Joshua Santora (Host): The soil beneath your feet, the food on your table, the roof over your head…these are luxuries on Mars. Getting there isn’t a problem, it’s surviving once you land.
Launch Countdown Sequence: EGS Program Chief Engineer, verify no constraints to launch. EGS Chief Engineer team has no constraints.
I copy that. You are clear to launch.
Five, four, three, two, one, and lift-off.
All clear. Now passing through max q, maximum dynamic pressure.
Welcome to space.
Host: Welcome to the rocket ranch. I’m Joshua Santora. While our current focus is on the Moon, it is our stepping stone to the Red Planet. In this episode we’ll sit down with scientists and engineers exploring our planetary neighbor and preparing for the survival of those who brave the journey. First up, a trajectory analyst plotting million mile journeys to the Red Planet and beyond. Next, we’ll hear from two plant researchers who are figuring out how to grow food in space and on alien planets. And finally, we’ll dig deep into the daunting challenges that still lie ahead before humans can set foot on Mars.
Insight is a Mars lander designed to give the Red Planet its first thorough check-up since it formed 4.5 billion years ago. It is the first outer space robotic explorer to study in depth the inner-space of Mars– its crust, mantle, and core. A few days before the insight launch, Kennedy’s Amanda Griffin sat down with trajectory analyst Caley Burke of NASA’s Launch Services Program to find out what it takes to send a spacecraft to the red planet.
Amanda Griffin (Host): So, Caley, tell us a little bit about your role for Insight.
Caley Burke: my role is the trajectory analyst here at the Launch Services Program. And so, my job’s to make sure that the rocket drops the spacecraft off at the right place and time in space. And so, we get these targets from the spacecraft team, who look at where they’re going, um, and what the capabilities of the rocket is. And so, I’m there to make sure that that rocket performs as it needs to together with the launch vehicle company.
Host: that sounds like a lotta math to me.
Caley Burke: It is. There’s a lot of equations. Um, those of you who are familiar with “hidden figures,” um, she developed a lot of the math that we use in our computer programs. But, um, we have to consider these really complex journeys. You know, it’s not just doing an equation once. Um, we’re always trying to-to make it as optimal as possible, and so there’s all these levers you have to push. You know, I think of it as planning a summer vacation. You know, how many different summer vacations are out there? There’s millions of ideas and so you have to kinda tailor it down to a reasonable one. Say, like, okay, we’re going on a camping trip and we’re gonna go in the summer. You start paring it down and finding the best one.
Host: So, speaking of all of these possibilities, I understand Insight has a lot of launch attempts, and that’s a paring down from like an endless– seemingly endless possibility.
Caley Burke: There are. The jet propulsion lab, they do these things called pork chop plots, and so they consider many months they could launch and many months they could land on Mars. And they look at different conditions. They’re saying, okay, you know, how fast does the rocket need to get the spacecraft going? How fast is it is– if we arrive at Mars? You don’t want the spacecraft crashing like an egg and breaking on Mars.
Host: No.
Caley Burke: Yeah, we want a little bit softer of a landing. Um, what’s the weather conditions gonna be like when they get there? We wanna get communication during landing, so are the right satellites in place or are we looking back at Earth at that time in the landing site? So there’s all these considerations they put into, and then they get it down to, um, what they consider their ideal number of launch days. And so, we’re– have 35 days we’re looking at that we’re launching, but only one day that we’re gonna land. And so, that was all pared down, but then once we get there, um, we don’t have just 35 opportunities, you know, one per day. We actually have a two-hour window that we’re able to do on each day, and so that’s 25 opportunities. So there’s 875 possible ones we analyzed.
Host: Wow.
Caley Burke: Yeah. And so a couple of those, um, we’ve already said that they don’t meet the requirements, which we have so many it’s not a problem to have a few that we lose. I mean, it’s great to have large windows because if there’s any weather conditions, if the range is clearing, if there’s a mechanical issue on the rocket, we have time to possibly fix it so that we don’t have to completely scrub that day, but—
Host: And I know in Florida we often have weather conditions.
Caley Burke: Yeah.
Host: But the insight is launching from the west coast.
Caley Burke: mm-hmm.
Host: So you’re talkin’ about all the considerations you guys have to take into account. So to launch from California, what’s different?
Caley Burke: So as a trajectory analyst, um, the main thing that I have to make sure is, uh, first of all, I have to make sure my computer program puts us at the right l-launch site. That, um, sometimes you get a trajectory–
Host: that helps.
Caley Burke: –and you’re like, “hmm, that’s not in the right place.” But usually it’s pretty obvious at that point. Um, but a-a big thing that’s an indicator is what directions you can launch. So, each launch site we work at the range to figure out what are the safe directions we don’t endanger the public?
Host: Sure.
Caley Burke: And so, here from Florida, we launch east safely, and we can go somewhat to the north and somewhat from the south. But from Vandenberg, um, if they launch east they’re flying over people, and so we don’t want that. So we can launch to the southeast, as we are for, um, insight, and then we can continue going west and, uh, launch safely. But, uh, we wanna make sure that everything happens with the rocket, uh, we don’t endanger anybody and nothing drops on somebody. If– it’s a low risk as possible.
Host: I’m sure we all appreciate that.
Insight Launch Sequence: Lift-off of the Atlas V, launching the first interplanetary mission from the west coast, and NASA’s Insight, the first outer space robotic explorer to study the interior of Mars.
Host: Speaking of risk, once you get to Mars, or near Mars, we’ve heard a lot about planetary protection.
Caley Burke: Mm-hmm.
Host: So what is that and what is your team doing to try to help mitigate that at Mars?
Caley Burke: So we have somebody here at NASA who’s called the planetary protection officer. Um, which after a nine-year-old applied, I now– jokingly, it’s the guardian of the galaxy. Um, that’s who– why he said he’d be great. But the planetary protection officer, um, looks to both protect Earth from any microbes we bring from space.
Host: Okay.
Caley Burke: And then, we also consider Mars and Europa, where we think there might be life, we wanna protect them from any Earth bugs and basically creating life somewhere as opposed to finding it.
Host: Sure.
Caley Burke: So, we do that, um, with Insight in a couple different ways. So, one, is the spacecraft, which we-we plan to have land on Mars, has been very specially cleaned. There’s a whole team that is working to make sure that there’s as few microbes as possible, if any. Um, but we don’t do that with the rocket. And so, we actually aim the trajectory a little bit away from Mars. We don’t aim it straight at Mars.
Host: Okay.
Caley Burke: Um, so that if, um, it doesn’t perform as it should, or even if the spacecraft doesn’t perform as it should, we don’t pollute Mars. And so, what that means is the spacecraft has to carry extra fuel to account for that correction, but they already have to do corrections. They just have more fuel that they need to get closer to Mars than if we could go straight at it.
Host: So many things you have to think about. So, what it– it’s gonna land in November, correct?
Caley Burke: Yes.
Host: So what do the next seven months have in store for you?
Caley Burke: So for me, um, it’s really about that 90 minutes that starts at lift-off to when we separate. Um, and that’s– it varies a little bit day-by-day and time-by-time. Um, but once insight separates, followed shortly by the Marcos, you know, I’m clapping and celebrating.
Host: And the Marcos are CubeSat’s?
Caley Burke: The MAR-COs, they are CubeSats. They’re each the size of a b-briefcase and they’re going along with InSight to Mars. They’re gonna be doing communications with it as it goes through the landing, which is such a dangerous point that if something were to happen during landing, we’d like as much data as possible so we can figure out what went wrong. Um, but once insight and the Marcos separate, um, then I’m gonna clap and cheer. And I began a process of data analysis, but all the systems I’m involved with have flown and have done their jobs.
Host: So you can breathe easy about an hour and a half after launch?
Caley Burke: Yeah, about an hour and a half, I’ll breathe easy. Um, but I’ll really– I’ll breathe easy once I get the data and I do the calculation and we’ve met the requirement.
Host: Fair enough.
Caley Burke: Um, but, you know, it’s tough. If anything goes wrong at any part of the system, it’s very– it’s devastating. But, um, but you do wanna check, you know, that you’ve put it on the right path, and hopefully it doesn’t have to use a ton of fuel to correct for launch vehicle errors, because the spacecraft has budgeted a certain amount of their fuel for the launch vehicle errors, because we know they exist. It’s not gonna be a perfect shot. They’re gonna have to make corrections.
Host: And so, on launch day you’re gonna be here at Kennedy watching?
Caley Burke: I am. So I do have a role. I’ll be flight dynamics for NASA, but it’s not a critical role. And so, I’m here at Hangar AE in Cape Canaveral working on it. So I’ll be looking at the data, I’ll have my headset on and I can talk with the chief engineer, and so I’m ready to make sure, um, as we launch– because we have all those times that we can launch, but the amount of fuel for each of them is a little different. So we’ll be looking at the weather conditions and all that stuff and making sure that, um, for everything that’s going on for that time, we have enough fuel. Now, for Insight, it’s not– that’s not a big concern. We have quite a bit of fuel on this mission. Um, but then, after it launches I’m looking to see how the different numbers and parameters look to what we call the nominal trajectory. And so, that’s the one where everything is just as we modeled. But let’s say we’re off nominal. I’m there to let our chief engineer know, you know, if we can recover, if this is within the bounds we’ve modeled, that it’s just– it’s an off nominal day, but the rocket’s still getting where it needs to.
Host: All right, well let’s all hope for a nominal day then.
Caley Burke: Yeah, that’d be great.
Host: And good luck to you and Insight.
Caley Burke: Thank you. Thankfully, all calls were nominal and insight successfully launched from Vandenberg on May 5th, and Caley was able to relax just a few hours later. At the time of this recording, the spacecraft is already more than 6 million miles from Earth and is scheduled to arrive at the Red Planet on November 26th. Happy trails.
Dr. Gioia Massa: We’ve seen the movie “The Martian”, and Mark Watney uses his botany skills to save his life. We will need plants to survive on Mars.
Host: So that was our own Mark Watney, Dr. Gioia Massa. She’s a scientist here at Kennedy Space Center. Her research is growing food in space. And also with us is Ralph Fritsche, who works on long duration food production. We’ll get to what that means a little bit later. So, Gioia, tell us a little bit about what you’ve been working on.
Dr. Gioia Massa: So we work on food production to help grow food for the astronauts. We’re growing fresh vegetables right now on the International Space Station to supplement the astronauts’ diet. You can bring a lot of food with you when you go, and we do that on Space Station, and the packaged food is really good. There’s a lot of variety, but over time vac-packaged food loses its nutritional quality. And so, one of the things that’s really important is to figure out how to grow fresh vegetables to supplement that packaged diet. And doing that without gravity and without, you know, the Sun, and all the other things we take for granted on Earth is kind of a challenge.
Host: So how exactly do you do that? The Space Station, as, you know, many of our listeners probably know, is 225, 250 miles above Earth. So, you know, we have microgravity. It doesn’t have sunshine to the plant, so how do you– how do you take care of that?
Dr. Gioia Massa: Well, we do a lot of our growing in what we call controlled environments. So we’re actually controlling the light. We use LED’s, light emitting diodes, to provide the light for plants, and we have a lot of research on that here at Kennedy Space Center, figuring out what’s the best light recipe to give the plants to get them to grow well and to taste good and to be very nutritious.
Host: Have you figured out that light recipe yet?
Dr. Gioia Massa: It differs for every single plant we grow, so it’s a big challenge, actually. We have to do a lot of research. Um, the other thing that we’re working a lot on is water delivery. Delivering water to plants without gravity is a real challenge. And plant roots don’t just need water, but they also need oxygen. And in space, air and water just don’t mix very well. You may have seen the video of the astronaut wringing out the wet washcloth.
Host: mm-hmm.
Dr. Gioia Massa: Where the water crawls around his hand, you know. It’s surface, um, surface tension. And so, if you think of that as a plant root, it just gets drowned in water. So we have to figure out the right way to do a lot of water and air balancing. And-and actually, that’s one of the things we’re working on with food production. Ralph can talk more about that.
Ralph Fritsche:Yeah, that’s where I come in. Um, we have the plant scientists and we also have engineers. And I think the real challenge is to take the knowledge that the scientists have in how to grow plants and kind of merge that with the engineering expertise that the talent we have here at KSC can provide. It-it’s interesting that you get to a certain point with the plant scientists where their engineering skills tend to run out. You’re at the fringe of– the boundary of their knowledge. And then you have the engineers come along and-and they really– most– for the most part know little to nothing about plants, unless they grew on a farm. So it’s trying to merge those two cultures into a successful collaboration that really enables us to push forward. And water delivery right now is our first challenge.
Host: you’ve had successes. I’ve seen astronauts eating lettuce.
Astronauts on the Space Station: that’s awesome.
It’s good– tastes good?
Yeah. I like that. Kind of like arugula.
Host: I know here on Earth we-we’ve kinda had a lot of scares with lettuce lately. Um, are there the same concerns in space?
Dr. Gioia Massa: Actually, no. There are some food safety concerns in space, ’cause we have to worry about what microorganisms might be in the environment just kinda floating around. But most of the lettuce concerns or the food safety scares we have on Earth are from things like animals getting into the field. So we don’t really have any of those issues, but we do have to, you know, do due diligence. We-we don’t want to put the astronauts at risk, so we wanna make sure that the food is safe to eat. And we’re also looking at new ways to clean the produce, because, you know, you– it’s– just like it’s hard to wash or, to water plants, it’s also really hard to wash your vegetables in space. Uh, so we have, um, groups working on that as well.
Host: so for the space station, it makes sense that, you know, we can send resupply missions up often so they have, uh, a food supply. So, when we go to further destinations like Mars, where it takes six to nine months to get there, why is your work so important?
Ralph Fritsche:So right now, I think we’re kind of, um, really at the benefit of having this close proximity to the Earth. We don’t worry so much about the food that we are growing, uh, because it’s not really being required to s– really supply additional calories and nutrition to the crew. Right now, it’s been primarily research and as an additive just to demonstrate a capability. But the further away we go, the more important and critical having that food as part of– that we grow as part of the system, uh, capability requirements. It-it takes a lot of energy and a lot of money to get food sent from the ground up into deep space. Uh, we know that a crew of six, one-year stay on Mars, its 26,000 pounds of food, 31 cubic meters of volume. And when I look at the next vehicle that we’re planning on putting up in, um, cis-lunar space, the lunar orbital platform, the gateway, that internal volume is only 51 cubic meters. So if we think about the amount of space required and the weight, uh, required to get off the ground to get to Mars, to get on the surface of Mars, to feed crews, we’re not gonna be able to sustain that. We really, for the long haul, need to be able to come up with a bio-regenerative capability where we can really truly start looking at Earth independence. And so, you’re gonna see a transition from the pick and eat type of crops that we grow now into the staple crops, which really supply our calories, so that we can kind of offload that weight penalty for bringing things from Earth.
Host: so pick and eat– so Gioia, can you talk a little about the difference between those? >>
Dr. Gioia Massa: Yeah, so pick and eat are your fresh vegetables, things that you can pick and eat directly. So your salad crops. We work a lot with leafy greens, um, small fruits like tomatoes and peppers, um, maybe some herbs like basil that you could add to the packaged food. Um, maybe even some root crops, like a radish or a carrot. Uh, those are a little harder because, you know, without gravity it gets to be a challenge to-to-to harvest the roots well. >>
Host: And you mentioned growing fast and-and flavors. And I know, uh, Ralph, you guys have been testing microgreens.
Ralph Fritsche:Uh, advantages of microgreens is it doesn’t take much in the way of resources to grow them, and they are very dense in their nutrition, uh, they require less light. So everything with more– growing microgreens is pretty much a positive so far. They have a lot of flavor. You can add them to the diet as an augmentation to meals, um–
Host: And I hear that the astronauts really love things that have a little punch of flavor.
Ralph Fritsche: Yeah, and we can– anything that you can grow as a typical salad crop can be grown as a microgreen. You just harvest it earlier. Uh, we’ve been experimenting with wasabi, things that have a real kick to them. There’s also some, uh, microgreens that we grow that taste like green apples. So we can add a lot of variety of flavor, as well as the nutrients, into the diet by growing something that’s simple, that doesn’t take up much space, and doesn’t require much of the, uh, consumable resources that we have to bring along.
Host: Yeah, I imagine seeds are quite light.
Ralph Fritsche: Seeds are light when compared to some of the hardware components that we have to bring up, yeah. And we can pack a lot of ’em in a small space.
Host: mm-hmm.
Dr. Gioia Massa: So, one of the things we have to figure out is how seeds do over long durations, especially when they’re exposed to some of the radiation we may get on the way to– the way to Mars, so–
Ralph Fritsche: Big thing, radiation.
Dr. Gioia Massa: Yeah, radiation’s big.
Ralph Fritsche: Everything we’ve done, um, in terms of growing plants for food in recent years has all been done in low-Earth orbit, in the protective environment of the radiation belts that we have here, the Van Allen belts. We don’t know what the effect of that radiation environment, the cosmic rays are gonna have long term on the seeds or the plants that we grow. So we’re gonna be looking at multi-generational studies to really observe those effects, and that’s why we need to start that kinda research as soon as we can and why we’re really hoping to get something incorporated onto the Gateway.
Host: What would, like, a greenhouse look like on Mars, like, given the radiation concerns? >>
Dr. Gioia Massa: Well, you’ll probably be underground. Um, you know, i think you’ll wanna be protected somehow. So maybe in the early period, you know, when you’re just there, you might be in a habitat, something that would launch on a rocket, and maybe you’ll have, um, you know, a habitat that’s outfitted just for plant growth that could provide those-those crops for the crew. But later on, you’ll probably be– I’d either pile dirt over the top of it, or you’ll be in a cave.
Ralph Fritsche: Regolith, Gioia, it’s regolith.
Dr. Gioia Massa: Yeah. Uh, over– or you’ll be in maybe a lava tube cave. So you’d protect the crew and the plants from-from the radiation that’s hittin’ surface. It would also protect from things like dust, micrometeorite impacts. You know, there’s a lot of hazards on-on-on the planet. Um, and then, you know, you’d be using either electric light, like LED’s, or maybe you can use some light piping where you have a concentrating mirror, like a parabolic shaped mirror that will concentrate the sun and pipe it underground through fiber optics. But, um, you gotta remember the sun on Mars is-is 43-percent of what it is on Earth, so– and that’s even without a dust storm. So you know, you’d have to have a lot of area that you concentrate to-to get enough sun to grow plants.
Host: So, I read “The Martian”, I saw the movie. I’m sure you have, too.
Dr. Gioia Massa: Mm-hmm.
Host: So mark Watney–
Ralph Fritsche: Wait, what was that– what was that movie?
Host: Uh, Mark Watney, you know, grew potatoes in that regolith. Um, are potatoes a good option?
Ralph Fritsche: So, when it comes to what he did in terms of growing the potatoes on Mars, um, once again, Hollywood takes a lot of liberties. Uh, we appreciate their efforts in showing the potential possibility, but, no, you couldn’t grow potatoes or pretty much anything with straight up Martian regolith the way he used it. Uh, regolith contains perchlorates and other things that are not conducive to plant growth or human consumption. So we would have to remediate those things, get those things out of the regolith before you could actually even consider adding nutrients to the regolith that would facilitate plant growth. So the way it’s depicted in the movie, not so much.
Dr. Gioia Massa: But potatoes are a good candidate crop. They’re very nutritious, they’re very productive, um, and we’ve actually worked for a long time here at Kennedy Space Center on potatoes, especially our colleague dr. Ray Wheeler, who’s a potato expert. You know, right now on space station, we don’t have any way to cook anything. We don’t even have a microwave. So we’re really just focusing on things you can pick and eat fresh, but as soon as we had a microwave or an oven or a way to cook, crops like white potato and sweet potato become a really good source of food. Um, and they’re easy to grow and-and they’re kinda fun.
Host: So, can you speak a little bit about the psychological benefits of growing things. Like, when you’re going on a six to nine-month mission to Mars, like, how important is that to see something green growing?
Dr. Gioia Massa: Well, I think it would be really important, but I’m a little biased. Um, you know, it– we don’t really know. We don’t have great data on that yet, but there are a lot of anecdotal evidence from the astronauts saying how much they like growing the plants, how much they really enjoy seeing them in that environment of the Space Station, which is very synthetic. It’s all plastic and metal and cables and wires. Um, so I think having that little piece of Earth with you when you’re living and working in a stressful environment, especially when you’re so far from home on Mars that, you know, it’s just a-a dot in the sky, I think that’s gonna be really important. But then there’s the-the-the downside– you know, what happens if you get too attached to your plants and they-they die? Or you know, you have an insect or– not insect, a disease outbreak. Hopefully we won’t bring any insects. Then, you know, then that could be psychologically detrimental. So we have to look at all of that. We’re gonna be startin’ to collect some data on the psychological benefit or not of plants in space in the next couple of years on ISS. We’ll be doing questionnaires and surveys of the crew and actually collect some data on this. So hopefully we’ll know more.
Host: That sounds really cool. >>
Ralph Fritsche: But, you know, you can do some extrapolation, and-and this is not scientific at all, but we know from the food technology folks in Houston who we kind of support in terms with our food production activities, they’re very concerned about the quality of the diet from a palatability standpoint. Is the crew gonna like whatever we grow so that they would eat it? Uh, and they’re very concerned from the perspective that the crew has to give up a lot of the comforts of home just going on spaceflight, and so the thought of sacrificing the quality and the enjoyment they get from their diet with that sense of taste is something that they don’t wanna have to give up.
Dr. Gioia Massa: They found that people eating the same diets for long times get-get menu fatigue.
Ralph Fritsche: Unless it’s my son. He likes chicken fingers every day.
Host: I think that’s everyone’s child.
Dr. Gioia Massa: Yeah, but–
Ralph Fritsche: There’s our solution.
Dr. Gioia Massa: If we don’t have chicken fingers, um, you know, you might get a little bored eating the same diet year in, year out, you know, on maybe a two week cycle, even though it’s a really good diet. And so having this fresh produce to make it more interesting to-to give you more options of things that you can make could be really good, too.
Ralph Fritsche: and-and that’s another interesting challenge we have where we’re constantly approached by people who have potential food production solutions, but the product that they’re developing is not something that you would traditionally find appealing, let’s say, in a regular diet.
Host: Hmm, yeah.
Ralph Fritsche: Even though it might be highly nutritious, uh, we’ve seen articles in the press recently about cockroach milk. Um, yeah, it might be really good for you, but how do you provide that to someone and have them eat it?
Host: And I understand you’re also working with kids to help you decide the next crops to grow?
Dr. Gioia Massa: Yeah, we have a wonderful program with the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami, and they have about 150 or more, uh, middle schools and high schools, and those students are involved with testing new crops for us for space.
Student: Hi, my name is Giselle and I’m a 12th grade student at biotech high school. My question is for Ricky. If you could grow any food plant on ISS, what would it be?
Ricky Arnold (astronaut): well, if I had my choice, it would be a barbeque plant. But, uh, since they don’t exist on Earth, uh, I’ll have to go with a, uh, some kinda fresh fruit.
Dr. Gioia Massa: so if you can get, you know, 100 schools to grow one type of plant really well, when you have some kids watering not enough and some overwatering, and some classrooms cold and some hot– if that plant grows really well in that many schools, it’s probably a really good candidate for space. So we’re really excited. They’re generating a lot of data, they’re feeding it to us on Google Sheets, they have a statistician involved as well, and so we’re actually going to be flying two of the species that they down-selected on the International Space Station.
Host: That’s amazing.
Dr. Gioia Massa: Yeah.
Host: Where kids get to be part of, you know, NASA.
Dr. Gioia Massa: Yeah, they are so valuable. Yeah.
Host: That’s awesome. That sounds like you guys have so many challenges between oxygen, and water, and radiation, and what kind of soil do you grow it in in space, and-and mass.
Ralph Fritsche: We’ll have ’em all solved by next week. It’s no problem.
Host: Excellent.
Dr. Gioia Massa: We have a lot of interns, so that helps.
Host: I love it. So, my last question, you guys: would you go to Mars and be that crazy botanist on Mars?
Dr. Gioia Massa: A few years ago I might’ve, but now I think I’m pretty earthbound. You know, I would like to go to space at some point, but, um, I’d- I think Mars is a little-little far away for me.
Host: Ralph?
Ralph Fritsche: I am strangely drawn to Mars, but I’m not a botanist, so I guess I can’t go. >>
Host: You can still go. We still need project managers.
Dr. Gioia Massa: Just don’t open the airlock.
Rob Mueller: Kennedy Space Center is one of the world’s, uh, premier spaceports, but we also envision spaceports on other planetary surfaces– uh, Mars, uh, the Moon, and even asteroids and beyond.
Joshua Santora (Host): All right, so I am here today in the booth with Rob Mueller. Uh, Rob, what’s your official title here?
Rob Mueller: I am a senior technologist in the NASA Kennedy Space Center Swamp Works innovation environment. Essentially, we’re developing the technologies that are required to operate in space– for humans to operate in space.
Speaker: Robert, let me add my congratulations, uh, to Jim Bridenstine as the new administrator of NASA.
Jim Bridenstine: The reason we go to the Moon is because we wanna land Americans on the surface of Mars. And the technologies, the capabilities, the in situ resource utilization that we develop for the Moon will ultimately get us to Mars. It’s also why the Gateway is so important. Having, uh, an-an orbital outpost around the Moon gives us more access to more parts of the solar system than ever before.
Host: Okay, so we have rockets that can get people to Mars today. Uh, maybe not a lot of stuff with them, but– so you strap me in in a rocket, I got a spacesuit on, I got some food and some water– how successful of a mission is this to Mars?
Rob Mueller: Well, first of all, you have to realize this is not a short trip.
Host: Okay.
Rob Mueller: And to-to compound that, once you get there, you can’t come home right away. If you had an emergency, the planets aren’t lined up the way the orbits work. And so it’s very difficult to come back from Mars, uh, without using a lot of propellant. And so, essentially, in the trajectory that we have planned, you would go there. Uh, it’s called a conjunction class trajectory and it would take you six to eight months to travel to Mars, and then, uh, you’re committed to being on Mars for one and a half years, and then you can come back. So it’s a two and a half year round trip journey, and, uh, that’s what you’re signing up for. And-and so, that’s-that’s a big difference between the Moon and Mars. The Moon is three days journey. Uh, we did it during the Apollo missions. If there’s an emergency, as like in Apollo 13.
Apollo 13 clip: your black team of flight controllers is now in station in mission control center, looking at possible alternate missions, as we have an apparent serious oxygen leak in the cryogenic oxygen in the service module.
Rob Mueller: Uh, you can come back home relatively easily as compared to Mars. So those-those are the big differences between the Moon and Mars. Then, when you get to Mars, there’s, uh, an atmosphere. It’s about 1% of the Earth’s atmosphere in density, and, uh, uh, you would think that that’s a good thing, uh, and it’s-it’s good and bad. When you try to land on Mars and you come into the atmosphere, it helps because it provides friction, which slows you down. However, that friction creates heat, and then that will cause problems for your spacecraft, and so you need heat shields and those kind of things. But the atmosphere isn’t dense enough to really slow you down, so you need more time. In fact, there’s many places on Mars where we cannot land today because the altitude is too high. You don’t have enough time to land. The parachute’s open but you’re still going too fast. So we land in the valleys on Mars and low areas, and that’s just a reality of going to Mars. There are very many difficult things about going to Mars.
Host: What kind of things do we have to consider before we go?
Rob Mueller: Well, let’s start with what we can do today. Today, the largest object we’ve landed on Mars had-had a roughly 1,000 kilograms, a little bit under 1,000 kilograms, the-the Mars Science Lab. That’s what we’re able to land on Mars today. In the future, the payloads we’re going to have to land on Mars for human exploration will be between 20 and 40 metric tons, so 20,000 to 40,000 kilograms per landing, and there will be multiple landings required. So that’s 20 to 40 times the capability of the systems we have today for landing on Mars. Then, you have to consider the humans. The humans need to survive. That is, uh, important.
Host: Pretty critical.
Rob Mueller: And so, we’d like to not only have them survive, but-but really do well in space. But we’re still learning about that, and that’s one of the reasons we have the International Space Station. When we have a-a journey to Mars, it takes six months. In those six months, when you land, the first thing that could happen is you’ll have to do rehab. And so, you’ll spend four to six weeks doing rehab before you can ever walk on the surface of Mars. But on the other hand, you have to plug your spacecraft into the power plant right away or your batteries will run down. So now you have this dilemma– you’re too weak to do a spacewalk on Mars because there’s a gravity environment because you’ve turned into, uh, some kind of jellyfish on the way to going to Mars, and you have to do rehab. So first, we have to figure out the biological and physiological, uh, issues with human health, and, uh, that’s what we’re doing today in the international space station. Uh, once we know a crew can be healthy and arrive at Mars, and we have the landing systems, and we have, uh, done all the technology development required to land on the surface of Mars reliably– uh, we have to land in the same spot every time. So it’s one thing landing on Mars. It’s another thing landing one spacecraft next to another spacecraft within, let’s say, 100 meters of each other. And, uh, and we also need propellant to come home. Uh, one of the things about our Mars architecture is we need about 30 tons of propellant to come home. And when-when it takes a-a gear ratio, a ratio of 11 to 1 of the mass in low-Earth orbit to the mass you land on Mars, so it’s-it’s not 30 tons anymore, it’s 330 tons in low-Earth orbit. And it’s-it’s even more on the surface of the earth on a launch pad. So when you, uh, work out all the numbers, you really can’t afford to bring all that propellant to Mars to come home, so you have to make it on Mars. And how we make it is we make it from the water and the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We combine the two using the sabatier process and we make methane and oxygen, and those are our propellants for coming home from Mars. So it’s not just a-a pleasure cruise out there, and it’s-it’s-it’s not for fun. This is really advancing science in the solar system. >>
Host: So you talked about local resources. I assume you mean things we’d find on the Moon or Mars. What I know of Mars, there’s no active streams, there’s no trees growing. So what does local resources mean, and how useful is that for us?
Rob Mueller: Well, it seems like that when you first look at it.
Host: So-so are-are there trees on Mars?
There-there’s absolutely everything that’s in a tree is on Mars.
Host: Okay.
Rob Mueller: So what you have to do is you have to break everything down into its fundamental elements. Uh, we need far more education and far more science and technology in order to achieve the pioneering goals we have to expand civilization into space. And so what you have to think about is the periodic table of elements. So those are your building blocks.
Host: So not trees anymore, not bricks. We’re talkin’ like, molecular level here.
Rob Mueller: That’s right. So if-if you think of the elements as being your trees and-and your rocks and-and everything else that they use to-to build things, and so we can look at this at-at a, uh, maybe not molecular level yet, but at– certainly at an elemental level. And then with the use of chemical engineering and other sciences, we can take these elements, we can use the-the minerals– so, in space we have a lot of rocks that have minerals. We can break down the minerals, which are compounds, break down the compounds into elements, recombine them into new things, and those are the resources we will use. So what I like to say is we have a lot of energy in space from the Sun. We’ll have a lot of resources in space in all the rocks and minerals that we have out there. What we’re missing is the technologies, so we’ll have to be clever. We have to invent new technologies.
Host: Where are we in that process? Um, how far– are we doing this yet? Are we just thinking about it? Where are we?
Rob Mueller: Well, at the beginning of the show, you asked me where I work. And I work in a lab dedicated to doing this, to developing these technologies. It’s called Swamp Works, and it requires a lot of imagination, a lot of creativity, and so you have to set up an environment which is conducive to that. And, uh, it’s-it’s difficult. You’re really pushing the envelope of what’s feasible. Uh, what we’re doing is we’re looking at ways of using these resources. One good example is, uh, 3D printing. This is a new technology that’s, uh, barely 20 years old and, uh, it’s-it’s really changing the world. And it’s, uh, allowing us to look at new ways of manufacturing, uh, objects and structures. And so what we do is we actually use the local regolith, which is the crushed rock covering the surface of planetary bodies, and we use that crushed rock, and we make a concrete material out of it. And, uh, we actually 3D print with concrete. And we also have reinforcements in there which are basalt fiber, basalt glass fiber. So by doing this, suddenly all these things become feasible which before were not feasible. Now, where are-are we on that? We can’t do it yet today. Uh, typically, at NASA we have something called technology readiness level. It goes from 1 to 9. At 1 it’s just a-a basic principle that’s observed or formulated, and 9 has been in space. So we call this the-the ladder of technology development. And you have to go from one rung of the ladder to the next rung of the ladder, and that’s how the technology’s developed. And usually, at TRL 6, we’re ready for– to be considered for a flight. That’s when it’s developed for a flight. So typically, from 1 to 6 you’re in the lab. And currently, these technologies like 3D printing with regolith, that’s at about TRL 4, I would say, and that’s happening in the lab. Once we’ve developed in the lab, we’ve proven that it works, then we can go and make a real system out of it for space. >>
Host: So just takin’ that one, for instance– obviously you can’t predict the future, but as-as the pace is going and as things are developing, when-when do you hope to see that technology in space?
Rob Mueller: I would say realistically, it’s five to ten years away. Uh, a lot of it depends on the desire to do this. If we made it a priority, then we would put more resources on, more people on it, and, uh, we’d work it harder. So a lot of it just depends on-on how much of a priority it is. Uh, we’d like to see it happen. Uh, we think it’s a game changer. And, uh, so within five to ten years, we could do it, and we would probably test it on Earth first. And as a-a nice side benefit of this, a spinoff, we would be able to build houses on Earth quicker and cheaper, and they would be hurricane proof. So these are all very beneficial things on Earth here as well.
Host: So this technology not just good for the Moon or Mars, but it can be used here as well?
Rob Mueller: Absolutely. It’s-it’s something where you can use local materials anywhere you are and then make a structure out of it. And it also gives the architects design freedom. So now you can make structures that aren’t just shaped like a square or a rectangle. All kinds of new shapes are possible, new combinations. And so it frees the imagination. And, uh, this is what we call design freedom. And once you have that, you can also create structures that are stronger. Uh, so as we know, we have, uh, severe weather events– uh, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods. These will all require structures that are much stronger and, uh, can bear the brunt of these natural phenomena. And so we-we can do this with new materials and new technologies. And the cost will go down because of automation. So you combine all those three things, and you really have a completely new way of addressing the need for shelter. And everybody needs shelter on Earth.
Host: Awesome. Rob, uh, thanks for bein’ here today. Excited to see your progress in the coming years, and excited to see this stuff get used on Mars someday.
Rob Mueller: Yeah, we hope to use it very soon on Earth and test it here, and then we’ll go out into the exciting solar system.
Joshua Santora (Host): That’s our show. Thanks for stoppin’ by the rocket ranch. And special thanks to our guests, our sherpa on our path to Mars, Caley Burke, our plant people, Dr. Gioia Massa and Ralph Fritsche, and technology guru Rob Mueller. To learn more about all things Mars, you can head to mars.nasa.gov. There are also several NASA podcasts you can check out to learn more about the science happening all over our centers at nasa.gov/podcasts. And shout-out to my colleague Amanda Griffin, who helped with the interviews, our sound man Lorne Mathre, editor Frankie Martin, and our producer, Jessica Landa. Tune in next month to hear our episode all about traveling to the Sun. And remember: on the rocket ranch, even the sky isn’t the limit.