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After a 300 million mile journey through space,
the Mars Perseverance Rover is ready to begin

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the most challenging part of the trip, landing
on the red planet.

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If successful, it will embark on the most
advanced mission ever sent here, to discover

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if life ever existed on Mars.

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The rocket ranch welcomes Dr. Moogega Cooper,
NASA JPL's planetary protection lead for Mars

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Perseverance.

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She'll tell us how she and her team are actually
protecting Mars and she'll describe the incredibly

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complex maneuvers needed to land on the red
planet.

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Plus, she'll tell us about the most exciting
parts of its astrobiology mission.

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I’m Derrol Nail and this is the Rocket Ranch.

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EGS program chief engineer verifying no constraints
to launch.

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Three, two, one, and lift off.

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Welcome to space.

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It's an exciting time.

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We are not too far away from the landing of
the Perseverance Rover on the surface of Mars.

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This was a project you were involved in pretty
closely.

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Definitely.

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Yeah.

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You know every part of that Rover.

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Every square centimeter.

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And why is that?

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So every single part, almost every single
part of the Rover that's landing right now

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and the whole system that's landing it has
been sampled by myself or my team.

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To make sure that it had no life on it, right?

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Excess amount of microbes, exactly.

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So we have to make sure that it was clean
enough so it doesn't contaminate the surface

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of Mars where we're trying to explore for
possible ancient life.

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So it's a high-tech robotic geologist, right?

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Yeah.

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Going to the surface and doing the work of
a geologist remotely.

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Exactly.

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Yeah.

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It's going to go there and do so many exciting
things, both for future human missions, creating

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oxygen for fuel or for breathing air, looking
at the weather system so that we can make

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sure we prepare accordingly, bring the right
sunscreen and all kinds of things.

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Great tech demos.

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It's really exciting.

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So before we get to the surface, there's this
exciting part where the Perseverance Rover

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has to land.

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It's a big deal.

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It is.

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So much so they call it the seven minutes
of terror.

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Now, why is that?

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Yeah, because it's a terrifying seven-minute
process where many things have to go right.

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You have a parachute that has to be deployed
at the right time.

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You have to have a separation of the back
shell and the heat shield in a way so that

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the heat shield doesn't slam back into the
launch vehicle or into the descent stage.

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You have to make sure all those components
are gone.

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The descent stage needs to fire at just the
right time so that the whole system doesn't

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slam onto the surface of Mars.

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It has to descend on an umbilical.

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Those umbilicals need to be cut at the right
time.

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It needs to fly away so that it doesn't drag
the Rover.

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I mean, all of these things have to happen
right.

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It's such a fascinating engineering feat that
you guys are pulling off there.

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It's just amazing.

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Even watching the animations, it's just like,
wow.

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Yeah, it's amazing.

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The EDL team, Entry Descent and Landing Team,
has done such a phenomenal job in planning

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and preparing for this.

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It's really exciting.

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Should be seven minutes of excitement.

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That's what you would rename it.

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That's for everybody else, except for the
EDL team.

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Great point.

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And speaking of excitement, most people are
familiar, if you follow the exploration programs

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out at JPL, with that shot of the control
room, the mission control room, where everybody

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is there.

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Now, this is a podcast, so we kind of paint
word pictures.

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But you've got everybody there, they're sitting
behind their monitors and their workstations.

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And there is that moment where they confirm
that it's gone through the atmosphere, it's

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done everything that you just described and
landed softly and gently on the surface of

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Mars and now it can do its work.

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Why do you see people jumping for joy and
hugging each other and crying?

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Yeah.

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I mean, with all of those things that have
to be right, that means there's so many things

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that could go wrong.

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And with that successful signal acquisition
that yes, we indeed landed, I mean, that just

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sparks such a sense of joy because now you
know you can move on to the next phase to

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start surface operations.

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So you'll get Adam Steltzner jumping for joy
in the room, which will be Al Chen this time

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around.

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He's going to be jumping for joy in his whatever
color shirt they print out for this crew and

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the whole team.

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So yeah, it's just exciting because now you
have cemented that phase into stone.

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Then, now, you can move on to the next big
thing.

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Now, the science begins, the scary part of
getting off the Earth, traveling 300 million

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miles and landing on the surface is over.

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Now, the science can begin.

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One of the things I think of when they do
the EDL, when it lands is that ... I don't

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know if it was during Curiosity or one of
the recent missions where I believe there

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was a choreographed dance move ...

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Oh, that was for Insight.

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The Insight lander.

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Right.

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Any knowledge of any plans for any celebratory
dances?

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I don't know of any plans, but I know the
person that would do something.

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I could ask this person.

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Are you going to out that person?

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I won't out this person, but I might ask him
to do something or give me a little bit of

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knowledge.

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I'll sneak you in a word later.

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I appreciate that.

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Yeah.

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You have to watch, basically.

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Watch the landing show.

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That'll be an exciting one to watch.

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What will you be doing for the landing of
the rover?

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I will be, at the minimum, watching online
from the comfort of my home.

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I hope to find some sort of party.

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Of course, a COVID safe party, but I will
find some party to watch, hopefully with colleagues,

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at a socially distant distance.

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Right, right.

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Because I mean, that's part of it, right?

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It is celebrating with those that you have
put so much blood, sweat and tears with when

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a project comes to fruition like that.

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Once it's landed on Mars, we're talking about
the science beginning.

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This Rover is going to be doing some incredible
work that's different than any of the rovers

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we've landed before.

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Talk a little bit about that.

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Yeah.

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So even down to the drill, if you look at
prior Rovers, like the Curiosity Rover, it

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has a drill that's meant to grind the soil
and the dirt and the rocks into a fine powder.

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If you look at the drill for the Curiosity
or for Perseverance, it's actually a coring

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drill.

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So it's meant to take more of an intact sample,
about the size of a piece of chalk for those

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of you old enough to know chalkboards.

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[laughter]

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Right?

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So even down to the drill, it's completely
different.

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We'll understand stratigraphy.

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So if you imagine like lines on the side of
a rock, those lines tell you different information

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and having those lines preserved gives you
orders of more magnitude of more information

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about that geology than if you ground it all
up and mix it together.

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Ah.

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So having it as a core, a solid core.

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How long is that?

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It's about 10 centimeters long.

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10 centimeters, okay.

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We know that this has been called an astrobiology
mission.

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We're going to be looking for signs of life
in these cores?

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Yeah.

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Signs of ancient life.

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Ancient life.

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Yeah.

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Dinosaur bones?

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Not dinosaur bones.

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I remember that line from our launch coverage,
which of which you were a co-host.

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You said, "No, we're not going to be finding
dinosaur bones."

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Trying to make it a thing though.

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It's a thing with me at least.

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We'll make it a thing.

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Well, what do you think?

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I mean, what would be a sign of ancient life?

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Yeah, so they're looking for what we call
biosignatures.

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There are carbon structures.

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There are things that if you see this signature,
you know that it came from or that chances

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are high that it came from a biological source.

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With the Allan Hills meteorite, there were
signatures there that people would argue back

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and forth, whether or not it came from a biological
source or naturally occurring, just regular

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geology-induced processes.

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So there are these biosignatures that really
hint more strongly at the fact that it comes

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from something that was living.

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Now, the Allan Hills meteorite, this was something
that struck Mars and pieces of Mars hit Earth.

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That's right.

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And we know that we have parts of Mars on
Earth, but they traveled through our atmosphere

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and it was exposed to the environment of Earth.

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But that's interesting that there was such
incredible debate.

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Yeah, there was.

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Yeah.

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And I think it was Lori Glaze during her interview,
doing a launch commentary that said, ... someone

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said that it was all kind of inadvertent,
random sample returned.

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Oh, I think it was Jennifer Trosper.

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Sample return kind of at random.

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Something hit Mars millions of years ago,
maybe billions of years ago and it launched

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out and it fell onto Earth.

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But now we can use instruments to selectively
choose where we want our samples to be.

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And it's really incredible that we have the
choice based on these in-situ instruments

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to pick the right place.

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And let's talk a little bit about that.

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The place you picked was Jezero Crater and
a lot has been made about this.

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It looks like it was a river delta that flowed
into a lake.

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Yeah.

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So there's a lake and it has these river deltas.

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Basically, evidence that water was flowing
in and flowing out of this lake area.

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So those deltas are really great at preserving
those sediments, those bio-signatures, whatever

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might be there, possible biosignatures, into
a nice surface that we can core and interrogate.

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What do you think?

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Do you think there might be ancient life on
Mars?

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I mean, with the numbers out there, I mean,
there are a lot of ... Could life exists somewhere

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else?

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Possibly.

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And the nice thing about being a scientist
at heart and a scientist by training is that

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it doesn't matter what I think.

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Let's see what the data says.

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Well, we, of course, have an informed opinion.

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We have an informed location that we're going
to that will set us up for success, that if

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life does or ancient life does exist anywhere
on Mars, that's a really great place to find

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it.

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And we're going to fly those samples back
to Earth.

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First time anything like this has ever been
done.

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That's right, yeah.

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There has been no sample return from Mars
in ever.

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And any planet.

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Or any planet.

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That's right.

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Yeah.

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And there's the moon, of course, Apollo.

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They brought samples back.

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Other than that ...

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That's it.

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There's also a really neat tech demonstration
with the Mars helicopter.

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And that's getting a lot of buzz because people
are like, "How do you fly on Mars in such

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a super-thin atmosphere?"

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We know that here on Earth, you need an atmosphere.

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You need something for which to drive and
propel you up.

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Right?

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Exactly.

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But that barely exists on Mars.

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It does and that's why it was such a huge
challenge and I give so much kudos to the

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team that actually made this happen.

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Yeah, you don't have very much atmosphere.

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It's 1% of that of Earth, so you don't have
a lot to give you lift.

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And so, they had to make the propellers extremely
light.

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There's lot of foam in there.

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If you were to cut away the carbon fiber wrapping
on the outside, it's mostly air in there,

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but yet it's still structurally sound.

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It has to work.

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It has to spin without breaking apart into
little pieces.

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So yeah, they made light propellers.

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They made the body, the fuselage very light.

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And then the propellors also spin at a very
high rate.

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When you were here, what was that experience
like watching the launch?

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Yeah, I've watched launches in the past, but
I haven't seen the launch end-to-end of something

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that I've worked on.

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This was the first launch where I knew that
I helped with that baby in there and that

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payload fairing.

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I've contributed to that.

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And to see it launch, it just meant so much
more to me.

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And I didn't think that a launch would mean
any more than it usually does.

241
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It's already spectacular.

242
00:12:44,600 --> 00:12:47,930
But yeah, it was just very, very emotional.

243
00:12:47,930 --> 00:12:49,450
You were a part of the launch broadcast.

244
00:12:49,450 --> 00:12:54,180
Could you describe what was going through
your mind, what you were feeling as you were

245
00:12:54,180 --> 00:12:55,550
watching the rocket liftoff?

246
00:12:55,550 --> 00:12:56,550
Yeah.

247
00:12:56,550 --> 00:13:01,130
There was a lot of compartmentalization happening
during the launch broadcast because you were

248
00:13:01,130 --> 00:13:08,150
there, you kind of had a job to do and I wanted
to stay focused on the cause, but also something

249
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exciting is happening that took seven years
to get to this point.

250
00:13:12,209 --> 00:13:16,990
So yeah, it was a mix between professionalism
and excitement and just, "Okay.

251
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Keep it together.

252
00:13:17,990 --> 00:13:19,640
A lot of internal monologues happening."

253
00:13:19,640 --> 00:13:21,180
But yeah, it was amazing.

254
00:13:21,180 --> 00:13:26,980
Dr. Moogega Cooper, we appreciate you being
here and visiting us here on the Rocket Ranch.

255
00:13:26,980 --> 00:13:31,810
And thanks for sharing your insight on the
Mars 2020 project and the Perseverance Rover.

256
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Yeah, go Perseverance!

257
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Good luck on the landing too.

258
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Thank you, yeah.

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00:13:37,530 --> 00:13:46,250
A special, thanks to Dr. Moogega Cooper, NASA
JPL's planetary protection lead for Mars Perseverance.

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And to learn more about everything going on
at the Kennedy Space Center, go to nasa.gov/kennedy.

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And if you'd like to find out what's happening
at our other NASA centers around the country,

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go to nasa.gov/podcast.

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A special shout out to our producer, John
Sackman, and editor, Frankie Martin.