Dava Newman: Space Exploration, Space Suits, and Life on Mars
太空与探索音乐与艺术生物与进化技术与编程心理与人性
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🔑 关键词
marsearthmoonspacemissionastronautsexplorationdonapptermshumanssystemshumansuitbestgoingpressureputdesignnasa
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🎙️ 完整对话（1044 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
The following is a conversation with David Newman.
以下是与大卫·纽曼的对话。
Lex Fridman (00:03.380)
She's the Apollo Program Professor at MIT
她是麻省理工学院阿波罗计划教授
Lex Fridman (00:06.120)
and the former Deputy Administrator of NASA
和美国宇航局前副局长
Lex Fridman (00:08.960)
and has been a principal investigator
并一直担任首席研究员
Lex Fridman (00:10.720)
on four space flight missions.
执行过四次太空飞行任务。
Dava Newman (00:13.160)
Her research interests are in aerospace
她的研究兴趣是航空航天
Lex Fridman (00:15.060)
biomedical engineering, investigating human performance
生物医学工程，研究人类表现
Dava Newman (00:18.240)
in varying gravity environments.
在不同的重力环境中。
Lex Fridman (00:20.400)
She has designed and engineered and built
她设计、建造并建造了
Dava Newman (00:23.360)
some incredible space suit technology,
一些令人难以置信的太空服技术，
Lex Fridman (00:25.680)
namely the BioSuit that we talk about in this conversation.
即我们在本次对话中讨论的 BioSuit。
Dava Newman (00:29.600)
Due to some scheduling challenges on both our parts,
由于我们双方都面临一些日程安排方面的挑战，
Lex Fridman (00:32.640)
we only had about 40 minutes together.
我们在一起的时间只有大约40分钟。
Lex Fridman (00:34.920)
And in true engineering style, she said,
她以真正的工程风格说道，
Lex Fridman (00:37.120)
I talk fast, you pick the best questions, let's get it done.
我说得很快，你选择最好的问题，让我们完成它。
Lex Fridman (00:41.280)
And we did.
我们做到了。
Lex Fridman (00:42.320)
It was a fascinating conversation
这是一次有趣的谈话
Dava Newman (00:43.880)
about space exploration and the future of spacesuits.
关于太空探索和宇航服的未来。
Lex Fridman (00:47.360)
This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast.
这是人工智能播客。
Dava Newman (00:50.520)
If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube,
如果您喜欢，请在 YouTube 上订阅，
Lex Fridman (00:52.800)
give it five stars on Apple Podcast, support it on Patreon,
Dava Newman (00:56.160)
or simply connect with me on Twitter
Lex Fridman (00:58.200)
at Lex Friedman, spelled F R I D M A N.
Dava Newman (01:02.240)
For the first time, this show is presented by Cash App,
Lex Fridman (01:05.560)
the number one finance app in the App Store.
Dava Newman (01:08.060)
Cash App is the easiest way to send money to your friends.
Lex Fridman (01:11.080)
And it is also the easiest way
Dava Newman (01:12.840)
to buy, sell, and deposit Bitcoin.
Lex Fridman (01:15.160)
Most Bitcoin exchanges take days
Dava Newman (01:17.120)
for a bank transfer to become investable.
Lex Fridman (01:19.520)
Through Cash App, it takes seconds.
Dava Newman (01:21.760)
Invest as little as $1, and now you own Bitcoin.
Lex Fridman (01:25.360)
I have several conversations about Bitcoin
Dava Newman (01:27.280)
coming up on this podcast.
Lex Fridman (01:29.060)
Decentralized digital currency
Dava Newman (01:30.640)
is a fascinating technology in general to explore,
Lex Fridman (01:33.440)
both at the technical and the philosophical level.
Dava Newman (01:37.680)
Cash App is also the easiest way
Lex Fridman (01:39.560)
to try and grow your money with our new investing feature.
Dava Newman (01:43.120)
Unlike investing tools that force you
Lex Fridman (01:44.760)
to buy entire shares of stock,
Dava Newman (01:46.620)
Cash App, amazingly, lets you instantly invest
Lex Fridman (01:50.000)
as little or as much as you want.
Dava Newman (01:52.240)
Some stocks in the market are hundreds,
Lex Fridman (01:54.320)
if not thousands of dollars per share,
Lex Fridman (01:56.320)
and now you can still own a piece with as little as $1.
Lex Fridman (02:01.120)
Broker services are provided by Cash App Investing,
Dava Newman (02:04.280)
a subsidiary of Square and member SIPC.
Lex Fridman (02:08.160)
I'm also excited to be working with Cash App
Dava Newman (02:10.960)
to support one of my favorite organizations called First,
Lex Fridman (02:14.120)
which is best known for their first robotics
Lex Fridman (02:16.280)
and Lego competitions that seeks to inspire young students
Lex Fridman (02:19.760)
in engineering and technology fields all over the world.
Dava Newman (02:23.560)
That's over 110 countries, 660,000 students,
Lex Fridman (02:27.800)
300,000 mentors and volunteers,
Lex Fridman (02:30.320)
and a perfect rating on Charity Navigator,
Lex Fridman (02:33.360)
which means the donated money
Dava Newman (02:35.080)
is used to maximum effectiveness.
Lex Fridman (02:37.920)
When you sign up for Cash App
Lex Fridman (02:39.440)
and use the promo code LexPodcast,
Lex Fridman (02:42.540)
you'll instantly receive $10,
Lex Fridman (02:44.720)
and Cash App will also donate $10 to First,
Lex Fridman (02:48.480)
an amazing organization that I've personally seen
Dava Newman (02:51.000)
inspire girls and boys to learn, to explore,
Lex Fridman (02:55.120)
and to dream of engineering a better world.
Dava Newman (02:57.960)
Don't forget to use the code LexPodcast
Lex Fridman (03:02.000)
when you download Cash App
Dava Newman (03:03.480)
from the App Store or Google Play Store today.
Lex Fridman (03:06.960)
And now, here's my conversation with Deva Newman.
Dava Newman (03:11.800)
You circumnavigated the globe on boat,
Lex Fridman (03:16.040)
so let's look back in history.
Dava Newman (03:17.720)
500 years ago, Ferdinand Magellan's crew
Lex Fridman (03:21.280)
was first to circumnavigate the globe,
Lex Fridman (03:24.480)
but he died, which I think people don't know,
Lex Fridman (03:27.760)
like halfway through, and so did 242 of the 260 sailors
Dava Newman (03:32.880)
that took that three year journey.
Lex Fridman (03:35.320)
What do you think it was like for that crew at that time
Lex Fridman (03:38.400)
heading out into the unknown to face probably likely death?
Lex Fridman (03:43.160)
Do you think they were filled with fear, with excitement?
Dava Newman (03:46.960)
Probably not fear, I think in all of exploration,
Lex Fridman (03:50.040)
the challenge and the unknown, so probably wonderment.
Lex Fridman (03:53.560)
And then just when you really are sailing the world's oceans,
Lex Fridman (03:59.160)
you have extreme weather of all kinds.
Dava Newman (04:01.580)
When we were circumnavigating, it was challenging,
Lex Fridman (04:03.800)
a new dynamic, you really appreciate Mother Earth,
Dava Newman (04:07.340)
you appreciate the winds and the waves,
Lex Fridman (04:08.680)
so back to Magellan and his crew,
Dava Newman (04:10.960)
since they really didn't have a three dimensional map
Lex Fridman (04:15.240)
of the globe, of the Earth when they went out,
Dava Newman (04:18.720)
just probably looking over the horizon thinking,
Lex Fridman (04:20.380)
what's there, what's there?
Lex Fridman (04:21.400)
So I would say the challenge that had to be really important
Lex Fridman (04:24.760)
in terms of the team dynamics and that leadership
Dava Newman (04:26.800)
had to be incredibly important, team dynamics,
Lex Fridman (04:29.840)
how do you keep people focused on the mission?
Lex Fridman (04:32.520)
So you think the psychology, that's interesting,
Lex Fridman (04:34.080)
there's probably echoes of that in the space exploration
Dava Newman (04:36.360)
stuff we'll talk about.
Lex Fridman (04:37.660)
So the psychology of the dynamics between the human beings
Lex Fridman (04:41.760)
on the mission is important?
Lex Fridman (04:43.400)
Absolutely, for a Mars mission, it's lots of challenges,
Dava Newman (04:46.880)
technology, but since I specialize
Lex Fridman (04:48.840)
in keeping my astronauts alive, the psychosocial issues,
Dava Newman (04:52.600)
the psychology of psychosocial team dynamics, leadership,
Lex Fridman (04:55.800)
that's, you know, we're all people, so that's gonna be,
Dava Newman (04:58.160)
that's always a huge impact, one of the top three,
Lex Fridman (05:01.500)
I think, of any isolated, confined environment,
Dava Newman (05:04.600)
any mission that is really pretty extreme.
Lex Fridman (05:07.920)
So your Twitter handle is devaexplorer,
Lex Fridman (05:11.160)
so when did you first fall in love with the idea
Lex Fridman (05:13.840)
of exploration?
Dava Newman (05:14.800)
Ah, that's a great question, you know, maybe as long
Lex Fridman (05:17.440)
as I can remember, as I grew up in Montana
Dava Newman (05:19.680)
in the Rocky Mountains and Helena in the capital,
Lex Fridman (05:22.120)
and so literally, you know, Mount Helena was my backyard,
Dava Newman (05:25.460)
was right up there, so exploring, being in the mountains,
Lex Fridman (05:28.800)
looking at caves, just running around,
Lex Fridman (05:31.440)
but always being in nature, so since my earliest memories,
Lex Fridman (05:36.520)
I, you know, think of myself as kind of exploring
Dava Newman (05:40.100)
the natural beauty of the Rocky Mountains where I grew up.
Lex Fridman (05:44.000)
So exploration is not limited to any domain,
Dava Newman (05:46.200)
it's just anything, so the natural domain of any kind,
Lex Fridman (05:49.160)
so going out to the woods into a place you haven't been,
Dava Newman (05:51.720)
it's all exploration.
Lex Fridman (05:52.960)
I think so, yeah, I have a pretty all encompassing
Dava Newman (05:55.380)
definition of exploration.
Lex Fridman (05:56.800)
So what about space exploration?
Dava Newman (05:58.200)
When were you first captivated by the idea
Lex Fridman (06:00.900)
that we little humans could venture out into the space,
Lex Fridman (06:05.160)
into the great unknown of space?
Lex Fridman (06:06.720)
So it's a great year to talk about that,
Dava Newman (06:08.440)
the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11,
Lex Fridman (06:10.680)
as I was alive during Apollo,
Lex Fridman (06:12.720)
and specifically Apollo 11, I was five years old,
Lex Fridman (06:14.840)
and I distinctly remember that, I remember that humanity,
Dava Newman (06:19.280)
I'm sure I probably didn't know their names at the time,
Lex Fridman (06:21.400)
you know, there's Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin,
Lex Fridman (06:23.560)
and never forget Michael Collins in orbit,
Lex Fridman (06:26.560)
you know, those three men, you know,
Dava Newman (06:30.560)
doing something that just seemed impossible,
Lex Fridman (06:32.800)
seemed impossible a decade earlier, even a year earlier,
Lex Fridman (06:36.920)
but so the Apollo program really inspired me,
Lex Fridman (06:39.580)
and then I think it actually just taught me to dream,
Dava Newman (06:42.640)
to any impossible mission could be possible
Lex Fridman (06:46.480)
with enough focus, and I'm sure you need some luck,
Lex Fridman (06:49.180)
but you definitely need the leadership,
Lex Fridman (06:50.760)
you need the focus of the mission,
Lex Fridman (06:53.160)
so since an early age, I thought,
Lex Fridman (06:55.320)
of course, people, it should be interplanetary,
Dava Newman (06:57.200)
of course, people, we need people on Earth,
Lex Fridman (06:58.520)
and we're gonna have people exploring space as well.
Lex Fridman (07:00.960)
So that seemed obvious, even at that age, of course.
Lex Fridman (07:04.280)
It opened it up, before we saw men on the moon,
Dava Newman (07:07.080)
it wasn't obvious to me at all, but once we understood
Lex Fridman (07:10.120)
that yes, absolutely, astronauts, that's what they do,
Dava Newman (07:12.720)
they explore, they go into space,
Lex Fridman (07:14.080)
and they land on other planets or moons.
Lex Fridman (07:17.360)
So again, maybe a romanticized philosophical question,
Lex Fridman (07:20.680)
but when you look up at the stars,
Dava Newman (07:23.840)
knowing that, you know, there's at least 100 billion
Lex Fridman (07:28.520)
of them in the Milky Way galaxy, right,
Lex Fridman (07:30.420)
so we're really a small speck in this giant thing
Lex Fridman (07:34.760)
that's the visible universe,
Lex Fridman (07:36.600)
how does that make you feel about our efforts here?
Lex Fridman (07:40.280)
I love the perspective, I love that perspective,
Dava Newman (07:42.800)
I always open my public talks
Lex Fridman (07:44.660)
with a big Hubble Space Telescope image,
Dava Newman (07:46.760)
looking out into, you mentioned just now,
Lex Fridman (07:48.280)
the solar system, the Milky Way,
Dava Newman (07:49.840)
because I think it's really important to know
Lex Fridman (07:52.040)
that we're just a small, pale, blue dot,
Dava Newman (07:53.880)
we're really fortunate, we're on the best planet by far,
Lex Fridman (07:56.700)
life is fantastic here.
Dava Newman (07:58.560)
That we know of, you're confident
Lex Fridman (08:00.000)
this is the best planet.
Dava Newman (08:01.040)
I'm pretty sure it's the best planet,
Lex Fridman (08:02.440)
the best planet that we know of.
Dava Newman (08:03.800)
I mean, I searched my researches, you know,
Lex Fridman (08:05.640)
in mission worlds, and when will we find life?
Dava Newman (08:08.040)
I think actually probably the next decade,
Lex Fridman (08:10.220)
we find probably past life,
Dava Newman (08:11.780)
probably the evidence of past life on Mars, let's say.
Lex Fridman (08:14.560)
You think there was once life on Mars,
Lex Fridman (08:17.320)
or do you think there's currently?
Lex Fridman (08:19.660)
I'm more comfortable saying probably 3.5 billion years ago,
Dava Newman (08:23.180)
feel pretty confident there was life on Mars,
Lex Fridman (08:24.880)
just because then it had an electromagnetic shield,
Dava Newman (08:27.540)
it had an atmosphere, has wonderful gravity level,
Lex Fridman (08:30.800)
three HGs, fantastic, you know, you're all super human,
Dava Newman (08:34.360)
we can all slam dunk a basketball,
Lex Fridman (08:35.800)
I mean, it's gonna be fun to play sports on Mars.
Lex Fridman (08:38.580)
So I think we'll find past, no, fossilized,
Lex Fridman (08:40.800)
probably the evidence of past life on Mars.
Dava Newman (08:43.400)
Currently, that's okay, we need the next decade,
Lex Fridman (08:45.480)
but the evidence is mounting for sure.
Dava Newman (08:47.600)
We do have the organics, we're finding organics,
Lex Fridman (08:49.880)
we have water, seasonal water on Mars.
Dava Newman (08:52.400)
We used to just know about the ice caps,
Lex Fridman (08:54.680)
you know, North and South Pole,
Dava Newman (08:55.600)
now we have seasonal water.
Lex Fridman (08:57.200)
We do have the building blocks for life on Mars.
Dava Newman (09:00.320)
We really need to dig down into the soil,
Lex Fridman (09:02.560)
because everything on the top surface is radiated,
Lex Fridman (09:04.520)
but once we find down, will we see any life forms?
Lex Fridman (09:08.040)
Will we see any bugs?
Dava Newman (09:08.880)
I leave it open as a possibility,
Lex Fridman (09:11.180)
but I feel pretty certain that past life,
Dava Newman (09:13.360)
or fossilized life forms, we'll find.
Lex Fridman (09:15.960)
And then we have to get to all these ocean worlds,
Dava Newman (09:18.360)
these beautiful moons of other planets,
Lex Fridman (09:21.380)
since we know they have water,
Lex Fridman (09:22.620)
and we're looking for some simple search for life,
Lex Fridman (09:26.920)
follow the water, carbon based life,
Dava Newman (09:28.640)
that's the only life we know.
Lex Fridman (09:29.960)
There could be other life forms that we don't know about,
Lex Fridman (09:31.680)
but it's hard to search for them, because we don't know.
Lex Fridman (09:33.680)
So in our search for life in the solar system,
Dava Newman (09:36.160)
it's definitely search, follow the water,
Lex Fridman (09:39.120)
and look for the building blocks of life.
Lex Fridman (09:41.200)
So you think in the next decade,
Lex Fridman (09:42.460)
we might see hints of past life, or even current life?
Dava Newman (09:45.360)
I think so, that's it.
Lex Fridman (09:46.720)
Pretty optimistic.
Dava Newman (09:47.560)
I love the optimism.
Lex Fridman (09:48.380)
I'm pretty optimistic.
Dava Newman (09:49.220)
Do humans have to be involved,
Lex Fridman (09:50.040)
or can this be robots and rovers and?
Dava Newman (09:52.640)
Probably teams, I mean, we've been at it,
Lex Fridman (09:54.120)
on Mars in particular, 50 years.
Lex Fridman (09:55.840)
We've been exploring Mars for 50 years, great data, right?
Lex Fridman (09:58.720)
Our images of Mars today are phenomenal.
Dava Newman (10:01.000)
Now we know how Mars lost its atmosphere.
Lex Fridman (10:03.400)
We're starting to know,
Dava Newman (10:04.320)
because of the lack of the electromagnetic shield.
Lex Fridman (10:07.120)
We know about the water on Mars.
Lex Fridman (10:08.120)
So we've been studying 50 years with our robots,
Lex Fridman (10:10.680)
we still haven't found it.
Lex Fridman (10:11.640)
So I think once we have a human mission there,
Lex Fridman (10:13.880)
we just accelerate things.
Lex Fridman (10:15.000)
But it's always humans and our rovers and robots together.
Lex Fridman (10:18.520)
But we just have to think that 50 years,
Dava Newman (10:19.920)
we've been looking at Mars, and taking images,
Lex Fridman (10:23.000)
and doing the best science that we can.
Dava Newman (10:25.080)
People need to realize Mars is really far away.
Lex Fridman (10:27.480)
It's really hard to get to.
Dava Newman (10:28.720)
You know, this is extreme, extreme exploration.
Lex Fridman (10:31.120)
We mentioned Magellan first,
Dava Newman (10:32.440)
or all of the wonderful explorers and sailors of the past,
Lex Fridman (10:35.480)
which kind of are lots of my inspiration for exploration.
Dava Newman (10:39.140)
Mars is a different ball game.
Lex Fridman (10:40.600)
I mean, it's eight months to get there,
Dava Newman (10:42.680)
year and a half to get home.
Lex Fridman (10:44.240)
I mean, it's really extreme.
Dava Newman (10:45.680)
The harsh environment in all kinds of ways.
Lex Fridman (10:47.800)
But the kind of organisms we might be able to see
Dava Newman (10:50.880)
hints of on Mars are kind of microorganisms perhaps.
Lex Fridman (10:54.840)
Do you think?
Dava Newman (10:55.680)
Yeah, and remember that humans,
Lex Fridman (10:56.500)
we're kind of, you know, we're hosts, right?
Lex Fridman (10:57.900)
We're hosts to all of our bacteria and viruses, right?
Lex Fridman (11:00.840)
Do you think it's a big leap
Lex Fridman (11:02.080)
from the viruses and the bacteria to us humans?
Lex Fridman (11:07.040)
Put another way, do you think on all those moons,
Dava Newman (11:10.460)
beautiful, wet moons that you mentioned,
Lex Fridman (11:13.240)
you think there's intelligent life out there?
Dava Newman (11:15.840)
I hope so.
Lex Fridman (11:16.680)
I mean, that's the hope, but you know,
Dava Newman (11:18.600)
we don't have the scientific evidence for that now.
Lex Fridman (11:21.000)
I think all the evidence we have in terms of life existing
Dava Newman (11:24.440)
is much more compelling again,
Lex Fridman (11:26.000)
because we have the building blocks of life now.
Dava Newman (11:28.360)
When that life turns into intelligence, that's a big unknown.
Lex Fridman (11:32.920)
If we ever meet,
Lex Fridman (11:33.880)
do you think we would be able to find a common language?
Lex Fridman (11:37.180)
I hope so.
Dava Newman (11:38.080)
We haven't met yet.
Lex Fridman (11:39.080)
It's just so far, I mean, do physics just play a role here?
Dava Newman (11:42.000)
Look at all these exoplanets, 6,000 exoplanets.
Lex Fridman (11:44.440)
I mean, even the couple dozen Earth like planets
Dava Newman (11:46.840)
that are exoplanets that really look like habitable planets.
Lex Fridman (11:50.480)
These are very Earth like.
Dava Newman (11:51.480)
They look like they have all the building blocks.
Lex Fridman (11:53.940)
I can't wait to get there.
Dava Newman (11:54.800)
The only thing is they're 10 to 100 light years away.
Lex Fridman (11:57.800)
So scientifically, we know they're there.
Dava Newman (12:00.200)
We know that they're habitable.
Lex Fridman (12:01.540)
They have, you know, everything going from, right?
Dava Newman (12:04.000)
Like, you know, we call them in the Goldilocks zone,
Lex Fridman (12:05.840)
not too hot, not too cold,
Dava Newman (12:06.940)
just perfect for habitability for life.
Lex Fridman (12:10.600)
But now the reality is if they're 10 at the best
Dava Newman (12:13.240)
to 100 to thousands of light years away,
Lex Fridman (12:17.020)
so what's out there?
Lex Fridman (12:18.600)
But I just can't think that we're not the only ones.
Lex Fridman (12:20.960)
So absolutely life, life in the universe,
Dava Newman (12:23.280)
probably intelligent life as well.
Lex Fridman (12:25.840)
Do you think there needs to be fundamental revolutions
Dava Newman (12:28.000)
in how we, the tools we use to travel through space
Lex Fridman (12:32.000)
in order for us to venture outside of our solar system?
Dava Newman (12:35.040)
Or do you think the ways, the rockets,
Lex Fridman (12:38.800)
the ideas we have now, the engineering ideas we have now
Lex Fridman (12:41.680)
will be enough to venture out?
Lex Fridman (12:43.120)
Well, that's a good question.
Dava Newman (12:44.000)
Right now, you know, cause again, speed of light is a limit.
Lex Fridman (12:47.120)
We don't have a warp speed warp drive
Dava Newman (12:49.000)
to explore our solar system, to get to Mars,
Lex Fridman (12:51.880)
to explore all the planets.
Dava Newman (12:53.560)
Then we need a technology push,
Lex Fridman (12:55.720)
but technology push here is just advanced propulsion.
Dava Newman (12:57.680)
It'd be great if I could get humans to Mars
Lex Fridman (13:00.160)
and say, you know, three to four months, not eight months.
Dava Newman (13:02.460)
I mean, half the time, 50% reduction.
Lex Fridman (13:04.560)
That's great in terms of safety and wellness of the crew.
Dava Newman (13:08.120)
Orbital mechanic, but physics rules,
Lex Fridman (13:09.600)
you know, orbital mechanics is still there.
Dava Newman (13:11.320)
Physics rules, we can't defy physics.
Lex Fridman (13:14.260)
I love that.
Lex Fridman (13:15.100)
So invent a new physics.
Lex Fridman (13:16.180)
I mean, look at quantum, you know,
Dava Newman (13:17.280)
look at quantum theory.
Lex Fridman (13:18.240)
So you never know.
Dava Newman (13:19.080)
Exactly, I mean, we are always learning.
Lex Fridman (13:21.280)
So we definitely don't know all the physics that exist too,
Lex Fridman (13:23.920)
but we're, we still have to, it's not science fiction.
Lex Fridman (13:27.000)
You know, we still have to pay attention to physics
Dava Newman (13:29.200)
in terms of our speed of travel for space flight.
Lex Fridman (13:32.400)
So you were the deputy administrator of NASA
Lex Fridman (13:34.880)
and during the Obama administration,
Lex Fridman (13:37.220)
there's a current Artemis program
Dava Newman (13:39.560)
that's working on a crewed mission to the moon
Lex Fridman (13:41.320)
and then perhaps to Mars.
Lex Fridman (13:44.500)
What are you excited about there?
Lex Fridman (13:46.520)
What are your thoughts on this program?
Lex Fridman (13:48.120)
What are the biggest challenges do you think
Lex Fridman (13:49.920)
of getting to the moon, of landing to the moon once again,
Lex Fridman (13:53.640)
and then the big step to Mars?
Lex Fridman (13:57.400)
Well, I love, you know, the moon program now, Artemis.
Dava Newman (14:00.400)
It is definitely, we've been in low earth orbit.
Lex Fridman (14:02.520)
I love low earth orbit too,
Lex Fridman (14:03.600)
but I just always look at it as three phases.
Lex Fridman (14:05.880)
So low earth orbit where we've been 40 years,
Lex Fridman (14:07.980)
so definitely time to get back to deep space,
Lex Fridman (14:10.080)
time to get to the moon.
Dava Newman (14:11.000)
There's so much to do on the moon.
Lex Fridman (14:13.720)
I hope we don't get stuck on the moon for 50 years.
Dava Newman (14:16.100)
I really want to get to the moon, spend the next decade,
Lex Fridman (14:19.000)
first with the lander, then humans.
Dava Newman (14:20.720)
There's just a lot to explore,
Lex Fridman (14:21.960)
but to me it's a big technology push.
Dava Newman (14:24.440)
It's only three days away.
Lex Fridman (14:25.340)
So the moon is definitely the right place.
Lex Fridman (14:27.680)
So we kind of buy down our technology.
Lex Fridman (14:29.600)
We invest in specifically habitats, life support systems.
Lex Fridman (14:33.840)
So we need suits.
Lex Fridman (14:34.720)
We really need to understand really how to live off planet.
Dava Newman (14:37.780)
We've been off planet and low earth orbit,
Lex Fridman (14:39.480)
but still that's only 400 kilometers up, 250 miles, right?
Lex Fridman (14:42.780)
So we get to the moon.
Lex Fridman (14:43.840)
It really is a great proving ground for the technologies.
Lex Fridman (14:47.320)
And now we're in deep space, radiation becomes a huge issue
Lex Fridman (14:50.840)
and to keep our astronauts well and alive.
Lex Fridman (14:52.440)
And I look at all of that investment for moon exploration
Lex Fridman (14:57.480)
to the ultimate goal, the horizon goals we call it,
Dava Newman (15:00.680)
to get people to Mars.
Lex Fridman (15:01.860)
But we just don't go to Mars tomorrow, right?
Dava Newman (15:03.720)
We really need a decade on the moon, I think,
Lex Fridman (15:05.740)
investing in the technologies, learning,
Dava Newman (15:07.680)
making sure the astronauts are, their health,
Lex Fridman (15:09.960)
they're safe and well,
Lex Fridman (15:11.600)
and also learning so much about in situ research utilization,
Lex Fridman (15:15.920)
ISRU, in situ resource utilization is huge
Dava Newman (15:19.080)
when it comes to exploration for the moon and Mars.
Lex Fridman (15:21.160)
So we need a test bed.
Lex Fridman (15:23.160)
And to me, it really is a lunar test bed.
Lex Fridman (15:26.860)
And then we use those same investments
Dava Newman (15:29.300)
to think about getting people to Mars in the 2030s.
Lex Fridman (15:32.520)
So developing sort of a platform
Dava Newman (15:34.040)
of all the kind of research tools of all the,
Lex Fridman (15:36.200)
what's the resource utilization, can you speak to that?
Dava Newman (15:39.040)
Yeah, so ISRU for the moon, it's,
Lex Fridman (15:42.000)
we'll go to the South Pole and it's fascinating.
Dava Newman (15:45.200)
We have images of it.
Lex Fridman (15:46.720)
Of course, we know there's permanently shaded areas
Lex Fridman (15:49.040)
and like by Shackleton crater,
Lex Fridman (15:50.880)
and there's areas that are permanently in the sun.
Dava Newman (15:53.320)
Well, it seems that there's a lot of water ice,
Lex Fridman (15:56.480)
water that's entrapped in ice and the lunar craters.
Dava Newman (16:00.000)
That's the first place you go.
Lex Fridman (16:01.260)
Why?
Dava Newman (16:02.100)
Because it's water and when you wanna try to,
Lex Fridman (16:03.880)
it could be fuel, life support systems.
Lex Fridman (16:06.160)
So you kind of, again, you go where the water is.
Lex Fridman (16:08.800)
And so when the moon is kind of for resources utilization,
Lex Fridman (16:12.680)
but to learn how to,
Lex Fridman (16:13.560)
can we make the fuels out of the resources
Lex Fridman (16:16.000)
that are on the moon?
Lex Fridman (16:16.900)
We have to think about 3D printing, right?
Dava Newman (16:18.240)
You don't get to bring all this mass with you.
Lex Fridman (16:20.120)
You have to learn how to literally live off the land.
Dava Newman (16:22.800)
We need a pressure shell.
Lex Fridman (16:24.240)
We need to have an atmosphere for people to live in.
Lex Fridman (16:28.320)
So all of that is kind of buying down the technology,
Lex Fridman (16:31.040)
doing the investigation, doing the science.
Lex Fridman (16:32.960)
What are the basically called lunar volatiles?
Lex Fridman (16:35.520)
What is that ice on the moon?
Lex Fridman (16:38.140)
How much of it is there?
Lex Fridman (16:40.200)
What are the resources look like?
Dava Newman (16:42.120)
To me, that helps us, that's just the next step
Lex Fridman (16:44.320)
in getting humans to Mars.
Dava Newman (16:46.480)
You know, it's cheaper and more effective
Lex Fridman (16:47.800)
to sort of develop some of these difficult challenges,
Dava Newman (16:50.160)
like solve some of these challenges,
Lex Fridman (16:51.640)
practice, develop, test, and so on on the moon.
Dava Newman (16:53.960)
Absolutely. That is on Mars.
Lex Fridman (16:55.000)
Absolutely.
Lex Fridman (16:55.820)
And people are gonna love to, you know,
Lex Fridman (16:56.660)
you get to the moon, you get to,
Dava Newman (16:57.500)
you have a beautiful Earthrise.
Lex Fridman (16:58.880)
I mean, you have the most magnificent view of Earth
Dava Newman (17:01.160)
being off planet.
Lex Fridman (17:02.520)
So it just makes sense.
Dava Newman (17:03.500)
I think we're gonna have thousands, lots of people,
Lex Fridman (17:05.320)
hopefully tens of thousands in low Earth orbit,
Dava Newman (17:06.840)
because low Earth orbit is a beautiful place to go
Lex Fridman (17:08.960)
and look down on the Earth,
Lex Fridman (17:09.780)
but people wanna return home.
Lex Fridman (17:11.080)
I think the lunar explorers
Dava Newman (17:12.720)
will also wanna do round trips
Lex Fridman (17:15.400)
and, you know, be on the moon, three day trip,
Dava Newman (17:17.800)
explore, do science, also because the lunar day
Lex Fridman (17:20.560)
is 14 days and lunar nights, also 14 days.
Lex Fridman (17:23.600)
So in that 28 day cycle, you know,
Lex Fridman (17:26.080)
half of it is in light, half of it's in dark.
Lex Fridman (17:29.280)
So people would probably wanna do, you know,
Lex Fridman (17:31.840)
couple of week trips, month long trips,
Dava Newman (17:33.760)
not longer than that.
Lex Fridman (17:34.720)
What do you mean by people?
Dava Newman (17:36.400)
People, explorers.
Lex Fridman (17:37.400)
I mean, yeah, astronauts are gonna be civilians
Dava Newman (17:41.000)
in the future too.
Lex Fridman (17:41.840)
Not all astronauts are gonna be government astronauts.
Dava Newman (17:44.320)
Actually, when I was at NASA, we changed,
Lex Fridman (17:45.640)
we actually got the law changed to recognize astronauts
Dava Newman (17:48.720)
that are not only government employees,
Lex Fridman (17:50.360)
you know, NASA astronauts
Dava Newman (17:51.360)
or European Space Agency astronauts
Lex Fridman (17:52.840)
or Russian Space Agency that astronauts,
Dava Newman (17:54.960)
because of the big push we put on the private sector,
Lex Fridman (17:58.320)
that astronauts essentially are gonna be astronauts.
Dava Newman (17:59.920)
You get over 100 kilometers up
Lex Fridman (18:02.820)
and think once you've done orbital flight,
Dava Newman (18:06.520)
then you're an astronaut.
Lex Fridman (18:07.600)
So a lot of private citizens are gonna become astronauts.
Lex Fridman (18:10.400)
Do you think one day you might step foot on the moon?
Lex Fridman (18:13.360)
I think it'd be good to go to the moon.
Dava Newman (18:14.560)
I'd give that a shot.
Lex Fridman (18:16.200)
Mars, I'm gonna, it's my life's work
Dava Newman (18:18.120)
to get the next generation to Mars.
Lex Fridman (18:20.320)
That's you or even younger than you,
Dava Newman (18:22.960)
you know, my students generation
Lex Fridman (18:24.920)
will be the Martian explorers.
Dava Newman (18:26.680)
I'm just working to facilitate that,
Lex Fridman (18:28.920)
but that's not gonna be me.
Dava Newman (18:30.240)
Hey, the moon's pretty good.
Lex Fridman (18:31.200)
And it's a lot tough.
Dava Newman (18:32.880)
I mean, it's still a really tough mission.
Lex Fridman (18:35.840)
It's an extreme mission, exactly.
Dava Newman (18:37.280)
It's great for exploration, but doable,
Lex Fridman (18:39.960)
but again, before Apollo,
Dava Newman (18:41.160)
we didn't think getting humans to the moon was even possible.
Lex Fridman (18:44.000)
So we kind of made that possible, but we need to go back.
Dava Newman (18:46.500)
We absolutely need to go back.
Lex Fridman (18:47.960)
We're investing in the heavy lift launch capabilities
Dava Newman (18:50.400)
that we need to get there.
Lex Fridman (18:51.240)
We haven't had that, you know,
Dava Newman (18:52.080)
since the Apollo days, since Saturn five.
Lex Fridman (18:53.960)
So now we have three options on the board.
Dava Newman (18:56.480)
That's what's so fantastic.
Lex Fridman (18:57.480)
NASA has its space launch system.
Dava Newman (18:59.760)
SpaceX is gonna have its heavy capability
Lex Fridman (19:02.720)
and Blue Origin is coming along too with heavy lifts.
Lex Fridman (19:05.320)
So that's pretty fantastic from where I sit.
Lex Fridman (19:07.840)
I'm the Apollo program professor.
Dava Newman (19:09.880)
Today I have zero heavy lift launch capability.
Lex Fridman (19:12.040)
I can't wait, just in a few years,
Dava Newman (19:13.680)
we'll have three different heavy lift launch capabilities.
Lex Fridman (19:16.020)
So that's pretty exciting.
Dava Newman (19:18.120)
You know, your heart is perhaps with NASA,
Lex Fridman (19:20.600)
but you mentioned SpaceX and Blue Origin.
Lex Fridman (19:23.480)
What are your thoughts of SpaceX
Lex Fridman (19:26.900)
and the innovative efforts there
Lex Fridman (19:28.720)
from the sort of private company aspect?
Lex Fridman (19:31.360)
Oh, they're great.
Dava Newman (19:32.200)
They're, remember that the investments in SpaceX
Lex Fridman (19:35.320)
is government funding.
Dava Newman (19:36.420)
It's NASA funding, it's US Air Force funding,
Lex Fridman (19:39.240)
just as it should be,
Dava Newman (19:40.480)
because they're betting on a company who is moving fast,
Lex Fridman (19:44.160)
has some new technology development.
Lex Fridman (19:46.380)
So I love it.
Lex Fridman (19:47.220)
So when I was at NASA,
Dava Newman (19:48.060)
it really was under our public private partnerships.
Lex Fridman (19:50.320)
So necessarily the government needs to fund
Dava Newman (19:53.440)
these startups.
Lex Fridman (19:54.520)
Now, SpaceX is no longer a startup,
Lex Fridman (19:56.240)
but you know, it's been at it for 10 years.
Lex Fridman (19:58.240)
It's had some accidents, learned a lot of lessons,
Lex Fridman (20:00.640)
but it's great because it's the way you move faster.
Lex Fridman (20:03.800)
And also some private industry folks,
Dava Newman (20:06.240)
some private businesses will take a lot more risk.
Lex Fridman (20:08.740)
That's also really important for the government.
Lex Fridman (20:11.400)
What do you think about that culture of risk?
Lex Fridman (20:13.000)
I mean, sort of NASA and the government
Dava Newman (20:15.360)
are exceptionally good at delivering sort of safe,
Lex Fridman (20:18.160)
like there's a bit more of a culture of caution and safety
Lex Fridman (20:21.640)
and sort of this kind of solid engineering.
Lex Fridman (20:23.440)
And I think SpaceX as well has the same kind of stuff.
Dava Newman (20:26.080)
It has a little bit more of that startup feel
Lex Fridman (20:28.160)
where they take the bigger risks.
Dava Newman (20:29.840)
Is that exciting for you to see,
Lex Fridman (20:31.720)
seeing bigger risks in this kind of space?
Dava Newman (20:33.840)
Absolutely.
Lex Fridman (20:34.960)
And the best scenario is both of them working together
Dava Newman (20:38.520)
because there's really important lessons learned,
Lex Fridman (20:40.120)
especially when you talk about human space flight,
Dava Newman (20:41.880)
safety, quality assurance.
Lex Fridman (20:43.760)
These things are the utmost importance,
Dava Newman (20:46.000)
both aviation and space, you know,
Lex Fridman (20:47.840)
when human lives are at stake.
Dava Newman (20:49.280)
On the other hand, government agencies,
Lex Fridman (20:51.760)
NASA can be European Space Agency, you name it,
Dava Newman (20:53.840)
they become very bureaucratic, pretty risk averse,
Lex Fridman (20:56.780)
move pretty slowly.
Lex Fridman (20:58.100)
So I think the best is when you combine the partnerships
Lex Fridman (21:01.380)
from both sides.
Dava Newman (21:03.360)
Industry necessarily has to push the government,
Lex Fridman (21:05.360)
take some more risks.
Dava Newman (21:06.200)
You know, they're smart risk
Lex Fridman (21:07.160)
or actually gave an award at NASA for failing smart.
Dava Newman (21:09.960)
Failing smart, I love that.
Lex Fridman (21:12.560)
You know, so you can kind of break open the culture,
Dava Newman (21:13.920)
say, no, look at Apollo, that was a huge risk.
Lex Fridman (21:16.340)
It was done well.
Lex Fridman (21:17.600)
So there's always a culture of safety, quality assurance,
Lex Fridman (21:20.520)
you know, engineering, you know, at its best.
Lex Fridman (21:23.320)
But on the other hand, you want to get things done
Lex Fridman (21:26.100)
and you have to also get them,
Dava Newman (21:27.520)
you have to bring the cost down.
Lex Fridman (21:28.980)
You know, for when it comes to launch,
Dava Newman (21:29.940)
we really have to bring the cost down
Lex Fridman (21:31.040)
and get the frequency up.
Lex Fridman (21:32.320)
And so that's what the newcomers are doing.
Lex Fridman (21:34.120)
They're really pushing that.
Lex Fridman (21:35.520)
So it's about the most exciting time
Lex Fridman (21:37.840)
that I can imagine for space flight.
Dava Newman (21:39.680)
Again, a little bit, it really is the democratization
Lex Fridman (21:41.800)
of space flight, opening it up,
Dava Newman (21:43.320)
not just because of the launch capability,
Lex Fridman (21:45.200)
but the science we can do on a CubeSat.
Lex Fridman (21:47.560)
What you can do now for very,
Lex Fridman (21:49.560)
those used to be, you know, student projects
Dava Newman (21:51.920)
that we would go through, conceive, design, implement,
Lex Fridman (21:54.080)
and think about what a small satellite would be.
Dava Newman (21:56.360)
Now they're the most, you know,
Lex Fridman (21:58.080)
these are really advanced instruments,
Dava Newman (21:59.800)
science instruments that are flying on little teeny CubeSats
Lex Fridman (22:02.520)
that pretty much anyone can afford.
Lex Fridman (22:04.600)
So there's not a, there's every nation,
Lex Fridman (22:06.960)
you know, every place in the world can fly a CubeSat.
Lex Fridman (22:10.320)
And so that's...
Lex Fridman (22:11.160)
What's a CubeSat?
Dava Newman (22:12.000)
Oh, CubeSat is a, this is called 1U.
Lex Fridman (22:15.160)
CubeSats we measure in terms of units.
Dava Newman (22:17.000)
So, you know, just in terms of, I put my,
Lex Fridman (22:19.360)
both my hands together, that's one unit, two units.
Lex Fridman (22:21.560)
So little small satellites.
Lex Fridman (22:22.720)
So CubeSats are for small satellites.
Lex Fridman (22:25.480)
And we actually go by mass as well.
Lex Fridman (22:26.940)
You know, a small satellite might be a hundred kilos,
Dava Newman (22:29.340)
200 kilos, all well under a thousand kilos.
Lex Fridman (22:32.400)
CubeSats then are the next thing down from small sats.
Dava Newman (22:35.020)
You know, basically, you know,
Lex Fridman (22:37.320)
kilos, tens of kilos, things like that.
Lex Fridman (22:39.480)
But kind of the building blocks,
Lex Fridman (22:41.200)
CubeSats are fantastic design,
Dava Newman (22:42.560)
it's kind of modular design.
Lex Fridman (22:44.080)
So I can take a 1U, one unit of CubeSat and, you know,
Lex Fridman (22:47.760)
but what if I have a little bit more money and payload,
Lex Fridman (22:50.300)
I can fly three of them
Lex Fridman (22:51.520)
and just basically put a lot more instruments on it.
Lex Fridman (22:54.080)
But essentially think about something
Dava Newman (22:55.560)
the size of a shoe box, if you will.
Lex Fridman (22:57.740)
You know, that would be a CubeSat.
Lex Fridman (22:59.560)
And how do those help empower you in terms of doing size,
Lex Fridman (23:02.840)
in terms of doing experiments?
Dava Newman (23:04.000)
Oh, right now there's, again,
Lex Fridman (23:05.680)
back to private industry, Planet, the company,
Dava Newman (23:07.600)
is, you know, flying CubeSats
Lex Fridman (23:08.880)
and literally looking down on Earth
Lex Fridman (23:10.880)
and orbiting Earth, taking a picture, if you will,
Lex Fridman (23:13.600)
of Earth every day, every 24 hours,
Dava Newman (23:15.560)
covering the entire Earth.
Lex Fridman (23:16.560)
So in terms of Earth observations,
Dava Newman (23:19.160)
in terms of climate change,
Lex Fridman (23:20.240)
in terms of our changing Earth,
Dava Newman (23:22.140)
it's revolutionizing because they're affordable.
Lex Fridman (23:24.940)
We can put a whole bunch of them up.
Dava Newman (23:26.480)
Telecoms, we're all, you know, on our cell phones
Lex Fridman (23:28.600)
and we have GPS, we have our telecoms,
Lex Fridman (23:30.760)
but those used to be very expensive satellites
Lex Fridman (23:33.820)
providing that service.
Dava Newman (23:34.960)
Now we can fly a whole bunch of modular CubeSats.
Lex Fridman (23:38.580)
So it really is breakthrough in terms of modularity,
Dava Newman (23:42.460)
as well as cost reduction.
Lex Fridman (23:44.280)
So that's one exciting set of developments.
Dava Newman (23:47.380)
Is there something else that you've been excited about,
Lex Fridman (23:51.080)
like reusable rockets, perhaps,
Lex Fridman (23:52.600)
that you've seen in the last few years?
Lex Fridman (23:54.100)
Yeah, well, the reusability you had,
Lex Fridman (23:55.440)
and the reusability is awesome.
Lex Fridman (23:57.520)
I mean, it's just the best.
Dava Newman (23:59.200)
Now we have to remember, the shuttle was a reusable vehicle.
Lex Fridman (24:01.600)
Yes.
Dava Newman (24:02.440)
Which, and the shuttle is an amazing,
Lex Fridman (24:04.440)
it's narrow space engineer.
Dava Newman (24:05.520)
You know, I mean, the shuttle is still,
Lex Fridman (24:06.460)
this is the most gorgeous, elegant,
Dava Newman (24:09.160)
extraordinary design of a space vehicle.
Lex Fridman (24:12.400)
It was reusable, it just wasn't affordable.
Lex Fridman (24:15.320)
But the reusability of it was really critical
Lex Fridman (24:18.080)
because we flew it up, it did come back.
Lex Fridman (24:19.660)
So the notion of reusability, I think absolutely.
Lex Fridman (24:23.640)
Now what we're doing with we, you know,
Dava Newman (24:26.480)
the Global We, but with SpaceX and Lord Jim,
Lex Fridman (24:29.160)
setting the rockets up, recovering the first stages,
Dava Newman (24:31.440)
where if they can regain 70% cost savings, that's huge.
Lex Fridman (24:35.360)
And just seeing the control,
Dava Newman (24:37.800)
you know, being in control and dynamic as a person,
Lex Fridman (24:39.940)
just seeing that rocket come back and land.
Dava Newman (24:41.680)
Oh yeah, that's.
Lex Fridman (24:42.600)
It never gets old, it's exciting every single time
Dava Newman (24:45.040)
you look at it and say, that's magic.
Lex Fridman (24:46.720)
So it's so cool.
Dava Newman (24:48.080)
To me, the landing is where I stand up,
Lex Fridman (24:49.480)
start clapping, just the control.
Dava Newman (24:51.320)
Yeah, just the algorithm, just the control algorithms,
Lex Fridman (24:53.820)
and hitting that landing, it's, you know,
Dava Newman (24:55.620)
it's gymnastics for rocket ships,
Lex Fridman (24:58.320)
but to see these guys stick a landing,
Dava Newman (25:01.080)
it's just wonderful.
Lex Fridman (25:01.920)
So every time, like I say, every time I see,
Dava Newman (25:05.200)
you know, the reusability and the rockets coming back
Lex Fridman (25:07.440)
and landing so precisely, it's really exciting.
Lex Fridman (25:09.800)
So it is actually, that's a game changer.
Lex Fridman (25:12.320)
We are in a new era of lower costs
Lex Fridman (25:15.120)
and the higher frequency.
Lex Fridman (25:17.520)
And it's the world, not just NASA,
Dava Newman (25:19.600)
many nations are really upping their frequency of launches.
Lex Fridman (25:23.840)
So you've done a lot of exciting research,
Dava Newman (25:25.720)
design, engineering on spacesuits.
Lex Fridman (25:28.960)
What does the spacesuit of the future look like?
Dava Newman (25:33.120)
Well, if I have anything to say about it,
Lex Fridman (25:34.520)
it'll be a very, it'll be a very tight fitting suit.
Dava Newman (25:37.280)
We use mechanical counter pressure
Lex Fridman (25:38.880)
to pressurize right directly on the skin.
Dava Newman (25:41.080)
Seems that it's technically feasible.
Lex Fridman (25:42.880)
We're still at the research and development stage.
Dava Newman (25:44.400)
We don't have a flight system, but technically it's feasible.
Lex Fridman (25:47.000)
So we do a lot of work in the materials.
Lex Fridman (25:48.720)
You know, what materials do we need to pressurize someone?
Lex Fridman (25:51.400)
What's the patterning we need?
Dava Newman (25:52.720)
That's what our patents are in, the patterning,
Lex Fridman (25:54.760)
kind of how we apply.
Dava Newman (25:55.640)
This is a third of an atmosphere.
Lex Fridman (25:57.440)
Just to sort of take a little step back,
Dava Newman (25:59.220)
you have this incredible biosuit where it's tight fitting,
Lex Fridman (26:02.240)
so it allows more mobility and so on.
Lex Fridman (26:04.400)
So maybe even to take a bigger step back,
Lex Fridman (26:06.240)
like what are the functions that a spacesuit should perform?
Dava Newman (26:09.480)
Sure, so start from the beginning.
Lex Fridman (26:11.600)
A spacesuit is the world's smallest spacecraft.
Lex Fridman (26:14.280)
So I really, that's the best definition I can give you.
Lex Fridman (26:16.460)
Right now we fly gas pressurized suits,
Lex Fridman (26:18.220)
but think of developing and designing an entire spacecraft.
Lex Fridman (26:22.220)
So then you take all those systems
Lex Fridman (26:23.760)
and you shrink them around a person,
Lex Fridman (26:25.580)
provide them with oxygen to breathe,
Dava Newman (26:27.040)
scrub out their carbon dioxide,
Lex Fridman (26:29.080)
you know, make sure they have pressure.
Dava Newman (26:30.100)
They need a pressure environment to live in.
Lex Fridman (26:31.680)
So really the spacesuit is a shrunken,
Dava Newman (26:34.980)
you know, spacecraft in its entirety,
Lex Fridman (26:37.000)
has all the same systems.
Dava Newman (26:37.840)
Communication as well, probably.
Lex Fridman (26:39.080)
Yeah, communications, exactly.
Lex Fridman (26:41.400)
So you really, thermal control,
Lex Fridman (26:44.040)
little bit of radiation, not so much radiation protection,
Lex Fridman (26:45.920)
but thermal control, humidity, you know, oxygen debris.
Lex Fridman (26:47.960)
So all those life support systems,
Dava Newman (26:49.700)
as well as the pressure protection.
Lex Fridman (26:51.600)
So it's an engineering marvel, you know,
Dava Newman (26:53.480)
the spacesuits that have flown
Lex Fridman (26:54.520)
because they really are entire spacecraft,
Dava Newman (26:56.400)
they're the small spacecraft that we have around a person,
Lex Fridman (26:59.040)
but they're very massive,
Lex Fridman (27:00.720)
but 140 kilos is the current suit,
Lex Fridman (27:02.960)
and they're not mobility suits.
Lex Fridman (27:04.360)
So since we're going back to the moon and Mars,
Lex Fridman (27:06.020)
we need a planetary suit, we need a mobility suit.
Lex Fridman (27:08.480)
So that's where we've kind of flipped the design paradigm.
Lex Fridman (27:11.640)
I study astronauts, I study humans in motion,
Lex Fridman (27:14.600)
and if we can map that motion,
Lex Fridman (27:16.240)
I want to give you full flexibility,
Dava Newman (27:17.600)
you know, move your arms and legs.
Lex Fridman (27:19.120)
I really want you to be like a Olympic athlete,
Dava Newman (27:21.640)
an extreme explorer.
Lex Fridman (27:23.460)
I don't want to waste any of your energy,
Lex Fridman (27:25.220)
so we take it from the human design.
Lex Fridman (27:27.100)
So I take a look at humans, we measure them, we model them,
Lex Fridman (27:30.000)
and then I say, okay, can I put a spacesuit on them
Lex Fridman (27:33.000)
that goes from the skin out?
Lex Fridman (27:34.160)
So rather than a gas pressurized shrinking
Lex Fridman (27:36.420)
that spacecraft around the person,
Dava Newman (27:38.760)
say, here's how humans perform,
Lex Fridman (27:40.400)
can I design a spacesuit literally from the skin out?
Lex Fridman (27:42.960)
And that's what we've come up with,
Lex Fridman (27:44.480)
a mechanical counter pressure, some patterning,
Lex Fridman (27:46.400)
and that way it could be order of magnitude less
Lex Fridman (27:49.320)
in terms of the mass,
Lex Fridman (27:51.020)
and it should provide maximum mobility for moon or Mars.
Lex Fridman (27:54.560)
What's mechanical counter pressure?
Dava Newman (27:56.120)
Like how the heck can you even begin
Lex Fridman (27:58.920)
to create something that's tight fitting
Lex Fridman (28:02.480)
and still doesn't protect you from the elements and so on
Lex Fridman (28:05.040)
and the whole, the pressure thing?
Dava Newman (28:06.880)
That's the challenge, it's a big design challenge
Lex Fridman (28:08.640)
we've been working on it for.
Lex Fridman (28:09.780)
So you can either put someone in a balloon,
Lex Fridman (28:11.360)
that's one way to do it, that's conventional,
Dava Newman (28:12.840)
that's the only thing we've ever formed.
Lex Fridman (28:13.680)
What's that mean?
Lex Fridman (28:14.520)
That means the balloon that you fill with gas?
Lex Fridman (28:15.340)
That's a gas pressurized suit.
Dava Newman (28:16.180)
If you put someone in a balloon,
Lex Fridman (28:17.020)
it's only a third of an atmosphere
Dava Newman (28:18.960)
to keep someone alive.
Lex Fridman (28:19.800)
So that's what the current system is.
Lex Fridman (28:20.760)
So depending on what units you think,
Lex Fridman (28:22.360)
in 30 kilopascals, 4.3 pounds per square inch.
Lex Fridman (28:25.240)
So much less than the pressure that's on Earth.
Lex Fridman (28:28.160)
You can still keep a human alive with 0.3
Lex Fridman (28:31.720)
and it's alive and happy.
Lex Fridman (28:33.520)
Alive and happy.
Lex Fridman (28:34.360)
And you mix the gases.
Lex Fridman (28:35.760)
June, we're having this chat
Lex Fridman (28:37.720)
and we're at one sea level in Boston, one atmosphere.
Lex Fridman (28:41.520)
But a suit. Oxygen and nitrogen.
Dava Newman (28:43.400)
Oxygen and nitrogen.
Lex Fridman (28:44.240)
And you put a suit, if we put someone to a third
Dava Newman (28:46.720)
of an atmosphere, so for mechanical counter pressure now,
Lex Fridman (28:49.480)
so one way is to do it with a balloon.
Lex Fridman (28:51.400)
And that's what we currently have.
Lex Fridman (28:52.840)
Or you can apply the pressure directly to the skin.
Dava Newman (28:55.080)
I only have to give you a third of an atmosphere.
Lex Fridman (28:58.640)
Right now, you and I are very happy in one atmosphere.
Lex Fridman (29:00.520)
So if I put that pressure, a third of an atmosphere on you,
Lex Fridman (29:04.480)
I just have to do it consistently,
Dava Newman (29:06.520)
across all of your body and your limbs.
Lex Fridman (29:08.560)
And it'll be a gas pressurized helmet.
Dava Newman (29:10.760)
Doesn't make sense to shrink wrap the head.
Lex Fridman (29:13.200)
See the blue mangrove, that's a great, it's a great act.
Lex Fridman (29:15.800)
But we don't need to, there's no benefits
Lex Fridman (29:17.640)
of like shrink wrapping the head.
Dava Newman (29:19.040)
You put, you know, a gas pressurized helmet
Lex Fridman (29:21.120)
because the helmet then, the future of suits,
Dava Newman (29:23.360)
you asked me about, the helmet just becomes
Lex Fridman (29:25.040)
your information portal.
Lex Fridman (29:26.660)
So it will have augmented reality.
Lex Fridman (29:28.440)
It'll have all the information you need.
Dava Newman (29:30.380)
Should have, you know, the maps that I need.
Lex Fridman (29:32.080)
I'm on the moon.
Dava Newman (29:33.000)
Okay, well, hey, smart helmet.
Lex Fridman (29:34.760)
Then show me the map, show me the topography.
Dava Newman (29:36.920)
Hopefully it has the lab embedded too.
Lex Fridman (29:38.600)
If it has really great cameras,
Dava Newman (29:40.200)
maybe I can see with that regolith.
Lex Fridman (29:41.600)
That's just lunar dust and dirt.
Lex Fridman (29:43.080)
What's that made out of?
Lex Fridman (29:44.160)
We talked about the water.
Lex Fridman (29:45.480)
So the helmet then really becomes this information portal
Lex Fridman (29:48.520)
is how I see kind of the IT architecture of the helmet
Dava Newman (29:51.780)
is really allowing me to, you know,
Lex Fridman (29:54.700)
use all of my modalities of an explorer that I'd like to.
Lex Fridman (29:58.520)
So cameras, voiceover, images, if it were really good,
Lex Fridman (30:01.820)
it would kind of be, would have lab capabilities as well.
Dava Newman (30:05.240)
Okay, so the pressure comes from the body,
Lex Fridman (30:07.200)
comes from the mechanical pressure.
Dava Newman (30:09.240)
It's fascinating.
Lex Fridman (30:10.480)
Now, what aspect, when I look at Biosuit,
Dava Newman (30:12.880)
just the suits you're working on,
Lex Fridman (30:14.480)
sort of from a fashion perspective, they look awesome.
Lex Fridman (30:17.660)
Is that a small part of it too?
Lex Fridman (30:20.720)
Oh, absolutely, because the teams that we work with,
Dava Newman (30:23.440)
of course, I'm an engineer, there's engineering students,
Lex Fridman (30:25.480)
there's design students, there's architects.
Lex Fridman (30:27.260)
So it really is a very much a multidisciplinary team.
Lex Fridman (30:29.800)
So sure, colors, aesthetics, materials,
Dava Newman (30:33.440)
all those things we pay attention to.
Lex Fridman (30:34.920)
So it's not just an engineering solution.
Dava Newman (30:36.920)
It really is a much more holistic, it's a suit.
Lex Fridman (30:39.920)
It's a suit, you're, you know,
Dava Newman (30:41.360)
you're dressed in a suit now.
Lex Fridman (30:42.200)
It's a warm fitting.
Lex Fridman (30:43.720)
So we really have to pay attention to all those things.
Lex Fridman (30:46.280)
And so that's the design team that we work with.
Lex Fridman (30:49.480)
And my partner, Geetraati, you know,
Lex Fridman (30:50.760)
we're partners in this in terms of,
Dava Newman (30:52.680)
he comes from an architecture, industrial design background.
Lex Fridman (30:56.080)
So bringing those skills to bear as well.
Dava Newman (30:58.120)
We team up with industry folks who are in, you know,
Lex Fridman (31:01.120)
athletic performance and designers.
Lex Fridman (31:03.000)
So it really is a team
Lex Fridman (31:04.480)
that brings all those skills together.
Lex Fridman (31:06.280)
So what role does this space suit play
Lex Fridman (31:08.960)
in our longterm staying in Mars,
Dava Newman (31:11.320)
sort of exploring the,
Lex Fridman (31:13.240)
doing all the work that astronauts do,
Lex Fridman (31:14.640)
but also perhaps civilians one day,
Lex Fridman (31:17.440)
almost like taking steps towards colonization of Mars?
Lex Fridman (31:20.120)
What role does a space suit play there?
Lex Fridman (31:21.760)
So you always need life support system, pressurized habitat.
Lex Fridman (31:25.440)
And I like to say, we're not going to Mars to sit around.
Lex Fridman (31:28.440)
So you need a suit.
Dava Newman (31:29.960)
You know, even if you land and have the lander,
Lex Fridman (31:32.160)
you're not going there to stay inside.
Dava Newman (31:33.720)
That's for darn sure.
Lex Fridman (31:34.560)
We're going there to search for the evidence of life.
Dava Newman (31:36.200)
That's why we're going to Mars.
Lex Fridman (31:37.400)
So you need a lot of mobility.
Lex Fridman (31:39.080)
So for me, the suit is the best way
Lex Fridman (31:41.400)
to give the human mobility.
Dava Newman (31:42.920)
We're always still going to need rovers.
Lex Fridman (31:44.560)
We're going to need robots.
Lex Fridman (31:45.720)
So for me, exploration is always a suite of explorers.
Lex Fridman (31:49.440)
Some people are going to,
Dava Newman (31:50.280)
some of the suite of explorers are humans,
Lex Fridman (31:51.840)
but many are going to be robots, smart systems,
Dava Newman (31:55.040)
things like that.
Lex Fridman (31:55.880)
But I look at it as kind of all those capabilities together
Dava Newman (31:58.480)
make the best exploration team.
Lex Fridman (32:01.080)
So let me ask, I love artificial intelligence
Lex Fridman (32:03.800)
and I've also saw that you've enjoyed the movie
Lex Fridman (32:07.640)
Space Odyssey, 2001 Space Odyssey.
Dava Newman (32:10.120)
Let me ask the question about HAL 9000.
Lex Fridman (32:12.520)
That makes a few decisions there
Dava Newman (32:14.080)
that prioritizes the mission over the astronauts.
Lex Fridman (32:17.440)
Do you think, from a high philosophical question,
Lex Fridman (32:20.360)
do you think HAL did the right thing
Lex Fridman (32:22.760)
of prioritizing the mission?
Dava Newman (32:24.720)
I think our artificial intelligence
Lex Fridman (32:26.840)
will be smarter in the future.
Dava Newman (32:28.760)
For a Mars mission, it's a great question
Lex Fridman (32:30.240)
that the reality is for a Mars mission,
Dava Newman (32:32.680)
we need fully autonomous systems.
Lex Fridman (32:34.400)
We will get humans, but they have to be fully autonomous.
Lex Fridman (32:37.720)
And that's a really important,
Lex Fridman (32:38.760)
that's the most important concept
Dava Newman (32:41.040)
because there's not going to be a mission control on Earth.
Lex Fridman (32:45.040)
20 minute time lag,
Dava Newman (32:47.680)
there's just no way you're going to control it.
Lex Fridman (32:48.920)
So fully autonomous,
Lex Fridman (32:49.960)
so people have to be fully autonomous as well,
Lex Fridman (32:51.720)
but all of our systems as well.
Lex Fridman (32:53.280)
And so that's the big design challenge.
Lex Fridman (32:55.440)
So that's why we test them out on the moon as well.
Dava Newman (32:57.360)
When we have a, okay, a few second,
Lex Fridman (32:59.000)
three second time lag, you can test them out.
Dava Newman (33:00.840)
We have to really get autonomous exploration down.
Lex Fridman (33:05.360)
You asked me earlier about Magellan.
Lex Fridman (33:06.920)
Magellan and his crew, they left, right?
Lex Fridman (33:09.120)
They were autonomous.
Dava Newman (33:11.200)
You know, they were autonomous.
Lex Fridman (33:12.200)
They left and they were on their own
Dava Newman (33:14.000)
to figure out that mission.
Lex Fridman (33:15.080)
Then when they hit land, they have resources,
Dava Newman (33:16.920)
that's in situ resource utilization
Lex Fridman (33:19.000)
and everything else they brought with them.
Lex Fridman (33:21.040)
So we have to, I think, have that mindset for exploration.
Lex Fridman (33:23.280)
Again, back to the moon, it's more the testing ground,
Dava Newman (33:25.280)
the proving ground with technologies.
Lex Fridman (33:27.240)
But when we get to Mars, it's so far away
Dava Newman (33:29.600)
that we need fully autonomous systems.
Lex Fridman (33:31.600)
So I think that's where, again, AI and autonomy come in,
Dava Newman (33:35.360)
a really robust autonomy,
Lex Fridman (33:36.680)
things that we don't have today yet.
Lex Fridman (33:38.480)
So they're on the drawing boards,
Lex Fridman (33:39.880)
but we really need to test them out
Dava Newman (33:41.320)
because that's what we're up against.
Lex Fridman (33:43.280)
So fully autonomous meaning like self sufficient.
Dava Newman (33:45.760)
There's still a role for the human in that picture.
Lex Fridman (33:48.320)
Do you think there'll be a time when AI systems,
Dava Newman (33:52.440)
beyond doing fully autonomous flight control
Lex Fridman (33:55.360)
will also help or even take mission decisions
Lex Fridman (33:58.840)
like Hal did?
Lex Fridman (33:59.800)
That's interesting.
Dava Newman (34:00.640)
It depends.
Lex Fridman (34:01.480)
I mean, they're gonna be designed by humans.
Dava Newman (34:02.680)
I think as you mentioned, humans are always in the loop.
Lex Fridman (34:04.560)
I mean, we might be on Earth,
Dava Newman (34:05.560)
we might be in orbit on Mars,
Lex Fridman (34:06.880)
maybe the systems of landers down on the surface of Mars.
Lex Fridman (34:10.040)
But I think we're gonna get,
Lex Fridman (34:12.320)
we are right now just on Earth based systems,
Dava Newman (34:14.920)
AI systems that are incredibly capable
Lex Fridman (34:18.520)
and training them with all the data that we have now,
Dava Newman (34:22.680)
petabytes of data from Earth.
Lex Fridman (34:24.720)
What I care about for the autonomy and AI right now,
Lex Fridman (34:27.240)
how we're applying it in research
Lex Fridman (34:29.000)
is to look at Earth and look at climate systems.
Dava Newman (34:31.120)
I mean, that's the, it's not for Mars to me today.
Lex Fridman (34:33.440)
Right now AI is to eyes on Earth,
Dava Newman (34:35.480)
all of our space data, compiling that using supercomputers
Lex Fridman (34:39.600)
because we have so much information and knowledge
Lex Fridman (34:41.880)
and we need to get that into people's hands.
Lex Fridman (34:43.600)
First, there's the educational issue with climate
Lex Fridman (34:46.080)
and our changing climate.
Lex Fridman (34:47.480)
Then we need to change human behavior.
Dava Newman (34:49.840)
That's the biggie.
Lex Fridman (34:50.680)
So this next decade, it's urgent
Dava Newman (34:52.960)
we take care of our own spaceship, which is spaceship Earth.
Lex Fridman (34:55.600)
So that's to me where my focus has been for AI systems,
Dava Newman (35:00.320)
using whatever's out there,
Lex Fridman (35:02.120)
kind of imagining also what the future situation is,
Dava Newman (35:05.360)
what's the satellite imagery of Earth of the future.
Lex Fridman (35:07.760)
If you can hold that in your hands,
Dava Newman (35:09.480)
that's gonna be really powerful.
Lex Fridman (35:10.680)
Will that help people accelerate positive change for Earth
Lex Fridman (35:14.160)
and for us to live in balance with Earth?
Lex Fridman (35:15.600)
I hope so.
Lex Fridman (35:16.440)
And kind of start with the ocean systems.
Lex Fridman (35:17.920)
So oceans to land to air and kind of using
Dava Newman (35:20.440)
all the space data.
Lex Fridman (35:21.320)
So it's a huge role for artificial intelligence
Dava Newman (35:24.080)
to help us analyze, I call it curating the data,
Lex Fridman (35:27.160)
using the data.
Dava Newman (35:28.400)
It has a lot to do with visualizations as well.
Lex Fridman (35:31.000)
Do you think in a weird, dark question,
Lex Fridman (35:34.200)
do you think human species can survive
Lex Fridman (35:36.880)
if we don't become interplanetary
Lex Fridman (35:39.160)
in the next century or a couple of centuries?
Lex Fridman (35:44.400)
Absolutely we can survive.
Dava Newman (35:45.880)
I don't think Mars is option B actually.
Lex Fridman (35:48.400)
So I think it's all about saving spaceship Earth
Lex Fridman (35:51.160)
and humanity.
Lex Fridman (35:52.280)
I simply put, Earth doesn't need us,
Lex Fridman (35:55.200)
but we really need Earth.
Lex Fridman (35:57.000)
All of humanity needs to live in balance with Earth
Dava Newman (36:00.000)
because Earth has been here a long time
Lex Fridman (36:01.240)
before we ever showed up
Lex Fridman (36:02.120)
and it'll be here a long time after.
Lex Fridman (36:03.920)
It's just a matter of how do we wanna live
Dava Newman (36:06.040)
with all living beings, much more in balance
Lex Fridman (36:09.240)
because we need to take care of the Earth
Lex Fridman (36:11.240)
and right now we're not.
Lex Fridman (36:12.760)
So that's the urgency.
Lex Fridman (36:14.000)
And I think it is the next decade
Lex Fridman (36:15.760)
to try to live much more sustainably,
Dava Newman (36:18.640)
live more in balance with Earth.
Lex Fridman (36:19.960)
I think the human species has a great long optimistic future,
Lex Fridman (36:23.280)
but we have to act.
Lex Fridman (36:24.760)
It's urgent.
Dava Newman (36:25.600)
We have to change behavior.
Lex Fridman (36:27.280)
We have to realize that we're all in this together.
Dava Newman (36:30.280)
It's just one blue bubble.
Lex Fridman (36:31.840)
It's for humanity.
Lex Fridman (36:33.200)
So when I think people realize that we're all astronauts,
Lex Fridman (36:35.960)
that's the great news is everyone's gonna be an astronaut.
Dava Newman (36:38.600)
We're all astronauts of spaceship Earth.
Lex Fridman (36:41.200)
And again, this is our mission.
Dava Newman (36:42.520)
This is our mission to take care of the planet.
Lex Fridman (36:45.120)
And yet as we explore out from our spaceship Earth here
Dava Newman (36:50.160)
out into the space,
Lex Fridman (36:52.320)
what do you think the next 50, 100, 200 years
Lex Fridman (36:55.240)
look like for space exploration?
Lex Fridman (36:56.920)
I'm optimistic.
Lex Fridman (36:58.680)
So I think that we'll have lots of people,
Lex Fridman (37:01.880)
thousands of people, tens of thousands of people,
Dava Newman (37:03.480)
who knows, maybe millions in low Earth orbit.
Lex Fridman (37:05.200)
That's just a place that we're gonna have people
Lex Fridman (37:06.960)
and actually some industry, manufacturing, things like that.
Lex Fridman (37:11.280)
That dream I hope we realize, getting people to the moon.
Lex Fridman (37:13.560)
So I can envision a lot of people on the moon.
Lex Fridman (37:15.920)
Again, it's a great place to go.
Lex Fridman (37:17.160)
Living or visiting?
Lex Fridman (37:18.960)
Probably visiting and living.
Dava Newman (37:21.160)
If you want to, most people are gonna wanna come back
Lex Fridman (37:22.960)
to Earth, I think.
Lex Fridman (37:23.880)
But there'll be some people and it's not such a long,
Lex Fridman (37:26.200)
it's a good view, it's a beautiful view.
Lex Fridman (37:28.040)
So I think that we will have many people
Lex Fridman (37:30.720)
on the moon as well.
Dava Newman (37:31.560)
I think there'll be some people, you told me, wow,
Lex Fridman (37:33.880)
hundreds of years out.
Lex Fridman (37:34.880)
So we'll have people, we'll be interplanetary for sure
Lex Fridman (37:37.360)
as a species.
Lex Fridman (37:38.640)
So I think we'll be on the moon.
Lex Fridman (37:39.840)
I think we'll be on Mars.
Dava Newman (37:41.640)
Venus, no, it's already a runaway greenhouse gas.
Lex Fridman (37:43.760)
So not a great place for science.
Dava Newman (37:46.120)
Jupiter, all within the solar system,
Lex Fridman (37:47.880)
great place for all of our scientific probes.
Dava Newman (37:50.080)
I don't see so much in terms of human physical presence.
Lex Fridman (37:53.280)
We'll be exploring them.
Lex Fridman (37:54.200)
So we live in our minds there because we're exploring them
Lex Fridman (37:57.560)
and going on those journeys.
Lex Fridman (37:59.240)
But it's really our choice in terms of our decisions
Lex Fridman (38:03.960)
of how in balance we're gonna be living here on the Earth.
Lex Fridman (38:07.280)
When do you think the first woman, first person will step on Mars?
Lex Fridman (38:11.760)
Ah, step on Mars?
Dava Newman (38:12.600)
Well, I'm gonna do everything I can
Lex Fridman (38:14.520)
to make sure it happens in the 2030s.
Dava Newman (38:16.360)
2030s.
Lex Fridman (38:17.200)
Say mid, 20, mid 20, 2025, 2035, we'll be on the moon.
Lex Fridman (38:22.880)
And hopefully with more people than us.
Lex Fridman (38:24.280)
But first with a few astronauts,
Dava Newman (38:25.760)
it'll be global, international folks.
Lex Fridman (38:27.640)
But we really need those 10 years, I think, on the moon.
Lex Fridman (38:29.920)
And then so by later in the decade, in the 2030s,
Lex Fridman (38:33.520)
we'll have all the technology and know how,
Lex Fridman (38:35.400)
and we need to get that human mission to Mars done.
Lex Fridman (38:38.400)
We live in exciting times.
Dava Newman (38:39.760)
And, Dava, thank you so much for leading the way
Lex Fridman (38:41.800)
and thank you for talking today.
Dava Newman (38:42.800)
I really appreciate it. Thank you, my pleasure.
Lex Fridman (38:45.200)
Thanks for listening to this conversation
Lex Fridman (38:47.000)
and thank you to our presenting sponsor, Cash App.
Lex Fridman (38:50.400)
Remember to use code LexPodcast
Dava Newman (38:53.240)
when you download Cash App
Lex Fridman (38:54.320)
from the App Store or Google Play Store.
Dava Newman (38:56.400)
You'll get 10 bucks, $10, and $10 will go to FIRST,
Lex Fridman (39:00.600)
a STEM education nonprofit that inspires hundreds
Dava Newman (39:03.720)
of thousands of young minds to learn
Lex Fridman (39:06.880)
and to dream of engineering our future.
Dava Newman (39:09.960)
Thank you and hope to see you next time.
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