Joe Parrish: "To Mars and Back - Technologies for a Potential Mars [...]" | Talks at Google

Joe Parrish:

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Without further ado please help me welcome Jeff thank you. So. Thank you thank you Mary for the for, the great introduction, thanks to everybody at Google and, also I wanted to thank my longtime colleague Terry Fong who, kind of along. With Mary manages, the the NASA Google relationship, for inviting me to give this presentation so. I'm thrilled. To be here this especially my first time on the Google campus and so, I. Everybody. Has read and heard a lot about it but to actually see it in action is wonderful, for me I'm. Going to talk a little bit about the. Mars sample return mission. It's. An idea that we've had at NASA for, quite, some time and we're actually ever, so. Slowly. Inching our way toward toward executing, it and I wanted to talk particularly about the technologies. That are necessary, to do it you'll, see a few charts downstream, I'm going to show you all the videos it's kind of an animation of Mars sample return and, you can see a few places where what miracles, are necessary you'll, you'll know what I mean when you see it on the on the on the animation and that's code for we need to develop the technology, to do whatever it is that we're trying to try to do so, when you see that you'll you'll see that this mission is is incredible. System engineering challenge, it's like doing Apollo, with no astronauts, we even it even includes you know going to another planet landing. Doing some stuff there launching. Into orbit around that planet and coming, back so it's very analogous to what we did at the moon with Apollo but there's no humans, involved at, least not directly, and. To imagine, doing all the things that we did in an Apollo with no humans, is quite, an undertaking so without, further ado let me launch into charts I'm going to try to run until about 45, past the hour and Mary will give me a cue, to wrap it up and then we can we can have a little bit of interaction. On, question. Q&A and, I also understand there's a number of people watching this online, and, let, sure if there's a mechanism for them to be able to ask questions but. Okay. So so. Mary are at Google, if, you want to ask a question in your on line you're not in the room here so let, me go ahead and get. Going and. We'll, work. It out as we as we go so, a little. Bit of overview, and by the way my slides are going to be graphics. Heavy and text, light. So. We can we can talk about the cool, stuff and I have a number of videos that I want to show you and I'm going to in. Order for me to talk comprehensively. About MSR, it, takes about four hours and so. We only have less than one and, so I've had to be a little bit selective and I instead of trying to like give you a shallow view of everything I've chosen a few things that I really want to dive in and talk about I think that's a better experience for you and it's fun to talk about and if you're still. Interested I gave Mary a longer, version of this presentation that has more information in it and you're welcome to peruse, that and I have my contact, information anyway. I'll give you a little bit of context for what we're trying to accomplish with the Mars exploration. Program. That's instantiated. At NASA now and when I talk about Mars exploration, I'm, going to talk mostly about the robotic, exploration.

Of Mars using Rovers, and orbiters obviously. There's a big effort. At NASA associated. With preparing, for humans, to go to Mars I'll. Touch on that peripherally, at the end of the presentation, but most of my talk is about doing. This with Rovers and orbiters and, so forth so talk. A little bit about the context, for exploration, what is it that we're trying to accomplish is a blend of science technology and. Inspiration. Which i think is a product, that we, at NASA sometimes, don't appreciate how, how much. We're delivering that along with delivering, science and technology, talk, a little bit about this is this Mars, sample return mission. And then talk about some of the key technologies that include things like how we get the samples, off the surface of Mars how, we kind of gobble up this thing that's a size, of a basketball in, Mars orbit and and and bring it back to earth I'm, going to talk about in particular a really, cool application, for superconductors. To, assist, us in the sort, of trapping, of this, basketball. In Mars where that's called flux pinning and then I want to talk a little bit about the. Fact that the Mars, samples, we. Have a love-hate relationship, with them there are there are frenemy I guess we. Want. To study them we want to bring them back to earth and study in our laboratories, but we also have to. Account. For the possibility, that there might be biological. Activity. In those samples. And therefore we need to treat them as if they're potentially, hazard and not release. These things into the Earth's biosphere. Until. We've made sure that it's safe and this, love-hate, relationship, with the sample actually drives the engineering, of the, mission and I'll talk more about that and now and then at the end if we do have any time we'll talk about some of the longer-term stuff like flying helicopters, at Mars, and, landing. On a pinpoint, whereas right now we land with miles of uncertainty, of where we land etc, so that's kind of the outline. So. Let, me talk a little bit about about, context, and I won't go through this point by point but, I just wanted to make, the point that we. Within. NASA there are sort of four major organizations. That that are, responsible. For the NASA missions, there's one that's responsible for Aeronautics, so that one of the aides and NASA stands for Aeronautics even though I think NASA is much more better known for the space side, within. The space domain, we have the human exploration operations. Those are guys who operate, this International, Space Station and are, preparing, to send humans to Mars there's, the space technology Mission, Directorate which. As the name implies is responsible, for developing, new technologies, that can be applied across the board and NASA and beyond and then there's what we call the science Mission Directorate in, the science. Mission Directorate is, responsible, for delivering science, results like, you're seeing from Hubble Space Telescope, like, you're seeing from the Mars rovers and that's the the, Mission Directorate that it, operates, the NASA, Mars missions, so. We have you, know countless, journal, articles, and and papers and covers. Of nature, magazine and, so forth that have resulted, at from, from the exploration, of Mars and so we've delivered a really. Wide variety of key science findings like before, the Mars exploration, program began, we, didn't really know how pervasive water, was at Mars and it turns out that water has been an extremely pervasive at Mars in. The ancient times it was wet and, warm. And much more. Habitable. For the kind of life that we are familiar with on earth and then something happened, and all that water went away and Mars is now this dry cold. Desert. And. Because Earth and Mars are kind of. Brother. And sister in the in the planetary, family, it, would be really nice for us understand, what happened, to, all of that water on Mars why did it escape and if. You're selfish, and you don't want it to happen to you, and on earth or maybe your your, grandchildren's. Grandchildren's. Grandchildren. Downstream, it'd be really nice to understand that so science is AB is a big. Aspect. Of what we do tech, engineering and. Technology, development is another big aspect of what the Mars program delivers, back to not only NASA but to the world at large, many.

Of The autonomous. Systems. That, are now being implemented in driverless cars got, their start as NASA tried to figure out how to operate Rovers, on the surface of another planet where. We couldn't have direct human, intervention, and charity. Is one of the world's, experts in that field and I hope one day he, man's up and and, comes and gives a talk here at Google on, all the cool stuff that he's been working, on with his colleagues, at Ames, that's. A sorry for a little internal joke and. Anyway. We're, developing a whole variety of technologies. That not only serve you know sort of a localized, NASA interest like landing, more stuff on Mars which is a very specialized, application, but things that help the world at large and then the last one and and. And like, I said some of my colleagues at NASA they want to talk about the science and they want to talk about the sort, of technology as applied submissions, but I think, that one of our greatest products, is inspiration, and, for me, it was unbelievable. To be at JPL, the. Night that we landed curiosity, and to see that in Times Square Times, Square was lit up with, the images that are coming back from, Mars and when those first the. Landing itself was sort of a technological achievement. But when those first thumbnail, images came back and we knew we, were safe on Mars that was a human, story that was the story of all the people through their lives and you guys know what this is like to work long hours nights, weekend and feel, like personally responsible, for the success in, our case missions, your in your case products, or something, that they could Google is trying to develop but, that notion that you've invested, yourself, personally in something no, machine, can. Ever ever take away that human, inspiration, so I think that's one of the major products. That we deliver. Coming. Back to science um there's, kind of four things that organize our scientific, exploration, of Mars, number. One and you know - written as if they're like equals but they're actually not finding, funny life is. A big one it's the first among equals that's. That's the one that you know if we, were to find life even microbial, life either, evidence, of it in the ancient history, of Mars in a kind of fossilized, context, or. Extant. Life, that, would be just a unbelievable, change. In the way in which people on, earth think, of themselves and think of us as not being alone in this in this universe.

Not. To be. Downplayed. Are the other goals like you know I talked a little bit about the the, processes in the history of the climate on Mars so even if you could care less about this an ethereal. Discussion. About whether or not there's life on another planet maybe if you're a little more self-centered or thinking, about the future for your kids the kids and the kids this. Notion of let's, not let happen to earth what happened to Mars, understanding. How, the surface, of Mars. Evolved. In the interior, of Mars that, is actually vastly different from Earth's and one advantage, that we have the, earth is constantly, reinventing. Itself the, Earth's we, have these plate these tectonic plates that keep moving around and changing things and there's constant upwellings, in, the ocean and on. Land, and things get recycled so something that's been on the surface of the earth a million years ago is, almost certainly not on the surface of the earth anymore it's but somehow turned underneath, Mars, does not like that marcin's were very stable for millions, and millions of years so you have things that on the Mars surface that, have always been on the Mars surface so from a scientific standpoint that actually makes it a lot easier to. Understand. The, history, of Mars than we then we enjoy here, on earth and, then the last goal from a science standpoint is preparing for eventual human exploration and what we mean is from. A science standpoint understand. The processes, on Mars that might affect human exploration understand, how, the atmosphere works. Understand. If is the surface of Mars is what, we call regolith, which is fancy for dirt the, dirt on Mars is that toxic, to humans that was a big question we had when, the astronauts went to the moon and. It's even more likely to be an issue at Mars that that the regolith. Might, actually include. Some things that are not healthy for humans, to through come in direct contact, so, getting ready for human exploration is, a big deal, you. Guys probably know even City Rovers to Mars you, may not know that we've kind of had three, styles. Of these Rovers the, first one was Sojourner, which which flew in, 1997. It lasted about 90 days on the, surface of Mars and it would operate, in an area the size of this room, never, got outside of that it only could talk back to the, base station that was nearby so if it ever got very far away would lose contact with the base station and it was it was really a technology demonstration, in, 1997. So, fast forward to 2014. Years. Beyond, that we, send to who, sent winds Spirit and Opportunity the, Mars exploration, Rovers and those are about the size of a table and they. Weigh in. The neighborhood, of 300 pounds each when they land and. Spirit. Lasted, for seven years before it got stuck in sand and the winter came and that solar panels could no longer keep it warm and we think it froze to death however. Opportunity. More, than ten years later in fact 12 years now has. Gone more than 40 kilometers so it's finished a marathon on the, surface of Mars it, was only supposed to last for 90 days and it always supposed to go for 600, meters and it's, now gone well over 10 40, kilometers, so, what I say is oh we pay too much in taxes, but you know things, should have died a long time ago and. Anyway. But that's that's how we do it at JPL. And. Then finally curiosity, which I think almost all of you are directly, familiar. With we launched. It in 2011, and landed in 2012, it's, still operating on Mars and it's one of the things that proves that, Mars was in fact a habitable place because within, its first two kilometers, of roving once it landed at Mars it. Roped, through a stream bed and I mean it's like absolutely.

No, No. Questions, asked a stream, bed so we knew that there was flowing water on the surface of Mars at some time in the past that was direct, proof when curiosity rolled through that that stream bed just, to give you a sense we have not launched these guys yet to Mars maybe sometime in the future but I just wanted to give you some context, for the size of these systems, so sojourner, size of like a toaster. Oven. Curiosity. And spirit size table, and, then curiosity. Is the size of an SUV so. Weighs 900, kilograms weighs about 2,000, pounds and if. We're going to ever send humans to Mars we now know how to put down a curiosity, class, payload, we know how to put down a metric ton onto the surface of Mars if we're going to put humans on Mars we need to learn how to land like 20, tons is what a human, landing system will be so we had to increase our entry. Descent and landing capability. By, 20 times okay. So. Here. Is sort of a quickie. Summary. Of everything that's happened since the turn of the century the, turn of the millennium 2001. We've, we've, started and, we've been flying a set, of, Rovers. And. We. Call fixed Landers that stay, in one place and then, and then a series of orbiters, that perform. A variety of functions they all have scientific. Instruments, that are looking down at Mars and asking questions about the. Geology or, trying to do laser altimeter, easily, understand, what's. Going on in that some of them are looking at the atmosphere around Mars, all. Of, our orbiters, also do, secondary. Jobs that include, relaying. Communications. From the rover so if the rover had, to talk directly back, to earth that's a very challenging communication. Link it's a lot easier for the rover to squirt information, up to an orbiter, which, then can transmit, the information back back, to earth so they'd be what we call comm relay communication, relays function, and. Also these orbiters, many. Of the recent, ones are equipped with cameras, that look down and they look at places that we might choose to go in the future and they do what we call landing site reconnaissance, so, they take pictures and they say hey this this. I mean it's ironic from a from. A safety, of landing standpoint you, want to land this thing on a nice flat rock free parking lot but. For most that's not one of the cool sciences the science is up in the mountains and so, you have to find these areas. On Mars that have both a safe place to land but. Also have good science nearby so what you want to fought with what you want to do is you want to land in the foothills, so, these Reconnaissance, orbiters are kind of trying to find the foothills where, you have a nice safe place to land but cool stuff very nearby, is. The idea and so. We've. Been flying these things in. In this mission, context. Since the since 2001. A, variety, of orbiters, most, of them are NASA but there's some from other countries. Less and including. Places, like the European Space Agency which is collections, of countries and then. Here are the Rovers and then, we start to get into the future next, year we're going to launch it one of our fixed Landers called insight which is going to explore the interior.

Geology. Of Mars, and then, I imagine, that you all by, virtue, of being interested in Spanish know that. SpaceX. Which is a private company is talking. About going to Mars with one of their unmanned systems they call red dragon, which is an adaptation of, the capsule. That they are delivering, to the space station now to deliver crew, and, cargo, so. They're thinking when this chart was made thinking about going in 2018, just recently they've adjusted. Their plans and now targeting, 2020, as their first mission. To Mars and they as you, probably also know operate. At a different and a different risk posture and the different mission cadence, and NASA does they're, much more risk tolerant, and they're able to execute things more quickly than we are at NASA, and so they're, actually talking about going every opportunity to Mars which comes along every 26, months we can launch missions. To Mars so, I can't, wait to see what SpaceX, ISM is able. To accomplish when. They're when they're in the position to be able to land on a routine basis at every Mars opportunity. Um. Now. I want to transition to the future. And what's going to happen in the, 2020s. And, and beyond um. We. Have a next Mars, rover mission. Calton call it Mars 2020 it will get an inspirational, name soon, soon, please, send send in your your. Entries for that. But. For the time being we call Mars 2020. Which. Is also to pressure ourselves, to launch the darn thing at 2020, and not in 2022, and. Then, we're thinking about what's next and then what's next is you're clearly, and unequivocally Mars. Sample return and, I'll, talk in the, next set of slides about the fact that we need an orbiter to do that and we need another Lander that includes that locket that I was talking about that launches the samples off the surface of Mars and that's a decade of the 2020s, and then, downstream, from the 2020 there's a lot more uncertain we're, not clear, whether, it will have developed, enough infrastructure, to be serious, about sending humans to Mars in the 2030s. And so we're. Hedging a little bit and thinking about ideas for, either. More, robotic missions that are continuing, the science exploration, of Mars or if we're going to transition more to supporting, human missions to Mars which would also do science but in a different in, a different context so we kind of have a number of pathways that, that we could go in the 30s but for the 2020, is it's all about Mars, sample return. March. Simple return is not a new idea at. All we've, been thinking about it since the 1970s. This notion of not, only going to Mars and doing in citrus science with instruments, that are carried on something, orbiter or overlander, but, actually bringing samples back, and. A. Wide, variety of ways of doing that I mean if you D focus your eyes on what you're trying to accomplish you just say listen I want to get a bag of rocks back from. Mars you can think about ones that have much more elaborate robing systems, or you can think about what, we call a grab sample, where you're landing you wouldn't rove at all you just reach down from wherever you land in and pick up a handful. Of this stuff and put it in the math and you and you launch the, scientists don't like that idea by the way they want to diverse some, samples that they have selected not just whatever happened. To be underneath the rocket. When it touches down but. The thing I really love about this. About. This slide is number one, back. In the day when they were like doing these things as paintings, they actually still reuse, things so when you look at this one up here and this. One down here totally, different concepts, but, it's got the same background so like somebody copied the.

Background, The. Other thing I really love about this one is you can. You. See right here here's the rover with all the samples and then, there's the map over there and there's this big valley in between and. You can almost like see this question we're coming out of the head of the rover going oh no. Girls. On the other side of the valley am I ever going to get there so I don't know who made that painting but they were not at Mars system engineer at different they're a pure artist but I love that I love that picture and as, I said a variety of different ways, of. Of doing more sample, return but. It turns out when you do D focus your eyes and think about what it would take to bring back a sample for Mars, it's. Kind of four things that you got to do you got to get the samples, got. To get them off Mars you, got to somehow get them you know from that vicinity. Of Mars back to earth and, then once you get them down here you have to safely and without. Meanwhile. Maintaining, scientific, integrity you. Know you have to study them so, these four functions are totally, independent of any particular architecture. And. Then as we like to do at NASA we like to split big problems, into small problems you start thinking about functions. These are thinking about what, elements might be able to execute so the color coding before we, had these four different things blue, orange green and purple, and. Then you start to decompose, these things into their into their various and sundry functions and you start to think about specific, systems, that might be able to do that so for instance this whole thing about getting, the samples, and by the way, here's. A and, I'll pass it around here's your the model of the tube that we're going to use to stick the rock cores in and we, will collect, some 30-ish. Of these it depends on how the mission goes we might collect as few as 20, and get, still considered to be a mission success, but, they go into this thing so it's about the size of a cigar tube the model, AB here is a purely solid model there's their hollow for the RealFlight implementation. And they got all kinds of gizmos and stuff in here but this is roughly the size of the, sample and the sample goes in the shank. Here and the shaft. So. We in this, context, we envision a rover, that would collect the samples they would leave them on the surface of Mars, we're, kind of like a drunken sailor and then we collect the sample and we throw it over our shoulder and we just trundle away actually.

We Don't we put it down really carefully, and we take, a bunch of pictures of it from all kinds of different directions and we know exactly where it is to go back and, go back and pick up those tubes and we, pick up those tubes from from, another, mission that flies, later, than this caching, system. That will fly in 2020, as part of the 2020, Rover system and that actually contains, two major, elements one is another. Rover to go out and pick up those samples and return them to, the ma'am the Mars ascent vehicle which, is the locket that relies on their on that mission so that mission carries fetcher over and, carries the nav rocket, and then we have this thing that's that, so. You've, executed the blue stuff you've acquired, it cached samples, you, execute, the orange stuff, you launch the samples into Mars orbit then, you come and you capture, that sample, container we call it the offenses, basketball, size thing and we turn and land it on Earth and we have a variety of different ideas on how you might land at Earth but the the, most common one is that it goes splat on the. Desert and in Utah and protecting, that sample so we don't break the egg open and let. The samples out is one of the major engineering. Challenges, associated with this and then there's all the stuff associated with you. Know opening, up the eggs, and, getting. The samples out and studying, them so. Let's. Back up for a second and it will, be completed this is the first question that I asked when I when, I first encountered the notion of more sample return over. A decade ago in my careers wait, a second why are we doing, this I mean this is a very expensive, way to study these samples why don't we just we're going to sink a lot of money into this why don't we just sink that money into making better instruments. That, can get, the same science, that we're trying to get from our laboratories, but, we do it at Mars well. It turns out that that's that's not really possible. Number. One what at the the. Way that we use sample, science, involves. Very. Complex sample, preparation that. Involves, either hands-on, or direct. Human guided. Slicing. And dicing of, things, and preparing. Specimens, for spectroscopy. Or, microscopy, that, we just, don't have the technology today to do so we would not be able to study, them, as. Well, using, an institute instrument as we look back on earth. Some. Of the these instruments are, still, size. Of looms and I mean I know this is the analogous, to you know room. Size computers, that now you know slip into your pocket but the reality, is in terms of space exploration we're. Still, back in the. Laboratory. Science, for analyzing, the samples we're still back in those days where the, stuff that you need is, the room it's not the size of an. IPhone or a Google, phone. Lastly. You. Don't always know what you want to study and. When. You do it Institute the. Investigations. That you can do with, your institution, roba is only. As good as that instrument, that you put on the system whereas, if you're bringing a sample back it, can sit in containment, for 20 years and all of a sudden you've got a new instrument that's able to do analysis that we never could do when, we first flew the mission and that's the case with the apollo. Moonrocks. They're. There they're housed largely, at the Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas and then, they're distributed, out to investigators. And one. Of the motivations. For the distribution of these things our new, instrument, capabilities, that have come along long, past when those samples came back from the moon so, there's there's ample motivation, to. Not try, to do sample, you know to not try to replace, the sample return mission, with just instance. True exploration. Here's. A trying, to summarize this sort of three mission context but actually the next, video, animation, I'm going to show you guys is much.

Better At doing this job we call this a bat chart because earth is on the bottom was on the top and if we really did this correctly, we would be hanging the rover, upside down. Showing. That it's all being done on Mars but you see this sort of three mission, thing Mars 2020 collect, sample tubes you, can fly the orbiter, and the and the lander mission in either order, it doesn't much matter but. You have to retrieve the tubes launch them into Mars orbit collect. Them and bring them back to earth and, hopefully. If this video works I think it will. If. We want to understand the potential, for life elsewhere in the solar system our, neighboring, planet Mars is a great place to go. Waiting. On Mars our rock samples that hold the clues to whether Mars ever had an environment, suitable for small life forms called microbes. Scientists. Would love to collecting special rocks and bring them back to study up close in laboratories, here on earth however. You tackling, returning, samples for Mars is definitely, a complicated, problem. Admission. Planners are already testing technologies, to make the future possible, so. How could we actual get a sample for Mars mission. Planners have several ideas one. Is to build three different spacecraft which, would work together like a relay team, the, first rover could touch down on the Martian surface and collect, samples by drilling into rocks and. Then. Stashing, the samples and sealed tubes. Once. Collected the, samples would be placed on the surface to, wait for pickup by a second, rover sent later. This. Follow-on, rover would go fetch the samples. Load. Them into a container, and. Bring. It back to a lander with a small rocket envoy. Once. The container was loaded on board the, rocket would licked off carrying, the samples up into Mars orbit. Waiting. In orbit would be a third spacecraft, and orbiters that could capture the container and bring it back to her. With, Mars samples safely back on earth scientists. Around the world will be able to study them in state-of-the-art laboratories. For decades to come, the. Payoff of a sample return is, learning about the potential, for life beyond our home planet and even, whether Mars has the right environment, and resources for. Human explorers to survive there one day. Okay. So that's MSR. In a nutshell with, a few few, miracles mixed, in, so. So. I you. Guys may think you have cool jobs I got. The coolest job okay. They pay, me to develop the technologies, to be able to do more sample return like, I I, find myself on a daily basis going I just, got paid all day to think about Mars rovers, and they asked me to come back tomorrow and. Then our baby against the Bocage so. Lucky. We've. Had sort. Of three domains and in a technology development, program, until I'm going to delve much, more down into the details now of.

Technologies. To enable Mars, sample return in, the. 2012. To 2014, timeframe. We, were really trying to get that 2020. Rover. Enabled. To be able to collect the sample so we were working, hard to develop you know the drill that was going to drill the sample and not you know turn it into powder but keep it an integral, core. We, wanted to do what we call fast triggers which is making it sound of the rover can cover, hundreds. Of meters per day instead of the tens of meters that we typically do with our Mars, rovers today and we, also, wanted. To be, able to land more. Precisely right now the. Mark the MSL mission the curiosity, mission it the what we call the landing area lifts, for that was about ten. Kilometers by, eight kilometers, and, we want to get down to much closer ones because we can as I was saying before we want to land close to where the good science is so, we had to with, in the case of MSL, we, had to roll for a couple of years before we really got to to. The good science and we were fortunate to encounter that streambed on the way but, the actual intention, for that mission we didn't achieve that, until. We had rode for two years so, we're trying to be able to reduce. The size of that landing error lifts and land much more precisely. Those. The. Reason that this is green here is that those technologies were, developed to the level that they were able to be infused into the flight mission and that is all being integrated into the Mars 2020, mission. And so we'll have all those capabilities, that we did they have four for MSL, the. Stuff that's in yellow is in development, now I'm going to talking much much more extensively, about that in the remaining, minutes. That we have have, left to develop the math to, develop containment, assurance and then, eventually. We're going to have to develop whatever that system is it comes and lands the samples back back, on earth and doesn't let the egg break open and then way downstream, we'll start developing technologies, that are not related, to Emma's, harm and I'm really going to talk about MSR, today, so. There's a variety of, technologies. Necessary of touched, on a few of them already, so. It won't spend too much time on this slide but just realize many. Of them, sort. Of serve, more than one mission in particularly the sense that there's two builders involved, in the sample. Return architecture. Here's. What 2020, is all about it's highly, based on the Curiosity, platform, so it actually looks very similar to to, curiosity, and in fact was made from. Some of the spares from the curiosity, mission that's one of the ways we kept the mission costs down but. It has a completely different science, package on it that's more oriented. Toward trying to find evidence of, of. Life on Mars and collect. Those those samples, it. Looks, identical, and. Certainly the architecture, of the, flight system is the same we had this cruise stage that Shepherds, the vehicle from Earth to Mars we, have a back shell which is kind of a cover, that, covers the. The good. Stuff inside, the payload during. The entry into Mars then, we have this descent, stage that you all have seen that that lowers, the rover, down to the surface and then flies away the, rover itself kind, of collapsed down into into, its flat, condition. Before the wheels, are deployed and then the bottom is the heat shield that's, all the same between MSL, and and, 2020, and it's really just the payload, that's on the rover that's that's dramatically, different that's. What it looks like when it's all put together in.

The Cleanroom at JPL, and. Then, as I mentioned before we have these key technologies, that we infused in submissions so we have this model for technology, development a mansard it's really common, across nasa technology development. And in fusion into into. A target mission, application. As. I said before we're. Trying to narrow that that and our lives in the way that we do it for for 2020, that's different from MSL, is we had this thing that's called terrain relative, navigation, it. Just. Didn't come up really in any of the sort of public discussions, about curiosity but curiosity. Really, didn't know very much about where it was landing we. We targeted, a particular location and we did our best and navigated our best to put the spacecraft. There and it landed very close and ended within a kilometer. Of where we were targeting which is fantastic but. We, didn't have any ability to fly, the vehicle to in a particular direction once, we actually had it underneath the parachute, it's, like you pop the chute and you're going to land wherever you land this, is intending. To. Allow. You to at least adjust, the direction that we go so, we come down we take quick, pictures on the way down and then, we decide what direction we're, going to ask the vehicle to go and, we have a divert, capability, that's measuring the hundreds of meters for, this so this, is exaggerating, the situation that, it won't it won't keep, us from landing in the mountains but in Atlantis anonym in a more in a direction that's that's, more safe and then, I've been alluding to this notion that we have a variety of these sample tubes I'm going to lay down we're, going to fly about 40 of them we're. Going to lay them in a few different locations probably. If things, go out the way we're thinking about it now and we'll, we'll have what we call Depot's of tubes, where we have two maybe ten tubes in a in a, lot of staff but in a line that, the rover would then the fetcher over we then go and collect I think, you guys have had a chance to see the sample, tubes this is kind of what it looks the sample looks like inside, the tube and then, we have two plugs, and seals that are intended to keep the sample from rattling around during, the re-entry and then also a hermetically, sealed to make sure that any of the gases, or things that might be entrained, in that sample don't. Don't get out so. That the engineering, of the sample tubes themselves you have a very simple version of it there but the actual sample tube was quite a complex, engineering. Endeavor. Here. Are some ideas for, the. Architecture, of that simply, call sample srl so where we turn Lander. It. Could. Be something, that looks, like the Curiosity, platform, and it carries the rocket, on its back, rocket is a little, bit larger than human size it's, about three, meters in length and it waves, different. Ones that have different masses but it's in the 200, to 300 kilo range so it's a little heavier than a human and a little taller than the Emmitt but it's roughly, that size you, can have it on your back which. Is great because you're picking up tubes you don't have to go back anywhere you just when you decide you have enough tubes you, finished loading them into the Mavi you launch it or we can have one that has a fixed platform where the MAV stays on that platform in a, smaller Rover that's more the size of spirit, or opportunity, that, would go out collect the tubes and we come back and is that come back part of it that that has us worried and led, us to think about this thing we call a mobile math which is which is a curiosity, class.

There's. A variety of different. Autonomy. And visualization. Technologies, that are that are being applied this. One is a 3d, augmented reality. Strategy. That we're using not, just for to, put, ourselves the, operators, of the mission and the scientists, for the mission on the surface of Mars so, that they can look around and say hey I really care about this rock but I'd love to see it from the other from, the other direction and using orbital imagery we synthesize, full. 3d, imagery. Of the system. So that the the, operators, and the mission planners can really have a good, situational, awareness of what's happening on Mars but, we've even thought about doing that for like spacecraft. Assembly, where you, know when you put the spacecraft together it's really tightly, packaged, and sometimes. You know you wish, that you could just look inside and see what what, was going on inside there and this is a this is a way that synthesized the. Spacecraft, and Sweeny that allows you to no literally walk through the spacecraft, and see what's going on do. The. Other one in theory this is that two-minute, elevator, pitch. The. Other one is that right, now the Mars. Rovers actually roll quite slowly. We. We've gotten a hundred meters in a day but, that's a very good day of driving and more frequently, we're, getting tens, of meters per day to, do this fetch operation, we're. Going to need a lot better performance, out of out of the rover it's, going to have some of the the driving, distance is a. Matter of power and thermal. Capability of, the, rover to survive the cold night at Mars but, a lot of it is that just, not smart enough to process the information quickly, enough to allow the rover to drive and, even a walking, pace and it. Would be wonderful, right now we're getting 9 meters per day out of both, M ER and MSL so it's not a matter of size even the Rovers even though one's much larger than the other they're, both rolling, along at 10 meters per day on average we, need about four or five times that level of performance, and we could, get it through, better. Automation. Better autonomy. Better, decision-making, on board the rover so, it can Rove and not, have to stop you. Know when there's a pebble in its way and that's. A, fantastic. Application. For, new technology, development, in the AI domain, I think will be great for this video system. I'll. Talk a little bit about this basketball, we call it the Aussie orbiting. Sample, and what, you see are those sample tubes that I passed, around we cluster them and and, it turns out that when you kind of package them like a honeycomb, and you, can package either 19, of them in I think it's four wings, will, add a fifth ring and you get up to 31, and that's what we're showing here 30 31. Tubes. And, then that. Canister, gets slid, inside and, it makes up a sphere and, you'll see in a minute why we. Want it to be spherical because, it makes it easier to catch it on orbit. But. Just just sorry just know that it way, it's about the size of a best basketballs 24 centimeters in diameter it says 27, and it, weighs about 25, pounds so, it's pretty massive actually, it's. Almost all metal. Of some sort of titanium, and stainless. Steel, this. Is just one concept for, a mad launch where we have the platform and fetch one of the benefits, of doing this versus the mobile Matt is the fetch rover can kind of back away and watch the launch so we get some fantastic video and, also you wouldn't kill your Rover right if the thing launches, off the back of the rover the rover's not likely to survive that event so this is one advantage to the fetch, and fix platform, and, speaking. Of Mavs we've been looking at a variety of different rocket, technologies, to to make this possible. There's solid Rockets which are like a little s DS rockets that as a kid I hope you played with, there. Are the the bite, what caught by propellant, Rockets, which are analogous to the space shuttle or SpaceX, is launching now where you're mixing together a fuel and an oxidizer, the. Hybrid, is kind. Of halfway in between it, has a solid, fuel. That either a liquid or gaseous oxidizer. And, it turns out for the Mars application, this hybrid is just right because we, have problems with the solids, cracking, when they only descend.

In Seventh and they have to encounter. The landing, environment, that we have it's, also they're. Not very good at cycling. Thermally, hot. To cold during the day and the, hybrid, fuels, don't have that problem so we're looking at a hybrid, implementation. For the MAV. That. Was the landed, system here. Is the. Here. Is the the orbiter, system that would collect the. The, sample it has big solar arrays because it actually uses what, we call solar electric, propulsion rather, than using chemical, rockets, to, propel itself we. Use, solar power to heat up an ionized, gas and then gets ejected out the back end is a much more efficient power source and this. Thing called rocks, is the is the package that captures the sample. I want to talk a little more about that, so. The. Rocks systems. This, basketball, is in Mars orbit and we in its inert okay it has no propulsion system, so what we do is with the orbiter, we, chase, it down and we close. In on it and we actually find a finally, rendezvous, with it in the, last sort of 100 meters we close down and, that. That, basketball. Gets, put. Into some sort of a system that captures it and contains a time meeting, you to to, another technology that I wanted to show you we. Have to then, either. Encapsulate. It because it might have Mars material, on the outside and member we have to treat that Mars material, is potentially, hazardous and then. We because, we're so afraid of it we actually do it twice and we do two. Encapsulation. Exercises, and then we release that encapsulated, system somehow either, in the form of a reentry. Capsule that lands on the surface or there's other idea, and we've been looking at a whole variety of different alternatives. To how we do this one busier and capture it summer very, sort of let's call them conventional, mechanical things where you slide this thing kind of into a basketball, net, that's. This one here and. Then you close the loop and you drive it through the system moves up there's another one that I wanna show you in a second that's that's, really cool. There's. The off coming into the to the system. This. One actually uses, mechanical. Arms to come and trap the. Offs, then. Just. You know dissolve still attached to the spacecraft we just delete, it so you can see what's going on we, really oriented because we care what orientation. Those samples, land on we don't want them to land with the seal. Down and be driven through the seal so, one of the kind of way flat when they when they land on the Earth's surface, here. We're brazing. Breathing, is like soldering, it's kind of welding, the the, two, halves of the container, that. The office is in that it moves into, this thing that we call the Evo sentry, vehicle. And, we do one other layer of containment, there so we have a second layer and you'll, see this sort of hangar door thing flip open and then the eview gets ejected. And that's, that's the whole sequence, of everything, that happens. Punch. It off and there you go. So. I wanted to talk about a really. Neat technology called, flux pinning the, one the scenario, that I just showed you before we, capture. That off with mechanical, arms this, one uses, superconductors. And magnets. And it turns out that there's a style of superconductor, type to super conductor that if you, take, it through its transition temperature. You know at higher temperatures, and things just are, sort of inert pieces, of metal. Stuff, and, then if you cool them down in this particular class, it's below 80 degrees Kelvin. They, become, superconductors. And it turns out that if you do these type, 2 superconductors, if you take them to the transition, temperature. In the presence of a permanent magnet to, set up flux fields and these, flux fields are what allow you to levitate, this this is just a regular permanent magnet, nothing special about this one it. Wants. To stay in place there as long as you hold that superconductor. Below its critical temperature in, the, presence of the magnetic field it wants to pin that magnet, in place and, that turns out to be extremely valuable for, what, we're trying to do. On. The more sample return. So. We have an idea, that we could try, to characterize this this so well in order to be able to use it to capture the offs and hold, it and orient it in proper, position. So. In this context, the offs would have these permanent magnets, on its on the on, the on the outside of, the. Thing and it would fly into the spacecraft. And then, using superconducting. Magnets. Arrayed in this pattern we can actually control the orientation, of the Enel so not only would capture it evening, the superconductors, we actually could turn, it into a, preferential, orientation. And then trap. It down and I, wanted to show you just a couple of videos from right. Here's here's at an operation, at Cornell, on a flat table. But. Also show, you a parishioner. We just did in March, on a microgravity, aircraft.

We Flew this thing because. On the flat table you only get three degrees of freedom right, it goes x and y and you can get Y all that, you're not getting all six degrees you pitch, you on roll so, actually flew this on the on, the, microgravity airplane, where. Okay, one before the guy learns oh don't. Understand. So, you get, and. One of these travelers, in about 20 seconds, of paying time but, you only get about three or four seconds it's good 0g let me just show you. Come. Back my, camera is mounted on the plane. That's. My stuff I belong there. This. Era just, for a couple seconds, got him in there everybody was real jazz. Particularly. Good. Oh. Well now. Three, two. One. Oh. About. It. Anything. Happens if you touch any anything, in the plane you're no longer together. The, object flying out you'll see how far we actually translate. In a plane in zero-g. You. Know. So. We do get to have some fun turbulence, in one. And. We're thinking about flying this on the space station in a, couple of years and then eventually in Mars. This. Is simulating the, landing, of that earth entry vehicle, on the desert floor. At. 3,000. GS. And. That's. On a muddy, it, could rain end in the desert and, we're testing and what happens when it lands in mud and what it does it just creates. This huge splatter, of mud. So I'm, showing you the fun stuff right I'm not showing you me sitting in meetings all day long, and you, know developing, budgets and schedules I'm, showing you when we get to fly on the microgravity plane, and when we get to make. The mud, go splat. Okay. So. Downstream. After this we have big, ideas about other systems, that could explore, Mars. Helicopters. Balloons. Landing. More things. And. It's actually getting ready for humans, so. Sorry. For the fast clothes there but there's, if. You're really interested please that's Merri for the slime package and you can look at it in more dfdl, and i'm happy to talk, with you off offline. All. Right thank you very much, I gotta hit you with the fire hose Thank, You June. I'm. Wondering, with the sort. Of idea of the. Magnetic. Capture, sort. Of firstly, what, are the does, that have a long enough range to be practically, useful in orbit it feels like it would be range constrained, more than a basket. And sort, of secondly what were the reasons, to use superconducting. Methods, instead of ActiveX control with a regular, electromagnet, to accomplish that task sure so first. Fit to fantastic, questions number, one it would be beautiful this tractor, beam acted. Over kilometers. And you know it's just like in Star Trek but it it acts over centimeters, the, good, news is we can control the spacecraft to single digit centimeters so I can fly that. Retrieval, system up to the offs within. About five centimeters, so I only need that tractor beam quality, to, actuate, over, single-digit, centimeters and it does that. That's, that. Aspect, is the really important thing is that we do it without contacting. Without getting a lot of dust flying off of the offs and, contaminating. The spacecraft, that's that's the big, advantage over the conventional. Mechanical muses we never actually touch the awesome the scenario it comes in and it pins in that equilibrium, condition. With no contact, to. The spacecraft and we're, able to orient the office without touching it and it turns out that that that's orientation. Function is winding up being a big design I didn't. Think it, would be when we first embarked, on this thing but it turns out that orientation is a big design driver for the mechanical, systems the. Second one is why do we do it with superconductors, rather than just regular conventional magnets, you could but. That that, potential, well and that pinning capability, in the equilibrium, position is a lot more difficult to synthesize, with electromagnets, that you know it wants to drive right into contact, with the magnet and stick in contact. Now you can levitate. Electromagnetically. But it's a lot harder than this which does it passively, so, as long as you keep that superconductor. Below. Its critical temperature as. Long as you're keeping it that cold you don't have to do anything else you don't need an elaborate, control system, it just it just operates, that way as, long as you pin the magnet in place, so yes you could do it with electromagnets. But the the, superconductors, have. A number of characteristics. That are beneficial that passive equilibrium. Position the, non-contact. Case, so. Those things make it advantageous the, downside is it's a low technology. Maturity. Right now and so we're inventing the technology, as we go most people have much more experience obviously, with electromagnets. And we've had a conventional, permanent, magnets so those things are in tension in our development.

Thank. You that's a super question I. Actually. Have a similar question but I'll go with a different, one because you you, answered my first one I'd like to know a little bit about, the. Relationship between NASA, and SpaceX, and how much coordination there is between the, two organizations and. How much competition there might be yeah. Another. Another. Great question and I'm going to do. My best to be candid. But with a little bit of diplomacy. So. Number. One as I mentioned to young you, know really. Really impressed with all the things that SpaceX has been able to accomplish. We. Especially, at JPL, but NASA, Ames also has a relationship with SpaceX. We're. Helping them do. Some of the things that they really. Can't do for themselves like for instance we're talking, with them about some of the, really. Technical, aspects of the entry descent and landing environment. So that they understand, some, of the lessons that we learn the hard way without, having to repeat them and, so we Rock we're providing, them with some engineering. Support, as they, develop their system and then there's other areas where they're not looking for that support they think they have the answer and they and they may, even have the personnel, that have the experience that are able to give them that so, we're supporting them in some very particular engineering. Domains, in areas, where NASA has clear, expertise, that SpaceX does not have in, return. On there. Are discussions, between SpaceX, and NASA about. Returning, the favour' in the, form of landing things for us because, we're only getting opportunities to land on the Mars surface every, half. A decade or so if they're going on every opportunity to be wonderful if we could put payloads onto. Their system, so there's there's a bit, of an interchange, and they're there, motivations, on both, sides for. For that relationship, one. Thing I can say is that I think SpaceX, is really, changing the paradigm they certainly had done in the launch vehicle, game and I anticipated, as they spread, into other domains like space class satellites, like. From Mars applications, they're going to change the paradigm in the way that they did from launch vehicles they're going to change the paradigm and there's other domains I happen, to be somebody who thinks that those paradigm changes are good for that ecosystem. As a, whole so, I'm really a huge. Fan of SpaceX, and, I think most people that you talk to a JPL. Ames have a sort of a similar perspective. So. I'm somewhat curious, if. There's been any, lessons. Learned from rubber attempts of like other countries and, because. You know most of what we see is coming from NASA or maybe SpaceX, but we don't see much coming, at.

Least. Publicized. From from the other countries, right. In it in the domain, of Mars. Exploration. Particularly. When we talk about landing. Things, on Mars and, using them on Mars the, u.s. is kind, of the only player that's been successful. We. Actually have a very one, other slide that I didn't show you that today is we have a scorecard, of successful. Of attempts, versus successes, and it's like 39. Attempts, and 15 successes, and almost. All of those successes are us, no. One no other country has successfully, landed, something, on Mars that lasted, for. More than a few seconds the Russians landed something that died in a matter of seconds. We. The only the only country that's ever had anything that really, delivered science, back from the surface of Mars is the United States now, that's not to say that we don't have wonderful. Collaborations. With other international. Partners, like the European Space Agency that are providing things on the instrument, level and they're, now getting, to the point of trying to do things like Rovers the, Europeans are planning to launch a, rover. Mission in 2020, that, would sort of look like Spirit. And Opportunity in, terms of its ambitions. For size, and roving distance and so forth but no one's really yet been successful, at the let's, call it the mission level. Other. Than NASA so. Right, now the collaborations. Are at the instrument, level but, the mission level we're still waiting for them to catch up. I'm. Wondering why you have the second Rover at all I mean if you just kept all the things on the first Rover and you say the rocket. That's coming is going to be able to land you know on a dime when I just land next to it yeah. I. Guess. I'm never going to get an easy question sure, Oh God. Very. Insightful question, and yes. You you, could do, this with one single landed, element but let me explain. Technical. Motivations, and also allude. To some programmatic motivation. Technically. The mission that it's going to take to collect those samples are going to take a couple of years on the, Mars surface and while. We've. Had you know we've. Had great success spirit, left at seven years opportunities, 12. Years. Curiosity. Is now minutes, which this year six years of operation. We, can't count on those super, long mission durations particularly, the solar power systems, if they ever get themselves in a condition where they're sort of stuck and they, can't point their arrays at the Sun it over the winter the Mars winter they, freeze, to death so. We're very reluctant, to, baked. Into our mission planning multi-year. Missions. And we, think that that collection, process, is going to take a couple of years and so, it kind of eats up the amount of time that we're willing to allocate, to a single mission. The. Collection, operation. Actually takes less time than. The the, sample collect. The some of my things collection, I mean the fetching operation, of collecting the sample to the surface takes, much less time than the then the drilling, of the cores and laying those samples down on the surface and we're, just nervous that that's too much to pack, into one single, mission, that's.

Technical. Explanation. There's a program at ik explanation. That says we're. Sending the, Mars 2020 mission, to Mars to do a fantastic, and sitting mission which by the way stands, on its own we, would send that system. I believe regardless. Of whether or not there was a sampling package on it but, it's great that we have the sampling package and we get started, on more sample, and. We built some momentum that says hey. Congress. And the Congressional, Budget Office we, have 33. Sample. Tubes lying on the surface of Mars they, have unbelievable science. Locked inside them, please. Let's, go get them and bring them home, that's. A compelling story, that gets to be told starting in 2021. When. The 2020, rover lands rather, than betting on the come and sending, that mission in 2027, 2028. And hoping. That you have good samples, so, the opportunity, to get started, soon and have something that's compelling to bring back helps. To motivate the rest of the missions so, I told you a technical story and I told your programmatic story, both of those combined, or why we have separate. Missions for caching and return we, could conceivably. Do it on one mission but it makes more sense to do it in two. Yeah. So the question, for those of you couldn't hear the question was do these these two Rovers that are participating in sample return do, they have a mission after they've, completed theirs, their sampling. Responsibilities. And they answer, certainly, in the case of 2020, the answer is an emphatic yes, it. As I, said before it has an instrument package that's doing in such as science in addition. To the to the sampling operation, that, Institute, science can happen before you collect samples while you're collecting samples after you, collect samples, and as, after. I just told this story that we're afraid the robes aren't going to last very long the, reality, is they do in, practice. They last for a long time and we anticipate after, we finish that sample cashing mission. If the rover is still going strong we, would continue the science mission the, one that's a little bit more sort, of not, clear at this point is the fetch rover and as I showed, you on that one image that showed the mad launch where we had a small, fetch River that could stand off from, the mad launch and observe it from a safe distance, that, one we expect that the hopefully, the rover would survive that mad launch and go on to do more science the, mobile MAV where you're carrying the knob on your back and you and you put, it into its launch orientation, and off it goes that, one probably trashes, the room, and we've been thinking about ways to maybe you know put the rocket.

Off The back of the rover so it's not thrusting, directly down onto it but, but that that that fetching. Mission also the the. Amount of science, instrumentation, that we would be able to put on that system which is already doing the MAV oil and everything it's, a much more questionable, thing so, I think 2020, is going to be going to do a beauty ancillary science mission or irregardless of the sampling operation, the, ability, of the FET Rover to continue, to do more sciences is questionable. So, that's playing, into the architecture, of the missions. Okay. So Brian, wants to know how, are you planning to get the necessary amount, of maneuvering, capability, to rendezvous with the OS given, that the vehicle uses an ion drive. Great. Five. Four five. Someone. Asked me like why Mars is red or something like that please videos. Send, me a softball, and I could smash out of the sphere now. Will. Actually augment that ion thrusting system with a cold gas forcing, system specifically, for the purpose of doing the rendezvous. Function, we could not execute. The run to do purely, with the low thrust engines that you have when you're doing ion thrusting, so it'll be cold, gas either hydrazine, or maybe even xenon, that, was the pressure and it was was the gas that we're blowing out of the ion thruster, we, might be able to use some spare. Xenon. For that function it turns out in practice, hydrazine. Has a much more PACs a much more powerful punch, and so, it's better for us to use hydrazine, as the fluid but we would not try to do it with the, ion engines will do the rendezvous with with a cold gas or hydrazine. System is. There any consideration to. Having. More. Than one sample. Return the returning. Vehicle. For example collecting. More, samples. Opportunistic. Aliens we, were able to collect more than send, another mission like you next. Five years right. So the question was is there perhaps. A motivation, to have multiple, sample returns either from the sample set I'm. Going to extend a little bit on your question either from the samples that we take from 2020, or. Multiple. Sample return missions. Themselves the. Answer, is yes. Means, we're going to carry right now the planets to carry a little more than 40 of these sample tubes and we'll collect as many as we can we'll lay as many on the surfaces as possible, my, guess is that none. Of them are going to be such. Duds that that we would want not want to bring them back right. There's. Going to be a fantastic, scientific. Debate on whether we bring back sample 2 4. 6, 9. Etc. Which, ones we bring back but, we're, most likely not going to be able to bring back every, single tube that we that we collect so there there, would be a strong motivation, to want to return all of those tubes. Furthermore. We're, only going to be able to land at one site, and do, science in that one location and while, we're trying to pick landing, sites that have a diversity, of potential. Scientific. Return it, is, only one place and just like on earth you know if you can it's not the same thing to vacation, in Hawaii as it is to vacation, in Finland. And so, we would want. To go to other places on Mars and we turn samples from multiple locations that of course would require different mission, to do sample collection and caching also, as you can tell from from what I've described to you so far we're, making a rather large. And investment, in the technology for. This and it would be great to see it amortized, over multiple, missions rather than just one singular, one. So we, can we can envision multiple, sample return missions, either, to finish kind of finish the job if there's still good samples left from the first mission. Or to have multiple, sample, returns flown from different landing, sites different s

2019-03-18 14:29

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This is the most uninformative video, I have ever seen.

My undiplomatic rant:- " Here is proof positive that we live in "The Age of Stupid"... Ancient Chinese Reaction Rocket Gunpowder Technology is NOT the way to lift payload into orbit and out into space. It is "Stupid on Steroids" and we know the cause! Stupid Erroneous Science Pseudo-Education ...Now LOOK AND LEARN THE TRUTH (With thanks to The Russian Academy of Sciences) " :-  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Igt1pV8ojTc

Seems slightly wasteful to have a separate rover to actually drill the materials and another to gather and place on a STO rocket. Why not develop the rover and rocket concurrently?

Lol nevermind, Mr. Parrish answered it in the Q+A. They worry about the timetable and lifespan for the rovers. Drilling and dropping takes years and they want the redundancy if the rover "freezes to death". Very interesting stuff

100% like ratio

Lots of rockets!!!

Rockets for days.

I hate earth;do tell!

Awww... Earth isn't all that bad. It's just the dominant species I have a problem with. ;-)

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