1
00:00:01,054 --> 00:00:04,603
So many of you have probably seen
the movie "The Martian."

2
00:00:05,141 --> 00:00:08,958
But for those of you who did not,
it's a movie about an astronaut

3
00:00:08,982 --> 00:00:13,525
who is stranded on Mars,
and his efforts to stay alive

4
00:00:13,549 --> 00:00:18,045
until the Earth can send a rescue mission
to bring him back to Earth.

5
00:00:19,205 --> 00:00:22,344
Gladly, they do re-establish communication

6
00:00:22,368 --> 00:00:24,906
with the character,
astronaut Watney, at some point

7
00:00:24,930 --> 00:00:30,201
so that he's not as alone
on Mars until he can be rescued.

8
00:00:30,726 --> 00:00:33,488
So while you're watching the movie,
or even if you haven't,

9
00:00:33,512 --> 00:00:35,060
when you think about Mars,

10
00:00:35,084 --> 00:00:39,884
you're probably thinking about
how far away it is and how distant.

11
00:00:39,908 --> 00:00:42,487
And, what might not
have occurred to you is,

12
00:00:42,511 --> 00:00:46,408
what are the logistics really like
of working on another planet --

13
00:00:46,432 --> 00:00:48,678
of living on two planets

14
00:00:48,702 --> 00:00:54,536
when there are people on the Earth
and there are rovers or people on Mars?

15
00:00:54,560 --> 00:00:58,718
So think about when you have friends,
families and co-workers

16
00:00:58,742 --> 00:01:01,900
in California, on the West Coast
or in other parts of the world.

17
00:01:02,225 --> 00:01:04,278
When you're trying
to communicate with them,

18
00:01:04,302 --> 00:01:06,740
one of the things
you probably first think about is:

19
00:01:06,764 --> 00:01:08,860
wait, what time is it in California?

20
00:01:08,884 --> 00:01:11,479
Will I wake them up? Is it OK to call?

21
00:01:11,883 --> 00:01:15,234
So even if you're interacting
with colleagues who are in Europe,

22
00:01:15,258 --> 00:01:17,300
you're immediately thinking about:

23
00:01:17,324 --> 00:01:24,324
What does it take to coordinate
communication when people are far away?

24
00:01:24,973 --> 00:01:30,557
So we don't have people on Mars
right now, but we do have rovers.

25
00:01:30,581 --> 00:01:35,686
And actually right now, on Curiosity,
it is 6:10 in the morning.

26
00:01:35,710 --> 00:01:38,481
So, 6:10 in the morning on Mars.

27
00:01:38,876 --> 00:01:40,877
We have four rovers on Mars.

28
00:01:40,901 --> 00:01:44,908
The United States has put four rovers
on Mars since the mid-1990s,

29
00:01:44,932 --> 00:01:48,871
and I have been privileged enough
to work on three of them.

30
00:01:48,895 --> 00:01:53,416
So, I am a spacecraft engineer,
a spacecraft operations engineer,

31
00:01:53,440 --> 00:01:58,287
at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
in Los Angeles, California.

32
00:01:58,856 --> 00:02:03,017
And these rovers
are our robotic emissaries.

33
00:02:03,041 --> 00:02:09,319
So, they are our eyes and our ears,
and they see the planet for us

34
00:02:09,343 --> 00:02:11,176
until we can send people.

35
00:02:11,200 --> 00:02:16,493
So we learn how to operate
on other planets through these rovers.

36
00:02:16,517 --> 00:02:20,823
So before we send people, we send robots.

37
00:02:21,326 --> 00:02:25,277
So the reason there's a time difference
on Mars right now,

38
00:02:25,301 --> 00:02:26,603
from the time that we're at

39
00:02:26,627 --> 00:02:30,601
is because the Martian day
is longer than the Earth day.

40
00:02:30,954 --> 00:02:33,751
Our Earth day is 24 hours,

41
00:02:33,775 --> 00:02:37,149
because that's how long it takes
the Earth to rotate,

42
00:02:37,173 --> 00:02:39,174
how long it takes to go around once.

43
00:02:39,198 --> 00:02:41,110
So our day is 24 hours.

44
00:02:41,486 --> 00:02:48,306
It takes Mars 24 hours and approximately
40 minutes to rotate once.

45
00:02:48,330 --> 00:02:54,748
So that means that the Martian day
is 40 minutes longer than the Earth day.

46
00:02:55,207 --> 00:03:00,362
So teams of people who are operating
the rovers on Mars, like this one,

47
00:03:00,386 --> 00:03:05,798
what we are doing is we are living
on Earth, but working on Mars.

48
00:03:05,822 --> 00:03:11,287
So we have to think as if we are actually
on Mars with the rover.

49
00:03:11,654 --> 00:03:15,233
Our job, the job of this team,
of which I'm a part of,

50
00:03:15,257 --> 00:03:21,186
is to send commands to the rover
to tell it what to do the next day.

51
00:03:21,210 --> 00:03:25,239
To tell it to drive or drill
or tell her whatever she's supposed to do.

52
00:03:25,553 --> 00:03:30,019
So while she's sleeping --
and the rover does sleep at night

53
00:03:30,043 --> 00:03:32,413
because she needs
to recharge her batteries

54
00:03:32,437 --> 00:03:36,333
and she needs to weather
the cold Martian night.

55
00:03:36,357 --> 00:03:37,719
And so she sleeps.

56
00:03:37,743 --> 00:03:42,511
So while she sleeps, we work
on her program for the next day.

57
00:03:42,857 --> 00:03:45,839
So I work the Martian night shift.

58
00:03:45,863 --> 00:03:47,454
(Laughter)

59
00:03:47,478 --> 00:03:54,106
So in order to come to work on the Earth
at the same time every day on Mars --

60
00:03:54,130 --> 00:03:56,534
like, let's say I need to be
at work at 5:00 p.m.,

61
00:03:56,558 --> 00:04:02,127
this team needs to be at work
at 5:00 p.m. Mars time every day,

62
00:04:02,151 --> 00:04:09,151
then we have to come to work
on the Earth 40 minutes later every day,

63
00:04:10,142 --> 00:04:12,321
in order to stay in sync with Mars.

64
00:04:12,345 --> 00:04:15,297
That's like moving a time zone every day.

65
00:04:15,321 --> 00:04:20,776
So one day you come in at 8:00,
the next day 40 minutes later at 8:40,

66
00:04:20,800 --> 00:04:24,069
the next day 40 minutes later at 9:20,

67
00:04:24,093 --> 00:04:25,682
the next day at 10:00.

68
00:04:25,706 --> 00:04:29,284
So you keep moving 40 minutes every day,

69
00:04:29,308 --> 00:04:32,297
until soon you're coming to work
in the middle of the night --

70
00:04:32,321 --> 00:04:34,138
the middle of the Earth night.

71
00:04:34,162 --> 00:04:37,780
Right? So you can imagine
how confusing that is.

72
00:04:37,804 --> 00:04:39,956
Hence, the Mars watch.

73
00:04:39,980 --> 00:04:40,981
(Laughter)

74
00:04:41,005 --> 00:04:44,523
This weights in this watch
have been mechanically adjusted

75
00:04:44,547 --> 00:04:47,075
so that it runs more slowly.

76
00:04:47,099 --> 00:04:48,988
Right? And we didn't start out --

77
00:04:49,012 --> 00:04:51,238
I got this watch in 2004

78
00:04:51,262 --> 00:04:54,566
when Spirit and Opportunity,
the rovers back then.

79
00:04:54,590 --> 00:04:56,196
We didn't start out thinking

80
00:04:56,220 --> 00:04:58,651
that we were going to need Mars watches.

81
00:04:58,675 --> 00:05:03,106
Right? We thought, OK,
we'll just have the time on our computers

82
00:05:03,130 --> 00:05:06,778
and on the mission control screens,
and that would be enough.

83
00:05:06,802 --> 00:05:08,183
Yeah, not so much.

84
00:05:08,207 --> 00:05:11,056
Because we weren't just
working on Mars time,

85
00:05:11,080 --> 00:05:14,239
we were actually living on Mars time.

86
00:05:14,263 --> 00:05:18,546
And we got just instantaneously confused
about what time it was.

87
00:05:18,570 --> 00:05:22,363
So you really needed something
on your wrist to tell you:

88
00:05:22,387 --> 00:05:25,678
What time is it on the Earth?
What time is it on Mars?

89
00:05:26,107 --> 00:05:32,001
And it wasn't just the time on Mars
that was confusing;

90
00:05:32,025 --> 00:05:36,794
we also needed to be able
to talk to each other about it.

91
00:05:37,337 --> 00:05:42,964
So a "sol" is a Martian day --
again, 24 hours and 40 minutes.

92
00:05:42,988 --> 00:05:46,183
So when we're talking about something
that's happening on the Earth,

93
00:05:46,207 --> 00:05:47,516
we will say, today.

94
00:05:48,228 --> 00:05:51,060
So, for Mars, we say, "tosol."

95
00:05:51,084 --> 00:05:52,922
(Laughter)

96
00:05:53,992 --> 00:05:58,509
Yesterday became "yestersol" for Mars.

97
00:05:58,837 --> 00:06:03,344
Again, we didn't start out thinking,
"Oh, let's invent a language."

98
00:06:03,368 --> 00:06:04,658
It was just very confusing.

99
00:06:04,682 --> 00:06:06,863
I remember somebody
walked up to me and said,

100
00:06:06,887 --> 00:06:10,320
"I would like to do this activity
on the vehicle tomorrow, on the rover."

101
00:06:10,344 --> 00:06:15,455
And I said, "Tomorrow, tomorrow,
or Mars, tomorrow?"

102
00:06:15,987 --> 00:06:21,039
We started this terminology because
we needed a way to talk to each other.

103
00:06:21,063 --> 00:06:22,191
(Laughter)

104
00:06:22,215 --> 00:06:26,491
Tomorrow became "nextersol" or "solorrow."

105
00:06:27,216 --> 00:06:30,831
Because people have different preferences
for the words they use.

106
00:06:30,855 --> 00:06:34,231
Some of you might say "soda"
and some of you might say "pop."

107
00:06:34,829 --> 00:06:38,035
So we have people who say
"nextersol" or "solorrow."

108
00:06:38,562 --> 00:06:43,286
And then something that I noticed after
a few years of working on these missions,

109
00:06:43,310 --> 00:06:47,962
was that the people who work
on the rovers, we say "tosol."

110
00:06:48,426 --> 00:06:51,960
The people who work on the
landed missions that don't rove around,

111
00:06:51,984 --> 00:06:53,456
they say "tosoul."

112
00:06:53,958 --> 00:06:58,677
So I could actually tell what mission
you worked on from your Martian accent.

113
00:06:58,701 --> 00:07:01,951
(Laughter)

114
00:07:01,975 --> 00:07:05,835
So we have the watches and the language,
and you're detecting a theme here, right?

115
00:07:05,859 --> 00:07:07,855
So that we don't get confused.

116
00:07:08,419 --> 00:07:12,226
But even the Earth daylight
could confuse us.

117
00:07:12,669 --> 00:07:15,008
If you think that right now,
you've come to work

118
00:07:15,032 --> 00:07:17,127
and it's the middle of the Martian night

119
00:07:17,151 --> 00:07:20,449
and there's light streaming in
from the windows

120
00:07:20,473 --> 00:07:22,621
that's going to be confusing as well.

121
00:07:23,081 --> 00:07:25,586
So you can see from
this image of the control room

122
00:07:25,610 --> 00:07:27,879
that all of the blinds are down.

123
00:07:27,903 --> 00:07:30,906
So that there's no light to distract us.

124
00:07:30,930 --> 00:07:35,282
The blinds went down all over the building
about a week before landing,

125
00:07:35,306 --> 00:07:38,573
and they didn't go up
until we went off Mars time.

126
00:07:39,027 --> 00:07:42,208
So this also works
for the house, for at home.

127
00:07:42,232 --> 00:07:45,005
I've been on Mars time three times,
and my husband is like,

128
00:07:45,029 --> 00:07:46,844
OK, we're getting ready for Mars time.

129
00:07:46,868 --> 00:07:53,070
And so he'll put foil all over the windows
and dark curtains and shades

130
00:07:53,094 --> 00:07:56,241
because it also affects your families.

131
00:07:56,265 --> 00:08:01,144
And so here I was living in kind of
this darkened environment, but so was he.

132
00:08:01,705 --> 00:08:03,001
And he'd gotten used to it.

133
00:08:03,025 --> 00:08:06,667
But then I would get these plaintive
emails from him when he was at work.

134
00:08:07,257 --> 00:08:10,549
Should I come home? Are you awake?

135
00:08:10,573 --> 00:08:13,703
What time is it on Mars?

136
00:08:13,727 --> 00:08:16,225
And I decided, OK,
so he needs a Mars watch.

137
00:08:16,249 --> 00:08:17,784
(Laughter)

138
00:08:17,808 --> 00:08:22,242
But of course, it's 2016,
so there's an app for that.

139
00:08:22,266 --> 00:08:23,544
(Laughter)

140
00:08:23,568 --> 00:08:28,182
So now instead of the watches,
we can also use our phones.

141
00:08:28,600 --> 00:08:32,740
But the impact on families
was just across the board;

142
00:08:32,764 --> 00:08:36,426
it wasn't just those of us
who were working on the rovers

143
00:08:36,450 --> 00:08:38,664
but our families as well.

144
00:08:38,688 --> 00:08:41,167
This is David Oh,
one of our flight directors,

145
00:08:41,191 --> 00:08:45,665
and he's at the beach in Los Angeles
with his family at 1:00 in the morning.

146
00:08:45,689 --> 00:08:47,112
(Laughter)

147
00:08:47,136 --> 00:08:50,116
So because we landed in August

148
00:08:50,140 --> 00:08:54,586
and his kids didn't have to go back
to school until September,

149
00:08:54,610 --> 00:08:59,358
they actually went on to Mars time
with him for one month.

150
00:08:59,382 --> 00:09:04,151
They got up 40 minutes later every day.

151
00:09:04,175 --> 00:09:06,358
And they were on dad's work schedule.

152
00:09:06,382 --> 00:09:10,357
So they lived on Mars time for a month
and had these great adventures,

153
00:09:10,381 --> 00:09:12,478
like going bowling
in the middle of the night

154
00:09:12,502 --> 00:09:13,820
or going to the beach.

155
00:09:14,149 --> 00:09:17,508
And one of the things
that we all discovered

156
00:09:17,532 --> 00:09:21,520
is you can get anywhere in Los Angeles

157
00:09:21,544 --> 00:09:25,097
at 3:00 in the morning
when there's no traffic.

158
00:09:25,121 --> 00:09:26,595
(Laughter)

159
00:09:26,619 --> 00:09:27,811
So we would get off work,

160
00:09:27,835 --> 00:09:30,950
and we didn't want to go home
and bother our families,

161
00:09:30,974 --> 00:09:34,164
and we were hungry, so instead of
going locally to eat something,

162
00:09:34,188 --> 00:09:37,752
we'd go, "Wait, there's this great
all-night deli in Long Beach,

163
00:09:37,776 --> 00:09:40,018
and we can get there in 10 minutes!"

164
00:09:40,042 --> 00:09:42,763
So we would drive down --
it was like the 60s, no traffic.

165
00:09:42,787 --> 00:09:46,542
We would drive down there,
and the restaurant owners would go,

166
00:09:46,566 --> 00:09:48,728
"Who are you people?

167
00:09:49,421 --> 00:09:53,594
And why are you at my restaurant
at 3:00 in the morning?"

168
00:09:53,958 --> 00:09:58,848
So they came to realize
that there were these packs of Martians,

169
00:09:59,661 --> 00:10:04,326
roaming the LA freeways,
in the middle of the night --

170
00:10:05,288 --> 00:10:07,311
in the middle of the Earth night.

171
00:10:07,335 --> 00:10:12,132
And we did actually
start calling ourselves Martians.

172
00:10:12,581 --> 00:10:18,187
So those of us who were on Mars time
would refer to ourselves as Martians,

173
00:10:18,211 --> 00:10:21,064
and everyone else as Earthlings.

174
00:10:21,088 --> 00:10:22,388
(Laughter)

175
00:10:22,412 --> 00:10:28,107
And that's because when you're moving
a time-zone every day,

176
00:10:28,131 --> 00:10:33,944
you start to really feel separated
from everyone else.

177
00:10:33,968 --> 00:10:37,887
You're literally in your own world.

178
00:10:38,704 --> 00:10:45,629
So I have this button on that says,
"I survived Mars time. Sol 0-90."

179
00:10:45,653 --> 00:10:48,398
And there's a picture of it
up on the screen.

180
00:10:48,422 --> 00:10:54,051
So the reason we got these buttons
is because we work on Mars time

181
00:10:54,075 --> 00:10:59,124
in order to be as efficient as possible
with the rover on Mars,

182
00:10:59,148 --> 00:11:01,438
to make the best use of our time.

183
00:11:01,462 --> 00:11:05,348
But we don't stay on Mars time
for more than three to four months.

184
00:11:05,372 --> 00:11:09,640
Eventually, we'll move to a modified Mars
time, which is what we're working now.

185
00:11:10,379 --> 00:11:15,036
And that's because it's hard on
your bodies, it's hard on your families.

186
00:11:15,060 --> 00:11:19,942
In fact, there were sleep researchers
who actually were studying us

187
00:11:19,966 --> 00:11:25,003
because it was so unusual for humans
to try to extend their day.

188
00:11:25,327 --> 00:11:26,617
And they had about 30 of us

189
00:11:26,641 --> 00:11:30,267
that they would do
sleep deprivation experiments on.

190
00:11:30,291 --> 00:11:33,854
So I would come in and take the test
and I fell asleep in each one.

191
00:11:33,878 --> 00:11:40,520
And that was because, again,
this eventually becomes hard on your body.

192
00:11:40,544 --> 00:11:43,859
Even though it was a blast.

193
00:11:43,883 --> 00:11:48,397
It was a huge bonding experience
with the other members on the team,

194
00:11:48,421 --> 00:11:51,261
but it is difficult to sustain.

195
00:11:52,243 --> 00:11:58,428
So these rover missions are our first
steps out into the solar system.

196
00:11:58,452 --> 00:12:03,525
We are learning how to live
on more than one planet.

197
00:12:03,549 --> 00:12:08,625
We are changing our perspective
to become multi-planetary.

198
00:12:08,943 --> 00:12:11,738
So the next time you see
a Star Wars movie,

199
00:12:11,762 --> 00:12:15,437
and there are people going
from the Dagobah system to Tatooine,

200
00:12:15,461 --> 00:12:20,951
think about what it really means to have
people spread out so far.

201
00:12:20,975 --> 00:12:24,037
What it means in terms
of the distances between them,

202
00:12:24,061 --> 00:12:27,881
how they will start to feel
separate from each other

203
00:12:27,905 --> 00:12:31,129
and just the logistics of the time.

204
00:12:31,937 --> 00:12:36,489
We have not sent people
to Mars yet, but we hope to.

205
00:12:36,513 --> 00:12:40,352
And between companies like SpaceX and NASA

206
00:12:40,376 --> 00:12:43,865
and all of the international
space agencies of the world,

207
00:12:43,889 --> 00:12:47,656
we hope to do that
in the next few decades.

208
00:12:47,680 --> 00:12:53,505
So soon we will have people on Mars,
and we truly will be multi-planetary.

209
00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:56,412
And the young boy or the young girl

210
00:12:56,436 --> 00:13:03,436
who will be going to Mars could be
in this audience or listening today.

211
00:13:04,201 --> 00:13:09,803
I have wanted to work at JPL
on these missions since I was 14 years old

212
00:13:09,827 --> 00:13:12,049
and I am privileged to be a part of it.

213
00:13:12,073 --> 00:13:16,127
And this is a remarkable time
in the space program,

214
00:13:16,151 --> 00:13:19,325
and we are all in this journey together.

215
00:13:19,349 --> 00:13:24,560
So the next time you think
you don't have enough time in your day,

216
00:13:24,584 --> 00:13:29,362
just remember, it's all a matter
of your Earthly perspective.

217
00:13:29,386 --> 00:13:30,537
Thank you.

218
00:13:30,561 --> 00:13:34,675
(Applause)