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Hi, I'm Doctor E, Ellen Stofan

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and Dr. Z, Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen and I,

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would like to answer
some of your questions.

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(light music)

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Let's see, it says my
11-year-old space enthusiast

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wants to know what does
NASA want to accomplish

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on the Moon

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when humans return there
in the next few years.

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- I really wanna answer
that question in two parts.

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The first one is,

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we want to create the capability,
not only to go to the Moon

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but going to Mars.

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Those technologies,
together with the commercial

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and international partners
that we work with,

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will bring us there in a
way that we can turn around

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and move towards Mars.

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We've never done that and we
want to increase the sphere

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in which we can explore with humans.

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What an amazing thing.

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But there's a second part and that is

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that we want to do science and exploration

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of the surface of the Moon.

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There are interesting questions
that we wanna answer there

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about the age of the solar system,

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about the history of the
Earth and its bombardment

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and so forth early in the Earth's history.

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We want to learn about water

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and many of the questions about this body

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that is our neighbor there in space

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and those questions we wanna
answer with experiments

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that we're developing right now.

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Okay, I'll ask you a question.

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Did Mars or Venus host
ancient watery environments

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conducive to early life

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and is there evidence that life emerged?

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- You know that's one of the
things that has really driven

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some of our exploration
of those two bodies.

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For Mars, the answer is definitely yes.

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You know we've long known
that Mars has channels

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parted by water across its surface

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but all of our spacecraft
have helped us hone in

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on the fact that Mars probably
had surface liquid water

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as much as an ocean's worth

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from about 3.9 or so billion years ago

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to about 3.5 billion years.

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During that time, the conditions existed

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in which life could have arisen

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and we're still trying to figure out

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did life actually evolve on Mars or not?

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And with our next mission to Mars

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that's gonna be launched this summer,

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we're going to be looking
into that very question

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of can we find more evidence.

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Did something looking
towards life actually evolve

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on Mars or not?

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So we have a lot of questions about that.

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Venus is an actually interesting story

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because back in the early '80s,

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have a spacecraft that measured
the isotopes of hydrogen

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in the atmosphere of Venus

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which told us that Venus
probably early in its history,

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lost an ocean's worth of water.

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So it had a lot of water

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but as Venus evolved, it lost that water.

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Some models suggest that Venus indeed

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could have had an ocean

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but we wanna go back to
Venus and really measure

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the chemistry of the rocks on Venus

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because that's what's gonna
help us answer that question.

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- Talking about places
with potential life,

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let me ask one more question which is

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I'm interested if we ever
go and send a real probe

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to Europa to see if
there's really anything

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in that ocean under all that ice.

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- One of the things we wanna do

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with the Europa Clipper mission

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is actually go look at where
we think there are plumes

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of liquid that are erupting
from that subsurface ocean

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out into space

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and if we can analyze
some of those materials

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that are coming out of
the interior of Europa,

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well on the surface where
the material from those

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erupting plumes will fall,

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we're hoping that we can
understand more of the chemistry

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of that subsurface ocean.

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Eventually, obviously
what we would love to do,

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is land on the surface of Europa

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where we could make better measurements

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and try to understand could there be life

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in Europa's subsurface ocean

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and scientists and
technologists have even come up

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with concepts for spacecraft
that could land on the surface

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and maybe melt their way through the ice

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to go and explore that subsurface ocean,

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but those missions are
probably a couple decades out.

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This is a fun question for right now

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and in fact, I was just
thinking of doing this today.

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How would sourdough
starter thrive in space?

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Do you know that one?

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- I'm actually interested
what you came up with

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when you thought about that earlier today.

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- It's interesting because

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I've gone out to classrooms before

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and done an experiment with yeast

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to help kids understand the
idea of the different conditions

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on different planets can affect life.

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And so we've done an experiment where we

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put yeast in hot vinegar

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and we put yeast in ice
water that is super cold,

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we microwave it and then put in water.

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And it's amazing.

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Actually, the yeast still is active.

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All those harsh conditions
make it a little less active

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so it bubbles a little less

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but yeast actually only needs
sugar and moisture and warmth

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to start activity and so,

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it doesn't really need oxygen.

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So I thought that was
an interesting thing.

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I didn't realize it didn't need oxygen.

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I did think it needed oxygen.

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- You know what's amazing is
how general these principles

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are applicable throughout the universe

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and actually going on a space station line

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where of course the astronauts
have baked cookies out there

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is gonna one of those
exciting experiments.

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There's many others.

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- Thanks so much.

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This has been really fun

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and I can't wait to do our next episode