WEBVTT 00:00:01.360 --> 00:00:04.320 So many of you have probably seen the movie "The Martian." 00:00:05.430 --> 00:00:08.631 But for those of you who did not, it's a movie about an astronaut 00:00:09.232 --> 00:00:13.178 who is stranded on Mars and his efforts to stay alive 00:00:13.790 --> 00:00:17.556 until the Earth can send a rescue mission to bring him back to Earth. 00:00:19.447 --> 00:00:24.224 Gladly, they do re-establish communication with the character, astronaut Watney, 00:00:24.589 --> 00:00:30.228 at some point, so that he's not as alone on Mars until he can be rescued. 00:00:31.194 --> 00:00:33.683 So while you're watching the movie, and even if you haven't, 00:00:34.030 --> 00:00:36.671 when you think about Mars, you're probably thinking about 00:00:37.100 --> 00:00:40.094 how far away it is and how distant. 00:00:40.581 --> 00:00:42.859 And, what might not have occurred to you is, 00:00:43.289 --> 00:00:46.446 what are the logistics really like of working on another planet? 00:00:46.919 --> 00:00:48.937 Of living on two planets when 00:00:49.203 --> 00:00:54.279 there are people on the Earth and there are rovers or people on Mars? 00:00:54.719 --> 00:00:59.558 So think about when you have friends, families and co-workers in California, 00:00:59.900 --> 00:01:02.071 on the West Coast or in other parts of the world. 00:01:02.673 --> 00:01:04.896 When you're trying to communicate with them, one of the things 00:01:05.163 --> 00:01:06.517 you probably first think about is -- 00:01:06.917 --> 00:01:09.317 Wait, what time is it in California? 00:01:09.660 --> 00:01:11.880 Will I wake them up? Is it okay to call? 00:01:12.482 --> 00:01:15.156 So even if you're interacting with colleagues who are in Europe, 00:01:15.728 --> 00:01:17.648 you're immediately thinking about, 00:01:18.031 --> 00:01:21.312 what does it take to coordinate communication 00:01:21.734 --> 00:01:24.391 when people are far away? 00:01:25.424 --> 00:01:30.281 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. 00:01:39.449 --> 00:01:42.146 We have four rovers on Mars. 00:01:42.779 --> 00:01:45.656 The United States has put four rovers on Mars since the mid-1990s, 00:01:46.439 --> 00:01:48.789 and I have been privileged enough to work on three of them. 00:01:49.323 --> 00:01:52.345 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. 00:02:03.266 --> 00:02:08.794 So, they are our eyes and our ears and they see the planet for us 00:02:09.553 --> 00:02:11.510 until we can send people. 00:02:11.854 --> 00:02:16.175 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. 00:02:21.829 --> 00:02:25.411 So the reason there's a time difference on Mars right now, 00:02:25.756 --> 00:02:27.166 from the time that we're at 00:02:27.560 --> 00:02:30.613 is because the Martian day is longer than the Earth day. 00:02:31.522 --> 00:02:34.257 Our Earth day is 24 hours because 00:02:34.438 --> 00:02:37.160 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. 00:02:39.522 --> 00:02:41.434 So our day is 24 hours. 00:02:41.907 --> 00:02:47.785 It takes Mars 24 hours and approximately 40 minutes to rotate once. 00:02:48.714 --> 00:02:54.677 So that means that the Martian day is 40 minutes longer than the Earth day. 00:02:55.570 --> 00:03:00.061 So teams of people who are operating the rovers on Mars, like this one, 00:03:00.576 --> 00:03:05.931 what we are doing is we are living on Earth, but working on Mars. 00:03:06.303 --> 00:03:10.963 So we have to think as if we are actually on Mars with the rover. 00:03:12.029 --> 00:03:15.305 Our job, the job of this team, of which I'm a part of 00:03:16.058 --> 00:03:21.010 is to send commands to the rover to tell it what to do the next day. 00:03:21.527 --> 00:03:25.042 To tell it to drive or drill or tell her whatever she's supposed to do. 00:03:26.143 --> 00:03:29.848 So while she's sleeping -- and the rover does sleep at night 00:03:30.251 --> 00:03:32.370 because she needs to re-charge her batteries 00:03:32.704 --> 00:03:36.183 and she needs to weather the cold Martian night. 00:03:36.611 --> 00:03:38.014 And so she sleeps. 00:03:38.411 --> 00:03:42.564 So while she sleeps, we work on her program for the next day. 00:03:42.989 --> 00:03:45.694 So I work the Martian night shift. 00:03:47.668 --> 00:03:54.147 So in order to come to work on the Earth at the same time every day on Mars -- 00:03:54.537 --> 00:03:56.613 like, let's say I need to be at work at 5:00 pm, 00:03:57.002 --> 00:04:01.630 this team needs to be at work at 5:00 pm Mars time every day, 00:04:02.382 --> 00:04:09.473 then we have to come to work on the Earth 40 minutes later every day, 00:04:11.292 --> 00:04:12.887 in order to stay in sync with Mars. 00:04:13.138 --> 00:04:15.511 That's like moving a time zone every day. 00:04:15.829 --> 00:04:20.071 So one day you come in at 8:00, the next day 40 minutes later at 8:40, 00:04:21.188 --> 00:04:24.456 the next day 40 minutes later at 9:20, 00:04:24.803 --> 00:04:26.051 the next day at 10:00, 00:04:26.342 --> 00:04:29.008 so you keep moving 40 minutes every day, 00:04:29.538 --> 00:04:31.808 until soon you're coming to work in the middle of the night -- 00:04:32.606 --> 00:04:34.370 the middle of the Earth night. 00:04:34.859 --> 00:04:37.351 Right? So you can imagine how confusing that is. 00:04:38.051 --> 00:04:40.016 Hence, the Mars watch. 00:04:40.674 --> 00:04:42.395 This watch has been mechanically -- 00:04:42.916 --> 00:04:46.744 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, were the rovers back then, 00:04:54.552 --> 00:04:56.388 we didn't start out thinking 00:04:56.663 --> 00:04:58.699 that we were going to need Mars watches. 00:04:59.050 --> 00:05:02.714 Right? We thought, okay, we'll just have the time on our computers 00:05:03.635 --> 00:05:06.616 and on the mission control screens and that would be enough. 00:05:07.181 --> 00:05:08.417 Yeah, not so much. 00:05:08.723 --> 00:05:11.192 Because we weren't just working on Mars time, 00:05:11.471 --> 00:05:14.090 we were actually living on Mars time. 00:05:14.552 --> 00:05:18.251 And we got just instantaneously confused about what time it was. 00:05:18.769 --> 00:05:23.669 So you really needed something on your wrist to tell you: 00:05:23.669 --> 00:05:26.349 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, 00:05:32.295 --> 00:05:36.516 we also needed to be able to talk to each other about it. 00:05:37.652 --> 00:05:42.622 So a "sol" is a Martian day -- again, 24 hours and 40 minutes. 00:05:43.321 --> 00:05:46.025 So when we're talking about something that's happening on the earth, 00:05:46.428 --> 00:05:48.037 we will say, today. 00:05:48.992 --> 00:05:51.482 So, for Mars, we say, "tosol." 00:05:54.084 --> 00:05:58.279 Yesterday became 'yestersol' for Mars. 00:05:59.117 --> 00:06:03.058 Again, we didn't start out thinking, "oh let's invent a language." 00:06:03.644 --> 00:06:04.947 It was just very confusing. 00:06:05.263 --> 00:06:07.022 I remember someone walked up to me and said, 00:06:07.265 --> 00:06:10.080 "I would like to do this activity on the vehicle tomorrow, on the rover." 00:06:10.445 --> 00:06:16.441 And I said, "tomorrow, tomorrow, or Mars tomorrow?" Right? 00:06:16.721 --> 00:06:21.327 We started this terminology because we needed a way to talk to each other. 00:06:22.707 --> 00:06:26.558 Tomorrow became "nextersol" or "solorrow" 00:06:27.885 --> 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. 00:06:38.969 --> 00:06:43.061 And then something that I noticed after a few years of working on these missions, 00:06:43.463 --> 00:06:48.086 was that the people who work on the rovers, we say "tosol." 00:06:48.725 --> 00:06:51.806 The people who work on the landed missions that don't rove around, 00:06:52.180 --> 00:06:54.222 they say "tosol." [Different vowel sound] 00:06:54.514 --> 00:06:58.954 So I could actually tell what mission you worked on from your Martian accent. 00:06:59.539 --> 00:07:01.445 [Laughter] 00:07:02.419 --> 00:07:05.687 So we have the watches and the language and you're detecting a theme here, right?. 00:07:06.041 --> 00:07:08.064 So that we don't get confused. 00:07:08.939 --> 00:07:12.140 But even the Earth daylight could confuse us. 00:07:12.739 --> 00:07:14.947 If you think that right now, you've come to work 00:07:15.271 --> 00:07:19.400 and it's the middle of the Martian night and there's light streaming in 00:07:19.728 --> 00:07:22.452 from the windows, that's confusing as well. 00:07:23.377 --> 00:07:25.743 So you can see from this image of the control room 00:07:26.284 --> 00:07:27.983 that all of the blinds are down. 00:07:28.373 --> 00:07:30.796 So that there's no light to distract us. 00:07:31.185 --> 00:07:35.228 The blinds went down all over the building about a week before landing 00:07:35.532 --> 00:07:38.528 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. 00:07:42.471 --> 00:07:44.865 So I've been on Mars time three times, and my husband is like, okay, 00:07:45.313 --> 00:07:47.485 we're getting ready for Mars time. 00:07:47.812 --> 00:07:52.605 And so he'll put foil all over the windows and dark curtains and shades 00:07:52.979 --> 00:07:56.201 because it also affects your families. 00:07:56.635 --> 00:08:00.871 And so here I was living in kind of his darkened environment but so was he, 00:08:01.921 --> 00:08:03.277 and he'd gotten used to it, 00:08:03.610 --> 00:08:06.602 but then I would get these plaintive emails from him when he was at work. 00:08:07.191 --> 00:08:13.487 Should I come home? Are you awake? What time is it on Mars? 00:08:13.887 --> 00:08:16.278 And I decided, okay, so he needs a Mars watch. 00:08:17.009 --> 00:08:18.367 [Laughter] 00:08:18.666 --> 00:08:22.428 But of course, it's 2016, so there's an app for that. 00:08:23.549 --> 00:08:27.925 So now instead of the watches, we can also use our phones. 00:08:28.983 --> 00:08:32.774 But the impact on families was just across the board, 00:08:33.056 --> 00:08:36.298 it wasn't just those of us who were working on the rovers 00:08:36.782 --> 00:08:38.896 but our families as well. 00:08:39.225 --> 00:08:41.200 This is David O, one of our flight directors, 00:08:41.579 --> 00:08:45.104 and he's at the beach in Los Angeles with his family at 1:00 in the morning. 00:08:47.346 --> 00:08:50.256 So because we landed in August 00:08:50.618 --> 00:08:54.519 and his kids didn't have to go back to school until September, 00:08:54.964 --> 00:08:58.899 they actually went on to Mars time with him for one month. 00:08:59.640 --> 00:09:03.689 They got up 40 minutes later every day 00:09:04.433 --> 00:09:06.627 and they were on dad's work schedule. 00:09:06.911 --> 00:09:10.388 So they lived on Mars time for a month and had these great adventures, 00:09:10.806 --> 00:09:12.577 like going bowling in the middle of the night 00:09:12.977 --> 00:09:14.729 or going to the beach. 00:09:15.100 --> 00:09:17.257 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. 00:09:26.911 --> 00:09:28.664 So we would get off work and -- 00:09:28.959 --> 00:09:30.830 you know we didn't want to go home and bother our families -- 00:09:31.246 --> 00:09:32.234 and we were hungry, 00:09:32.471 --> 00:09:34.652 so instead of going locally to eat something, we'd go, 00:09:34.892 --> 00:09:37.453 "wait, there's this great all-night deli in Long Beach, 00:09:37.840 --> 00:09:40.095 and we can get there in 10 minutes." 00:09:40.439 --> 00:09:42.863 It was like the 60s, no traffic. 00:09:43.196 --> 00:09:46.063 So we would drive down there, and the restaurant owners would go, 00:09:46.742 --> 00:09:48.805 Who are you people? 00:09:49.669 --> 00:09:53.394 And why are you at my restaurant at 3:00 in the morning? 00:09:54.461 --> 00:09:58.284 So they came to realize that there were these packs of Martians, 00:09:59.744 --> 00:10:04.182 roaming the LA freeways, in the middle of the night, 00:10:06.006 --> 00:10:07.960 in the middle of the Earth night. 00:10:08.423 --> 00:10:12.264 And we did actually start calling ourselves Martians. 00:10:13.376 --> 00:10:17.254 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. 00:10:22.788 --> 00:10:27.548 And that's because when you're moving a time-zone every day, 00:10:29.655 --> 00:10:33.536 you start to really feel separated from everyone else. 00:10:34.285 --> 00:10:37.730 You're literally in your own world. 00:10:39.085 --> 00:10:45.854 So I have this button on that says, "I survived Mars time. Sol 0-90" 00:10:46.078 --> 00:10:48.353 and there's a picture of it up on the screen. 00:10:48.847 --> 00:10:53.462 So the reason we got these buttons is because we work on Mars time 00:10:54.321 --> 00:10:59.348 in order to be as efficient as possible with the rover on Mars, 00:10:59.598 --> 00:11:01.763 to make the best use of our time. 00:11:02.032 --> 00:11:05.578 But we don't stay on Mars time for more than three to four months. 00:11:05.928 --> 00:11:10.124 Eventually, we'll move to a modified Mars time, which is what we're working now. 00:11:10.535 --> 00:11:14.937 And that's because it's hard on your bodies, it's hard on your families. 00:11:15.312 --> 00:11:19.691 In fact, there were sleep researchers who actually were studying us 00:11:20.264 --> 00:11:25.113 because it was so unusual for humans to try to extend their day. 00:11:25.590 --> 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? 00:11:44.674 --> 00:11:48.280 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. 00:11:52.529 --> 00:11:58.353 So these rover missions are our first steps out into the solar system. 00:11:58.753 --> 00:12:03.473 We are learning how to live on more than one planet. 00:12:03.899 --> 00:12:08.660 We are changing our perspective to become multi-planetary. 00:12:09.141 --> 00:12:11.830 So the next time you see a Star Wars movie, 00:12:12.133 --> 00:12:15.297 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. 00:12:21.344 --> 00:12:24.255 What it means in terms of the distances between them, 00:12:24.652 --> 00:12:27.968 how they will start to feel separate from each other, 00:12:28.215 --> 00:12:31.852 and just the logistics of the time. 00:12:32.603 --> 00:12:36.228 We have not sent people to Mars yet, but we hope to. 00:12:36.716 --> 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, 00:12:44.169 --> 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. 00:12:54.245 --> 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. 00:13:04.595 --> 00:13:09.586 I have wanted to work at JPL on these missions since I was 14-years-old 00:13:10.044 --> 00:13:12.160 and I am privileged to be a part of it. 00:13:12.461 --> 00:13:15.853 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. 00:13:19.563 --> 00:13:24.227 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.