how many of you love Arizona when I
chose ASU for graduate school I could
not believe how lucky I was
I love the desert I love the weather
and I love the mountains but most of all
I love the sunsets for the first time in
my life I could climb to the top of a
peak and watch the sunset over an entire
city below me it’s a very powerful
experience but now I have a new
destination in mind I want to go to Mars
and I want to see the Sun set there for
me when I look up at the night sky I
don’t see an empty void I see a vast
ocean waiting to be explored for me it’s
about the adventure it’s about that
boundless human spirit about going and
conquering that unknown and final
frontier but now more than ever I’m
absolutely convinced that we as a
species need to go first and foremost it
is a vital part of our species survival
plan a bioengineered pandemic solar
flare nuclear winter other agricultural
failure or any other extinction level
event are real threats so going to Mars
is not just about expanding human
boundaries it’s also about creating a
back-up plan in case we need to
recolonize the earth but more
importantly it’s a worthy part of our
portfolio of human knowledge we can’t
know what space technology might become
if you need examples of this look no
further than your iPhone camera or
modern firefighting gear both of those
are direct NASA spin-offs the technology
that we create to go to Mars and
colonize it will drive advancements in
energy generation and storage in
recycling technologies and in the
manipulation of atmospheric and
geological processes those are also
stainability issues here on earth so
NASA put together this plan called
journey to Mars which has us in Mars
orbit sometime around 2035 and parts of
this plan have us very developing
various technologies so on the Mars 2020
Rover there will be a co2 to oxygen
converter that they’re testing the kilo
power initiative is this project aimed
at creating 10 kilowatts of portable
power using a small amount of nuclear
fission and Elon Musk and SpaceX are
trying to tackle the transportation
problem with a very aggressive timeline
of putting human boots on Mars by 2024
what this means is that it’s likely we
will see humans land on Mars within the
next decade
somewhere along the spectrum but in
order to colonize Mars we’re missing one
ingredient this ingredient is going to
usher in the most exciting era in human
history can you guess what it is it’s
dirt but not just any dirt space dirt
see Mars the moon and asteroids are all
covered in this material called regolith
and regolith is the most important
factor in space colonization that you’ve
probably never heard of it is a very
finely crushed kind of volcanic rock
that’s almost like chalk and even though
it’s different in all these various
places in our solar system most
locations it is a versatile nearly
unlimited raw material you might be
wondering how do I know this so last
summer I got a chance to be an intern at
NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida I
was in the swamp works lab and the
technical name of that lab is the
granular mechanics and regolith
operations which is a very fancy way of
saying that I spent my summer playing
with fake space dirt but I went there to
learn about the robots the regolith and
how the to interact and it was there
that I saw firsthand the technologies
that will bring us to Mars and help us
form a colony there these are not just
ideas these are working prototypes that
are being tested today prototypes like
this razor robot we have the capacity to
do autonomous mining now and we’re going
to use that to help form the basis of
our colony it costs thousands of dollars
per pound to bring material from Earth
to Mars why would you do that when you
can learn to use the material that’s
already there and that’s what we’re
going to do because once we have the
ability to do autonomous mining we can
then begin autonomous construction so by
now all of you probably heard of 3d
printing technology it is a
manufacturing process that lets you make
unique structures out of a uniform
material that you have at hand right now
we can print large honeycomb structures
on the order of feet using a large
amount of fake regolith and a very small
amount of additive if we go to more
conventional technology lie
let’s say concrete we already have the
capacity to 3d print entire buildings so
the only gap that exists is to merge
these two technologies together it’s
very likely that when we land on Mars
when we land large groups of humans for
a colony they’ll already have housing
waiting for them this is one of my
favorite ideas what we could do is send
these inflatable habitats with all of
the technical equipment inside of them
ahead of time and then we could encase
them in a 3d printed protective shell
what’s great about Martian regolith is
that it is good for shielding against
radiation heat fluctuations
micrometeoroid impacts and the general
weather of Mars a surface but we’re not
just going to want buildings excuse me
we’re not just going to want habitats
we’re going to want buildings as well
we’re going to want roads connecting
them and we’re going to want launch pads
because getting back to earth is an
important part of convincing people to
go to Mars and regolith can help with
this – not just with the launch pads but
with the fuel as well see when you look
at the Red Planet it looks like a very
desert environment but the geology is
very complex and it’s a lot more
hydrated than we thought it was there
are dry ice and water ice frozen
scattered across the surface of Mars at
various depths and last year some NASA
engineers got curious and did intricate
models of what fuel generation might
look like using the knowledge that we
have about the Martian regolith and what
they found is that using technology that
we already have developed today if we
send less than 2 tons of equipment to
Mars ahead of time we can produce over
30 tons of fuel in a little bit more
than a year to put that in perspective
for you it would take the most powerful
rocket in human history just carrying
that fuel to bring it from Earth to Mars
this fuel will be liquid methane and
liquid oxygen which will also help
provide
the ability for sustained human presence
on Mars so regolith is the key to
unlocking all of this but once we go to
Mars we’re not going to want to stay
there we’re going to want to go out and
explore how could we use this space dirt
on the moon or on asteroids and we have
ideas for this too if we think of Mars
as the next human colony then we can
think of the moon almost like an airport
basically our spaceport gravity is a
vital factor for launching out into the
solar system and using the moon as a
launch hub would make a gigantic array
of solar system missions possible the
good news is that autonomous mining and
autonomous construction technology that
I mentioned can be used on the moon with
very little modification so we’ll be
able to build habitats for workers we’ll
be able to build other buildings roads
and also launch pads and just like the
Martian regolith the lunar regolith will
help us with fuel as well it doesn’t
look like it but the moon has over a
hundred million tons of frozen water by
the lowest estimates it’s hidden in
shadowed craters and other parts of the
Moon that the Sun doesn’t really hit and
much like the Martian regolith we can go
harvest this and use it for liquid
oxygen and liquid methane fuel and so
we’ll have a colony on Mars we will have
a travel hub to go anywhere that we want
in the solar system on the moon and once
we start branching out into those far
reaches that’s when things get really
really interesting so if we think of
Mars as our colony and the moon as our
spaceport then we can think of these
asteroids and comets as opportunities
for repair and refuel almost like
interstellar gas stations and we can the
ones that will choose to go to will
produce the same types of products even
though they’re dirt
varies a lot we’ll make structures out
of the metallic components and we’ll
create propellant out of the gasses and
the frozen ice that’s there
the only problem is that unlike the Moon
and Mars the gravity on these objects is
very very small if you were to push off
of it it would take you several minutes
to come floating back down so we can’t
use any of the technology that we just
talked about but luckily we’ve already
begun to create solutions for this one
company successfully 3d printed plastic
parts on the International Space Station
in zero gravity another company was just
contracted to build a water-based
propulsion system for satellite and yet
a third company has successfully 3d
printed meteorite metal into structures
this same company earlier this year
launched a one foot by two foot
satellite that’s orbiting the Earth
right now and it’s looking for asteroids
to go and prospect these companies exist
today this technology exists today and I
want everybody to know about this
because no matter what your field is you
can be involved in space exploration and
it’s very important because the more
people that we have involved in space
exploration the more say that we all
have in forming this next chapter of
human history we’re going to go to Mars
we’re going to colonize Mars for our
survival for the growth of the species
and because it’s the next grand
adventure some of you in here today may
one day travel to Mars for work just as
scientists travel around the globe today
the kids born today will travel to Mars
for work and for fun they will find it
boring in their lifetime much like we
find air travel boring today and they’ll
go to the moon
and take flights out and explore
Jupiter’s moons and Saturn’s moons and
asteroids and places that I can’t even
begin to imagine and some of them will
come home to Mars and live in their
houses made of space dirt thank you [Applause]
chose ASU for graduate school I could
not believe how lucky I was
I love the desert I love the weather
and I love the mountains but most of all
I love the sunsets for the first time in
my life I could climb to the top of a
peak and watch the sunset over an entire
city below me it’s a very powerful
experience but now I have a new
destination in mind I want to go to Mars
and I want to see the Sun set there for
me when I look up at the night sky I
don’t see an empty void I see a vast
ocean waiting to be explored for me it’s
about the adventure it’s about that
boundless human spirit about going and
conquering that unknown and final
frontier but now more than ever I’m
absolutely convinced that we as a
species need to go first and foremost it
is a vital part of our species survival
plan a bioengineered pandemic solar
flare nuclear winter other agricultural
failure or any other extinction level
event are real threats so going to Mars
is not just about expanding human
boundaries it’s also about creating a
back-up plan in case we need to
recolonize the earth but more
importantly it’s a worthy part of our
portfolio of human knowledge we can’t
know what space technology might become
if you need examples of this look no
further than your iPhone camera or
modern firefighting gear both of those
are direct NASA spin-offs the technology
that we create to go to Mars and
colonize it will drive advancements in
energy generation and storage in
recycling technologies and in the
manipulation of atmospheric and
geological processes those are also
stainability issues here on earth so
NASA put together this plan called
journey to Mars which has us in Mars
orbit sometime around 2035 and parts of
this plan have us very developing
various technologies so on the Mars 2020
Rover there will be a co2 to oxygen
converter that they’re testing the kilo
power initiative is this project aimed
at creating 10 kilowatts of portable
power using a small amount of nuclear
fission and Elon Musk and SpaceX are
trying to tackle the transportation
problem with a very aggressive timeline
of putting human boots on Mars by 2024
what this means is that it’s likely we
will see humans land on Mars within the
next decade
somewhere along the spectrum but in
order to colonize Mars we’re missing one
ingredient this ingredient is going to
usher in the most exciting era in human
history can you guess what it is it’s
dirt but not just any dirt space dirt
see Mars the moon and asteroids are all
covered in this material called regolith
and regolith is the most important
factor in space colonization that you’ve
probably never heard of it is a very
finely crushed kind of volcanic rock
that’s almost like chalk and even though
it’s different in all these various
places in our solar system most
locations it is a versatile nearly
unlimited raw material you might be
wondering how do I know this so last
summer I got a chance to be an intern at
NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida I
was in the swamp works lab and the
technical name of that lab is the
granular mechanics and regolith
operations which is a very fancy way of
saying that I spent my summer playing
with fake space dirt but I went there to
learn about the robots the regolith and
how the to interact and it was there
that I saw firsthand the technologies
that will bring us to Mars and help us
form a colony there these are not just
ideas these are working prototypes that
are being tested today prototypes like
this razor robot we have the capacity to
do autonomous mining now and we’re going
to use that to help form the basis of
our colony it costs thousands of dollars
per pound to bring material from Earth
to Mars why would you do that when you
can learn to use the material that’s
already there and that’s what we’re
going to do because once we have the
ability to do autonomous mining we can
then begin autonomous construction so by
now all of you probably heard of 3d
printing technology it is a
manufacturing process that lets you make
unique structures out of a uniform
material that you have at hand right now
we can print large honeycomb structures
on the order of feet using a large
amount of fake regolith and a very small
amount of additive if we go to more
conventional technology lie
let’s say concrete we already have the
capacity to 3d print entire buildings so
the only gap that exists is to merge
these two technologies together it’s
very likely that when we land on Mars
when we land large groups of humans for
a colony they’ll already have housing
waiting for them this is one of my
favorite ideas what we could do is send
these inflatable habitats with all of
the technical equipment inside of them
ahead of time and then we could encase
them in a 3d printed protective shell
what’s great about Martian regolith is
that it is good for shielding against
radiation heat fluctuations
micrometeoroid impacts and the general
weather of Mars a surface but we’re not
just going to want buildings excuse me
we’re not just going to want habitats
we’re going to want buildings as well
we’re going to want roads connecting
them and we’re going to want launch pads
because getting back to earth is an
important part of convincing people to
go to Mars and regolith can help with
this – not just with the launch pads but
with the fuel as well see when you look
at the Red Planet it looks like a very
desert environment but the geology is
very complex and it’s a lot more
hydrated than we thought it was there
are dry ice and water ice frozen
scattered across the surface of Mars at
various depths and last year some NASA
engineers got curious and did intricate
models of what fuel generation might
look like using the knowledge that we
have about the Martian regolith and what
they found is that using technology that
we already have developed today if we
send less than 2 tons of equipment to
Mars ahead of time we can produce over
30 tons of fuel in a little bit more
than a year to put that in perspective
for you it would take the most powerful
rocket in human history just carrying
that fuel to bring it from Earth to Mars
this fuel will be liquid methane and
liquid oxygen which will also help
provide
the ability for sustained human presence
on Mars so regolith is the key to
unlocking all of this but once we go to
Mars we’re not going to want to stay
there we’re going to want to go out and
explore how could we use this space dirt
on the moon or on asteroids and we have
ideas for this too if we think of Mars
as the next human colony then we can
think of the moon almost like an airport
basically our spaceport gravity is a
vital factor for launching out into the
solar system and using the moon as a
launch hub would make a gigantic array
of solar system missions possible the
good news is that autonomous mining and
autonomous construction technology that
I mentioned can be used on the moon with
very little modification so we’ll be
able to build habitats for workers we’ll
be able to build other buildings roads
and also launch pads and just like the
Martian regolith the lunar regolith will
help us with fuel as well it doesn’t
look like it but the moon has over a
hundred million tons of frozen water by
the lowest estimates it’s hidden in
shadowed craters and other parts of the
Moon that the Sun doesn’t really hit and
much like the Martian regolith we can go
harvest this and use it for liquid
oxygen and liquid methane fuel and so
we’ll have a colony on Mars we will have
a travel hub to go anywhere that we want
in the solar system on the moon and once
we start branching out into those far
reaches that’s when things get really
really interesting so if we think of
Mars as our colony and the moon as our
spaceport then we can think of these
asteroids and comets as opportunities
for repair and refuel almost like
interstellar gas stations and we can the
ones that will choose to go to will
produce the same types of products even
though they’re dirt
varies a lot we’ll make structures out
of the metallic components and we’ll
create propellant out of the gasses and
the frozen ice that’s there
the only problem is that unlike the Moon
and Mars the gravity on these objects is
very very small if you were to push off
of it it would take you several minutes
to come floating back down so we can’t
use any of the technology that we just
talked about but luckily we’ve already
begun to create solutions for this one
company successfully 3d printed plastic
parts on the International Space Station
in zero gravity another company was just
contracted to build a water-based
propulsion system for satellite and yet
a third company has successfully 3d
printed meteorite metal into structures
this same company earlier this year
launched a one foot by two foot
satellite that’s orbiting the Earth
right now and it’s looking for asteroids
to go and prospect these companies exist
today this technology exists today and I
want everybody to know about this
because no matter what your field is you
can be involved in space exploration and
it’s very important because the more
people that we have involved in space
exploration the more say that we all
have in forming this next chapter of
human history we’re going to go to Mars
we’re going to colonize Mars for our
survival for the growth of the species
and because it’s the next grand
adventure some of you in here today may
one day travel to Mars for work just as
scientists travel around the globe today
the kids born today will travel to Mars
for work and for fun they will find it
boring in their lifetime much like we
find air travel boring today and they’ll
go to the moon
and take flights out and explore
Jupiter’s moons and Saturn’s moons and
asteroids and places that I can’t even
begin to imagine and some of them will
come home to Mars and live in their
houses made of space dirt thank you [Applause]
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