No Ordinary Monday
The No Ordinary Monday podcast brings you the most incredible tales from people's working lives. Each week, we meet someone whose work is anything but ordinary - they may be clearing landmines, blowing up movie sets, or exploring uncharted caves.
We dive into the how, the why, and a life-defining moment they’ve experienced on the job. Whether it’s spine-tingling, hilarious, or just plain jaw-dropping, their stories will challenge what you thought a “career” could be—and maybe even change the way you think about your own.
No Ordinary Monday
Mars, Lasers, and the Search for Alien Life (Nina Lanza)
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to control a laser on another planet? Dr. Nina Lanza does exactly that as a planetary scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she leads the ChemCam instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover.
With infectious enthusiasm, Nina takes us through her remarkable journey from a space-obsessed child who dreamed of "working on a spaceship with lasers" to a scientist who commands rovers on Mars. Her story reminds us that passion and persistence can transform seemingly impossible dreams into reality.
The conversation explores what planetary scientists actually do day-to-day and why studying Martian rocks matters. Nina explains the difference between Curiosity's mission to assess Mars' habitability and Perseverance's hunt for signs of ancient life, offering fascinating insights into how these rovers gather data using sophisticated laser technology that can analyze rocks from a distance.
Perhaps most captivating is Nina's firsthand account of the Curiosity rover's launch and landing. She vividly describes the anxiety of watching years of work blast off into space and the heart-stopping "seven minutes of terror" as the rover attempted its unprecedented landing using a sky crane system that had never been fully tested. These moments of scientific triumph come alive through her personal narrative.
Nina also dismantles stereotypes about scientists, confessing she "wasn't particularly good at school" and secured her first Mars job through relentless enthusiasm rather than perfect credentials. Her message is clear and encouraging: follow what you love learning about, and you'll find your path regardless of your starting point or age.
As we stand at the threshold of potentially discovering evidence of life beyond Earth, Nina makes a compelling case for continued investment in Mars exploration, particularly the Mars Sample Return mission. Her story exemplifies how human curiosity, persistence, and collaboration can extend our reach beyond our home planet and potentially answer one of humanity's most profound questions: are we alone in the universe?
If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a five-star rating and review, and tell a friend about the show.
WANT TO BE A GUEST? You can submit your own career story through our website at noordinarymonday.com or email us at hello@noordinarymonday.com.
Hello and welcome to the very first episode of no Ordinary Monday. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm so excited to launch this show for you guys. Even in these early stages, I have a really fantastic lineup of guests already. I am your host, chris Barron, and I've been a documentary filmmaker for around 14 years or so, and during that time I've met so many inspiring people doing cool and unusual jobs. So I thought this podcast would be a great way to share their stories and career insights with the world. So the way the show will work is each week, I sit down with a guest who has an interesting career story. We're going to explore how they got there, what it's really like behind the scenes, and then we're going to take a deep dive into the single most unforgettable experience of their career. And to kick us off, my first guest spends her day searching for traces of alien life on other worlds, namely Mars.
Speaker 1:Dr Nina Lanza is a planetary scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. That's the place where they first developed the atomic bomb, but these days they do things like support Mars missions with specific technologies and research areas, one of which is Nina's Mars laser, which we're going to get into. I first met Nina when she was one of the lead scientific contributors on a documentary series I made a few years back. She's a really, really fabulous communicator and just a lovely, lovely person all around, so I'm really delighted that she agreed to chat with me. Make sure you stick around for her big story, where she relives the most intense moment of her career the launch and then the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars. I think it's sort of famously known as the seven minutes of terror. Yeah, so, with all that said, I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Nina. Hope you enjoy. You are listening to no Ordinary Monday. Let's get to the show. Nina Lanza, or should I say Dr Nina Lanza, what do you prefer?
Speaker 2:I'm a pretty casual person. I do have a PhD, but it does feel like you know that was a while ago and it doesn't define who I am.
Speaker 1:So you know, just Nina is great. Some people prefer it. My wife, for example. She's like I worked hard for that PhD and people are going to call me doctor. She's like I worked hard for that PhD and people are going to call me doctor.
Speaker 2:You know I would say then, in that case, you know, if there's a choice, then you know it's always good to highlight women's accomplishments and credentials without making them a big deal. So yeah, let's go doctor.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, dr Nina Lanza, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm doing great Thanks, it's a beautiful morning here in New Mexico it's just that perfect sunny, but not yet too hot. It's lovely.
Speaker 1:Amazing, Amazing. Well, you and I actually, we know each other from a previous project. We worked together on a documentary series called Lift the Ice, in which you were fantastic as one of the what we call super contributors and led one of the episodes called Alien Ice, I think it was which is very fitting for what it is you do, because we sent you to one of the northernmost islands in the Arctic Circle in Canada.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, that was so much fun. I cannot tell you. It was such a fun project. So that's the northernmost point I've been thus far Axel Heiberg Island, to the Mars Research Station, no less. That's the McGill Arctic Research Center. So it was great to say that. Maybe I was on Mars for a moment and it was just what an amazing time to really learn about what research others are doing up there, just as I am thinking about research that I'm also doing. So, yeah, that was a super fun project.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah. So basically, speaking of Mars, I think we're a big great place to start is if you just explain to us what you do.
Speaker 2:When people ask me what I do for a living, it really depends on who I'm speaking to. You know, a lot of times I'll just say you know, I work on a spaceship on Mars. That's true. Sometimes I'll say I zap rocks with a laser on Mars. If I'm speaking to a professional conference, I might call myself a planetary scientist, planetary scientist. So I think, broadly speaking, I am a geologist who works on rocks on other planets, primarily Mars, and the way that I do that is through our remarkable rover missions, so we can actually command our rovers to go look at specific rocks and tell us a little bit more about them. So it's really the best job ever. I mean, it's my childhood dream. You know, my childhood dream was to work on a spaceship with lasers, and I'm doing that now. I never gave up the dream. It's awesome.
Speaker 1:Did that come from watching a movie? Or where spaceships and lasers sounds like you watched a movie and went. I want to do that.
Speaker 2:I am absolutely certain that it came in from the cultural zeitgeist. You know there's so many different science fiction films which show some version of that, and my parents were really big nerds themselves. It may surprise you that I come from a nerdy family, but you know we've read a lot of science fiction. We watched a lot of. The original Doctor who series had a lot of excellent special effects, as everyone can remember, some good pasted on lasers, you know. But so I would say that for me, the dream was, you know, to really understand what was in the universe using the tools that I could imagine. And and maybe you know I've gotten lucky in that my imagination has actually come true. And how often does that happen? I didn't really have a great plan for what my spaceship would be and what lasers were talking about, what would they even do, but I knew that it was something that really called to me, and so I would say it's more than anything, I've always wanted to be an explorer.
Speaker 1:So yes, basically you are a geologist. Most geologists work on this planet. What's wrong with Earth? Why Mars or why other planets?
Speaker 2:There is nothing wrong with Earth. In fact, I love Earth. We live on such an incredibly interesting planet, not to mention that it takes really good care of us. So I love learning about Earth as well. But for me, the way that I got into geology was wondering about rocks on Mars. Of course we had landed with Viking and saw some images. But for me you know, I was in high school at the time and I saw these pictures and my mind was blown. It felt like a place that I could go, that I could walk, and that's when I first got an inkling. Maybe rocks are kind of interesting.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. I mean, I educate as a biologist, so I'm a scientist of sorts, but my dad was a geologist of sorts. But my dad was a geologist and so I grew up, um, going on field trips here. We go camping in the mountains and he would be, you know, driving on the road, pointing at rocks here and there and say, oh, look at this fold here, look at that fault there, look at this rock here, and then all that kind of stuff. And I have to be honest, I, I guess I'm one of those that I I never got it.
Speaker 1:I was like what is this obsession with rocks? And you know, even later in life I was like what is this obsession with rocks? And you know, even later in life I'm like what is it about rocks that get you so excited? They're just rocks. And from his point of view you may, I'm curious to hear what your thoughts on this but he was just like you know it's, each of these rocks tells a story of of the earth and you know how it formed and you know all. You look around a mountain range and you see all these different stories play out and blah, blah, blah. But from your perspective I'm curious, what is it about rocks that gets you so excited.
Speaker 2:It's so funny that you tell this story right, they're like oh rocks, who cares? You know? And because my mother was also an undergraduate major in geology and so I too spent many a family road trip forced to stop at road cuts and be like why are we looking at this?
Speaker 2:It's just a rock who cares and not caring at all and wondering why it mattered, you know. But I would say that I think of course it's always hard for your parents to introduce their passions to you because you are predisposed to say they're lame, even if they are super cool. So there's a little element of that, you know. But I think that once I understood what you could do with geology, it really changed my perspective. And it's exactly like you said every rock tells a story and that story can be extremely exciting and it really depends on the type of rock. But you know, the reason we know that life arose on Earth about 4 billion years ago is from a rock. That's the only evidence we have left. The only object left from that time period is a rock, and in that rock is this little tiny piece of mineralogy, morphology, isotopic data that tells us life was here. That's amazing. That is incredible that it could tell you that, just this little rock that maybe if you were walking down the street you'd kick it. You're like ugh rock, get out of my way. This rock has been through a lot and has seen so many things and would tell you them if you only cared to look and listen. And I feel like an example of sort of how my perspective really changed.
Speaker 2:I decided to go to graduate school in geology, having literally never taken geology tricky, hard start. But I remember very clearly one of the very first geologic field trips that I went on for structural geology, a classic geology course, and it turned out it was like a road cut in the back of the new Target, like the store it's in a parking lot, and I'm like why are we going to the mall? Because they had just cut open a hill. And the professor's like all right, what do you see there? And I was like I just see an expanse of grayness, like, uh, it looks like they use dynamite. You know there's some drill holes. But as I sat there he's like just draw it, just draw what you see.
Speaker 2:As I sat there he's like just draw it Just draw what you see, as I sat there, I was like, wait a second, I'm seeing there's some really weird things in here, Like there's these big round things and then there's some lines and they're bendy underneath and you know what I was looking at? It turns out I was looking at an ancient pillow basalt. A pillow basalt is what happens when very hot lava flows into a body of water and you can see they form these pillows right, Because they're very round and they have the outside is quenched glass and the inside cools more slowly. But it's these big circular things and, like you know, it took me a really long time, I would say, of standing there in the back of the Target parking lot to actually see that.
Speaker 2:And you know, I laugh now because I'm like it's so obvious and seeing whatever happens, to be there without looking for something or being judgmental or wondering how long we have until we have to do our next thing. You'll be amazed at what you see. So you know, for me it's rocks. I think for many people it could also be rocks, but you know, if you just spent a little extra time looking at them, it doesn't mean that you have to be a geologist, but I think rocks can be amazing if you, if you take the time just to look at them brilliant everyone.
Speaker 1:Just give rocks a bit more love when you're out out for a walk.
Speaker 2:I mean, I try really hard not to be like, hey guys, look at this rock, you know um, because I don't need to be that person, but if somebody asked me, I am super ready to talk about it yeah, my dad still does it to this day, by the way. Love it.
Speaker 1:I think I sent him like literally earlier this week. I was like took a picture of something and he was just like that's some sort of. It wasn't a bass hole, but I think it was something else. Yeah. Give your dad, my contact information.
Speaker 2:We will go for a hike. It'll be a delight you can stay home.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I have something of an interesting little surprise. I was researching just for this episode a little bit into my back catalog and I realized that you and I kind of had a weird almost well, our careers kind of crossed about seven years ago in an indirect way. Let me just see if I can share screen really quickly.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited for the surprise. Can? You see, yeah you're in the mars, mars yard yeah, yeah, jpl. Yes oh my gosh. Yeah, wait, seven years ago. Gosh, that would have been like, look at me, like we still would have been. Um, that's right before. I mean, it's's in between curiosity and perseverance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we were filming a documentary about, weirdly, about the human brain, and we were sort of the last episode was about technology and you know those sort of how our intelligence has helped us place things on other planets and how we've extended our consciousness, you know, across worlds and all this kind of stuff. So it's kind of esoteric, but we got to film with a presenter in the Mars yard and this is, I thought it was relevant because this is your, you know your baby in an essence, isn't it?
Speaker 2:That's right. This is the Curiosity Double. In fact I can't remember they have another name for her. Oh gosh, I'm, I'm see, bad mom, I can't remember. But yeah, no, this is. This is such a cool, I mean, what a cool place for you know folks here about the Mars yard, but it's really hard to understand how incredible. It is right, you have this full mock-up of Curiosity rover, now also the Perseverance rover there's two of them and we can drive them around in, you know, I'll say, a Mars-like environment, as much as we can make Pasadena, California, Mars-like.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so cool that you were able to be there and filming. And did they let you drive it Because you can. If you have an iPhone, they sometimes let you drive it from your phone.
Speaker 1:I think this was before. Maybe they didn't let us drive it at that point. I don't think. This was before maybe they didn't let us drive it at that point. I don't think it's okay. It was just doing its thing, I think. But yeah, I mean for anyone listening just on the audio, like I'll put this up on socials and the website and stuff. But Nina, just sort of describe what your baby is.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a very large baby, it turns out. So the Curiosity rover is the largest rover to have been sent to Mars and that's, you know, rivaled by Perseverance, which is a twin. So this rover is, just when you look at the chassis, it's about the size of a Mini Cooper. It's got six wheels and it's got this really interesting suspension system. So there's a lot of bars kind of holding the wheels to the body, and that's called a rocker bogey system. It allows the rover to drive over rocks that are pretty big.
Speaker 2:You can see that it has a very tall mast. I think it's about two meters tall, so maybe six-ish feet tall for those Imperial unit lovers. It's got my instrument, the instrument that I lead, the ChemCam instrument, right at the top, which is about the size of a large shoe box, and it's got what is essentially just one eye, a left eye, and this is where our laser is fired from. So we are right at the top like the head of the rover. You are not quite in the line of fire in this frame, lucky for you Lucky for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, if it did fire at me, what would I feel? Would it be lethal?
Speaker 2:No, not at all. So this laser, it's not eye safe. So please never look at the laser, because it does vaporize the material that it touches. That being said, it doesn't vaporize very much. Now, we want to keep every part of your eye, so don't ever vaporize any part of your eye. But but if it, like you see, your back is to the camera. So if it decided to attack you from behind curiosity would never do this, but you would probably feel like a little like a pinch, or you know, or almost nothing, right, because it is ablating micrograms.
Speaker 2:So the the laser um can be focused on a target up to seven meters or 23 feet away. So you're well within range, we could absolutely get you. But the spot size is only like about a half a millimeter in diameter, depending on how far away I'd say for you maybe a little bit bigger, and that's not very, not very big, it's really really small and it's just. You know. Again, you don't want to vaporize any part of your body.
Speaker 2:It's probably a mistake unless it's done deliberately um like lasik, but this is not lasik, so um, yeah, so so you you are well within um, you know, actually striking distance for many of the uh instruments on on the rover right where you're standing, even though you're not in direct contact with it.
Speaker 1:And would it be able to figure out what I'm made of? There's a left arm.
Speaker 2:So you're a little far away from the yes. Yes, absolutely so. If again, we would never ablate a person, that would be totally a safety mistake. But if we were to do so, yes, we would see what your constituent elements were made out of. So we vaporize material and we break down the molecular bonds into elements, and those elements they get pushed into these higher electronic states from the heat of the laser and as they cool down they will emit photons at characteristic wavelengths. What that means is, as it cools down, you'll see different colors of light, and so ChemCam can see. We have a telescope on there, also through the left eye, that can look at the color of light that we make when we vaporize a little piece of your T-shirt, and then that can tell us with our spectrometers what elements are in that material, and that's without ever touching you at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so I guess it's quite a good way of explaining your day-to-day job. Obviously, you have this rover, which is a Curiosity rover, and then you also have the newer big brother. Big sister, the Perseverance and the instruments that you work on the cam on this one and then, I think, the super cam on the other one. What I mean, day to day, what are you guys doing? You're going out there blasting rocks to figure out where they're made from, but ultimately, what's the hope? What are you looking for?
Speaker 2:These two missions have different goals. So the goal of Curiosity is to assess the past and present habitability of the Martian environment. So habitability is an environment in which life as we understand it could exist. It doesn't mean that we're looking for life, it just means that we're looking for environments that could support life that we understand. So so that's what curiosity is doing. So perseverance is actually is actually looking for signs of ancient life.
Speaker 2:We felt so confident about finding a habitable environment in Gale Crater, where Curiosity is, that NASA felt comfortable enough to say this next rover, which is a twin, fraternal twin of Curiosity, is going to be looking for signs of ancient life in the rocks. That's not to say there isn't modern current life on Mars, but number one, we don't have the right instrument payload to really assess that. And number two, if it's there, it's not very abundant. You know it's not very obvious. That doesn't mean it's not important that we shouldn't look for it. It's just not the mission of that rover.
Speaker 2:And in both cases, you know, all of this information that we're gathering with both rovers really helps us understand how to support a future human mission. Right, because we have a good insight into what Mars is like today. You know Curiosity has been on the surface of Mars for almost 13 Earth years. That's a lot of data, it's a lot of knowledge. You know Perseverance has been on the surface for a little less time, about four years but you know that's still a long time to gather information to say, ok, what are the hazards that we didn't anticipate for a human mission? You know, what are some things that we need to keep an eye out, what are the resources? There's all kinds of things that we can learn for a future human mission from these robotic missions.
Speaker 2:So that's all part of what we do from these robotic missions. So that's all part of what we do. And then, just finally, the big part of Perseverance. That is quite different from Curiosity. Perseverance is actually the first part of another mission, which is Mars sample return, taking samples that are really well documented, really well studied on Mars, and we're packaging them up in anticipation of sending another spacecraft to go pick them up and bring them back to Earth. And this will be the very first time we have done sample return from Mars. So that is a big difference between the missions that, you know, curiosity. There's plenty of things I'd love to package up and bring back to Earth.
Speaker 1:But we won't be doing that, you know, whereas with Persever, with perseverance, we have this opportunity now if you get them back here, you to put you on the spot again, finding life confident, optimistically, hopefully optimistic, confidently optimistic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, people always have to be right you know well, yes and no, because scientists are so wishy-washy, aren't we right? We Right. We're like well, maybe. And I'm just going to tell you this little story before I answer, because I remember I was like living in some student housing as a grad student and I had an infestation of house centipedes, which are totally harmless but like horrifying because they've got those long legs and are very fast. So this guy came to my house to spray the house a little bit and so he was just like making conversation, what do you do? Planetary science? I'm studying Mars. He's like so, are there aliens? And I was like well, it's a great question, you know there could be. And he's like stop flip-flopping.
Speaker 2:Yes, or no, and I was like, oh my gosh, like that's how most people see us nerds. It is yeah. Because, was like oh my gosh, like that's how most people see us nerds. It is because we're not answering your question. Like how hard is that?
Speaker 1:where's the aliens? Where are the?
Speaker 2:aliens. Like I don't, I'd like there to be an option c, which is I don't actually know where the aliens are. Um, you know, but I am we're looking for evidence of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right we, you know, I would say it is. It is tricky to answer the question because I I would feel, obviously I'm confident enough that we could find traces of life on mars, that I spend the majority of my working hours certainly trying to find them. So I hope that's a the statement of confidence in the sense that I'm like, I think, think it is incredibly plausible. But I also, as a scientist, cannot commit to saying I know they're there, I just have to find them, because that's faith, which there's nothing wrong with that per se.
Speaker 2:But in our field we're not here to prove our preexisting beliefs. We're there to figure out what is really there and we have often been wrong and often been there. And you know, we have often been wrong and often been surprised, and that's why it's so important to keep your mind open to the possibilities, even when those possibilities might not be, as they don't feel, as exciting. Maybe microbes didn't make these rocks, but whoa, there was some really weird chemistry that we never thought existed on mars and that doesn't exist on earth. That's still really interesting. I know, maybe less interesting to the public, but still we have to view it in that way. You know, like um, we, we have to. You know we are.
Speaker 2:We are confident enough that we are spending our careers doing this yeah, we will not commit to an answer when we don't have one yet fair enough, fair enough, fair enough, um, okay, brilliant.
Speaker 1:Well, listen, you get up every morning and you work on a instrument that is a countless number of miles from earth, that cost multiple billions of dollars. Um, in that career that spanned, you know, a long, a long time and you've done so much. I mean, is there a significant moment in all of that that you would tell the grandkids or you know that just feels like this is you know something that is you know it sticks with you as a real career highlight or something like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, my goodness. Yes, I mean, I mean there are, there have been so many thrilling moments, you know, so many moments of discovery. Um, there have been some moments of despair of you know where things are not working. Um, you know, I would say, I would say that you know this might be a little bit trite, but but you know, just seeing our instrument, our entire rover, leave Earth for the last time was incredibly emotional and meaningful and terrifying, you know, because rockets don't always launch well, sometimes they blow up, and if this one blew up, I mean that blows up everything that we've been working on for many, many years. At that point, and, of course, when we landed, you know that's another really dangerous point. But also it's the first view that we have, the first, when the rover, you know, opens its eyes, so to speak, and sees you know, where did we end up? And just getting to see an image from this place for the first time, being one of the first people to see this.
Speaker 2:It's just there's nothing like it. That is discovery at its most basic, and so I think there's a lot of emotions around that. That's probably why I can still remember what that felt like, especially when we were landing gosh. I couldn't even like sit in a chair. I was like kind of like.
Speaker 1:I mean walk us through that day, like from the night, like the morning you wake up or whenever it is like. Just walk us through what happened that day.
Speaker 2:Well, so that day, that was August 12th 2012. I guess it was August 6th in the East Coast, so people sometimes get this date, but I was on the West Coast because I was at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory JPL.
Speaker 1:You're in the room in the control room.
Speaker 2:That's right, although I'll just note here there's a lot of video that shows the flight teams EDL, entry, descent and Landing team with their light blue shirts and they're celebrating. Everyone's like where are you? I'm like, no, no, no, the scientists are in the basement. We are not as photogenic. Okay, they put us lower in the building, okay, but I'm there. I'm there, just not visible in those videos Also jumping up and down.
Speaker 1:That's ridiculous so yeah.
Speaker 2:So I would say that, you know, our biggest fear upon launch was, you know, an anomaly with the launch vehicle. Now, NASA has had a really good track record for a long time, but you know, two thirds of Martian spacecraft have failed in some way. And some of them have failed, you know, before they left Earth, and so I think, if I recall correctly, the launch pad that we were on was right next to the one that SpaceX had been renting and they had just had an anomaly and it was all like charred out.
Speaker 1:Oh man.
Speaker 2:And you're like, oh, like cool, and it was just a kind of reminder that things can blow up. It was a little anxiety-inducing for me, you know, and just being there, and you know we had a few being there and, and you know we we had a few there's a launch window that's about two weeks wide and so they can scrub the launch for any number of reasons. In fact they did, you know, we the first time, you know they were like we're not going to do this, the weather's bad, you know. So it's kind of like, and you get all hyped up and you're there and then you're like, oh, I guess we're not going to do this, you know. But you know, when we were actually sitting there and when we did launch, you know they have a lot of pauses in the countdown that's just to confirm that things are working. This is again, we're trying to be as careful as possible when they pause that timer.
Speaker 1:you're like, oh God, you're completely powerless as well. You're just sitting there like sweaty palms and all sorts I can imagine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm literally just a bystander, I can't do anything, I have no contribution except for my extreme anxiety.
Speaker 2:So you know, yes, it's dangerous, yes, it's scary, yes, there are 3, flight teams that have gone through so many anomalies in their simulators, like so many, that they are ready. They are ready to do their utmost to solve those problems on the fly. And so I always remind myself of that too, like there's just so much practice and testing that happens in advance. We don't just get together one day and we're like, oh, like I wonder if this works. I don't know, we're going to find out, push the button. You know there's a lot of rehearsal that happens. So that's that's how, that's how I kept my anxiety, you know, to just a simmering medium is because I know, I know those, those teams are so good. And indeed, of course, spoiler alert, it launched no problem at all, um, and then it was a little anticlimactic because it's gone now, and now the only way we can track it, you know, is is just um, you know we have to log in, like anybody else, and see, well, where is it?
Speaker 2:and you know it was, uh like you know six and a half months that it was just cruising, you know, and there's different milestones that we hit right like we're going to turn this on at this time. We're going to do this test, you know, and so each time that happened, you know we would be further excited. You're like this is working, yeah, but then you have to just wait. You just have to wait, because the space is big.
Speaker 1:And then you came back to jpl for the landing, which i'm'm sure was even just as stressful as the launch.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. So the landing of Curiosity was a never before tested combination of techniques. So people recall that the Spirit and Opportunity rovers had these big bouncy balls right, they were just bouncing with airbags. Hilarious and totally effective. But this rover was way too large for those airbags. It would have popped them, and so they had to design a new technique. And so what this was?
Speaker 2:We used the sky crane, which seems crazy, right. So you come into Mars, you've got this, basically this back shell that's slowing. You can aerobrake, so there's a lot of friction from the atmosphere, but they, there's not a lot of atmosphere on mars, so you really can't use it to slow yourself down enough. So then you gotta pop that shell off, and then the rover was gonna be popped out of this contraption, lowered on a tether on this, uh, sky crane, which was like a bunch of retro rockets pointing downward, and so that was going to slow it down enough so that it could land very gently on this tether on the surface, and then the sky crane would cut the tether and go off to like fall not on the rover, hopefully, fingers crossed, you know.
Speaker 2:Um, very complicated sequence of things, and it all had to be autonomous, right, we could not help the rover through it and, by the way, we really couldn't test the full. We couldn't test this entire thing, because the conditions on Mars are different, so you can test different components to make sure that they work, but you don't know how they work together until you actually land on Mars. So it was like that's like the first time the whole thing was done.
Speaker 1:Oh my God. What was the feeling Like the first time where everyone was like it survived. What was the feeling that you and your team felt when you had the good news?
Speaker 2:I mean I had sort of two competing feelings, because I was so excited and then I was so tired, I was like, yeah, I got to lie down, like cause I cause, holding anxiety into your body is actually really, really exhausting. So I'm just like, you know, we did it guys, and then. But then you know, once we, we realized that we were, we were good, we had. You know, there's a whole series of choreographed checks that we've got to do. We've got to unfold the mast right. So ChemCam wasn't going to be even usable until after that mast comes up. And it's a little scary because the mast is held down by these bolts and they're exploding bolts to break them. Oh, wow, yeah, right, by your precious instrument.
Speaker 1:Delicate instrument.
Speaker 2:Yeah, With optics that you don't want to. You know, blow up God. So you know it's a little scary. You're like I hope that works out, you know, because it's right there. It's right there, so you're blowing something up and then you've got to lift the mast up, um, and then do the whole mass checkout. So you know it took I think our first data were taken, um on sol 13 of the of the mission. So that's 13 days in, because that was the time where all the check, the mast was up, we had done all the checks and we were ready to run our first official sequence. So that that 13 souls, that's like almost. That's like two weeks basically. So but yeah, I mean like we were so thrilled, we were so excited.
Speaker 2:We actually printed out the first spectrum that we ever got. It was on a rock that we had named Coronation, a very glorious, auspicious name. It's just honestly, just a little rock. Like you could hold it in your hand. You'd probably step on it if you went hiking. It's just honestly, just a little rock, like you could hold it in your hand. You'd probably step on it if you went hiking. And we printed out the spectrum in this huge banner and then we made it. We just like put it in front of our door so that everybody who came into our instrument room would have to like duck under it. I'm like look at our data.
Speaker 1:It's amazing, we did it guys. I mean, first things first. I guess all of that experience and you've now had plenty of time to sort of digest on it but has that, those experiences of doing something so historic, something so monumental, like what have you taken from that as an experience, anything you've learned personally or professionally from it?
Speaker 2:I don't really want to sound trite, but honestly I feel so lucky.
Speaker 2:I feel like one of the luckiest people in the world because I got to live this childhood dream, and in such a direct way. You know, I got to work on a spaceship, I got to see it leave Earth, I got to see it land on another planet, and I'll always feel like such a lucky person that that got to be something that I got to do and I got to experience it, and I hope that I can at least, you know, do my best with that. And what I mean by that is to, like you know, to do good science and also to communicate science to help other people, you know who were not able to be there. There are people who weren't even born who now have questions about that. You know my son wasn't born and you know to tell him about it and to help it, you know, to help him at least get a taste of that, so that you know that he can be ready to whatever his spark moment is, whatever that is, you know that he will be ready to cherish it too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brilliant, brilliant. I mean, one of the big aspects of your job, and indeed as a scientist, is doing what you're doing right now communicating what you guys are doing. You know, and I'm curious that you know conveying, spending this time or making the effort to do this kind of stuff. How important is that? Whether it's inspiring like the next generation of scientists, or just helping people understand what you guys are up to. You're not just like some mad scientist in a lab like concocting weird things. There's actually a genuine purpose to it. I mean, how important is this act of science communication?
Speaker 2:I think science communication is an obligation, and I feel that even more so, again, as a publicly funded person. You know it's my job to tell our taxpayers what did I do with your money and like, why is it amazing? And I'm happy to do that. I love doing that. I think there is a misconception that scientists are separate from the socially awkward on average. But we are human beings that also live within society. We're everywhere.
Speaker 2:You may know a scientist and you don't know they're a scientist, right? You know we like to eat dinner and go for walks. You know we have interests outside of science too. So we're not separate, right? We're not different people. We just often, you know, never let go of our childhood curiosities, and that's something that I think is a gift, maybe also a curse, because we can't let go of these little questions that drive us crazy, and it's why we have to do science. But I think that you know the fact. Communicating to folks, you know here's what we're doing, here's why it's so interesting, you know, be excited about it. Why should anyone else be excited about it? And I am really excited about mars research. So hopefully that is coming across and people understand that, you know and and sort of following on from that.
Speaker 1:Like anyone listening to this who might be it could be like a seven-year-old kid, or it could be someone who's in their like mid-30s, who's stuck in a job. They're like, oh, but that sounds amazing. Like anyone listening to this, like who would love to follow in your footsteps or do something similar. What kind of advice would you give them for getting into this industry? Or whether it's specifically planetary science, or whether you know science in general?
Speaker 2:Well, I would say, first of all, don't worry about how you're going to do it. Right, I had no idea how I was going to live my childhood dream of working on a spaceship and you know, yes, many adults. They laughed. Well, here we are right, and so I did not have a plan. So, no matter where you are, if you're seven, if you're 37, you know, you don't need to have it all figured out. I would say, you know, if you know what you love and you know that this is what you want to do, then I would say, just follow the opportunities.
Speaker 2:A lot of people to feel like oh well, you know, I just wasn't very good at math or I wasn't very good at science in school, so I wasn't cut out for that. Just remember that being good at school is not the same skill set as being good at research. Nobody believes me when I say this, but I'm sure that someone could find my transcripts. I was not particularly good at school. I was not like the best student at all, because you know, there's a lot of things that you've got to do to get an a in a class, okay, but what I do is not the same skill set. I've got to take a jumble of information and make it make sense and I've got to, like you know, you know, be really creative and finding connections.
Speaker 2:Um so, yeah don't, don't count yourself out right. And the thing is, is that like when I say, if you know, this is what you want to do? What I mean is so? I want to give an example. I had a mentor who told me okay, if you really want to figure out what it is that you want to do, should you go to grad school? Should you not Make a list of everything that you love learning about?
Speaker 2:When nobody makes you do it right, it's not a homework assignment. So I my it's my real list. Okay, my real list. I was like oh, like, I love science fiction. I read so much science fiction. Um, I love spaceships, like, cause, spaceships are really cool. Uh, and I'm super into the idea of aliens. This is my list, okay.
Speaker 2:And you, I was like, obviously I should be studying Mars, and that's when I applied to grad school to work on Mars research, you know. So don't, yeah, you don't have to. It doesn't have to be fancy, right? You don't have to be like. You know, I've got this very well-formulated plan and it's incredible. I have, like you know, five bullet points of like success metrics. You can just be like I love spaceships, and then the next step is just finding the ways to be involved. You don't need to start with a fully formed job, right, you can start by becoming an expert. You know, even on your own there's so many resources available, so you can start learning and start honing that and and then, as then, as you progress, you're going to start saying, hey, this is the direction I want to go, you will figure it out. You don't have to have it all figured out all at once. I first got my first Mars job, actually by calling this very prominent Mars scientist every day for two weeks, like a crazy person. I know, I know.
Speaker 2:So I was like wow, yeah, and I was very young and I didn't totally appreciate how kind of crazy it was. I was just really enthusiastic. I also didn't appreciate that this guy is a very big name in the field and um, I feel like I got lucky, that he's actually a really nice person. Um, but I would call him and because I had read a little article about him, I was like I'll just call him up cause I had read a little article about him. I was like I'll just call him up and I leave him these messages, or he would answer and he's like oh, I don't have time to talk. I'm like great, I'll call you back. Bye, like um, and then how old were you?
Speaker 1:at this point? I was like 22, maybe barely something like that.
Speaker 2:Like you know, not a baby, but I was like college age, yeah, probably old enough to know better, but I just, I was just so excited to talk to him and he wasn't like saying stop calling me. There's finally the one time he was like okay, seriously, why do you keep calling me?
Speaker 1:and I was like your research is so interesting like can I have a job?
Speaker 2:and he's like I will hire you as a student to work for my colleague.
Speaker 1:Stop calling okay, amazing, I'll hire you to stop, to stop. Please just stop calling, I'll hire you. Yes, I mean that's, it's, but, but it worked, it totally worked yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker 2:Well, and I, you know, I I actually got to work. I mean, I still talk to him to this day and he doesn't remember it that way. He's like no, you were really, you were so smart and I was like I was crazy, I was weird, like I know that, but like he, we're still colleagues. You know, he actually just recently had, like it was like um, an 80th birthday celebration of his accomplishments and I was one of the speakers there and I got to be like you know sweet you know, that's where it started.
Speaker 2:And now, now here I am, I'm leading an instrument on a Rover and, like it all started with this one person who decided to give this like weird nerd a chance, you know, like on a summer internship. So you know I that's amazing, yeah. So I mean I also tell people you know you don't obviously don't want to harass people, but you know, I just didn't know to stop because I was so excited about what he did and I wasn't like I wasn't really demanding very much, right, I was just like I just want to talk to you and like, tell me about all these things that you did and maybe could I be your student. And if he said no, it would have been fine, amazing. But he said yes, what have you got to lose? At the end of the day? What have you got to lose? I had nothing to lose.
Speaker 1:Amazing, oh, fantastic. Well, listen, nina, thank you so so much for taking the time and your passion, as I said before, is so infectious about this subject and your career and obviously you know you're extremely proud of all your accomplishments and it's been amazing. So I mean just, I always like to say at the end, I mean anything that you would like to plug or anywhere people could find you, or you know Twitter or things like that what would you like to plug? Oh, sure?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean, I do have a website that I sort of update. It's minalanzacom, so you can check that out if you want. I'm also on Instagram as vermillionplanet. Yeah, I think, though, if I would leave folks with one thought, I just, you know, I think right now, as we're speaking, you know we have a lot of uncertainty in the future of NASA in general and sort of our funding, and I just wanted to remind folks that you know they have a say.
Speaker 2:I think that, as I've said, you know, mars sample return, I think, is going to be so important for taking our understanding of Mars to the next level, because that'll be finally be. We will have these samples back here on Earth in our terrestrial laboratories. And you know, maybe you don't care about rocks because you're like we have plenty of rocks on Earth. Well, if we want to send people to Mars, we have to understand what rocks are there, and that's because we need to understand what resources are there for those people. We need to understand what hazards exist for those people no-transcript, but I actually think that when folks see what we can gain, and really for such a bargain price, I would say I think it's really worth it. So I guess I just I hope folks can join me in being on team Mars sample return.
Speaker 1:Amazing, and I think that that actually extends beyond just our American listeners in Europe. Obviously, the European Space Agency may or may not play a role in that retrieval. So if you're in Europe, you can do the same speak to your lawmakers or your representatives that you may know or I don't know. Just do what Nina did and call Bombard ESA until they go and send a spaceship to go and get the Mars samples.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I mean, it's true. So, yes, and thank you for bringing this up, because Mars Sample Return is not a US mission. It's a international mission, just like both rovers, curiosity and Perseverance are both international. We have so many international partners. In fact, camcam and SuperCam are jointly run by the US and France and France, right, so it's actually. This is not an endeavor that's done by one nation, this is done by the entire world. And so you know, I think those samples they're not just going to go to the United States, they're going to give knowledge to everyone, and that's part of our mandate is that we don't keep secret data. We actually give all of our data to the public, so anyone who'd want to look at it can look at it. So, yeah, I think it's a really important part of our hopefully, our our future, as we become more space faring as humans ourselves and not just sending our robotic scouts.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. Nina Lanza, thank you so much for taking the time for the podcast. It's been absolutely brilliant with speaking with you, as always thank you so much.
Speaker 2:This has been such a fun conversation and, as always, thank you for letting this has been such a fun conversation and, as always, thank you for letting me run wild and talk your ear off about all these things that get me super excited. This has been fun.
Speaker 1:Alrighty, see ya, and that is it for this first episode. I want to say a massive thank you again to Nina for taking the time to share her amazing stories with us and a huge thank you to you all as well for listening. For photos, links and more about this episode, please head to knowordinarymondaycom and look for the episode page. You can also find information on our socials via Linktree. Our handle is KnowOrdinaryMonday. If you have questions or want to share your own career story with us, we'd love to hear from you. Please get in touch via our socials and you can also email hello, hello at no ordinary mondaycom, or you can use the submit your story page on our website. And if you enjoyed this episode, please do two really quick things for us give us a five star rating and review and tell a friend. It really helps us grow the show and attract more amazing guests and inspire new listeners.
Speaker 1:And in next week's episode we explore the crazy world of an adventure cinematographer. My guest is Emmy Award winner Keith Partridge. He takes us behind the scenes of some of the craziest stuff he's ever done, most of it dangling perilously off a rope, and then he also goes into the near death experience that he had high in the Peruvian Andes. It's one you're not going to want to miss, so please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss out on the latest episodes. This show is produced, hosted and edited by me, chris Barron. Thank you so much for listening and have a great Monday everyone.