WEBVTT 00:00:01.054 --> 00:00:04.603 So many of you have probably seen the movie "The Martian." 00:00:05.141 --> 00:00:08.958 But for those of you who did not, it's a movie about an astronaut 00:00:08.982 --> 00:00:13.525 who is stranded on Mars, and his efforts to stay alive 00:00:13.549 --> 00:00:18.045 until the Earth can send a rescue mission to bring him back to Earth. 00:00:19.205 --> 00:00:22.344 Gladly, they do re-establish communication 00:00:22.368 --> 00:00:24.906 with the character, astronaut Watney, at some point 00:00:24.930 --> 00:00:30.201 so that he's not as alone on Mars until he can be rescued. 00:00:30.726 --> 00:00:33.488 So while you're watching the movie, or even if you haven't, 00:00:33.512 --> 00:00:35.060 when you think about Mars, 00:00:35.084 --> 00:00:39.884 you're probably thinking about how far away it is and how distant. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:39.908 --> 00:00:42.487 And, what might not have occurred to you is, 00:00:42.511 --> 00:00:46.408 what are the logistics really like of working on another planet -- 00:00:46.432 --> 00:00:48.678 of living on two planets 00:00:48.702 --> 00:00:54.536 when there are people on the Earth and there are rovers or people on Mars? 00:00:54.560 --> 00:00:58.718 So think about when you have friends, families and co-workers 00:00:58.742 --> 00:01:01.900 in California, on the West Coast or in other parts of the world. 00:01:02.225 --> 00:01:04.278 When you're trying to communicate with them, 00:01:04.302 --> 00:01:06.740 one of the things you probably first think about is: 00:01:06.764 --> 00:01:08.860 wait, what time is it in California? 00:01:08.884 --> 00:01:11.479 Will I wake them up? Is it OK to call? 00:01:11.883 --> 00:01:15.234 So even if you're interacting with colleagues who are in Europe, 00:01:15.258 --> 00:01:17.300 you're immediately thinking about: 00:01:17.324 --> 00:01:24.324 What does it take to coordinate communication when people are far away? 00:01:24.973 --> 00:01:30.557 So we don't have people on Mars right now, but we do have rovers. 00:01:30.581 --> 00:01:35.686 And actually right now, on Curiosity, it is 6:10 in the morning. 00:01:35.710 --> 00:01:38.481 So, 6:10 in the morning on Mars. 00:01:38.876 --> 00:01:40.877 We have four rovers on Mars. 00:01:40.901 --> 00:01:44.908 The United States has put four rovers on Mars since the mid-1990s, 00:01:44.932 --> 00:01:48.871 and I have been privileged enough to work on three of them. 00:01:48.895 --> 00:01:53.416 So, I am a spacecraft engineer, a spacecraft operations engineer, 00:01:53.440 --> 00:01:58.287 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Los Angeles, California. 00:01:58.856 --> 00:02:03.017 And these rovers are our robotic emissaries. 00:02:03.041 --> 00:02:09.319 So, they are our eyes and our ears, and they see the planet for us 00:02:09.343 --> 00:02:11.176 until we can send people. 00:02:11.200 --> 00:02:16.493 So we learn how to operate on other planets through these rovers. 00:02:16.517 --> 00:02:20.823 So before we send people, we send robots. 00:02:21.326 --> 00:02:25.277 So the reason there's a time difference on Mars right now, 00:02:25.301 --> 00:02:26.603 from the time that we're at 00:02:26.627 --> 00:02:30.601 is because the Martian day is longer than the Earth day. 00:02:30.954 --> 00:02:33.751 Our Earth day is 24 hours, 00:02:33.775 --> 00:02:37.149 because that's how long it takes the Earth to rotate, 00:02:37.173 --> 00:02:39.174 how long it takes to go around once. 00:02:39.198 --> 00:02:41.110 So our day is 24 hours. 00:02:41.486 --> 00:02:48.306 It takes Mars 24 hours and approximately 40 minutes to rotate once. 00:02:48.330 --> 00:02:54.748 So that means that the Martian day is 40 minutes longer than the Earth day. 00:02:55.207 --> 00:03:00.362 So teams of people who are operating the rovers on Mars, like this one, 00:03:00.386 --> 00:03:05.798 what we are doing is we are living on Earth, but working on Mars. 00:03:05.822 --> 00:03:11.287 So we have to think as if we are actually on Mars with the rover. 00:03:11.654 --> 00:03:15.233 Our job, the job of this team, of which I'm a part of, 00:03:15.257 --> 00:03:21.186 is to send commands to the rover to tell it what to do the next day. 00:03:21.210 --> 00:03:25.239 To tell it to drive or drill or tell her whatever she's supposed to do. 00:03:25.553 --> 00:03:30.019 So while she's sleeping -- and the rover does sleep at night 00:03:30.043 --> 00:03:32.413 because she needs to recharge her batteries 00:03:32.437 --> 00:03:36.333 and she needs to weather the cold Martian night. 00:03:36.357 --> 00:03:37.719 And so she sleeps. 00:03:37.743 --> 00:03:42.511 So while she sleeps, we work on her program for the next day. 00:03:42.857 --> 00:03:45.839 So I work the Martian night shift. 00:03:45.863 --> 00:03:47.454 (Laughter) 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 -- 00:03:54.130 --> 00:03:56.534 like, let's say I need to be at work at 5:00 p.m., 00:03:56.558 --> 00:04:02.127 this team needs to be at work at 5:00 p.m. Mars time every day, 00:04:02.151 --> 00:04:09.151 then we have to come to work on the Earth 40 minutes later every day, 00:04:10.142 --> 00:04:12.321 in order to stay in sync with Mars. 00:04:12.345 --> 00:04:15.297 That's like moving a time zone every day. 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, 00:04:20.800 --> 00:04:24.069 the next day 40 minutes later at 9:20, 00:04:24.093 --> 00:04:25.682 the next day at 10:00. 00:04:25.706 --> 00:04:29.284 So you keep moving 40 minutes every day, 00:04:29.308 --> 00:04:32.297 until soon you're coming to work in the middle of the night -- 00:04:32.321 --> 00:04:34.138 the middle of the Earth night. 00:04:34.162 --> 00:04:37.780 Right? So you can imagine how confusing that is. 00:04:37.804 --> 00:04:39.956 Hence, the Mars watch. 00:04:39.980 --> 00:04:40.981 (Laughter) 00:04:41.005 --> 00:04:44.523 This weights in this watch have been mechanically adjusted 00:04:44.547 --> 00:04:47.075 so that it runs more slowly. 00:04:47.099 --> 00:04:48.988 Right? And we didn't start out -- 00:04:49.012 --> 00:04:51.238 I got this watch in 2004 00:04:51.262 --> 00:04:54.566 when Spirit and Opportunity, the rovers back then. 00:04:54.590 --> 00:04:56.196 We didn't start out thinking 00:04:56.220 --> 00:04:58.651 that we were going to need Mars watches. 00:04:58.675 --> 00:05:03.106 Right? We thought, OK, we'll just have the time on our computers 00:05:03.130 --> 00:05:06.778 and on the mission control screens, and that would be enough. 00:05:06.802 --> 00:05:08.183 Yeah, not so much. 00:05:08.207 --> 00:05:11.056 Because we weren't just working on Mars time, 00:05:11.080 --> 00:05:14.239 we were actually living on Mars time. 00:05:14.263 --> 00:05:18.546 And we got just instantaneously confused about what time it was. 00:05:18.570 --> 00:05:22.363 So you really needed something on your wrist to tell you: 00:05:22.387 --> 00:05:25.678 What time is it on the Earth? What time is it on Mars? 00:05:26.107 --> 00:05:32.001 And it wasn't just the time on Mars that was confusing; 00:05:32.025 --> 00:05:36.794 we also needed to be able to talk to each other about it. 00:05:37.337 --> 00:05:42.964 So a "sol" is a Martian day -- again, 24 hours and 40 minutes. 00:05:42.988 --> 00:05:46.183 So when we're talking about something that's happening on the Earth, 00:05:46.207 --> 00:05:47.516 we will say, today. 00:05:48.228 --> 00:05:51.060 So, for Mars, we say, "tosol." 00:05:51.084 --> 00:05:52.922 (Laughter) 00:05:53.992 --> 00:05:58.509 Yesterday became "yestersol" for Mars. 00:05:58.837 --> 00:06:03.344 Again, we didn't start out thinking, "Oh, let's invent a language." 00:06:03.368 --> 00:06:04.658 It was just very confusing. 00:06:04.682 --> 00:06:06.863 I remember somebody walked up to me and said, 00:06:06.887 --> 00:06:10.320 "I would like to do this activity on the vehicle tomorrow, on the rover." 00:06:10.344 --> 00:06:15.455 And I said, "Tomorrow, tomorrow, or Mars, tomorrow?" 00:06:15.987 --> 00:06:21.039 We started this terminology because we needed a way to talk to each other. 00:06:21.063 --> 00:06:22.191 (Laughter) 00:06:22.215 --> 00:06:26.491 Tomorrow became "nextersol" or "solorrow." 00:06:27.216 --> 00:06:30.831 Because people have different preferences for the words they use. 00:06:30.855 --> 00:06:34.231 Some of you might say "soda" and some of you might say "pop." 00:06:34.829 --> 00:06:38.035 So we have people who say "nextersol" or "solorrow." 00:06:38.562 --> 00:06:43.286 And then something that I noticed after a few years of working on these missions, 00:06:43.310 --> 00:06:47.962 was that the people who work on the rovers, we say "tosol." 00:06:48.426 --> 00:06:51.960 The people who work on the landed missions that don't rove around, 00:06:51.984 --> 00:06:53.456 they say "tosoul." 00:06:53.958 --> 00:06:58.677 So I could actually tell what mission you worked on from your Martian accent. 00:06:58.701 --> 00:07:01.951 (Laughter) 00:07:01.975 --> 00:07:05.835 So we have the watches and the language, and you're detecting a theme here, right? 00:07:05.859 --> 00:07:07.855 So that we don't get confused. 00:07:08.419 --> 00:07:12.226 But even the Earth daylight could confuse us. 00:07:12.669 --> 00:07:15.008 If you think that right now, you've come to work 00:07:15.032 --> 00:07:17.127 and it's the middle of the Martian night 00:07:17.151 --> 00:07:20.449 and there's light streaming in from the windows 00:07:20.473 --> 00:07:22.621 that's going to be confusing as well. 00:07:23.081 --> 00:07:25.586 So you can see from this image of the control room 00:07:25.610 --> 00:07:27.879 that all of the blinds are down. 00:07:27.903 --> 00:07:30.906 So that there's no light to distract us. 00:07:30.930 --> 00:07:35.282 The blinds went down all over the building about a week before landing, 00:07:35.306 --> 00:07:38.573 and they didn't go up until we went off Mars time. 00:07:39.027 --> 00:07:42.208 So this also works for the house, for at home. 00:07:42.232 --> 00:07:45.005 I've been on Mars time three times, and my husband is like, 00:07:45.029 --> 00:07:46.844 OK, we're getting ready for Mars time. 00:07:46.868 --> 00:07:53.070 And so he'll put foil all over the windows and dark curtains and shades 00:07:53.094 --> 00:07:56.241 because it also affects your families. 00:07:56.265 --> 00:08:01.144 And so here I was living in kind of this darkened environment, but so was he. 00:08:01.705 --> 00:08:03.001 And he'd gotten used to it. 00:08:03.025 --> 00:08:06.667 But then I would get these plaintive emails from him when he was at work. 00:08:07.257 --> 00:08:10.549 Should I come home? Are you awake? 00:08:10.573 --> 00:08:13.703 What time is it on Mars? 00:08:13.727 --> 00:08:16.225 And I decided, OK, so he needs a Mars watch. 00:08:16.249 --> 00:08:17.784 (Laughter) 00:08:17.808 --> 00:08:22.242 But of course, it's 2016, so there's an app for that. 00:08:22.266 --> 00:08:23.544 (Laughter) 00:08:23.568 --> 00:08:28.182 So now instead of the watches, we can also use our phones. 00:08:28.600 --> 00:08:32.740 But the impact on families was just across the board; 00:08:32.764 --> 00:08:36.426 it wasn't just those of us who were working on the rovers 00:08:36.450 --> 00:08:38.664 but our families as well. 00:08:38.688 --> 00:08:41.167 This is David Oh, one of our flight directors, 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. 00:08:45.689 --> 00:08:47.112 (Laughter) 00:08:47.136 --> 00:08:50.116 So because we landed in August 00:08:50.140 --> 00:08:54.586 and his kids didn't have to go back to school until September, 00:08:54.610 --> 00:08:59.358 they actually went on to Mars time with him for one month. 00:08:59.382 --> 00:09:04.151 They got up 40 minutes later every day. 00:09:04.175 --> 00:09:06.358 And they were on dad's work schedule. 00:09:06.382 --> 00:09:10.357 So they lived on Mars time for a month and had these great adventures, 00:09:10.381 --> 00:09:12.478 like going bowling in the middle of the night 00:09:12.502 --> 00:09:13.820 or going to the beach. 00:09:14.149 --> 00:09:17.508 And one of the things that we all discovered 00:09:17.532 --> 00:09:21.520 is you can get anywhere in Los Angeles 00:09:21.544 --> 00:09:25.097 at 3:00 in the morning when there's no traffic. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:25.121 --> 00:09:26.595 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:09:26.619 --> 00:09:27.811 So we would get off work, 00:09:27.835 --> 00:09:30.950 and we didn't want to go home and bother our families, 00:09:30.974 --> 00:09:34.164 and we were hungry, so instead of going locally to eat something, 00:09:34.188 --> 00:09:37.752 we'd go, "Wait, there's this great all-night deli in Long Beach, 00:09:37.776 --> 00:09:40.018 and we can get there in 10 minutes!" 00:09:40.042 --> 00:09:42.763 So we would drive down -- it was like the 60s, no traffic. 00:09:42.787 --> 00:09:46.542 We would drive down there, and the restaurant owners would go, 00:09:46.566 --> 00:09:48.728 "Who are you people? 00:09:49.421 --> 00:09:53.594 And why are you at my restaurant at 3:00 in the morning?" 00:09:53.958 --> 00:09:58.848 So they came to realize that there were these packs of Martians, 00:09:59.661 --> 00:10:04.326 roaming the LA freeways, in the middle of the night -- 00:10:05.288 --> 00:10:07.311 in the middle of the Earth night. 00:10:07.335 --> 00:10:12.132 And we did actually start calling ourselves Martians. 00:10:12.581 --> 00:10:18.187 So those of us who were on Mars time would refer to ourselves as Martians, 00:10:18.211 --> 00:10:21.064 and everyone else as Earthlings. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:21.088 --> 00:10:22.388 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:10:22.412 --> 00:10:28.107 And that's because when you're moving a time-zone every day, 00:10:28.131 --> 00:10:33.944 you start to really feel separated from everyone else. 00:10:33.968 --> 00:10:37.887 You're literally in your own world. 00:10:38.704 --> 00:10:45.629 So I have this button on that says, "I survived Mars time. Sol 0-90." 00:10:45.653 --> 00:10:48.398 And there's a picture of it up on the screen. 00:10:48.422 --> 00:10:54.051 So the reason we got these buttons is because we work on Mars time 00:10:54.075 --> 00:10:59.124 in order to be as efficient as possible with the rover on Mars, 00:10:59.148 --> 00:11:01.438 to make the best use of our time. 00:11:01.462 --> 00:11:05.348 But we don't stay on Mars time for more than three to four months. 00:11:05.372 --> 00:11:09.640 Eventually, we'll move to a modified Mars time, which is what we're working now. 00:11:10.379 --> 00:11:15.036 And that's because it's hard on your bodies, it's hard on your families. 00:11:15.060 --> 00:11:19.942 In fact, there were sleep researchers who actually were studying us 00:11:19.966 --> 00:11:25.003 because it was so unusual for humans to try to extend their day. 00:11:25.327 --> 00:11:26.617 And they had about 30 of us 00:11:26.641 --> 00:11:30.267 that they would do sleep deprivation experiments on. 00:11:30.291 --> 00:11:33.854 So I would come in and take the test and I fell asleep in each one. 00:11:33.878 --> 00:11:40.520 And that was because, again, this eventually becomes hard on your body. 00:11:40.544 --> 00:11:43.859 Even though it was a blast. 00:11:43.883 --> 00:11:48.397 It was a huge bonding experience with the other members on the team, 00:11:48.421 --> 00:11:51.261 but it is difficult to sustain. 00:11:52.243 --> 00:11:58.428 So these rover missions are our first steps out into the solar system. 00:11:58.452 --> 00:12:03.525 We are learning how to live on more than one planet. 00:12:03.549 --> 00:12:08.625 We are changing our perspective to become multi-planetary. 00:12:08.943 --> 00:12:11.738 So the next time you see a Star Wars movie, 00:12:11.762 --> 00:12:15.437 and there are people going from the Dagobah system to Tatooine, 00:12:15.461 --> 00:12:20.951 think about what it really means to have people spread out so far. 00:12:20.975 --> 00:12:24.037 What it means in terms of the distances between them, 00:12:24.061 --> 00:12:27.881 how they will start to feel separate from each other 00:12:27.905 --> 00:12:31.129 and just the logistics of the time. 00:12:31.937 --> 00:12:36.489 We have not sent people to Mars yet, but we hope to. 00:12:36.513 --> 00:12:40.352 And between companies like SpaceX and NASA 00:12:40.376 --> 00:12:43.865 and all of the international space agencies of the world, 00:12:43.889 --> 00:12:47.656 we hope to do that in the next few decades. 00:12:47.680 --> 00:12:53.505 So soon we will have people on Mars, and we truly will be multi-planetary. 00:12:54.000 --> 00:12:56.412 And the young boy or the young girl 00:12:56.436 --> 00:13:03.436 who will be going to Mars could be in this audience or listening today. 00:13:04.201 --> 00:13:09.803 I have wanted to work at JPL on these missions since I was 14 years old 00:13:09.827 --> 00:13:12.049 and I am privileged to be a part of it. 00:13:12.073 --> 00:13:16.127 And this is a remarkable time in the space program, 00:13:16.151 --> 00:13:19.325 and we are all in this journey together. 00:13:19.349 --> 00:13:24.560 So the next time you think you don't have enough time in your day, 00:13:24.584 --> 00:13:29.362 just remember, it's all a matter of your Earthly perspective. 00:13:29.386 --> 00:13:30.537 Thank you. 00:13:30.561 --> 00:13:34.675 (Applause)