Original subtitles

The earth is not alone in the last few years

Scientists have found that our planet is just one of billions out there in the Milky Way galaxy

There's a really decent chance that there are more planets in the galaxy than there actually are stars

We're now scouring these planets for evidence of atmospheres

liquid water

of life itself

We are going to know where in the night sky you can point and find another earth

We have a scientific method to actually determine whether there is life on another planet another

earth

Alien life the truth is out there, but are we ready for it?

The earth gives us the blueprint for life as we know it

The Sun warms our oceans creating the perfect environment for all scales of life

From the very smallest to the Giants that eat them

Mountains

planes

and forests teen with plants and animal species and

It's all cocooned in a thick atmosphere that nurtures and protects for us. It's paradise

20 years ago a group of scientists decided to find out if there were other paradises out there

so-called exoplanets orbiting the stars that light up our night sky

Just in the last decade we've had this explosion in the discovery of these exoplanets

Which has revolutionized the whole field of astronomy

The early days of exoplanet hunting turned up enormous jupiter-sized planets by the boatload

These hot gas, each iins proved easy to find but hostile to life as we know it

Now though new telescopes and technologies have allowed astronomers to target smaller planets

Earth-sized ones and the stunning results have transformed the way we see our place in the universe

We now know something precious that our planet Earth is not unique. It's not even rare. There are

Tons hoards flocks if you will of other earth-like planets out there fluttering around the other stars

Some stars probably have multiple earths orbiting them. That's how common earth-like planets are

We owe this exoplanet explosion to a Space Telescope called Kepler the

Kepler space telescope is an observatory in space that is staring at one spot in the sky. It's looking at roughly

150,000 stars and it's looking for the tell-tale sign of

Planets orbiting those stars then every time the planet passes in front of the star

it'll block a little bit of that star light and if you plot the amount of light you get from the star it drops and

Then goes back up as the planet passes

In just four years scientists have detected over a thousand exoplanets just from their shadows

But Kepler has a problem. It can't tell if the shadow is made by a giant gassy planet hostile to life

or a potentially habitable earth-like planet

What we're measuring when a when a planet passes in front of its host star is what is the area of the planet

Relative to the area of the star that it's passing in front of it's a it's a ratio basically

But Jupiter sized planets crossing giant stars full Kepler

Because they block the same fraction of light as earth sized planets crossing smaller stars

To prove a planet is earth sized you first need to measure the size of its star using the world's biggest telescopes

But that's time-consuming expensive and it creates a huge

exoplanet backlog

But astronomer Kavon Stassen has come up with an ingenious shortcut by turning the raw Kepler data into sound

what the Kepler telescope directly measures and the data that we use is

small changes in brightness that a star produces due to the flickering

Arising from the boiling and roiling motions of gas at its surface

what we can do then is take that light flickering data and

Transform it in a sound studio for example into audio frequencies

And so then we can represent with sound what we're actually detecting with light

The bigger the star the more its surface boils with activity

Making big stars flicker more powerfully

Converted to sound this boiling becomes a deafening hiss

Well, let's listen to some stars, okay, can we hear the red giant star please? I'm gonna bring up the volume here

This is a very large star very low density

and so that large amount of hiss is the result of

vigorous boiling and churning at the surface of this large red giant star

Can we get the dwarf star, please?

On smaller stars sunspots dominate the sound profile creating a low-frequency drone

Actually sounds like a series of clicks

But below clicks lies the faint hiss Kavon needs to size the star

Underneath it at a very low level is a little bit of hiss

That little bit of is actually the light flickering that we're interested in

By accurately measuring the level of this background hiss Kavon can work out the size of the star

In this case, it's around the same size as our star the Sun

Cave-ins work could be the breakthrough

exoplanet hunters have been hoping for

It's cheap. The results are practically instantaneous

And once you know the size of the star

Figuring out the size of the planets casting shadows over

It is child's play it it feels like a very privileged time to be a scientist to be an astronomer

Working in this area and contributing to the hunt for the next earth. Here. We are actually

discovering these worlds by the hundreds and now on the cusp of

Being able to identify the next earth

Astronomers suspect there could be tens of billions of rocky earth-like planets in the Milky Way

Places where perhaps life has gotten a foothold

But life as we know it requires water

How can scientists possibly find this miracle substance on planets?

light-years away

Water divides our living world goes with it prosper

Those bounts suffer

Remarkably the water we drink today contains the same atoms as the water dinosaurs drank 100 million years ago

It's the same water that formed clouds over the earlier

4 billion years ago and every organism that has ever existed on earth

Has used this single ration of water as the biochemical powerhouse that keeps it alive

On earth all life requires liquid water to grow and reproduce

It's the common ecological requirement for life liquid water is just so good for getting evolution going

Molecules can dissolve in the water actually interact with each other for more complex chains. It does it with charge

There's positive charges and negative charges separated between the hydrogen and the oxygen in h2o

Those charges break apart the hydrocarbons the carbon-based molecules that persist everywhere in nature

Now that's very rare. Hardly. Any other liquids do that?

So liquid water is a natural starting place when you look out into the universe and say what planets could possibly have life

To understand how much liquid water is out there astronomers must first calculate how common water is in all its forms?

Amazingly they find it everywhere they look

Water is incredibly common in its gaseous form. We see water vapor filling the space between the stars

We see it in clouds of material that are actually forming new stars and planets right now

Since water is a fundamental building block of stars and planets exoplanet worlds must surely have it in abundance

But if you're looking for life

You need to find liquid water and plenty up to find it astronomers take their cue from a fairy tale

Everybody knows the famous story of Goldilocks and the three bears and the the cup of porridge where one was too hot one was too

Cold it was just right

When it comes to cooking up life like a porridge, you need to have an environment. That's not too hot not too cold

just right and

Traditionally we look for that at a certain distance around a star

At first astronomers based this magical distance known as the Goldilocks zone on the Earth's orbit around the Sun

But as they found more and more exoplanets, they've had to re-evaluate the boundaries from liquid water

There isn't a single distance. It depends on the brightness of your parents a dim star. You need to be closer

Hot star very bright need to be farther away

Scientists have calculated just how many rocky planets may lie within the Goldilocks zone of their stars

It comes out to over 30 billion

potentially watery world

Even more remarkably

Recent discoveries have shown us. It's not just planets that can bask in the warmth of the Goldilocks zone

There may be moons

painted blue with oceans -

Most of the planets were finding our big jupiter-sized planets

However, a lot of them were are orbiting roughly where the earth is orbiting the Sun

So even if the planet that we're finding can't support life

It could have a moon a moon with an atmosphere that could support life

And the biggest of these rocky moons they resemble our home

There could be billions upon billions of XA means out there and even perhaps countless paradises teeming with life

David kipping searches for exomoons by looking for double dips in the brightness of distant stars

We look for XA means in a very similar way to the way that we look for planets

by looking for them transit their host star

Now if that planet had a moon then we should expect to have one big dip

Due to the planet and then one smaller deputy to the left or to the right due to the new

Habitable exomoons may play host to one of the most spectacular sights in the universe

Imagine a warm rocky world just like arrow with oceans mountains

But in the sky a massive ringed planet with a fiery sister moon shooting hot magma into space

Exoplanets, and now the vast potential of

exomoons

Int a galaxy filled with the possibilities for life

But a rocky surface and liquid oceans may not be enough

Biology needs the breath of life

air

Backlit by the Sun a halo appears around the earth a

pale blue ring of light our atmosphere and

We oh, it's everything

The Earth's atmosphere provides the gases that fuel the biochemistry of advanced life

But it also protects the oceans from the full fury of the sun's rays

preventing the water from boiling away into space

Without an atmosphere there would be no wind. No rain. No

fresh water and probably

No life

Atmospheres are absolutely essential for life

Take a look at the planet Earth and you realize that just like the skin of the Apple?

The skin of the Apple preserves the Apple. Well the atmosphere of our planet

Preserves the oceans and makes possible the presence of life as we know it

Scientists in search of living exoplanets. Hope to detect the thin gassy envelope that should surround these alien worlds

To do it. They're turning to the power rainbows

In the same way that water splits Sun lights into a rainbow

astronomers use instruments to split starlight into a band of colours called a spectrum

It's one of the oldest tricks and science

and one of the most revealing

Several hundred years ago scientists first began to take something like a prism and put it in front of their telescope

So he started taking the light from stars like the Sun and actually spreading it out into a spectrum

And what they saw was kind of surprising. So instead of seeing andreen continuous rainbow of light

They saw that rainbow but they saw these dark lines superimposed on top

Each chemical elements of the star's atmosphere absorbs different parts of the spectrum

creating signature dark bands

For instance up at the top. There's a pair of lines in the yellow part of the spectrum which are due to sodium

Like a DNA profile for stars

Spectral analysis has taught us almost everything we know about stars today

But these same lines may hide a marvelous secret

the faint signal of alien atmospheres and

perhaps also

alien life

so the challenge is that these planets are very small and very faint so we can't actually go and

Directly measure the light emitted from the planet the same way that you go and measure this lovely spectrum for the Sun

Instead we have to rely on more indirect methods

So one indirect way of doing that is to wait until the planet passes in front of the star

When the light of a star passes through an EXO atmosphere

The gases that surround the planet should stamp their own faint lines on the star's spectrum

So as we watched the light from the star transmitted through that atmosphere its atmosphere is going to act like a little filter

so a part of the star light is going to pass through that atmosphere and we're gonna see that

In printing extra lines on it, which are due to the planet's atmosphere

So that change in the spectrum tells us something about the properties the planet's atmosphere

The one chemical astronomers most want to find is oxygen

Because only life can produce enough oxygen to be easily detected

It's a so-called bio signature

The race is now on to find bio signatures in the atmospheres of rocky exoplanets

And while some groups look for rainbows

Indirectly others are tackling the challenge head-on

All right

Then Oppenheimer is part of a team trying to take direct photographs of exoplanets

using massive ground-based telescopes

We're within minutes of taking our first long exposure and I hope it's good

The greatest challenge to imaging exoplanets is the blinding light of the parent star

Which shines tens of millions of times brighter than the planet itself?

The trick is to stop the light of the star from entering the telescope sensors by blocking it using a series of

Masks and lenses called a coronagraph

Right now we're standing right?

Underneath the telescope's primary mirror and the light comes through a hole in the middle of the mirror and goes into this

Crazy box here, which is full of optics motors

Sensors and electronics that all allow us to precisely control the star light that's coming through the system

Using state-of-the-art software they manipulate the coronagraph to black out the unwanted light under good conditions

We can actually carve

Dark holes into this image of the star so that we can see really faint things in those regions

coronagraphs present an intriguing problem though

errors within the optics produce tiny flares of starlight called speckles that look just like

Exoplanets, but van has come up with an ingenious way to tell speckles from planets

So we've developed a technique where we exploit an aspect of speckles

Which is that they change position in the image, depending on what color you take your image at?

So Ben takes the same image of the star through different color filters and

Runs them like a movie the speckles appear to move across the screen

But the planets stay stuck still allowing Ben to easily pick them out

And so I'd like to point out that there is a little thing right here

That if you watch for you're careful, you'll notice that it doesn't move and the speckles are washing over it

This stationary blob is a candidate exoplanet

And below it and to the left is a second. They both appear to orbit a star around 200 light-years from the earth

Just a decade ago capturing an image like this through a telescope was unthinkable

But today thanks to the ingenuity of astronomers like Ben we have hundreds

And by analyzing the light for these distant worlds scientists can work out their chemical composition

And potentially the fingerprints of life

At this point we're studying much larger planets

Gaseous things like Jupiter that most likely don't have any kind of life

Like we know it but that's a first step and we're going to fainter and smaller and smaller

Planets as time goes on as we develop this technology

In the not-too-distant future

Scientists may be able to simply scan a star for earth-like planets and find the signature of life there

We can look right at the light from a little planet around its distant star and that opens up a whole range of possibilities

For us to not just detect the planet but to study the planet

I mean this all sounds like science fiction, but there is a reality to this

We have a scientific method to actually determine whether there is life on another planet

Life is one thing

intelligent life

another all together that requires

Billions of years and a powerful force field like the one we owe our lives to every day

If an alien astronomer were to file a report on our home solar system they might make a surprising observation

Because of all the eight planets that orbit the Sun they could easily conclude that - not one were suitable for life

It's an easy mistake to make because the Sun has two planets within its Goldilocks zone the Earth and Mars

Both planets have surfaces warm enough for liquid water to pool on

But while the earth is blessed with warm liquid oceans

Ours is dry and dead

The one crucial difference between these two planets could be the key to finding truly habitable exoplanets a

magnetic shield

Our Sun is constantly hurling deadly radiation out towards us

Only our magnetic shield the magnetosphere saves us

Without it the solar wind would blow our atmosphere away and without an atmosphere liquid water could not exist on the surface

In order to have liquid water not only do you need the right temperature, but you need the right pressure

You know if there were no atmosphere here right now

Even at the same temperature we are today all of the water would boil off into vapor immediately

So where does the Earth's magnetosphere come from and why does it Mars have one?

Actually in the past both Earth and Mars had magnetospheres

But Mars lost its around 4 billion years ago and with it the potential for life

Both the earth and Mars were born into a realm of violence

Asteroids smashed into their surfaces turning rock and metal into a molten mass

As they started to cool a solid crust formed on the surface but the molten metal below

Churned as the planets turn

Inducing a magnetic field which rose high up above the surface of both planets

At the same time active volcanoes pumped gas into the space around each planet

Protected by the newly formed magnetic field these gases built up into thick atmospheres

Creating the air pressure for liquid water to run on the surface

For over a hundred million years both Mars and Earth were warm wet paradises primed for life to take off

Then quite suddenly

Mars's magnetic protection

Disappeared the solar wind blew its atmosphere into space and its oceans boiled away leaving the dry

Sterile, red rock we see today

Mars is fundamental problem is is that it's smaller than Earth and because it's smaller the internal core of Mars cooled down and

Solidified and once it becomes a solid metal. There's no more magnetic field the magnetic field shuts off essentially and

the atmosphere therefore is vulnerable to both energy and radiation from the Sun and the rest of the galaxy and

Probably just blew off

Whatever life was on there, at least on the surface was now completely exposed

All rocky planets will one day lose their magnetospheres as their cores cool and turn solid

So to know if an exoplanet is alive you need to work out if its magnetosphere is still active but

Magnetospheres are tough to measure because they are unbelievably weak

The earth has a magnetic field of approximately half a Gauss

Which when you think about it is actually really weak. Our fridge magnets are about a hundred Gauss. They're much stronger

Excel planets are too far away for us to measure such weak magnetic fields directly

But there is an indirect method

When electrons in the solar wind interacts with a planet's magnetosphere they emit radio waves that beam out into space

Turning the planet into a giant radio beacon

Astronomers like of geniu hoped to use these signals to spot habitable exoplanets

Not only that the frequency of the signal should also tell her how big the planet is

If we're looking for the magnetic signature in radio waves of a giant

planet say a hot Jupiter

We expect it to have a strong magnetic field and therefore it would have a high frequency

And around 100 megahertz kind of where the limit of this radio is

However, a weaker field like Earth's requires us to go down to lower and lower frequencies

So instead of a hundred megahertz we go down to ten megahertz

But hunting for exoplanets at 10 megahertz presents a unique challenge

Because the Earth's own magnetic sphere creates a deafening radio roar at that frequency

So to find alien Earth's using radio requires a dish in space

When we want to look for magneto spheres of extrasolar planets, we really need to get outside of the earth-moon system

In order to get away from all the radio frequencies that are bouncing around the earth

With a slew of new technologies and upcoming technologies

Scientists are edging ever closer to the ultimate prize

Finding a second earth

I wouldn't be surprised if we have that data about an earth and about life on it around another star in 10 or 15 years

I'm hoping to see that soon

Using shadows

Rainbows and now radio we finally have the tools to detect a planet just like our own

But in the rush to find the Earth's identical twin are we missing something big

What if earth is an outlier a freakishly lucky place on the very fringes of habitability

Could there be another kind of planet out there even better for life?

For years astronomers have scanned the heavens for planets that could sustain life

They've faced their search on the earth seeking the exact same conditions an exact same size I

Think right now there is a huge focus to finding earth-like

Planets now whether or not there actually is life there. That is another question all together

But after 20 years of searching for an earth clone, the exoplanet hunters may be about to switch targets

Recent observations have revealed a brand new class of planet. It's one that may eclipse our own home

We've learned something in the last few years that really shocked us with

The Kepler space porn telescope we have found hordes of planets that are a little bigger than the earth

We never imagined that there would be such planets. In fact in our own solar system

There are no planets between the size of the earth and the next largest planet that of Uranus and Neptune

Astronomers call these mysterious planets super Earths

Super earths are about three to five times the mass of the earth, and there's nothing like that here

We don't know what they're like, it's an entirely alien sort of planet

In just the last few years

Astronomers have begun to imagine the conditions on this new class of planet and they've come to a startling conclusion

super earths could be

super habitable

There are probably planets out there that are even more hospitable for life

Planets that have even more chemicals necessary to create the organic materials that create life

Conditions that make it more likely to get life off the ground

Imagine a rocky planet twice the size of the earth

Dramatic volcanism on the surface betrays a vast heart of fire that beats within its core

We expect that a heavier earth will be more geologically active

that the increased amount of

Geothermal heat within the super earth will lead to stronger

motions of the magma underneath the crust

Belching volcanoes dot the surface of this super earth

Their gases feed a super thick atmosphere and help to regulate a super stable climate

Many times life on Earth was nearly extinguished for example once upon a time the earth was snowball earth

completely covered in ice

maybe in these other planets there are earth in which

Snowball earth never happened that the climate was always stable and temperate

The grip of gravity is three times stronger here than we're used to

It pulls mountain ranges down to a third the height, they'd be on earth

Gravity also flattens the ocean bed making shallower seas filled with volcanic island chains and

The nutrient-rich waters that surround these archipelagos provide the perfect conditions for life

In these other planets perhaps they have conditions which would make DNA get off the ground much earlier and flourish much more quickly

Finally our super earth may be protected by a super magnetosphere the

Magnetic field strength is a condition both of the mass of the planet as well as its

rotation speed and so it is quite likely that a planet that is a couple of times bigger than the earths would

Be able to develop a stronger magnetic field may shield the planet even better than our magnetic field shields us

Having a stronger magnetosphere would be a distinct advantage for life on a super earth

Surrounding the Milky Way's most plentiful kind of star the M dwarf or red dwarf star

Red dwarf habitable zones are much closer in than the earth is to the Sun because their host star is so dim

it's as if you took the terrestrial planets in our own solar system and zapped it with a shrink ray gun and

Shrunk them down to orbital periods that are less than about 30 days meaning that they're very close to their stars

Some astronomers believe these planets are at risk from solar activity such as deadly flares

But a super-earth with a super protective magnetosphere

May well resist these deadly rays

allowing life to flourish under a psychedelic sky full of swirling Aurora's

If one was standing on a super-earth we would see the Aurora come down to lower latitudes

Might get different colors

If I had the opportunity to travel to one of these exoplanets, I would snap that up pretty quickly

Most intriguing of all if life does exist on a red dwarf super earth, it could be home to the longest-lived

civilizations in the entire universe the

Advantage of the M Dwarfs is that they last for much longer and if you had a super earth then keeping a strong magnetic field

Going for billions and billions of years

Especially now around a red dwarf that is going to exist for billions and billions of years

You might be in that perfect system where life can exist and evolve into even more complex beings than us

We're getting so close

Our local neighborhood of stars teens with red dwarfs bursting with the potential for advanced life

But they're also

Cosmic killers out there lurking in our galaxy primed to wipe out life on a regular basis

Is anywhere safe?

The exoplanet revolution is in full swing

the Kepler space telescope has scanned our local neighborhood of stars for planets and it's found them by the

thousands

For a long time we didn't know if the other stars in our galaxy had planets and for thousands of years

There was no way to answer that question

Finally now with modern technology we can do that and to our surprise we found they are extremely common

From Kepler's small sample astronomers believe there could be tens of billions of rocky earth-like

planets throughout the Milky Way where life may already be thriving

But how many of these countless worlds has held on to this life long enough for intelligence to evolve

The answer surprisingly may depend on a planet's galactic zip code

The universe is not a happy safe place the universe wants to kill us

It's it's incredibly violent out there

There are solar flares and supernovae and black holes and colliding galaxies and all these really amazingly dangerous and violent events

It's actually kind of amazing that we're here at all

In order to develop

Advanced intelligent life and exoplanets may have to avoid these cosmic killers for over three billion years

If we look at the history of the earth the first thing that happens

That's important is the origin of life right away very quickly, but then nothing for a long time

You have nothing but microbes stopping on the earth

For the first two and a half billion years the earth was ruled by

single-celled Beauty

Multicellular life has only been around for a billion years

fish for 500 million

mammals for 200 million and

Modern humans have only walked the earth for the last

200,000 years

The lesson is clear it takes a long time to cook up intelligent life

But most planets in the Milky Way don't have that kind of time

Astronomers believe that a planet's position within a galaxy may determine if it gets hit by global extinction events

There's an idea of a habitable zone for a galaxy and it's in analogy to the habitable zone around stars

Stars too close to the galactic center are in the firing line from their violent neighbors

Which frequently blast them with deadly high-energy radiation?

In the middle of a galaxy we have a lot of

Bright stars and young stars and maybe even supernova going off. And so there's a very harsh radiation field. That's not good for life

Fired up by the supermassive black hole that sits at the center of the Milky Way

this cosmic Killzone stretches out around

8,000 light years from the galactic center and extends out along the densely packed spiral arms

Any planets that exist within this zone are likely to have their surfaces regularly scrubbed clean of life

Fortunately for us our home star the Sun sits in a relatively empty

quiet zone between two of the galaxy's spiral arms

So there's this idea that there's a band in the middle of the galaxy

That's the Galactic habitable zone where you don't have too many stars going off. You don't have it too many supernovae

So it's quiet in that way. Those might be great places for complex life

These green zones are like the suburbs of the Milky Way galaxy

They're sheltered from the worst of the galaxy's radiation

It's here that earth-like worlds will have the luxury of long uninterrupted

periods for life to take hold and develop into more complex forms and eventually perhaps

intelligent life like us

The Galactic habitable zone is no more than a fledgling theory

But if it's true, it reduces the number of places where advanced life could flourish in the Milky Way

The good news is those places should be near us and aliens more likely to be on our doorstep and

With our technology getting better every day. It surely won't be long before we find them

I

Think in 20 years time I'm gonna be able to look up into the night sky and say there really is

Another place. I could stand like this and feel at home

Suddenly we humans will realize for the first time that there are other cultures other civilizations probably other religions

Out there among the stars and we are just one member of a grand galactic

tribe

to have

cousins that we one day may communicate with seems to me to be potentially one of the greatest developments that humanity will ever ever

experience and

If that isn't worth doing I don't know. What is

All systems are go for entry descent landing Jim, bye-bye

At the dawn of the 21st century space agencies in Europe and America

Began, making plans to land the first humans on Mars

But manned missions to the red planet have been proposed before

For some Mars holds the answers to mankind's future in space

Others say Mars is too far too dangerous and too expensive for humans to explore

And in a world torn by troubles

Some say there is no need or will for mankind to reach into space anymore

More than 30 years after the last Apollo astronaut walked on the moon

the American manned space program

Seems to have lost its way

Unable to reach beyond even in low-earth orbit

We've got a problem NASA has been literally going around in circles with its space program for the past 30 years

Astronautica engineer, dr. Robert Zubrin

Has been arguing for years that sending humans to Mars is the mission the space program needs

It's time that we set goals for NASA that were worthy of the risks of human spaceflight

Mars is the next logical step in our space program

It's the challenge that's been staring us in the face for the past 30 years. It's the planet that's most likely earth

It's the planet that has on it. The resources needed to support life and therefore someday technological civilization

It's the planet that will provide us with the answer as to whether life is

prevalent in the universe or exclusive to the earth and it's the planet that will give us the critical test whether humanity

Can break out of the planet of our birth and become a spacefaring species

In the early 1990s Zubrin was the head of the Mars direct program at Martin Marietta astronautics

His team developed a mission to Mars that could be done at a fraction of NASA's projected costs

Using only existing technology Zubrin argues that the first steps on Martian soil could be made within 10 years

There is absolutely nothing in this that is beyond our technology

We are not ready to send humans to Mars right now, we don't know how to keep them alive

There are people out there who say we can go to Mars tomorrow

One of my requirements one of NASA's requirements is that if we send humans to Mars we bring them back alive

For the past 15 years

Zubrin and his colleagues have waged a campaign to convince society and the political class that humans on Mars

Should be the goal for NASA now

This is the story of a cold neighboring planet and the debate over whether man's fate is tied to the red world

It's the story of an engineer's journey and the Battle of ideas over which direction in space will truly benefit mankind

We're at a crossroads today

We either muster the courage to go or we risk the possibility of stagnation in the case

The victor in this debate could determine the fate of mankind?

Will we become a spacefaring species?

Will we live on more than one planet

In the winter of 2003 the Chinese put their first tycoon all in space

The Chinese space administration plans to begin a manned program of moon exploration by 2017

The european space agency has outlined a plan for humans to the moon by 2024 and to mars by 2033

And the Russians building on years of experience are conducting tests for long-duration Mars missions

In America with the impending retirement of the shuttle fleet in the completion of the International Space Station

The brochure administration announced in 2004 the constellation program

On the moon a plan that would return Americans to the moon by 2020

But the program was never fully funded was eventually cancelled

In 2010 the Obama

administration announced its vision for NASA and human Mars exploration by the mid 2030s

I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to earth and

landing on Mars will follow

And I expect to be around to see it

With a new timeline for humans to Mars sometime after 2035 and with administration's

Changing every four or eight years. It is far from certain that such a plan will be realized

Twenty years earlier the first president Bush also proposed a long interview man exploration program

under great fanfare

The program quietly died in Congress a few years later

if

You want to go to Mars? You cannot do it in 30 years you can't do in 20s

You've got to do it in ten years or less from program start or you're more or less guaranteeing

political failure

to date only the Apollo moon program

Which was announced in 1961 and had men on the moon eight years later has succeeded in getting astronauts beyond low Earth orbit

I

Was 5 when Sputnik flew

and while to the adults

Sputnik was a terrifying event to me as a child who was already reading science fiction

it was exhilarating because it meant that this possibility of a spacefaring future was going to be real and

I was 9 when he gave his speech committing us to the moon

I

Grew up

During the 60s

When it was mercury was Gemini Apollo?

Every month NASA was doing something more impressive than in a month before we were gonna be on the moon by 1970

Mars by 1980 Saturn by 1990 Alpha Centauri by the year

2000 we were moving out and I wanted to be part of that

And so I got myself a scientific education, but then in the early 70s, it's all collapsed

We achieved the first part of that program moon by 1970 but the Nixon

Administration shut down the rest and we did not move out into space and for a while. I accepted that

grudgingly it became a science teacher but then in the early 80s something hit me and I said I'm

Not going to accept myself

Doing less than what I had dreamed of doing when I was a boy

Zubin went back to graduate school getting advanced degrees in engineering into aerospace

He then went on to work at Martin Marietta, which later became Lockheed Martin designing interplanetary missions

It was here that zubrin's obsession with the red planet began to take hold

While at Martin in the 1990s Zubrin and his colleagues developed a plan for sending humans to Mars

That changed NASA's thinking on the issue

But the plan has languished on the drawing boards ever since

Now as president of the Mars Society Zubrin is at center stage in the debate over the future of manned spaceflight

Known as a smart visionary scientist. He's authored several books on exploring space

And is the self-appointed spokesman for the possibility of colonizing Mars?

Mars is where the futurist Mars is the closest planet to the earth that has honored all the resources needed to support life and therefore

Technological civilization it has water it has carbon it has nitrogens. It has a 24-hour day

It has a complex geological history that has created mineral org, it has sources of geothermal energy

Mars is a place we can settle

One reason for such optimism over a frozen world like Mars is

Evidence that two billion years ago Mars was a much warmer and wetter place

We think that at one time in the ancient past Mars was very similar to the condition of early Earth

This Martian war mage lasted for over a billion years and could have been a suitable environment for the development of life

If we go to Mars and find evidence of a second Genesis on Mars, I think we can conclude that

The universe is full of life

We can probably conclude that on some planets that life evolves to more complex forms, and I think we'd be reasonable to conclude that

Intelligence could also emerge on some planets as well. It really does answer the question. Are we alone?

That to me is a question that transcends science. It's a philosophical

Societal as well as scientific question to me. That's the big prize. That's what why Mars is interesting

That's why human exploration makes sense

Space programs are often criticized for the huge sums of money. They require

although the American space program is less than 1% of the federal budget a

Human mission to Mars may have to wait for better times

There are those who say then we have many problems to deal with here on earth and we need to postpone ventures

Such as the human exploration on Mars until these problems are solved

well, there are many problems in Spain in 1492 and

there still are

There are problems that need to be dealt with here on earth and should be dealt with

But we also have to think of the future

We also have to think about opening up new volumes in human history

I

Believe that it's essential for a positive human future that humanity expand into space

The greatest value that we got out of Apollo was the creation of intellectual capital through the inspiring of

Millions to go into science and engineering to be part of the great adventure of human expansion into space

There's a phrase that happened with the Apollo program

Which was if we can go to the moon we can

And then everybody's filled in whatever they were interested in build mass transit cure cancer do this through that

The point is it did give us a sense that we could accomplish great things. It did bring out the best of us

We excited a generation of engineers and scientists

The generation that built the computers and cell phones and all the technology everybody uses today

It takes for granted if we send humans to Mars as our goal, we'll get millions of new scientists that will create new

inventions new

Industries. This is the enormous payback and we can get it if we set the kind of challenge that will inspire the news

To Zubrin civilizations like people thrive on challenge

Decay without it. We have everything we have today because of our predecessors

who had the courage to leave the world of the known and go out into the wilderness and build new cities and

If we stop being people like that

Then we will hand down much less to our posterity

That our ancestors handed down to us

So there's the choice in life one either grows or one decays grow or die I think we should grow

History proves that we have never lost

by pressing the limits of our frontier

In the summer of 1989 the first president Bush announced the space exploration initiative

Directing NASA to draw up long-term plans to get humans back to the moon and begin developing a program of manned Mars

exploration

At Martin Marietta Zubrin and his colleagues looked forward to moving NASA's Space Program

outwards after two decades in low-earth orbit of

Course, we were very excited when Bush made his call saying that he was making a national commitment to implement such a program

NASA assembled a large team to take on the space initiative

In 90 days the team developed a 30-year plan that required an enormous buildup of space infrastructure

What the NASA bureaucracy?

decided to do was basically

Design the most complex mission they possibly could in order to make sure that everyone's pet technology would remain mission-critical

Which is the exact opposite of the correct way to do engineering

First NASA would triple the size of the planned space station and add enormous hangars as well as free-floating fuel depots checkout

Docs and crew stations then on the moon. They would construct more shipbuilding facilities

bases and depots

Next the moon crew would construct the Mars ship a huge craft dubbed by its detractors as Battlestar

Galactica this ship would carry everything to Mars over an 18-month flight

Once in Mars orbit, a small group would descend to the surface

Spend a few days then plant a flag in the ground and go home

The plan became known as the 90-day report

to those of us at Martin who had been engaged in designing Mars missions when they saw the

Monstrosity of complexity of the 90-day report we were dismayed and it was readily apparent to anyone with any insight that that program would fail

Politically the plan was submitted to Congress the estimated cost

450 billion the legislators went into sticker shock

This would have been the single most expensive program for the United States since World War two

By the end of 1990 Congress had refused all requests for sei funding

When the realization came the sei was doomed Zubrin wrote a memo to his colleagues at Martin Marietta outlining

His problems with the NASA plan and arguing for a more direct approach

Zubrin favored launching a Mars mission directly from the surface of Earth using only existing rocket technology

This negated the need for a lunar base and avoided the complexity and cost of building ships in space

he also objected to NASA's plan for a short surface stay on Mars a

Mission that would amount to little more than a flag and footprints exercise

To Zubrin we were going to Mars to explore and develop a new world

To maximize surface time Zubrin proposed using a faster flight path known as a conjunction class mission

This would mean a crew could arrive on Mars after only a six-month journey

They would then remain on the Martian surface for a year and a half

This would give the team time to explore a wide area and conduct detailed research about the planet

Then as the earth returned window opens crew would launch from Mars the six-month trip home

Zubrin was convinced that a simplified more robust and cost-effective mission could be designed using these principles

Along with several like-minded colleagues Zubrin decided to ask management at Martin to allow them to design alternative Mars missions

The management approvement and

We formed a team

Was known as the scenario development team of just 12 people from the whole very large Martin company

One team member whose thinking was closely aligned with zubrin's was David Baker

I went off to my office and said alright

how would I do a Mars mission if I had to pay for it, and I had to go on the ride and

I said well it's going to be simple. There's gonna be no on-orbit assembly

I really tried to take everything out of the mission that didn't absolutely need to be there

While the rest of the team focused on longer-term more traditional mission plans that required on-orbit assembly

Zubrin and Baker decided to collaborate on a mission that could be done near-term

We decided to do Mars the way Lewis and Clark did America

Okay, use local resources travel light live off the land

Zubrin and Baker were convinced that a Mars mission could be launched directly from the ground

The other team members felt this was impossible that the weight of the rocket fuel required for a round trip to Mars

Was so enormous it would render the launch ship impossibly heavy

To solve this problem Zubrin was exploring a radical idea that had been kicked around the aerospace industry since the 1970s

The idea was to produce a methane-oxygen rocket fuel directly from the Martian atmosphere

It was a relatively simple and robust Chemical Engineering procedure that was done commonly in the 1800s the air of the gas life

If the idea worked astronauts could land a relatively light ship with empty tanks

They wouldn't have to ship all the fuel with them for their return trip

This would radically lower their size and weight

The only problem was methane-oxygen fuel requires a hydrogen component

Hydrogen exists on Mars in the form of h2o but water may be difficult or impossible to extract from the Martian environment

Really the hydrogen was only 5% of the total weight of the methane-oxygen propellant

Being manufactured so you just say, okay

We won't be pure we all get all of the propellant from Oris will just get 95% of the propellant from Mars

The other 5% of the hydrogen will just bring from Earth

Another fundamental resource that could be extracted from the Martian environment is oxygen

Second processing unit could separate oxygen molecules from the thin carbon dioxide atmosphere

providing breathable air for a Mars crew

If used intelligently

The same resources that make Mars interesting are precisely

What could make it attainable?

Baker and Zubrin had greatly reduced their mission mass

But they still found their ship was too heavy and would require two launches and assembly in space

Then Zubrin hit on an idea

One of the key

Events of the Mars directive element was one morning Bob burst in my office and said I've got it the idea that I finally hit

on

In 1989 was that we had split the mission up into two parts and we'd send the return vehicle out first

with its own return propellant plant

So the propellant would be made on Mars before the first astronauts ever left her

With two separate direct Amar's launches a human crew would have a fully fueled ship waiting for them on the surface of Mars

before they ever left Earth

So Zubrin and Baker had come up with a plan that seemed to accomplish all of their goals, it was relatively inexpensive

Development time was short, they could use existing technology and it allowed for a long stay on the Martian surface

They dubbed their idea Mars direct

Board and Ares rocket is the earth return vehicle or ERV

No one has aboard this ship

It will pave the way for the astronauts who years later. We'll use the ERV to return to Earth

On its second day the ERV deploys a small nuclear power reactor

The reactor powers a chemical plant inside the ERV

The plant will produce the methane-oxygen rocket fuel for the launch home

Nearby a second robotic rover is guided to a pre-picked landing site for the human crew

it places a radar transponder to help guide the astronauts in the

long journey to land a human being on Mars begins

Three two one engine

Carrying the most skillfully assembled flight team in history four astronauts begin their two and a half year mission to the Red Planet

This will be the first time a human has gone beyond the earth-moon system

250 million miles farther than any person has ever been

To counter the health problems of zero-gravity and to fully acclimate the astronauts to Mars the ship will deploy a weighted tether

attached to the last stage of the spent rocket booster

By thrusting the ship into a rotational spin the counterweight of the rocket will create centrifugal force and

Thus artificial gravity

The crew will be able to live with their feet planted firmly on the floor during their six-month transit

But the hab is not entirely alone on its journey just ahead of it is a second ERV identical to the first

Launched just a few weeks prior to the Harpe. It will prepare the way for a second human crew that will follow two years. Later

It can also function as a backup for the first mission if anything should go wrong

On the sixth month of the flight the crew gaze upon an alien world

This is the new frontier

After days in orbit, unsatisfied with the landing conditions the crew will receive final word from Mission Control on earth

It will be a tense 40 minutes before people back on earth get the signal from Mars and know if everything has gone well

I thought forward down

Contact light okay in this stop

For more than 500 days the astronauts will therefore Mars and

Embark on one of the greatest journeys of discovery

in the history of science

Will they find life or the fossilized remains of past life

Such a discovery could tell us whether our solar system has seen more than one Genesis and

Answer the ultimate question

Are we alone?

In any case these explorers will be learning how feasible the colonization of Mars really is and whether or not mankind

Has a future among the stars

Then when the time comes in the window for Earth return opens crew will climb into their earth return vehicle and head

They will arrive home heroes

the first to stretch the limit of man's expanse from one planet to another

their names added to the list of great explorers of new worlds

In their footsteps others who follow

What began as a trickle is free to rise into a deluge of humankind sweeping over a once barren land and

Transforming it into a viable new world

When Baker and Zubrin presented Mars direct to their bosses at Martin they expected the worst

To their surprise management was excited about it. They liked the fact that everything needed was relatively simple and near-term

As time went on Martin Marietta embraced Mars direct as their creation and

put Bob and I on an airplane to several NASA centers to present Mars direct and try to build some momentum for

Baker and Zubrin flew to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama

This had been one of the original design hubs for the Apollo moon landings

But recently many of the engineers had become demoralized by the failure of NASA's sei program

tag-team style Baker and Zubrin presented their alternative mission architecture

The response was three the old-school Apollo crowd embraced it

This was a plan that actually made sense and was within reach Baker and I gave a number of briefings

The first was at the Marshall Space Flight Center

Next was a chance. These people were incredibly excited

Over the next few weeks Zubrin and Baker were flown around the country pitching to all branches of NASA and everywhere

They went the response was electric

The plan was standing up to scrutiny and groups all over NASA were converting to Mars direct

their tour culminated in a public presentation to the National Space Society

The crowd gave the two aerospace engineers a standing ovation

A week later. The story was in newspapers around the country

But a counter-attack was beginning to form within NASA the space station teams and many in the advanced propulsion groups were against the idea

Since Mars direct didn't need their programs, they felt under threat as quickly as doors opened for Zubrin and Baker. They began to close

NASA didn't want to pursue a Mars mission at that time

They didn't want to be derailed by a bunch of Mars fanatics that thought that their idea of what NASA should do should overwhelm

What NASA thought NASA should do what we did in Mars direct was?

Literally come up with the leanest solution

the one that involved the least spending on an assortment of technologies and infrastructural elements including for example

we made no use whatsoever of the International Space Station and

So people involved in all those programs were very upset because we were showing they shouldn't go to Mars without

Their program being required they felt that we were justifying them

the NASA administration rejected Mars direct

The two engineers were outside is again

but Zubrin remained determined

Bob had grabbed hold of it and

I could see that it was his and no matter what I did he was gonna do what he was going to do and

he was going to be a proponent for it and push it and

I really saw my role sort of evaporate

It's a little bit like being a dim planet next to a bright star around him in terms of his

Enthusiasm and you really can't compete with that. All you can do is decide how you're going to deal with it

By February 1991 Baker. Quit Martin to start his own firm

Zubrin battled on for the next year and a half Zubrin tried to get NASA to pay attention giving speeches writing papers

But Mars directs time seemed to have passed

But then in 1992 a new administration came into power at NASA and Zubrin

Saw a second chance

I was invited to brief Mike Griffin who was the associate administrator for space exploration in charge of the whole space exploration initiative?

He immediately became a very strong supporter Mars direct

But before the engineers at NASA would take another look at Mars direct

They wanted Zubrin to prove the producing rocket fuel on Mars could work

They gave Martin Marietta a small budget to do an experiment Zubrin and his team built a machine called the in-situ propellant plan

It could take carbon dioxide the dominant gas in the Martian atmosphere

Combine it with a little hydrogen and produce a methane-oxygen fuel

We did it in three months with a very small team. We built a plant. That was 94%

efficient and

No one who actually participated in that effort was actually a real chemical engineer

They were all aerospace engineers like me who were simply dabbling in chemistry

In order to prove to NASA that 19th century

chemical engineering really worked

With the experiment to success the administration had Zubrin give detailed briefings of the mission plan to the engineers of the Johnson Space Center

They liked it, but had some problems Dave Weaver was the lead mission architect

There were a number of things that we were concerned about with bob zubrin's mission

First of all, we thought his estimates of mass were probably too optimistic

Didn't have sufficient margins for a variety of things not the least of which would be things like provisions

For the crew the amount of water, that would be required

We thought as a sent vehicle was very large, which meant his power requirements his propellant

requirements were

Much larger than needed to be his trip times out were too long and that for a very little effort you could get him shorter

The other problem was the size of his crew. He had a four-person crew

I think virtually every study that's been done says that a four-person crew for a

Three-year type of mission is probably not realistic

Weaver took Zubrin into his office and the two men worked out compromised mission architecture

First Weaver wanted three launches for every mission instead of two

the first year three ships would launch a MAV Mars ascent vehicle an unoccupied hab and

an ERV earth return vehicle

The harb and MAV would land on the surface and begin producing fuel for the return flight and air for the crew

These crafts would spend to solitary years on Mars allowing NASA to test all of the system's before sending a human crew

Then in the third year three more ships would launch

This time with the hab occupied by astronauts. The other two ships are for a future mission unless needed as a backup for this crew

Once on Mars the team could also utilize the first hab

Then after a year and a half stay the crew would climb aboard their small capsule and rendezvous with the returned ship

This ship would carry them back home in a roomier environment than zubrin's ERV

Zubrin called the plan Mars semi direct

NASA called it the design reference mission. They had a larger crew than we had they had bigger ships

They had more equipment they had heavier equipment so they had to do the mission in three launches instead of two

But it was done with the same principles of Mars direct

The plan was subjected to the same cost analysis that tagged the 90-day report with a four hundred and fifty billion dollar price tag

The design reference mission came back at a fraction of the cost

55 billion

Spread out over 10 years. It could be done within NASA's existing budget

The plan made the cover of Newsweek

Here was a mission architecture that was affordable and could be done today with existing technology

but NASA's astronauts have not left low Earth orbit since

With the completion of the International Space Station and the retiring of the space shuttle program a

debate rages over the future of space exploration

Should NASA continue to focus on low-earth orbit developing technologies for the future

Or shouldn't a sir have a goal like it did in the 1960s with Apollo

the way we got to the moon was by a

presidential imperative that demanded that NASA get to the moon within a decade

So NASA was forced to sit down design a plan for how to do that and then fly the mission

Since that time without the presence of the driving imperative we engage in basically a random set of

Constituency driven programs which are justified ad hoc

Afterwards by the argument that they could prove useful at some time in the future when you actually have a plan to go somewhere. I

Think NASA has focused on a steady process where the government can't just pull the plug on their funding. I

think the Apollo cancellation was very traumatic for NASA and it really

Transformed NASA from what it was in the 60s to more of what it is now

If you have a singular program like going to Mars then it is very vulnerable to having its funding pool

NASA must be destination-driven

It is the only thing that allows the agency to be productive NASA was a hundred times more productive when it was

Destination-driven than in the period that has not been and we have stagnated in NASA since 1973

Thirty years more than a generation has been wasted

The American space program has been stacking for thirty years. There is a once-in-a-generation

Shot right now to get it moving again by giving it a goal that will take it somewhere

Some mistakes today are high

And if you ask me if I am nervous right now I and

Dr. Zubrin why is NASA stuck in low-earth orbit?

The problem with NASA's lack of current achievement is not money. The problem is lack of focus its lack of a goal

It shouldn't be humans to Mars in 50 years. It should be humans to Mars in 10

We can do this. We do not need gigantic nuclear-electric spaceships

To send people to Mars that that is pork

It's nonsense the primary question I get from American people is why aren't we doing this?

There's a big sense of disappointment almost verging on a sense of betrayal

The purpose of spaceships is to actually travel across space and go to new worlds not to hang out in space and observe the health

Effects from doing so dr. Zubrin in your testimony. You were very passionate, but you also were mad

You're mad. We haven't done this or that this vision has been stolen from a generation

I guess you could say that

It's like Columbus coming back from the New World and Ferdinand and Isabella saying ask so what forget it burned the ships

Okay, you know that's what has happened in this country

We've won our point but there needs to be a destination

What we need the point we need to win on now is the destination needs to be Mars and it needs to be suit

The movement to send humans to Mars in the near term began at the University of Colorado in

1978 a

Graduate student in Astro geophysics named Chris McKay gave a small seminar on the possibility of introducing life to Mars. I

Got interested in Mars in graduate school

I enter graduate school the same year that Viking landed on Mars and sent back these images that sent back

Data that showed. All the elements needed for life are here on this planet and yet there's no life here

I know that's sort of the lights are on and nobody's home. And I thought well, that's curious

So some of my other grad students and I we sort of got together to talk about

Well if there's no life on Mars now

Could we put life there and that evolved also into the question was maybe there was life in the past

And so we could find fossils evidence of it

Well, how would you do that while you do that by sending people there?

Together with fellow graduate students the group decided to put together a small conference to discuss the matter of human Mars exploration

We basically just started a forum

We invited everybody from all the NASA centers and from all the universities were involved in it

And they all came and it was it really was in retrospect

I realized a very important step toward building a consensus for human exploration of Mars in 1996

I published my first book the case for Mars and

the response was phenomenal I got

4,000 letters from all of the world

Parisian bankers and twelve year old kids in Poland and firemen from Saskatoon and

Astronauts and they're all writing me and saying how do we make this?

Bob Zubrin

Came to the 3rd Mars conference and got very much involved. He was willing and interested in forming a society forming a group in

Organizing said look if we could pull these people together we can get them to work together

We could have a force that could actually make humans to Mars had the group formed the Mars Society

Robert Zubrin became the president they held their first convention in 1998 the convention

was just

Magic, we had no idea how many people were coming. They were there not just from the United States and Canada Europe

They were there for Israel. They were there from Mozambique. We are there from New Zealand

It was astonished

Since its inception the Mars Society has attracted members worldwide

Derek Shannon is the head of the Southern California Chapter

He's met with political leaders from all over the country if you make them look at the whole Mars

vision in

Historical terms it becomes a much easier. So how will be Martians?

Remember our century. They're probably not going to remember our deficit our Wars or healthcare. Those will be footnotes

What they'll remember is it out of all of human history?

there came a generation that decided to take this amazing step out into space and

If you tell politicians and they're the ones whose names actually get to be remembered. That's when hopefully the space program starts going somewhere

In order to further the knowledge necessary for a manned mission to the red planet

The Mars Society has been building research stations around the globe all of them based on the design of zubrin's hab module

Most recently the society set up a desert Research Station in Utah

Here international researchers and aerospace students come to do experiments under the harsh desert conditions

And learn what's necessary to keep a Mars crew alive and productive

Basically, what we're doing here is undergoing analog studies crews of up to six people at a time come together to live in a full

Simulation environment for up to 14 days. So what that means is

Every time we go outside they have people have to Don spacesuits

After depressurize

When we go outside, they called extra vehicular activities, they can only be of a certain duration to the air supply

We have to recycle all our water and basically have our own food as well

It's great to fantasize but it's another thing when you have to put it together when the nuts have to fit the bolts

Like the Apollo missions to the moon

Sending human beings to Mars will mean putting people in harm's way

there are many dangers in outer space and many things could go wrong a

Serious equipment breakdown could doom the crew to their deaths

Some argue that the risk of failure is simply too high

You know back in the days when medieval man was looking out from Europe thinking about exploring in the world

The world was unknown and mapmakers populated

their maps with dragons

We've got the same thing today

There are people who are afraid to go out into space and they've populated their maps of the solar system of dragons

You know, we've got cosmic radiation. We've got zero gravity. We've got bat contamination, but these are

Dragons that we can take on

There are two kinds of radiation astronauts must contend with in outer space solar flares and cosmic rays

Solar flares are floods of protons that burst from the Sun at irregular intervals and would be dangerous to an unshielded human crew

We are now ready to send humans to Mars right now

We've got to know a lot more about radiation and radiation

mitigation one of the Apollo flights

Barely missed like by a week a major solar event if it had gone off when the Apollo

Astronauts are on the way back and forth to the moon

They would have gotten their entire lifetime radiation dose in that one mission and that's it's one Solar Flare

So that's why we worry about this in the Maz direct plan

Zubrin envisions a central insulated core where a crew can retreat to while the radiation passes by

The core would be surrounded by all the provisions of the mission. This should stop any harmful dose of radiation from reaching the astronauts

Basically, you use your pantry as your storm shelter. So a solar flare happens the alarm bell rings

The crew goes into the storm shelter

They stay in there cramped up pretty tight for a few hours until the all-clear rings and they come out

this is gonna happen once it might happen twice in the course of the mission the

Second type of radiation is cosmic rays

This constant rain of charged particles comes from interstellar space and cannot be avoided without many metres of shielding

We can experience some of this type of radiation on earth at high altitudes

Airline pilots who spend their career is flying high in the atmosphere

Can receive almost as much of this radiation throughout their life as a Mars astronaut would on a two-and-a-half year mission

It's a long trip. It's a six-month trip there six months back is probably a year on the surface. That's a lot of radiation

the best estimates are that the magnitude of that dose is not that great perhaps

60 REM of radiation

scattered over two-and-a-half years now 60 REM of radiation

Delivered over a long period of time like that would not create any noticeable effects at all

It would though it is believed increase your statistical risk of getting cancer at some point later in your life by about 1%

Right now if you're an average American and you do not smoke you have a 20% chance you're going to die of cancer

This would make it 21 if you're an average American smoker

It's 40

in fact

If you recruited the Mars crew out of smokers and sent them to Mars without their tobacco

You would be reducing their chance of getting cancer

With the immense distance from Earth never before experienced by a human being with the constant dangers of outer space

Surrounding their small life-sustaining craft and with nowhere else to go the psychological

Impact on a crew could be severe

Fear is real

I mean it would be to me abnormal for a person to not feel the fear of getting on a

rocket and launching into space and

Going to Mars

so I think fear is a very normal thing that all astronauts in fact are supposed to have and

I would be afraid to fly with someone who does not have fear

Some psychologists worry the cabin fever could set in and the crew might literally go crazy

The human Mars mission is a more rigorous and difficult condition than most of us experience in daily life

But it is hardly more difficult situation than many people have endured throughout human history

We could compare the Mars crew to the crew of 19th century or prior

sailing vessels

many of whom were away from home for three years or more than three years under conditions in which they're eating extremely bad food without

Any medical knowledge to support their health commanded by brutal officers in every respect the crew of the human Mars mission

With the full support of Mission Support in the whole world cheering for them and great

Rewards awaiting for them in life upon their return is in a vastly superior condition

The Mazda eight crew spend most of their time inside the two-story hab

Carefully designed to promote psychological well-being despite the confinement the space where I think everybody would spend the most time, you know

Just like a lot of homes on earth

It would be the galley wardroom area there would be chairs a table some kind of large screen for entertainment you would have

individual staterooms about four or five feet wide

The ability for them to communicate with loved ones with colleagues on earth. I think will be almost unlimited a

Mars crew will need to be carefully chosen and thoroughly tested to ensure their ability to handle the extreme isolation

John Young went to the moon used to say that he could cover

The earth by just lifting his thumb up to up to it

And he says that when you go to Mars you are going to redefine

The concept of loneliness and so it is very important that the crew be well-balanced and well-chosen

So that they can support each other

Whoever gets picked to go they will have to learn to live together for two-and-a-half years

if you put out a call for

volunteers for the first crew to Mars

They'd be lined up coast to coast

most people recognize

what's left after you go is the good you left behind and

To take part in adventure this character such a historic character of extending the reach of the human species

This is something of immortal significance

One of the most bogus threats

Associated with the Mars mission is the so called back contamination issue

Which is this notion that you go to Mars and discover these virulent disease

Organisms that you bring back to earth and destroy all life on Earth if we discover life on Mars one fear

Is that our earth biology will have no defense against possible Martian pathogens?

Some argue that missions to Mars cannot be risked until we can prove Mars is free from harmful contaminants

This is completely nonsensical

There's natural transfer of material from Mars to earth all the time

We get around 500 kilograms of unsterilized Martian rocks landing on earth

Every year and they have been doing so for the past three four

Billion years. And so if there were Martian organisms that could contaminate the earth they've already done so

although the prospect of Martian diseases seems remote

Lawmakers have required that NASA create elaborate protocol to ensure that any extraterrestrial

material stays contained and

like the Apollo astronauts who spent 17 days in quarantine after they returned from a sterile moon a

Mars crew will have to be thoroughly tested for any harmful Martian pathogens

the probability is

Infinitesimally tiny but nevertheless this is our home planet and it's extremely important and we have to protect it

The idea of a pathogen on Mars is clearly ridiculous because there is no megafauna or mega flora on Mars

for pathogens to infect

So it is impossible to propose a credible lifecycle for a Martian karagin

the

diseases that afflict us have been Co evolving with us and our

ancestors and near relatives for the past three billion years and

They are specifically designed to live inside the habitat of the human body and to overcome its

Defenses and they've been engaged in an arms race with the human defenses for those 3 billion years

This is why humans do not get diseases from distantly related species

For example, I don't know of any person who has ever contracted Dutch elm disease

You know in trees don't get colds

When the first Mars Lander touches down the crew will be staring out at a new world a place that in four billion years

No eyes have ever seen

The crew won't be alone

Millions of television viewers back home will be watching as the first man or woman places their footprint into the rust-colored soil

The crew will savor these moments for here someday a new branch of civilization might begin and

Future Martians will remember and celebrate this day

There is much for the crew to do and explore

One of their main mission objectives will be to search for signs of microscopic life

To do this they will follow the ancient water flows for on earth where there is water there is life

To help the crew in their search they will have a pressurized Rover that allows them to explore in a comfortable shirtsleeve environment

This means the crew can examine a vast area around the landing site during their 18-month stay and

There is much to explore

Mars has 58 different kinds of topography and a surface area equivalent to all the continents of Earth combined

If these explorers can uncover the fossilized remnants of indigenous Martian life

They will redefine mankind's understanding of its place in the universe

But if life arose separately on a planet so close to our own it strongly suggests that the universe is a

biologically rich place and full of life

For some the ultimate question of Mazda is will there be human settlements on the planet?

Will Mars become a new branch of human civilization?

As

Each subsequent Mars mission explores a wider and wider area of the planet over several years

An ideal site for a base will be found

Probably worn with a thermal vent that can supply water and power

At that point several Habs will be landed in this one spot with crews that plan to stay for

eight or even twelve years

Perhaps we'll be interconnected and a permanent human presence on Mars will be established

This scientific community will have to learn to become self-sufficient

To be able to survive on Mars without supplies constantly being sent from Earth

Unlike any other planet in the solar system besides Earth Mars has all of the fundamentals needed to make this possible

It's 24 hour and 37 minute day is critical for growing plants

it has all of the elements necessary for creating building materials, like plastics metals and glass and

It has oceans of water frozen into the soil

If we can develop this craft of living on Mars

Then Mars becomes inhabitable

Not immediately physically, but intellectually

I mean, look what determines whether an environment is habitable or not is Colorado habitable

We're not naturally adapted to live in Colorado. We're tropical animals

No one could survive a single winter night here without technology such as clothing efficient use of fire

we

Invented our way into becoming people that could colonize such hostile environments

Eventually with a lot of ingenuity and invention the scientists will learn to live off the land

they will grow crops in the iron-rich but potassium poor soil and

They will produce oxygen and energy from the water and atmosphere

Sooner or later children will be born the first true Martians. They will grow up to see Mars as their home

With time more and more people will arrive these won't only be scientists but settlers people who plan to stay

They may come for all kinds of reasons

But to them Mars will be a chance to start over to build a new life for themselves

The well of human social thought is not exhausted by the present age and I don't think we'll ever be exhausted

There will always be people with new ideas on how humans should live together

With Mars so far away the hold of earth governments on their colonies will be tenuous

The Martians will need to govern themselves

Mars is not going to be utopia

Mars is gonna be a lab. It's an open frontier. It's a place where things are gonna be tried out

I think we'll see a lot of noble experiments on Mars

Perhaps some of these Martian colonies with their novel ideas based on the best thought the 21st century has to offer

Maybe they'll find ways in which humans create societies that are more humane and offer more

opportunity for you and potential the

Ultimate dream of the Martians will be to terraform their planet to make Mars as hospitable as Earth

This may not be as big a fantasy as it seems

Here we are an earth a world. That's very

Sophisticated and developed and complete and anything we do is just a subtraction

It's because we live in such a biologically rich planet when we go to Mars

We have an opportunity that we don't have on earth. Here's a planet that's died

Here's a world that's not full of biology. It probably doesn't have any at all. Well there we can actually do something to help

Once there are large even settlements on Mars that would have significant industrial capability

We could actually start addressing ourselves to the question of transforming the Martian environment itself

Terraforming Mars as it is called because Mars was once a warm and wet planet and it could be made

So again through human engineering efforts

With daytime temperatures in the Martian tropical zone averaging around zero degrees centigrade and with an atmosphere

Only 1% as thick as Earth's

Exposure to these elements by human without a space suit would be instantly fatal

The first step to terraforming Mars and bringing it back to life will be for the Martian colonists to warm up their planet

Well, we know how to warm up planets. We're doing it on earth

By putting gases in the atmosphere on earth. It's not a good idea to warm up the planet. The temperature was just fine

Thank you. We don't need it any warmer here but in principle if you could trap the sunlight

Reaching Mars today

Every single photon that's hitting Mars

Mars would warm up in about ten years

Well, obviously you can't trap every single photon. That's hitting Mars

But you can trap about 10% of them with the greenhouse effect

So that would imply that Mars could warm up in about 100 years

100 years is a long time, but it's not

astronomically long

One idea is to build small automated factories that produce super greenhouse gasses with no ozone depleting side effects

Although these gases would be unwelcome on earth for the Martians there would be an efficient way to trap heat

Then within a few decades we would raise Mars by more than 10 degrees centigrade

And if you did that

That would cause massive amounts of carbon dioxide that is currently adsorbed into the Martian soil to start to outguess

Carbon dioxide is also a natural greenhouse gas as it builds up in the atmosphere

More and more heat will be trapped which will in turn cause more co2 to out gas

The process will become automatic

And as the atmosphere thickens Mars will eventually reach a state of equilibrium and stay warm naturally

The rise in air pressure would mean that the human colonists could discard their pressure suits and

Walk around the surface of Mars carrying only a supply of oxygen

And as the temperatures rise on Mars

water frozen into the soil will begin to melt out and

For the second time in its history Mars would have liquid water on its surface

Drei Martian rivers will start to flow

Seas will rise and there will be rain clouds in the skies

The return of Mars to its warm and wet stage will make it a fertile environment for life

Any indigenous Martian organisms lying dormant will begin to grow and Mars will be full of Martians

If no native life emerges or that life is all dead and humans could begin addressing the idea of bringing life from Earth

At first it would be simple organisms perhaps genetically engineered that would thrive in the Martian environment

Then more complex plants could be introduced

The plants would be right at home in the carbon dioxide atmosphere and with no competition and a whole planet to cover

They could transform Mars into a green world

Warming Mars so that it sustains life is rapid but then the slow process of making the atmosphere

Breathable for humans and animals starts and that's done by plants

Although the process will happen naturally if the colonists can't find a quicker way. It will take tens of thousands of years

This is a philosophical debate many people think the universe has a big sign on it that says do not touch

Leave it alone was made this way that is not in our purview as human beings to change anything

I can respect that view, although I disagree with it

I think the universe has a big sign on it that says go forth and spread life

Because when I look around the universe

I think life is the most amazing thing

We see it is just incredible and we human beings are uniquely positioned to help spread light from this little tiny planet

Which it seems to have been started on

beyond and

That's our gift

Earth's gift to the universe I think is the gift of life

This scheme for terraforming Mars is based on 20th century notions of engineering I

Don't think it is how Mars will actually be terraformed

What you have here is a 20th century mind

Trying to address a 22nd century problem

And so I think Mars will be terraformed by the 23rd century not by the 33rd

23rd things that would seem utterly fantastical to us is how it will actually be done, but it'll be done

We're at a crossroads today

We either muster the courage to go or we risk the possibility of stagnation in the case

the exploration of the solar system and expanding of life through the rest of our solar system and some day beyond is the

Kind of thing that will keep our civilization going

We're explorers by Nature eventually, we will go to the Stars and the question is when we start I

Think a manned Mars mission could happen within 15 years

Some days. I'm very optimistic. I think we can do it in 10, maybe 15 years

Other days I see the all the political things that go into the space program. I look back on 230 years

We've been bogged down and I and I get more negative about and I say it's going to be another three decades or four decades

Yeah, we'd be surprised if we got to Mars prior to

2025 or 2030

in May of

2018

Understanding the various political obstacles that exist in what we need to fight through to get the program started

I believe that we will be on Mars by 2020

You have to believe in hope you have to believe in the future

There are more and more people coming around to the point of view that a positive future for Humanity

requires human expansion to space

We will eventually break through the forces of inertia that have been holding this thing back

You

We are surrounded by thousands and thousands of stars, are we alone in this vast cosmic landscape?

Science is searching for an answer and has outlined two hypotheses one

We are alone and life is an anomalous fact that can only be explained by an unpredictable and eventful combination of circumstances

To life is implicit in the nature of the universe and its appearance anywhere is unavoidable

The systematic search for extraterrestrial life has just begun

Its discovery would be the most important earners in the history of mankind

Presently from out there only the ekor of an intense silence reaches us

This gigantic diaphanous mass occupies a space that is a thousand times greater than the solar system

It is one of the many interstellar clouds that the universe contains

Hundreds of organic molecules accumulate in its interior many of them are identical or similar to those that make up the living beings on earth

As

Knowledge of the universe advances it is confirmed that the ingredients of life do not exist. Only on earth

To the contrary as living beings. We are made from a raw material that is abundant in the universe you

Can think of the origin of life is perhaps in three different ways in one extreme

Life is a miracle life comes from God a unique event

If so science can't address the question because science can't address miracles miracles by definition

define natural law but

life may have been

Consistent with physics and chemistry and yet a very rare perhaps a unique event

very improbable because of chance and if so again,

Science has trouble addressing the question because how can one go to a laboratory and study an improbable event

So only in the third case if life is an inevitable consequence of chemistry and physics

If anywhere there's water in rock and air life

arises

Then science can hope to answer the question

When we ask ourselves about the mystery of life we almost always look at the earth for the answer

We have no other reference although the earth with its inexhaustible

Variety of forms plants and animals is like a box of surprises and new questions more than a direct answer

No one is sure where life begins and ends on earth this is possible that something exists

That is not just a copy more or less advanced than what we have on earth

We already know with much precision what caused life to develop on our planet

Everything began with water and with the release of certain chemical elements like carbon and oxygen

Which combined to form organic molecules?

These molecules thanks to the light of the Sun electric discharges from the atmosphere and the energy from the interior of the earth

Became incipient living beings

Thus starting with water chemical elements and a source of energy the most elemental living organism known today appeared

bacteria

In 1953 the American chemist Stanley Miller and Harold Urey tried to reproduce the origin of life in a laboratory

They placed water vapor methane and ammonia in a test tube and ran a continuous electric current through it

Almost one week later the water had acquired color and new compounds it appeared including two amino acids

Which are the basic building blocks of life?

This combination however continued to be just as lifeless

Perhaps something similar to this experiment occurred on earth

but if this is true

It was nothing more than another failed attempt that kept the planet during its early stages as a barren lifeless place

Experiments aimed at reproducing the origin of life have helped science to define with greater precision

The frontier between living material and lifeless material between life and non-life

Series of specific characteristics that make a living beings different from a non living being

for example

Replication a living being should replicate generate progeny. It should produce offspring whether they are molecular children or some

Meaning that replication should not be exact from father to child because we would laugh diversity

in replication

There should be a series of mutations that introduce changes between the parental generation and the generation of the descendant

and these changes will make the descendants different from each other and

Being different amongst themselves means they will react in different ways to stimuli

selective pressure and to environmental changes

Therefore some better than others

Living beings there replicate in a bottle and they have a metabolism

This means that living being and ms are capable of carrying out a series of process

the consumption of energy they produce biomolecules

From a disorganized outside world, they produce organized molecules, which they used to grow and for their own metabolism

It's possible that these are the three fundamental characteristics of living entities

replication

mutation and therefore evolution and

metabolism dilution

At the limit of these requirements we find the viruses which most scientists don't consider living beings

It's true that they reproduce and evolve that they transform with several mutations

But they only do so when they infect a cell which they use so that they can reproduce themselves

Thus viruses only act as living beings when they act as parasites on a cell

The question of this transition from non-life to life

that's in some sense a philosophical question and yet many of us who work in the field have our prejudices and

mine, is that the transition occurs when competition and

natural selection begins

You can imagine inanimate nature

Molecules rocks water that's not alive that doesn't compete but at some point a level of organization

occurred in molecules molecular systems that could replicate themselves and

When that happened and because of the richness of organic molecules available you had slight differences in these

self-replicating molecules somewhere a little more efficient than others and

So life

begins to compete for

Resources for energy and to me the crucial stage in the origin of life. Is that very moment when competition

led to selection that's

Darwinian evolution

Every day, the great milestones in the path of the evolution of species are better understood

The first step of life is still unknown. However

In laboratories biologists and chemists try to reproduce time and time again how this first gestation took place

To do so the key is to manage to get certain chemical molecules to combine in a specific way

Which is what provokes the miracle of life

The recipe of the great ant nest is a secret

scientists have no other option but to continue investigating how the miracle of life occurred and

The only place where they know that this has happened is on the earth

Just like the rest of the solar system

The earth was formed over 4.5 billion years ago

When the remains of a supernova like this one crossed a vast cloud of cosmic dust

After this accidental birth our planet was subject to bombardment by meteorites and comets during a large part of its history

During the first part of its existence the earth was an inhospitable place

Aside from external aggression. There was also a great volcanic activity on its surface

This violent phase however, favoured the evaporation of water and the emission of gases like carbon dioxide and methane

The atmosphere was slowly created with these elements

If this had not occurred the earth would eventually have been burned by the sun's rays

During this infernal period the basic broth a kind of culture medium or breeding ground for life was also formed

The water of the Seas penetrated the cracks of the sea bottom and returned to the sea through the volcanoes

This water was enriched with minerals that it had taken from the heart of the earth which when it came into contact with the atmosphere

provoked that greatly

Chemistry opened the way to biology and the appearance of the first bacteria

Present-day organisms could not survive in such a toxic environment

But the planet's path towards milder stable conditions allowed the first signs of life to maintain themselves and evolve from their simple forms

towards more complex beings

The impact of meteorites did not suddenly stop in fact many years later the dinosaurs disappeared due to their effects

But fortunately

Biodiversity was well developed at that time. And even though species disappeared in huge numbers life was already deeply rooted

Hundreds of organisms were able to survive in the middle of the impressive destruction

Life on Earth has overcome a variety of climatic and environmental changes

But as radical as the changes may be a living being that does not depend on water oxygen and solar energy

Or one that can survive in such extreme temperatures is not conceivable

In recent years, however

The discovery of organisms that live on the fringes of these laws are modifying our ideas about what a living being needs

These organisms are known as extremophiles the lovers of very radical external conditions

These waters belong to the river team Phil in the southern Spanish province of Waveline

It's peculiar blood-red color which gave it its name is due to the metals that it bears

They come from the rocks that are drank from its headwaters and from spillages four mines

Steer a community of living beings has been discovered that challenges the traditional point of view concerning the environmental conditions that allow for survival

These microscopic images have been recorded in these unhealthy waters

Which show some organisms that assume basic vital functions without difficulties?

Dominant a less characteristic there are two extreme characteristics of the river the low pH in other words the acidity of the system

Which is around 2 and the high concentration of heavy metals always beside heavy metals are toxic

Especially those in the mining area of the river Tinto

essentially copper which is used to prevent the growth of fungi and vineyards and

Arsenic and cadmium etc. Speeding. Yes. The supplies was fine down eukaryotic organism a season

Not the prokaryotes the bacteria that eat minerals

But eukaryotes algae fungi filament fungi protozoans amoebas, etc

Which are present in a place where no one in the right mind what you think that they could exist?

The mysterious life that is hidden in the River Tinto has disconcerted scientists and not only because it is a unique class of extremophiles

It is extraordinary because in these conditions a certain degree of biological variety has developed with more or less common algae

fungi and amoebas

Their ability to adapt is such that we could say that they don't appear to be terrestrial

The first extremophiles were discovered a little over 30 years ago in Yellowstone Park in the United States

They were organisms that survived in temperatures over 100 degrees Celsius

They appeared in geological chimneys where water vapor emerged from the interior of the earth

Scientists have also found living beings that are fond of extreme temperatures in the cold Antarctic rocks

In the ice or in the lakes of water found below they have found bacteria and algae living hundreds of meters below the surface

They are cold lovers living beings that have the peculiarities of growing slowly since the low temperatures slow down their metabolisms

At Moga cave in romania a group of several animals have lived isolated from the outside world for about five and a half million years

There is no oxygen or light there but 48 different species survive in this place

Its trophic chain takes advantage of the energy from the chemical elements that exist in the cave in order to produce nutritional substances for feeding

These strange mounds on the Australian coast are known as stromatolites

They are the fossil remains of bacteria that have been grouped in layers

The lower layers are formed by anaerobic bacteria, which are beings that strange as it may seem do not need oxygen to live

Even today there is a class of organisms that exist in environments that lack oxygen of which our intestine is one on others

There are even more cases of life in anonymous conditions in the Dead Sea and in specific salt lagoons of Africa's Rift Valley

There are some salt living bacteria

To survive in a salty medium these organisms have developed their own mechanisms to avoid dehydration

Last table Philip the extremophiles are what allows us to open a series of scenarios

Which means if there are microorganisms that can grow at high temperatures

The model of originating life in an underwater volcano at a hundred or so degrees is not absurd

Because today there are microorganisms that can do it in a surface salt marsh. The high concentration is due to evaporation

Specific interactions are favorable which can happen since there are microorganisms that exist in these conditions today

If life emerged in such unfavorable environments it is therefore a much stronger impulse than what our limited vision expected

The discovery of these living beings in unimaginable conditions has had repercussions among those searching for the presence of life in space

If life here was possible in conditions that were different from what we enjoy today why couldn't the same thing happen on other planets

Geologists biologists chemists and astrophysicists have come together in a new scientific field

Astrobiology, they have established new expectations about what type of life to search for and where to look for it

What we have successfully achieved is the collaboration of geologists and planetary astrophysicists

And the people dedicated to the original evolutionary chemistry

In this way geologists give us a guideline for example as to how the planet has evolved into a physical body

At the same time they join with planetary

Astrophysicists who explain how the earth was formed and how this formation is the result of the evolution of the universe itself

On the other hand the people who study evolutionary chemistry

Complex molecules that evolve and bridge the knowledge of the geologists about what existed on the original the primitive

opinion locality media

All these related Sciences of astrobiology are drawn from a basic idea

The appearance of life as a natural phenomenon as the inevitable consequence of a universe in continual change and evolution

In a shorter middle term

Astrobiology is searching to contrast the idea that life is a cosmic imperatives by applying the scientific method to it

The scientific method that is based on everything

We know from how a mobile phone works to how bridge is built or how to launch a spacecraft into outer space

This scientific method requires more than one example of a specific phenomenon life on Earth as we know it has extraordinary biodiversity

A biodiversity that is manifested in millions as different species on earth

all of these forms of life

However are based on certain unique principles so that the phenomenon of life as we know it on earth

Is the manifestation of a unique phenomenon?

Therefore the scientific method cannot be directly applied as a result

We have to go to other places in order to contrast whether life exists or has existence

In

1975 the direct search for life in the solar system began when NASA sent the Viking spacecrafts aloft with Mars as their destination

Today the red planet is very cold with average temperatures of minus 53 degrees Celsius

Which has frozen the water that at some point covered its surface

It is dominated by a current geological relief of deep craters and dusty dunes which gives it the appearance of a rocky desert

On the other hand the absence of an ozone layer subjects Mars to relentless ultraviolet solar radiation

In this dead land it would seem impossible to find life

The results of the tests carried out by the Viking mission confirmed this hypothesis and the scientific interest in Mars was set aside

Studies of extremophiles on earth a lower have put Mars back in the game for

Scientists the absence of signs of life in the two places where the Viking spacecraft took samples is not final proof

They have to search other parts of the planet with milder environments and investigate the possibility that life manifested itself there in the past

Well, I think to me

the fact that we're seeing that life exists in these very extreme environments on earth gives us

optimism that

we'll find life other places because

We know for example on Mars that there is liquid water at times. We know that there's ice

We know that they're very dry regions

They're probably very salty regions too. And so it seems to me that

The fact that we find life

existing on earth in these extreme

Environments means that we don't know yet the limits

every year the limits increase

In terms of our discoveries, so why not?

Broaden the limits a bit more to to the environments of some of the planets

I think Mars is the planet of greatest interest for astrobiological

exploration

first because it's nearby and therefore is is fairly easy to explore or at least relatively easy to explore and

second because

although today

Mars is a very forbidding planet low temperatures

very little atmosphere

Tectonic Li it appears to be almost dead at least at the time that life emerged on earth

Mars was a planet much like much more like our own restaurant identical book much more

It had active volcanism. It had a thicker atmosphere

At least episodically it had liquid water

And so therefore mars is a good candidate to ask

The question directly did life appear more than once and if it did appear on Mars the way we will recognize it is

in general

The same way that we recognize evidence of ancient life on Earth through micro fossils

Through the influence of microbial communities on sediments and through chemical signatures that they impart to rocks

1984 a

scientific expedition goes to the Antarctic to collect samples of meteorites the

Solitude and the conditions of the frozen continent have kept them intact

Here they discovered a rock that became a key piece in the investigation of Mars

It weighs almost two kilograms and is known as al H in

1996 at NASA

David McKay and his team presented it to the public as a Martian meteorite with possible fossil evidence of certain living beings

Since then the era light alongside others that had been previously collected have triggered a debate within the scientific community

On whether or not we are standing before the definitive evidence that Mars also for life

We've been studying the the alh meteorite for a long time now

We're also looking at other Mars meteorites

there are now 18 different Mars meteorites and we've looked in detail in about four of them and

We have found what we believe to be signs of life in all four meteorites that we have studied

First alh then then Nakhla which fell in egypt in 1911

then sure Gatti which fell in India and

Then Lafayette which was recovered in Indiana USA

We think we see evidence for life we have to prove it

We haven't proved it yet to the satisfaction of the scientific community, but we're working on that

How long will that take?

Possibly a few more years we hope that we can do that

Either prove it or disprove it within say three or four more years and that's what we're we're working on

Through the study of meteorites and through new explorations scientists. Hope to decipher the Martian enigmas in the period of just one decade

The European Space Agency is also participating in the race with the Mars Express, which will be launched in 2004

It is a satellite that will be placed in orbit around Mars and which has a landing module

Both devices will carry out in-depth studies of the planet and with the images obtained precise maps of the territory will be drawn up

As the Museu knows since the American Viking missions in the 1970s

There has not been another mission with such a central astrobiological focus in its investigations as the Mars Express

As fool's he misty and furthermore

This spacecraft has a landing vehicle the Beagle 2 with a series of instruments

To analyze the chemistry and organic substances of the planet

Such as the rock minerals and the surface of Mars

They can also take images of the surface and measure the composition of the atmosphere around the landing area

It even has instruments able to reach a depth of between one and one and a half meters in order to analyze the subsoil

Which has not been affected by ultraviolet radiation and where indications of life may be preserved better than on the surface

Parrinello sorry Supes Widow

Conocido effect I'll pour la radio thermal travelator in kuala pedido preserve our say in details de vida

In addition to Mars, the scientific community is investigating other planets within the solar system

Mercury and Venus due to their extremely hot climates have been ruled out

Uranus Neptune and Pluto due to their extremely cold climates are not worthy of consideration either

Saturn and jupiter are the only two left to gassy giants where life seems impossible

These planets however have satellites orbiting around them that are arousing scientific interest

In the case of Jupiter the moons IO and Europa two satellites, which thanks to the energy of the planet

They orbit are much hotter than what was expected given their great distance from the Sun

Io is the satellite with the most volcanoes interruption in the entire solar system, which is a positive symptom

Due to the history of the earth. It is known that volcanoes can play a fundamental role in the generation of life

In contrast however, signs of water have not been detected yet which for the moment reduces the hope of finding life

Europa seems to be a more gifted contender. It's frozen surface may shelter an enormous ocean below with organic molecules

If these were to exist just as it happened on earth the discharge of some kind of energy may provoke the appearance of life

And

in this aspect

There are also indications that the moon Europa has volcanoes which is why some scientists hope that life exists or has existed there

So Mars is our best candidate but on a longer time scale

I think the exploration of Europa is going to be interesting

There's every reason to believe there is an a long-standing

Water body and ocean if you will on Europa, and that could have incubated life

It may actually have a higher probability than Mars of actually having still living organisms

So we might be able to look by biological techniques for life on Europa

Whereas on Mars I think largely it's going to be a paleontological exercise

In the orbit around Saturn there is a satellite called Titan

Which with a diameter less than half the size of the earth is very similar to our planet in other aspects

In 1980 the Voyager 1 spacecraft passed by Titan at a distance of 7,000 kilometers

Which enabled it to carry out a detailed study?

The images show a disturbing orange atmosphere with a touch of blue on the horizon mainly made up of methane

Who

According to the scientists who studied the data the smell of the air of Titan should be like the inside of an oil refinery

Methane is the star gas of this satellite

It is suspected that it may exist in three states solid liquid and gas

So perhaps there are giant oceans of methane with polar ice caps made up of this compound

It is also possible that there is an evaporation cycle and methane rain is produced

If this were true

It could be compared with the earth and water as if methane were able to fulfill the role that water plays on our planet in

This case cells could exist that have methane in their interior. Just like ours have water

If

This hypothesis of methane beings were true. We would be dealing with organisms that live at very low temperatures with very slow biochemistry

One of the key attributes for life on Earth is the presence of water and I think it's fair to say that in most astrobiological

exploration

People look for water first and then if there is water on a planet or a moon

Then perhaps there will be some sort of life

So the question becomes is there another substance that might do the same job as water and it has been suggested

from time to time that methane

Would be a substitute for water has a substrate for life

If so, it's not easy to imagine what kind of life that would be

Certainly, it would not be a life. That would be easily recognizable in terms of our experience on earth

Whether or not it's impossible. I don't know but I

Would certainly think it would be much less probable than a life

That is based on a on a watery environment and so in that regard when we think about a place like Titan

Well, perhaps Titan could have given rise to life. It certainly has given rise to complex organic molecules

But in the absence of water, I think the probability

The life would have emerged from that chemistry is much much lower

In 1998 the Cassini spacecraft was sent into space with Saturn as its destination

One of its missions is to study Titan thanks to its atmosphere intro which will descend down onto Titan surface

This will take place in 2004 starting them perhaps the mystery of the methane satellite can be deciphered

The first explorations of the solar system have not provided proof of extraterrestrial life

But the absence of evidence as paradoxical as it may seem increases the belief that life is possible

The mechanisms of life are better understood today

Furthermore it is also known that life can develop in much more open conditions than was originally believed

The question is what kind of life are we dealing with?

Instead of beings with antenna and extraordinary abilities more realistic scientists assert that there is no intelligent life in our immediate cosmic environment

It's one thing to find unicellular organisms on a planet but it's something very different to believe that these beings

Necessarily evolved into such complex forms as human beings

If earth is the point of reference the data is devastating of the millions of species that have prospered here

Only one has been able to develop technological intelligence

We can then say well what are the conditions that might

favor

intelligent life and certainly one is environmental you certainly need an

Environment that's capable of sustaining the biology of a large

organism and on our planet that only became possible when oxygen rose to high concentrations in the atmosphere and

then second

one can ask what kind of lifestyles would

Facilitate the origin of intelligence and there certainly predation is important

Once you have to get your food by capturing prey

there is strong selective pressure for

very very sophisticated sensory apparatus and the neurological ability to integrate

Sensory apparatus and there's also very strong selective

Selective forces favoring highly sophisticated muscular systems and again a highly sophisticated

coordination of the neurological and muscular systems once those were in place

Then I think the basic biological

Attributes that could lead to intelligence were there

The lack of existing intelligent life in the proximities of the earth

Does not mean that it cannot be found in other parts of the universe

Nothing is impossible within the magnitudes and dimensions of the cosmos the

Universe has hundreds of thousands of galaxies which at the same time have thousands of millions of stars

some of which are accompanied by planets

There are so many possibilities that we have to search far beyond the limits of the solar system

In 1996 the first extrasolar planets were detected and since then their numbers have increased

Unceasingly adding up to hundreds of them today

Most of them are big planets normally located very close to their corresponding Sun

The main difficulty is that they cannot be observed directly yet. Their existence is a deduction made from the behavior of the star the

Most successful techniques so far for finding planets around other stars is the so called radial velocity or spectroscopic

Technique this technique sanim direct technique

You don't actually see the planet what you see instead is the star

moving around the center of mass of the planet star system

That is we all are familiar with planets moving around a star but in addition the star moves around on a much smaller orbit

the center of mass of the star planet system

so we detect the planets by seeing the star move around and we detect the stellar motion by looking at the

line-of-sight changes in the velocity of the star

Using this the Doppler technique which are familiar with from hearing a train whistle as a trance coming towards you or away from you

Same thing with a star the Stars. It's coming towards you. It's light is shifted towards the blue as it's moving away from us

It's shifted towards the red

so by watching very carefully how the

spectral lines of the star change with time one could infer that the star is moving back and forth on its orbit and

Something must be causing that motion and we now know that that is actually a planet

NASA and the European Space Agency plan to place infrared telescopes in space in order to observe the extrasolar planets directly

If they have an atmosphere, that would be a good sign since an atmosphere normally regulates extreme temperatures

Which are found quite frequently on many planets

The telescope's will analyze these atmospheres in order to find evidence of the necessary chemical elements for life to be produced

Oxygen which is present in our atmosphere

Is one of the key signs of life, but it is not the only element that they are looking for

there is also the signature of co2 carbon dioxide and

water vapor and these three compounds are all involved in the reaction that produce oxygen by biology which is

oxygenic photosynthesis and

If there there are all these three signature, it could be a very very good indicator for the presence of some

Photosynthetic activity and another signature is the the signature spectroscopic signature of methane

Because it's it seemed that the primitive life forms on earth

could have produce huge amount of methane in the atmosphere and

This could be detected. There was a very efficient telescope

The possibility of an intelligent civilisation in some corner of the universe has encouraged the sending of messages into outer space

These images place us in the year 1974

When a communication was broadcast from Addis Ababa Porto Rico towards a dense ball of stars located

25,000 light-years away from us

If someone was able to decode the message he or she or it would find a pictogram explaining the foundations of life on Earth

Meanwhile some spacecraft sent into outer space which are never going to return to Earth having graved plaques about who we are

The Voyager spaceships more specifically have all kinds of sounds and images

Even those of animals tribal songs and a Beethoven string quartet

But almost 40,000 years will have passed before the Voyager approaches the first star

The SETI program is another initiative for establishing contact

They are doing more than just sending messages

They are now trying to receive them that is if there is an alien civilization that uses radio waves in its interstellar communications

To powerful radio telescopes are being used to detect radio signals from space which are later analyzed in an enormous computer

Information is so abundant that the SETI program allows anyone who wants to use his or her computer to help with this task of

distinguishing captured signals

When the computer is resting a program is activated to analyze the data provided by the central computer

Almost 3 million people collaborate with the SETI program

Some curious signals have been detected but after being thoroughly investigated it has been proved that they were nothing more than telecommunication equipment

interferences

To date we have not received news from outer space

Western culture suffered an earthquake when Copernicus

Discovered that the earth and man were not the center of the universe but mere extras in a corner of the cosmos

The discovery of planets revolving around other stars now shows us that planets are a common occurrence

With this knowledge someday

It may be possible to solve the question of whether we as the inhabitants of the earth

Do or don't represent the only life forms in the universe

Seems what does England finally be beings in other parts of the universe? It will be without a doubt

It's the most important discovery in the history of mankind

But we will therefore be able to show and in a palpable way that life is a consequence of the evolution of the universe

furthermore

Since we proudly believe that we are unique and the most powerful living beings

We will realise that we are nothing more than a coincidence but frozen in the evolution of the universe

This will add in an important way to our understanding of humility as human beings

We should be humble not only with respect to ourselves

But also with respect to other species that live on the planet

We should also give life the respect

It deserves and every aspect they look at lead us a minute

If you imagine looking out above the Earth's atmosphere into the dark starry night and imagining the immensity of the universe

Its would be rather

Discomforting to think that we are the only sentient beings out there

I think who would make the universe so much feel like a much more pleasant place if we realize it's somewhere out there on another

rock orbiting another star

Like our own could be

Another sort of being perhaps similar less perhaps not so similar looking back in our direction and wondering if we existed

Life beyond Earth is today. I have offices more than a certainty a

New science astrobiology is knocking on the gates of the universe once again with more improved technical equipment and greater knowledge

The cosmos will shine then with greater magnificence and man will be amazed once again before this manifestation

After all month why not just might emerge at any moment or in any place and in whatever form you choose

You