Tara Tomlinson: Hello everybody and welcome back to A View from Earth, brought to you by Fiske planetarium
Tara Tomlinson: at CU Boulder.
Tara Tomlinson: Hope you guys are all doing well, staying safe.
Tara Tomlinson: Now as what the rest of the university and many public spaces around the world, 
Fiske's Theater is closed to the public for the foreseeable future, due to the coven 19 epidemic.
Tara Tomlinson: However, we are still some committed and excited to bring astronomy and education to you that we
Tara Tomlinson: tarted a whole host of free online offering so can stay connected and keep bringing you
 the Fiske content that you know would love, plus some new stuff like this podcast. 
So thanks for tuning in and learning with us here today.
Tara Tomlinson: My name is Tara Tomlinson, I am a planetary scientist and a CU alum also a 
presenter here at Fiske Planetarium and the outreach coordinator and we have Collin here as well. Hi, Collin.
Collin Sinclair: Hey there, I'm Collin Sinclair. I am a presenter at Fiske and also I'm an undergrad at CU studying astronomy. 
Tara Tomlinson: So this week we're going to be talking about Mars, aside from Earth, 
Mars is the most explored planet in the solar system also the only planet in our solar system 
exclusively inhabited by robots as far as we know.
Tara Tomlinson: But today's guests. We're going to be talking with Andrew WIlcosky 
and Dr. Dave brain, they're going to be telling us a little bit about Mars this geology, 
some of the cool ice and atmosphere interactions that happen there.
Tara Tomlinson: As well as some cool stuff about Mars exploration and some 
upcoming missions that are on the docket. But first the news.
Collin Sinclair: All right. And today to give us a bit of the news regarding Mars we are
 joined by Jordyn Marske Jordyn Can you introduce yourself for us really quick.
Collin Sinclair: All right. And today to give us a bit of the news regarding Mars we are 
joined by Jordyn Marske. Jordyn, can you introduce yourself for us really quick?
Jordyn: Hi, my name is Jordyn Marske, I am a former student at CU, who 
 recently graduated with a bachelor's degree in astronomy and I was coming to talk 
about the new Perseverance rover that set to launch next month and start collecting 
data on Mars next year.
Jordyn: The Perseverance rover think is really cool because it's going to be looking 
for like ancient signs of life on Mars and looking for signs of like how habitable...
Jordyn: ...Mars used to be. And it's going to be taking a lot of soil samples, 
it's going to have a drill on it so it can drill like a little deeper into the surface.
Jordyn: And it's just going to be looking for, like, signs of water, signs of like 
fossils of like my microscopic like microbial life and things like that. 
Jordyn: Um, and another thing that I thought was really cool as a like Ingenuity. I'm not sure if 
you guys have heard of that. But it's like
Jordyn: A small little helicopter that they're going to be attaching to Perseverance to 
test just like flight on Mars to see if that's like a possibility and like they're just going to 
be doing small little flight tests with this little like a drone helicopter that I think is kind of cool.
Jordyn: But other than that, it's also going to be testing things like it's going to be 
testing producing oxygen on the planet. See if we can, like, do any like things like that for like human habitation.
Jordyn: And just like it's going to be analyzing weather patterns that experiences on the 
planet and just all around just like looking for, like,
Jordyn: Areas that we could possibly like build a base on or something like that. And um 
just like preparing for future human....
Jordyn: ...Exploration of the planet.
Jordyn: But yeah, and the mission is going to last....
Jordyn: ...at least one Mars year which is a round to Earth Earth years specifically like 
687 Earth days, but much like the previous Mars rovers, it's very possible that it will
Jordyn: Be useful for much longer than that and can get a lot of data. But yeah, it's 
scheduled to land on Mars, and on February 2021 so that will be that will be fun to 
look forward to. Assuming that lunch goes as planned, and everything.
Collin Sinclair: Very cool. So this is Mars 2020 right which is just right. Well, not 
recently but you know in the past couple of months been renamed Perseverance. That's its new mission name.
Jordyn: Yeah, I like the name a lot.
Collin Sinclair: Yeah, it is kind of cool. It's kind of seems almost timely now with everything 
going on in 2020. It's like, you know, we're persevering through 2020
Jordyn: Yeah.
Collin Sinclair: to do science.
Collin Sinclair: Which is kind of funny because I think it was named kind of before everything got crazy, but here we are.
Tara Tomlinson: Yeah, they had a naming contest for different age groups through school kids.
Tara Tomlinson: Essentially, is there was like an elementary school, a middle school, and a 
Tara Tomlinson: high school. And I think this was like a fourth grader. Maybe I could be wrong on that but
Tara Tomlinson: They, they won the name. So there was a whole long list and then they narrowed it down to the top 10 or whatever, and they were all
Tara Tomlinson: You know we like to name things very appropriately like Curiosity, Spirit, Opportunity.
Collin Sinclair: oh yeah
Tara Tomlinson: And now we have Perseverance
Collin Sinclair: So imagine being the fourth grader that got to name a Mars rover!
Tara Tomlinson: Right!
Jordyn Marske: I would be so excited
Collin Sinclair: That is awesome.
Collin Sinclair: Very cool. Well, um
Collin Sinclair: Look, looks like we have just under 40 days until the launch window opens.
Collin Sinclair: So we are really kind of
Collin Sinclair: Getting close to this, and by the time this episode is it will be even closer.
Jordyn Markse: Yeah
Collin Sinclair: Very exciting.
Collin Sinclair: Cool. Well, I'm great. I think that's a great little intro for
Collin Sinclair: Our discussion about Mars that will be coming up. So, Jordan, thanks 
so much for for putting that together for us and doing the research and preparing your, your
Collin Sinclair: Presentation. It was a lot of fun to hear about that I
Jordyn: Thank you.
Tara Tomlinson: Hey everybody, so our guest for today is Andrew Wilcosky he is a 
grad student at CU Boulder studying Geophysical and atmospheric processes on Mars is polar ice caps.
Tara Tomlinson: His current work looks at kind of how the ice caps change over time 
due to things like weather and atmosphere and even like the location and orientation 
of the planet and space. It's super complicated, but really cool. So thanks for joining us Andrew!
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: It's good to be here.
Tara Tomlinson: Happy to have you. So I figured we start off with kind of a basic 
question that's actually probably more complicated than it seems. But
Tara Tomlinson: So you studied the polar ice caps on Mars, and they're actually kind of 
similar to the ice caps that we have here on earth can you give us kind of a brief explanation 
of why ice caps form in polar regions like this and what kind of criteria, go into the formation of an ice cap.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Yeah, that's actually a really great question.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: So there's
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: really two main things that control whether or not you're going to 
get an ice cap on any particular planet and those those two things are. The first is really temperature.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Basically how cold it is and whatever region you're trying to form your ice cap.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: And the second is, basically, whether or not there's you know water 
available to form that ice cap.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: So the region. The reason that ice caps tend to form and polar 
regions is just because it tends to be colder and polar regions.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: So the reason it's colder and polar regions is basically because 
those regions get less sunlight overall or less direct sunlight, then you do see the equator or what
Tara Tomlinson: Makes sense.
Tara Tomlinson: Easy enough.
Tara Tomlinson: So yeah, we see these ice caps at the polls and wanted to kind of jump 
into a little bit of history that some people don't really know. And we think this is pretty cool. So back in 1877...
Tara Tomlinson: ...there was this Italian astronomer Schiaparelli who discovered what he 
thought were canals on Mars. Just by looking through a telescope on these weird lines and things
Tara Tomlinson: And another American Percival Lowell kind of jumped on that and they got really excited about this idea of...
Tara Tomlinson: ...maybe beings on Mars, making canals to divert water from the poles 
down to the equatorial areas where it's warmer your things might live better
Tara Tomlinson: So we know now obviously that that is not a thing. They're not people on Mars building canals, but our question is,
Tara Tomlinson: Would this even make sense. Is this a thing that could be done, say if 
humans wanted to go and live on Mars and these areas where there's not a lot of water. 
Could they actually like build canals and divert water from the polls?
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Yeah, I mean, I think that's definitely it's definitely an interesting 
idea. And it's something you know people are talking about in, you know, I guess the the 
Mars Exploration community.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: The, the ice caps on Mars are
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Some of the largest and definitely the
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: most conspicuous sources of water ice so they're definitely obvious choices for
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Water ice
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: I believe that if you send if you send humans to Mars is basically 
like two major things that you would need water for and that's one is
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: You know, for drinking and consuming and whatnot. On a human level. 
But then the second and probably actually maybe even more most important one is 
making fuel for rockets. So you could get back off the planet.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: But the
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Question of whether or not it. It'd be feasible or practical to like 
transport water from long distances like over the surface is definitely an interesting one and 
one. I'm not personally super familiar with.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: I think there's, you know, you can imagine there's plenty of logistical 
things like that. Like do you build a pipeline, all the way from the polls to like
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: The regions, you actually want to inhabit because they're, you know, 
warmer or whatever, or do you land straight by the poles, you know where your
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Where your water is it's available.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: There's also
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: One of the interesting things though is that there's also a lot of water 
ice that isn't in the polar regions of Mars, so there's there's lots of ground ice we see lots of evidence for ground ice, you know, as low as
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: You know the mid-latitudes 40 degrees latitude or whatever.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: So another another way you could potentially access is on Mars is
 just landed a lower at Latitude where you want to live because it's colder, you know, you have 
sunlight to feel your solar panels or whatever. And then, you know, go drilling for ice.
Tara Tomlinson: Alright, so now your work specifically focuses on surface and atmosphere interactions, 
how the two kind of work together and most people think of that as things like rain and snow and dust storms.
Tara Tomlinson: Are there any other sort of interactions that we see between the Martian surface and its atmosphere.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Yeah, there's
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Man, there's a bunch of fascinating stuff.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: going on between the Martian surface in the atmosphere.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: So yeah, I think, I think you're right. Like on on Earth. We're, we're 
mostly familiar with, you know, like brain fall or like yes snowfall, things like that. When dust 
sand storms and there's similar things on Mars. Definitely. There's not rain, but there is snowfall
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Largely in the form of carbon dioxide snowfall. And it's unclear 
whether or not there's water ice snowfall. So the same kind of snow were used to here 
on Earth. I don't think that we've observed that directly yet.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: But there's lots and lots of CO2 snowfall
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: The, the main way that my research.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: There are the main like atmosphere surface interaction. 
My research considers is actually water vapor in the atmosphere.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Condensing directly into ice. So basically, skipping the snowfall 
phase and going straight onto the surface and then kind of the reverse process which is sublimation which is ice.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Turning directly into water vapor in the atmosphere.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Basically the
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: The surface pressures and temperatures on Mars aren't
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: It's not warm enough and the pressures on high enough to support 
liquid water so Mars just skips the liquid water phase and only only really dilly dallies in the vapor and
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: solid ice phases. But there's also other
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: other crazy stuff.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Going on, just because Mars has a lot of CO2 is
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: An atmosphere interaction. So the Martian atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide. It's like 95% carbon dioxide.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: And what that means is, and what that means is that, well, in 
addition to that, there, there are regions on the Martian surface that are basically cold enough to support CO2 ice.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: And so there's this there's all these interactions that go on between 
carbon dioxide is and all of the carbon dioxide that's in the atmosphere. So things like
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: CO2 geysers near the south pole that, you know, shoot up 
dust into the atmosphere that then then settles back down into these makes these weird spider you looking things
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: And all sorts of yeah just kind of wacky stuff like that that we don't have on Earth.
Collin Sinclair: So really quick. If I could jump in. You mentioned that that Mars doesn't really, it's not really hospitable to liquid anything
Collin Sinclair: So going back to terrace question about the kind of, you know, feasibility of 
transporting you know liquid water from the ice from the polar ice caps to the equatorial region.
Collin Sinclair: You know, if you weren't doing that in some sort of technology that can 
pressurize it and keep it at the right temperature that would be completely impossible, right, because you would
Collin Sinclair: Water would just then evaporate or vaporizing you would, there would be no liquid the transport anyways. Is that right?
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Yeah, that's totally correct. So basically like basically if your water is exposed 
straight to the atmosphere like in a like it would be in a canal.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Right then, yeah, it would just evaporate before before it really go 
anywhere in liquid form. So you'd have to have some sort of like pressurized
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: pipe system.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: To transport it basically
Collin Sinclair: So a couple minutes, maybe is more than a couple earlier you mentioned that 
something like 95% of Mars's atmosphere is CO2, carbon dioxide, right.
Collin Sinclair: Here on Earth.
Collin Sinclair: Humans are now figuring out that we should maybe stop putting CO2 everywhere 
because it's not good for our atmosphere and for the life that our planet hosts because of the greenhouse effect right where the CO2 will trap.
Collin Sinclair: The, the light that makes things hot and then it will get really hot. And then we 
end up with situation in a very, very bad scenario we end up in a situation like 
Venus or the surface is, is, you know, hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit.
Collin Sinclair: Why is Mars so cold when its atmosphere is made almost entirely of this 
greenhouse gas, but I would think that it would start to trap. All of this heat, you know, and 
kind of reflect it and put it back down on the surface. So what is missing there.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: So that's a really great question.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: And
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: There's the short answer is that atmospheres are really complicated.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: I think that a, big a, big the slightly longer answer is 
I think that a big reason why Mars's atmosphere doesn't have a really strong greenhouse effect is 
you have to remember that it's it's really thin so it's it's not a lot of CO2.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: I mean it. Yeah, it's not a whole lot of CO2. The other thing is, is
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Because CO2 is the the major atmospheric constituent like basically
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Almost but not quite. The only thing making up the atmosphere.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: There's a lot of really complicated interactions with
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Like, in addition to the greenhouse effect, like for instance.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: You can also get carbon dioxide clouds on Mars. 
So say you you up the you up the amount of carbon dioxide and Martian atmosphere but 
now clouds are more likely to form. Well clouds...
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: ...tend to actually...
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: ...they can actually have a cooling effect on a planet because...
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: ...you know clouds are really reflective so they prevent they can prevent 
sunlight from reaching the surface and things like that.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: So yeah, I guess, I guess the answer that question is just that 
atmospheres are super dynamic and and very complicated.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: One of the reasons it's, yeah. One of the reasons the the CO2 factors 
is kind of more almost more straightforward honor is just because carbon dioxide.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Even though the levels of carbon dioxide in the 
atmosphere that are, you know, causing climate change here on Earth.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Are significant enough to do that. There's still a really small percentage
 of the actual, you know, atmosphere composition, so you don't get weird things like CO2 clouds forming
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: And and like weird atmospheric surface interactions as far as the CO2 component of the atmosphere is concerned.
Collin Sinclair: So it sounds like it's just always a good idea to keep in mind that you, 
you really need to consider the atmosphere in its entirety, not just one constituent of the atmosphere.
Collin Sinclair: Yeah, all of those things will interact with each other to create different situations.
Collin Sinclair: Yeah, all of those things will interact with each other to create different situations.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Yeah, and and yeah there's there's all sorts of domino effects that 
happened in atmosphere. It's just like you change one thing, thinking, you know,
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: In your in you, you create a hypothetical atmosphere and you 
change one thing, thinking, it'll like make the planet warmer and that really has all these other 
effects that end up making a cooler or something.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: So,
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: The interesting thing about climate.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Change here on Earth is we've sort of accidentally
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: performed an experiment.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: You know, a very high consequence experiment, but we've 
done it nonetheless where okay we actually did increase the amount of carbon dioxide and 
we saw okay like yes it did increase surface temperatures and it still is.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: And you know, we have lots of data and evidence to to support that.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: But it's not always a given like we can we can understand why 
that happens. But it's not always a given like there. There's lots of stuff you need to take into account.
Tara Tomlinson: And that's one of the reasons it's so
Tara Tomlinson: Hard to sort of counteract just. We can't just take CO2 out of the air and 
think it's going to fix everything. Or, you know,
Tara Tomlinson: adjust this lever or flip this switch and think that it's going to go back, 
because we have no idea how it's going to affect all of this other stuff that's going on. Yeah.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Exactly.
Collin Sinclair: Sick. Well, thank you. Yeah. That's very cool. So, great. Well, that, that 
concludes our kind of list of questions that we had prepared and we do have several we're calling them. 
I don't know if Tara mentioned the name, we're calling these CAPCOM Q&A. Kind of...
Collin Sinclair: ...you know, people send us their questions and we relay them to our experts being you.
Collin Sinclair: Christine from Austin asks the following: "If we find life on Mars, how do we know we didn't bring it there with us?"
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: What a great question.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: So there's this whole field of, I guess...
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: ...you know...
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: ... this whole field of space policy called planetary protection.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: And and
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Basically what that what planetary protection is all about. It's 
when people say planetary protection they mean it in a biological sense so
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Basically, preventing you know Earth life from contaminating 
potential Mars life or like potential Mars life from contaminating you know Earth life or whatever.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: And this is something that people have been thinking about 
since the Apollo era, you know, people were terrified that that's why you see those images of the astronauts like
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: cooped up in that tiny trailer in quarantine for God knows how 
long after they got back from the moon because we legitimately didn't know like
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Are there. Microbes on the moon that like introduced to the 
earth will just like wipe out all life on Earth. I that's like a super, you know, that's a pretty like
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Out there, you know,
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Idea, but you know, you may as well be responsible about that 
sort of thing. And then the same is true. You know, so like you send astronauts to Mars. What's
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Like, and then you send those astronauts to like get a sample and 
then you test that sample and find life there, it's like, Okay, how do we know that the admins. 
The astronauts didn't bring that themselves.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: At least as far as robotic exploration is concerned.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: NASA has very strict policies about like
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Basically decontaminating their spacecraft. So like, so like
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: You know,
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Anything you're going to send to
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: You know planetary bodies that are in like this certain class of 
planetary bodies that like could potentially host life like Mars.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Has to be
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Has to be like
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Extremely decontaminated so basically like they they are extremely 
careful when they're putting the spacecraft together and then they also do things like they blast 
it with a bunch of radiation while it's still on Earth to, like, make sure it doesn't have anything live on or whatever.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: And then there's other spacecraft where it's like, oh, this spacecraft like it's not going to
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Go to the surface of any planet. It's just going to stay in space. 
It's not even going to go in near any planet that could potentially harbor life so like it doesn't 
really matter if we like, aren't you know super hardcore about decontaminating it but
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: When you start sending human missions. That's kind of a different story. 
Because, like, by definition, you're sending life you're sending humans themselves and then you're sending like you know the entire
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Microbiome that exists inside of human beings.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: And I so I think that it's a big question whether or not, like, 
if you sent a human mission, whether or not you would send a human mission to a spot.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Like, like say to a sub region on Mars that you're like pretty dang 
sure could harbor life like maybe you send humans like slightly outside of that region. And 
then they use robots to actually explore that region so that you like.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: You know, have a greater margin for error as far as you know contamination 
is concerned, but but that's a really good question and
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Kind of a big roadblock to responsibly exploring a lot of these regions, you know, and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life.
Collin Sinclair: But, Andrew. It was such a blast to talk with you and and I learned a lot today. 
Like you know even being a student in APS at CU I like this was a very enlightening hour for 
me - hour and 15 minutes - for me. So thank you for that. That was a lot of fun.
Andrew Xavier Wilcoski: Yeah, sweet! Thanks. Thanks for having me. This was super fun.
Collin Sinclair: Today we are joined by Dr. Dave brain, who is a professor at CU Boulder 
and a researcher or the Laboratory for Atmospheric in space physics, also known as LASP.
Collin Sinclair: He specializes in atmospheres and Magneto spheres at Mars and 
elsewhere in the solar system and is a member of the MAVEN spacecraft team, which is 
currently studying Mars's atmosphere.
Collin Sinclair: He is also a Science Advisor for the Emirates Mars Mission or EMM.
Collin Sinclair: A new and exciting mission originating in the United Arab Emirates that 
planes to provide a complete picture of the Martian atmosphere at high altitudes and 
close to the surface. Dr. David Brain, thanks so much for being here with us today.
David Brain: Thanks for having me.
Collin Sinclair:  So, so I am, as you mentioned, that, that, you know, one of the reasons 
that this atmosphere is important or an atmosphere is to
Collin Sinclair: Maintain the correct pressure and temperature for liquid water, as we know, we do not see liquid water on the surface of Mars today.
Collin Sinclair: But we do see perhaps some signatures that it was there in the past. 
What happened, to the best of our understanding is the scientific community, what happend 
to Mars's atmosphere, such that at one point in time, it allowed for liquid water but today it doesn't do that?
David Brain: Yeah, it's, it's a puzzle that we're still trying to piece together all of the details, but I think
David Brain: You know, at a very high level, we can say what happened to the atmosphere of Mars. 
So as you said there was evidence on the surface that liquid water used to be present.
David Brain: This is both chemical evidence in terms of some of the minerals that we see the required liquid water.
David Brain: And even the shapes of surface features that suggests that liquid water once flowed or sat there.
David Brain: That means the atmosphere have to have been thick enough to support the liquid water. 
The atmosphere is not sufficiently thick today. So the zero order answer to your question is that the atmosphere was last, we can go with
David Brain: We can give a little more detail than that as well.
David Brain: Some of the atmosphere. We know was last to space. And that's those a
toms and molecules in the atmosphere got enough energy to escape the gravity of the planet.
David Brain: And that's part of my research area and my involvement in the MAVEN mission is 
thinking about how much atmosphere from Mars, could have been lost a space and it's a lot.
David Brain: But that's not the whole story either, we are very confident that some of the atmosphere was lost down to the surface and the subsurface.
David Brain: We're also confident that part of the atmosphere has been lost to the surface and sub surface of the planet.
David Brain: The planet to read because it basically rusted that's pulling oxygen out of the 
atmosphere we see polar caps on Mars, which if Mars gets cold enough are going to grow and grow and grow.
David Brain: And we have plenty of evidence that the atmosphere has gone down to the 
surface and subsurface as well. So the combination of these two things, loss of atmosphere 
to space and loss of atmosphere to the surface and subsurface together.
David Brain: We believe has changed the atmosphere enough that liquid water is now very difficult to have be stable on the surface of the planet.
Collin Sinclair: So in the past we as humans, you know, collectively have kind of relied on the government institutions like NASA
Collin Sinclair: To do the job of putting people in space and doing that, you know, space science and research.
Collin Sinclair: But like you mentioned today. We're kind of seeing more involvement from 
kind of like private companies SpaceX being the obvious example you know and and I guess 
that idea of having these private space industry players.
Collin Sinclair: Can be a bit controversial it within the Astronomy community, getting to Mars 
has been a huge push within parts of the private space industry. And that's, you know, that's o
ne of Elon Musk's like whole things is, let's go to Mars. Do you see any particular
Collin Sinclair: Pros or cons involved with
Collin Sinclair: You know, kind of invoking the private industry in the huge undertaking of going to another planet.
David Brain: Yeah, and I'm glad that you asked the question, and that way. I think they're both pros and cons. I'll preface it with a
David Brain: With a statement that private industry has always been involved in human 
exploration and the change. More recently, as being involved at sort of the idea level, the top level. 
But, you know, the Space Shuttle.
David Brain: Many different parts of the space shuttle were contracted out to private industry when we sent the MAVEN spacecraft to Mars.
David Brain: You know, certain circuit boards or certain aspects of that are always contracted out. 
So there's and when the rockets that we put our spacecraft on many of them are built by ULA down in Denver.
David Brain: So private industry has always been involved in space exploration and the 
change we're seeing here is Elan Muks. Elon Musk's the change we're seeing here is Elan Musk 
and SpaceX having a plan for start to finish, making it happen themselves.
David Brain: You know Jeff Bezos being involved Blue Origin being involved these 
companies that want to do the whole thing themselves. So that's the big change.
David Brain: Some of the pros are that private industry is less risk averse than government
David Brain: Every time a mistake is made or an accident happens it people correctly, go back and examine why that happened.
David Brain: Put procedures in place to prevent that from ever happening again. And this is all done.
David Brain: Not maliciously in any way it's done out of, you know, care for human life, which we should always be very careful about
David Brain: But it also ends up putting on layers and layers and layers of bureaucracy when it's 
run by government sometimes. And that can slow things down and make more make things a little more expensive.
David Brain: Private companies have the privilege or the are in a position to be risk averse, and to move very quickly.
David Brain: And I hear about sometimes about the very early days of NASA and the early 60s 
and even into the late 60s, when people were there, you know, late into the evening and all through the weekend and
David Brain: There, you know, it was really energetic and those are the same kinds of things that I hear about the people at SpaceX today.
David Brain: Moving justice quickly and just as fast and being just as passionate about what they're doing.
David Brain: And people at NASA today are super passionate, but the two modes private 
industry and government just move it kind of different paces sometimes and with different amounts of expense.
David Brain: The same con that same thing. That's a pro is also a calm. If you're more risk averse 
than more accidents are likely to happen. And we're talking about sending humans to a place where we can't go rescue them.
David Brain: That's, you know, something to think really carefully about before you do it. 
Second thing for maybe the scientific community is the fact that private industry doesn't always have
David Brain: scientific interests, you know, at heart, and their root cause sometimes their noble 
causes involved. But at the end of the day, the company won't exist unless they can you know make money by doing it.
David Brain: Which means that they have a rank priority list and tetanus isn't necessarily at the top or the bottom of their list.
David Brain: And so in terms of preserving preserving Mars. But in terms of learning everything we can about Mars without first
David Brain: Interfering with the things that we want to study is maybe not at the top of the priority list for private industry.
David Brain: And so one thing I've told been told in terms of in my positions on sort of national 
service committees, thinking about what our priorities are for Mars exploration
David Brain: I've been told that we need to put our science priorities that would be tampered with. 
If once humans land on Mars, we need to put those at the top of our list now.
David Brain: Because humans are headed there and there's no stopping it. So you know that's 
something I think about as a con from the perspective of a scientist is 
contaminating the planet interfering with the things that we actually want to study.
Collin Sinclair: I think I'll turn over the interview to Tara, at this point, and she'll ask you some questions about your research. Great.
Collin Sinclair: I think I'll turn over the interview to Tara, at this point, and she'll ask you some questions about your research.
David Brain: Great.
Tara Tomlinson: switch gears a little bit and see to talk a little bit about MAVEN already and some of the cool things about Mars's atmosphere that we've learned, but what is kind of an overview of MAVEN. In general, since I know that's a big deal for you.
Tara Tomlinson: To switch gears a little bit and see to talk a little bit about MAVEN already and 
some of the cool things about Mars's atmosphere that we've learned, but what is kind of an 
overview of MAVEN. In general, since I know that's a big deal for you.
Tara Tomlinson: Kind of right noe. What are some of the really cool things that we've learned? It's been up there a little while.
David Brain: Yeah. So first, a brief introduction to MAVEN. It's a mission that was proposed out of 
the University of Colorado, it was competing against I think 22 other mission proposals from all 
around the country and was ultimately chosen as the winning proposal to send to Mars.
David Brain: It's
David Brain: A very large undertaking. I think maybe the largest Research Award in the history of 
the university or something like that. And I started working on this in 2004 when I was a postdoc
David Brain: I didn't have children until 2006 so I've been working on MAVEN longer than I've had children.
David Brain: And it's been orbiting Mars since 2014 and the whole goal of the mission is to figure 
out what happened to the atmosphere and climate over the last
David Brain: 4 billion years of the planet's history did enough atmosphere escape to space to 
explain a big transition from a habitable planet to a non habitable planet.
David Brain: So maybe the biggest result from MAVEN so far is that we estimate that a lot of 
atmosphere was lost.
David Brain: And that's how we wrote the paper was just a lot. That's what we wrote. 
No, I'm just kidding. We tried to put constraints on that.
David Brain: And the error bars are large, but maybe half of an Earth atmosphere in terms of pressure that would be called half a bar.
David Brain: Maybe more than a bar of atmosphere has been lost to space over time.
David Brain: So these really cool physics processes that happened, the particles at the top of the atmosphere or not just cool physics.
David Brain: which interests me, but they may have been important for the entire life 
cycle of the planet so far which excites me. So that's one reason I like thinking about
David Brain: MAVEN science. There are there are some unexpected things that have
 been observed by MAVEN, for example, Aurora in the atmosphere happening.
David Brain: Far away from any planetary magnetic field signatures. 
So this is maybe the first time we've recognized that you don't need a magnetic field to get a work on planets.
David Brain: All sorts of new processes for making particles energized and 
moving them away from a planet, and I could go on and on and on, but I'll stop there.
Tara Tomlinson: Excellent. And so, so MAVENs been up there. And we've learned a lot from it and 
now you're also involved in the Emirates Mars mission, which is a new mission. 
It's a super exciting. That's going again to study Mars's atmosphere.
Tara Tomlinson: And can you tell us a little bit about EMM in general and kind of how it's different, and what it's doing differently than MAVEN?
David Brain: Yeah. So let me start with in general. And then, as you said, move to the science.
David Brain: The Emirates Mars mission started as a mission concept in 2014 and it's a 
collaboration with an agency, a Space Center and the United Arab Emirates, and they 
approached some institutions to be academic partners in their effort to send a spacecraft to another planet.
David Brain: The UAE has sent spacecraft into orbit around Earth. I think three times before. 
At this point, but it never sent a spacecraft to another planet. And so asked for some partners to help
David Brain: Figure out how to do that. So it's a very interesting day in your academic life when 
someone walks into your office and says, we would like to send a spacecraft to Mars.
David Brain: What, what would you like it to do. And you know there were ideas all all around, 
but everyone was soliciting ideas and it was a fun exercise. So now,
David Brain: This mission will launch next month in July, the launch window opens. July 14 and 
stays open through early August. And so we could try each day to get the spacecraft off the ground and headed on its way to Mars.
David Brain: And one thing I didn't mention is the programatical. So this mission.
David Brain: You can edit all this later because I know there's a way to long
David Brain: One thing I didn't mention where the programmatic goals of this mission. 
One of the goals was to send a spacecraft to Mars for the 50th anniversary of the country.
David Brain: And so the country will be 50 years old, very soon.
David Brain: And they want to do something big for this and if you know anything about the UAE, 
you know that they tend to go big, they currently have the tallest building in the world. For example, the Burj Khalifa.
David Brain: They make land out where there was no land before in the 
shape of a map of the world they they're used to undertaking big projects.
David Brain: And so they wanted to send a spacecraft to Mars for the 50th anniversary 
of their country, that wasn't enough to get me really on board or 
excited but when they told me why they wanted to do it. And I was in.
David Brain: They want to do it to help diversify their economy to they know that the oil 
economy won't last forever. And they want to transition to a knowledge economy.
David Brain: They want to be an example for young people in that part of the world of what you can do when you pursue big projects like this.
David Brain: They also want to join the international science community and the more 
specifically the international space science community and they want to develop space science and engineering.
David Brain: As something that parents would want to tell their children to think about
 pursuing in that part of the world. And then when I met the science team.
David Brain: It was 100% female at the time that I met the science team which shattered my expectations for
David Brain: That part of the world and I admit that I was ignorant and had never been there 
and have not not had a lot of interaction there. But now I have some lifelong friends from the UAE, I'm sure. 
And all of these programmatic goals got me on board.
David Brain: Pretty quickly.
David Brain: The science of EMM is very interesting.
David Brain: It is
David Brain: It's an orbiting spacecraft and it's going to study both the lower atmosphere and 
the upper atmosphere and it has three science instruments on board that work at three different wavelengths
David Brain: There's a camera that takes visible images. There's an infrared instrument that probes,
 the lower atmosphere, including temperature and composition
David Brain: And there's an ultraviolet instrument that probes, the upper atmosphere. 
And the idea is to figure out how energy moves through the atmosphere.
David Brain: You could think of energy is temperature of the particles.
David Brain: If you want, because that's the energy that they carry. But how does this 
energy get transported from place to place. How does it vary with Martian day
David Brain: How does it very geographically. How does it vary with season and year on Mars. 
And in order to do this, the orbit of the spacecraft is very special compared to any previous spacecraft to go to Mars.
David Brain: Most previous spacecraft orbit up and down over the polls, which means necessity out of necessity necessitafry.
David Brain: Which means that out of necessity, they always orbit at a single local time. So maybe 3pm and 3am
David Brain: And if you want to understand the atmosphere of a planet, you might immediately realize that that's not ideal.
David Brain: It's like asking everyone on Earth to go outside at 3pm today and take 
some measurements of the atmosphere and then run back inside.
David Brain: And then use the measurements from 3pm to figure out whether on the planet. That's not going to work.
David Brain: At the same time, we have rovers on the surface of the planet like curiosity that's
 making temperature measurements and atmosphere measurements, really great.
David Brain: You can't understand the atmosphere of a whole planet that way. That's like asking 
the people in Boulder to make measurements around the clock.
David Brain: And tell people in the rain forests of Brazil, how the their atmosphere should be working. That's not going to happen either
David Brain: So this spacecraft orbits in such a way that it observes every geographic region of the planet at every time of day every 10 days.
David Brain: So Olympus Mons, the big volcano on Mars, will have atmospheric 
measurements above Olympus Mons at every time of day every 10 days.
David Brain: And so that orbit helps us tie those measurements together to understand 
circulation patterns and energy, transport and bottom to top of the atmosphere as well how 
changes up near the bottom of the atmosphere propagate upward to the top and result in atmospheric escape.
Collin Sinclair: This is actually I have what might be kind of a tough question. I don't know, 
but I'll ask it anyways, which is as you and Tara, we're talking kind of about the the
Collin Sinclair: cultural importance for the UAE of going to space. And what that will look like. 
It made me remember you know that there's a lot of people
Collin Sinclair: On on Earth that you know in the past and today that have asked the question why 
or I should say not ask the question, but hold the sentiment.
Collin Sinclair: Will you know that we should focus on Earth issues rather than focusing 
energy on space, right, especially you take today's climate. Right. There's a lot going on with the coronavirus and with
Collin Sinclair: systemic racism and people are saying, you know, well why
Collin Sinclair: Shouldn't we just pause, things like space exploration in space travel and fix 
these problems first? how can you do, how can you know focus on these other issues. Well, we have this at hand.
Collin Sinclair: And that's always been a thing right in the 60s with with going to the moon. 
It was Vietnam and today. You know, it's what I said and I think there will probably continue to be that that kind of
Collin Sinclair: Reaction to to science and space travel, do you have any, you know, how do you 
respond to. When someone tells you that sort of thing. And I know this is kind of a tough question. 
So we don't have to go there. But, you know,
David Brain: No.
Collin Sinclair: I'm curious to see what you think of that.
David Brain: Let's go there, that's fine. And it is a hard question and I don't know that I have 
fully decided what my answer is, but I've been asked this question. Um, I was asked
 this question by another faculty member at the University of Colorado.
David Brain: Before the fall 2019 semester. And first of all, I think the question presents a false choice.
David Brain: I don't think it's either or, I think it can be both. And I think it's important to be both. 
I don't think we should abandon the problems that we're facing on Earth from systemic racism to climate to coronavirus
David Brain: To making sure that our planet is a place where we can not only survive, but be happy.
David Brain: We shouldn't abandoned those things and neither do I think we should abandon 
the big ideas that come from exploring space that come from pushing ourselves in that direction.
David Brain: That come from wondering if we're alone. I think if nothing else doing those things 
provides inspiration and inspiration is important when you're tackling problems close to home.
David Brain: I've talked already in our conversation to about the all eggs in one basket aspect.
David Brain: And as much as I'd like to think we can and will fix all the problems facing us here.
 I worry that there will someday be a problem that we can't control and that we don't have a 
solution for and so maybe the practical side of me also wants to see us continue
David Brain: To send spacecraft really cool places. That's got to be part of it too but i think i think it's a false choice.
Collin Sinclair: Very well, said I, like that that you know we don't have to break it into either or, that's nice and
Collin Sinclair: For just for fun. An example of an unstoppable problem might be like you said 
earlier in 5 billion years when our star dies. Yeah, unless technology has really just gone off the wire 
I, that would be a tough thing to say "Please don't."
Collin Sinclair: "We'd like to stay here a little longer."
Tara Tomlinson: though. Okay, so that was all the questions we had for you today. 
Thank you so much, David brain for joining us. We're very happy to have you on our podcast.
David Brain: Thank you for having me. It was fun.
Collin Sinclair: We'd like to thank our guests. Andrew Wilcoski and Dr. Dave Brain for taking the time to chat with us about Mars today.
Collin Sinclair: And if during those interviews you felt. Man, I'd really like to hear all about this. 
You can we have the full extended interviews available on YouTube and SoundCloud so go ahead and check those out. If you feel
Collin Sinclair: So intrigued that you want to do so. And remember to come back next week.
Collin Sinclair: For discussion about the the far reaches of our solar system will be talking with 
Dr. Fran Bagenal and all about the New Horizons mission which went to Pluto. 
And we'll also talk about a citizen science project looking for
Collin Sinclair: Basically the shadows of stars with Ryder Strauss about the recon network. 
This podcast is available on YouTube SoundCloud Spotify and Apple Music.
Collin Sinclair: And we'd like to invite everyone to visit our website colorado.edu/Fiske
Collin Sinclair: Where you can see a schedule of our upcoming show topics and guests. 
There's also an option for you to submit your questions and we can post those questions to 
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Collin Sinclair: So if you have any burning questions that you'd like to, you know, figure out the 
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