But there was a slight practical problem. These landers would use rocket motors to slow things down, deploy their three legs that had been tightly stowed away during the journey, and, using a radar system, navigate down to the surface for a soft, steady landing. In 1999, when I started working on the operations team for a planned 2003 mission to Mars, three-legged landers were all the rage.
#Nasa spent money on matt damon software
All we can do is to load up the software to the spacecraft ahead of time, give it the proper instructions, and put Sir Isaac Newton in the driver’s seat. Why? It takes roughly 14 minutes for a signal from Mars to reach Earth, but it takes only half that time for the spacecraft to descend to the Martian surface. To make matters worse, the spacecraft has to execute this entire choreography by itself, without a real-time human conductor. You need something more to slow down the spacecraft and guide it safely onto the surface (which is covered with rocks and other hazards that can destroy a delicate robot). It must slow down to casual driving speeds, but there are no breaks. When the spacecraft touches the martian atmosphere, it’s barrelling through space at twenty-five times the speed of sound. But the most dangerous part of that interplanetary journey is the six minutes that comes at the very end when the spacecraft enters, descends, and lands on the martian surface. Given the alignment of the planets in 2003, it would take us roughly six months to get to Mars. As NASA engineer Tom Rivellini put it, “If any one thing doesn’t work just right, it’s game over.” To land on Mars is to execute a perfect cosmic choreography. Ignoring this principle cost taxpayers $120 million and NASA its hard-earned reputation. The same idea is captured in various different problem-solving principles, the most prominent of which is Occam’s razor: The simplest solution to a problem is often the correct one. This story is a myth, but the moral holds: “Everything should be made as simple as possible,” as Albert Einstein put it, “but not simpler.” Legend has it that NASA spent millions of dollars developing a pen that would work in zero gravity.
Here’s the problem: When we instinctively search for the shiny new innovation, when we attempt to find “the next best thing,” and when we try to force-fit sexy 21st century solutions into 14th century problems, we can miss the simple, old, boring solution hiding in plain sight. If spacecraft keep plunging to their deaths on the martian surface, let’s ask rocket scientists to come up with some sexy, sleek, state-of-the art technology to ensure a smooth, steady landing. One obvious solution to escape the galactic ghoul is to innovate, to do things differently than they had been done before. Upon entry into the martian atmosphere, we’d be greeted by what the journalist Donald Neff described as the “galactic ghoul,” a fictitious martian monster that feeds on human spacecraft. I learned quickly that the red planet wouldn’t be rolling out any red carpets for us. When I started working on the operations team for the 2003 Mars Exploration Rovers mission, two out of every three Mars missions had failed. Mars is hostile to us because it hosts the biggest graveyard of human spacecraft. Mars is a hostile place–not just because the average temperature is -60 degrees celsius, not just because it’s dry, and not just because it’s home to the type of intense dust storms that left Matt Damon stranded on its surface. With its red hue, the planet might appear warm, cozy, and welcoming to the unsuspecting observer.
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