A farewell to the spirit and opportunities

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[00:00:00] Say goodbye to Spirit and the opportunities this week on planetary radio. Welcome. I am Mat Kaplan, of the global society, who speaks more about the human adventure in our solar system and beyond. We are Wednesday, February 13, in Von jet propulsion laboratories. Karman Auditorium. Here is NASA's Associate Administrator, Thomas, Mr. Buchan.
I was there yesterday and I was with the team as these drives went into deep skies, and I learned this morning about that. We had not heard of return. And our beloved opportunity remains silent. That's why I stand here with the feeling of deep gratitude and gratitude that I said that the Mission opportunity was complete and that the Mars exploration engine was done. [00:01:00] mission as complete.
And I must tell you that it's an emotional moment. I stand here surrounded by a team I had come to before, so I got to know it by watching this incredible downhill entry and Landing D and its development and of course in the center of it. We are two peety singer was right here in front of me is a hero and the world we live fan.
And right next to me, here as Steve Squires, you'll meet him later, Another Hero.
It's a team that succeeds like that. It's a team that creates a transformative expiry into exploration for science and [00:02:00] engineering and it is a team that is celebrating here today with emotion. I remember emotions. I saw this professor Cornell jump like my four year old son on his birthday when I went downhill and that Landing was over and over.
The roar said that I am here and celebrate with the science of emotions. It's an emotional affair. It's a team sport. And that is what we celebrate today. I will never forget the extraordinary work done here, which has transformed our understanding of the planet of everything we do and think about our global neighbor, Hood with Mars and elsewhere, is linked to the research that has resulted from technological advances from this aunt, a great honor right now.
Introduce a champion for exploration and for science the bridenstine administrator. Thank you very much Thomas. It's an honor to be here for nearly two decades and to work with so many amazing people in this room. [00:03:00] now. And then last year, I became a director and the opportunity stopped communicating.
Can you believe this so that I take all the responsibility, but it's a celebration. Among so many accomplishments, you know that when this little Rover landed, his goal was to run 1,100 yards and survive 90 days on Mars, 90 souls and here instead. We are 14 years later after 28 miles of travel.
And today, we are celebrating the end of this mission. So it's an honor for me, it's the NASA administrator to come here in this incredible facility with so many incredibly talented people. Thank you for your excellent work. Not just for our country, but for the science that people will benefit around the world.
They will benefit from this science for years to come, of course, it was NASA [00:04:00] director Jim Brightenstein. It is the very next day that we welcome the leaders of Mars' land exploration mission to the headquarters of the global society. John Kallis has been part of this magnificent effort since long before the launch of the spirit and opportunities.
He has since held the position of Project Manager. In 2006, when he succeeded Pete Eisinger, Abigail, project scientist, or an ox, Raymond, became part of the mission much later, as you will hear in our conversation. She began to get deeply involved in her teens through an opportunity led by my colleague, Planetary Society's editor-in-chief, Emily.
John and Abby, I can hardly believe our good fortune. It was only yesterday that you were in front of the whole world saying goodbye to this mission which many of us fell in love with, and the next day, here you are with us in the safe bank of the global society. Society Studio. [00:05:00] joined by my colleague Emily for this conversation this little backtracking of this retrospective this tribute to the Rovers of Mars Exploration.
Thank you very much for having succeeded. You are happy to be here. Thank you very much for receiving us. I was so happy that they did not all line you up for the usual briefing format, that it was a bit like that, but I do not know. Are you of this opinion and we will put a link to the video of this press conference or event at JPL on the page of emission of a slash radio planetary type, but I am grateful.
I did it, but this mission has such a legacy that there is still a lot to tell and we only have two minutes to say a little bit about it. You know, I'm happy to be able to say more and that's why I'm happy to be here. Maybe we can do it. I think it's a shame that NASA TV did not let you do for an hour and a half the poor guy who obviously felt bad about the host to get you out of there.
You knew that day was coming [00:06:00] More or less what you expected? Yeah, I think it was a combination of what I expected and what I did not expect, you know, it's something that will always happen . We knew that the mission was still going to end, but somehow to be at that time, and I do not know when I heard John somehow read the last commandment saying, okay , that's what tells the DSN.
That's what I really moved. I did not expect to feel that because that is. It's a book that ends but it's really fun to look back over the last 15 years and to think about 15 years old, it's long, and we've done so much with this mission. So it's fun to make trips in the past.
You have had such a long relationship with the deep space network. Do they have special messages for you in the end? Well, they thanked us for a wonderful mission and today this morning. I received an email from one of the DSM controllers, who again expressed his admiration and gratitude for [00:07:00] historical.
And it was very nice to hear. I mean, in the last 48 hours I've received many congratulatory, sympathetic and grateful e-mails from people all over the world, which is very heartening for many of the colleagues you know and appreciate. who are very touching. So, what is the day more or less what you expected or did you avoid thinking about it?
Well, I was very busy. Because we had a lot of orchestration to do with the decision made by NASA, I informed NASA headquarters early Monday morning of the status of the project and the progress of the project. project recommendation that triggered the series of events that NASA senior management sent to JPL the next. During a day of meeting with the Abby team, you know a magnificent job in coordinating and organizing the recruitment of the members of the scientific team.
Perfume [00:08:00] and to have a place where we would meet the NASA headquarters, they would personally tell us the decision and yesterday was a very busy day with a press conference. The previous night was late night with the last orders being sent. So I have to say that today is probably the most difficult day for me because I'm going to work.
And what am I doing? There is no planning of operations. There are no operational meetings. There is no schedule, no coordination, we need to know who is in office and everything is stopped all at once. You know, it's not a rare experience for people who lose a significant part of their lives to lose a loved one.
Or something like that, you know if you've been a caregiver for 15 years and that suddenly this person is no longer there for you to take care of it, that's what you do for his fate today. # 39; hui. It's like wow, what am I doing? [00:09:00] I mean, yes, there are a lot of things I have to do, but the normal routine is gone.
And so it's a new routine. I am so honored that you are with us today. As we begin this adaptation to a new phase of life, we may come back to it. The conversation about opportunities. I'm thinking of course, and I'm sure you have a lot about the end of this mission in the last two years.
I've seen the ends attending directly to the ends of several other missions, namely Cassini when she plunged into Saturn, a sensation when she was killed on the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and then Rosetta when she was closed and each of these ends was a little different, but this opportunity was very different, because of course we heard about it for the last time.
In June and since then, you fought to keep trying to get back in touch. So, it has to be a strange switch modal switch rather than waiting. It must be very different. Yeah. [00:10:00] Absolutely. I mean that the engineering team led by John has just deployed heroic efforts over the last eight months as a science team.
We do our own thing, but they have gone through thousands of lines of code to try to understand. D & # 39; agreement. What will the Fault software do? How can we somehow put it in fault mode. Once we found this code, it was written 20 years ago by people who disappeared from the mission.
They spent long hours sending orders to try to determine the time to send orders, you know, if the mobile is in this mode, what should we do? And what mode? What should we do? It is an enormous amount of work that I thank, as well as all the other members of the mission, for their immense gratitude for what they have done, and it is difficult because we did not get a positive response .
We were hoping and it is interesting that you mention a comparison with the other missions. I think we talked a lot. The end of Cassini's mission in relation to this one is that you know the very cool casinos in his mind. It was a big [00:11:00] deal with JPL. They had a huge media event and accumulated for a very long time because they knew by the second when the mission was going to end, but for us it was really a good decision.
D & # 39; agreement. When do we really think the time has come? We did enough and it's a harder call to make yeah. You're absolutely right Abby. That's I guess I do not want to do too much of this analogy. But if you know if you have an agreement. A loved one who is not going to recover and someone must make the decision.
When the end comes, it's really hard to do because you prefer another decision for you. And you know, we had to make that decision now, based on the engineer's judgment: the probability of environmental recovery on Mars, you know the lack of sunlight, but it's still difficult, up to 'now.
We were trying to save his life. You know, we went from a health to a rover whose status is unknown. Is it still there and recoverable [00:12:00] or is it gone and this unconsciousness that not knowing is really difficult and that is why we strive so hard to try to save it. If it was there. It was our duty to do everything in our power to try to save.
From time to time, during the event of yesterday, the camera shook the audience a little. I recognized that some people who appeared to be involved in this mission had gone to the Von Karman auditorium of the JPL. I guess it made me happy because John was your quote. I think I'm not sure I can quote you directly.
But you said that these are the people who are really history. Well, many of us have told both Thomas Squre and Steve Squires. Yes, I mean. It's the people who gave life to this Rover, it's people who exploited them and who made history in these Rovers, and yes, it was great to have [00:13:00] These people and all generations of team members, you know, because we've worked so long, you know, and as Abby is living proof of that, it's that you know, we've got new generations of people who participated and participated contributed and benefited from this mission and having.
It was important for all generations of people to celebrate together and I'm glad we did it 20 years later, as you say, which has also brought many children born out of weddings. I'm sure I want to give you names and get feedback, then invite you to find others. Emily and you if you have any, but I will start with the people I see.
Well, Pete's biggest mistake was to hire me.
Yes, we should note that you took over from him as a project manager. C & # 39; was [00:14:00] remarkable to see Pete lead this project to success. You know, I remember telling Pete that I did not always agree with his decisions, but in the end, I always had the feeling that he made the right decisions. Very early, he stressed.
We have to produce a quality product and we have not cut corners. I mean we had to make some tough decisions to stay within our envelope of available resources, you know how to say it elegantly, you know, make sure you stick to the budget, you know, and we do not have to. We have not always done and there are many challenges but.
It was remarkable to see how it went through a very difficult time because we had had two consecutive failures before starting to happen and that there was a lot of examination and there was a lot of trouble. be careful and we bet on the farm. on this mission. And he made us understand that he was very clear in his vision and that it made it really easy [00:15:00] To achieve this goal, it is essential to launch in the spacecraft an opportunity of 2003 that lands safely on Mars and explores it for 90 days. You know, it was basically what we all wanted to do. deliver on that.
And yet, Abby became so much stronger yesterday at the end of the event as you answered questions. You were next to Matt Beck, who left in 2003. He was the first person to be the first guest on the global radio station to which we dedicated a feature film. For the rover, they were not yet in space.
It was only to talk about the landing sites, which we may come back to when I think that if you stand next to it and the contrast of their generation does not contrast with your impressions, I mean you were very close to him. Yeah. I know it's so much fun to have [00:16:00] to know him in the last three years because I am with us, his deputy Matt is the project scientist, and I am the deputy.
It's really fun to hear his stories and know his point of view. You know, Matt went through. The system has often been used with the Pathfinder mission and in terms of landing site selection. This is the guy who helped choose every landing site on Mars for Pathfinder and Beyond. So it was really nice to hear his stories and his point of view. I think that has taught me a lot and that he's really a great guy with whom to work, you know, he has a good sense of humor and.
Is always ready to listen and really appreciate that and the time it took to explain. You know, how does it work for me? Did you want to add something John? Oh, I agree with Abby to say that he was a great person with whom to work and you know, and he has that spirited laugh, no, yes, popping up everywhere and that is awesome and awesome.
I have not met the story of Colin for [00:17:00] reasons that we will discuss a little later. I think in this podcast, the scientists were about to reach the opportunity and when they recorded the first images showing the outcrop in the crater wall, this opportunity had landed at Matt, he was jumping his arms with the arms. The air screamed round the Science Assessment Room because he knew what he had in front of him.
It was rock in place and that's what he was there to explore and so on. It's always stuck with me. I think he was shouting too. Can I help you guys choose a landing site or why you are right. Well look back now gusev crater meridiani planum. We know a lot more about Mars now than when these sites were chosen.
Do you ever want to find G? Yes, it was great. But if only we had gone to. Well, I think this is a really interesting example that shows the limits of what we can learn from these sites in orbit. If we were to choose today a landing site without any [00:18:00] Rover data gusev would not be on the table.
I think, you know, the morphology was interesting but we did not see any of the minerals that we would see we think our water is there. It is not this beautiful Delta, but what we found with Spirit, was it. The proof that the site could really be very important for astrobiology. We discovered these small silicon nodules that Steve Ross, a member of the team, was really interested in studying and we discovered that they could be ancient hot springs. It is thanks to this discovery that Gusev was actually very well ranked on the list for a comeback in 2020.
And this type of finding we would have no idea of ​​the only orbital data. So yes, there are other places on Mars. We would like to go there, but it was pretty good that we were going to Gusev. I think I have another name for you. She participated in the briefing of yesterday Jennifer three. Your Jennifer is present from the beginning.
She was on Pathfinder and project system engineer for sea and you know, he is now [00:19:00] Project System Engineer from March 2020. So she has the whole story of the company Rover in mind and she brings it in all subsequent missions. You know, I keep a very good memory of our arrival and I wanted to share that with Jennifer.
During development. It was actually quite controversial between some aspects of the scientific team and the engineering team, which never happens. Well, if we have one, you have a phenomenal record of working cooperatively, but one of the problems that has caused frustration is the constant shift of calendars. During development, the engineering team was just moving a meeting schedule in no time.
But many of these meetings involve the scientific team that was moving from other places and therefore held a meeting. Thursday afternoon at four o'clock. Well, all of a sudden, the meetings are back to next Tuesday at 8 o'clock. And I said you could not do that. I say I have 50 people with non-refundable plane tickets coming in and you know it if [00:20:00] Jennifer died and struggled all the time, but when the opportunity arose for the Lander on the surface of Mars, she found herself in the sequencing area of ​​the mission support area, confirming that Is the case.
Six other wheels on Mars, I climbed and I presented him 12 roses for 12 wheels on Mars. And it was for me. It was a touching moment. Rob Manning perennial fish on this show and many other places. Well, I can talk about my interactions with Rob. I mean, obviously I was much younger and I continue to see his face all over the documentaries of the film.
Rob was one of the characters so when I arrived at JPL, I saw him in the hallways of the cafeteria. But you know this guy he is a bigwig, he does not know me, does not want to talk to me, but no Rob has taken the time to get to know me. He arrived in my office one or two times more to my surprise and he was so much [00:21:00] friendly.
And. Fully enthusiastic about the future of space exploration, we need more people like him, I think, in labs and around the world. It's just wonderful, more people who know as much as he does about how to get items on the red planet in one piece. Hmm indeed. I have good memories of Rob Manning in the game. I think it was Spirit's operations at the beginning of the mission, when I had a lot of them.
I was waiting 45 minutes to explain the landing. I have all these pictures of him with his arms and all his directions to gather all parts of the Rover and the Lander, just you. Know that, as a tyrant, he has always been and he is always a fun guy to talk to last on my list.
Steve Squires Steve is part of the reason I'm here, so he recommended testing it as a science manager. I worked with Steve on the gamma ray spectrometer for Mars Observer. So I knew [00:22:00] Steve since 1989 and I have always been incredibly impressed by them. I've learned so much from Steve.
I've learned to be a better communicator and a better teacher and I try to imitate it whenever I can. The best technical presentations I've ever seen were given by Steve Squires. He is really exceptional and this ability. This is an excellent communicator. Yeah, I mean Steve has the incredible ability to be an excellent scientist and you can read his articles that he has written throughout his scientific career and that are really good.
But as you said, he also possesses that unique ability to bring this science to life and tell the story of the Rover in a way that captivates everyone and I think that it's This is partly why the mission is so successful and so well received by the public. because the communications were excellent, I was always impressed by Steve's ability to lead scientists, which required a combination of listening and success. [00:23:00] by consensus and sometimes even just decide to be a dictator and he was able to balance needs as needed; during a mobile mission, your time is limited and you have so little time to plan each day.
You have to make decisions and gather cats to get the scientists to make a decision, and I've always had the impression that he was able to find a balance. Much better than many other Pi's, that's what I've seen in other missions. I do not want to put you on the spot because I'm sure you could talk for half an hour about the presence of other siblings from the Rover Exploration Rover Team.
But is there anyone else to whom you would like to give an honorable mention? Absolutely for me. The name that immediately comes to my mind is Ray Arvidsson, who is the deputy of the mission 's Pi, but you know, there are two Roadsters then when the spirit and the l'. opportunity present themselves to me. Steve left with the opportunity and ran the duck with gusto and you know since he's really been on Ops every day for 15 years [00:24:00] helping to lead the science team, you know personally, he was my graduate advisor.
I have therefore worked very closely with him and he is a remarkable teacher. Students are so important to him and that's it. I need to see the number of students. He had contacts with planetary science by allowing them to participate in the mission. You know, starting with the first cycle, he brought Bethany Ellman, who is now a professor at Caltech and specializes in planetary science, because she brought her to help her. does operations as undergraduate because he trusts students and understands how important it is to include students and events like this one.
Major shout to Ray for all the work. He has finished running this mission for so long that his complete disclosure to Bethany is the newest board member of the global society, John. Did you want to add something or someone else? I guess I want to be careful because there are a lot of people who have contributed to this project and you know how ashamed you can not mention them.
All this really [00:25:00] It's a team effort in the team that is huge in the team is dedicated and skilled, and it's really all about them. I will have to mention two names. One of them should not surprise you. This is Jim Bell who is the pan pan instrument team leader and also the chairman of our board of directors. I must mention Jim for his leadership in.
Decide to publish all the images of the mobile to the public. I mean, I'm sure this decision was made by a group of people, but that had a huge impact on the public impact of this mission, not just from the mission of the robot of exploration of March, but also from all the missions that followed. release their own images.
So, the Web, like Cassini and all the other missions on Mars, was simply huge and brought the public to participate in this mission in a way that we had not been invited to participate in the past. The other person I want to talk to is Scott Maxwell of Mars Rover Pilot on Twitter. And the reason I wanted to mention it, it's because five years after the [00:26:00] he started publishing his notes in his diary five years ago and I had a window on the operations of the mission in a way that I had never seen before and just able to see the kind of day-to-day decisions you also see through the images of the mission helped me better understand how.
For what it takes to do a mission like this. Il y a au moins un autre membre de l'équipe dont nous devons parler ici. Et je veux que soit Emily, soit vous deux, soit soit vous-même, parliez de la façon dont Abby a participé à cette mission. Yes. Donc, comme on l'a dit, j'étais en fait assez jeune lorsque la mission a atterri.
J'avais 16 ans et au lycée. J'aime la science. J'adore l'espace et j'étais un jour à googler. J'ai découvert le site Web de la société planétaire et j'ai découvert qu'ils sponsorisaient un concours intitulé Red Rover Go to Mars. Ils cherchaient des étudiants astronautes pour venir jouer le rôle de JPL [00:27:00] quelques jours pendant des opérations d’esprit et d’opportunité et Emily était la responsable de ce programme.
Je suis allé de l'avant et j'ai postulé parce que qui ne voudrait pas jouer un match pareil, ça a tout déclenché, vous savez, pendant les quelques mois qui ont précédé The Landing, Emily nous a tous écoutés par télécon. lycéens nous apprendre. Ok, voici ce qu'est le basalte. Voici ce que Olivine est, laissez-moi vous présenter quelques traitements de base des images.
Laissez-moi vous raconter tout à propos de la Rover parlons des différentes parties sur eux et les instruments et donc nous avons appris tout cela et est ensuite sorti. APL et Emily nous ont guidés autour de nous et nous ont présenté l'équipe d'ingénieurs de l'équipe scientifique et nous avons été dans la salle avec eux pour les opérations et l'atterrissage pendant cette période vraiment spéciale de la mission.
C’est en fait la raison pour laquelle j’ai été embauché à la société planétaire pour travailler sur Red Rover go to Mars. J'avais une maîtrise en sciences planétaires. J'avais été professeur de sciences au collège pendant deux ans [00:28:00] et j'ai suivi mon mari à Los Angeles et je travaille depuis un an en tant que consultant en environnement, pas très heureux dans un environnement d'entreprise.
Et je suis tombé par hasard sur cette offre d'emploi pour la société planétaire recherchait quelqu'un qui pourrait diriger un programme d'éducation impliqué dans cette mission spatiale. J'ai dit, je pense que mon curriculum vitae correspond à ça, c'est comme ça que je suis arrivé ici. Donc, ces étudiants sont la raison pour laquelle je suis à la société planétaire. Je dois sélectionner 16 enfants extraordinaires du monde entier.
Les deux américains. Je suis fier de dire que nous sommes en train de faire de la science planétaire ou de la science spatiale en Amérique. L’autre est Courtney Dress, astronome exoplanète, mais c’est le cas. Des enfants du monde entier. Nous devons les réunir. Ils ont pu assister aux opérations de la mission. Ils ont commencé à bloguer sur notre site Web avant même de bloguer. C'était une introduction merveilleuse et la possibilité de participer aux opérations d'omission de quelque chose.
Je n'y avais jamais participé auparavant et c'était un tel privilège et je suis très reconnaissant du succès de ce programme. Pas une mauvaise chose [00:29:00] résultat. Nous avons dû parler de certaines choses sur lesquelles, je le sais, vous devez avoir envie de parler de cette mission. Oh, oui réalisations scientifiques réalisations d'ingénierie.
Cela peut continuer encore et encore. Eh bien, ces Rovers, j’ai eu l’occasion d’écrire beaucoup sur la place de ces Rovers et d’autres missions sur Mars dans l’exploration de Mars, et c’est vraiment le cas. Je suis retourné à la recherche sur la création de cette mission et sur celle de la mission Curiosity. C'est vraiment étonnant de se rappeler qu'avant l'esprit et l'opportunité ont atterri.
Nous n'étions pas sûrs que Mars possédait des roches sédimentaires. Nous n'étions pas sûrs qu'il y avait eu un cycle de l'eau où des précipitations avaient submergé les collines et provoqué la formation de dépôts de sédiments. Surtout presque immédiatement prouvé l'existence d'une roche sédimentaire. Go on Mars a prouvé qu’il était vraiment habitable avant que la curiosité ne l’ait fait que c’était un environnement habitable.
Et pour que je pense que regarder cela était juste incroyable et [00:30:00] c'était aussi un triomphe pour voir la minéralogie de l'espace. Nous avons vu l'hématite utiliser ce qui semble maintenant être des instruments assez primitifs sur Mars Global Surveyor, mais l'hématite était l'unique minéral que l'hématite est un oxyde de fer parfois vendu sous forme de larmes d'Apache.
Il a un aspect gris métallique. Nécessite de l'eau pour se former et suffisamment d'opportunité fondée sur la surface. Vous savez à quel point il est rare qu'une mission confirme la validité de la conclusion de notre précédente mission. Cela n'arrive pas souvent dans la science planétaire. Cela se passe plus souvent maintenant.
Et donc je pense que ce sont les deux choses les plus étonnantes mais ensuite, bien sûr, les occasions ont continué de se répandre à la surface, tout comme les spiritueux, alors je me demande en fait qu'est-ce que vous faites, Abby et John? Quelles sont selon vous les réalisations scientifiques les plus fières de la. Eh bien, je pense que pour profiter de cette opportunité, il arrivait en orbite au bord de Endeavour Crater.
Nous avons eu de nouveaux instruments qui sont entrés dans [00:31:00] orbite après opportunité, le spectromètre d'imagerie de reconnaissance compact pour Mars ou chrisme a notamment atterri. Il s'agit d'un autre instrument conçu pour examiner la minéralogie d'une manière légèrement différente de celle qui avait détecté l'hématite et le chrisme à l'origine.
Nous avons vu qu'il y avait des réclamations. Dans le bord du cratère Endeavour, nous voyons que Clay est partout sur Mars avec chrisme. Mais ce serait notre première occasion de les regarder avec le véhicule au sol. So to interject there to explain to the audience. Why do we care about clay? Well Clay is what happens when you take a lava mineral or a lava rock Basalt and you attack it with water.
So it has the same kinds of atoms in it, except that in between the atoms that came from the basalt. It's they're sort of a layered mineral that has a bunch of water molecules stuffed inside the layers I could. Sandwich, so that's what Clay is and that's why we're excited to see it on Mars because it requires water and I'll throw in excited now because curiosity as you have pointed out Emily online is just reached glaze.
It has just reached glaze but opportunity [00:32:00] got there. I'm be well happy got first where we see clay signatures from orbit. But yeah, we picked out a spot on the rim of Endeavour crater in a region called Cape you. And we drove right towards where the pixels were telling us to go and we discovered this remarkable alteration area called Esperance.
We could see it on the ground. It was kind of a different color and what we found when we looked at it was actually it was really enriched with certain elements that told us that there had been a lot of water moving through it that. Carried a raise some of the elements that were more soluble and it was kind of a confirmation that there had been a lot of water here and we could think about what was the chemistry of the water and what we realized it was probably a lot more neutral pH.
It was a lot more drinkable water than the kind of water that formed the hematite which is more like battery acid, which is a little bit more difficult for life. Alors. On the rim of Endeavour crater, we found conditions that we think would have been even more habitable than those [00:33:00] first findings and it also demonstrated that there had not only been liquid water in this area, but it had been there probably for a lot of different periods of time probably many different chemistry's and I think that's a really.
Interesting result. Yeah, I think that's one of the most striking things about the both opportunity and curiosity results is the way that you know water had to be involved in creating the sediments water had to be involved in transporting them and laying them down and turning them into rocks and then there's evidenced from veins and other stuff cross-cutting the rocks and alterations of different minerals that water has coursed through the rots once twice perhaps multiple times in the past.
So that's multiple episodes of different types of. Environments that have that have moved through these rocks over a very long period of Mars Mars has passed so it seems that if if it's relatively easy to initiate life and that is admittedly a big if but there's no reason to think that I couldn't have hung around on [00:34:00] Mars for a long time.
There seems to be an opportunity to say this in virtually every conversation we have about this planet. But it is a wonderfully diverse place and a wonderfully Dynamic place, right? It's certainly true of Mars. I think that we have that impression of Mars because we've had so many missions there. I studied as a graduate student.
I studied Venus and so I always had a little chip on my shoulder about how many Mars missions there were because where are the Venus missions? Where's the return missions a year? And it's and Neptune. Why aren't we at Mercury yet, but I think. I recognized seeing what we've accomplished at Mars how how much more you get when you send more than one Mission you send two missions.
You don't just get double you get quadruple because you by overlaying one missions results on another missions data. You actually multiply what you can see. It's like it's like exponential I shouldn't feel jealous about Mars. I should just advocate for there to be [00:35:00] more missions to all these other places here here.
Yeah. So here's here's the problem. I think you know the more we learn about Mars the more we see. Our diverse it is and we can say oh man, we should go there we should lay out here. We should land here and we learn how much more we learn when we land. So it's like the more missions we send it makes us need to send even more John.
Well, I don't think I can add anything more than they've already said of the subject of me. I agree with it. But what else stands out for you? Apart from the sign says I've been talking about this a lot last couple of days is that there is this great intangible that opportunity and spirit have given us and that they've made Mars a familiar place.
It's our neighborhood and I've had a team that has gone to work on Mars every day for the past 14 and a half years. It's a workplace they have become martians. So we have martians here on Earth because they work on Mars they show up. And they do their work in this strange place. We call the red planet.
[00:36:00] So our world is now larger. It's no longer confined just to the planet Earth it now has to include the surface of Mars because we we know it we know parts of it. There are familiar sights. We can look at the images so we can say. I know that place we've been there and I think that's significant. I think that's important because it's more than just a scientific Mission which is of itself of a tremendously important, but I think it expands our thinking about ourselves as human beings and that we are explorers and that we are no longer confined to the old world.
There's a new world that is now part of our domain of exploration and its place. We should continue to explore and we have because we've had this sustained surface exploration of Mars since January of 2004 and my hope and my expectation is is that will continue for as long as Humanity explores and sustained [00:37:00] orbital exploration since 1997.
I mean that our presence there has been long. We haven't started a new Mission since 2012, but nothing issue with that but. The surface Mission gives a human scale to the exploration. Yeah, you feel like you are standing there and you're seeing it for yourself and you you progress along with roving vehicle as if you are walking or traveling yourself and I think that is a very important aspect of this mission.
Ray Bradbury would be so proud We Are the Martians anything from on the engineering side where this was also such an amazingly successful effort. There are many things now that we take for granted safely landing on the surface of Mars the entry descent and Landing system is a remarkable way. AT [00:38:00] land in a hostel unknown environment the airbags have the limitations.
So, you know curiosity had to use the sky crane which is even more phenomenal accomplishment. There are several things one is learning how to do geology through a robotic system. Because all these field geologists there are all accustomed to walking around with a boost in their backpack and their have a camera and their hand lens and you know working a site in a matter of minutes and it's different with the Rover relay Communications.
Actually. This is one of the unsung heroes when we landed on Mars a prime method of data returned. We're going to be multiple x-band communication sessions. With the Rover each day, but that's very expensive in terms of energy because you're talking about transmitting from the surface of Mars all the way back to Earth.
That's a distance that's measured in hundreds of millions of kilometers takes a lot of transmit power to do that. Whereas with an orbiting relay asset where the Orbiter is [00:39:00] less than a thousand kilometers away, you know, and I'm sure Emily is talked about one over r squared in terms of signal strength for distant objects.
It was much more energy efficient to do relay, but we never tested that end-to-end each component the relay system on Mars Odyssey, which was built and designed years ahead of word ever mer was going to be. Always never fully integrated with the test systems at JPL so we did some testing but it wasn't considered Prime communication and even on Landing day.
It was a gamble whether you h f system would work because that was the system that returned the first images when you see those pictures of people in the control room in the images flash up in the screen and Mac Island back is doing cartwheels that came through the Mars Odyssey UHF relay system and we didn't know if it was going to work because it had never been tested and it worked beautifully from day one.
We returned well over 95 percent [00:40:00] of all data from the surface of Mars for spirit and. Tunity through the relay system. It was a phenomenal Workhorse one of the many Technologies, you know, and then you can go down the list autonomous robotic their ton of snap vacations visual odometry stereo Imaging all those things now now are our standard parts of our toolkit, but they were all experimental with mer and they really enable us to explore and to do what we did.
I without them we couldn't have gone the distance. Couldn't have been as productive in our science observations without all those capabilities. The radio relay the Telecom I think is actually a remarkable Legacy of the Mars exploration Rovers because you know Odyssey took early model of the relay radio and now JPL is outfitting all their Mars spacecraft with this Electra radio relay system.
Not only did the American missions the NASA missions carry it Mars reconnaissance Orbiter and Maven but there's an Electra [00:41:00] on exomars Trace gas Orbiter the European. And I know that NASA is in talks with the Indian space research organisation about putting an elector radio on their Orbiter. So it's actually become an international standard for Telecom on Mars.
I think that's just wonderful. So when you hear about the orbit of Maven being adjusted so that it can be a better relay, even though you won't be able to take advantage of it with your Rovers. Do you think about that Legacy? Well, what came about with mer is the integrated? Exploration program this combination of orbiters Landers and Rovers that all work together as a family and that's been the real value of the real productivity enhancement for Mars exploration because you know you had Mars Global surveyor first doing the initial surface Imaging with the mock camera to find the landing sites for mer.
Later on. It was the Mars reconnaissance Orbiter with the Hi-Rise [00:42:00] camera eyes in the sky that allowed us to get to Endeavour crater. It observed the path that we needed to follow to get there as quickly as possible and then the relay communication and then the weather monitoring hmm, you know, unfortunately the weather took opportunity, but there was a time many years ago.
We got a late phone call from Bruce Cantor and Malin space Sciences on a Friday saying there is a regional dust storm that had just erupted. I think it was near Spirit, but I'm not. Sure, that that's go back and look and I called in a team to come in on Saturday and change the commands. They were going to the Rover to configure it for reduced energy situation.
It was a smart move to make because we found that we needed to hunker down. Well the storm passed over us and so we got a you know, a heads-up from the eyes in the sky that this Hazard was coming a weather [00:43:00] satellite. Yeah, and that just is one illustration of how this Mars program and it's Emily said, you know having these relays now on every Orbiter that goes to Mars now really Returns the data from service because we can always collect more data on the surface than we can get back to Earth.
And so if you really want to enhance data return. Ours are enhance the science you get back just improve the communication link because the science collection is being done. And we should say Malin Space Systems. A lot of our audience will know but they happen to be the people who build a lot of the cameras at Mars and elsewhere around the solar system.
You mentioned something that made me remember something else that I think is quite remarkable about the Mars exploration Rovers as compared to curiosity, which is that Curiosity landed with the benefit of reconnaissance from Mars reconnaissance Orbiter to plan out all of its future path. The Mars exploration Rovers had to only their own eyes to figure out what was safe you had to take images every day and say [00:44:00] okay I'm going to I think this direction is going to be a safe direction to go but once I get there, I don't know if I'm going to be able to go on any further, especially with Spirit the mountain climb that you guys did was just amazing.
Yeah, we do so much root planing Now using those high-rise 25 centimeter per pixel images for for both opportunity and for. You know we had path laid out. We had hazards identified to go around and I can't imagine doing office without the high-rise. You don't mat. One of the things that I think is so true the set of missions is that so many things work.
So well that I think a lot of people have the impression they've always been there just like, you know, didn't the ancient Egyptians have hand calculators, you know. Abby was talking about high-rise. I mean, we now treat it as if it's always been there. But yeah, there was a time we didn't have that and it made navigation challenging but it but it works so well, you know relay now work so well, you know, everyone think didn't we always [00:45:00] have relay at Mars but.
When we landed we weren't planning on using it as our Baseline when curiosity was first conceived they weren't sure that Mars reconnaissance Orbiter was going to succeed so they couldn't depend on relay so that Rover was designed with like a practically one meter dish sitting on its back but I've seen those pictures you keep with her.
That was that was. Quite I'm glad you didn't have to do that going back to Jennifer trois / because she said something along these lines at the briefing yesterday that because she's had this tenure and is now working to put together the next Rover the 2020 Rover. She talked about its Heritage when you look at curiosity when you see the 2020 Rover coming together.
Do you think about this genealogy that comes directly from you folks and and to agree I suppose Sojourner, but not as much. But actually I think a lot of it comes from Soldier because we're talking about a six-wheeled rocker-bogie suspension system with ackermann steering. They all have [00:46:00] it and it started with Sojourner, you know, people ask well, why do you using you know, why aren't you using eight wheels instead of 6 or why don't you use it it just a four wheel drive and it started with Sojourner and found that this six-wheel rocker-bogie suspension system is the best suited for irregular terrain and making good rolling progress if it ain't broke.
It's working, you know, no one's come up with anything better than yeah and certainly in terms of the Ops process, which is what I'm most familiar with and what I spend my time doing, you know, I think the way that it the day of structured in terms of here's when we need our inputs. Here's how we're going to put together a plan certainly each Rover has.
On the previous one but as you get more and more complicated Rovers with more and more intense requirements for how far they need to go and how much they need to do in a day your operational plan changes but its Genesis is always from what you've done previously and what you learn worked and what didn't work imitation is the highest form of flattery.
And so it's interesting to see the [00:47:00] European designs for Rovers and the Chinese designs for Rovers, and they. Awfully familiar should have gotten that patent. What scared you the most something that you recovered from. I mean, they are scary moments. The 2007 dust storm was one the abetting of spirit was scary and that unfortunately was realized for what it was, you know, this dust storm that took opportunity.
It was scary, but maybe I'll take an opportunity to talk about situations where I wasn't scared and that was the Saul 18 anomaly for Spirit when we have the flash memory and you know, Jennifer Prosper talked about that and how they were scared. I wasn't I wasn't because I know we had the finest people in the solar system to solve this problem.
I knew they knew the system. Intimately and I knew they were talented [00:48:00] and Innovative and that they would find the solution and they did and so I was calm cool and collected during that whole hysterical moment where Jennifer and her team were running around trying to fix this thing. I just said.
They're gonna fix it. Yeah. I hope that they were more reassured than irritated by her confidence. What was the scary time for you – I think the one that most recently happened was the left front actuator getting stuck toad 30 degrees. We were in the middle of a turn and it just stopped turning. It was just a year or so ago.
It's not a great thing to have. Your steering wheels stuck turned out and the right friend as steering actuator had also been stuck. It would have made it really hard to drive the Rover. We send command straighten straighten straighten. Nothing happened. We convened a bunch of what we call Tiger teams to figure out.
Okay. Can we do anything that would make this worse? Decided no, [00:49:00] so, you know said, okay. Well, let's just try to straighten again see what happens and you know miraculously on the last sequence command the thing straightened and we got that wheel out at zero degrees pointed straight out which point we said, okay, we're not going to steer with these wheels anymore.
We're going to steer with the back wheels kind of like driving a car. But it would have made things a lot more difficult if we couldn't have straighten that wheel. I think yeah, I agree with you on that one. That was scary but it was miraculous because we had tried straightening and and we were unsuccessful and we had a serious commands to do it.
Well, okay, we're going to will try one more time and we tried it several times and it was the last command on the last day. It straightened and it's like right and we were trying to figure it out you brought in we found models of the motors and we were taking them apart and you were looking. Okay what in this mechanism could have broken and you know, we're trying to figure out why would a jam the see the interesting thing about the steering actuators is that [00:50:00] they are identical to the drive actuators.
Hmm But the drive actuators have. Hundreds of times more actuations on them because they're spinning all the time and you rarely infrequently steer relative to the amount of times a wheel spin. So we've sought if something's going to break it would be the drive actuators that would break first. And so why did the steering actuators break our best theory on that is that we have these little detent magnets on the shafts on all the actuators and they may have actually have broken on all of.
But because the drive actuators are horizontal the. Fragments of the magnets would just fall away from the drive mechanism where the steering actuators are more vertically oriented along their axes. And so the fragments would fall into the gear train. And so we think that might be the source of a potential debris that could periodically Jam the steering actuator.
What a great [00:51:00] example of the kind of detective work that that you had to do to keep these Rovers going as long as you did. Emily what scared you what made you anxious? Well, you know, I didn't work Mission operation, so I didn't actually have to worry. About a lot of these things I could just remain confident that people could handle them, but I'll have to tell you as a backseat driver on these missions the driving on the steep slopes where the Rover would like slide downhill more than it moved forward as it was just watching this.
I was like, oh my God, I can't believe the engineers are letting you do that. But I think it was it showed the the close cooperation and the trust between the scientists and the engineers that the scientists were always like. Can you get me to that outcrop? Can you get me to that spot in the engineers are like.
Okay, we'll try and they set the safety limits as needed on everything and they tried and they got out on outcrops that were tilted at an angle Spirit was climbing ridiculous slopes and it was just really impressive well opportunity at [00:52:00] the end. We were in this area called perseverance Valley which was pretty steep and the engineers were thrilled with the science team when we kept finding interesting targets.
We wanted to visit. That were back uphill the plan was to kind of Toboggan down a one way trip this Valley but we kept saying oh, you know that thing that we passed that's back there. Can we go there that looks cool and yeah, they got real good with figuring out how to drive on a slope that we knew we were going to slip in estimating how much we would kind of skid downhill to get the Rover exactly where we needed.
To do the science. Can you just imagine having a camera on that roast doing stuff? We did have a camera. You've been very generous with your time. You're just a couple of other things that I would love to ask you about. You already mentioned John Jim bridenstine. NASA administrator was was there with you spoke a couple of times at The Briefing yesterday and he looked like he was as thrilled as anybody could have [00:53:00] been to be amongst all of you.
Did you like what you heard from him as he saluted you but he also looked to the future. He said this is this is not the end. He said eventually we're going to put boots on Mars and those boots are going to be there with robot. Boots or Wheels. First of all, I think it meant a tremendous amount to the team that he took the time to come out in person and be here, you know, he's got an incredibly busy schedule and it just shows a tremendous amount of respect from him to the team and it really was a gesture that we sincerely appreciated.
You know, it was interesting to hear the comments about about the future of exploration and. There's a long way to go between the Rover's we have on Mars and boots on the ground. And so I'll be interested to see what the plans are between you know, what comes after 2020 we've been talking about the importance of a sustained program of Mars exploration and [00:54:00] early career scientists, like myself we're asking okay, we're trained up.
We know how to run these Rovers. What's next and so I really do hope that that is a focus and considering the importance of what needs to be completed before we get boots on the ground. He did also mention sample return. We should be going there, right? Yes, you know if we want to definitively establish whether there was or is Life on Mars.
We need to do sample return. We need to bring back carefully selected curated samples from the surface of Mars and examine them in the expert Laboratories here on the earth to determine that definitively so yeah, have we graduated from Fall of the water to find the life? So we've absolutely graduated from follow the water.
I think that there are two kind of emerging questions that are equally interesting in terms of life. There's of course the find the life [00:55:00] question. Can we find evidence for present or past a Life on Mars? But I think what is also becoming extremely interesting is the idea of thinking about Mars. In a system way as a terrestrial planet, you know, how did the climate of Mars evolve over time?
What were the factors that made Mars habitable in the past? And why is it uninhabitable? How does that compare to Venus? Why is Venus not habitable? I think Mars is an amazing place to study these questions because so much of the rock record is so old we don't have those rocks that are that old on earth anymore because plate tectonics have recycled it.
Mars doesn't have plate tectonics. That's another interesting question. Why not what gives a planet plate tectonics how does that make it habitable or not? And all of these wonderful questions, I think can be answered by going to Mars by going to Venus by going to these planets in our own solar system and then we can extrapolate what we learn to EXO planets around other stars, you know, we talk about the habitable zone.
We see a [00:56:00] planet a certain distance from the Sun well, How do we know that that's habitable? How can we make a guess does it have plate tectonics? That's probably a huge driver. So Mars is a fascinating place. I think let's look for Life there sure, but let's also use it as a laboratory to learn how planets work John.
I wish our audience could have been watching. Your Expressions is a bespoke as I was obviously you agree I do. Mars and answer many big questions and you know the question of are we alone but also what is our future I mean we're struggling with the challenges of climate change and the need to be good stewards of our planet.
So by studying other worlds, we can learn more about our own world and be informed about making those decisions. What's next for the two of you. So for me, I I've been pretty involved with Curiosity Rover operations. So I think I'm going to continue to do that and probably start spending more time on that because [00:57:00] I'll have the time available and hopefully also taking the time to.
Right some of the papers about what opportunity was Finding and we have a whole story about perseverance Valley that we need to tell that he's being modest here. She actually led the scientific campaign on the Vera Rubin Ridge on curiosity. So she's been quite involved in science operations and curiosity have those papers to write to John 20 years of your life.
Well, I'm going to be the new host of Planet radio to go talk to the boss. Excuse me. Well, you know there is so much to explore out there and there's so many exciting opportunities and I've been for some time now been helping out in exoplanet exploration and so will be helping to advance that field because there are now an in countable number of Worlds out there for us to explore as we've been exploring Mars.
I'm going to close pretty much where we started by talking about the emotional attachment that the two of you [00:58:00] have. I think that Emily and I have to these Rovers your team has but it is a worldwide phenomenon. I saw it in the coverage yesterday. I was watching the PBS NewsHour and Judy Woodruff. I would be willing to bet was almost tearing up a little bit as she talked about the end of this Mission and I think we all.
Share this sense of sadness, but also a good deal of warmth and pride. We sure do here at the planetary Society congratulations and thank you to both of you and to the entire team great to be with you and to share this story. Yes. Thank you so much. Mars exploration Rover project manager John kallis Deputy project scientist Abigail framin and planetary Society senior editor.
Emily locked abhaile joining me in the society Studio on Thursday, February 14th Valentine's Day and the day after the Mars exploration rover mission was declared complete [00:59:00] may all our Explorations and so triumphantly. Time for what's up on planetary radio Bruce Betts is the chief scientist for the planetary society and he is back with all of the great little features of this segment of our show that has been going on for 16 and almost 16 and a half years.
Welcome back. Thank you. Good to be back man. I've got lots of Planet stuff in the sky to spew at you today in the evening. We've got Mars in the southwest getting used. Still looking like a bright star but not that bright looking reddish. But if you use Mars, you can then go a few degrees below Mars with some binoculars and see your earnest or a telescope.
You'll probably want to get a finderchart online. If you're going to go hunting your anus or if you're an amazingly dark site with really good eyes, you might just see it. But otherwise probably not and Mercury speaking of things that are tough to see Mercury plenty bright, but [01:00:00] very low in the Horizon in the evening West be getting a little.
Higher over the next week or week or so in the pre-dawn. We've still got the beautiful sky show with from upper right to lower left bright Jupiter. Medium bright yellowish Saturn and then Venus to shaming them both below that and and don't order yet. The Crescent Moon joins the party being near Jupiter on the 27th and Venus.
On the second should be quite lovely go see it Matt. I will and we've had some beautiful Skies down my way. And so I will do my best to check these out. Of course. I'm still stuck back on your intro line, which sounds like you stole it from my bio a bright star, but not very bright Nomad here the Venus of Our Lives.
Okay. Hey Venus. I've gone. All right this week in space. 3 1962 [01:01:00] John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth in 25 years ago 1994. The Clementine Mission went into orbit around the Moon did some nice Moon studies checked out a bunch of technology and was an interesting partnership between the Strategic Defense Initiative office and NASA and a relatively small spacecraft, which reminds me.
Of a little cubesat I meant to warn you about this that I might ask you about it before we started recording but didn't what's going on with light sail line cells to is snug in storage at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. We pull it out every month or two in charge its batteries and we may be getting close to launch.
But I've heard that before we are now on the. The next launch of the Falcon heavy, which we thought was going to be ours is actually going to be a communication satellite called Arab sat and that may be coming up in a month or so and then [01:02:00] we're sometime after that on the next launch of the Falcon heavy.
Thank you for that somewhat out of context. I suppose update we move on then. To random space fact as of February 20 19, there are five objects that are called dwarf planet Ceres Pluto Eris Makemake in Dalmatia. If you add the masses of all the dwarf planets together, the total is less than half the mass of the Earth's Moon that is just great.
I'm letting it sink that that's a good not that big. No, they're really not more. Our moon is really huge. It is one of the largest in the solar system, but it's still active a lot smaller than a Nerf. We move you ready to move on to the trivia contest. Pourquoi pas? I do not know. No, it's a rhetorical question.
Oh, I know you can go on so sorry. Okay. All right. I asked you. How long was the longest Skylab Mission? How do we [01:03:00] do man? Very well. A lot of people must be interested in this book that we're giving away and looks like we're going to be giving it to a first-time winner Kevin Calendar our cow juror.
He didn't give me a pronunciation guide of cremora, Virginia who says that the longest of the Skylab missions the longest that any of those Crews stayed onboard Skylab was the so called Skylab for Mission, which went for 84 days. Not bad. Effectivement. There is the correct answer the third mission with humans on Skylab known as Skylab for all right, Kevin congratulations to you.
You will be getting the full set of kick asteroid stickers from Chop Shop via the planetary society and the oversight of our our friend the chief scientist and a 200 point. I telescope dotnet astronomy account along with and this is the biggie for this time, I guess. the [01:04:00] universe today Ultimate Guide to viewing the cosmos, you might think of it as the adult version of astronomy for kids from the chief scientist there.
This is by David Dickinson with Fraser Cain Frazier course the publisher of universe today. It has a forward by our friend. Dr. Pamela gay some Page Street publishing. It's a beautifully done book and we will put it in the mail to Kevin got some other stuff Galen Drennen in Toronto. Reading through some articles about the Skylab missions.
He was amazed to learn how many glitches failures and unexpected challenges they face, but also how they were ingeniously repaired by NASA and the astronauts on board riveting stuff Galen. That's true man, right from the start man. They had terrible problems with Skylab, right? Yeah, they had all sorts of struggles with it.
Also. It sounds like you were describing me glitchy and failures. Now, I'm sad don't be sad [01:05:00] justjust. Hey Norman could soon in the UK the crew photograph the Earth from orbit despite instructions not to do so the crew perhaps inadvertently photographed. Area 51 causing a minor dispute between various government agencies as to whether the photographs showing the secret facility should be released in the end.
The picture was published along with all the others in NASA's Skylab image archive, but remained unnoticed for years. What if they cut the aliens waving up to them Martin Martin who Jos key. They're Splashdown. That is the Splashdown of the three members of the crew Gerald car Edward Gibson Hoot Gibson and William Pogue.
It was 350 3 kilometers South Southwest of Los Angeles the closest any Landing of a NASA involves space. Came to the headquarters of the planetary Society at least since he adds Bill Dana in the X-15 in 1968 at Edwards Air [01:06:00] Force Base. Wow, is this obscure? Awesome random space fact a hundred and sixty kilometers away is at words as we know because we've driven out there several times finally this from Andrew Zimmerman in Tokyo Skylab despite the Apollo veterans among the crews these missions never.
If they're due recognition, he says his young boy of the 70s. However, I was enthralled. He's pretty much right about that. These were real Pioneers doing stuff that nobody had ever done before and they deserve great Kudos even today. That is so true speaking of anti Kudos. I need to correct something.
You said man. What I say referred to Edward you referred Edward Gibson. I said Hoops tonight. Yeah. Sorry about that food. Gibson is Robert L. Gibson a astronaut in a later time period veteran of many shuttle missions Edward Gibson the veteran of Skylab 4. Thank you for that. I'm glad you know your astronauts.
Yeah. [01:07:00] They just deny that they know me. All right. What do you got for next time? For next time we return to the Magnificent land of dwarf planets of the five dwarf planets as of you know now which is the only one that does not have at least one Moon. Go to planetary dot org slash radio contest all the others.
They got moved, you know, you got your list to work from from Bruce earlier in the segment, which one doesn't have a moon. Let us know by the 27th, February 27th at 8 a.m. Pacific time and we will award you. A kick asteroid rubber asteroid. I was able to do it this time along with the 200-point. I telescope dotnet account and you can use those remote telescopes that are all over the world to try and catch one of those dwarf planets.
Good luck with that. I think we're done. All right, everybody go out there. Look up the night [01:08:00] sky and think about your favorite spacecraft. That's no longer communicating with us. Which one would it be? Thank you and. There's so many to choose from sadly. He's respects the chief scientist for the planetary Society who joins us every week here for what's up?
Planetary radio is produced by the planetary Society in Pasadena, California and is made possible by its Martian members MaryLiz Bender is our associate producer Josh soil composed our theme which was arranged and performed by Peter Schlosser. I'm Mat
Kaplan Ad Astra.