Let's see what preparations we need to make before becoming an interstellar species.

I guess many people here have seen the movie "Mars Rescue". For those who haven't seen it, this is a story ab

Let's see what preparations we need to make before becoming an interstellar species.

I guess many people here have seen the movie "Mars Rescue". For those who haven't seen it, this is a story about an astronaut trapped on Mars, who tried to survive until the Earth sent a rescue team to bring him back to Earth. Fortunately, they reconnected with the protagonist Watney. In some ways, before he was rescued, he was not too lonely on Mars.

(Movie "Mars Rescue")

When you are watching a movie, even if you haven't seen it, when you are imagining Mars, you may think about how far it is from us. However, you may not think about how to guarantee logistics when working or living on another planet. After all, some people are on the earth, some rovers or humans are on Mars. Imagine when your friends, family and colleagues are in California on the west coast, or anywhere else in the world. When you try to contact them, your first thought may be: Wait a minute, what time is it in California? Will I bother them? Can I make a phone call now? Even if you contact your colleagues in Europe, you will directly think of how to communicate smoothly over a long distance.

No human beings live on Mars now, but we have a detector. Curiosity rover's time is 6 am 10. That is to say, the time on Mars is 6 am 10. We have four rovers on Mars. Since the mid-1990s, the United States has sent four probes to Mars, and I have the honor to cooperate with three of them. Actually, I am a spacecraft engineer, or rather, an engineer who operates a spacecraft. I work at NASA's Propulsion Technology Laboratory in Los Angeles, California. These rovers are our robot messengers. So, they are our eyes and ears. They can watch Mars for us until we have the ability to send people there. Therefore, we can learn about the environmental conditions on other planets through these rovers. So, before we sent astronauts there, we sent a group of robots. The time on Mars is different from ours, because a day on Mars is longer than that on Earth. Our earth has 24 hours a day, that's because the earth is spinning. We only rotate once a day for 24 hours. It takes 24 hours and 40 minutes for Mars to rotate once, which means that a day on Mars is 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth.

(Curiosity Rover)

In the screen, these people who control the rover live on the earth, but work on Mars. So, we have to think that we are just staying on Mars with the rover. Part of my job in our team is to give instructions to the rover, let her know what to do tomorrow, tell her whether to drive, mine some geotechnical samples or other things that should be done. Of course, when she needs to sleep, she does sleep at night, because she needs to charge the battery, and she needs to resist the low temperature of Mars at night, so she needs to rest. When she has a rest, we will plan her work for the next day. So I'm on Mars (laughs).

(rover opportunity)

In order to work at the same time every day on Mars, or in other words, I need to go to work at 5 pm every day, and this team needs to go to work at 5 pm on Mars time. On earth, we need to start work 40 minutes late every day, all in order to keep pace with Mars. It's like changing the time zone every day, so if you come at 8 o'clock today, you will be 40 minutes late tomorrow, 8:40, and 40 minutes late the day after tomorrow, which is 9:20. The day after tomorrow is 10. Change these 40 minutes every day until you come to work at midnight-it's midnight earth time, isn't it interesting? Now you can imagine how complicated it is. This is my Mars watch (laughs). The weight of this watch has been mechanically adjusted, so it runs relatively slowly. But we haven't started yet-I got this watch in 2004. When Opportunity and Spirit probes were in place, we didn't think we needed a timetable for Mars. We think we just need to have a time on the computer and display it on the task monitoring screen, which is enough. Actually, it's not enough Because we should not only work according to Mars time, but also live according to Mars time. In a flash, we confused the time. So you need to wear something on your wrist: always remind you of the time on earth. What time is it on Mars?

(Martian landform)

Moreover, it is not only the time of Mars that puzzles us, but we also have to distinguish it in our conversation. So a "Sol" stands for a day on Mars, 24 hours and 40 minutes. When we talk about what happened on earth, we will say today. If it is Mars, we will say that "Tosol" and "Yesterday" became "Yesterday Sol" of Mars. We started thinking, "Well, let's invent a language." I was really confused at first. I remember someone coming up to me and saying, "I'm going to finish this task on the Mars rover tomorrow." I asked, "Tomorrow, tomorrow of the earth or tomorrow of Mars?" We began to think of some technical terms, otherwise we couldn't talk (laughs).

So "tomorrow" becomes "nextersol" or "solorrow". After all, people use different words. Some people say "soda", others say "drinks". So some of us say "nextersol" and some say "solorrow". After working on this project for several years, I found that the person running the rover said "tosol". People who deal with land work and don't touch the rover say "tosoul" So I can infer his work from the staff's "Martian accent" (laughs).

(Martian landform)

We have special watches and special languages. Do you understand now? So we won't be confused anymore. But even the sunlight of the earth will bother us. Imagine you come to work now. It's midnight on Mars, but there is a lot of sunshine outside the window, which will also confuse you. As you can see from this photo of the control room, all the shutters are down, so there is no sunshine to disturb us. Before landing, the blinds will continue to descend for a week. They won't be pulled up until we stop using Martian time, even at home. I did it three times according to Mars time, and every time my husband said, "OK, we are ready for Mars time." So he will put tin foil on the window and hang dark curtains and blinds, because it will also affect your family members. He can only live with me in this dark environment. He is used to it. But he will send me some pathetic emails at work: can I go home? Are you awake? What time is it on Mars? Then I think he also needs a watch with Mars time (laughs).

Of course, by 20 16, mobile phone software can already replace watches (laughs). Now we can use mobile phones instead of watches. But the impact on the family is really great; Not only those of us who control the rover, but also our families. This is David, one of our flight commanders, and this is him on the beach in Los Angeles this morning 1 (laughs). Because our probe landed in August and his children didn't start school until September, we have to stay with him on Mars for a month, and the daily work and rest will be delayed by 40 minutes. The whole family follows their father's schedule. They stayed on Mars for a month. Now that I think about it, it's really a big challenge, just like going bowling at midnight or going to the beach. We all found one thing. You can go anywhere in Los Angeles at 3 am. The streets are empty and there are no cars (laughs). So after work, we don't want to go home and disturb our families. When we are hungry, we often find something to eat nearby. We would say, "Wait, there's a deli in Long Beach that stays open all night. We only need 10 minutes to arrive! " Then we drove by,

Yes, about 60 seconds. When you get there, the restaurant owner will say, "Who are you? Why did you come to my restaurant at 3 am? " Then they gradually realized that a group of Martians were wandering in Los Angeles at midnight, the midnight of the earth.

(Is it like Atacama Desert? )

We did start calling ourselves Martians. Those of us who work according to the Martian time like to call ourselves Martians, while others call ourselves compatriots on Earth (laughs). This is because when you change your time zone every day, you will start to feel alienated from others. To be precise, you live in your own world, so I have this badge: "My time on Mars: 0-90 days". This is the name label displayed on the screen. We wear this badge to show that we work according to Mars time, to work with Mars rovers as conveniently as possible, and to make rational use of our time. But we have never been to Mars time.

Work for more than 3-4 months. Finally, we should work and rest according to the revised Mars time, which is what we are doing now. Because it is a burden to your health and family.

In fact, some sleep experts have always regarded us as experimental observation objects. Because it is difficult for human beings to have the opportunity to try to extend their day. We have 30 people observed, and they will do some sleep deprivation experiments on us. I will take part in the experiment and sleep every time. This situation will eventually cause a certain burden to the body, even if it is only temporary damage. This experience has helped everyone in the team, and everyone is in the same boat, but it is difficult to last. So this roaming mission is our first step towards the universe. We are learning how to live on another planet, and we are changing our original views and gradually adapting to multi-planet life. So the next time you go to Star Wars, some people will go to Tatooine from Dikeba. Just try it. It's really far. How far is the distance, the feeling of parting, and the time difference. We haven't sent humans to Mars yet, but I think we will one day. For example, American space exploration technology company,

And NASA, or countries with international space stations.

We hope it can be realized in the next few decades. So soon, some of us will live on Mars, and then we will be real multi-planet people. Boys and girls who will go to Mars in the future may sit here and listen to my speech today. Since 14 years old, I have wanted to work in the jet propulsion laboratory and study this project. Now I have the honor to be one of them. Now is an important period of space exploration, and we have experienced this together. So the next time you feel that time is not enough, remember that this is just your opinion on the earth, thank you!

reference data

1. Wikipedia

2. Astronomical terminology

3. Guan Hanju-Xu

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