Full episode with Dava Newman (Nov 2019): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fI6bYnRgSc
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Once it reaches 20,000 subscribers, I'll start posting the clips there instead. 
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Clip from full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fI6bYnRgSc If you enjoy these clips, subscribe to the new clips channel (Lex Clips): https://www.youtube.com/lexclips Once it reaches 20,000 subscribers, I'll start posting the clips there instead. For now, new full episodes are released once or twice a week and 1-2 new clips or a new non-podcast video is released on all other days.
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Dava Newman is the Apollo Program professor of AeroAstro at MIT and the former Deputy Administrator of NASA and has been a principal investigator on four spaceflight missions. Her research interests are in aerospace biomedical engineering, investigating human performance in varying gravity environments. She has developed a space activity suit, namely the BioSuit, which would provide pressure through compression directly on the skin via the suit's textile weave, patterning, and materials rather than with pressurized gas.

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I love artificial intelligence and I've also saw that you've enjoyed the movie Space Odyssey, 2001 A Space Odyssey.

It makes a few decisions there that prioritizes the mission over the astronauts.

Do you think from a high philosophical question, do you think Hal did the right thing of prioritizing the mission?

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

For a Mars mission, it's a great question that is the reality isn't it?

For a Mars mission, we need fully autonomous systems.

We will get humans, but they have to be fully autonomous.

And that's the most important concept, because there's not going to be a mission control on Earth.

20-minute time lag, there's just no way you're going to control it.

So, people have to be fully autonomous as well, but all of our systems as well.

So that's why we test them out on the moon as well.

When we have a few second, 3 second time lag, you can test them out.

We have to really get autonomous exploration down.

They left and they were on their own to figure out that mission.

Then when they hit land, they have resources, that's 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 where, again, AI and autonomy come in, a really robust autonomy, things that we don't have today yet.

So they're on the drawing boards, but we really need to test them out because that's what we're up against.

So fully autonomous, meaning like self-sufficient, there's still a role for the human in that picture.

Do you think there'll be a time when AI systems, beyond doing fully autonomous flight control, will also help or even take mission decisions like Hal did?

It depends, I mean, they're going to be designed by humans.

I think as you mentioned, humans are always in the loop.

I mean, we might be on Earth, we might be in orbit on Mars, maybe the systems, the landers down on the surface of Mars.

But I think we're going to get, we are right now just on Earth-based systems, AI systems that are incredibly capable and training them with all the data that we have now, you know, petabytes of data 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 educational issue with climate and our changing climate.

So this next decade, it's urgent that we take care of our own spaceship, which is spaceship Earth.

So that's to me where my focus has been for AI systems, using whatever's out there, kind of imagining also what the future situation is.

It's the satellite imagery of Earth of the future.

If you can hold that in your hands, that's going to be really powerful.

Will that help people accelerate positive change for Earth and for us to live in balance with Earth?

And kind of start with the ocean systems.

So oceans to land to air and kind of using all the space data.

So it's a huge role for artificial intelligence to help us analyze, I call it curating the data, using the data.

It has a lot to do with visualizations as well.


Speaker 0: I love artificial intelligence and I've also saw that you've enjoyed the movie Space Odyssey, 2001 A Space Odyssey. Let me ask the question about HAL 9000. It makes a few decisions there that prioritizes the mission over the astronauts. Do you think from a high philosophical question, do you think Hal did the right thing of prioritizing the mission?

Speaker 1: I think our artificial intelligence will be smarter in the future. For a Mars mission, it's a great question that is the reality isn't it?

Speaker 2: For a Mars mission, we need fully autonomous systems. We will get humans, but they have to be fully autonomous. And that's the most important concept, because there's not going to be a mission control on Earth. 20-minute time lag, there's just no way you're going to control it. So, people have to be fully autonomous as well, but all of our systems as well.

And so, that's the big design challenge. So that's why we test them out on the moon as well. When we have a few second, 3 second time lag, you can test them out. We have to really get autonomous exploration down. You asked me earlier about Magellan.

Magellan and his crew, they left, right? They were autonomous. 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 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 where, again, AI and autonomy come in, a really robust autonomy, things that we don't have today yet. So they're on the drawing boards, but we really need to test them out because that's what we're up against.

Speaker 0: So fully autonomous, meaning like self-sufficient, there's still a role for the human in that picture. Do you think there'll be a time when AI systems, beyond doing fully autonomous flight control, will also help or even take mission decisions like Hal did?

Speaker 1: That's interesting. It depends, I mean, they're going to be designed by humans. I think as you mentioned, humans are always in the loop.

Speaker 2: I mean, we might be on Earth, we might be in orbit on Mars, maybe the systems, the landers down on the surface of Mars. But I think we're going to get, we are right now just on Earth-based systems, AI systems that are incredibly capable and training them with all the data that we have now, you know, petabytes of data 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 educational issue 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 to me where my focus has been for AI systems, using whatever's out there, kind of imagining also what the future situation is.

It's the satellite imagery of Earth of the future. If you can hold that in your hands, that's going to be really powerful. Will that help people accelerate positive change for Earth and 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 and kind of using all the space data. So it's a huge role for artificial intelligence to help us analyze, I call it curating the data, using the data. It has a lot to do with visualizations as well. You

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Dava Newman: Role of AI in Space Travel