Dava Newman: Space Exploration, Space Suits, and Life on Mars

Dava Newman is the Apollo Program professor of AeroAstro at MIT and the former Deputy Administrator of NASA and has been a principal investigator on four spaceflight missions. Her research interests are in aerospace biomedical engineering, investigating human performance in varying gravity environments. She has developed a space activity suit, namely the BioSuit, which would provide pressure through compression directly on the skin via the suit’s textile weave, patterning, and materials rather than with pressurized gas. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter https://twitter.com/lexfridman, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman/, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman, Medium https://medium.com/@lexfridman, or YouTube https://www.youtube.com/lexfridman where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/artificial-intelligence/id1434243584 or support it on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman. This episode is presented by Cash App. Download it, use code LexPodcast. You get $10 and $10 is donated to FIRST, one of my favorite nonprofit organizations that inspires young minds through robotics and STEM education. Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. 00:00 – Introduction 03:11 – Circumnavigating the globe by boat 05:11 – Exploration 07:17 – Life on Mars 11:07 – Intelligent life in the universe 12:25 – Advanced propulsion technology 13:32 – The Moon and NASA’s Artemis program 19:17 – SpaceX 21:45 – Science on a CubeSat 23:45 – Reusable rockets 25:23 – Spacesuit of the future 32:01 – AI in Space 35:31 – Interplanetary species 36:57 – Future of space exploration

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lex Fridman?

  The following is a conversation with David Newman. She's the Apollo Program Professor at MIT and the former Deputy Administrator of NASA, and has been a principal investigator on four spaceflight missions. Her research interests are in aerospace biomedical engineering, investigating human performance in varying gravity environments. She has designed and engineered and built some incredible space suit technology, namely the biosuit that we talk about in this conversation. Due to some scheduling challenges on both our parts, we only had about 40 minutes together. And in true engineering style, she said, "I talk fast, you pick the best questions, let's get it done." And we did.

• 0:42Lex Fridman?

  It was a fascinating conversation about space exploration and the future of spacesuits. This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast. If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube, give it five stars on Apple Podcasts, support it on Patreon, or simply connect with me on Twitter, @LexFriedman, spelled F-R-I-D-M-A-N. For the first time, this show is presented by Cash App, the number one finance app in the App Store. Cash App is the easiest way to send money to your friends, and it is also the easiest way to buy, sell, and deposit Bitcoin. Most Bitcoin exchanges take days for a bank transfer to become investable. Through Cash App, it takes seconds. Invest as little as $1, and now you own Bitcoin.

• 1:25Lex Fridman?

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• 2:08Lex Fridman?

  I'm also excited to be working with Cash App to support one of my favorite organizations called FIRST, which is best known for their FIRST Robotics and LEGO competitions that seeks to inspire young students in engineering and technology fields all over the world. That's over 110 countries, 660,000 students, 300,000 mentors and volunteers, and a perfect rating on Charity Navigator, which means the donated money is used to maximum effectiveness. When you sign up for Cash App and use the promo code LEXPODCAST, you'll instantly receive $10. And Cash App will also donate $10 to FIRST, an amazing organization that I've personally seen inspire

• 2:51Lex Fridman?

  girls and boys to learn, to explore, and to dream of engineering a better world. Don't forget to use the code LEXPODCAST when you download Cash App from the App Store or Google Play Store today. And now here's my conversation with Deva Newman.

• 3:28Lex Fridman?

  You circumnavigated the globe on boat. So let's look back in history. 500 years ago, Ferdinand Magellan's crew was first to circumnavigate the globe. But he died, I think people don't know, like halfway through. And so did 242 of the 260 sailors that took that three-year journey. What do you think it was like for that crew at that time, heading out into the unknown to face probably likely death? Do you think they were filled with fear, with excitement?

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Probably not fear. I think in all of exploration, the challenge and the unknown. So probably wonderment. And then just the, when you really are sailing the world's oceans.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  You have extreme weather of all kinds. When we were circumnavigating, it was challenging, a new dynamic. You really appreciate Mother Earth. You appreciate the winds and the waves. So back to Magellan and his crew. Since they really didn't have, you know, a three dimensional map of, of the globe, of the Earth when they went out, just probably looking over the horizon thinking, what's there? What's there? So I would say that the challenge had to be really important in terms of the team dynamics and that leadership had to be incredibly important. Team dynamics to how do you keep people focused on the mission?

• 4:49Lex Fridman?

  So you think the psychology, that's interesting. There's probably echoes of that in the space exploration stuff we'll talk about. So the psychology of the dynamics between the human beings on the mission is important?

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Absolutely. For our Mars mission, it's lots of challenges, technology. But, you know, since I specialize in keeping my astronauts alive, the psychosocial issues, the psychology of psychosocial, team dynamics, leadership, that's, you know, we're all people. So that's going to be, that's always a huge impact. One of the top three, I think of any isolated confined environment, like on any mission that is really pretty extreme.

• 5:24Lex Fridman?

  So your Twitter handle is @DavaExplorer. So when did you first fall in love with the idea of exploration?

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Ah, that's a great question. Yeah, maybe as long as I can remember, as I grew up in Montana, in the Rocky Mountains, in Helena, in the capital. And so literally, you know, Mount Helena was my backyard, was right up there. So exploring, being in the mountains, looking at caves, just running around, but always being in nature.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  So since my earliest memories, I, you know, think of myself as kind of exploring the, the natural beauty of the Rocky Mountains where I grew up.

• 6:01Lex Fridman?

  So exploration is not limited to any domain. It's just anything. So the natural domain of any kind, going out to the woods into a place you haven't been, it's all exploration?

• 6:10Speaker 01

  I think so. Yeah, I have a pretty all encompassing definition of exploration.

• 6:13Lex Fridman?

  So what about space exploration? What, when were you first captivated by the idea that we little humans could venture out into the space, into the great unknown of space?

• 6:23Speaker 01

  So it's a great year to talk about that. The 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, as I was alive during Apollo and specifically Apollo 11, I was five years old and I distinctly remember that. I remember that humanity, I'm sure I probably didn't know their names at the time, you know, there's Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and never forget Michael Collins in orbit. You know, those three men, you know, doing something that just seemed impossible, seemed impossible a decade earlier, even a year earlier. But so the Apollo program really inspired me. And then I think it actually just taught me to dream to any impossible mission could be possible with enough focus. And I'm sure you need some

• 7:05Speaker 01

  luck, but you definitely need the leadership, you need the the focus of the mission. So since an early age, I thought, of course, people should be interplanetary. Of course, people, we need people on Earth, and we're gonna have people exploring space as well.

• 7:18Lex Fridman?

  That seemed obvious, even at that age, of course.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  It opened it up. Before we saw men on the moon, it wasn't obvious to me at all. But once we understood that, yes, absolutely, astronauts, that's what they do. They explore, they go into space, and they land on other planets or moons.

• 7:34Lex Fridman?

  So again, maybe a romanticized philosophical question. But when you look up at the stars,

• 7:41Lex Fridman?

  knowing that, you know, there's at least 100 billion of them in the Milky Way Galaxy, right? So we're really a small speck in this giant thing that's the visible universe. How does that make you feel about our efforts here?

• 7:57Speaker 01

  I love the perspective. I love that perspective. I always open my public talks with a big Hubble Space Telescope image, looking out until you mentioned just now the solar system, the Milky Way. Because I really think it's really important to know that we're just a small pale blue dot. We're really fortunate. We're on the best planet by far. Life is fantastic.

• 8:15Lex Fridman?

  That we know of. You're confident this is the best planet?

• 8:18Speaker 01

  I'm pretty sure it's the best planet, the best planet that we know of. I mean, I searched my researches, you know, Mission Worlds, and when will we find life? I think actually, probably the next decade, we find probably past life, probably the evidence of past life on Mars, let's say.

• 8:31Lex Fridman?

  You think there was

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Pretty likely.

• 8:33Lex Fridman?

  Once life on Mars? Or do you think there's currently?

• 8:36Speaker 01

  I'm more comfortable saying probably 3.5 billion years ago, feel pretty confident there was life on Mars, just because then it had an electromagnetic shield, it had an atmosphere, has a wonderful gravity level. 380 is fantastic. You know, you're all super human, we can all slam dunk a basketball. I mean, it's gonna be fun to play sports on Mars. But so I think we'll find past, fossilized, probably the evidence of past life on Mars. Currently, that's again, we need the next decade, but the evidence is mounting for sure. We do have the organics, we're finding organics, we have water, seasonal water on Mars. We used to just know about the ice caps, you know, north and south pole. Now we have seasonal water. We do have the building blocks for life on Mars. We really need to dig down into the soil because everything on the top surface is radiated.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  But once we find down, will we see any, any life forms? Will we see any bugs? I leave it open as a possibility, but I feel pretty certain that past life or fossilized life forms we'll find. And then we have to get to all these ocean worlds, these beautiful moons of other planets, since we know they have water and we're looking for, since simple search for life, follow the water, you know, carbon based life, that's the only life we know. There could be other life forms that we don't know about, but it's hard to search for them because we don't know. So in our search for life in the solar system is definitely, you know, search, you know, follow the water and look for the building blocks of life.

• 9:58Lex Fridman?

  So you think in the next decade, we might see hints of past life or even current life?

• 10:02Speaker 01

  I think so. That's a pretty optimistic.

• 10:04Lex Fridman?

  I love the optimism.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  I'm pretty optimistic.

• 10:06Lex Fridman?

  Do humans have to be involved or can this be robots and rovers and?

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Probably teams. I mean, we've been at it on Mars in particular, 50 years. We've been exploring Mars for 50 years. Great data, right? Our images of Mars today are phenomenal. Now we know how Mars lost its atmosphere, you know, we're starting to know because of the lack of the electromagnetic shield. We know about the water on Mars. So we've been studying 50 years with our robots. We still haven't found it. So I think once we have a human mission there, we just accelerate things. It's always humans and our rovers and robots together. But we just have to think that 50 years we've been looking at Mars and taking images and doing the best science that we can. People need to realize Mars is really far away. It's really hard to get to, you know, this is extreme, extreme exploration. We mentioned Magellan first or all of the wonderful explorers and sailors of the past,

• 10:52Speaker 01

  which kind of are lots of my inspiration for exploration. Mars is a different ballgame. I mean, it's eight months to get there, year and a half to get home. I mean, it's really extreme.

• 11:02Lex Fridman?

  Harsh environment in all kinds of ways. But the kind of organism we might be able to see hints of on Mars are kind of microorganisms, perhaps.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember that humans, we're kind of, you know, we're host, right? We're host to all of our bacteria and viruses, right?

• 11:17Lex Fridman?

  Do you think it's a big leap from the viruses and the bacteria to us humans? Put another way, do you think on all those moons, beautiful wet moons that you mentioned, you think there's intelligent life out there?

• 11:32Speaker 01

  I hope so. I mean, that's, that's the hope, but you know, we don't have the scientific evidence for that now. I think all the evidence we have in terms of life existing is much more compelling, again, because we have the building blocks of life now. When that life turns into intelligence, that's a big unknown.

• 11:50Lex Fridman?

  If we ever meet, do you think we would be able to find a common language?

• 11:54Speaker 01

  I hope so. We haven't met yet. It's just so far. I mean, do physics display a role here? Look at all these exoplanets, 6,000 exoplanets. I mean, even the couple dozen Earth-like planets that are exoplanets that really look like habitable planets. These are very Earth-like. They look like they have all the building blocks. I can't wait to get there. The only thing is they're 10 to 100 light years away. So scientifically, we know they're there. We know that they're habitable. They have, you know, everything going for them, right? You know, we call them the Goldilocks zone, not too hot, not too cold, just perfect for habitability for life. But now the reality is if they're 10 at the best to 100 to thousands of light years away.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  So what's out there? But I just can't think that we're not the only ones. So absolutely life, life in the universe, probably intelligent life as well.

• 12:42Lex Fridman?

  Do you think there needs to be fundamental revolutions in how we, the tools we use to travel through space in order for us to venture outside of our solar system? Or do you think the, the ways, the rockets, the ideas we have now, the engineering ideas we have now will be enough to venture out?

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Well, it's a good question. Right now, you know, because again, speed of light is, is, is the limit. We don't have a warp speed, warp drive to explore our solar system, to get to Mars, to explore all the planets, then We need a technology push, but technology push here is just advanced propulsion. It'd be great if you could get humans to Mars in, say, you know, three to four months, not eight months. I mean, have the time, 50% reduction. That's great in terms of safety and wellness of the crew. Orbital mechanic, but physics rules. You know, orbital mechanics is still there. Physics rules. We can't defy physics.

• 13:31Lex Fridman?

  I love that.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Invent a new physics. I mean, look at quantum, you know, look at quantum theory.

• 13:35Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, you never know.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Exactly. I mean, we are always learning, so we definitely don't know all the physics that exist too, but we're, we still have to, it's not science fiction. You know, we still have to pay attention to physics in terms of our speed of travel for our spaceflight.

• 13:49Lex Fridman?

  So you were the deputy administrator of NASA during the Obama administration. There's a current Artemis program that's working on a crewed mission to the moon and then perhaps to Mars. What are you excited about there? What are your thoughts on this program? What are the biggest challenges, do you think, of getting to the moon, of landing to the moon once again? And then the big step to Mars?

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Well, I love, you know, the moon program now, Artemis. It is definitely, we've been in low Earth orbit. I love low Earth orbit too, but I just always look at it as three phases. So low Earth orbit, where we've been 40 years, so definitely time to get back to deep space. Time to get to the moon. There's so much to do on the moon. I hope we don't get stuck on the moon for 50 years. I really want to get to the moon, spend the next decade, first with the lander, then humans. There's just a lot to explore, but to me, it's a big technology push. It's only three days away, so the moon is definitely the right place. So we kind of buy down our technology. We invest in specifically habitats, life support systems. We need suits. We really need to understand really how to live off planet. We've been off planet in low Earth orbit, but still, that's only, you know, 400 kilometers up, 250 miles, right?

• 14:59Speaker 01

  So we get to the moon, it really is a great proving ground for the technologies. And now we're in deep space. Radiation becomes a huge issue, again, to keep our astronauts well and alive. And I look at all of that investment for Moon, moon exploration to the ultimate goal, you know, the horizon goals, we call it to get people to Mars. But we just don't go to Mars tomorrow, right? We really need a decade on the moon. I think investing in the technologies, learning, making sure the astronauts are their health, you know, they're safe and well. And also learning so much about in situ research utilization, ISRU, you know, in situ resource utilization is huge when it comes to exploration for the moon and Mars. So we need a test bed. And to me, it really is a lunar test bed.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  And then we use those same investments to think about getting people to Mars in the 2030s.

• 15:49Lex Fridman?

  So developing sort of a platform of all the kind of research tools of all the, what's the resource, can you speak to that?

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. So ISRU for the moon, it's, we'll go to the South Pole. And fascinating, we have images of it. Of course, we know there's permanently shaded areas and like by Shackleton Crater. And there's areas that are permanently in the sun. Well, it seems that there's a lot of water, ice, you know, water that's trapped in ice and the lunar craters. That's the first place you go. Why? Because it's water. And when you want to try to, it could be fuel, you know, life support systems. So you kind of, again, you go where the water is. And so when the moon is kind of for resources, utilization, but to learn how to, can we make the fuels out of the resources that are on the moon? We have to think about 3D printing, right? You don't get to bring all this mass with you. You have to learn how to literally live

• 16:38Speaker 01

  off the land. We need a pressure shell. We need to have an atmosphere for people to, to live in. So all of that is kind of buying down the technology, doing the investigation, doing the science. What are the, basically we call them lunar volatiles, you know, what is that ice on the moon? How much of it is there? How, what are the resources look like? To me, that helps us. That's just the next step in getting humans to Mars.

• 17:03Lex Fridman?

  And it's cheaper and more effective to sort of develop some of these difficult challenges, like solve some of these challenges, practice, develop, test and so on on the moon.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 17:11Lex Fridman?

  Whereas on Mars.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And people are going to love to, you know, you get to the moon, you get to, you have a beautiful Earthrise. I mean, you have the most magnificent view of Earth being off planet. So it just makes sense. I think we're going to have thousands, lots of people, hopefully tens of thousands in low Earth orbit, because low Earth orbit is a beautiful place to go and look down on the Earth. But people want to return home. Think the lunar explorers will also want to do round trips. And, you know, be on, be on the moon, three day trip, explore, do science also because the lunar day is 14 days and lunar nights also 14 days. So in that 28 day cycle, you know, half of it is in light, half of it's in dark. So people would probably want to do, you know, couple week trips, month long trips, not longer than that.

• 17:51Lex Fridman?

  What do you mean by people?

• 17:53Speaker 01

  People explorers. I mean, yeah, astronauts are going to be civilians in the future too. Not, not all astronauts are going to be government astronauts. Actually, when I was at NASA, we changed, we actually got the law changed to recognize astronauts that are not only government employees, you know, NASA astronauts or European Space Agency astronauts or Russian Space Agency, that astronauts because of the big push we put in the private sector, that astronauts essentially are going to be astronauts. You get over 100 kilometers up and I think once you've done orbital, orbital flight, then you're an astronaut. So a lot of private citizens are going to become astronauts.

• 18:27Lex Fridman?

  Do you think one day you might step foot on the moon?

• 18:30Speaker 01

  I think it'd be good to go to the moon. I'd give that a shot. Mars, I'm gonna, it's my life's work to get the next generation to Mars. That's, that's, that's, that's you or even younger than you, you know, my students' generation will be the Martian explorers. I'm just working to facilitate that, but that's not going to be me.

• 18:47Lex Fridman?

  Hey, the moon's pretty good and it's a lot tough. I mean, it's, it's still a really tough mission.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  It's an extreme mission. Exactly. It's great for exploration, but doable. But again, before Apollo, we didn't think getting humans to the moon was even possible. So we kind of made that possible, but we need to go back. We absolutely need to go back. We're investing in the heavy lift launch capabilities that we need to get there. We haven't had that, you know, since the Apollo days, since Saturn V. So now we have three options on the board. That's what's so fantastic. NASA has its, you know, space launch system. SpaceX is going to have its, its heavy capability and Blue Origin is coming along too with heavy lift. So that's pretty fantastic. From where I sit, I'm the Apollo program professor. Today I have zero heavy lift launch capability. I can't wait. Just in a few years, we'll have three different heavy lift launch capabilities. So that's pretty exciting.

• 19:35Lex Fridman?

  You know, your heart is perhaps with NASA. But you mentioned SpaceX and Blue Origin. What are your thoughts of SpaceX and the innovative efforts there from the sort of private company aspect?

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Oh, they're great. They're remind, remember that the investments in SpaceX is government funding. It's NASA funding, it's US Air Force funding, just as it should be. Because you're betting on a company who is moving fast, has some new technology development. So I love it. So when I was at NASA, it really was under our public-private partnerships. So necessarily, the government needs to fund these startups. Now SpaceX is no longer a startup, but you know, it's been at it for 10 years. It's had some accidents, learned a lot of lessons. But it's great because it's the way you move faster. And also, some private industry folks and private businesses will take a lot more risk. That's also really important for the government.

• 20:28Lex Fridman?

  What do you think about that culture of risk? I mean, sort of NASA and the government are exceptionally good at delivering sort of safe, like there's a little bit more of a culture of caution and safety and sort of this kind of solid engineering. And I think SpaceX as well has the same kind of stuff. It has a little bit more of that startup feel where they take the bigger risks. Is that exciting for you to see, seeing bigger risks in this kind of space?

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And the best scenario is both of them working together. Because there's really important lessons learned, especially when you talk about human spaceflight, safety, quality assurance. These things are the utmost importance for both aviation and space, you know, when human lives are at stake. On the other hand, government agencies, NASA can be European Space Agency, you name it, they become very bureaucratic, pretty risk averse, move pretty slowly. So I think the best is when you combine the partnerships from both sides. Industry necessarily has to push the government, take some more risk. You know, like there's smart risk, or I actually gave an award at NASA for failing smart.

• 21:28Lex Fridman?

  Failing smart. I love that.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Yes, you can kind of break open the culture and say, no, that Apollo, that was a huge risk. It was done well. Also, there's always a culture of safety, quality assurance, engineering at its best. But on the other hand, you want to get things done. And you have to also get them, you have to bring the cost down for when it comes to launch. We really have to bring the cost down and get the frequency up. And so that's what the newcomers are doing. They're really pushing that. So it's about the most exciting time I can imagine for spaceflight. Again, a little bit, it really is the democratization of spaceflight, opening it up, not just because the launch capability, but the science we can do on a CubeSat. What you can do now for very, those used to be student projects that we would go through, conceive, design, implement, and think about what a small satellite would be.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Now they're the most, you know, these are really advanced instruments, science instruments that are flying on little teeny CubeSats that pretty much anyone can afford. So there's not a, there's every nation, every place in the world can fly a CubeSat. And so that's

• 22:28Lex Fridman?

  What's a CubeSat?

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Oh, CubeSat is a, this is called 1U. And CubeSats, we measure in terms of units. So, you know, just in terms of I put both my hands together, that's one unit, two units. So little, small satellites, so CubeSats are for small satellites. And we actually go by mass as well. You know, a small satellite might be 100 kilos, 200 kilos, all well under 1,000 kilos. CubeSats then are the next thing down from small Sats, you know, basically, you know, kilos, tens of kilos, things like that. But kind of the building blocks, CubeSats are fantastic design because it's kind of modular design. So I can take a 1U, one unit of CubeSat. And, you know, but what if I have a little bit more money and payload? I can fly three of them and just basically put a lot more instruments on it. But essentially, think about something the size of a shoebox, if you will.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  You know, that would be a CubeSat.

• 23:16Lex Fridman?

  And those, how do those help empower you in terms of doing science, in terms of doing experiments?

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Oh, right now, there's, getting back to private industry, Planet, the company is flying CubeSats and literally looking down on Earth and orbiting Earth, taking a picture, if you will, of Earth every day, every 24 hours, covering the entire Earth. So in terms of Earth observations, in terms of climate change, in terms of our changing Earth. It's revolutionizing because they're affordable. We can put a whole bunch of them up. The telecoms, we're all on our cell phones and we have GPS. We have our telecoms, but those used to be very expensive satellites providing that service. Now we can fly a whole bunch of modular CubeSats. So it really is breakthrough in terms of modularity as well as cost reduction.

• 24:00Lex Fridman?

  So that's one exciting set of developments. Is there something else that you've been excited about, like reusable rockets perhaps that you've seen in the last few years?

• 24:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, the reusability, the reusability is awesome. I mean, it's just the best. Now, we have to remember, the shuttle was a reusable vehicle.

• 24:18Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Which, and shuttle is an amazing, as an aerospace engineer, I mean, the shuttle is still just the most gorgeous, elegant, extraordinary design of a space vehicle. It was reusable, it just wasn't affordable. But the reusability of it was really critical because we flew it up, it did come back. So the notion of reusability, I think absolutely now what we're doing with We, you know, the global We, but with SpaceX and Boreen, setting the rockets up, recovering the first stages where if they can regain 70% cost savings, that's huge. And just seeing the control, you know, being in control and dynamics person is just seeing that rocket come back and land.

• 24:58Lex Fridman?

  Oh, yeah, that's.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  It never gets old. It's exciting every single time you look at it and say, that's magic. So it's so cool.

• 25:05Lex Fridman?

  To me, the landing is when I stand up, start clapping, just the control.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, just the algorithm, just the control algorithm and hitting that landing. It's, you know, it's gymnastics for rocket ships, but to see these guys stick a landing.

• 25:17Lex Fridman?

  Really well put.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  It's just wonderful. So every time, like I say, every time I see, you know, the reusability and the rockets coming back and landing so precisely, it's really exciting. So it is, it is actually, that's a game changer. We are in a new era of lower costs and lot, the higher frequency. And it's the world, not just NASA. It's many nations are really upping their frequency of launches.

• 25:40Lex Fridman?

  You've done a lot of exciting research, design, engineering on spacesuits. What does the spacesuit of the future look like?

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Well, if I have anything to say about it, it'll be a very, it'll be a very tight-fitting suit. We use mechanical counterpressure to pressurize right directly on the skin. Seems that it's technically feasible. We're still at the research and development stage. We don't have a flight system, but technically it's feasible. So we do a lot of work in the materials. What materials do we need to pressurize someone? What's the patterning we need? That's what our patents are in, the patterning, kind of how we apply this. It's a third of an atmosphere.

• 26:14Lex Fridman?

  Just to sort of take a little step back, you have this incredible biosuit where it's tight-fitting, so allows more mobility and so on. So maybe even to take a bigger step back, like what are the functions that a spacesuit should perform?

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Sure. So start from the beginning. A spacesuit is the world's smallest spacecraft. So I really, that's the best definition I can give you. Right now, we fly gas pressurized suits, but think of developing and designing an entire spacecraft. So then you take all those systems and you shrink them around a person, provide them with oxygen to breathe, scrub out their carbon dioxide, make sure they have pressure, they need a pressure environment to live in. So really, the spacesuit is a shrunken spacecraft in its entirety, has all the same systems.

• 26:55Lex Fridman?

  Communication as well, probably.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, communications, exactly. So you really, thermal control, a little bit of radiation, not so much radiation protection, but thermal control, humidity, oxygen debris, so all those life support systems, as well as the pressure production. So it's an engineering marvel, the spacesuits that have flown, because they really are entire spacecraft, a small spacecraft that we have around a person, but they're very massive, about 140 kilos the current suit, and they're not mobility suits. So since we're going back to the moon and Mars, we need a planetary suit, we need a mobility suit. So that's where we've kind of flipped the design paradigm. I study astronauts, I study humans in motion, and if we can map that motion, I want to give you full flexibility, move your arms and legs. I really want you to be like an Olympic athlete, an extreme explorer.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  I don't want to waste any of your energy, so we take it from the human design. So I take a look at humans, we measure them, we model them, and then I say, okay, can I put a spacesuit on them that goes from the skin out? So rather than a gas pressurized, shrinking that spacecraft around the person, say, here's how humans perform. Can I design a spacesuit literally from the skin out? And that's what we've come up with, mechanical counterpressure, some patterning, and that way, it could be order of magnitude less in terms of the mass. And it should provide maximum mobility for for Moon or Mars.

• 28:11Lex Fridman?

  What's mechanical counterpressure? Like, how the heck can you even begin to create something that's tight fitting?

• 28:19Speaker 01

  So.

• 28:19Lex Fridman?

  And still doesn't protect you from the elements and so on, and the whole the the pressure thing?

• 28:23Speaker 01

  That's the challenge. It's a big design challenge. We've been working on it for. So you can either put someone in a balloon. That's one way to do it. That's conventional. That's the only thing we've ever done.

• 28:31Lex Fridman?

  That means the balloon that you fill with gas.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  That's a gas pressurized suit. So put somebody in a balloon. It's only a third of an atmosphere to keep someone alive. So that's what the current system is. So depending on what units you think in 30 kilopascals, you know, 4.3 pounds per square.

• 28:42Lex Fridman?

  So much less than the the the pressure that's on Earth. You can still keep a human alive with point three and it's alive and happy.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Alive and happy. And you know, you mix the gases. Here, we're we're having this chat and we're both we're at one sea level in Boston at, you know, one atmosphere. But a suit.

• 28:59Lex Fridman?

  Oxygen and nitrogen.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Oxygen and nitrogen. And you put a suit, if we put someone to a third of an atmosphere. So for mechanical counterpressure now. So one way is to do it with a balloon. And that's what we currently have. Or you can apply the pressure directly to the skin. I only have to give you a third of an atmosphere. Right now, you and I are very happy in one atmosphere. So so, you know, we can. So if I put that pressure, a third of an atmosphere on you, I just have to do it consistently, you know, across, you know, all of your body and your limbs. And it'll be a gas pressurized helmet. Doesn't make sense to shrink wrap the head. See, the Blue Man Group, that's a great, it's a great act. But we don't need to, you know, there's no benefits of like shrink wrapping the head. You put, you know, a gas pressurized helmet, because the helmet, then the future of suits you asked me about, the helmet just becomes your information portal.

• 29:43Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  So it will have augmented reality. It'll have all the information you need. Should have, you know, the maps that I need. I'm on the moon. Okay. Well, hey, smart helmet. Then show me the map. Show me the topography. Hopefully, it has the lab embedded, too. If it has really great cameras, maybe I can see with that regolith. That's just lunar dust and dirt. What's that made of? We talked about the water. So the helmet then really becomes this information portal is how I see, kind of the IT architecture of the helmet is really allowing me to, you know, use all of my modalities of an explorer that I'd like to. So cameras, voiceover, images. If it were really good, it would kind of be, would have lab capabilities as well.

• 30:22Lex Fridman?

  Okay, so the pressure comes from the body, comes from the mechanical pressure, which is fascinating. Now, what aspect, when I, when I look at biosuit, just the suits you're working on, sort of from a fashion perspective, they look awesome. Is that, is that a small part of it too?

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely, because the teams that we work with, of course, I'm an engineer, there's engineering students, there's design students, there's architects, so it really is a very much a multi-disciplinary team. So sure, colors, aesthetics, materials, all those things we pay attention to. So it's not just an engineering solution, it really is a, you know, much more holistic, it's, it's a suit, it's a suit, you're, you know, you're, you're dressed in a suit now, it's a form-fitting. So we really have to pay attention to, to all those things. And so that's the, the design team that we work with, and my partner, Guy Trotty, you know, we're, we're partners in this in terms of, he comes from an architect or industrial design background. So bringing those skills to bear as well. We team up with industry folks who are in, you know, athletic performance

• 31:19Speaker 01

  and designers. So it really is a, a team that brings all those skills together.

• 31:23Lex Fridman?

  So what role does the space suit play in our long-term staying in Mars, sort of exploring the, doing all the work that astronauts do, but also perhaps civilians one day, almost like taking steps towards colonization of Mars? What role does a space suit play there?

• 31:38Speaker 01

  So you always need a life support system, pressurized habitat, and I like to say, we're not going to Mars to sit around. So you need a suit. You're, you know, even if you land and have the lander, you're not going there to stay inside, that's for darn sure. We're going there to search for the evidence of life, that's why we're going to Mars. So you need a lot of mobility. So for me, the suit is the best way to give the human mobility. We're always still going to need rovers, we're going to need robots. So for me, exploration's always a, a suite of explorers. Some people are going, some of the suite of explorers are humans, but many are going to be robots, smart systems, things like that. But I look at it as kind of all those capabilities together make the best exploration team.

• 32:18Lex Fridman?

  So let me ask, I love artificial intelligence and I've also saw that you've enjoyed the movie Space Odyssey, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Let me ask the question about HAL 9000. It makes a few decisions there that prioritizes the mission over the astronauts. Do you think, from a high philosophical question, do you think HAL did the right thing of prioritizing the mission?

• 32:41Speaker 01

  I think our artificial intelligence will be smarter in the future for a Mars mission. It's a great question of the reality of it. For a Mars mission, we need fully autonomous systems. We will get humans, but they have to be fully autonomous. And that's a really important, that's the most important concept because, you know, there's not going to be a mission control on Earth. You know, 20-minute time lag, there's just no way you're going to control it. So fully autonomous, so people have to be fully autonomous as well, but all of our systems as well. And so that's, that's the big design challenge. So that's why we test them out on the moon as well. When we have a, okay, a few second, you know, a three-second time lag, you can test them out. We have to really get autonomous exploration down. You asked me earlier about Magellan. Magellan and his crew, they, they left, right?

• 33:26Speaker 01

  They were autonomous. You know, they were autonomous. They left and they were on their own to figure out that mission. Then when they hit land, they have resources, that's in situ resource utilization and everything else they brought with them. So we have to, I think, have that mindset for exploration. Again, back to the moon, it's more the testing ground, the proving ground with technologies. But when we get to Mars, it's so far away that we need fully autonomous systems. So I think that's, that's where, again, AI and autonomy come in, really robust autonomy, things that we don't have today yet. So they're on the drawing boards, but we really need to test them out because that's, that's what we're up against.

• 34:00Lex Fridman?

  So fully autonomous, meaning like self-sufficient, there's still a role for the human in that picture. Do you think there'll be a time when AI systems, just beyond doing fully autonomous flight control, will also help or even take mission decisions like HAL did?

• 34:16Speaker 01

  That's interesting. It depends. I mean, they're going to be designed by humans, I think, as you mentioned. Humans are always in the loop. I mean, we might be on Earth, we might be in orbit on Mars, maybe the systems that landers down on the surface of Mars. But I think we're going to get, we are right now, just on Earth-based systems, you know, AI systems that are incredibly capable. And, you know, training them with all the data that we have now, you know, petabytes of data from Earth. What I care about for the autonomy in AI right now, how we're applying it in research, is to look at Earth and look at climate systems. I mean, that's the, it's not for Mars to me today. Right now, AI is to eyes on Earth, all of our space data, compiling that using supercomputers, because we have so much information and knowledge, and we need to get that into people's hands. We need, first,

• 35:00Speaker 01

  there's the educational issue with, with climate and our changing climate. Then we need to change human behavior. That's the biggie. So this next decade, it's urgent. We take care of our own spaceship, which is Spaceship Earth. So that's, to me, where my focus has been for AI systems, using whatever's out there, kind of imagining also what the, the future situation is. It's the satellite imagery of Earth of the future. If you can hold that in your hands, that's going to be really powerful. Will that help people accelerate positive change for Earth and for us to live in balance with Earth? I hope so. And kind of start with the ocean systems. So oceans to land to air and kind of using all the space data. So it's a huge role for artificial intelligence to help

• 35:41Speaker 01

  us analyze. They call it curating the data, using the data. It has a lot to do with visualizations as, as well.

• 35:48Lex Fridman?

  Do you think, in a weird, dark question, do you think human species can survive if we don't become interplanetary in the next century or a couple of centuries?

• 36:01Speaker 01

  Absolutely, we can survive. I don't think Mars is option B, actually. So I think it's all about saving Spaceship Earth and humanity. I, simply put, you know, Earth doesn't need us, but we really need Earth. You know, all of humanity needs to live in balance with Earth, because Earth has been here a long time before we ever showed up, and it'll be here a long time after. It's just a matter of how do we want to live with all living beings, you know, much more in balance, because we need to take care of the Earth, and right now, we're, we're not. So that's the urgency. And I think it is the next decade to try to live much more sustainably, live more in balance with Earth. I think the human species has a great, long, optimistic future, but we have to act. It's urgent. We, you know, we have to change behavior. We, we have to, we have to realize that we're

• 36:46Speaker 01

  all in this together. It's just one blue bubble. It's for humanity. So when, I think people realize that we're all astronauts, that's the great news, is everyone's going to be an astronaut.

• 36:55Lex Fridman?

  Spaceship Earth.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  We're all on, we're all astronauts on Spaceship Earth, and, you know, again, this is our mission. This is our, our mission to take care of the planet.

• 37:02Lex Fridman?

  And yet, as we explore out from our spaceship Earth here, out into the space, what do you think the next 50, 100, 200 years look like for space exploration?

• 37:13Speaker 01

  I'm optimistic. So I think that we'll have lots of people, thousands of people, tens of thousands of people, who knows, maybe millions, in low Earth orbit. That's just a place that we're going to have people and actually some industry, manufacturing, things like that. That dream, I hope we realize, getting people to the moon. So I can envision a lot of people on the moon. Again, it's a great place to go.

• 37:34Lex Fridman?

  Living or visiting?

• 37:36Speaker 01

  Probably visiting and living, if you want to. Most people are going to want to come back to Earth, I think. But there'll be some people, and it's not such a long... It's a good view. It's a beautiful view. So I think that we will have many people on the moon as well. I think there'll be some people, you told me, wow, hundreds of years out. So we'll have people. We'll be interplanetary for sure as a species. So I think we'll be on the moon. I think we'll be on Mars. Venus, no, it's already a runaway greenhouse gas, so not a great place for science. Jupiter, all within the solar system, great place for all of our scientific probes. I don't see so much in terms of human physical presence. We'll be exploring them. So we live in our minds there because we're exploring them and going on those journeys. But it's really our choice in terms of our decisions of how

• 38:21Speaker 01

  in balance we're going to be living here on the Earth.

• 38:24Lex Fridman?

  When do you think the first woman, first person will step on Mars?

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Step on Mars? Well, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure it happens in the 2030s.

• 38:33Lex Fridman?

  2030s.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Say, mid 2020, mid 2025, 2035, we'll be on the moon. And hopefully with more people than us. But first with a few astronauts, it'll be global, international folks. But we really need those 10 years, I think, on the moon. And then so by later in the decade, in the 2030s, we'll have all the technology and know-how, and we need to get that human mission to Mars done.

• 38:54Lex Fridman?

  We'll live in exciting times. And David, thank you so much for leading the way. And thank you for talking today. I really appreciate it.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  Thank you. My pleasure.

• 39:02Lex Fridman?

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