WEBVTT

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So many of you have probably seen
the movie "The Martian."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But for those of you who did not,
it's a movie about an astronaut

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who is stranded on Mars
and his efforts to stay alive

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
until the Earth can send a rescue mission
to bring him back to Earth.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Gladly, they do re-establish communication
with the character, astronaut Watney,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
at some point, so that he's not as alone
on Mars until he can be rescued.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So while you're watching the movie,
and even if you haven't,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
when you think about Mars,
you're probably thinking about

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
how far away it is and how distant.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And, what might not
have occurred to you is,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what are the logistics really like
of working on another planet?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Of living on two planets when

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
there are people on the Earth and
there are rovers or people on Mars?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So think about when you have friends,
families and co-workers in California,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
on the West Coast
or in other parts of the world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When you're trying to communicate
with them, one of the things

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you probably first think about is --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Wait, what time is it in California?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Will I wake them up? Is it okay to call?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So even if you're interacting
with colleagues who are in Europe,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you're immediately thinking about,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what does it take to coordinate
communication when people are far away?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So we don't have people on Mars right now,
but we do have rovers.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And actually right now, on Curiosity,
it is 6:10 in the morning on Mars.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We have four rovers on Mars.
The United States has put four rovers

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
on Mars since the mid-1990s,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and I have been privileged enough
to work on three of them.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So, I am a spacecraft engineer,
a spacecraft operations engineer,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
in Los Angeles, California.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And these rovers are robotic emissaries.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So, they are our eyes and our ears
and they see the planet for us

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
until we can send people.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So we learn how to operate
on other planets through these rovers.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So before we send people, we send robots.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So the reason there's a time difference
on Mars right now,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from the time that we're at

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is because the Martian day
is longer than the Earth day.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Our Earth day is 24 hours because that's

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
how long it takes the Earth to rotate,
how long it takes to go around once.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So our day is 24 hours.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It takes Mars 24 hours and
approximately 40 minutes to rotate once.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So that means that the Martian day
is 40 minutes longer than the Earth day.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So teams of people who are operating
the rovers on Mars, like this one,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what we are doing is we are
living on Earth, but working on Mars.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So we have to think as if we are actually
on Mars with the Rover.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Our job, the job of this team, of which I'm a part of is to send commands to the rover to tell it what to do the next day. To tell it to drive or drill or tell her whatever she's supposed to do. So while she's sleeping -- and the rover does sleep at night because she needs to re-charge her battery and she needs to weather the cold Martian night.