WEBVTT 00:00:01.190 --> 00:00:04.150 So many of you have probably seen the movie "The Martian." 00:00:05.380 --> 00:00:08.581 But for those of you who did not, it's a movie about an astronaut 00:00:08.982 --> 00:00:12.928 who is stranded on Mars and his efforts to stay alive 00:00:13.700 --> 00:00:17.466 until the Earth can send a rescue mission to bring him back to Earth. 00:00:19.277 --> 00:00:22.278 Gladly, they do re-establish communication 00:00:22.543 --> 00:00:25.080 with the character, Astronaut Watney, at some point 00:00:25.307 --> 00:00:30.350 so that he's not as alone on Mars until he can be rescued. 00:00:30.726 --> 00:00:33.517 So while you're watching the movie, or even if you haven't, 00:00:33.517 --> 00:00:36.441 when you think about Mars, you're probably thinking about 00:00:36.441 --> 00:00:39.435 how far away it is and how distant. 00:00:39.591 --> 00:00:42.486 And, what might not have occurred to you is, 00:00:42.692 --> 00:00:46.326 what are the logistics really like of working on another planet? 00:00:46.636 --> 00:00:48.937 Of living on two planets 00:00:48.937 --> 00:00:54.183 when there are people on the Earth and there are rovers or people on Mars? 00:00:54.719 --> 00:00:59.520 So think about when you have friends, families and co-workers in California, 00:00:59.520 --> 00:01:01.871 on the West Coast or in other parts of the world. 00:01:02.273 --> 00:01:04.333 When you're trying to communicate with them, 00:01:04.333 --> 00:01:06.967 one of the things you probably first think about is 00:01:06.967 --> 00:01:09.190 Wait, what time is it in California? 00:01:09.190 --> 00:01:11.880 Will I wake them up? Is it okay to call? 00:01:12.042 --> 00:01:15.076 So even if you're interacting with colleagues who are in Europe, 00:01:15.338 --> 00:01:17.648 you're immediately thinking about, 00:01:17.648 --> 00:01:20.929 what does it take to coordinate communication 00:01:21.734 --> 00:01:24.391 when people are far away? 00:01:25.144 --> 00:01:30.001 So we don't have people on Mars right now, but we do have rovers. 00:01:30.960 --> 00:01:35.332 And actually right now, on Curiosity, it is 6:10 in the morning. 00:01:35.912 --> 00:01:38.309 So, 6:10 in the morning on Mars. 00:01:39.029 --> 00:01:41.309 We have four rovers on Mars. 00:01:41.309 --> 00:01:45.486 The United States has put four rovers on Mars since the mid-1990s, 00:01:45.486 --> 00:01:48.786 and I have been privileged enough to work on three of them. 00:01:49.023 --> 00:01:52.985 So, I am a spacecraft engineer, a spacecraft operations engineer, 00:01:53.600 --> 00:01:57.614 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Los Angeles, California. 00:01:59.058 --> 00:02:02.320 And these rovers are our robotic emissaries. 00:02:03.096 --> 00:02:08.624 So, they are our eyes and our ears and they see the planet for us 00:02:09.313 --> 00:02:11.510 until we can send people. 00:02:11.714 --> 00:02:16.035 So we learn how to operate on other planets through these rovers. 00:02:16.793 --> 00:02:20.744 So before we send people, we send robots. 00:02:21.559 --> 00:02:25.141 So the reason there's a time difference on Mars right now, 00:02:25.436 --> 00:02:26.846 from the time that we're at 00:02:26.990 --> 00:02:30.483 is because the Martian day is longer than the Earth day. 00:02:31.412 --> 00:02:34.147 Our Earth day is 24 hours because 00:02:34.258 --> 00:02:36.980 that's how long it takes the Earth to rotate, 00:02:37.405 --> 00:02:39.154 how long it takes to go around once. 00:02:39.352 --> 00:02:41.264 So our day is 24 hours. 00:02:41.767 --> 00:02:47.645 It takes Mars 24 hours and approximately 40 minutes to rotate once. 00:02:48.404 --> 00:02:54.367 So that means that the Martian day is 40 minutes longer than the Earth day. 00:02:55.280 --> 00:02:59.771 So teams of people who are operating the rovers on Mars, like this one, 00:03:00.386 --> 00:03:05.741 what we are doing is we are living on Earth, but working on Mars. 00:03:06.043 --> 00:03:10.703 So we have to think as if we are actually on Mars with the rover. 00:03:11.789 --> 00:03:15.065 Our job, the job of this team, of which I'm a part of 00:03:15.398 --> 00:03:20.350 is to send commands to the rover to tell it what to do the next day. 00:03:21.087 --> 00:03:24.602 To tell it to drive or drill or tell her whatever she's supposed to do. 00:03:25.773 --> 00:03:29.478 So while she's sleeping -- and the rover does sleep at night 00:03:30.111 --> 00:03:32.230 because she needs to re-charge her batteries 00:03:32.554 --> 00:03:36.033 and she needs to weather the cold Martian night. 00:03:36.491 --> 00:03:37.894 And so she sleeps. 00:03:38.151 --> 00:03:42.304 So while she sleeps, we work on her program for the next day. 00:03:42.759 --> 00:03:45.338 So I work the Martian night shift. 00:03:45.528 --> 00:03:47.397 (Laughter) 00:03:47.668 --> 00:03:53.947 So in order to come to work on the Earth at the same time every day on Mars -- 00:03:54.107 --> 00:03:56.558 like, let's say I need to be at work at 5:00 pm, 00:03:56.558 --> 00:04:01.112 this team needs to be at work at 5:00 pm Mars time every day, 00:04:02.151 --> 00:04:09.356 then we have to come to work on the Earth 40 minutes later every day, 00:04:10.210 --> 00:04:12.362 in order to stay in sync with Mars. 00:04:12.590 --> 00:04:15.201 That's like moving a time zone every day. 00:04:15.639 --> 00:04:19.881 So one day you come in at 8:00, the next day 40 minutes later at 8:40, 00:04:20.978 --> 00:04:24.246 the next day 40 minutes later at 9:20, 00:04:24.363 --> 00:04:25.611 the next day at 10:00, 00:04:25.792 --> 00:04:28.458 so you keep moving 40 minutes every day, 00:04:29.198 --> 00:04:32.128 until soon you're coming to work in the middle of the night -- 00:04:32.407 --> 00:04:34.370 the middle of the Earth night. 00:04:34.370 --> 00:04:36.862 Right? So you can imagine how confusing that is. 00:04:37.871 --> 00:04:39.836 Hence, the Mars watch. 00:04:40.544 --> 00:04:42.265 This watch has been mechanically -- 00:04:42.536 --> 00:04:46.364 the weights have been mechanically adjusted so that it runs more slowly. 00:04:46.984 --> 00:04:48.862 RIght? And we didn't start out -- 00:04:49.146 --> 00:04:51.239 I got this watch in 2004 00:04:51.239 --> 00:04:54.139 when Spirit and Opportunity -- the rovers back then -- 00:04:54.552 --> 00:04:56.388 we didn't start out thinking 00:04:56.483 --> 00:04:58.519 that we were going to need Mars watches. 00:04:58.720 --> 00:05:02.384 Right? We thought, okay, we'll just have the time on our computers 00:05:03.387 --> 00:05:06.616 and on the mission control screens and that would be enough. 00:05:06.863 --> 00:05:08.417 Yeah, not so much. 00:05:08.470 --> 00:05:11.192 Because we weren't just working on Mars time, 00:05:11.282 --> 00:05:13.901 we were actually living on Mars time. 00:05:14.392 --> 00:05:18.091 And we got just instantaneously confused about what time it was. 00:05:18.570 --> 00:05:22.709 So you really needed something on your wrist to tell you: 00:05:23.192 --> 00:05:26.225 What time is it on the Earth, What time is it on Mars? 00:05:26.529 --> 00:05:31.689 And it wasn't just the time on Mars that was confusing, 00:05:32.025 --> 00:05:36.246 we also needed to be able to talk to each other about it. 00:05:37.552 --> 00:05:42.318 So a "sol" is a Martian day -- again, 24 hours and 40 minutes. 00:05:43.129 --> 00:05:46.375 So when we're talking about something that's happening on the earth, 00:05:46.375 --> 00:05:48.037 we will say, today. 00:05:48.289 --> 00:05:51.482 So, for Mars, we say, "tosol." 00:05:54.109 --> 00:05:58.199 Yesterday became 'yestersol' for Mars. 00:05:58.984 --> 00:06:03.058 Again, we didn't start out thinking, "oh let's invent a language." 00:06:03.296 --> 00:06:04.947 It was just very confusing. 00:06:04.947 --> 00:06:07.076 I remember someone walked up to me and said, 00:06:07.175 --> 00:06:10.630 "I would like to do this activity on the vehicle tomorrow, on the rover." 00:06:10.630 --> 00:06:16.411 And I said, "tomorrow, tomorrow, or Mars tomorrow?" Right? 00:06:16.581 --> 00:06:21.187 We started this terminology because we needed a way to talk to each other. 00:06:22.570 --> 00:06:26.558 Tomorrow became "nextersol" or "solorrow" 00:06:27.418 --> 00:06:30.552 because people had different preferences for the words they use. 00:06:30.966 --> 00:06:34.590 Some of you might say soda and some of you might say pop. 00:06:35.061 --> 00:06:38.545 So we have people who say nextersol or solorrow. 00:06:38.679 --> 00:06:42.771 And then something that I noticed after a few years of working on these missions, 00:06:43.143 --> 00:06:47.766 was that the people who work on the rovers, we say "tosol." 00:06:48.475 --> 00:06:51.886 The people who work on the landed missions that don't rove around, 00:06:52.180 --> 00:06:54.182 they say "tosol." [Different vowel sound] 00:06:54.264 --> 00:06:58.704 So I could actually tell what mission you worked on from your Martian accent. 00:06:59.059 --> 00:07:00.965 (Laughter) 00:07:02.049 --> 00:07:06.007 So we have the watches and the language and you're detecting a theme here, right? 00:07:06.007 --> 00:07:08.244 So that we don't get confused. 00:07:08.559 --> 00:07:12.060 But even the Earth daylight could confuse us. 00:07:12.669 --> 00:07:14.941 If you think that right now, you've come to work 00:07:15.081 --> 00:07:17.058 and it's the middle of the Martian night 00:07:17.058 --> 00:07:20.488 and there's light streaming in from the windows 00:07:20.578 --> 00:07:22.602 that's going to be confusing as well. 00:07:23.277 --> 00:07:25.643 So you can see from this image of the control room 00:07:25.684 --> 00:07:27.383 that all of the blinds are down. 00:07:28.093 --> 00:07:30.726 So that there's no light to distract us. 00:07:31.065 --> 00:07:35.108 The blinds went down all over the building about a week before landing 00:07:35.362 --> 00:07:38.358 and they didn't go up until we went off Mars time. 00:07:39.027 --> 00:07:42.114 So this also works for the house, for at home. 00:07:42.281 --> 00:07:45.275 I've been on Mars time three times, and my husband is like, 00:07:45.275 --> 00:07:47.245 okay, we're getting ready for Mars time. 00:07:47.245 --> 00:07:52.678 And so he'll put foil all over the windows and dark curtains and shades 00:07:53.229 --> 00:07:56.011 because it also affects your families. 00:07:56.315 --> 00:08:00.961 And so here I was living in kind of his darkened environment but so was he, 00:08:01.821 --> 00:08:03.177 and he'd gotten used to it, 00:08:03.230 --> 00:08:06.872 but then I would get these plaintive emails from him when he was at work. 00:08:07.361 --> 00:08:13.397 Should I come home? Are you awake? What time is it on Mars? 00:08:13.807 --> 00:08:16.198 And I decided, okay, so he needs a Mars watch. 00:08:16.409 --> 00:08:17.767 (Laughter) 00:08:18.166 --> 00:08:22.358 But of course, it's 2016, so there's an app for that. 00:08:23.549 --> 00:08:28.005 So now instead of the watches, we can also use our phones. 00:08:28.833 --> 00:08:32.624 But the impact on families was just across the board, 00:08:32.936 --> 00:08:36.178 it wasn't just those of us who were working on the rovers 00:08:36.542 --> 00:08:38.656 but our families as well. 00:08:38.835 --> 00:08:40.990 This is David O, one of our flight directors, 00:08:41.399 --> 00:08:45.174 and he's at the beach in Los Angeles with his family at 1:00 in the morning. 00:08:47.246 --> 00:08:50.156 So because we landed in August 00:08:50.348 --> 00:08:54.249 and his kids didn't have to go back to school until September, 00:08:54.684 --> 00:08:59.048 they actually went on to Mars time with him for one month. 00:08:59.462 --> 00:09:03.689 They got up 40 minutes later every day 00:09:04.273 --> 00:09:06.467 and they were on dad's work schedule. 00:09:06.661 --> 00:09:10.388 So they lived on Mars time for a month and had these great adventures, 00:09:10.388 --> 00:09:12.527 like going bowling in the middle of the night 00:09:12.527 --> 00:09:14.135 or going to the beach. 00:09:14.510 --> 00:09:17.318 And one of the things that we all discovered 00:09:17.722 --> 00:09:20.952 is you can get anywhere in Los Angeles 00:09:21.663 --> 00:09:25.215 at 3:00 in the morning when there's no traffic. 00:09:26.693 --> 00:09:28.934 So we would get off work and we -- 00:09:28.934 --> 00:09:31.420 we didn't want to go home and bother our families -- 00:09:31.420 --> 00:09:32.584 and we were hungry, 00:09:32.584 --> 00:09:34.762 so instead of going locally to eat something, 00:09:34.762 --> 00:09:37.893 we'd go, wait, there's this great all-night deli in Long Beach, 00:09:37.893 --> 00:09:40.095 and we can get there in 10 minutes. 00:09:40.219 --> 00:09:42.963 So we would drive down -- it was like the 60s, no traffic. 00:09:42.963 --> 00:09:46.143 We would drive down there, and the restaurant owners would go, 00:09:46.682 --> 00:09:48.745 Who are you people? 00:09:49.409 --> 00:09:53.054 And why are you at my restaurant at 3:00 in the morning? 00:09:54.191 --> 00:09:58.014 So they came to realize that there were these packs of Martians, 00:09:59.564 --> 00:10:04.002 roaming the LA freeways, in the middle of the night, 00:10:05.936 --> 00:10:07.890 in the middle of the Earth night. 00:10:07.983 --> 00:10:11.824 And we did actually start calling ourselves Martians. 00:10:13.296 --> 00:10:17.444 So those of us who were on Mars time would refer to ourselves as Martians 00:10:18.178 --> 00:10:20.934 and everyone else as Earthlings. 00:10:22.578 --> 00:10:27.338 And that's because when you're moving a time-zone every day, 00:10:28.265 --> 00:10:33.759 you start to really feel separated from everyone else. 00:10:34.145 --> 00:10:37.590 You're literally in your own world. 00:10:38.765 --> 00:10:45.854 So I have this button on that says, "I survived Mars time. Sol 0-90" 00:10:45.928 --> 00:10:48.203 and there's a picture of it up on the screen. 00:10:48.697 --> 00:10:53.312 So the reason we got these buttons is because we work on Mars time 00:10:54.131 --> 00:10:59.158 in order to be as efficient as possible with the rover on Mars, 00:10:59.271 --> 00:11:01.763 to make the best use of our time. 00:11:01.802 --> 00:11:05.348 But we don't stay on Mars time for more than three to four months. 00:11:05.586 --> 00:11:10.124 Eventually, we'll move to a modified Mars time, which is what we're working now. 00:11:10.379 --> 00:11:14.937 And that's because it's hard on your bodies, it's hard on your families. 00:11:15.243 --> 00:11:19.611 In fact, there were sleep researchers who actually were studying us 00:11:20.144 --> 00:11:24.993 because it was so unusual for humans to try to extend their day. 00:11:25.139 --> 00:11:29.455 And they had about 30 of us that they would do sleep deprivation experiments on. 00:11:30.334 --> 00:11:33.637 So I would come in and take the test and I fell asleep in each one, 00:11:34.049 --> 00:11:37.705 and that was because again, this was so, eventually 00:11:38.063 --> 00:11:40.655 it becomes hard on your body. 00:11:40.923 --> 00:11:44.359 Even though it was a blast. Right? 00:11:44.464 --> 00:11:48.070 It was a huge bonding experience with the other members on the team, 00:11:48.587 --> 00:11:51.351 but it is difficult to sustain. 00:11:52.329 --> 00:11:58.153 So these rover missions are our first steps out into the solar system. 00:11:58.563 --> 00:12:03.283 We are learning how to live on more than one planet. 00:12:03.629 --> 00:12:08.390 We are changing our perspective to become multi-planetary. 00:12:08.901 --> 00:12:11.590 So the next time you see a Star Wars movie, 00:12:11.933 --> 00:12:15.097 and there are people going from the Dagobah system to Tatooine, 00:12:15.675 --> 00:12:20.774 think about what it really means to have people spread out so far. 00:12:21.104 --> 00:12:24.015 What it means in terms of the distances between them, 00:12:24.202 --> 00:12:27.518 how they will start to feel separate from each other, 00:12:27.935 --> 00:12:31.572 and just the logistics of the time. 00:12:32.133 --> 00:12:35.758 We have not sent people to Mars yet, but we hope to. 00:12:36.459 --> 00:12:40.285 And between companies like SpaceX and NASA 00:12:40.542 --> 00:12:43.808 and all of the international space agencies of the world, 00:12:43.975 --> 00:12:47.325 we hope to do that in the next few decades. 00:12:47.711 --> 00:12:53.696 So soon we will have people on Mars and we truly will be multi-planetary. 00:12:54.045 --> 00:12:57.621 And the young boy or the young girl who are the people 00:12:57.989 --> 00:13:03.563 who will be going to Mars could be in this audience or listening today. 00:13:04.385 --> 00:13:09.376 I have wanted to work at JPL on these missions since I was 14-years-old 00:13:09.864 --> 00:13:11.980 and I am privileged to be a part of it. 00:13:12.171 --> 00:13:15.563 And this is a remarkable time in the space program, 00:13:16.188 --> 00:13:19.266 and we are all in this journey together. 00:13:19.453 --> 00:13:24.117 So the next time you think you don't have enough time in your day, 00:13:24.810 --> 00:13:28.988 just remember, it's all a matter of your Earthly perspective. 00:13:29.320 --> 00:13:31.450 Thank you.