Man on Mars: Mission to the Red Planet Horizon


Man on Mars: Mission to the Red Planet

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EXPLOSIVE BLAST

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Ignition.

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Mars, the Red Planet.

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We've long wondered if it's harboured life.

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Some have dreamt of walking on its surface.

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More than four decades after they landed on the Moon,

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NASA are now imagining a two-year ride across space...

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..to Mars.

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The scorecard of Mars is at best 50/50.

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It's tough to get there.

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If you think about putting humans in harm's way, it's a tough job.

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To do it, they need new rockets on a new scale...

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A new way of surviving in space...

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..and a new breed of astronauts...

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Think about a mission to Mars. What is it? Is it outdoor stuff,

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or is it confinement?

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And then I see somebody that says, "I have a stamp collection,

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"I do a lot of reading, I enjoy watching movies."

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And I'm thinking, "That might be good for confinement."

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To finally go to Mars would be the fulfilment

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of one of our grandest dreams.

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I long for a time when I can actually walk out of my back yard,

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stare at space, spot Mars, and actually think,

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"There are humans on Mars, right now, and we helped put them there."

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But is this ultimately a dream NASA can really deliver?

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Right now on Mars, there is an object the size of a car,

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roaming about on the surface.

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It was sent across vast voids of space

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to this harsh and rocky planet.

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And now, every day, it opens its eyes upon on another world,

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trawls the surface for signs of life

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and sends back images like these.

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Now NASA want to go a stage further

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and put a group of people up here with it.

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And so the man who masterminded the landing of this rover

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is now part of a team trying to work out

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if humans can safely be sent to join it on Mars.

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Mars is a tough place to get to.

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It's a scary, expensive and risky proposition for robots.

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When you think about putting a human in harm's way,

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you've got to double down on your engineering

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to make sure that everything goes right.

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The simple truth is that much of the technology they'll need doesn't yet exist.

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People get, I think, confused by the technologies on Star Trek.

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And perhaps in 400 or 500 years from now,

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we'll have those kinds of technologies available.

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But for the present time, if we want to do space exploration,

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there are risks.

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And the longer the mission, and the farther away we go,

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then the higher the risks are going to be.

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The history of previous, unmanned, missions provides little comfort.

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So Mars is a risky place to go.

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Early attempts - Mariner 3 and Mariner 8,

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almost everything the Soviets tried to put there,

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the Mars Polar Lander in '99 - all these missions have failed.

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The scorecard of Mars is at best 50/50.

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So as NASA set their sights on a manned mission to Mars,

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can they pull it off?

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The scientists and engineers at NASA are returning

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to the business they're famous for -

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transforming a fantastical idea into a precise set of engineering plans.

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These are the people who must face, and overcome,

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every problem involved in sending human beings

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56 million kilometres from Earth.

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Everything from stopping them from going mad with boredom,

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to dealing with years of human waste.

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It's quite a challenge.

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And the team must begin at the beginning, by escaping planet Earth.

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If anyone should ever ask you to build a spaceship to go to Mars,

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then, like any craftsman,

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you first have to find a space to work in.

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This vast hangar, once home to key parts of the Apollo rockets

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and Space Shuttle, is where a rocket that'll one day

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go to Mars will take shape.

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Ricardo Navarro is clearing the decks

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so that assembly of the rocket can begin.

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It's so much larger than what we did here before. So much taller.

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The best way to assemble something this complex and this big

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is to assemble it vertically.

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You generally want to build like you fly.

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So they start at the bottom, with the fuel tanks.

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This is as high as we can go using the elevator. The rest is on foot.

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It's hard to tell with this big of a space

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how big the actual vehicle's going to be, the rocket.

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But you can actually already see some signs emerging.

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You can see that blue circle forming.

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That is the actual diameter of the rocket.

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So you can imagine something of that diameter, all the way up

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to about ten feet below where we are right now,

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being the actual size of the hydrogen tank.

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Even at this height, we cannot contain the entire rocket.

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The rocket is called the Space Launch System, or SLS.

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And this building can only accommodate half of it.

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So far, very little of the SLS exists beyond the drawing boards,

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save for one part that's already under construction.

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Here, in New Orleans, they're building the first section

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of this monster rocket - the fuel tanks.

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Lead engineer Todd May has come to see the first completed section.

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And this is what it's like to be inside a rocket.

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To keep it light, it's made out of aluminium,

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using a design inspired by nature.

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This is an iso-grid pattern. It looks a little like honeycombs.

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You know, bees are pretty smart.

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We make this this way to actually keep most of the strength

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of the material while being able to remove 90% of the weight.

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Keeping the weight down is imperative,

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because this seven-metre-high slab is just one of many

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which will make up the overall rocket.

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Now, to make a core of a rocket,

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you actually have to have the equivalent of ten of these tall.

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You have a hydrogen tank, which is the equivalent of five of these,

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plus a dome on either end. And then the liquid oxygen tank,

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which is two of these with a dome on either end.

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The core, when you're finished, is two thirds of a football field long.

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By the time you add the interim upper stage,

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it's taller than the Statue of Liberty.

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This giant piece of metal will be useful for just moments.

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So, to give you a sense of what's going on through launch,

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this section, which is filled with rocket fuel,

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is pouring it out through the engines very quickly.

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Just one section like this would empty in about a minute.

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This is the only piece of the rocket that exists right now.

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But before it can be tested in 2017,

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millions of other parts will be made to join it.

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July 1969. The launch of Apollo 11.

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The mission - to leave Earth and carry three men

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in a 30-ton capsule...

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..a distance of 385,000 kilometres...

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..and to be the first to step on the surface of a body other than Earth.

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It was a phenomenal feat.

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And the whole experience took little more than a week.

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CHEERING

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But Mars is a very different proposition to the Moon.

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Lying 56 million kilometres from Earth,

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Mars is over 140 times farther away.

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With current technology, a return journey

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would take around three years,

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and require a team of four to eight astronauts.

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Anyone who thinks this is Apollo with bigger rockets

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needs to think again.

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Because this is a mission that will take man, for the first time,

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out of Earth's orbit, leaving its protection far behind.

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Stennis, Mississippi.

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This is the place where every single rocket engine

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that NASA has ever built has been tested...

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from Saturn V to the Space Shuttle main engine.

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Today, Mission Control are setting up for a full-power burn

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of one of their latest models.

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Gary Benton, who's in charge of rocket testing,

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has come to oversee the burn.

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SIREN BLARES

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The one-minute siren. So we're within a minute now.

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We're getting close. My heart's beating pretty fast right now.

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I've got some adrenaline rushing through me.

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And there'll be more once it cranks up here in a few minutes.

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We're off!

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An engine like this will be just one of six

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which will help propel the SLS into orbit.

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Looks like a safe shutdown.

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So when the time comes to test the much bigger SLS rocket,

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it must be at the largest stand they have.

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Like so much in the mission to Mars,

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they'll be standing on the shoulders of NASA's previous missions,

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borrowing and re-purposing the best from Apollo and the Shuttle.

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-How's it going, man?

-It's going good.

-All right.

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B Stand was built over 50 years ago

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for the testing of the Saturn engines that carried the Apollo missions to space.

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-You can't walk round there, cos there's so many people.

-Right.

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Gary and his team will be reshaping and upgrading this stand

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so that it can cope with the next generation of rockets.

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This is the same crane that we used to lift those Saturn V four-stages

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and we're going to use the very same crane to lift the SLS four-stage

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and place it in this facility, anchor it down really good.

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Firing off about two million pounds of thrust.

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And that's going to be the biggest test we've done out here

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since we did the Saturn V.

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There's a palpable sense of excitement here

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because for the first time in decades,

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they're thinking of using these rockets to send PEOPLE

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beyond Earth's orbit.

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For now, this is NASA's best vision of what a rocket

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bound for Mars would look like.

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'Eight, seven, six, five, four...'

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But if you're going all the way to Mars,

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a single rocket of this size is not enough.

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NASA estimates that they will need at least seven launches

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to get all the equipment they need up into space.

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The fuel, the food, the Mars Lander -

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all will need to be launched into Earth's orbit

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and then assembled in space, much as the Space Station has been.

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Only then will it be ready to leave Earth's orbit.

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But there's an uncomfortable truth about the journey ahead.

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Since they can't carry enough fuel for the full distance,

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they need to rely on Mars's gravity to pull them in.

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It's called the slingshot effect and it means that once they're off,

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there's no turning back.

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Anyone who's willing to leave the safety of Earth behind

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needs to be a very particular type of person.

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Back in the days of Apollo 11, picking a crew was straightforward.

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It was clear who had the right stuff.

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Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins

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were the cream of US supersonic flight.

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They were drawn from the elite world of fighter and test pilots.

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And with that came supreme hand-eye co-ordination and physical daring.

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But these may not be the same skills you'd need to go to Mars.

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I noticed that a lot of the astronauts were of the old school.

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"I hunt, I fish, I ski,

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"I climb mountains, I climb trees..."

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You know, lots of outdoor stuff.

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But think about a mission to Mars. What is it?

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Is it outdoor stuff or is it confinement?

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And then I see somebody that says, "I have a stamp collection,

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"I do a lot of reading, I enjoy watching movies."

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And I'm thinking, "That might be good for confinement!"

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Dr David Dinges is interested in how you select a crew

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and safeguard their psychological welfare in space.

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And the key issue is really understanding who's going to develop

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a problem and when will it develop? Will all the crew develop it?

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How do we detect it? How do we prevent it to begin with?

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To date, the only answers come from a Russian study -

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an Earth-bound simulation of the approximately 520 days

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in isolation it would take for a return trip to the Red Planet.

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As the Russian study was gearing up, Dr Dinges set himself a challenge.

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Could he use his expert knowledge to anticipate

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who would fare best in confinement?

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In the Mars 520 mission I watched the crew intensively.

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I wanted to see them during the maelstrom of media attention

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before they went in to the chamber and how they interacted

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in that environment.

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And body posture, where they were looking, what they said.

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When they went in, he made his prediction.

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And I made notes and I wrote down a variety of things.

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I made predictions - and this is true - I sealed it up in an envelope

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and put it in the drawer and waited till the mission was over.

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In this footage, released by the European Space Agency,

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the astronauts look well.

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But by the end, deep troubles were brewing.

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The bottom line is that out of six people who went,

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only two didn't have significant behavioural problems

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of one kind or another.

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A couple of them experienced insomnia.

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One experienced some depression. Another was more socially isolated.

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But the two I predicted would make it just fine made it just fine.

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Like the Apollo missions, the Russian study was all-male.

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But what if NASA were to shake up this tradition?

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I suspect we're going to find there are some areas women have

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a slight advantage. In some areas men have a slight advantage.

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Bone loss or radiation. And so I think a mixed crew is likely.

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The agencies want to show that the astronauts represent humanity, right?

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And that's a reasonable thing to do.

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NASA hope to launch the mission in 2033.

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So the astronauts who'll get to go are probably still at school.

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If you were among those astronauts on board,

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you'd sense the major physical challenge immediately -

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a lack of gravity.

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It's a problem faced every day on the Space Station

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but, so far, no-one has spent more than 15 months in low gravity.

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But if you were on your way to Mars, you'd be away for twice that time.

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For the scientists the question is, how do you understand

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the long-term effects of weightlessness here on Earth?

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-Good afternoon! Time for lunch.

-Lunch, already?

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-Yes. Isn't it amazing how time flies?

-Let's eat!

-Bon appetit!

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Welcome to the weird, horizontal world of Frank and Daniel.

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They've volunteered to spend 70 days in a row lying down,

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as part of an ongoing study on the effects of weightlessness.

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That's because the closest thing to zero-G conditions

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here on Earth is to lie in bed.

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But that's much harder work than it looks.

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The second morning waking up from the bed-rest,

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you kind of, you know, want to try to normally sit up like you normally do,

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but then you bring the lamp down to you to turn on your lights.

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You don't go up to the lamp. It's a little difficult.

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Yeah, taking a dump here's not too pleasant!

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But, you know, what can you do? You've got to do it.

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It's not too bad, you know.

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I guess I can finally say I know how to use one of our bedpans!

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HE LAUGHS

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You should try it. It's a good experience!

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HE LAUGHS

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-Hey, Frank, how is it going?

-It's been pretty good, you know.

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-You're on bed-rest day 28!

-That's correct.

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Yeah, so how was it when you first went head down?

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Dr Roni Cromwell is running the trial,

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which overall has 27 subjects.

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So we get people from all walks of life.

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We've had people who are between jobs,

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that are looking for something to do.

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We've had people that wish they had been able to be an astronaut

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and since that couldn't happen, they wanted to do the next best thing.

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Roni ensures that all the subjects are kept with their heads tilted

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six degrees down, which best emulates the effects of space.

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And by tipping them six degrees head down tilt,

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we see the headward fluid shifts,

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that is similar to what astronauts experience in space as well.

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And by doing that we can then study the mechanism for these changes

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as well as develop countermeasures to mitigate these changes.

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A typical day starts with breakfast in bed...

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..and a shower...in bed.

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After lunch, tests...in bed.

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My favourite part!

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Today, they're investigating a mission-critical problem -

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why astronauts often lose their appetite in space.

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During weightlessness, body fluids flow into the head

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and scientists believe this may affect the airflow.

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So they're measuring the size of Frank's nasal cavity,

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to look for swelling which might restrict

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his sense of smell and taste.

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Daniel is slightly luckier.

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He's among the 50% of subjects who are selected

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to occasionally escape bed to study the effects of exercise.

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It can be a little bewildering.

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The reason for optimising the exercise programme

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is to find the best sort of recipe for the exercise that's needed

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to preserve muscle and bone in our astronauts.

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Exercise has long been known as a means of staving off

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loss of bone and muscle mass in space.

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Because the effects of this can be devastating.

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These astronauts, just landed from the Soyuz capsule in 2013,

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are too weak to even stand, let alone walk.

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On a mission to Mars, the effects would be even more pronounced.

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After all, it's a much longer journey.

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But there'll be no-one on Mars to carry them away.

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The astronauts must be able to step out of the capsule

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and onto the Martian surface by themselves.

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Scientists are realising that exercise alone, however optimised,

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is not enough.

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If humans are ever going to be strong enough to explore

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the Martian surface, they'll need some other help

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to keep them fit for the adventure ahead.

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You may never even notice it, but millions of years of evolution

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have finely tuned your body to conditions on planet Earth,

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so that cells in your muscle and your bone simply can't grow

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without the force of gravity acting on them.

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So Dr Randall Urban is looking for something that can stimulate

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muscle and bone growth, in the absence of gravity.

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And he's turned his attention to a chemical

0:27:190:27:21

that's well known for building your body.

0:27:210:27:24

Well, testosterone is a very interesting hormone

0:27:260:27:30

and it seems to be primarily responsible for protection of bone

0:27:300:27:35

and protection of muscle.

0:27:350:27:36

Dr Urban is working with the bed-rest study.

0:27:380:27:41

He's giving regular injections of testosterone

0:27:410:27:44

to half of the subjects who are exercising.

0:27:440:27:47

But it's a double-blind study,

0:27:470:27:49

so no-one knows who's getting the testosterone and who isn't.

0:27:490:27:53

We see that one of the exercise groups is doing much better

0:27:530:27:57

than the other exercise group.

0:27:570:27:59

In our minds, we think that may be the testosterone group

0:27:590:28:02

which is showing that benefit.

0:28:020:28:04

Daniel doesn't know whether he's received the testosterone or not.

0:28:070:28:11

He'll just keep on running

0:28:110:28:13

and having his bone and muscle mass monitored, until his 70 days are up.

0:28:130:28:18

The results of the study will help determine whether astronauts

0:28:180:28:21

travelling to Mars will take doses of testosterone

0:28:210:28:24

to keep their bones and muscles strong.

0:28:240:28:27

But that raises an interesting question.

0:28:290:28:32

What if some of those astronauts are women?

0:28:320:28:34

When we use testosterone in women we have to be very concerned

0:28:350:28:38

about the side effects which actually will cause them

0:28:380:28:42

to develop male characteristics.

0:28:420:28:45

We would have to be figuring out ways to deliver testosterone

0:28:450:28:49

in low enough doses that you wouldn't get

0:28:490:28:52

any of those other characteristics in the women.

0:28:520:28:55

It remains to be seen whether testosterone can be given to women,

0:28:570:29:01

not to mention a group of competitive men in a confined space.

0:29:010:29:05

But the health risks of travelling to Mars

0:29:060:29:09

don't just threaten the body.

0:29:090:29:11

Perhaps the greatest challenge of all is in the mind.

0:29:110:29:16

Ignition.

0:29:280:29:29

Imagine you're one of the astronauts and you've now been on board

0:29:360:29:39

for several months, in the same small place,

0:29:390:29:41

with the same few people.

0:29:410:29:44

You've played all the games on your tablet

0:29:440:29:46

and the view out of the window never changes.

0:29:460:29:49

You may start to feel a little bored. Perhaps a little glum.

0:29:490:29:54

And this is important, not just because it's nice to be happy.

0:29:540:29:59

Having a functioning team on a spaceship

0:29:590:30:02

can be a matter of life and death.

0:30:020:30:04

If you become depressed in space flight,

0:30:060:30:09

if you develop a poor interaction style or you become socially

0:30:090:30:12

isolated because something's wrong and your brain can't cope

0:30:120:30:16

or your behaviour's off, or you become cognitively impaired,

0:30:160:30:19

then you pose a risk for yourself

0:30:190:30:20

and the rest of the crew and the mission.

0:30:200:30:22

These problems occurred in the past with Shackleton, with Nansen,

0:30:220:30:25

with Amundsen, with all the great expeditions.

0:30:250:30:28

They remain fundamental problems.

0:30:280:30:30

One solution being tested by Dr Dinges and his team

0:30:350:30:38

is to use the spacecraft's on-board cameras

0:30:380:30:41

to watch over the astronauts day and night.

0:30:410:30:45

I want to review, sort of, what we've got. OK, so get position.

0:30:460:30:49

Centre yourself.

0:30:490:30:50

Dr Dinges and his team are using new facial recognition software,

0:30:520:30:56

and its success hinges on identifying telltale signs

0:30:560:30:59

in the face, which betray what the mind beyond is really thinking.

0:30:590:31:04

Number one, for just tracking purposes, the jaw line really helps.

0:31:040:31:08

You, know where the face is oriented.

0:31:080:31:10

Number two, we need the lips because the lips tell a lot about frowns,

0:31:100:31:14

smiles. And then we need the eyes.

0:31:140:31:16

The eyes are hugely expressive in humans.

0:31:160:31:19

Chris, give us just neutral here.

0:31:190:31:22

And just, you know, think about just work

0:31:220:31:25

or whatever you're doing, and nothing particularly important.

0:31:250:31:28

Now give me a positive.

0:31:280:31:30

OK? A small smile, nothing big.

0:31:300:31:32

Just a small joke, there you go.

0:31:320:31:36

And now don't be so dramatic with the negative but definitely show me

0:31:360:31:39

something negative, like you're annoyed that somebody's...

0:31:390:31:42

You don't have to show sadness. Try and give me some anger.

0:31:420:31:45

There you go, bingo.

0:31:450:31:46

It's not just emotion.

0:31:460:31:48

Another important state of mind in space

0:31:480:31:51

is how much concentration you have.

0:31:510:31:54

We discovered that the most reliable measure, better than brainwave,

0:31:540:31:58

was speed of the eyelid closure,

0:31:580:32:00

the levator palpebrae muscle in the eyelid.

0:32:000:32:02

And that's what these little green boxes are tracking,

0:32:020:32:05

and as we get more tired, no matter what we're doing,

0:32:050:32:09

the speed of the eyelid blink slows.

0:32:090:32:12

Now, it's only slowing in 100, 200, 300 thousandths of a second

0:32:120:32:17

so it's almost not visible to a human, but in this case

0:32:170:32:21

the computer can measure it with a great deal of precision.

0:32:210:32:24

And that means you're highly likely to have a lapse of attention,

0:32:240:32:28

to have either a microsleep or fail to respond

0:32:280:32:31

in a timely manner to something you're monitoring.

0:32:310:32:33

And that's why this is so valuable, because now we know your emotion,

0:32:330:32:37

and we know if you're tired or fatigued from inadequate sleep,

0:32:370:32:40

sleep loss, circadian desynchrony on the spacecraft.

0:32:400:32:42

But is it overkill to design a machine to do a job

0:32:450:32:48

so instinctive for humans?

0:32:480:32:51

You could argue, "Well, can't a human just do it, then?"

0:32:510:32:54

Are you serious?

0:32:540:32:55

Is a human going to actually look at, you know, every 30 seconds

0:32:550:32:58

or a minute, a face constantly for a 17-month mission? It's not realistic.

0:32:580:33:04

Better to have a machine do it, with an algorithm,

0:33:040:33:07

then it feeds it back in aggregate. Then a human can say,

0:33:070:33:09

"Give me that section of the mission right here,

0:33:090:33:12

"and give me this astronaut,"

0:33:120:33:13

"and what's going on here? Cos we saw a big spike here".

0:33:130:33:16

But what this research cannot answer is the question that might

0:33:180:33:21

keep a would-be Mars astronaut awake at night.

0:33:210:33:24

What if you or one of your crew members DID break down?

0:33:250:33:30

How would you deal with it?

0:33:300:33:32

You can't step outside to calm down.

0:33:320:33:35

It's a frightening thought.

0:33:360:33:38

One we've never faced before.

0:33:390:33:41

Thankfully, life in space is not all rumination and introspection.

0:33:450:33:50

There are everyday, practical issues to attend to.

0:33:500:33:54

How do you keep yourself clean? Tidy? Healthy?

0:33:540:33:59

How do you cope with the barest necessities?

0:33:590:34:01

Here we are at the throne!

0:34:060:34:09

Number two, right here.

0:34:090:34:10

I'll show you.

0:34:120:34:13

But you see, it's pretty small so you have to have pretty good aim.

0:34:140:34:18

And this guy right here... is for number one.

0:34:180:34:22

People always ask about toilet paper.

0:34:220:34:24

"What do you do with toilet paper? What kind of toilet paper do you have?"

0:34:240:34:27

We have gloves, just because sometimes it does get messy.

0:34:270:34:30

We have some Russian wipes, which are a little bit coarse

0:34:300:34:33

if you like the coarse type of toilet paper.

0:34:330:34:35

We have Huggies, erm, just for any clean-ups.

0:34:350:34:38

You know, we were all babies once and this sort of helps.

0:34:380:34:42

And, of course, you do have your privacy. There's a little door.

0:34:420:34:45

But once you've closed that door and flushed the handle,

0:34:480:34:51

what happens next?

0:34:510:34:54

How do you deal with years of waste, with no plumbing and no sewers?

0:34:540:34:59

Here in Tucson, Arizona, Taber McCallum,

0:35:010:35:04

a specialist in space life-support systems,

0:35:040:35:07

is dealing with the nitty-gritty of this question.

0:35:070:35:10

And in space, he believes what comes out

0:35:120:35:15

must be inextricably linked to what goes in.

0:35:150:35:19

So one of the most important things we need to stay alive

0:35:210:35:24

is drinking water.

0:35:240:35:26

And people consume about two litres a day of drinking water,

0:35:260:35:31

so for a 500-day mission, that's a ton of water. Four crew,

0:35:310:35:36

that's four tonnes of water you'd have to bring with you,

0:35:360:35:39

so we have to drink the same water over and over again.

0:35:390:35:43

Taber is into recycling in a big way.

0:35:470:35:50

What we have is a sample of today's urine

0:35:550:35:58

and then we put that urine on one side of a special set of membranes.

0:35:580:36:04

Similar to the way plants essentially treat water for us

0:36:040:36:07

by transpiring the water through the membrane of the cell,

0:36:070:36:11

the water then goes in on one side of the membrane,

0:36:110:36:14

travels from molecule to molecule,

0:36:140:36:17

and at the other side of the membrane, evaporates away.

0:36:170:36:20

So it's a process of hydration and dehydration,

0:36:200:36:23

and in that process of the membrane we selectively only get water.

0:36:230:36:26

He's hoping to reclaim 98% of drinkable water

0:36:290:36:33

from the crew's urine.

0:36:330:36:35

That's a significant improvement from the 75%

0:36:350:36:38

currently recycled on the Space Station.

0:36:380:36:40

But Taber has also set his sights on solid waste.

0:36:450:36:48

There's two issues with solid waste.

0:36:510:36:53

One is there is water in that solid waste that we'd like to extract,

0:36:530:36:57

but even if you didn't bother to extract that water out, what

0:36:570:37:00

am I going to do with bags of solid human waste for a year and a half?

0:37:000:37:05

You've got to stabilise it somehow, that it won't produce

0:37:050:37:09

lots of gases and smell bad and ferment and who knows!

0:37:090:37:13

So some people keep suggesting,

0:37:130:37:14

"Why don't you just blast this waste into outer space?"

0:37:140:37:17

One of the more interesting reasons not to is that we'd end up

0:37:170:37:21

at Mars with a cloud of waste around the spaceship.

0:37:210:37:24

It's not going anywhere. It's already on the trajectory that we're on.

0:37:240:37:29

So you really want to keep all that stuff away from the spacecraft

0:37:290:37:31

and make good use of this material.

0:37:310:37:34

It's good material - we just have to figure out how to use it.

0:37:340:37:37

For some reason I can't get any of the lab techs interested in this project!

0:37:390:37:43

It may seem trivial, but a mission to Mars will only become

0:37:440:37:48

a practical reality if these problems,

0:37:480:37:50

that all of us take for granted in our Earthly lives, can be solved.

0:37:500:37:54

But imagine the recycling of waste was sorted.

0:37:590:38:03

And imagine your body and mind could be kept strong.

0:38:030:38:07

If you were on the way to Mars,

0:38:070:38:10

there would still remain one powerful threat to your survival.

0:38:100:38:13

Radiation.

0:38:150:38:17

Just how much radiation you, as an astronaut, would be exposed to

0:38:220:38:26

was quantified by the recent Curiosity mission.

0:38:260:38:29

And they found it to be several hundred times more intense

0:38:300:38:33

than on Earth.

0:38:330:38:35

And that's a problem.

0:38:350:38:36

So one important factor of, actually, life on Earth

0:38:390:38:44

and how we were able to evolve is that we're protected

0:38:440:38:46

from the radiation of galactic cosmic rays

0:38:460:38:48

and from the radiation of the sun by the magnetic field of the Earth,

0:38:480:38:51

which is caused by the iron core of the Earth.

0:38:510:38:53

That magnetic field creates a protective shield around

0:38:560:38:59

our planet called the magnetosphere, which deflects radiation.

0:38:590:39:04

The more dangerous solar particles don't get through

0:39:050:39:08

so that we, mostly, receive only life-giving sunshine.

0:39:080:39:12

But out in space, everything is different.

0:39:210:39:24

Out here, the bubbling surface of the sun occasionally builds

0:39:260:39:31

to a huge explosion.

0:39:310:39:34

These solar flares throw out massive bursts of radiation

0:39:340:39:39

and high-energy protons, which might damage your DNA,

0:39:390:39:43

causing mutations and cancer later on.

0:39:430:39:46

Fortunately, there's a way of dealing with this - shielding.

0:39:510:39:56

Jeff Cerro is investigating the best materials to absorb radiation.

0:39:560:40:00

So we're looking at taking a garment and filling it with water,

0:40:020:40:06

which you see a first concept of here.

0:40:060:40:09

This astronaut with a water wall built into his wearable garment.

0:40:090:40:15

So this is something that you fill for an event and you're not really

0:40:150:40:20

charging the system the penalty of carrying all this mass.

0:40:200:40:23

You need the water anyways for drinking, for contingency water.

0:40:230:40:27

So it gets protection. It may be a different form

0:40:270:40:31

but with a lot less mass penalty to it.

0:40:310:40:33

Doubling up on function using materials that would be

0:40:350:40:38

on board anyway is an idea that Jeff is enthusiastic about.

0:40:380:40:42

We're trying to look at protecting astronauts using the logistics

0:40:450:40:49

which we already have on hand, so there's food,

0:40:490:40:52

items that we have in these bags that unfold to form a wall.

0:40:520:40:56

If you put a wall against the outside surface, you're trying to place

0:40:560:41:00

all these items between the astronaut and radiation you've got outside.

0:41:000:41:05

So the more items you can put between him and that,

0:41:050:41:07

you know, you attenuate the radiation,

0:41:070:41:09

the safer he'll be during this 36-hour solar particle event.

0:41:090:41:13

So, we've tried with food, we're trying to use water

0:41:130:41:17

but we're trying to use items that you're going to have on board the station anyways.

0:41:170:41:21

But there's an even bigger problem...

0:41:240:41:26

Another source of radiation that's even more damaging -

0:41:270:41:32

galactic cosmic rays.

0:41:320:41:34

Galactic cosmic rays are high-energy particles

0:41:370:41:40

spewed out from supernovae - exploding stars.

0:41:400:41:44

Their effects are pernicious.

0:41:460:41:48

By affecting the growth of brain cells, they can induce memory loss

0:41:480:41:52

in an astronaut after just six months in space.

0:41:520:41:55

But to shield a crew from radiation such as this

0:41:570:41:59

is currently impossible, so they have to look for other answers.

0:41:590:42:04

The best solution is to have people who are less

0:42:060:42:09

susceptible to their effects, or get there more quickly, so the lower

0:42:090:42:13

time in exposure is going to result in a lower risk to the crew members.

0:42:130:42:18

So the "right stuff" for a Mars astronaut might not just be defined

0:42:200:42:25

physically and psychologically, but also genetically.

0:42:250:42:29

There's a theoretical possibility as well that we could find some

0:42:310:42:35

genetic markers of people who are less susceptible to

0:42:350:42:38

the kinds of damage that occur during radiation.

0:42:380:42:40

It's too early in any of our research programmes to be able to

0:42:400:42:44

speculate on that, but it's certainly a theoretical possibility,

0:42:440:42:47

and it's one that we'll be investigating over the next few years of our programme.

0:42:470:42:51

But, for now, the stark reality is there is no obvious solution

0:42:510:42:55

to the problem of surviving space radiation.

0:42:550:42:58

At the moment, this is one of the great unknowns of a mission to Mars.

0:42:580:43:03

But assume you've escaped the radiation

0:43:140:43:17

and the mission is on track.

0:43:170:43:19

After being launched in the world's biggest rocket,

0:43:230:43:26

you've staved off the weakening effects of zero gravity...

0:43:260:43:29

..you've kept yourself sane...

0:43:320:43:35

you've managed to recycle everything...

0:43:350:43:37

..and you've survived solar flares.

0:43:390:43:41

So now, after travelling for over eight months

0:43:460:43:50

and across 56 million kilometres of space,

0:43:500:43:54

you're finally arriving

0:43:540:43:57

at the planet Mars.

0:43:570:43:58

Now comes the greatest engineering challenge of the whole mission -

0:44:020:44:07

landing.

0:44:070:44:08

Dr Adam Steltzner has been set the task of working out

0:44:110:44:14

how it'll be done.

0:44:140:44:15

He masterminded the audacious landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars in 2012.

0:44:180:44:24

I have tried to describe that many times and I fall short.

0:44:290:44:35

And I fall short because it pegged my emotion level, you know,

0:44:350:44:41

I have a meter... It just buried the needle.

0:44:410:44:44

But my career's not over. I'm going try and make something better.

0:44:490:44:53

But landing a human crew is a different matter entirely.

0:44:540:44:58

So landing Curiosity, a ton,

0:45:030:45:05

biggest thing we've landed on Mars to date, a challenge.

0:45:050:45:09

But not nearly as much of a challenge as landing humans.

0:45:090:45:14

Humans are sensitive, they're delicate, they don't

0:45:160:45:19

like a lot of Gs, they like to carry water with them, they're heavy.

0:45:190:45:23

So we think that landing humans might be something like

0:45:230:45:28

40 metric tonnes, or maybe more.

0:45:280:45:32

Once again, with a spacecraft carrying humans,

0:45:330:45:37

it's the bigger size that raises challenges.

0:45:370:45:40

There's this interesting bit of physics that occurs

0:45:400:45:43

as you scale up things.

0:45:430:45:46

Imagine scaling up a drop of water.

0:45:460:45:50

As it gets small or big,

0:45:500:45:53

its weight goes up with the size of it...

0:45:530:45:58

Cubed, raised to the third power.

0:46:000:46:03

But its aerodynamic drag gets larger

0:46:030:46:08

based on its area, which is its diameter squared.

0:46:080:46:14

What that means is, the bigger this self-similar thing gets,

0:46:140:46:19

the more easily it falls.

0:46:190:46:21

Same thing happens with spacecraft.

0:46:210:46:23

So if you think about Curiosity,

0:46:230:46:26

she came in going very, very fast, slowing down, slowing down,

0:46:260:46:31

and eventually making contact with the surface.

0:46:310:46:34

The smaller size of Curiosity meant that it was successfully

0:46:350:46:39

slowed by aerodynamic drag as it fell.

0:46:390:46:42

But scaling up the size for a human lander changes

0:46:420:46:46

the physics of landing, radically.

0:46:460:46:49

I've got this self-similar shape.

0:46:490:46:51

I'm going to not put Curiosity on the surface,

0:46:510:46:54

but I'm going to put two Curiositys.

0:46:540:46:57

OK, three, four, five, getting a little challenging.

0:46:570:47:01

40.

0:47:010:47:02

Now, all of a sudden I can't fly that shape. It's the same shape

0:47:020:47:05

it was before, it's packed at the same densities of spacecraft,

0:47:050:47:09

but now it ends up flying a trajectory

0:47:090:47:13

that intercepts the surface of Mars when its moving Mach 20.

0:47:130:47:18

Not good.

0:47:180:47:20

Perhaps to get really big things to the surface of Mars,

0:47:210:47:24

what we need to do is...

0:47:240:47:27

..we need to make our shape like this,

0:47:300:47:34

which regular rockets look like,

0:47:340:47:36

but when we come flying in, we don't put the pointy end in

0:47:360:47:39

or the back end in, we come in sideways.

0:47:390:47:42

By coming in sideways, the drag on the spacecraft is increased

0:47:430:47:47

significantly, slowing the rocket from hypersonic to supersonic.

0:47:470:47:53

To slow it down further,

0:47:530:47:55

you need something else to push against the gravity of Mars.

0:47:550:48:00

It's called supersonic retro-propulsion.

0:48:000:48:03

Imagine motorbiking with your mouth open at 60mph.

0:48:030:48:06

It's, "Whoa!" It fills your mouth with air

0:48:060:48:09

and it's actually sometimes hard to breathe out against it.

0:48:090:48:12

Well, that is the challenge of supersonic retro-repulsion.

0:48:120:48:14

You're going to light a rocket off into the flow,

0:48:140:48:17

but it's going to be supersonic flow.

0:48:170:48:20

Well, NASA's working on that.

0:48:200:48:22

And it's likely to take those rockets from a supersonic condition

0:48:220:48:26

all the way down to the surface.

0:48:260:48:28

It's an inventive and daring idea.

0:48:280:48:31

But to carry out this manoeuvre calls once more on one

0:48:310:48:34

of the sticking points that bedevils this entire mission -

0:48:340:48:38

fuel.

0:48:380:48:39

Retro-rockets will need a lot of it.

0:48:400:48:43

And where that fuel comes from is something NASA will have to solve

0:48:430:48:48

if they are ever to reach Mars.

0:48:480:48:50

To stand on the planet Mars.

0:49:020:49:05

What would be the reality of this centuries-old dream?

0:49:070:49:11

Well, the good news is, not a lot of weather on Mars.

0:49:130:49:17

It's very dry, it's windy, it can be dusty.

0:49:170:49:20

But the bad news is

0:49:210:49:23

that when the little weather there does stir the dust,

0:49:230:49:26

it can create scenes like this.

0:49:260:49:29

These are real images of a dust storm on Mars,

0:49:300:49:34

captured by a NASA rover.

0:49:340:49:36

When these storms do kick up,

0:49:360:49:38

they can go on for months and envelop the whole planet.

0:49:380:49:42

It's likely to be a far harsher situation than any astronaut faced

0:49:460:49:50

on the lunar landings.

0:49:500:49:52

Even on the Moon, conditions weren't easy.

0:49:560:49:59

Lunar soil is clingy and caustic - its particles were small enough

0:50:000:50:04

to cause a kind of lunar dust hay fever in the astronauts,

0:50:040:50:08

and sharp enough to wear though their Kevlar boots.

0:50:080:50:11

But no Apollo mission stayed on the Moon for longer than four days,

0:50:130:50:17

and they all used their lander as a base.

0:50:170:50:19

On Mars, life will be harder.

0:50:210:50:23

The dust whipping around in the wind is known to contain carcinogens

0:50:230:50:28

and other damaging chemicals called perchlorates.

0:50:280:50:31

What's more, Mars astronauts will be expected to stay for a whole year

0:50:330:50:38

before the planets line up for them to take the shortest journey

0:50:380:50:41

back to Earth.

0:50:410:50:42

So for these astronauts to live and work comfortably on the Martian

0:50:440:50:48

surface, they're going to need a new form of protection.

0:50:480:50:52

In charge of developing the next-generation spacesuit

0:51:110:51:15

is Dr Amy Ross.

0:51:150:51:16

So, one of the videos that we watch a lot is the Charlie Duke

0:51:210:51:25

dropping the hammer on Apollo 16 video.

0:51:250:51:27

He's trying to take a core sample,

0:51:280:51:30

he's hitting that core with his hammer, and he just loses the hammer.

0:51:300:51:35

He has real trouble retrieving the hammer,

0:51:440:51:48

so he just resorts basically to falling on it.

0:51:480:51:51

You can see we've progressed quite a ways,

0:51:540:51:56

and so our crew members now and our subjects now

0:51:560:51:59

can do all of those functional, realistic tasks that you need to do

0:51:590:52:02

in a much more normal fashion that didn't scare spacesuit engineers

0:52:020:52:07

like Charlie did on Apollo.

0:52:070:52:09

Remarkably, spacesuits have changed little since the Apollo days,

0:52:110:52:15

and those worn on the Space Station are just as bulky.

0:52:150:52:19

So Amy is looking to slim down

0:52:190:52:21

and add flexibility in every way she can.

0:52:210:52:24

So we have a side bearing which allows you to rotate your shoulder.

0:52:250:52:30

And then we have an upper-arm bearing, which you can see here,

0:52:300:52:32

that lets you rotate your arm.

0:52:320:52:34

Now, in the waist area,

0:52:380:52:40

this suit was built so it can allow flexion extension joint,

0:52:400:52:44

a waist bearing, and allows them some pretty wide range of motion,

0:52:440:52:48

very natural, and you move your waist a lot when you walk

0:52:480:52:51

and you don't realise that, so that's a very important joint to have.

0:52:510:52:55

And then we can watch him squat...

0:52:550:52:56

He can get down to his boots. So he can adjust his boots

0:53:020:53:05

when the suit's pressurised.

0:53:050:53:07

Can you touch the ground?

0:53:120:53:14

And you can see the joints work as he's doing these functional tasks.

0:53:230:53:27

Seemingly small developments like this take NASA ever closer

0:53:290:53:33

to the prospect of sending humans to Mars.

0:53:330:53:35

But from setting up a home on Mars

0:53:400:53:43

to knowing how they'll generate enough food and oxygen,

0:53:430:53:47

there are many thousands of these steps left to conquer.

0:53:470:53:50

And the final unknown is this.

0:53:520:53:54

Will the Mars astronauts be able to get home?

0:53:550:53:59

When the Apollo astronauts returned, it was to a heroes' welcome.

0:54:120:54:16

But for the astronauts going to Mars,

0:54:310:54:33

there's rather more uncertainty about their homecoming.

0:54:330:54:36

And that's because, as yet, no-one's worked out a way to get them home.

0:54:410:54:46

For now, this is a problem that NASA is trying to solve.

0:54:530:54:57

I would expect that they would come back.

0:55:010:55:03

We wouldn't design a mission unless we were pretty certain

0:55:030:55:06

they were going to be able to get back safely. That's one of our objectives.

0:55:060:55:09

We want to explore, which means getting there and coming back

0:55:090:55:12

and telling us what happened.

0:55:120:55:14

We value, in our modern society, life too greatly

0:55:140:55:20

to send astronauts on a one-way trip to the surface of Mars,

0:55:200:55:24

intentionally, certainly. There are tremendous risks.

0:55:240:55:27

The brave men and women who go into the astronaut corp...

0:55:270:55:32

take on those risks knowingly.

0:55:320:55:34

And sometimes astronauts perish.

0:55:350:55:37

Part of planning the mission will be about the risks

0:55:390:55:42

NASA are willing to accept.

0:55:420:55:44

But that's a delicate balance.

0:55:450:55:47

Because the more they aim to protect the astronauts,

0:55:480:55:51

the higher the cost and the further into the future

0:55:510:55:55

the dream will be pushed.

0:55:550:55:57

A momentum is starting to build around a manned mission to Mars.

0:56:040:56:09

Not just at NASA, but within other privately owned companies

0:56:090:56:13

who may work alongside them or even in competition.

0:56:130:56:16

Here at NASA, the scientists and engineers are doing what

0:56:170:56:21

they love doing - starting to grapple with problems which,

0:56:210:56:24

at first sight, seem unsolvable.

0:56:240:56:27

If we committed ourselves to getting to Mars,

0:56:280:56:31

we'd BE on Mars. Certainly within a decade.

0:56:310:56:34

I believe that we could get there within a decade.

0:56:340:56:37

The question is, are we willing to spend the efforts, the resources,

0:56:370:56:41

the capital to do that?

0:56:410:56:43

And I think the answer is, right now, no.

0:56:430:56:46

But maybe sometime in the future.

0:56:460:56:49

One reality is dawning.

0:56:490:56:52

Given the scale of this challenge,

0:56:520:56:54

it's one that no country can tackle on its own.

0:56:540:56:57

More likely than not, a Mars mission will be a multi-national mission,

0:56:580:57:04

so one political person in one country isn't going to drive the whole thing.

0:57:040:57:09

It's going to require a lot of cooperation from countries around the globe.

0:57:090:57:14

So this becomes a very interesting challenge,

0:57:140:57:16

but one that Earthlings will take on

0:57:160:57:19

and not just people from one country.

0:57:190:57:21

So the greatest challenge of this mission to put Earthlings on Mars

0:57:210:57:26

may not be a scientific or engineering one.

0:57:260:57:29

Whichever countries or companies join the undertaking,

0:57:290:57:33

it will be ambitious, risky and expensive.

0:57:330:57:37

But, above all, their challenge is to re-kindle the dream

0:57:380:57:43

of manned space travel...

0:57:430:57:44

..beyond our own planet.

0:57:460:57:47

What are we doing when we are exploring other worlds,

0:57:490:57:53

other planets, our solar system, our universe?

0:57:530:57:56

We are engaging in one of the most fundamentally human acts.

0:57:560:58:02

We are following our curiosity.

0:58:020:58:05

We are more curious than any other creature on this planet.

0:58:050:58:08

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