WEBVTT 1 00:00:03.399 --> 00:00:07.719 Welcome to Bedtime Astronomy. Explore the wonders of the cosmos 2 00:00:07.759 --> 00:00:12.279 with our soothing Bedtime Astronomi podcast. Each episode offers a 3 00:00:12.359 --> 00:00:16.320 gentle journey through the stars, planets, and beyond, perfect for 4 00:00:16.399 --> 00:00:20.239 unwinding after a long day. Let's travel through the mysteries 5 00:00:20.239 --> 00:00:22.440 of the universe as you drift off into a peaceful 6 00:00:22.480 --> 00:00:23.800 slumber under the night sky. 7 00:00:26.920 --> 00:00:29.000 So, if you want to put human beings on Mars, 8 00:00:29.239 --> 00:00:32.799 your absolute biggest enemy isn't the radiation, right, and it 9 00:00:32.840 --> 00:00:35.600 isn't the freezing temperatures either. It is weight. I mean 10 00:00:35.960 --> 00:00:38.880 launching just the rocket fuel needed for a return trip 11 00:00:38.960 --> 00:00:41.920 back to Earth. Well, that would require a launch vehicle 12 00:00:42.159 --> 00:00:46.039 so impossibly massive that it basically bankruptcy entire mission before 13 00:00:46.039 --> 00:00:47.200 it even leaves the launch pad. 14 00:00:47.280 --> 00:00:50.920 Oh absolutely, it's just a non start financially and physically exact. 15 00:00:51.039 --> 00:00:53.159 So space agencies have had to come up with a 16 00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:56.719 radically different plan, which is, do not bring the return 17 00:00:56.759 --> 00:00:59.520 fuel at all, make it there. But to make fuel 18 00:00:59.520 --> 00:01:03.320 on Mars, you need to find massive, accessible deposits of 19 00:01:03.479 --> 00:01:06.959 subsurface water ice, and you need to find them. 20 00:01:06.760 --> 00:01:09.480 Fast, very fast. The clock is ticking on those twenty 21 00:01:09.519 --> 00:01:10.359 thirties deadlines. 22 00:01:10.439 --> 00:01:14.079 Yeah, which brings us to this frankly staggering announcement from 23 00:01:14.079 --> 00:01:18.159 the March twenty twenty six Ignition event, a mission called Skyfall. 24 00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:20.079 I mean, just the name sounds like a movie. 25 00:01:20.120 --> 00:01:22.599 It really does. It as a very cinematic ring to it. 26 00:01:22.599 --> 00:01:26.040 It does, and the plan is wild. They want to 27 00:01:26.120 --> 00:01:29.959 launch a nuclear powered spacecraft, fly it to Mars, and 28 00:01:30.040 --> 00:01:33.079 instead of you know, carefully lowering a rover to the ground, 29 00:01:33.519 --> 00:01:37.400 this ship will plunge into the Martian atmosphere and violently 30 00:01:37.439 --> 00:01:41.079 eject a squadron of six autonomous helicopters mid air. 31 00:01:41.480 --> 00:01:43.359 Just drop them right out of the sky right. 32 00:01:43.760 --> 00:01:47.680 They will free fall at supersonic speeds, deploy their rotors, 33 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:51.480 catch themselves before hitting the dirt, and scatter across the 34 00:01:51.519 --> 00:01:54.319 planet to hunt for ice. I mean, it sounds totally 35 00:01:54.400 --> 00:01:55.760 reckless when you describe it like that. 36 00:01:55.840 --> 00:01:59.400 Oh, I know, dropping a multi billion dollar fleet out 37 00:01:59.400 --> 00:02:03.159 of the sky mid entry seems to violate well basically 38 00:02:03.239 --> 00:02:06.359 every safety protocol we've spent the last sixty years developing 39 00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:07.480 for planetary landings. 40 00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:08.439 Yeah, that's what I was thinking. 41 00:02:08.479 --> 00:02:10.319 But when you look at the brutal mathematics of the 42 00:02:10.400 --> 00:02:14.520 twenty thirties human landing deadlines. The conventional methods of exploration, 43 00:02:14.759 --> 00:02:19.520 like slowly rolling a single car sized rover across the dunes, 44 00:02:19.879 --> 00:02:21.520 are statistically guaranteed to. 45 00:02:21.439 --> 00:02:22.879 Fail because they're just too slow. 46 00:02:23.120 --> 00:02:25.319 Exactly, we do not have the time to survey an 47 00:02:25.400 --> 00:02:30.199 entire planet on wheels. Skyfalls the forcing function here. It 48 00:02:30.319 --> 00:02:35.560 is a necessary, albeit incredibly aggressive architectural shift from crawling 49 00:02:35.919 --> 00:02:36.520 to swarming. 50 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:39.039 Wow. Okay, I am still trying to wrap my head 51 00:02:39.080 --> 00:02:41.759 around the visual of mid air deployment at mock speeds. 52 00:02:42.439 --> 00:02:45.479 But before we get into the aerodynamics of a falling swarm, 53 00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:47.439 I want to trace how we got here. 54 00:02:47.879 --> 00:02:50.599 Sure, because this didn't happen in a vacuum. 55 00:02:50.240 --> 00:02:52.439 Right, NASA didn't just wake up in twenty twenty six 56 00:02:52.479 --> 00:02:56.280 and decide to build nuclear paratrooper drones. This entire mission 57 00:02:56.400 --> 00:02:59.000 architecture rests on the shoulders of what I used to 58 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:03.280 think of as a neat little science project, the Ingenuity 59 00:03:03.319 --> 00:03:04.159 Mars helicopter. 60 00:03:04.560 --> 00:03:08.919 Oh. Calling Ingenuity a science project severely understates the aerodynamic 61 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:10.000 nightmare of its creation. 62 00:03:10.159 --> 00:03:11.120 Really a nightmare? 63 00:03:11.199 --> 00:03:14.199 Oh yeah. To understand why skyfall is possible, you really 64 00:03:14.199 --> 00:03:16.639 have to understand why Ingenuity shouldn't have been I mean, 65 00:03:16.680 --> 00:03:19.280 The atmosphere on Mars is mostly carbon dioxide, and it 66 00:03:19.360 --> 00:03:19.759 is thin. 67 00:03:19.960 --> 00:03:20.879 Now thin are we talking? 68 00:03:21.240 --> 00:03:23.240 It's ad about one percent of the density of verse 69 00:03:23.319 --> 00:03:24.479 atmosphere at sea level. 70 00:03:24.599 --> 00:03:26.879 Okay, So if I'm an engineer tasked with flying an 71 00:03:26.919 --> 00:03:29.599 air that thin, my immediate instinct is to just, you know, 72 00:03:29.919 --> 00:03:32.879 scale up, like make the rotor blades vastly longer and 73 00:03:32.960 --> 00:03:36.639 wider to catch more of whatever sparse air is actually there. 74 00:03:37.080 --> 00:03:39.039 It seems like a simple geometry problem to me. 75 00:03:39.240 --> 00:03:42.599 You think, so, right, that's the logical first step. But 76 00:03:42.800 --> 00:03:45.639 increasing the blade length runs you face first into a 77 00:03:45.639 --> 00:03:48.039 physical wall, which is the speed of sound. 78 00:03:48.479 --> 00:03:50.680 Wait, the speed of sound is different on Mars. 79 00:03:50.800 --> 00:03:54.560 Yes, Mars is incredibly cold, and sound travels through that 80 00:03:54.599 --> 00:03:57.400 thin CO two atmosphere much slower than it does on Earth. 81 00:03:57.840 --> 00:04:00.000 It's about two hundred and forty meters per second compared 82 00:04:00.159 --> 00:04:00.840 our three forty. 83 00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:02.800 Oh wow, I had no idea. 84 00:04:03.080 --> 00:04:05.840 Yeah. So if you build massive rotor blades and spin 85 00:04:05.919 --> 00:04:08.560 them fast enough to generate lyft, the tips of those 86 00:04:08.639 --> 00:04:11.479 long blades will easily exceed the Martian speed of sound, 87 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:15.000 and the moment that happens, you generate destructive. 88 00:04:14.520 --> 00:04:17.199 Shockwaves like a sonic boom hitting the blade itself. 89 00:04:17.560 --> 00:04:20.480 Essentially, Yes, the air basically turns into a brick wall 90 00:04:20.519 --> 00:04:23.360 of drag, the blade loses its lifting capability, and the 91 00:04:23.360 --> 00:04:25.040 helicopter just tears itself apart. 92 00:04:25.360 --> 00:04:29.319 Yikes. So you literally cannot just build huge blades exactly. 93 00:04:29.600 --> 00:04:32.160 Instead, the team at JPL had to keep the blades 94 00:04:32.360 --> 00:04:36.319 relatively short, about one point two meters across, and spin 95 00:04:36.399 --> 00:04:40.360 them at an agonizingly precise speed. We're talking around twenty 96 00:04:40.399 --> 00:04:42.839 four hundred to twenty five hundred revolutions per minute. 97 00:04:42.879 --> 00:04:44.199 That sounds incredibly fast. 98 00:04:44.360 --> 00:04:47.720 It is. That is roughly five times faster than a 99 00:04:47.800 --> 00:04:51.600 standard passenger helicopter on Earth. So they had to engineer 100 00:04:51.639 --> 00:04:54.920 these blades out of carbon fiber foam cores just to 101 00:04:54.920 --> 00:04:58.680 be stiff enough not to bend under those extreme rotational. 102 00:04:58.199 --> 00:04:59.680 Forces while keeping the weight down. 103 00:04:59.720 --> 00:05:03.279 I s right, giving the entire vehicle under two kilograms. 104 00:05:03.399 --> 00:05:07.319 Man, that makes the reality of what Ingenuity accomplished terrifying 105 00:05:07.439 --> 00:05:10.199 in retrospect. I mean, it was designed to fly maybe 106 00:05:10.279 --> 00:05:12.879 five times over thirty days. It was just a tech 107 00:05:12.920 --> 00:05:14.720 demo to prove powered flight was even. 108 00:05:14.639 --> 00:05:16.040 Possible, just a proof of concept. 109 00:05:16.120 --> 00:05:19.240 Yeah, Instead, it survived the freezing Martian winter, which, by 110 00:05:19.240 --> 00:05:21.560 the way, I completely lacked the heaters for and it 111 00:05:21.560 --> 00:05:25.000 flew seventy two times over three years. It absolutely smashed 112 00:05:25.040 --> 00:05:28.319 its targets, outperforming its flight target by more than fourteen 113 00:05:28.399 --> 00:05:30.920 times and its longevity target by thirty two times. 114 00:05:30.920 --> 00:05:33.519 It's an unprecedented engineering triumph. 115 00:05:33.279 --> 00:05:36.079 It is, But I still see a massive leap in 116 00:05:36.160 --> 00:05:39.839 logic here. I understand Ingenuity was a triumph. It's the 117 00:05:39.959 --> 00:05:42.639 right flyer of Mars, but it was still a tiny 118 00:05:42.680 --> 00:05:46.199 scout that relied entirely on the Perseverance rover acting as 119 00:05:46.199 --> 00:05:47.800 its communication base station. 120 00:05:48.480 --> 00:05:50.560 That's true, it couldn't talk to Earth directly. 121 00:05:50.360 --> 00:05:54.199 Right, So bounding from that localized success to betting the 122 00:05:54.360 --> 00:05:58.519 entire site selection process for human habitation on an unproven 123 00:05:58.600 --> 00:06:04.399 fleet of autonomous heavy helicopters, that seems incredibly precarious. I mean, 124 00:06:04.399 --> 00:06:06.519 we know how to build rovers, we have decades of 125 00:06:06.560 --> 00:06:09.279 experience with wheels. Why not just send six rovers? 126 00:06:09.360 --> 00:06:12.439 Well, because wheels are an illusion of safety. If you 127 00:06:12.480 --> 00:06:15.399 look at the actual operational history of our Martian rovers, 128 00:06:15.839 --> 00:06:19.439 they are agonizingly slow and they are highly vulnerable to 129 00:06:19.480 --> 00:06:19.920 the terrain. 130 00:06:20.040 --> 00:06:22.040 I mean, they do look pretty slow in the videos. 131 00:06:22.120 --> 00:06:24.560 It's worse than it looks. Because of the light time 132 00:06:24.639 --> 00:06:27.319 delay in communicating with Earth, which ranges from four to 133 00:06:27.319 --> 00:06:30.519 twenty four minutes depending on orbital alignments, you cannot drive 134 00:06:30.560 --> 00:06:31.920 a rover manually. 135 00:06:31.560 --> 00:06:33.240 So no one is sitting there with a joystick. 136 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:36.959 No, definitely not. A human cannot use a joystick to 137 00:06:37.079 --> 00:06:39.439 steer around a rock because by the time the video 138 00:06:39.519 --> 00:06:42.879 feed of the rock reaches Earth, well, the rover has 139 00:06:42.920 --> 00:06:44.720 already crashed into it twenty minutes ago. 140 00:06:44.839 --> 00:06:46.720 That makes sense, it's already in the past. 141 00:06:46.680 --> 00:06:49.839 Right, So every single movement of a rover is plotted 142 00:06:49.879 --> 00:06:53.279 in advance. The rover takes photos, beams them to Earth. 143 00:06:53.759 --> 00:06:57.879 Engineers spend hours building a three D terrain mesh simulating 144 00:06:57.920 --> 00:07:00.160 a path, and then they beam up a command that 145 00:07:00.199 --> 00:07:02.600 says drive forward three meters and. 146 00:07:02.519 --> 00:07:04.360 Stop three meters. That's it. 147 00:07:04.519 --> 00:07:07.839 A fantastic day of driving for a rover is perhaps one. 148 00:07:07.839 --> 00:07:11.480 Hundred meters, and the terrain isn't exactly a paved highway either. 149 00:07:12.199 --> 00:07:14.839 I remember the Spirit rover breaking through a crust of 150 00:07:14.879 --> 00:07:17.720 soil in two thousand and nine. It just sank into 151 00:07:17.720 --> 00:07:20.439 a hidden sand trap and became permanently bogged down. 152 00:07:20.600 --> 00:07:22.199 We lost the whole vehicle right there. 153 00:07:22.360 --> 00:07:25.160 Yeah, and curiosities aluminum wheels look like they had been 154 00:07:25.279 --> 00:07:27.839 chewed through by metal shears after just a few years 155 00:07:27.879 --> 00:07:30.120 of driving over those sharp wind carved rocks. 156 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:34.639 And that is the core issue. Rovers are crawling blind 157 00:07:34.759 --> 00:07:38.360 through a minefield of geological hazards. If your objective is 158 00:07:38.399 --> 00:07:41.519 to map thousands of square kilometers of terrain to find 159 00:07:41.560 --> 00:07:44.360 a massive, pure subsurface ice. 160 00:07:44.160 --> 00:07:46.519 Sheet, right because we need the ice exactly. 161 00:07:46.279 --> 00:07:48.639 An ice sheet that is also situated near flat ground 162 00:07:48.720 --> 00:07:51.600 suitable for a human landing craft. A rover will take 163 00:07:51.639 --> 00:07:52.519 half a century to. 164 00:07:52.439 --> 00:07:54.560 Do that half a century, and we want to land 165 00:07:54.639 --> 00:07:58.600 humans in the twenty thirties. So the math just doesn't work. 166 00:07:58.720 --> 00:08:02.480 It doesn'ttors completely bypass the terrain problem. They fly over 167 00:08:02.519 --> 00:08:05.480 the sandtraps that killed Spirit, They soar over the jagged 168 00:08:05.600 --> 00:08:08.680 rocks that shredded curiosities wheels. They could drop into a 169 00:08:08.680 --> 00:08:11.920 massive crater, map the stratigraphy of the steep walls, and 170 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:13.519 fly back out in an afternoon. 171 00:08:13.920 --> 00:08:17.160 So they're just on another level entirely in terms of speed. 172 00:08:17.279 --> 00:08:20.000 What takes a rover six months to navigate an aerial 173 00:08:20.040 --> 00:08:24.079 asset surveys in four hours. So NASA didn't abandon rovers 174 00:08:24.079 --> 00:08:27.199 because they wanted a flashier technology. They abandoned them because 175 00:08:27.240 --> 00:08:31.120 the mathematics of the twenty thirty's human arrival deadline dictate 176 00:08:31.160 --> 00:08:33.879 that aerial swarms are the only physical way to survey 177 00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:34.960 enough ground in time. 178 00:08:35.240 --> 00:08:37.720 Okay, that reframes the entire timeline for me. It is 179 00:08:37.759 --> 00:08:41.080 an issue of scale and speed. But scaling up brings 180 00:08:41.120 --> 00:08:44.639 us to a brutal logistical bottleneck. If we are moving 181 00:08:44.639 --> 00:08:47.399 from a single two kilogram drone to a fleet of 182 00:08:47.480 --> 00:08:51.480 six advanced heavy payload helicopters, the mass we need to 183 00:08:51.519 --> 00:08:55.879 send to Mars increases exponentially drastically, and we need them 184 00:08:55.879 --> 00:08:59.159 there incredibly fast to do the prospecting before astronauts start 185 00:08:59.159 --> 00:09:03.000 prepping for launch. So traditional chemical rockets, you know, burning 186 00:09:03.080 --> 00:09:06.480 liquid fuel and oxidizer, they have hard limits. 187 00:09:06.240 --> 00:09:08.039 Very hard limits when it comes to mass. Yeah. 188 00:09:08.080 --> 00:09:11.000 I'm looking at the architecture for the Skyfall carrier spacecraft 189 00:09:11.039 --> 00:09:14.240 and NASA isn't using chemical propulsion for the main transit. 190 00:09:14.559 --> 00:09:18.440 They're using the sr IE Freedom, a spacecraft powered by 191 00:09:18.440 --> 00:09:21.399 a twenty kilowatt nuclear electric propulsion system. 192 00:09:21.559 --> 00:09:25.080 Yes, this is where Skyfall graduates from a clever robotic 193 00:09:25.159 --> 00:09:29.559 mission to a foundational shift in interplanetary infrastructure. The sr 194 00:09:29.600 --> 00:09:32.720 IE freedom represents the death of the traditional rocket equation 195 00:09:32.840 --> 00:09:33.919 for deep space transit. 196 00:09:34.080 --> 00:09:35.919 The rocket equation break that down for me. 197 00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:39.039 So for decades, every probe we are sent to Mars 198 00:09:39.360 --> 00:09:42.960 has relied on the same fundamental mechanism. You burn a 199 00:09:43.039 --> 00:09:45.480 massive amount of chemical propellant for a few minutes to 200 00:09:45.519 --> 00:09:48.240 break Earth's orbit, and then you just coast through the 201 00:09:48.320 --> 00:09:50.799 vacuum of space for seven to nine months until you 202 00:09:50.879 --> 00:09:51.399 hit Mars. 203 00:09:51.519 --> 00:09:54.720 It's like pedaling a bicycle as hard as humanly possible 204 00:09:54.759 --> 00:09:57.159 for the first ten seconds of a race, getting up 205 00:09:57.159 --> 00:09:59.840 to your maximum speed, and then entirely taking your feet 206 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:02.600 off the pedals and just coasting for the next six months. 207 00:10:03.240 --> 00:10:04.639 That's a perfect way to think about it. 208 00:10:04.799 --> 00:10:08.240 Hoping you calculated the trajectory perfectly to cross the finish line, 209 00:10:08.320 --> 00:10:10.799 all the energy is basically dumped at the very beginning. 210 00:10:10.879 --> 00:10:13.519 That is a highly accurate way to visualize it. And 211 00:10:13.559 --> 00:10:17.639 the problem with chemical propulsion is that fuel is incredibly heavy. 212 00:10:17.960 --> 00:10:21.159 Right if you want to push a heavier payload like 213 00:10:21.399 --> 00:10:24.799 six advanced helicopters, you need more fuel to push it, 214 00:10:25.279 --> 00:10:27.879 But now your rocket is heavier because of that extra fuel, 215 00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:30.480 which means you need to add more fuel to push 216 00:10:30.559 --> 00:10:32.960 the fuel you just added. It's a trap, it is. 217 00:10:33.440 --> 00:10:37.120 This exponential punishment is known as the Sidulkovsky rocket equation. 218 00:10:37.919 --> 00:10:40.600 It is a vicious cycle of diminishing returns that makes 219 00:10:40.639 --> 00:10:43.919 chemical rockets horribly inefficient for massive payloads. 220 00:10:44.320 --> 00:10:47.519 So how does nuclear electric propulsion or any p bypass this? 221 00:10:47.960 --> 00:10:51.720 It breaks that cycle entirely. The sr IE freedom uses 222 00:10:51.759 --> 00:10:55.240 a small nuclear fission reactor. The reactor itself does not 223 00:10:55.320 --> 00:10:59.320 generate thrust. Instead, the controlled splitting of uranium atoms generates 224 00:10:59.360 --> 00:11:02.159 a massive amount of heat, which is converted into a 225 00:11:02.200 --> 00:11:04.720 constant twenty kilowot supply of electrical power. 226 00:11:04.919 --> 00:11:08.000 Okay, so it's a flying power plant exactly. 227 00:11:07.879 --> 00:11:10.919 And that electricity is fed into an ion thruster. The 228 00:11:10.960 --> 00:11:14.240 thruster takes an inert gas, usually xenon, and uses the 229 00:11:14.279 --> 00:11:17.919 electricity to bombard the xenon atoms, stripping away electrons to 230 00:11:17.960 --> 00:11:21.600 create positively charged ions I say. Then using an intense 231 00:11:21.639 --> 00:11:24.919 magnetic field, the thruster accelerates those ions out the back 232 00:11:24.960 --> 00:11:28.559 of the spacecraft at velocities approaching ninety thousand miles per hour. 233 00:11:28.799 --> 00:11:30.919 Ninety thousand miles per oh wow, so instead of a 234 00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:33.799 violent explosion of chemical fire, and ion drive is essentially 235 00:11:33.840 --> 00:11:36.679 shooting an invisible beam of charged particles out the back. 236 00:11:36.799 --> 00:11:37.879 That's exactly what it's doing. 237 00:11:38.120 --> 00:11:41.039 But I know that the actual physical force of that 238 00:11:41.120 --> 00:11:44.480 thrust is incredibly weak. I've read it compared to the 239 00:11:44.480 --> 00:11:46.559 weight of a piece of paper resting on your hand. 240 00:11:46.960 --> 00:11:50.240 How does a force that week move a massive spacecraft 241 00:11:50.480 --> 00:11:53.399 carrying six heavy helicopters all the way to Mars? 242 00:11:53.679 --> 00:11:56.720 The secret is time and efficiency. You are correct that 243 00:11:56.759 --> 00:11:59.919 the instantaneous thrust is minuscule, But going back to your 244 00:12:00.120 --> 00:12:03.200 bicycle analogy, and ion drive is like having a small 245 00:12:03.240 --> 00:12:05.679 electric motor that never ever stops pushing. 246 00:12:05.840 --> 00:12:07.320 So it's constant acceleration. 247 00:12:07.519 --> 00:12:11.200 Yes, Because the xenon ions are expelled at such extreme velocities, 248 00:12:11.440 --> 00:12:14.240 the engine is vastly more fuel efficient than a chemical rocket. 249 00:12:14.480 --> 00:12:17.799 In aerospace terminology, it has an incredibly high specific impulse. 250 00:12:17.960 --> 00:12:19.240 Specific impulse got it. 251 00:12:19.399 --> 00:12:22.120 In the vacuum of space, there is no friction, so 252 00:12:22.159 --> 00:12:25.600 that tiny continuous push from the ion engine accumulates day 253 00:12:25.639 --> 00:12:29.639 after day, week after week. The spacecraft slowly but relentlessly accelerates, 254 00:12:29.799 --> 00:12:33.639 eventually achieving transit speeds that completely dwarf what a coast 255 00:12:33.639 --> 00:12:35.120 in chemical rocket can manage. 256 00:12:35.200 --> 00:12:38.759 Okay, if the physics of specific impulse make any P 257 00:12:39.039 --> 00:12:41.960 vastly superior for heavy payloads, I have to ask the 258 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:45.120 obvious question. We have known about nuclear fission since the 259 00:12:45.159 --> 00:12:48.679 nineteen thirties. We have known about ion propulsion for decades. 260 00:12:49.080 --> 00:12:51.720 Why is this just now flying on the sr IE Freedom. 261 00:12:51.879 --> 00:12:53.879 Why didn't we build this in the nineteen nineties. 262 00:12:53.960 --> 00:12:56.440 Well, it comes down to the intersection of political risk 263 00:12:56.600 --> 00:13:01.960 and technological necessity. Politics always decades. ANYP was relegated to 264 00:13:02.200 --> 00:13:06.799 theoretical paper studies. Why because chemical rockets were good enough 265 00:13:07.200 --> 00:13:09.759 to send tiny, lightweight robotic probes to. 266 00:13:09.759 --> 00:13:11.960 Mars, And no one wants to launch a reactor if 267 00:13:11.960 --> 00:13:12.639 they don't have to. 268 00:13:12.720 --> 00:13:16.320 Precisely when a chemical rocket is good enough, No space 269 00:13:16.360 --> 00:13:19.759 agency wants to tackle the regulatory nightmare of launching a 270 00:13:19.759 --> 00:13:23.720 live nuclear reactor into Earth orbit. The safety reviews are monumental. 271 00:13:23.759 --> 00:13:24.639 But something changed. 272 00:13:24.679 --> 00:13:28.519 The payload changed. As NASA administrator Jared Isaagman recently outlined, 273 00:13:28.639 --> 00:13:31.440 we have hit the physical limits of good enough. You 274 00:13:31.480 --> 00:13:35.120 simply cannot lay the infrastructure for a multiplanetary economy using 275 00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:36.320 chemical rockets. 276 00:13:35.960 --> 00:13:37.639 Because you can't lift the habitats and. 277 00:13:37.639 --> 00:13:41.559 The fleets exactly. The mass penalties are simply too high 278 00:13:41.679 --> 00:13:45.519 to move human rated landers, habitats, and heavy reconnaissance fleets 279 00:13:45.559 --> 00:13:49.519 like Skyfall. Skyfall is the forcing function. The national space 280 00:13:49.559 --> 00:13:53.240 policy objectives have finally demanded a payload mass that chemical 281 00:13:53.320 --> 00:13:57.320 rockets cannot efficiently deliver. The need for the fleet necessitated 282 00:13:57.320 --> 00:13:57.879 the reactor. 283 00:13:58.600 --> 00:14:01.879 Okay, so the zer one freedom solves the transit bottleneck. 284 00:14:02.480 --> 00:14:05.480 We break the tyranny of the rocket equation using fission 285 00:14:05.559 --> 00:14:07.960 and magnetic fields, and we arrive at Mars with our 286 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:11.279 heavy payload. But this is where my anxiety about this 287 00:14:11.480 --> 00:14:12.879 mission architecture spikes. 288 00:14:12.919 --> 00:14:14.080 I think, I know where you're going with this. 289 00:14:14.440 --> 00:14:17.240 The transit is solved, sure, but the landing method, the 290 00:14:17.279 --> 00:14:21.639 Skyfall maneuver, seems fundamentally unhinged. I mean, let's contrast this 291 00:14:21.720 --> 00:14:25.039 with how we landed Perseverance, the skycrane right. The skycrane right. 292 00:14:25.240 --> 00:14:28.000 That was a system where the spacecraft entered the atmosphere, 293 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:31.440 a massive supersonic parachute deployed to slow it down, then 294 00:14:31.480 --> 00:14:35.120 the heat shield dropped off. Then the rover essentially dropped 295 00:14:35.120 --> 00:14:36.840 out of the backshell attached to. 296 00:14:36.799 --> 00:14:38.639 A jetpack it is brilliant engineering. 297 00:14:38.919 --> 00:14:42.600 It was. The jetpack fired its thrusters to halt their descent, 298 00:14:43.039 --> 00:14:45.559 and while hovering in mid air, it gently lowered the 299 00:14:45.639 --> 00:14:48.639 rover down to the dirt on nylon cords. Yes, once 300 00:14:48.679 --> 00:14:51.200 the wheels touched down, the cords were severed and the 301 00:14:51.279 --> 00:14:54.399 jetpack flew away to crash at a safe distance. It 302 00:14:54.480 --> 00:14:58.559 was an incredibly complex, delicate ballet on a tightrope, like 303 00:14:58.679 --> 00:15:01.519 lowering a car on a It really was a marvel 304 00:15:01.559 --> 00:15:04.200 but skyfall abandons all of that. You have the aeroshell 305 00:15:04.320 --> 00:15:07.000 hitting the atmosphere, taking the thermal load of thousands of 306 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:10.799 degrees of plasma, and then miles above the surface, traveling 307 00:15:10.840 --> 00:15:14.559 at mock speeds, the shell just pops open and ejects 308 00:15:14.799 --> 00:15:17.840 six helicopters into free fall, like paratroopers jumping out of 309 00:15:17.840 --> 00:15:19.919 a C one thirty. It is a very dramatic shift 310 00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:23.120 if you are dropping these things from a skyscraper equivalent 311 00:15:23.159 --> 00:15:28.279 altitude at supersonic speeds into unpredictable Martian winds without a 312 00:15:28.320 --> 00:15:31.240 parachute stabilizing them all the way to the ground. I mean, 313 00:15:31.279 --> 00:15:34.279 how is that not a recipe for total catastrophic failure. 314 00:15:34.519 --> 00:15:37.120 If the atmosphere is so thin. How do they even 315 00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:39.840 catch themselves before hitting the ground? What if half of 316 00:15:39.879 --> 00:15:41.000 them crash on day one? 317 00:15:41.480 --> 00:15:44.159 You are looking at the Skyfall maneuver through the lens 318 00:15:44.200 --> 00:15:49.120 of traditional risk management, which prioritizes the preservation of a single, 319 00:15:49.399 --> 00:15:50.559 highly controlled asset. 320 00:15:50.799 --> 00:15:53.039 I guess I am. I don't want the billion dollar 321 00:15:53.159 --> 00:15:53.879 drone to crash. 322 00:15:54.440 --> 00:15:58.840 Understandable, But let's analyze the skycrane you just described. It 323 00:15:58.879 --> 00:16:01.519 is a brilliant piece of veneering, but it is the 324 00:16:01.639 --> 00:16:04.879 ultimate single point of failure architecture. 325 00:16:04.320 --> 00:16:06.399 Meaning if one thing breaks, it's over. 326 00:16:06.720 --> 00:16:10.879 Exactly. If the supersonic parachute tears upon deployment, the mission 327 00:16:10.960 --> 00:16:13.720 is over. If the radar altimeter on the jet pack 328 00:16:13.840 --> 00:16:17.240 glitches and miscalculates the distance to the ground, the mission 329 00:16:17.279 --> 00:16:20.240 is over. If one explosive bolt fails to sever the 330 00:16:20.279 --> 00:16:22.440 nylon cord, the mission is over. 331 00:16:22.600 --> 00:16:24.639 Oh wow, Yeah, that's a lot of things that have 332 00:16:24.679 --> 00:16:25.679 to go perfectly right. 333 00:16:25.799 --> 00:16:29.240 Every single step must execute flawlessly or you are left 334 00:16:29.240 --> 00:16:32.360 with a multi billion dollar crater. The midair deployment of 335 00:16:32.399 --> 00:16:37.320 Skyfall introduces a fundamentally different risk model, statistical survivability through 336 00:16:37.399 --> 00:16:38.639 distributed architecture. 337 00:16:38.639 --> 00:16:40.519 So you're saying they expect some of them to crash. 338 00:16:40.799 --> 00:16:44.000 They are mathematically prepared for it. Let's walk through the 339 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:48.000 physics of the drop. The SR one carrier vehicle hits 340 00:16:48.039 --> 00:16:51.840 the atmosphere, the heat shield absorbs the kinetic energy, turning 341 00:16:51.879 --> 00:16:55.360 it into plasma and slows the vehicle down significantly, though 342 00:16:55.399 --> 00:16:59.240 it is still traveling very fast at a calculated altitude. 343 00:16:59.240 --> 00:17:03.919 The aeroshell opens. The six helicopters are deployed. Now they 344 00:17:03.919 --> 00:17:06.559 are not entirely at the mercy of the wind immediately. 345 00:17:06.839 --> 00:17:10.519 Their chassis are aerodynamically designed to passively orient themselves as 346 00:17:10.519 --> 00:17:14.160 they fall, ensuring their center of mass points downward. 347 00:17:13.799 --> 00:17:14.680 Like a shuttlecock. 348 00:17:14.839 --> 00:17:17.759 Exactly like a shuttlecock. As they enter free fall, the 349 00:17:17.799 --> 00:17:21.000 onboard flight computers boot up in milliseconds, and they do 350 00:17:21.039 --> 00:17:23.839 not just blindly turn on their engines. They initiate a 351 00:17:23.880 --> 00:17:25.039 state of auto rotation. 352 00:17:25.200 --> 00:17:26.799 Auto rotation is that. 353 00:17:26.799 --> 00:17:29.640 The upward rush of air through the unpowered blades causes 354 00:17:29.680 --> 00:17:34.000 them to spin, which stabilizes the craft aerodynamically. Once stable 355 00:17:34.079 --> 00:17:37.599 and oriented, the motors engage, applying massive torque to the 356 00:17:37.640 --> 00:17:40.119 blaze to violently arrest their vertical velocity. 357 00:17:40.319 --> 00:17:43.880 That sounds like dropping a drone from a skyscraper, expecting 358 00:17:43.920 --> 00:17:46.799 it to power on, orient its cameras and hit the 359 00:17:46.799 --> 00:17:49.480 brakes ten feet before the pavement, but doing it in 360 00:17:49.480 --> 00:17:50.599 a near vacuum. 361 00:17:50.960 --> 00:17:54.319 It is intensely violent. There will be massive aerodynamic loads 362 00:17:54.319 --> 00:17:57.960 on the rotors. But consider the math of the distributed swarm. 363 00:17:58.319 --> 00:18:01.000 If you send one rover on a sky crane and 364 00:18:01.039 --> 00:18:04.359 a sensor veils, your mission is a one hundred percent failure. 365 00:18:04.640 --> 00:18:05.759 You have zero assets. 366 00:18:05.839 --> 00:18:06.960 Yeah, you've lost everything. 367 00:18:07.039 --> 00:18:10.559 But if you eject six helicopters mid air and the 368 00:18:10.599 --> 00:18:14.599 crosswinds are worse than modeled, or a deployment mechanism jams 369 00:18:14.880 --> 00:18:17.559 and two of those helicopters crash into the Martian. 370 00:18:17.240 --> 00:18:18.839 Surface, you still have four left. 371 00:18:19.160 --> 00:18:22.079 Exactly, you still have a sixty six percent mission survival rate. 372 00:18:22.400 --> 00:18:26.519 You have four fully operational advanced aerial assets spreading out 373 00:18:26.559 --> 00:18:28.359 across parallel geographic zones. 374 00:18:28.559 --> 00:18:31.799 So the goal isn't necessarily landing safely in one spot. 375 00:18:31.960 --> 00:18:34.880 The goal is landing widely, because if you safely lowered 376 00:18:34.880 --> 00:18:37.400 a platform with six helicopters on it, they would all 377 00:18:37.400 --> 00:18:40.000 have to launch on the exact same starting point, basically 378 00:18:40.039 --> 00:18:42.000 wasting fuel just to get away from each other. 379 00:18:42.240 --> 00:18:45.279 Exactly, the midair deployment acts as a multiplier for their 380 00:18:45.279 --> 00:18:49.200 operational range. You scatter them across a five hundred kilometer zone, 381 00:18:49.279 --> 00:18:53.759 instantly mitigating the single point of failure risk and simultaneously 382 00:18:53.759 --> 00:18:57.599 initiating reconnaissance in six distinct geological regions. 383 00:18:57.759 --> 00:19:00.279 That is wild, but it makes so much sense. Okay, 384 00:19:00.440 --> 00:19:03.839 let's follow the timeline forward. The drop occurs. Let's assume 385 00:19:03.839 --> 00:19:06.720 the statistics hold up and at least four or five 386 00:19:06.839 --> 00:19:11.640 of these mechanical paratroopers successfully auto rootate, fire their motors 387 00:19:11.920 --> 00:19:13.759 and touched down safely in the dust. 388 00:19:13.880 --> 00:19:15.039 Fingers crossed right. 389 00:19:15.079 --> 00:19:18.400 They're sitting on the Martian's surface, their hybrid solar power systems. 390 00:19:18.440 --> 00:19:22.079 Booed up, What exactly is the hardware capable of? Because 391 00:19:22.319 --> 00:19:24.759 I know JPL and IR environment didn't just build six 392 00:19:24.839 --> 00:19:27.759 clones of Ingenuity, definitely not. Ingenuity had a couple of 393 00:19:27.759 --> 00:19:31.200 commercial cameras and a smartphone processor. These Skyfall units have 394 00:19:31.240 --> 00:19:33.319 a very specific job find the ice so we can 395 00:19:33.319 --> 00:19:36.680 make the fuel. They are basically autonomous flying geologists with 396 00:19:36.880 --> 00:19:37.519 X ray vision. 397 00:19:37.920 --> 00:19:40.880 That's a great way to put it. The hardware evolution 398 00:19:41.079 --> 00:19:44.799 is staggering. You have to remember the Martian environment is 399 00:19:44.960 --> 00:19:48.599 actively hostile to moving parts. The dust is not like 400 00:19:48.680 --> 00:19:53.480 beach sand. It is incredibly fine, highly abrasive, and statically charged. 401 00:19:53.559 --> 00:19:54.599