Destination Mars (2015–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - THE MISSION - full transcript
(radio noise)
(dramatic orchestral music)
We've always been
searching for something new,
a different destination,
someplace we've never experienced before.
(dramatic orchestral music)
This time will be
remembered by future ages,
because this is when we
first set sail for other worlds.
(dramatic orchestral music)
(swooshing)
(footsteps)
Mars, and other planets beyond there?
Those are the next destinations,
that's the next frontier.
(dramatic orchestral music)
Are we living at the end of history,
or are we living at the
beginning of history?
(suspensful percussion music)
(upbeat orchestral music)
(click)
(slam)
(keyboard keys click)
(paper rustles)
I started Mars One
because I want to go to Mars,
and I still hope to go
on one of our missions.
Mars One's mission is one
of permanent settlement,
a one-way trip.
(dramatic orchestral music)
Our first mission is a robotic
mission to Mars in 2020.
It's going to be based on
the NASA Phoenix missions,
it will use the same platform
and we'll install our
own instruments on it.
Then we have a rover mission going in 2022,
all the hardware going to Mars in 2024,
preparing the human settlement
before the humans fly to Mars.
Two life support units, two living units,
two rovers and a supply units.
And then, finally in 2026,
the first crew will be launched from Earth,
flying to Mars in seven months,
and landing on Mars in 2027.
(engine rumbling)
I don't believe that the
Mars One time scale,
for landing humans on Mars, is consistent
with the technology readiness
of the systems required
to land humans on Mars.
Those technologies have been proven
in Earth-based testing today,
but none of that technology
has ever been proven
in the space environment,
let alone at Mars.
As soon as you decide that the crews
that you are sending to
Mars are going to stay there,
it becomes possible
with existing technologies.
To get humans to Mars,
you've got to solve the problem
of how do you land them?
Take them all the way from
orbit, through the atmosphere,
and down to the surface again.
(swoosh)
When the Curiosity rover
landed, it was the result
of thousands of people
working for many years,
billions of dollars spent.
(swoosh)
And just think of how
that puts in perspective
what we're talking about
for human exploration.
We don't need any new inventions
to send humans to Mars,
to land them on the planet,
and to keep them alive there.
That makes our mission,
uh, financially feasible,
it keeps it within a reasonable time frame,
and it make it acceptable
from a risk point of view.
Mars One is going to have to find
some innovative solutions
to making this work,
and it's going to have to find some
investments to make it possible.
(orchestral music with chimes)
Houston, I'm on the porch.
Roger, Neil.
(orchestral music with chimes)
The reason why we came into the game
is because there was
basically nothing going on,
sending humans to Mars.
All the space agencies have been promising
of bringing people to Mars for a long time.
After the Apollo project,
people already started talking
about bringing people to Mars,
but they have never been given
the ability and the
money by the politicians
in their respective countries
to really start making sure
that you can send people to Mars.
So, if they're not going to do
it in a reasonable time frame
the only thing we had to think, is great,
we have to start doing it ourselves.
Mars, I think is where we're going to see
the first private players
go to set up base.
NASA could do it in 20, 30, 40 years,
I think that technical term is
the cojones and the
budget and the political will
don't exist right now to do that for Mars.
It does, with individuals.
(rumbling)
- [Voiceover] Two
and lift off.
(dramatic orchestral music)
(cheering)
The most exciting stuff is
coming out of private industry,
it's coming out of private
capital and private financing.
It's only when you've got
someone who is willing to
risk their own capital,
their own reputation,
and do it in their own vision,
that we get leaps forward.
Elon's publicly stated his intention
within the next 12 to 15 years
to take people privately to Mars.
I think that if, I would
not bet against him.
Elon is, you know, fully focused on Mars.
I had hope to find out
that all of us interested
in traveling to Mars could collaborate.
It would be great to see
Elon Musk and Mars One
and NASA collaborating
to bring about this goal,
which is important,
not just for an individual,
but for humanity, in fact.
(wind blowing)
(delicate orchestral music)
500 years from now,
when kids learn about
the twenty-first century,
nobody will tell them who
was fighting who in which war.
They will learn that this was
the century when humans
first left the planet and set foot on Mars.
(keys click)
(soft piano music)
(dramatic orchestral music)
A very important part of going to Mars
is preparing the crew,
and to prepare the crew,
we need a copy of the
Mars outpost here on Earth,
a simulation outpost.
We're investigating a location
for the simulation outpost
and Iceland is one of
the potential locations
for such an outpost.
Iceland is quite a good place
for Mars One to look at
building a human habitat,
and that's because, scientifically,
it's an analog site, and
that means it's somewhere
that mimics another place we can find
on a moon, or another planet.
For us, Iceland really
helps us to understand Mars.
There are many environments in Iceland
that mimic those on the surface of Mars.
This is the most martian
thing we've seen so far.
It's not something we
can use for the outpost,
because it's much too rough,
and we wouldn't land our
crew on Mars in a place like this,
but it's by far the most martian
that we've seen on Iceland.
You're right, you wouldn't
land in area like this.
It would be way too
dangerous, too risky of,
well, too risky for mission failure.
(dramatic orchestral music)
(upbeat orchestral music)
Awesome, well done!
Well, we're not there yet.
Yes!
Going to Mars is not necessarily
justified by the science,
it's justified by our
drive for exploration.
You know, the facts are,
that if you're not an exploring society,
you eventually stagnate and die.
Exploring is not some sort
of superfluous little activity,
it's essential, it's essential to survival.
Somebody has to do the exploration.
We're wired for that.
(soft orchestral music)
I believe that the long-term future
of the human race must be in space.
It will be difficult enough
to avoid disaster on planet
Earth in the next hundred years,
let alone the next thousand or million.
The human race shouldn't
have all its eggs in one basket,
or on one planet.
Let's hope we can avoid dropping the basket
until we have spread the load.
I'm a science fiction fan, right,
and so the idea of colonizing
Mars is very attractive
if you think in science fiction terms.
But to be honest with you,
I think that we already have
perhaps a better opportunity
to colonize space, in, you
know, orbiting spacecraft,
as opposed to trying to put something
on the surface of an unfriendly planet.
(soft orchestral music)
It looks very good.
There might be places
where there is less water.
(wind blowing)
But this is cool, right?
Now, it's very Mars-like.
I like that the, I mean
it's so violent with the wind
and the dust storm in the back.
That makes it all really
dangerous and real and exciting.
I like this.
We want to train them for
the most violent conditions,
the most dangerous and
difficult conditions on Mars.
So this area is very similar
to a martian environment.
The, it's a lava field, that's
been buried in lots and lots
of episodes of volcanic dust,
so you get all the lava
rocks, but it's still very dusty.
You've got strong winds,
which will create dust storms.
I think this place is really good
as an analog for being on Mars.
It looks like it, you feel
remote, the geology is the same.
It actually would be a very good site.
(rumbling)
Well, Mars One has this idea of
sending one-way mission to Mars,
and it's an interesting proposition.
The real question, though, is what would be
the significance of doing that?
I understand the argument about
getting somebody to land
on Mars, seems like a big deal,
and so what if they don't make it back?
I think John Kennedy
had it right when he said
that the idea was to put a man on the moon
and get him back safely to Earth.
I'm still very much in favor
of bringing people back.
Charlie, it might sound corny,
but the view is really out of this world.
NASA's approach to going
to Mars is not a one-way trip.
It just doesn't work that way.
And so, consequently, the
ability for astronauts to go,
land on Mars, work on
Mars, part and parcel of that
would be the ability to return,
that's part of the program,
that will never change
from a NASA perspective.
NASA has been saying
that humans will go to Mars
in 20 years for 45 years now,
and this is really caused
by the fact that they need to
bring the people from Mars back to Earth,
which practically, is almost impossible.
NASA's approach, which
gets us to Mars in the 2030s,
is suitably risk-adverse,
they are conservatively
developing technologies
that will get us there safely,
and that's the right
answer, certainly for NASA.
Then there are those that say,
"You know, let's just take the risk."
Mars One, or others that
have those kinds of plans,
believe that we can send
humans to Mars, within the decade.
I think of neither of those
two camps as being right.
I think of them as kind of
book-ending the problem,
if you will, and all Mars,
all human-Mars solutions
are somewhere in between.
We have ignition sequence start,
engines on, five, four, three, two,
all engines running,
launch commit, lift off, we have lift off,
39 minutes past the hour.
Our budget is only
six billion U.S. dollars.
I could never figure out was
how do you finance the mission.
(rumbling)
But I found that the Olympic Game revenue
is about the same as the
cost of our Mars mission,
then I thought, oh wow, this
might be the way to finance it.
So, we will make this into an event
where the whole world can participate.
It will be the biggest moment
in the history of our species,
and everybody will be watching it.
I think it's doubtful a reality TV show
could raise $6 billion
to do the first mission,
I think that is preposterous.
But that's not enough.
If you're doing a one-way mission,
you're responsibility is to
be able to sustain a colony
for decades into the future,
and that certainly cannot be guaranteed
with a reality TV show.
This is something that people will watch
for 50 years to come,
because it is real exploration,
and that is a very important
part of our business model.
The key thing for this happening is
that there needs to be enough money.
Very simple. No money means no mission.
I think Mars One is a real long shot,
but they're posing a very
valuable question, you know,
which is, this is doable,
why aren't you doing it?
NASA, why don't you do this?
Bill Gates, why don't you do this?
Okay, the, you have the
means, you have the means
to do something truly
grand, so why not do it?
When you talk to all the
experts in the space field,
and you ask them privately,
they will all say this to you.
They will all tell you, okay,
the basic technology is there,
we might need to develop the systems,
but if there is enough money
to do this, we can do this.
A mission to Mars is hugely ambitious,
there is a lot of no's
before you get a yes,
and it's always 90% of
all the investors say no,
that's just how it works.
What keeps you going is
that I know that we can do it,
I know that we have a good business case,
I know that we have a
plan that is certainly feasible,
this is what we're trying to achieve,
to get humans another step closer to Mars.
(dramatic orchestral music)
(dramatic orchestral music)
We've always been
searching for something new,
a different destination,
someplace we've never experienced before.
(dramatic orchestral music)
This time will be
remembered by future ages,
because this is when we
first set sail for other worlds.
(dramatic orchestral music)
(swooshing)
(footsteps)
Mars, and other planets beyond there?
Those are the next destinations,
that's the next frontier.
(dramatic orchestral music)
Are we living at the end of history,
or are we living at the
beginning of history?
(suspensful percussion music)
(upbeat orchestral music)
(click)
(slam)
(keyboard keys click)
(paper rustles)
I started Mars One
because I want to go to Mars,
and I still hope to go
on one of our missions.
Mars One's mission is one
of permanent settlement,
a one-way trip.
(dramatic orchestral music)
Our first mission is a robotic
mission to Mars in 2020.
It's going to be based on
the NASA Phoenix missions,
it will use the same platform
and we'll install our
own instruments on it.
Then we have a rover mission going in 2022,
all the hardware going to Mars in 2024,
preparing the human settlement
before the humans fly to Mars.
Two life support units, two living units,
two rovers and a supply units.
And then, finally in 2026,
the first crew will be launched from Earth,
flying to Mars in seven months,
and landing on Mars in 2027.
(engine rumbling)
I don't believe that the
Mars One time scale,
for landing humans on Mars, is consistent
with the technology readiness
of the systems required
to land humans on Mars.
Those technologies have been proven
in Earth-based testing today,
but none of that technology
has ever been proven
in the space environment,
let alone at Mars.
As soon as you decide that the crews
that you are sending to
Mars are going to stay there,
it becomes possible
with existing technologies.
To get humans to Mars,
you've got to solve the problem
of how do you land them?
Take them all the way from
orbit, through the atmosphere,
and down to the surface again.
(swoosh)
When the Curiosity rover
landed, it was the result
of thousands of people
working for many years,
billions of dollars spent.
(swoosh)
And just think of how
that puts in perspective
what we're talking about
for human exploration.
We don't need any new inventions
to send humans to Mars,
to land them on the planet,
and to keep them alive there.
That makes our mission,
uh, financially feasible,
it keeps it within a reasonable time frame,
and it make it acceptable
from a risk point of view.
Mars One is going to have to find
some innovative solutions
to making this work,
and it's going to have to find some
investments to make it possible.
(orchestral music with chimes)
Houston, I'm on the porch.
Roger, Neil.
(orchestral music with chimes)
The reason why we came into the game
is because there was
basically nothing going on,
sending humans to Mars.
All the space agencies have been promising
of bringing people to Mars for a long time.
After the Apollo project,
people already started talking
about bringing people to Mars,
but they have never been given
the ability and the
money by the politicians
in their respective countries
to really start making sure
that you can send people to Mars.
So, if they're not going to do
it in a reasonable time frame
the only thing we had to think, is great,
we have to start doing it ourselves.
Mars, I think is where we're going to see
the first private players
go to set up base.
NASA could do it in 20, 30, 40 years,
I think that technical term is
the cojones and the
budget and the political will
don't exist right now to do that for Mars.
It does, with individuals.
(rumbling)
- [Voiceover] Two
and lift off.
(dramatic orchestral music)
(cheering)
The most exciting stuff is
coming out of private industry,
it's coming out of private
capital and private financing.
It's only when you've got
someone who is willing to
risk their own capital,
their own reputation,
and do it in their own vision,
that we get leaps forward.
Elon's publicly stated his intention
within the next 12 to 15 years
to take people privately to Mars.
I think that if, I would
not bet against him.
Elon is, you know, fully focused on Mars.
I had hope to find out
that all of us interested
in traveling to Mars could collaborate.
It would be great to see
Elon Musk and Mars One
and NASA collaborating
to bring about this goal,
which is important,
not just for an individual,
but for humanity, in fact.
(wind blowing)
(delicate orchestral music)
500 years from now,
when kids learn about
the twenty-first century,
nobody will tell them who
was fighting who in which war.
They will learn that this was
the century when humans
first left the planet and set foot on Mars.
(keys click)
(soft piano music)
(dramatic orchestral music)
A very important part of going to Mars
is preparing the crew,
and to prepare the crew,
we need a copy of the
Mars outpost here on Earth,
a simulation outpost.
We're investigating a location
for the simulation outpost
and Iceland is one of
the potential locations
for such an outpost.
Iceland is quite a good place
for Mars One to look at
building a human habitat,
and that's because, scientifically,
it's an analog site, and
that means it's somewhere
that mimics another place we can find
on a moon, or another planet.
For us, Iceland really
helps us to understand Mars.
There are many environments in Iceland
that mimic those on the surface of Mars.
This is the most martian
thing we've seen so far.
It's not something we
can use for the outpost,
because it's much too rough,
and we wouldn't land our
crew on Mars in a place like this,
but it's by far the most martian
that we've seen on Iceland.
You're right, you wouldn't
land in area like this.
It would be way too
dangerous, too risky of,
well, too risky for mission failure.
(dramatic orchestral music)
(upbeat orchestral music)
Awesome, well done!
Well, we're not there yet.
Yes!
Going to Mars is not necessarily
justified by the science,
it's justified by our
drive for exploration.
You know, the facts are,
that if you're not an exploring society,
you eventually stagnate and die.
Exploring is not some sort
of superfluous little activity,
it's essential, it's essential to survival.
Somebody has to do the exploration.
We're wired for that.
(soft orchestral music)
I believe that the long-term future
of the human race must be in space.
It will be difficult enough
to avoid disaster on planet
Earth in the next hundred years,
let alone the next thousand or million.
The human race shouldn't
have all its eggs in one basket,
or on one planet.
Let's hope we can avoid dropping the basket
until we have spread the load.
I'm a science fiction fan, right,
and so the idea of colonizing
Mars is very attractive
if you think in science fiction terms.
But to be honest with you,
I think that we already have
perhaps a better opportunity
to colonize space, in, you
know, orbiting spacecraft,
as opposed to trying to put something
on the surface of an unfriendly planet.
(soft orchestral music)
It looks very good.
There might be places
where there is less water.
(wind blowing)
But this is cool, right?
Now, it's very Mars-like.
I like that the, I mean
it's so violent with the wind
and the dust storm in the back.
That makes it all really
dangerous and real and exciting.
I like this.
We want to train them for
the most violent conditions,
the most dangerous and
difficult conditions on Mars.
So this area is very similar
to a martian environment.
The, it's a lava field, that's
been buried in lots and lots
of episodes of volcanic dust,
so you get all the lava
rocks, but it's still very dusty.
You've got strong winds,
which will create dust storms.
I think this place is really good
as an analog for being on Mars.
It looks like it, you feel
remote, the geology is the same.
It actually would be a very good site.
(rumbling)
Well, Mars One has this idea of
sending one-way mission to Mars,
and it's an interesting proposition.
The real question, though, is what would be
the significance of doing that?
I understand the argument about
getting somebody to land
on Mars, seems like a big deal,
and so what if they don't make it back?
I think John Kennedy
had it right when he said
that the idea was to put a man on the moon
and get him back safely to Earth.
I'm still very much in favor
of bringing people back.
Charlie, it might sound corny,
but the view is really out of this world.
NASA's approach to going
to Mars is not a one-way trip.
It just doesn't work that way.
And so, consequently, the
ability for astronauts to go,
land on Mars, work on
Mars, part and parcel of that
would be the ability to return,
that's part of the program,
that will never change
from a NASA perspective.
NASA has been saying
that humans will go to Mars
in 20 years for 45 years now,
and this is really caused
by the fact that they need to
bring the people from Mars back to Earth,
which practically, is almost impossible.
NASA's approach, which
gets us to Mars in the 2030s,
is suitably risk-adverse,
they are conservatively
developing technologies
that will get us there safely,
and that's the right
answer, certainly for NASA.
Then there are those that say,
"You know, let's just take the risk."
Mars One, or others that
have those kinds of plans,
believe that we can send
humans to Mars, within the decade.
I think of neither of those
two camps as being right.
I think of them as kind of
book-ending the problem,
if you will, and all Mars,
all human-Mars solutions
are somewhere in between.
We have ignition sequence start,
engines on, five, four, three, two,
all engines running,
launch commit, lift off, we have lift off,
39 minutes past the hour.
Our budget is only
six billion U.S. dollars.
I could never figure out was
how do you finance the mission.
(rumbling)
But I found that the Olympic Game revenue
is about the same as the
cost of our Mars mission,
then I thought, oh wow, this
might be the way to finance it.
So, we will make this into an event
where the whole world can participate.
It will be the biggest moment
in the history of our species,
and everybody will be watching it.
I think it's doubtful a reality TV show
could raise $6 billion
to do the first mission,
I think that is preposterous.
But that's not enough.
If you're doing a one-way mission,
you're responsibility is to
be able to sustain a colony
for decades into the future,
and that certainly cannot be guaranteed
with a reality TV show.
This is something that people will watch
for 50 years to come,
because it is real exploration,
and that is a very important
part of our business model.
The key thing for this happening is
that there needs to be enough money.
Very simple. No money means no mission.
I think Mars One is a real long shot,
but they're posing a very
valuable question, you know,
which is, this is doable,
why aren't you doing it?
NASA, why don't you do this?
Bill Gates, why don't you do this?
Okay, the, you have the
means, you have the means
to do something truly
grand, so why not do it?
When you talk to all the
experts in the space field,
and you ask them privately,
they will all say this to you.
They will all tell you, okay,
the basic technology is there,
we might need to develop the systems,
but if there is enough money
to do this, we can do this.
A mission to Mars is hugely ambitious,
there is a lot of no's
before you get a yes,
and it's always 90% of
all the investors say no,
that's just how it works.
What keeps you going is
that I know that we can do it,
I know that we have a good business case,
I know that we have a
plan that is certainly feasible,
this is what we're trying to achieve,
to get humans another step closer to Mars.
(dramatic orchestral music)