Dava Newman: Space Exploration, Space Suits, and Life on Mars | Lex Fridman Podcast #51

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   The following is a…

   1. LFLex Fridman0:00

      The following is a conversation with Dava Newman. She's the Apollo Program professor at MIT and the former deputy administrator of NASA, and has been a principal investigator on four space flight missions. Her research interests are in aerospace biomedical engineering, investigating human performance in varying gravity environments. She has designed and engineered and built some incredible spacesuit technology, namely the biosuit that we talk about in this conversation. Due to some scheduling challenges on both our parts, we only had about 40 minutes together, and in true engineering style, she said, "I talk fast, you pick the best questions, let's get it done." And we did. It was a fascinating conversation about space exploration and the future of spacesuits. This is the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube, give it five stars on Apple Podcasts, support it on Patreon, or simply connect with me on Twitter @lexfridman, spelled F-R-I-D-M-A-N. For the first time, this show is presented by Cash App, the number one finance app in the App Store. Cash App is the easiest way to send money to your friends, and it is also the easiest way to buy, sell, and deposit Bitcoin. Most Bitcoin exchanges take days for a bank transfer to become investable. Through Cash App, it takes seconds. Invest as little as $1, and now you own Bitcoin. I have several conversations about Bitcoin coming up on this podcast. Decentralized digital currency is a fascinating technology in general to explore, both at the technical and the philosophical level. Cash App is also the easiest way to try and grow your money with our new investing feature. Unlike investing tools that force you to buy entire shares of stock, Cash App, amazingly, lets you instantly invest as little or as much as you want. Some stocks in the market are hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars per share, and now you can still own a piece with as little as $1. Broker services are provided by Cash App Investing, a subsidiary of Square and member SIPC. I'm also excited to be working with Cash App to support one of my favorite organizations called FIRST, which is best known for their FIRST robotics and Lego competitions that seeks to inspire young students in engineering and technology fields all over the world. That's over 110 countries, 660,000 students, 300,000 mentors and volunteers, and a perfect rating on Charity Navigator, which means the donated money is used to maximum effectiveness. When you sign up for Cash App and use the promo code LEXPODCAST, you'll instantly receive $10, and Cash App will also donate $10 to FIRST, an amazing organization that I've personally seen inspire girls and boys to learn, to explore, and to dream of engineering a better world. Don't forget to use the code LEXPODCAST when you download Cash App from the App Store or Google Play store today. And now here's my conversation with Dava Newman. You circumnavigated the globe on boat. So let's look back in history. 500 years ago, Ferdinand Magellan's crew was first to circumnavigate the globe. But, uh, he died, wh- I think people don't know, like halfway through and so did 242 of the 260 sailors that took that three-year journey. What do you think it was like for that crew at that time heading out into the unknown to face probably likely death? Do you think they were filled with fear, with excitement?

   2. DNDava Newman3:46

      Probably not fear. I think in all of exploration, uh, the challenge and the unknown, so probably wonderment. And then just the, when you really are sailing the world's oceans, you have extreme weather of all kinds. When we were circumnavigating, it was challenging, a new dynamic. You really appreciate, uh, Mother Earth, you appreciate the winds and the waves. So back to Magellan and his crew, since they really didn't have a, you know, a three-dimensional map of, of the globe, of the Earth when they went out, just probably looking over the horizon thinking, "What's there? What's there?" So I would say the challenge, the... Had to be really important in terms of the team dynamics and that leadership had to be h- incredibly important. Team dynamics, uh, how do you keep people focused on the mission.

   3. LFLex Fridman4:32

      So you think the psychology... That's interesting. There's probably echoes of that in the space exploration stuff we'll talk about.

   4. DNDava Newman4:37

      Absolutely.

   5. LFLex Fridman4:37

      So the psychology, the, of the dynamics between the human beings on the mission is important?

   6. DNDava Newman4:43

      Absolutely. For a Mars mission, it's, there's lots of challenges, technology, but, you know, since I specialize in keeping my astronauts alive, the psychosocial issues, the psychology of it, psychosocial team dynamics, leadership, that's, uh... You know, we're all people, so that's gonna be, that's a hu- always a huge impact. One of the top three, I think, of any, uh, isolated confined environment and can- any mission that is really pretty extreme.

   7. LFLex Fridman5:08

      So your Twitter handle is davaexplorer. So when did you first fall in love with the idea of exploration?

   8. DNDava Newman5:14

      Ah, that's a great question. You know, maybe as, as long as I can remember, as I grew up in Montana in the Rocky Mountains in Helena, the capital, and so literally, you know, Mount Helena was my backyard, was right up there. So exploring, being in the mountains, looking at caves, just running around, but always being in nature. S- so since my earliest memories, I, you know, think of myself as kind of exploring, uh, the, the natural beauty of the Rocky Mountains where I grew up.

   9. LFLex Fridman5:44

      So exploration is not limited to any domain, it's just anything, so the natural domain of any kind, th- going out into the woods, into a place you haven't been, it's all exploration.

   10. DNDava Newman5:52

       I think so. Yeah. I have a pretty all-encompassing (laughs) definition of exploration.

   11. LFLex Fridman5:56

       (laughs) So what about space exploration? What, wha- When were you first captivated by the idea that we little humans can venture out into the space, into the great unknown of space?

   12. DNDava Newman6:06

       S- so it's a great year to talk about that, the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 as I was alive during, uh, Apollo and specifically Apollo 11. I was five years old and I...... distinctly remember that. I remember that humanity... I'm sure I probably didn't know their names at the time, you know. There's, uh, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and never forget Michael Collins in orbit. You know, those three men, uh, you know, doing something that just seemed impossible, seemed impossible a decade earlier, even a year earlier, but... So the Apollo program really inspired me and then I think it, it actually just taught me to dream, to any impossible mission could be possible with enough focus. And I'm sure you need some luck, but you definitely need the leadership, you need the, the focus of the mission. So since an early age, I thought, of course people should be interplanetary, of course people, we need people on earth and we're gonna have people exploring space as well.

   13. LFLex Fridman7:01

       That seemed obvious, you know, at that age? Of course.

   14. DNDava Newman7:04

       It, it, it, it opened it up. Before we saw men on the moon, it wasn't obvious to me at all, but once we understood that, yes, absolutely, astronauts that's what they do. They explore, they go into space and they land on other planets or moons.

   15. LFLex Fridman7:17

       So, again, maybe a romanticized philosophical question, but, uh, when you look up at the stars, knowing that, you know, there's at least, uh, 100 billion of them in the Milky Way galaxy, right? So we're really a small speck in this giant thing that's the visible universe. How does that make you feel about our efforts here?

   16. DNDava Newman7:40

       I love the perspective. I love that perspective. I always open my public talks with a big Hubble Space Telescope image and looking out into, you'd mentioned just now the solar system, the Milky Way, because I really, I think it's really important to know that we're just a small pale blue dot. We're really fortunate we're on the best planet by far. Life is fantastic here.

   17. LFLex Fridman7:58

       That we know of.

   18. DNDava Newman7:59

       I think we'll-

   19. LFLex Fridman7:59

       Are you confident this is the best planet? (laughs)

   20. DNDava Newman8:01

       I'm pretty sure it's the best planet, the best planet that we know of. I mean, I, I searched my researchers, you know, in missing worlds and when will we find life?

   21. LFLex Fridman8:07

       Yeah.

   22. DNDava Newman8:08

       I think actually probably the next decade we find probably past life, probably the evidence of past life on Mars-

   23. LFLex Fridman8:14

       On Mars?

   24. DNDava Newman8:14

       ... let's say.

   25. LFLex Fridman8:14

       You think there was-

   26. DNDava Newman8:15

       Pretty likely.

   27. LFLex Fridman8:16

       ... once life on Mars or-

   28. DNDava Newman8:17

       Oh, definitely, yeah.

   29. LFLex Fridman8:18

       ... do you think there's currently?

   30. DNDava Newman8:19

       Uh, I'm more comfortable saying probably 3.5 billion years ago, feel pretty confident there was life on Mars just because then it had an electromagnetic shield, it had an atmosphere, has a wonderful gravity level three, three HD is fantastic, you know, you're all super human, human. We can all slam dunk a basketball. I mean, it's gonna be fun to play sports on Mars. But, so I think we'll find past the, uh, you know, fossilized probably the evidence of past life on Mars. Currently, that's again, we need the next decade, but the evidence is mounting for sure. We do have the organics, we're finding organics. We have water, seasonal water on Mars. We used to just know about the ice caps, you know, north and south pole. Now we have seasonal water. We do have the building blocks for life on Mars. We really need to dig down into the soil because everything on the top surface is radiated. But once we find down will we see any, any life forms, will we see any bugs? I, I leave it open as a possibility, but I feel pretty certain that past life or, you know, fossilized life forms we'll find. And then we have to get to all these ocean worlds, these, these beautiful, you know, moons of other, other planets since we know they have water and we're looking for... Since simple search for life fol- follow the water, you know, carbon-based life, that's the only life we know. There could be other life forms that we don't know about, but it's hard to search for them because we don't know. So in our search for life in the solar system, it's definitely, you know, search, you know, follow the water and look for the building blocks of life.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   So developing sort of…

   1. DNDava Newman15:00

      as we call it, to get people to Mars. But we just don't go to Mars tomorrow, right? We really need a decade on the moon, I think, investing in the technologies, learning, making sure the astronauts are... their health, you know, they're safe and well. And also learning so much about in situ research util- utilization, ISRU, you know, in situ resource utilization is huge when it comes to exploration for the moon and Mars. So let's... We need a test bed and to me, it really is a lunar test bed, and then we use those same investments to think about getting people to Mars in the 2030s.

   2. LFLex Fridman15:32

      So developing sort of a platform of all the kind of research tools, of all the... What's the resource utilization, uh... Can, can you speak to that?

   3. DNDava Newman15:39

      Yeah, so ISRU, for the moon, it's... We'll go to the South Pole and it's fascinating. We have images of it. Of course, we know there's permanently shaded areas in, like, by Shackleton crater, and there's areas that are permanently in the sun. Well, it seems that there's a lot of water ice, you know, water that's-

   4. LFLex Fridman15:57

      Mm-hmm.

   5. DNDava Newman15:57

      ... entrapped in ice in the lunar craters. That's the first place you go. Why? Because (laughs) it's water and when you wanna try to... It could be fuel, you know, life support systems. So you kinda, you, again, you go where the water is. And, um, so when the moon is kinda for resources, utilization, but to learn how to... can we make the fuels out of the resources that are on the moon. We have to think about 3D printing, right? You don't get to bring all this mass with you. You have to learn how to literally live off the land. We need a pressure shell. We need to have an atmosphere for people to-

   6. LFLex Fridman16:27

      Mm-hmm.

   7. DNDava Newman16:27

      ... to live in. So all of that is kinda buying down the technology, doing the investigation, doing the science. What are the basically become lunar volatiles? You know, what is that ice on the moon? How much of it is there? How... What are the resources look like? To me, that helps us. That's just the next step in getting humans to Mars.

   8. LFLex Fridman16:46

      And it's cheaper and more effective to sort of develop some of these, uh, difficult challenge- uh, like solve some of these challenges, practices, develop, test and so on, on the moon-

   9. DNDava Newman16:54

      Absolutely.

   10. LFLex Fridman16:54

       ... whereas on Mars.

   11. DNDava Newman16:55

       Absolutely. And people are gonna love to... You know, you get to the moon, you get to... you have a beautiful earth rise. I mean, you have the most magnificent view of Earth being off-planet, so it just makes sense. I think we're gonna have thousands, lots of people, hopefully tens of thousands, in low Earth orbit, 'cause low Earth orbit is a beautiful place to go and look down on the Earth. But people wanna return home. I think the, the lunar explorers will also want to do round trips and, you know, be on, be on the moon, three-day trip, explore, do science. Also because the lunar day is, you know, 14 days and the lunar night's also 14 days. So in that 28-day cycle, you know, half of it is in light, half of it's in dark. So people would probably wanna do, you know, couple-week trips, month-long trips, not longer than that.

   12. LFLex Fridman17:34

       What do you mean by people? What do you... What-

   13. DNDava Newman17:36

       People, explorers. I mean-

   14. LFLex Fridman17:37

       Explorer? (laughs)

   15. DNDava Newman17:38

       Yeah, a- astronauts are gonna be civilians in the future too. Not all, not all astronauts are gonna be government astronauts. Actually, when I was at NASA, we changed, we actually got the law changed to recognize astronauts that are not only government employees, you know, NASA astronauts or European Space Agency astronauts, or Russian Space Agency the- astronauts, because of the big push we put on the private sector that astronauts essentially are gonna be astronauts you get over a hun- you know, 100 kilometers up.

   16. LFLex Fridman18:02

       Mm-hmm.

   17. DNDava Newman18:02

       And, uh, I think once you've done orbital, orbital flight, then you're an astronaut. So a lot of private citizens are gonna become astronauts.

   18. LFLex Fridman18:10

       Do you think, do you think one day you might step foot on the moon?

   19. DNDava Newman18:13

       I think it'd be good to go to the moon. I'd, I'd give that a shot. (laughs)

   20. LFLex Fridman18:16

       (laughs)

   21. DNDava Newman18:16

       Mars, I'm gonna... That's my life's work to get, um, the next generation to Mars. That's, that's, that's, that's you or even younger than you. You know, my students' generation-

   22. LFLex Fridman18:24

       Yes.

   23. DNDava Newman18:24

       ... will be the Martian explorers. I'm just...... working to facilitate that, but that's not gonna be me.

   24. LFLex Fridman18:30

       Hey, the moon's pretty good, and it's a lot tough, I mean, it's inc- incr- it's still a really tough mission. It, uh-

   25. DNDava Newman18:35

       It is an extreme mission, exactly. It's great for exploration, but doable. But again, before Apollo, we didn't think getting humans-

   26. LFLex Fridman18:42

       Right.

   27. DNDava Newman18:42

       ... to the moon was even possible. So we kind of made that possible, but we need to go back. We absolutely need to go back. We're investing in the heavy lift launch capabilities that we need to get there. We haven't had that, you know, since the Apollo days, since, since Saturn V. So now we have three options on the board. That's what's so fantastic. NASA has its, you know, space launch system, SpaceX is gonna have its, its heavy capability, and Blue Origin is coming along too with heavy lift. So that's pretty fantastic from where I sit. I'm the Apollo program professor-

   28. LFLex Fridman19:09

       (laughs)

   29. DNDava Newman19:09

       ... today I have zero heavy lift launch capability. I can't wait, just in a few years we'll have three different heavy lift launch capabilities. So that's pretty exciting.

   30. LFLex Fridman19:18

       You know, your heart is perhaps with NASA, but you've mentioned SpaceX and Blue Origin. What are your, what are your thoughts of, uh, SpaceX and the innovative efforts there from the sort of private company aspect?
3. 30:00 – 39:38

   Okay, so the pressure…

   1. DNDava Newman30:00

      images. If it were really good, it would kind of be, uh, it would have lab capabilities as well.

   2. LFLex Fridman30:05

      Okay, so the pressure comes for the body, comes from the mechanical pressure, which is fascinating. Now what aspect, when I, when I look at bio suit, just the suits you're working on sort of, uh, from a fashion perspective, they look awesome. Is that, is that a small part of it too?

   3. DNDava Newman30:20

      Oh, absolutely 'cause the teams that we work with... Uh, of course, I'm an engineer. There's engineering students, there's design students, there's architects, so it really is a very much a multidisciplinary team. So, sure, colors, um, aesthetics, materials, all those things we pay attention to. So it's not just an engineering solution, it really is a, you know, much more of a holistic... It's- it's a suit. It's a suit. You're, you know-

   4. LFLex Fridman30:41

      Yeah. Yeah.

   5. DNDava Newman30:41

      You're- you're dressed in a suit now.

   6. LFLex Fridman30:42

      Form-fitting and so on, yeah.

   7. DNDava Newman30:42

      It's form-fitting, so we really have to pay attention to- to all those things. And so that's the- the design team that we work with. And my partner, Gaitradi, you know, we're- we're partners in this in terms of he comes from an architecture/industrial design background, so bringing those skills to bear as well. We team up with industry folks who are in, you know, athletic performance and designers, so it really is a- a team that brings all those skills together.

   8. LFLex Fridman31:06

      So what role does the spacesuit play in our long-term staying in Mars? Sort of exploring the... Doing all the work that astronauts do, but also perhaps civilians one day almost like taking steps towards colonization of Mars. What role does a spacesuit play there?

   9. DNDava Newman31:21

      So you always need life support system, pressurized habitat, and I like to say, "We're not going to Mars to sit around." (laughs) So you need a suit. You're- you know, even if you land and have the lander, you're not going there to stay inside, that's for darn sure. We're going there to search for the evidence of life, that's why we're going to Mars, so you need a lot of mobility. So for me the suit is the best way to give the human mobility. We're always still gonna need rovers, we're gonna need robots, so for me exploration is always a- a suite of explorers. Some people are gonna... Some of the suite of explorers are humans, but s- many are gonna be robots, uh, smart systems, things like that. But I look at it as kinda all those capabilities together make the best exploration team.

   10. LFLex Fridman32:01

       So let me ask, I love artificial intelligence and, uh, you've, uh, I've also saw that you've enjoyed the movie Space Odyssey, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Let me ask the question about HAL 9000 that makes a few decisions there that it prioritizes the mission over the- the astronauts. Do you think, from a high philosophical question, uh, do you think HAL did the right thing of prioritizing the mission?

   11. DNDava Newman32:24

       I think our artificial intelligence will be smarter in the future.

   12. LFLex Fridman32:28

       (laughs)

   13. DNDava Newman32:28

       For a Mars mission, it's a great question though because the- the reality of it is that for a Mars mission you, we need fully autonomous systems. We will get humans but- but they have to be fully autonomous, and that's a really import- that's the most important, uh, concept because, you know, there's not gonna be a mission control on earth, you know? It, you know, 20-minute, uh, time lag, there's just no way you're gonna control it, so fully autonom- so people have to be fully autonomous as well, but all of our systems as well. And so that's- that's the big design challenge, so that's why we test 'em out on the moon as well when we have a, okay, a few second, you know, a three-second time lag, you can test 'em out. We have to really get autonomous exploration down. You asked me earlier about Magellan. Magellan and his crew, they- they left, right? They were autonomous.

   14. LFLex Fridman33:10

       Mm-hmm.

   15. DNDava Newman33:11

       You know, they were autonomous. They left and they were on their own to figure out that mission. Then when they hit land, they have resources. That's the in situ resource utilization and everything else they brought with them. So we have to, I think, have that mindset for exploration. Again, back to the moon, it's more the testing ground, the proving ground with technologies, but when we get to Mars it's so far away that we need fully autonomous systems. So I think that's- that's where, again, AI and autonomy come in. Uh, really robust autonomy. Things that we don't have today yet, um, so they're on the drawing boards, but we really need to test 'em out 'cause that's- that's what we're up against.

   16. LFLex Fridman33:43

       So fully autonomous meaning like self-sufficient? There's still a role for the human into- in that picture. Do you think there will be a time when, uh, AI systems just beyond doing fully autonomous flight control will also help or even take mission decisions like HAL did?

   17. DNDava Newman33:59

       Uh, that's interesting. It depends. I mean, they're gonna be designed by humans. I think as you mentioned, humans are always in the loop.

   18. LFLex Fridman34:04

       Right.

   19. DNDava Newman34:04

       I mean, we might be on earth, we might be in orbit on Mars, maybe, uh, the systems, the landers down on the surface of Mars, but, yeah, I think we're gonna get... We are right now just on earth-based systems, you know, AI systems that are incredibly capable and, you know, training 'em, uh, with all the data that we have now, you know, petabytes of data, uh, from Earth. What I care about for the autonomy in AI right now, how we're applying it in research, is to look at Earth and look at climate systems. I mean, that's the... It's not for Mars to me today. Right now AI is to eyes on Earth. All of our space data, compiling that using supercomputers because we have so much information and knowledge and we need to get that into people's hands. We need... First there's the educational issue with- with climate and our changing climate, then we need to change human behavior. That's the biggie. So this next decade it's urgent that we take care of our own spaceship which is Spaceship Earth. So that's, uh, to me where, uh, my focus has been for AI systems using whatever's out there, kind of imagining also what the- the future situation is. With the satellite imagery of Earth of the future, if you can hold that in your hands, that's gonna be really powerful. Will that help people accelerate positive change for Earth, for us to live in balance with Earth? I hope so and kind of start with the ocean systems. So oceans to land to air kind of using all the space data, so, uh, it's a huge role for artificial intelligence to help us analyze, like, uh, curating the data, using the data. It has a lot to do with visualizations as- as well.

   20. LFLex Fridman35:31

       Do you think... And a weird dark question, do you think human species can survive if we don't become interplanetary in the next century or couple of centuries?

   21. DNDava Newman35:43

       I think absolutely we can survive. I don't think Mars is option B actually. (laughs) So I think it's all about saving Spaceship Earth and humanity. Um, I, simply put, you know, Earth doesn't need us but we really need Earth, you know. All of humanity needs to live in balance with Earth 'cause Earth has been here a long time before we ever showed up and it'll be here a long time after. It's just a matter of how do we want to live with all living beings, you know, much more in balance because we need to take care of the Earth and right now we're- we're not. So that's the urgency, and I think it is the next decade to try to live much more sustainably, live more in balance with Earth. I think the human species has a great long optimistic future but we have to act. It's urgent. We, you know, it, we have to change behavior, we- we have to, we're, we have to realize that we're all in this together, it's-It's just one blue bubble. It's for humanity. So when I think people realize that we're all astronauts, that's the great news is everyone's supposed to be an astronaut. We're all on a, we're all astronauts of spaceship Earth and you know, again this is our mission. This is our, our mission to take care of the planet.

   22. LFLex Fridman36:45

       And yet as we explore out from our, from our spaceship Earth here out into the, in space, what do you think the next 50, 100, 200 years look like for space exploration?

   23. DNDava Newman36:57

       Oh I'm uh, I'm optimistic so I think that we'll have lots of people, thousands of people, tens of thousands of people, who knows maybe millions in low-Earth orbit. That's just a place that we're gonna have people and actually some industry manufacturing, things like that. That, that dream I hope we realize getting people to the moon so I can envision a lot of people on the moon. Again it's a great place to go to l-

   24. LFLex Fridman37:17

       Living v- or visiting?

   25. DNDava Newman37:18

       Living. Probably visiting and living if, if you want to. Most people are gonna wanna come back to, to Earth I think but there'll be some people and it's not such a long-

   26. LFLex Fridman37:26

       Good view (laughs) .

   27. DNDava Newman37:26

       It's a good view. It's a beautiful view so I think that we will have uh, you know, many people on the moon as well. I think there'll be some people you told me wow, you know hundreds of years out. So we'll have people, we'll be interplanetary for sure as a species. Uh, so I think we'll be on the moon, I think we'll be on Mars. You know Venus, no it's already a runaway greenhouse gas so not a great p- great place for science.

   28. LFLex Fridman37:45

       Yes.

   29. DNDava Newman37:45

       You know Jupiter all of in, within the solar system great place for all of our scientific probes. I don't see so much in terms of human physical presence. We'll be exploring them so we, we live in our minds there because we're exploring them and going on those journeys but it's really our, our, our choice in terms of our decisions of how imbalanced you know we're gonna be living here on the, the Earth.

   30. LFLex Fridman38:07

       When do you think the first woman, first person will step on Mars?

Episode duration: 39:32