Aliens of the Deep Page #6

about the consequences or life at home,

My husband, my cat,

my mom and dad...

My cat,

That'd be hard,

I think he'd say, "Go for it," I really do,

'Cause I think all of us, we're all human

and we all have that exploration bug,

and if somebody that we love

has the opportunity to go out there

and represent humanity and explore,

I think he'd push me and go for it,

When you've been on the "Keldysh" for almost a month,

it's very easy to pretend

that you're on your way to Mars.

You're far away

from everything you know,

in a small environment

with the same crew,

who are there for the same

professional interests that you are.

They're there to explore,

they're there to do science.

The Russians are very resourceful.

They were showing us

some of their sampling tools,

and they have a tool that can sample

just about anything you'd want to sample.

Some of the things are really clever.

Or as simple as the Nikolai pot,

which is basically a pot

we stole from the cook, Nikolai.

It's something that

I just love getting to be a part of.

You know, we get to be in their culture,

and look at how they do engineering

and how they do operations.

It's an incredible environment

to be working in.

I love it because of

the way it brings people together.

Victor,

Obed?

Your... Your lunch?

- Yeah,

- Yes, that's right,

Yeah? Yay!

This expedition

captured a lot of that spirit.

OK, all right,

The idea of doing something

that was really difficult,

and how people can come together

to make something like that happen.

Poyehaly.

The way they communicate

with each other.

No, forward,

Victor's been practicing,

Vitka, khorosho, khorosho.

One of the things

I enjoy about Russian culture

is the way that

you integrate play and work.

Vosem-pyaty.

I mean,

I've studied Russian in college,

because I always wanted to work

with the Russian space program.

And the "Keldysh" is a great analog for,

you know, a space launch complex.

And I understood what

all the astronauts are always saying,

when they say that the technicians

and the engineers on the pad

are the real heroes,

making sure that you're gonna be safe.

This expedition

captured a lot of that spirit.

Engines start.

While we were out at sea,

two incredible explorers

were already on their way to Mars.

"Spirit" got there first, blazing into the thin

Martian atmosphere at over 12,000mph.

"Opportunity" arrived

a few weeks later.

Landing for both

was a nerve-racking affair.

Current altitude approximately 25,000 feet.

Awaiting confirmation.

We're moving at a speed of 173 miles per

hour. We are near our terminal velocity.

Cleaner separation of end

has been detected.

No signal at the moment.

Deep-space network tracking stations at

Canberra searching for primary signal.

We're on Mars, everybody.

Equipped with

high-resolution stereoscopic cameras,

and a Swiss army knife's

worth of geological

and chemical science instruments,

the mission of

the Mars Exploration Rovers was clear:

Find evidence of water in Mars' past,

when conditions

may have been more favorable to life.

You can learn a lot from a rock,

if you know how to ask.

And you know where to look.

Of the two rovers,

"Opportunity" really hit the jackpot.

The ancient bedrock

was absolutely loaded with hematite,

an iron-bearing mineral that usually

forms from interaction with liquid water.

Then scientists detected jarosite,

a mineral that suggests the rocks may

have been soaked in acid ground water,

or in a hot springs environment,

like Yellowstone National Park.

Other clues included

empty cavities inside rocks,

where salt crystals

may have dissolved away,

and rippled sediment patterns,

hinting at the presence of free-flowing

water over thousands of years.

And then there were the "blueberries."

Tiny spheres of hematite,

eroded out of the rocks

and spilled out all over the surface.

On Earth, spheres like this form

in the presence of water over time.

Both "Spirit" and "Opportunity" helped

confirm where the water was on Mars,

but they were not equipped

to tell us where the water is now.

That job fell to

the Mars Odyssey Orbiter,

which detected what is believed

to be massive quantities of water ice,

just a few feet below the surface, with

the highest concentrations at the poles.

In 2008, "Phoenix" will rise

from the ashes of the Mars Polar Lander,

and, using many of that

failed mission's spare parts,

will land near the Martian north pole.

And, for the first time ever,

a Martian probe will do more

than scratch the surface.

"Phoenix" will dig deep

into the permafrost

and sample Martian water

for the very first time.

Everything we learn about Mars

makes the story more exciting.

There's evidence of past water,

there's evidence of past volcanism,

the chemistry checks out.

All the ingredients for life are there.

That's why we keep searching.

Of course, that's not the only way

we're searching for life in the universe.

- Look at this, he's computer coordinated,

- I know,

It says, "SETI Institute"

on your shirt and on your laptop,

- It's a little over the top,

- That's impressive,

- You're putting the message out there,

- Well, you know, they gave it to me,

One of the groups

I'm affiliated with

is the Search for Extraterrestrial

Intelligence Institute.

And what the SETI Institute does

is try to detect intelligent signals

from distant civilizations

around another star.

To do this, Frank Drake,

one of the founders of the SETI Institute,

wrote down just a set of factors

known as the Drake Equation.

And it includes factors such as the fraction

of stars around which planets form,

the fraction of habitable planets

on which life emerges,

and the fraction of life

that then evolves to intelligence,

and eventually to becoming

tool-using civilizations

that can communicate with

other civilizations in the galaxy.

The last factor is the lifetime of the

intelligent communicating civilization.

At the same time

that we develop the technology

to communicate

with beings on a distant planet,

we also develop the technology

to annihilate ourselves.

And if that's standard

for intelligent civilizations in the galaxy,

we're not going to have much luck

searching for life elsewhere.

Let's say that my

kind of modified Drake's Equation

says that life was possible on any planet,

any distance from a sun,

or not even anywhere near a sun,

or any planetarylike body,

like a moon of Jupiter or whatever,

that had ice around it, OK?

And had some kind of tidal pumping

from some other gravity source near it,

so that it had a liquid core

and it was generating heat,

and it was making heat like these

hydrothermal vents that we're seeing,

If we said there were maybe ten or twenty

or fifty times as many worlds like that,

isn't it logical to assume that when we get

a call from one of your buddies out there,

when SETI Institute

finally picks up a signal,

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