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 4 spaceflight 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 bio suit that we talk about in this conversation.

Due to some scheduling challenges on both our parts.

And in true engineering style, she said, I talk fast, you pick the best questions, let's get it done.

It was a fascinating conversation about space exploration and the future of spacesuits.

This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast.

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And now, here's my conversation with Dava

So let's look back in history, 500 years ago, Ferdinand Magellan's crew was first to circumnavigate the globe, but

I think people don't know, like halfway through, and so did 242 of the 260 sailors that took that 3 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?

I think in all of exploration, the challenge and the unknown.

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.

So back to Magellan and his crew, since they really didn't have a three-dimensional map 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, had to be really important in terms of the team dynamics and that leadership had to be incredibly important.

Team dynamics, how do you keep people focused on the mission.

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

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

Absolutely, for a Mars mission, it's lots of challenges, technology, but since I specialize in keeping my astronauts alive, the psychosocial issues, the psychology of psychosocial, team dynamics, leadership, we're all people, so that's always a huge impact, 1 of the top 3, I think, of any isolated, confined environment, and any mission that is really pretty extreme.

So when did you first fall in love with the idea of exploration?

I grew up in Montana in the Rocky Mountains in Helena, the capital.

So literally 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.

So since my earliest memory is I think of myself as kind of exploring the natural beauty of the Rocky Mountains where I grew up.

So exploration is not limited to any domain, it's just anything.

So the natural domain of any kind, going out to the woods into a place you haven't been, it's all exploration.

Yeah, I have a pretty all-encompassing definition of exploration.

When were you first captivated by the idea that we little humans could venture out into the space, into the great unknown of space.

So it's a great year to talk about that, the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, as I was alive during Apollo, and specifically Apollo 11, I was 5 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 Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and never forget Michael Collins in orbit.

You know, those 3 men, 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 actually just taught me to dream, to any impossible mission could be possible with enough focus.

I'm sure you need some luck, but you definitely need the leadership, you need 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.

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.

So again, maybe a romanticized philosophical question, but when you look up at the stars, knowing that there's at least a hundred 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?

I always open my public talks with a big Hubble Space Telescope image looking out into, you mentioned just now, the solar system, the Milky Way, because 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.

You're confident this is the best planet.

I'm pretty sure it's the best planet, the best planet that we know of.

I mean, I search my research, as you know, in mission worlds, and when will we find life?

I think actually probably the next decade.

We find probably past life, probably the evidence of past life on Mars, let's say.

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, 3 Hg is fantastic, you know, you're all super human, we can all slam dunk a basketball, it's going to be fun to play sports on Mars.

So I think we'll find past, no 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 used to just know about the ice caps, you know, North and South Pole.

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 out, will we see any life forms?

I leave it open as a possibility, but I feel pretty certain that past life or fossilized life forms we'll find.

And then we have to get to all these ocean worlds, these beautiful moons of other planets, since we know they have water and we're looking for a simple search for life, follow the water, carbon-based life.

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, let's follow the water and look for the building blocks of life.

So you think in the next decade, we might see hints of past life or even current life?

Do humans have to be involved or can this be robots and rovers and?

I mean, we've been at it on Mars in particular, 50 years.

Now we know how Mars lost its atmosphere, you know, we're starting to know because of the lack of the electromagnetic shield.

So we've been studying 50 years with our robots, we still haven't found it.

So I think once we have a human mission there, we just accelerate things.

It's always humans and our rovers and robots together, but we just have to think that 50 years we've been looking at Mars and taking images and doing the best science that we can.

People need to realize Mars is really far away.

You know, it's this extreme, extreme exploration.

of the wonderful explorers and sailors of the past, which kind of are lots of my inspiration for exploration.

I mean, it's 8 months to get there, year and a half to get home.

But the kind of organism we might be able to see hints of on Mars are kind of microorganisms perhaps.

Yeah, I remember that humans, we're kind of, you know, we're hosts, right?

We're hosts to all of our bacteria and viruses, right?

Do you think it's a big leap from the viruses and the bacteria to us humans?

Put another way, do you think on all those moons, beautiful wet moons that you mentioned, you think there's intelligent life out there?

I mean, that's the hope, but we don't have the scientific evidence for that now.

I think all the evidence we have in terms of life existing is much more compelling, again, because we have the building blocks of life.

Now, when that life turns into intelligence, that's a big unknown.

If we ever meet, do you think we would be able to find a common language?

It's just so far, I mean, do physics display a role here?

Look at all these exoplanets, 6,000 exoplanets.

I mean, even the couple dozen Earth-like planets that are exoplanets that really look like habitable planets.

They look like they have all the building blocks.

The only thing is they're 10 to 100 light years away.

So scientifically, we know they're there.

They have everything going for them, right?

You know, we call them in the Goldilocks zone, not too hot, not too cold, just perfect for habitability for life.

But now the reality is if they're 10 at the best, to 100, to thousands of light years away, so what's out there?

But I just can't think that we're not the only ones.

So absolutely life, life in the universe, probably intelligent life as well.

Do you think there needs to be fundamental revolutions in how we, the tools we use to travel through space in order for us to venture outside of our solar system?

Or do you think the ways, the rockets, the ideas we have now, the engineering ideas we have now will be enough to venture out?

Right now, you know, because again, speed of light is a limit.

To explore our solar system, to get to Mars, to explore all the planets, then we need a technology push, but technology push here is just advanced propulsion.

It'd be great if I could get humans to Mars in say, you know, 3 to 4 months, not 8 months.

I mean, have the time, 50% reduction, that's great in terms of safety and wellness of the crew.

Orbital mechanics, but physics rules, orbital mechanics is still there.

Invent a new physics, I mean, look at quantum, you know, look at quantum theory.

So we definitely don't know all the physics that exist too, but we're, we still have to, it's not science fiction.

You know, we still have to pay attention to physics in terms of our speed of travel for space flight.

So you were the deputy administrator of NASA during the Obama administration.

There's a current Artemis program that's working on a crewed mission to the moon and then perhaps to Mars.

What are the biggest challenges do you think of getting to the moon, of landing to the moon once again, and then the big step to Mars?

Well, I love the moon program now, Artemis.

It is definitely, we've been in low Earth orbit, I love low Earth orbit too, but I just always look at it as 3 phases.

So, low Earth orbit where we've been 40 years, so definitely time to get back to deep space, time to get to the Moon, there's so much to do on the Moon.

I hope we don't get stuck on the Moon for 50 years.

I really want to get to the moon, spend the next decade first with the lander, then humans.

There's just a lot to explore, but to me it's a big technology push.

only 3 days away, so the moon is definitely the right place.

So we kind of buy down our technology, we invest in specifically habitats, life support systems.

We really need to understand really how to live off planet.

We've been off planet and low Earth orbit, but still that's only 400 kilometers up, 250 miles, right?

So we get to the moon, it really is a great proving ground for the technologies.

And now we're in deep space, radiation becomes a huge issue again to keep our astronauts well alive.

And I look at all of that investment for moon exploration to the ultimate goal, the horizon goals, 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 utilization, ISRU, you know, in-situ resource utilization is huge when it comes to exploration for the moon and Mars.

So 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.

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

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, 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, water that's trapped in ice and the lunar craters.

Because it's water and when you wanna try to, it could be fuel, life support systems, so you go where the water is.

And so when the moon is kind of 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 to have an atmosphere for people to live in.

So all of that is going to bind down the technology, doing the investigation, doing the science, what are the basically called lunar volatiles, you know, what is that ice on the moon, how much of it is there, what are the resources look like.

To me that helps us, that's just the next step in getting humans to Mars.

And it's cheaper and more effective to sort of develop some of these difficult challenges, like solve some of these challenges, practice, develop, test, and so on on the

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 going to have thousands, lots of people, hopefully tens of thousands in low Earth orbit because low Earth orbit is a beautiful place to go and look down on the Earth.

I think the lunar explorers will also want to do round trips and be on the moon, three-day trip, explore, do science.

Also because the lunar day is 14 days and lunar night is also 14 days.

So in that 28-day cycle, half of it is in light, half of it's in dark.

So people would probably wanna do couple week trips, month long trips, not longer than that.

yeah, astronauts are going to be civilians in the future too.

Not all astronauts are going to 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, that astronauts, because of the big push we put in the private sector, that astronauts, essentially, you're gonna be astronauts you get over 100 kilometers up.

And I think once you've done orbital flight, then you're an astronaut.

So a lot of private citizens are gonna become astronauts.

Do you think 1 day you might step foot on the moon?

Mars, I'm gonna, that's my life's work to get the next generation to Mars.

That's you or even younger than you, my students' generation will be the Martian explorers.

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

Hey, the moon's pretty good, And it's a lot tough.

I mean, it's still a really tough mission.

But again, before Apollo, we didn't think getting humans

We're investing in the heavy lift launch capabilities that we need to get there.

We haven't had that since the Apollo days, since Saturn V.

SpaceX is going to have its heavy capability and Blue Origin is coming along too with heavy lift.

So that's pretty fantastic from where I sit.

Today I have 0 heavy lift launch capability.

I can't wait, just in a few years, we'll have 3 different heavy lift launch capabilities.

You know, your heart is perhaps with NASA, but you mentioned SpaceX and Blue Origin.

What are your thoughts of SpaceX and the innovative efforts there from the sort of private company aspect?

They're, remember that the investments in SpaceX is government funding.

It's NASA funding, it's US Air Force funding, just as it should be because you're betting on a company who is moving fast, has some new technology development.

So when I was at NASA, it really was under our public-private partnerships.

So necessarily, the government needs to fund these startups, now SpaceX is no longer a startup, but it's been at it for 10 years, it's had some accidents, learned a lot of lessons, but it's great because it's the way you move faster.

And also some private industry folks and private businesses will take a lot more risk.

That's also really important for the government.

What do you think about that culture of risk?

I mean, sort of NASA and the government are exceptionally good at delivering sort of safe, like there's a little bit more of a culture of caution and safety and sort of this kind of solid engineering.

And I think SpaceX, while it has the same kind of stuff, it has a little bit more of that startup feel where they take the bigger risk.

Is that exciting for you to see, seeing bigger risks in this kind of

Absolutely, and the best scenario is both of them working together.

Because there's really important lessons learned, especially when you talk about human spaceflight, safety, quality assurance, these things are the utmost importance, but both aviation and space, when human lives are at stake.

On the other hand, government agencies, NASA can be European Space Agency, you name it, they become very bureaucratic, pretty risk averse, move pretty slowly.

So I think the best is when you combine the partnerships from both sides.

Industry necessarily has to push the government, take some more risk.

I actually gave an award at NASA for failing smart.

you can kind of break open the culture, say, no, look at Apollo, that was a huge risk.

So there's always a culture of safety, quality assurance, engineering at its best.

But on the other hand, you want to get things done

you have to also get them, you have to bring the cost down.

Now for when it comes to launch, We really have to bring the cost down and get the frequency up.

And so that's what the newcomers are doing.

So it's about the most exciting time I can imagine for spaceflight.

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