source local water which is used to 3D print the inner lining of the membrane water is an excellent shield for radiation and being translucent it allows sunlight in [Music] foreign [Music] Hanging Gardens and windows add a touch of Hope NASA Langley has developed the ice storm concept from this prize-winning concept foreign [Music] on another planet really is a mammoth task leaving aside the training technology and traveling not to mention the money building a functional self-sustaining Village will need people from all walks of life apart from the scientists geologists and Prospectors there to do the primary job people will not cope with living in prefabricated temporary shelters a town will have to be built from local resources Engineers Builders Fabricators electricians plumbers and mechanics will all be in great demand so will it and Communications experts doctors nurses farmers botanists and the list goes on [Music] [Music] the other hand not everyone gets the chance to colonize an entirely new planet so that is one draw card if Mars one is any example it seems there will be plenty of volunteers for this dangerous work foreign [Music] hasn't been asked yet and it's a fundamental importance can humans live long term in space or on another planet with reduced gravity less sunlight and lower atmospheric protection [Music] one proposal before NASA at the moment is the multi-generational independent Colony for extraterrestrial habitation autonomy and behavior which contracts nicely to mice have and it's exactly what that name suggests [Music] mysub is a spacecraft and autonomous support system to study the long-term generational health of mice in Martian gravity the vehicle would be placed in a stable orbit close enough to the Moon to be within easy reach by manned missions the mice have would be deployed and spun up to mars-like gravity it would then support the growth of a large Mouse Colony for a year or longer studying reproduction and maturation of lab mice through multiple Generations which see much faster than human subjects [Music] the vehicle would house multiple levels of mouse enclosures designed to be serviced and cleaned by an on-board robot the system would take care of feeding watering and cleaning the mice including their medical care [Music] breeding would be selectively controlled over Generations in the low gravity the mice would also be studied for any physical Behavioral or metabolic changes the project would also collect data on deep space radiation and the hazards posed to humans [Music] the robotic systems would also provide an in-situ demonstration of autonomous activities like maintenance for long duration deep space missions from time to time astronauts would dock with the habitat to collect data and specimens and my tab will allow humans to prepare to live independently from Earth in space and on the surface of Mars and help answer that critical question we started with could humans survive long term in law gravity environments [Music] foreign [Music] system is vast from our own star the Sun to Earth is nearly 150 million kilometers or one astronomical unit Jupiter is 5.2 Au distant and Pluto up to 48 EU and the solar system extends far beyond this into Interstellar space we humans cannot travel that sort of distance at least not yet but we can and do send our robots and probes in our place and the results are astounding [Music] foreign [Music] Dawn spacecraft is one of our emissaries that has rendezvoused with two asteroid belt objects in its multi-year mission the dawn mission is one of NASA's Discovery program missions that launched in September of 2007 so it's had a long circuitous Journey from the earth flying past Mars and out to the asteroid for Vesta where it spent a year orbiting this small rocky object and mapped its surface and determined its its bulk composition and geological aspects of a Vesta before leaving the gravitational field of Vesta and traveling for another three years out to the dwarf planet series for the arrival of the spacecraft donor at Cirrus we were expecting a an inert a rocking body [Music] instead they discovered a world of mystery and surprise dawn has been orbiting series for more than two years now providing us with fascinating views of an alien world the mysterious bright spots on series appear to be salts deposited on the surface by Subterranean activity support for this Theory can be found in another feature of Interest the bright Mountain named ahuna Mons so we are looking in detail about the shape of the mountain and we are compared with what we know from volcanic constructs and we found that Aruna month's shape is very similar to that of a volcanic Dome that is built by very viscose material when we saw ahunamans we saw that its shape was very tall it was very tall and had steep slopes and that reminded us of certain places in the solar system including Earth and Mars that had domes that were formed by volcanic activity of very slow-moving thick material however on series the temperatures are so cold that the same type of of magma on Earth and Mars just doesn't can't exist on Ceres so we then concluded that the the magma or the material that's flowing on Ceres had to be composed of mostly very salty water that would flow at the low temperatures of Ceres and when exposed to the surface when they were pushed out onto the surface they would freeze and form this steep sided Dome [Music] ahunamans is unique in the solar system there's no other place in the solar system that has a structure that matches that of ahunamans and it has to be formed by cryovolcanic activity [Music] scientists at the German Aerospace Center have used stereo images to create a global digital terrain map of the dwarf planet another surprise a study published by lead author Norbert schorghoffer shows permanently shadowed regions at the North Pole these are expected to be cold enough to accumulate water ice over long time spans future spacecraft visiting series are likely to find fresh water ice there so right now we are not only learning about dwarf planet series but also about planets and small bodies in the auto solar system like Pluto and its Moon and so we are in a phase in space exploration where we are learning about a new class of objects and we are seeing that this objects are as surprising as they have written features on their surface this observation tell us silhouette was active in the recent past there might be even active today and please tell us the importance of sending a spacecraft to a dwarf planet to have a close look at the surface as we are learning new new things that are unexpected Dawn is now orbiting only 386 kilometers above series which is closer than the space station is to Earth and it will continue to return spectacular views one of the key technologies that made Dawn such a success was its ion drive ion propulsion allows us to undertake missions which would be impossible without it therap and previous missions and tests of ion propulsion to validate the basic technology but Dawn now has made it a reality Dawn's the only spacecraft ever in more than 58 years of space exploration to orbit two extraterrestrial destinations the last Uncharted worlds in the inner solar system and it not only allows us to get to these distant bodies but once we're in orbit we can maneuver extensively in order to get the best possible science that we can from the mission our second deep space Emissary has only recently arrived at its destination the giant planet Jupiter Juno is our fastest probe to date reaching a top speed of 265 000 kilometers an hour or 73.6 kilometers a second it has traveled for almost five years to reach its Target and orbits the pulls of the largest planet in the solar system Juno's the fastest spacecraft ever to venture into the outer solar system it's it's first to orbit hold the pole about Jupiter and it's the most heavily shielded spacecraft that we've ever launched the mission is designed to basically wrap Jupiter in a dense net of observations completely covering a sphere so to do that we need to pull the orbit when it passes over the North Pole along a line of longitude and over the South Pole when we do this over the 37 orbits of the nominal Mission and by the time we're done we've got orbits separated in longitude by about every 12 degrees so we completely cover the sphere basically the interior of Jupiter is nearly unexplored what we see when we look at Jupiter and all the great amazing stuff we've discovered about Jupiter is about the moons that orbit the planet it's about the atmosphere and the enormous weather systems and the Great Red Spot and belts and zones you know stripes across the planet all kinds of really cool interesting exciting stuff but it's kind of skin deep where we look at Jupiter we're going you know a percent or two of the way down into the planet that's what we're really seeing everything else about Jupiter the Deep interior of Jupiter is nearly completely unknown to peer Beyond the Veil The Suite of instruments on board Juno includes a gravity radio science system plasma and energetic particle detectors ultraviolet and infrared spectrometers and a vector magnetometer the magnetometer is it's best to think of it as a fancy Compass unlike a compass that just records the direction of the magnetic field our instrument tells you both what direction the field is in and what the magnitude is and we can measure that very very accurately to 100 parts per million Juno's magnetometer is another in a long line of magnetometers built here at Goddard space flight center following designs developed by Mario cunha years ago our instrument is between one and two orders of magnitude more accurate than anything that's flown to Jupiter before and of course part of that is the result of the star cameras that we're able to fly with our sensors so that we can determine the absolute orientation and space of these sensors if you did not know the orientation of the sensor as well as we can determine it with the star cameras we would lose accuracy in the vector measurement so we carry four star cameras with our two magnetometer sensors these have to be held in the same orientation with respect to each other on under very extreme environmental conditions so we designed what we call a magnetometer optical bench it's a special structure about a square foot in size that is made of a carbon silicon carbide material almost impossible to machine but once it's fabricated and the sensors are assembled they act as one and that's one of the reasons why we can achieve much higher accuracy than has ever been attempted before studying the magnetosphere of Jupiter is a prime objective magnetic fields have been a curiosity for thousands of years and so of course we know now that magnetic fields are generated by what's called Dynamo action the convective motion of an electrically conducting fluid even though we can map the Earth's magnetic field with extraordinary accuracy with satellites and orbit about the Earth the one thing we can't do is see clearly through all the crustal magnetization that is right beneath our feet Jupiter is a gaseous Planet hydrogen helium there is no magnetized crust that obscures our view of the Dynamo deep below so the exciting part about the Jupiter mission is that we'll be able to image for the first time the magnetic field on the Dynamo surface in a way that would never ever be possible on Earth Jupiter is also the planet with the largest magnetic field its magnetosphere is huge if you were to look up into the night sky and if you could see the outline of its magnetosphere which you can't it would be about the size of the moon in the sky it's a very very large magnet sphere in fact in the Voyager program we learned that the magnetic tail the part of the magnetosphere that is drawn away from the Sun extends all the way out to the orbit of Saturn in all likelihood Beyond it's a very large feature in our solar system it's a Pity we can't see it of course a strong magnetic field traps more radiation within its grasp another issue for Juno those two types of radiation we worry about one is when we fly through the radiation belt we get an instantaneous exposure we call that flux the other is flying through the radiation belt again and again and again gives us something about accumulation we call that dose and so in the beginning of the mission we fly largely close to the planet underneath this kind of flat donut shape radiation belt and then we fly around it but eventually we fly more and more through the belts and our radiation levels every orbit get worse and worse and worse we get over 80 percent of radiation exposure in the last half of the mission for me the great excitement is the opportunity to look down and get the first clear unobstructed view of what the magnetic field looks like on the surface of a Dynamo where it's generated it's always incredible to be the first person in the world to see anything we stand to be the first to be able to look down upon the Dynamo and see it clearly for the first time our Emissary to the ringed planet Saturn is now in its final year of operation its outstanding performance has included dropping a probe on the moon Titan making extensive observations of Saturn and its moons even adjusting its mission to fly through the water vapor plumes discovered gushing into space from the moon Enceladus Cassini was never designed to look for life in the Enceladus ocean but it does have powerful instruments that can be used to look for habitability so we're looking for the conditions suitable for life now Enceladus is is a tiny moon but it's really intriguing it's got this plume that is shooting out from its South Pole the plumes mostly comprised of water water ice that gets Frozen when it's ejected out into space most of these particles are coming from these four major fractures that we call Tiger stripes life needs three things right it needs water it needs chemistry and it needs energy and right now some of these lines of evidence are telling us that Enceladus has these three things we see some salts but most importantly we see organic molecules things like methane we also see CO2 ammonia one of the things that Cassini can look for is molecular hydrogen this is the smallest molecule that exists in the unit it's two hydrogens bonded together this molecule can tell us about things like hydrothermal activity going on in the ocean of Enceladus and this is very important as we start to answer that ultimate question of is there really life on Enceladus foreign Cassini Mission has begun a daring set of ring grazing orbits skimming past the outside edge of Saturn's main rings [Music] Cassini is flying closer to them than it has since its arrival over 12 years ago it will begin the closest study of the Rings and offer unprecedented views of moons orbiting near them even more dramatic orbits will take Cassini through the effering the outer and most active ring which contains one ring and a spiral strand around it [Music] Cassini will make its final Orbit later this year and plunge into the saturnian atmosphere ending more than 11 years of scientific observations [Music] foreign [Music] traveling over 10 years and 5.5 billion kilometers New Horizons is our Emissary to the outskirts of the solar system in a dramatic flyby New Horizons scanned Pluto and its Main Moon Karen the brief encounter amassed gigabytes of data which the spacecraft took months to download to Earth its close-up details of Pluto's terrain generated a great many questions more complex and highly active geologically than first thought with solid nitrogen ice forming many fascinating and colorful textures and landscapes foreign [Music] New Horizons captured this high resolution enhanced color view of Karen just before closest approach [Music] Karen's color palette is not as diverse as Pluto's most striking is the reddish north polar region informally named Mordor macula after such a successful flyby the mission has extended to include a second Kuiper Belt encounter New Horizons is set to fly past 2014 mu-69 a Kuiper Belt object currently about 1.6 billion kilometers Beyond Pluto a arrival time January 2019 [Music] [Laughter] [Music] as one Mission ends another is about to begin Colombo Europe's first mission to Mercury is currently being put through its Paces at esa's European space research and Technology Center in the Netherlands [Music] Pepi Colombo consists of several components in a so-called spacecraft stack [Music] apart from the two orbiters there's also the Mercury transfer module which contains the solar electric propulsion engine to get them there [Music] okay what we have here is the MTM the Mercury transfer module which brings us our two spacecraft to Mercury the three Xenon tanks and the four thrusters and when we arrive at Mercury this unit will be jettisoned and then we only have our two spacecraft the two spacecraft are issa's Pepe Colombo and the jaxa magnetospheric Orbiter Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun in our solar system yet despite temperatures reaching around 500 degrees Celsius the previous NASA messenger Mission found evidence for ice at the planet's North Pole [Music] foreign Frank's spacecraft is provided by Esa which is a mpo we call it NPO Mercury planetary Orbiter and this spacecraft has a focus more on the planet we want to observe the planet through remote sensing characterize the surface around the crater wanting to know about the composition of the surface the interior of that planet and in addition we have a second space guard and this spacecraft is called the Mercury magnetospheric Arbiter more focused on the environment and this spacecraft is provided by the Japanese space agency the messenger Mission found other surprises at the smallest planet in our solar system it discovered more chemical elements and compounds with small boiling points known as volatiles than expected at the surface messenger focused on the north polar region whereas beppi Colombo and its instruments will cover the whole planet as well as exploring its gravity field one of the special things about Mercury is that is the only planet besides Earth whereas a magnetic dipole field and so we would like to understand the dipole around Mercury or how is the magnetic field around Mercury is interacting with the sun and that's very important for us because then we can learn for airs how the Earth's magnet field is interacting with the sun and we have a lot of satellites around Earth which are affected by the solar wind and the air interaction so if we can get some clues about processes on Market we want to learn for us Pepe Colombo's launch has been set back by minor hardware issues now scheduled for late 2018 launch it is expected to reach mercury in 2025. with the go-ahead from NASA the Europa Clipper mission is underway with the selection of instruments to fly on the spacecraft hopefully in the early 2020s its mission is focused on the Jovian Moon Europa believed to hold an enormous ocean of water beneath its icy surface [Music] thank you europa's proximity to Jupiter and its Speedy orbit caused the moon to stretch and contract under gravitational forces generating mechanical heat within the core and providing enough energy to maintain a liquid ocean [Music] close inspection of surface areas also predict s that ice movement on the surface similar to glacial movements could allow for the formation of liquid water lakes close to the surface [Music] one more place to search for those elusive Signs of Life [Music]

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Id: p2CVaGPdZjM

Length: 47min 21sec (2841 seconds)

Published: Fri May 12 2023