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um this is an artist's rendering of what

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a first human mission to a near-earth

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object could look like in the mid-20s we

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could actually go to the kind of objects

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that we think are built are made of the

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building chemical blocks that could have

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helped seed life on planets

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there are a class of these small objects

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called near-earth objects that are

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we think made of carbonaceous materials

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those things certainly collided with

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early earth and early mars

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now the interesting thing about this is

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we don't know enough to design this

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mission now so there are artists and

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engineers who come up with what we'd

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like to do but since we haven't

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characterized these objects except for

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the one

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we don't know what we would do but one

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of the things we feel we would have to

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do is we wouldn't go land because

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there's no landing on an object that you

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bounce off of i mean kind of be hopeless

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almost futile so what we would do is

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send people down on rope chains and they

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would go and tether themselves to the

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surface it's kind of like climbing the

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wall of a rock you know in the grand

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canyon but knowing that if you fall off

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you're going to float away i mean a

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little less risky but you wouldn't want

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to float away in free space so here you

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see a couple of women tethered to a

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piece of an asteroid again we don't know

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that they look like this so one of the

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things you're going to see in the next

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decade is missions to asteroids by

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robots to see what they're really like

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sampling them

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understanding how to operate around them

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it's a very important step so you can

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see the last here's a woman and a guy

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coming off on their tether thing flying

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back little rocket packs

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back to the mother ship to come home

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so this is an artist rendering of what

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might happen some of you could be in the

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position of helping to make these kind

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of missions happen so i want to remind

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you before i go to mars that we actually

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have a constellation of 14 satellites in

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earth orbit and you might say well

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what's nasa doing for global warming for

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climate change we are doing a lot

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very often the things you see on the

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weather channel every now and the

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weather like today it's gonna rain again

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sorry um or the the snowmageddon we had

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this last winter here great great fun by

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the way

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is informed by these satellites

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we actually can produce a global mosaic

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of the entire earth's surface every day

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from the terra spacecraft we study the

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winds we have exploratory missions we

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study the nature of how the oceans work

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this is part of what we do here at nasa

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goddard we do it in partnership with

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other centers like jpl

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so the earth is a planet why should we

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neglect it and by watching how it moves

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and changes particularly its atmosphere

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oceans

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and land cover very quickly we get a

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little impression of how our own planet

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works now one thing nasa's done in the

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last couple years probably none of you

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heard about but i have to feel that i

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talk about it we've actually mapped the

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polar ice sheets in exquisite detail

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this is a flyover rendered completely by

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computer of the calibrated landsat

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mosaic of antarctica it's a fingerprint

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for the state of ground covered ice for

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our planet if that changes too much that

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tells us something we've watched over

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the last 20 years the retreat of not

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only mountain glaciers but of the ice

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sheet in antarctica pieces the size of

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delaware have broken off

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this is a

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a concern of ours because the runaway

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rate of these changes may be normal but

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we haven't experienced them as humans

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who are aware of it ever in our history

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you know middle ages i think people

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probably weren't aware of anything but

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now they are

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we are a living planet we talk we

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breathe and when you see recessions of

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the the ground lines of ice that are so

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rapid we get worried the other thing

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we're able to do is take stock of the

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biological health of our planet in 2d

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this map of the ocean color and related

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quantities allows us to see the state of

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health of biomass growing in the ocean

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and these big dark purple and blue zones

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are areas where there are less living

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things and we can do these kind of

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mappings from missions like sea whiffs

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from our modus routinely you can see

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blooms of of high biological production

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in the oceans of course the greens on

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land and the deserts one of the things

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nasa wants to do in the next decade is

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do this in 3d what's the biomass of the

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forests how is the carbon system

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changing this is critical and so we have

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mission plans to do that so the earth is

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a planet it's a living planet the only

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one we know we're looking for earths so

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here's earth in the living planet stage

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and this is what we do in our earth

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science program again superimposed on

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that so what about mars everyone asked

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me was mars ever like this

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is mars truly the astrobiological planet

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that we all know and love well for the

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last 15 years all of you who have cared

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to notice

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have witnessed the greatest robotic era

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of exploration of the planet mars in the

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history of women and men we are at a

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time of every time we go it's a new

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revolution in how we see the planet this

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fly around i'm showing you now was

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something i dreamt about when i first

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came to nasa now 25 years ago this is

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mars in 3d the hot colors are high the

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other colors are low this is the south

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polar ice sheet we now know it's made of

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water ice before this mission the mars

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global surveyor we thought it was all

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frozen carbon dioxide dry ice it's water

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sorry about that folks um this is the

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north polar ice sheet the great hockey

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puck um not a puck really but it's a

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large ice sheet like greenland on earth

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i don't know if any of you ever been to

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greenland but if you've flown over it

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this is about the same size spiraling

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canyons it

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the mars atmosphere exchanges itself

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with the surface

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uh 25 of the atmosphere freezes out and

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then re

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sublimes into the atmosphere every

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single year on the planet mars the mass

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balance of the polar ice sheets

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predominantly made of water ice are a

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critical barometer of climate history on

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mars we think mars has gone through

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monumental climate sweeps partly because

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its rotational axis the angle axis of

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obliquity as some of you may know

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actually doesn't wobble a couple degrees

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like earth's which causes huge climate

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changes over scales of ten thousand to a

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hundred thousand years on mars it

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wobbles by 20 to 30 degrees so imagine

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if the earth's axis you know

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went like

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well we would have a different climate

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state trust me

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physics does not lie people try to

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legislate it can't change it so mars has

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gone through wild climate change and we

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now know that by measuring things about

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the planet both in 3d and in the

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atmosphere

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so we did this mapping here at goddard

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with our partners at jpl as part of the

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mars global surveyor mission we now know

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any place we want on mars good to about

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a foot or two

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that allowed us to send missions to mars

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that before this mapping and before we

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got to look at the biggest volcano in

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the solar system in 3d would not have

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been possible i'd like to show this

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picture for a minute this is olympus

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mods it is six million cubic kilometers

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of rock

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it has around it a large cliff line an

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escarpment that is three to four

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kilometers high

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when we first saw that in photographs in

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1972 people said oh geez i didn't

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realize that would happen huh wonder why

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and they did a few calculations they

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realized big giant volcanoes are too

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heavy to hold themselves up and they

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collapse some people decide well why

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don't we see that on earth i wonder why

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let's go look we looked all around the

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big volcanoes of hawaii they all have

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big flank collapses like that only

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they're underwater never saw them what

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happens if a whole side of a volcano

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like all this part collapses

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on earth

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it moves stuff if it's underwater what's

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it going to move

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water what's the water going to do

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it's going to turn into gigantic

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tsunamis

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affect the coastlines of the pacific in

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the united states in the in the east

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from other places so we discovered by

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looking at mars how some aspects of our

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own planet work by just observing them

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so this is one of the discoveries where

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planets informed our own history on mars

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we have a system of giant volcanoes we

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have well we also have mars scene now

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here where we've taken topography and

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imaging from one of our satellites

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odyssey and put it together we do have

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little mini tornadoes on mars all the

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time and what we also have on mars which

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is so staggering aside from impact

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craters is the solar system's largest

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canyon system

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you might say well how did little old

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mars 38 the size of the earth okay not

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big enough to have worked the way the

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earth did produce a canyon system here

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that makes our own grand canyon dwarf in

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comparison how did it do that

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why does mars work so different here's

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los angeles for scale you can see 7.2

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kilometers our grand canyon i'll show

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you in a minute would fit in one of

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these little spare canyons if any of you

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been down in the canyon on a mule i

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think you'll know

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that was a joke um the mules are a

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little bit nasty at times but they are

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fine actually um so this is a canyon

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system that goes 3000 kilometers across

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the midriff to mars

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why is that what ripped apart this

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planet with a crust and possibly with a

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water history unlike anything on earth

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that's one of our conundrums one of our

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enigmas so here we are flying up one of

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those canyons seen from odyssey and our

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mars global surveyor the grand canyon

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for scale would fit right here

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so if any of you've been there it's

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pretty big pretty dog you don't want to

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fall in they do lose a few every year

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i've been told but

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so one of the things we learned about

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mars then the scales of things that

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operate on mars climate are different so