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So, to me, it's exciting because it is a
mission that is centered around

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astrobiology, and this idea that we're
trying to find signatures of life and as

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a microbiologist what is most exciting
is that you know when you go look for

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life on Mars or any other planet you're
going to be looking for microbial life.

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And so, it's so fascinating to me to
think that we might find signatures of

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microbial life on Mars and if we do what
kind of life was it you know I'm

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interested in proteins and molecular
machines within these organisms. How did

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these organisms, you know, make their
membranes; how did they, you know, what did

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they eat to get energy for growth? And so,
it's just exciting to kind of expand

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your mind that there might be other
forms of microbial life out there and

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it's just, you know, as a microbiologist
thinking about microbes and how it's

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interrelated with this actual
mission is super exciting!

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I think for me, it's the fact that it's
just, the return, the possibility of a

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return seems so ambitious to me, you know?
We work on, my group specifically,

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works on biosignatures that are made by
modern microbes, and, to me, I was always

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fascinated that geologists could find
these rocks that are like 2 billion

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years old on earth, but here this mission
is still ambitious that they want to

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look through these signatures on another
planet and that they could bring those

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back so that we could analyze them! And I
think for me, from a broader context,

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Perseverance just really shows how if
you get a diverse group of very creative

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people together you can solve problems
that seem impossible, right? And in this

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moment now the fact that we could, you
know, if you think about the pandemic and

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think about how we can solve this
problem. If we can go to Mars and bring

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back you know samples to look for
biosignatures of life then we can fix

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problems like this pandemic, that we can
attack problems that seem insurmountable,

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like the structural racism that's in our
systems. It seems like such an

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insurmountable problem but I think we as
as human beings can solve these problems,

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they're not too big. So, Perseverance,
more than anything, gives me hope that