1 00:00:00,133 --> 00:00:10,600 [somber music] 2 00:00:10,633 --> 00:00:15,233 On 21 August, 1993, a tragic event occurred. 3 00:00:15,233 --> 00:00:19,433 Communications with the Mars Observer spacecraft were lost 4 00:00:19,433 --> 00:00:23,433 during a sequence referred to as the pressurization sequence. 5 00:00:23,700 --> 00:00:25,700 This was a sequence in preparation 6 00:00:26,700 --> 00:00:29,400 for insertion to orbit about Mars. 7 00:00:29,633 --> 00:00:32,100 Once again, I mean, we are always trying things 8 00:00:32,100 --> 00:00:35,833 because they're hard, not not because they're easy. 9 00:00:36,200 --> 00:00:39,900 And so once in a while, we're going to have a failure 10 00:00:40,033 --> 00:00:42,733 because we are trying hard things. 11 00:00:42,733 --> 00:00:46,700 But I had been fully anticipating that we could have problems with this instrument. 12 00:00:46,700 --> 00:00:49,033 This was a new ballgame completely, okay. 13 00:00:49,300 --> 00:00:51,833 But I was not concerned about the spacecraft. 14 00:00:51,833 --> 00:00:54,500 It never crossed my mind that the spacecraft would let us down. 15 00:00:54,666 --> 00:00:57,466 So this was a blow in the sense of, wow, 16 00:00:57,800 --> 00:01:00,000 something I completely didn't expect. 17 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:04,533 [music] 18 00:01:04,533 --> 00:01:06,333 You know, we held out hope for a while, 19 00:01:06,333 --> 00:01:08,066 that maybe it would come back, 20 00:01:08,433 --> 00:01:11,233 maybe they'd find it or recover it or something, and then 21 00:01:11,533 --> 00:01:15,300 eventually that settles down and you realize the mission was lost. 22 00:01:15,300 --> 00:01:16,900 I was devastated. 23 00:01:16,900 --> 00:01:18,400 I think we all were. 24 00:01:18,400 --> 00:01:21,100 And it was--it really wasn't clear at the time 25 00:01:22,300 --> 00:01:24,533 whether we were going to have a 26 00:01:25,366 --> 00:01:27,533 follow on to actually 27 00:01:27,533 --> 00:01:29,933 do what the mission was supposed to do. 28 00:01:30,800 --> 00:01:33,800 So that was extremely hard to take. 29 00:01:33,800 --> 00:01:37,666 What made it easier is the amount of time we had for grieving 30 00:01:37,666 --> 00:01:39,133 was actually pretty short. 31 00:01:39,133 --> 00:01:42,933 NASA decided that we want to continue this and go back to Mars, 32 00:01:42,966 --> 00:01:48,200 and so we had to snap out of it literally and get back to thinking about 33 00:01:48,200 --> 00:01:52,566 and fighting for the next mission, which was Mars Global Surveyor. 34 00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:54,566 It was a difficult time, and 35 00:01:54,566 --> 00:01:56,500 it was the first time I think I really felt 36 00:01:56,500 --> 00:02:00,433 I had to get in there and argue with my colleagues. 37 00:02:00,433 --> 00:02:03,366 But as the PI, particularly for me, 38 00:02:03,866 --> 00:02:07,100 that we needed to get to back to Mars and we needed to get back 39 00:02:07,100 --> 00:02:08,366 with this instrument, 40 00:02:08,366 --> 00:02:12,333 knowing that they couldn't carry all six or seven instruments, only four would go. 41 00:02:12,333 --> 00:02:14,233 The laser altimeter had to be one of them. 42 00:02:14,233 --> 00:02:15,266 Okay. 43 00:02:16,033 --> 00:02:18,233 The engineers had a chance to kind of 44 00:02:18,233 --> 00:02:23,266 just, not change it, but, you know, do certain things a little bit better. 45 00:02:23,266 --> 00:02:26,033 That's what engineers like to do is 46 00:02:26,466 --> 00:02:28,966 fix all the first round mistakes 47 00:02:28,966 --> 00:02:31,500 in the second round and make new ones. 48 00:02:32,233 --> 00:02:34,600 We were asked immediately, how long will it take 49 00:02:34,600 --> 00:02:38,000 you to rebuild another copy of MOLA? 50 00:02:38,700 --> 00:02:41,100 How much is it going to cost? 51 00:02:41,100 --> 00:02:43,433 Can you get your team back together in time? 52 00:02:43,433 --> 00:02:44,833 Do you have the parts? 53 00:02:44,833 --> 00:02:47,733 So there was immediately a flood of things we had to do. 54 00:02:49,366 --> 00:02:52,633 Jim Abshire brought me in for the detector engineer 55 00:02:52,633 --> 00:02:55,833 who would just left Goddard at the time. 56 00:02:55,833 --> 00:02:59,666 So I was lucky to join the team working on the detectors. 57 00:03:00,133 --> 00:03:05,366 We were only given, I think, three years to rebuild it, which is shorter than usual. 58 00:03:05,366 --> 00:03:06,433 And everyone, 59 00:03:06,433 --> 00:03:10,466 all the management knew that means there's no wiggle room in your schedule. 60 00:03:10,500 --> 00:03:14,533 But the team was largely still there and everyone's 61 00:03:14,533 --> 00:03:17,800 geared up to redo it since the first one didn't make it. 62 00:03:17,800 --> 00:03:20,566 So everyone really want to do it again, 63 00:03:20,566 --> 00:03:21,900 and do it right. 64 00:03:22,233 --> 00:03:25,433 While the Goddard team was building MOLA-2 for the Mars 65 00:03:25,433 --> 00:03:28,566 Global Surveyor mission, a small team seized 66 00:03:28,566 --> 00:03:32,533 a long awaited opportunity to hitch a ride on the Space Shuttle 67 00:03:32,533 --> 00:03:35,966 with an experiment known as the Shuttle Laser Altimeter. 68 00:03:36,133 --> 00:03:39,266 I think confidence comes from demonstration. 69 00:03:39,266 --> 00:03:40,866 Sometimes you have to do more. 70 00:03:40,866 --> 00:03:42,233 Sometimes you have to do less. 71 00:03:42,233 --> 00:03:45,233 Working personally to build that instrument. 72 00:03:45,233 --> 00:03:48,466 We built it at Goddard in our lab down the hall 73 00:03:48,466 --> 00:03:52,900 without any fancy paperwork or flight procedures or anything. 74 00:03:52,900 --> 00:03:54,100 We just built it. 75 00:03:54,100 --> 00:03:56,200 I was hired then 76 00:03:56,200 --> 00:03:59,533 to come on board working on the Shuttle Laser Altimeter, 77 00:03:59,766 --> 00:04:04,466 and I was brought in specifically to work on precise positioning, 78 00:04:04,466 --> 00:04:09,666 precise pointing and precise geolocation of the surface footprints. 79 00:04:09,666 --> 00:04:15,066 And we tested it on the roof, shined it over to a bank building 80 00:04:15,066 --> 00:04:19,433 eleven kilometers away, lined it up, and it was ready for the Shuttle. 81 00:04:19,800 --> 00:04:22,666 It was a Hitchhiker Special that we flew with 82 00:04:22,666 --> 00:04:25,633 help from NASA Headquarters on the Space Shuttle Endeavour. 83 00:04:25,633 --> 00:04:28,700 Booster ignition and liftoff of Endeavour in pursuit 84 00:04:28,700 --> 00:04:34,733 of a Japanese satellite. [radio chatter] 85 00:04:34,733 --> 00:04:39,200 They turned it on for us and the first time they turned it on, 86 00:04:39,200 --> 00:04:42,966 the Shuttle's upside down with the laser pointing at Earth. 87 00:04:42,966 --> 00:04:45,133 We were over the Middle Pacific. 88 00:04:45,133 --> 00:04:49,100 First light showed all this fuzz over the surface of the Earth. 89 00:04:49,100 --> 00:04:50,333 We're all looking. 90 00:04:50,333 --> 00:04:51,533 We thought we got something wrong. 91 00:04:51,533 --> 00:04:55,300 We realized later we were seeing the boundary layer clouds over the ocean. 92 00:04:55,300 --> 00:04:58,400 When we came over land, the fuzz was the height of the trees. 93 00:04:58,633 --> 00:05:01,200 All of a sudden the laser pulses 94 00:05:01,200 --> 00:05:04,300 got shorter and shorter distances. 95 00:05:04,300 --> 00:05:07,500 The first landfall of the Shuttle Laser Altimeter and the first orbit 96 00:05:07,500 --> 00:05:10,633 went right over the summit of the Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii. 97 00:05:10,633 --> 00:05:14,666 Well, we're extraordinarily delighted to report that the Shuttle Laser 98 00:05:14,666 --> 00:05:16,733 Altimeter experiment--it's a Hitchhiker 99 00:05:16,733 --> 00:05:21,133 experiment on STS-72--has performed absolutely nominally. 100 00:05:21,133 --> 00:05:24,133 In fact, everything has worked even beyond our expectation-- 101 00:05:24,133 --> 00:05:27,766 And that was a genuine first light 102 00:05:27,766 --> 00:05:31,033 experience with MOLA technology, 103 00:05:31,033 --> 00:05:31,966 but on Earth. 104 00:05:31,966 --> 00:05:34,033 Really had to get those datasets out there 105 00:05:34,033 --> 00:05:37,700 and you had to get a couple people that really bought into it 106 00:05:37,700 --> 00:05:41,633 and built on it and convinced others that this worked. 107 00:05:41,633 --> 00:05:46,133 As the data from the Shuttle Laser Altimeter began to convince some skeptics. 108 00:05:46,133 --> 00:05:48,800 The Goddard team finished the MOLA instrument. 109 00:05:49,266 --> 00:05:49,966 Again. 110 00:05:49,966 --> 00:05:53,300 Our MOLA team really came through, was just really 111 00:05:53,900 --> 00:05:57,166 another great experience for many of us, including me. 112 00:05:57,333 --> 00:06:02,166 We're able to deliver to the Mars Global Surveyor project and it got launched. 113 00:06:02,166 --> 00:06:05,866 And we have liftoff of NASA's Mars Global Surveyor 114 00:06:05,866 --> 00:06:09,866 as America begins its journey back to the Red Planet. 115 00:06:09,866 --> 00:06:12,433 [radio chatter] 116 00:06:12,433 --> 00:06:16,033 When Mars Global Surveyor started getting closer to Mars, 117 00:06:16,033 --> 00:06:18,700 we were going to go into this aerobraking phase. 118 00:06:19,566 --> 00:06:21,166 That was an opportunity that we had 119 00:06:21,166 --> 00:06:24,666 to go ahead and turn on the lasers and see if we could track the surface. 120 00:06:24,666 --> 00:06:26,733 [room chatter] 121 00:06:26,733 --> 00:06:31,933 In Station 45 was having problems locking up to the two tape data. 122 00:06:31,933 --> 00:06:32,400 What was that? 123 00:06:32,400 --> 00:06:34,100 You said 1607 or 16-- 124 00:06:34,100 --> 00:06:36,466 Can you tell 125 00:06:36,466 --> 00:06:38,333 if MOLA is turned off? 126 00:06:38,333 --> 00:06:42,933 [radio and room chatter] 127 00:06:42,933 --> 00:06:44,000 Is that the nadir event? 128 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:45,333 That must be the nadir event. 129 00:06:45,333 --> 00:06:48,166 I'm hungry. You didn't really want those sandwiches-- [room chatter] 130 00:06:48,166 --> 00:06:49,866 Look at the laser beam coming back, Rob. 131 00:06:49,866 --> 00:06:57,166 [Lots of chatter]. 132 00:06:57,166 --> 00:07:00,133 It's going to be too fast, and I've got too much data coming in. 133 00:07:01,700 --> 00:07:08,533 [cheering and applause] 134 00:07:08,533 --> 00:07:09,733 Look at that! 135 00:07:09,733 --> 00:07:11,966 Yeah, look, there's a little tiny terrace. 136 00:07:12,033 --> 00:07:15,233 This is the first profile of a crater we've ever seen on a planet. 137 00:07:15,966 --> 00:07:17,666 Rob, nice laser! 138 00:07:18,566 --> 00:07:20,000 We have Mars finally! 139 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:21,266 12 years! 140 00:07:21,266 --> 00:07:22,833 All right, let's take a look. 141 00:07:22,833 --> 00:07:24,200 [room chatter] 142 00:07:24,200 --> 00:07:25,700 Over a decade later 143 00:07:25,700 --> 00:07:27,800 the Goddard team had proof: 144 00:07:27,933 --> 00:07:31,166 planet-scale laser altimetry worked. 145 00:07:31,466 --> 00:07:35,133 It could map distant craters and valleys and mountains. 146 00:07:35,766 --> 00:07:37,000 It changed the game. 147 00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:40,300 Today, we've ushered in a new era in the remote sensing of Mars. 148 00:07:40,733 --> 00:07:44,300 And this particular dataset that we've acquired has in fact enabled us 149 00:07:44,300 --> 00:07:45,700 to generate what we consider 150 00:07:45,700 --> 00:07:49,733 a very detailed description of the shape of the planet Mars. 151 00:07:50,100 --> 00:07:55,433 This has significant implications for the flow of water early on Mars. 152 00:07:55,433 --> 00:07:56,633 We believe this is one of the 153 00:07:56,633 --> 00:07:58,500 youngest features on the planet. 154 00:07:58,500 --> 00:08:00,566 We're seeing a planet is very different from Earth, 155 00:08:00,733 --> 00:08:04,300 and is telling us something about the Earth in an indirect way 156 00:08:04,300 --> 00:08:09,066 that says that not everything works in the way that we originally had in mind. 157 00:08:09,266 --> 00:08:13,000 The kind of measurements that we're making now are allowing us to, 158 00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:17,733 you know, characterize Mars on timescales of days to years now, 159 00:08:17,733 --> 00:08:21,166 and then the next step is to try to go back eons and 160 00:08:21,166 --> 00:08:23,400 try to figure out what changed on Mars. 161 00:08:23,400 --> 00:08:27,700 I mean, at that time, we used to brag that Mars was mapped better than the Earth. 162 00:08:28,100 --> 00:08:30,633 The accuracy of MOLA was so good, 163 00:08:31,166 --> 00:08:33,500 and and after a couple of years, the coverage was so good, 164 00:08:33,500 --> 00:08:37,600 it was definitely a more accurate map of a planet than any planet. 165 00:08:37,600 --> 00:08:41,300 And this came out of "it can't be done" in the mid eighties 166 00:08:41,300 --> 00:08:44,033 to a tool that we now accept as the standard. 167 00:08:44,133 --> 00:08:47,000 For those of us that worked on MOLA, 168 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:49,500 it was transformative. 169 00:08:49,500 --> 00:08:52,566 It wasn't a destination or a place 170 00:08:52,566 --> 00:08:57,333 that we were as much as a place that we would become. 171 00:08:58,900 --> 00:09:00,700 In some ways, we were in demand 172 00:09:00,700 --> 00:09:02,500 to consider whether we could 173 00:09:02,500 --> 00:09:04,133 provide a laser altimeter 174 00:09:04,133 --> 00:09:06,233 to another mission. 175 00:09:06,233 --> 00:09:09,966 Things were not working the way we expected them to, 176 00:09:09,966 --> 00:09:13,266 and there were mysteries, and we weren't expecting--after MOLA 177 00:09:13,266 --> 00:09:16,100 in particular--to have mysteries at that point.