9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
For thousands of years,[br]well really probably millions of years,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
our ancestors have looked up at the sky[br]and wondered what's up there,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and they've also started to wonder,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
hmm, could we be alone in this planet?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now, I'm fortunate that I get to get paid[br]to actually ask some of those questions,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and sort of bad news for you,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
your tax dollars are paying me to try[br]to answer some of those questions.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But then, about 10 years ago,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I was told, I mean asked,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
if I would start to look at the technology[br]to help get us off planet,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and so that's what I'm going[br]to talk to you about today.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So playing to the local crowd,[br]this is what it looks like

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in your day-to-day life in Boston,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but as you start to go off planet,[br]things look very, very different.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So there we are, hovering above[br]the WGBH studios,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and here's a very famous picture[br]of the Earthrise from the Moon,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and you can see the Earth[br]starting to recede.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And then what I love is this picture

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that was taken from the surface of Mars[br]looking back at the Earth.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Can anyone find the Earth?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I'm going to help you out a little.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(Laughs)

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Yeah.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The point of showing this is that[br]when people start to go to Mars,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
they're not going to be able[br]to keep calling in

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and be micromanaged[br]the way people on a space station are.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They're going to have to be independent.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So even though they're up there,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
there are going to be all sorts of things[br]that they're going to need,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
just like people on Earth[br]need things like, oh, transportation,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
life support, food, clothing and so on.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But unlike on Earth, they are also[br]going to need oxygen.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They're going to have to deal with about[br]a third of the gravity that we have here.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They're going to have to worry[br]about habitats, power, heat, light,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and radiation protection,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
something that we don't actually[br]worry about nearly as much on the Earth,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
because we have this beautiful[br]atmosphere and magnetosphere.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The problem with that is that[br]we also have a lot of constraints.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So the biggest one for us is upmass,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and the number that I've used for years

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is it costs about 10,000 dollars to launch[br]a can of Coke into low Earth orbit.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The problem is, there you are[br]with 10,000 dollars later,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and you're still in low Earth orbit.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
You're not even at the Moon[br]or Mars or anything else.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So you're going to have to try[br]to figure out how to keep the mass

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
as low as possible[br]so you don't have to launch it.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But on top of that[br]cost issue with the mass,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you also have problems of storage

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and flexibility and reliability.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
You can't just get there and say,[br]"Oops, I forgot to bring,"

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
because Amazon.com[br]just does not deliver to Mars.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So you better be prepared.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So what is the solution for this?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And I'm going to propose to you[br]for the rest of this talk

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that the solution actually is life,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and when you start to look[br]at life as a technology,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you realize, ah, that's it,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that's exactly what we needed.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This plant here, like every person here

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and every one of your dogs and cats

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and plants and so on,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
all started as a single cell.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So imagine, you're starting[br]as a very low upmass object

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and then growing into something[br]a good deal bigger.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now, my hero Charles Darwin,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of course, reminds us that there's[br]no such thing as a designer in biology,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but what if we now have the technology

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to design biology,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
maybe even design, oh, who new lifeforms

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that can do things for us[br]that we couldn't have imagined otherwise.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So years ago, I was asked[br]to start to sell this program,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and while I was doing that,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I was put in front of a panel at NASA,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
as you might sort of imagine,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a bunch of people in suits[br]and white shirts and pencil protectors,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and I did this sort of crazy wild,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
"This is all the next great thing,"

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and I thought they would be blown over,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and instead the chairman of the committee[br]just looked at me straight in the eye,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and said, "So what's the big idea?"

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So I was like, OK, you want Star Trek?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We'll do Star Trek.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And so let me tell you[br]what the big idea is.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We've used organisms[br]to make biomaterials for years.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So here's a great picture taken[br]outside of Glasgow,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and you can see lots[br]of great biomaterials there.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
There are trees that you can use[br]to build houses.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
There are sheep where you[br]can get your wool from.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
You could get leather from the sheep.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Just quickly glancing around the room,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I'll bet there's no one in this room[br]that doesn't have some kind of animal

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or plant product on them,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
some kind of biomaterial.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But you know what?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We're not going to take sheep[br]and trees and stuff to Mars.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That's nuts, because[br]of the upmass problem.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But we are going to take things like this.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This is ??

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Those white dots that you see are spores.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This happens to be a bacterium[br]that can form incredibly resistant spores,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and when I say incredibly resistant,[br]they've proven themselves.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
?? spores have been flown[br]on what was called LDEF,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
long duration exposure facility,[br]for almost six years

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and some of them survived that in space.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Unbelievable, a lot better[br]than any of us can do.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So why not just take the capabilities,[br]like to make wood or to make wool

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or spidersilk or whatever,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and put them in ?? spores

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and take those with you off planet?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So what are you going to do[br]when you're off planet?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Here's an iconic picture of Buzz Aldrin[br]looking back at the Eagle

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
when he landed, oh, it was almost[br]50 years ago on the surface of the Moon.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now, if you're going to go[br]to the Moon for three days,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and you're the first person to set foot,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
yeah, you can live in a tin can,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but you wouldn't want to do that[br]for, say, a year and a half.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So I did actually a calculation,[br]being in California.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I looked at what the average size[br]of a cell at Alcatraz is,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and I have news for you,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the volume in the Eagle there,[br]in the Lunar Module,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
was about the size of a cell at Alcatraz

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
if it were only five feet high.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So incredibly cramped living quarters.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
You just can't ask a human[br]to stay in there for long periods of time.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So why not take these biomaterials[br]and make something?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So here's an image[br]that a colleague of mine

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
who is an architect, Chris Maurer,[br]has done of what we've been proposing,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and we'll get to the point of why I've[br]been standing up here holding something

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that looks like a dried sandwich[br]this whole lecture.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So we've proposed that the solution[br]to the habitat problem on Mars

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
could just simply lie in a fungus.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So I'm now probably[br]going to turn off everyone

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
from ever eating a mushroom again.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So let's talk about fungi for a second.