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[Ideas that transform you]
[Miguel San Martin]
[Heading to Mars]
My love for the exploration of Mars
began when I was in high school.
It must have been eighth or ninth grade.
When reading a magazine, Popular Mechanics, I learned
about this mission to Mars, Viking, of the United States,
whose objective was to land two scientific stations
in order to see if there was life.
They had instruments to detect life.
This was to be the first attempt by the United States
to land a package of instruments on the surface
and a feat that nobody had accomplished yet,
the Soviet Union never succeeded,
I am also surprised
by the complexity and audacity of this mission
so I'm immediately fascinated and follow it
as best I could, because we didn't have Internet at that time,
so from time to time some article appeared
in the newspapers. And well, later I find out that
they were going to launch, and they launched and when
the time of the landing arrives, that night
before the landing, I'm on the farm
of my parents in Villa Regina, RĂo ***,
trying to follow the thing, listening to the BBC of London
on short wave, attentively, "all systems go, all green"
all green, and the broadcast finishes
because it finished at that time and I go to sleep
with the huge doubt of what had happened.
So in the morning, I get up and we go into town
to do some shopping as usual, but I go
straight to the small newsstand and find this
[The Viking reached Mars]
it had been a great success, it worked.
But what I find myself most fascinated with is this photo,
the "Viking" foot planted firmly on Martian soil.
I don't know if it was the fascination with the technical
engineering prowess of transporting this vehicle from Earth
and now it is in this world
or opening your eyes and finding a new view
of a planet that was yet to be explored,
what I knew at that moment was that I wanted to be
part of an expedition, an adventure of this type.
Live this moment of suspense and triumph, or perhaps
failure and discovery.
So that's when I decide, say, be part, try, try
to do this sort of thing in my life.
I also hear through the Viking about this place
with an almost mysterious name: "Jet Propulsion Laboratory."
Pasadena, California, all the news and notes
on the Viking mission always began with "Pasadena, California
Jet Propulsion Laboratory," so also that
immediately was in my sight, that's where I focused my efforts.
So, well, I study in the United States,
Electrical Engineering at first, then
Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering with a specialization
in guidance, navigation and control, and go off
to this mysterious place in Pasadena, California,
that is the only job I've ever had in my life,
and, well, I specialize in these missions to Mars,
in the part which we call the descent on Mars
or the seven minutes of terror. The proposal is very simple,
the spacecraft reaches Mars at the high atmosphere, 125 km high, at 20,000 km/h and
in seven minutes, the speed needs to be zero
and the wheels of the vehicle must be settled on the planet's surface.
During this time, the ship goes through
a series, a metamorphosis where it lets go
of different parts. Separating heatshields,
opening parachutes, starting rocket engines,
a complicated sequence where everything has to work
perfectly and automatically,
because the signals take fourteen minutes.
So you can't command it with a joystick, right?
So, this is the part that really fascinated me
about Viking and the part that I wanted to specialize in,
and in particular my part was the guidance, navigation and control system
that is the pilot that drives the spaceship
for these seven minutes. And the reason why we call it
"terror" is not only because it is complicated, there are
many things complicated in the world. It is because we cannot
practice this on Earth, because the conditions of gravity, the atmosphere are different
and it is not practical. Meaning that, many of the things we do
or practically all the sequence, the first time that we do it
"for real," as we would say, is on Mars. So that is why
we are so afraid and we don't have many opportunities
of doing this. That is why it has to work.
My first opportunity to do these activities came with
"Mars Pathfinder" and the vehicle "Sojourner."
And it was a great success, it was a descents system very different from the Viking.
It had air bags that bounced,
it was not necessarily the part that most interested me.
I was interested more in the guidance, navigation and control of the Viking,
but anyway it was for me a great mission, a great success,
and it was the first time that I lived those moments of the seven minutes of terror,
and the triumph that I was looking for. Then came
the robotic vehicles "Space" and "Opportunity" that
also had the same air bag system
and it was a great, great success. This also gave me
a great personal satisfaction and another chance to live those moments of discovery.
But, in fact, when I look back I realize
that these missions were the preamble, the preparation for
the great mission which is "Curiosity."
This mission, as you can see, is a technological leap in
the instruments on the vehicle which also requires a leap in the vehicle's size and weight.
Now we are talking about almost a ton of weight.
Almost five times more than the previous ones.
And we're also talking about a much bigger cost.
To give you an idea, the "Curiosity" was USD 2.5 billion.
And "Spirit" and "Opportunity" were USD 800 million for two,
so the former had two opportunities to succeed on the way down,
here we had one and it was USD 2.5 billion,
and it's not the dollars, but the work the team invested
that we are talking about here that makes one feel a little more nervous during the descent.
Here you can compare it to the size of a car which one get into and go to the supermarket.
So it is a big leap in that direction.
The mission also required us to improve our navigation,
to go to scientific places, to places on Mars that are of more scientific interest that are difficult to reach.
So that was another of the major challenges of this mission that also added risk.
Very well, then, good, and so we began to design
a descent system, for eight years, a completely new system.
We practically, we used the experience of the previous ones, but we had to make
a number of innovations, had to make the biggest capsule
that was used in research, manned or unmanned; four and a half meters in diameter.
The largest supersonic parachute in the world in history, it is 50 meters long.
You can see a person standing next to
the parachute for you to see the size.
And then, we had to invent a brand-new system
of posing the robotic vehicle "Curiosity" because air bags, obviously, you can't
imagine a ton of weight bouncing
10 meters of high for one kilometer,
it's almost ridiculous. So we invented
this new system and the first time that we used it
was on Mars, in front of everyone, because you couldn't rehearse, try this out on Earth.
And well, it was 8 years of very intense work, right?
With many sacrifices, many hours in the lab, with the electronics and the software.
Some frustrating moments, but we also had
days where we had to pinch ourselves to see
if we were in a dream or we felt a little guilty that
they were paying us a salary to do these things.
We elbowed each other:
"Can you believe this is a job?" So, for example, when we had to go
to the historical Edwards Air Force Base where, for the first time,
the speed of sound was broken. We went there to try
the landing radar, using a plane F-18
we worked there for several days, a very interesting place geographically speaking
because those are the salt flats in California where
they do many experiments, well, finally also
going to the historic Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral
to make ready, put the finishing touches on "Curiosity" before it's trip to Mars.
And well, the days passed and with them eight years of work and suddenly
we are six days away from the landing, sending the signal
to activate the system of descent. We activate it six days
before for fear that there might be an earthquake in California
and we were not able to send the signal. Always have to, when you are talking
of such an expensive mission, you must always
assume the worst. So the system was already activated
I could hear the tic-tic of the system and the landing
was going to be that Sunday. But before that, Black Wednesday would happen, as I call it,
just four days from the landing, this is the Wednesday
we landed on Sunday, we discovered an error in a parameter in the software
that indicated the position of a navigational instrument very, very important to us
and it was an error of 4 cm. It was an error that had been there for years, six years at least
and that it was in the simulations and software,
so it cancelled out, which is one of the worst things that can happen to us.
Well, at that time there were two alternatives: one was to study the consequences of living
with that mistake, the odds a successful landing; the other was to send a command and correct it.
You would think, well, I choose the second one obviously. But, not so easy,
because in this part of the missions,
one becomes very careful, with which commands you send to the spaceship,
many bosses need to sign off on this,
to take command of the ship and there is always the problem that
one can make a mistake or that there is
a secondary effect as with all complicated software systems
sometimes we want to do one thing and we get that plus something else.
Therefore, there is a great reluctance by the technical team
to do that. So you have to prove that it's necessary.
Well, realizing that, and sweating cold, I have to pay a visit
to the head of the project, Pete Tisinger, and I tell Pete,
"Pete, I have to give you bad news, we have
a software bug, a parameter." Then, very calmly, Pete
a veteran of many missions, says: "Well, Miguel, what are we going to do?"
"Are we going to investigate the consequences of living with the problem,
or if we make must develop a command to send, to change and fix the error in the software."
We then divided into two teams.
One, I am in charge that it is analyzing the consequences of living with the situation as is, living with the error.
And other team, makes all the preparations to send the command.
The idea is to work in parallel. On Thursday and Friday
we go through a series of ups and downs and intermediate decisions
and time keeps passing. Mars is getting nearer,
or we get closer to Mars and Saturday arrives,
right? Where in a final decision meeting, because
we were running out of time, in the morning
we met to make the big decision.
I come to the meeting having slept one hour. So I'm quite tired.
And after the presentations, right, of all the different options,
the project manager, Pete, says,
"This is the most difficult decision of my career"
which is as if they had buried a knife in me, to have caused so much grief to this person.
I personally had not made the mistake, but it was
my team so I had to assume this responsibility.
and, in parentheses, this little problem not only reached the director of the laboratory,
but it was up in Washington, NASA the headquarters in Washington of NASA.
It is not necessarily, the kind of fame that I was looking for, right?
at that time. Well, then Pete makes his decision
and decides to make the change in the software, which was for me
a great relief, because while we
had not found... had discovered that it was
quite a benign thing. That it wouldn't break with that error.
It was still the judgment of two days of tests and simulations,
and in a state of high pressure and very tired.
So maybe we might have ... come to an incorrect conclusion.
So I felt very good about the change.
Pete turns and says to me: "Miguel, you going to sleep right now,"
because we need your fresh to make decisions.
that may happen from now to the descent." I in that
moment felt exhausted, physically, emotionally and intellectually.
But, before I go, Pete turns and says to me:
"Miguel, excellent work." And that surprised me.
I say, "Pete, the work would have been much better if there had been no
mistake in the first place."
Then Pete looks me directly in my eyes and says:
No, excellent work because you found the problem
with your team, you worked on the analysis,
and you had the bravery and courage to come and tell us and explain the error."
Then, at that moment I was very moved
and I realized how happy, how proud
I was to be part of this organization with
those values of honesty, integrity and teamwork.
Values which are very important to the success of these missions.
So I go home to rest.
And then comes landing day. I go to the Control Center.
A happy person but terrified, obviously.
As you would expect 2.5 billion dollars of work
nobody wants to be that missed the penalty shot in the final match, right?
me neither. But I calm my fears a little
by reading, or remembering the words
of US President, Theodore Roosevelt,
in the early 20th century, which read: "It is not the critic who counts;
not the man who points out
how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds
could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man
who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
who errs, who comes short again and again,
because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;
who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement
and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly,
It is much better attempt great things, achieving glorious triumphs
even dotted by failures, than join with those
timid souls who neither enjoy nor suffer too much
because they live in a gray twilight that knows no victory or defeat."
And so I felt happy because I was
in the place I wanted to be. And now I'm going to tell
how we lived those minutes of the descent with a video
that tells it much better than I can
in my words.
(Video Starts)
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, August 5 2012, 10:23 PM
Things are looking good, coming up on entry.
Vehicle reports the entry interface.
We are beginning to feel the atmosphere as we go in here.
OK, this is reporting that we are seeing G's on the order of 11 to 12 Earth G's.
Bank Reversal 2 is starting. (Applause)
We are now getting telemetry from Odyssey.
We should have parachute deploy at around Mach 1.7
The parachute is deployed. (Applause)
We are decelerating.
The heatshield has separated, though we are bound to the ground.
We are downing at 90 meters per second
at an altitude of 6.5 kilometers and descending.
Standing by for the backshield separation.
We are in powered flight.
(Applause)
We are at an altitude of 1 kilometer and descending.
Standing by for Sky Crane.
Sky Crane is starting.
The signal of Odyssey remains strong.
Touchdown confirmed. We are safe on Mars!
(Cheers) (Applause)
We've got thumbnails.
It's a wheel, it's a wheel!
(Cheers) (Applause)
Curiosity has landed.
(Video Ends)
(Applause)
And shortly after landing came this beautiful photo
where we can see the wheels of "Curiosity" firmly bound
to the surface. And the shadow of "Curiosity"
triumphantly standing on the surface of the red planet.
I don't know if this picture was on the front page of Rio ***,
but I hope that it will inspire new generations
as the photo of the Viking inspired me.
Thank You. (Applause)
Thanks. (Applause)