Naomi Meredith  00:00

This episode is a longer one, but a special one. I had the opportunity to collaborate with Wonder Workshop, the robotics company, and EdWeb to interview Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt, a current flight director at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She was one of the featured team members in Amazon Prime’s GOOD NIGHT OPPY and got to work with space rovers Spirit and Opportunity. This episode was filmed live, it was a live webinar. So if I mess up, forgive me, I didn’t get any redos on this one. You’ll also hear at the end of the conversation I have with Bekah, the moderator for this webinar, Bryan Miller, the Senior Director of Global Strategic Outreach at Wonder Workshop. He also was a guest on this podcast and his episode was awesome. So make sure to go back and give it a listen after this episode. In the video version of this conversation, he gives an awesome introduction at the very beginning, and also encourages you to check out the Wonder League Robotics Competition, which I also highly recommend. This episode you can actually listen to with your family or students, as well as watch the documentary GOOD NIGHT OPPY, which we referenced throughout the conversation. Even check out the video replay of the interview too. You could show this to your students because it’s a super awesome opportunity even if you weren’t there live. This will all be linked in the show notes so you know where to get all this information. I learned so much in this interview. I am so grateful for this opportunity and so excited to be able to share this with you today. I know you’re definitely going to enjoy it. 

Naomi Meredith  02:18

Well, thank you, Bryan, for that awesome introduction. You were an excellent emcee. But I don’t expect anything less. Thank you Bekah so much for being here today. I know that I was so excited for today. I even wore one of my NASA sweatshirts in honor of you and have some space earrings as well. So very excited. I know all the kids and schools out there are probably equally as excited. It’s not very often where you can hear from someone who works at NASA. So this is a really big moment for a lot of students out there and shout out to my school in Colorado, and then Cimarron in Colorado as well. But thank you again for being here. So if you wouldn’t mind, we got a cool introduction about you. But I want to hear a little bit more about what your role is at NASA, and what is the coolest part about your job?

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  03:14

Thanks, Naomi. Thank you for having me. I really look forward to our conversation today. So yes, what I do at NASA. So I actually I started off at NASA back in 2013. I started working on the Spirit and Opportunity mission, so Opportunity was my first rover there. I jumped right into mission operations. That’s what we call it. And if you can imagine this, imagine a room where there are many desks. At each desk, there’s a person that’s responsible for a part of creating the rover sequences that day. So we get all the data down for the Mars vehicle through the Deep Space Network. It’s a series of antennas placed around the earth. All the data comes in, we see it, we analyze the data, we look at the images, and then we decide based on that what we want to do that day with the rover. And in the room, half the room is scientists, half the room are engineers. The scientists are saying, “Hey, we really want to go over to that rock or go down that steep hill because that stuff’s really interesting.” And the engineers, which is what I do, we have to make sure to keep the rover healthy and safe. So we try and do what the science team wants to do. But a lot of times we have to say I can’t do that. But we can do this instead. And so once we’ve decided on what we want to do that day, I am responsible for coming up with a part of the commands that we send to the rover along with other people in the room. We put those commands together to come up with the recipe of what the rover should do that day. Now we send it up to the rover and let her execute that while we sleep. And then we come in the next day and she sends down all the data and we repeat the process.

Naomi Meredith  05:02

That sounds like there’s a ton of collaboration in your job, which is super important for all you kids out there. But it sounds like there’s a lot of high energy to with your job as well. You have all of these different roles, and I can see by the excitement in your face that it’s a very exciting job. I’m sure, there’s a lot of things that happen that you don’t expect, which we might get into in a little bit. So for the kids out there who don’t know what a space rover is, it’s a little bit different than the robots they might have in their classroom. So they might have a Dash robot in their classroom. But what exactly is a space rover? And then tell us a little bit more about Spirit and Opportunity, the little twins? And what makes them so special.

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  05:45

Yeah, sure. So when we develop robots to send to other planets, it’s really important that we try and make them as human life is possible. And that’s because as humans, and as there are scientists out there, special scientists called geologists and geologists look at rocks and try and answer questions about the planet. So we have Martian geologists. And we want to make the rovers as human like as possible, so we can literally get down and look with a little microscope at what the rocks were like a human would do or us. So we need to use hands, we need to be able to rover, like move around on the planet, we need to be able to see. So the robots look a lot like people, we actually have two cameras, like a pair of cameras for all the cameras that we have on the vehicle, there’s two of them. And what that allows us to do much like our eyes as human beings, we use to to have depth perception. So we know how far away a rock is, that’s really important. We have an arm to be able to like I was saying, look at things or pick things up or scoop things. And we also have six wheels, like our legs that let us rove around on the planet. So that’s why they’re special. They act a lot like humans, because we need a human like thing to be on these planets to help us investigate and answer the questions that we have. And what makes Spirit and Opportunity so special. So history of rovers. So we sent a Martian rover Sojourner, and that was our first Martian rover back in the 90s. And Sojourner was about the shape of a microwave oven. And it was really a technology demonstration to figure out, can we send something that can rove around on the planet? And we were able to answer that question. Once we did that, we said, “Okay, now we know we can rove a rover on Mars. So let’s make them bigger and let’s build two of them for redundancy.” So redundancy means if one fails, we have a backup. So it’s like a backup plan. So we sent two rovers, two twins Spirit and Opportunity. So we had a backup plan in case one of them didn’t work. They both ended up working. So it was awesome, because we had two rovers on two  different parts of the planet, answering different questions. But Spirit and Opportunity’s roles were really to answer the question, did drinkable water ever exist on Mars? That was because at the time our big question was did life ever exist on Mars, and at the time, we were trying to follow the water, follow the water in the solar system, because as we humans, we need water to survive. In fact, life needs water to survive ,plants, different things you can think about if things are alive, they need water. So we were searching the solar system for water. And that’s what Spirit and Opportunity were trying to do was follow the water. Then the next rover mission we built was Curiosity. Curiosity was trying to answer was that water habitable? Was the Martian environment ever habitable? Meaning could life have existed on Mars? And we’re trying to answer that question. And Curiosity was able to answer that question, too. And then the final rover that we’re at today, it’s not the final one, but it’s our current rover. The latest one is Perseverance. That’s actually the mission I work on today. And Perseverance is actually trying to answer did life ever exist on Mars? Ancient life, so we are cashing samples and tubes, and I can talk more about what our mission does. But each rover has a mission, a goal, and something that we’re trying to get to and they all are a bit different, really trying to march towards answering the question, did life ever exist on Mars?

Naomi Meredith  09:37

Well, that’s super cool, too. Because there’s, I’m sure you guys are just hearing and you can see all of this in the movie GOOD NIGHT OPPY, and how the rovers work and how they interact. So there’s just a great depiction of that to really visualize what you’re talking about. But I could see why you would be really excited because there’s just so much going on and all these different challenges and tasks and it was really exciting to that the twins, Spirit and Opportunity were beyond successful. They were successful, but then they just kept going and going and going for years, which is you saw them when you were in middle school, and then you had the chance to work with Opportunity. So amazing to really live out your childhood dream. And not a lot of people can say they did that. But that’s so amazing that you got to actually work with Opportunity. What surprised you the most when you were working with her? Is she a girl?

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  10:32

Yes, she is a girl. Yeah. So I mean, you hit on it, it’s the opportunity. Both Spirit and Opportunity were designed to only last 90 days on the surface. And we thought they were going to only last 90 days because of the amount of dust that we had observed when Sojourner went to Mars. But we had our new best friend, these little dust devils come by and clean off the solar panels. So they were actually able to last longer, and they lasted a lot longer. So Opportunity was only designed for a 90 day mission, and she lasted almost 15 years on Mars. So for me, I think what surprised me, the biggest is number one, like holy cow. In eighth grade, Spirit and Opportunity are what inspired me to go into space, I never thought I was gonna get to work on them. They were only supposed to last 90 days. So to get to work on Opportunity was definitely a dream come true. So I think that was probably it. Maybe that’s like a cop out answer. But that’s probably the thing I was most surprised by. But another thing I learned that I was also surprised by is as the rovers age, there are more problems to solve. And you might first thing like, “Oh, the rovers are aging, they’re problems. That’s a bad thing.” But for an engineer, what surprised me the most is like every time we had a problem to solve, every time we got data down and the rover didn’t quite do what we wanted her to do, I got really excited, which was a surprising reaction for me. But I realized that I’m an engineer, I like to solve problems. I like to figure out. That’s how I work. When everything goes well all the time, it’s kind of a boring job for an engineer because we don’t have any problems to solve. So I think that was another surprising thing for me was the excitement I felt when there was a problem to solve.

Naomi Meredith  12:27

Okay, you hear that kids, problems are a good thing. And Bekah has an excellent growth mindset. This is a life skill right here. Look at you! You are a great example for all the kids watching out there. So that is so good. So with your mission currently, you said you’re working on Perseverance. So what are the things that Perseverance is working on? Is that similar to Opportunity? Or are there some different challenges as well?

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  12:55

Yes, Perseverance. So Perseverance, for the first time now, actually has three mission goals. So you know, in the past, we’ve really just aimed for one, but NASA said, “You know what, y’all are doing great with meeting your mission objectives, let’s just throw three in there this time, why not?” So we have three objectives. Number one, is to try and find ancient life on Mars. So this would be really old past life, not necessarily human, or like Alien life, but microbial life. So like plant based simple life. So we’re looking for that. The second goal is to cash samples on Mars to bring them back for a future mission. So we are going in and coring the surface of Mars, all different kinds of rocks and different things that we see. And we’re putting those in test tubes, we’re sealing them up, we’re dropping them on the surface. And then Mars sample return, the next Mars mission is already underway, planning out how we’re going to go back to Mars, capture those samples and bring them back to Earth, which is huge. This will be the first time we’ve ever had like an actual Martian sample in our hands to analyze, which when we actually have things here, we can analyze, we have a lot more instrumentation, a lot more that we can do with those samples instead of what we’re limited to on the rover. So that’s going to be a big thing to answer the question, did life ever exist on Mars. And the third goal is to prepare for humans. In fact, humans like all of you out there, because if you look at the timeline of when we’re trying to send astronauts to Mars, your generation, everyone in middle school and high school right now and even elementary school are the perfect age for the first humans to be on Mars. So we have some instrumentation onboard to to try and create oxygen. So pulling the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. And for those of you who’ve learned this in science class, carbon dioxide is C O two. We’ll be splitting apart the carbon and oxygen molecules, where you’re just left with oxygen. And oxygen is really important for humans because we use it to breathe. But we also use it, if we combine a hydrogen molecule on there, we can have water. So oxygen is really important. That’s an example of one of the instruments we’re using to help us prepare for humans on Mars.

Naomi Meredith  15:23

That’s super amazing. And I love how you guys just added on more challenges and see how it goes. How long has she been up there already? 

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  15:33

Yeah, so she has been up there officially, as of like, a few days ago, one Martian year, which is about two Earth years. So on February 18 2023, coming up in about a month, she will have been up there for two Earth years, which is awesome.

Naomi Meredith  15:52

Yeah, that so good. So some of you might have even watched the launch of when she got sent up there, because that wasn’t very long ago. So some of you might even know when that happened. Thinking about all the tests that these rovers do, do you have to do any testing here on earth to make sure that they’re working correctly? And how do you test them? Because you’re not on Mars, so how do you know that they actually are going to do what they’re supposed to do when they’re far away from you, you don’t have anybody you can send to go fix the rover if they have to solve it themselves. So how do you test what they do here on Earth?

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  16:30

Naomi, that’s a great question. I’m really glad you asked it, we actually build another version of the rover. So with Spirit and Opportunity, we had a third rover, and with Perseverance, we have a second rover. And that’s the earth version of the rovers. So if you saw one, which I have a picture of somewhere, but you can also Google it, we have, I mean, it looks exactly like Perseverance on Earth. And we have what we call the Mars yard at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where it looks a lot like Mars. And so if we’re ever in a situation where it’s the first time we’re doing something, or we’re in an anomaly situation, not like a problematic situation, we will recreate what’s going on on Mars on Earth. And we’ll have the rover on the ready. And anything that we’re about to send to Mars, we’ll do it on the earth testbed first on the rover on earth, to make sure that what we’re about to send to Mars is actually going to work. So we do that all the time. The testbed is like constantly active, testing out different things. But we also make sure we build the rovers, knowing that we can’t repair something. So for example, if you notice on the rovers, we don’t have rubber tires on the wheels. One reason for that is, number one, it’s really cold on Mars. So when rubber gets really cold, it can break. And if we went over a rock, and we had a flat tire, there’s no way we can do anything about it. So they’re made of metal, they literally just rove on metal wheels. And so we think through these things, and we build the rovers in a way, knowing that we won’t be able to fix anything. So we try and make them really robust.

Naomi Meredith  18:17

So in the movie, they showed, I wonder if it was that same play yard, but Spirit got stuck up there and you put cake flour on the test to see how spirit could get unstuck. So you just see all of these scientists, just like covered in flour and testing out the rover. So definitely check that out. Because it’s, I mean, you guys figured it out, which is amazing. 

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  18:44

Yeah, that’s exactly right. We took really close up pictures of the material that was under Spirit, because on Mars, not everywhere, is that cake flour material. Sometimes were on like pretty rocky terrain, or sandy terrain. But this was like really fine stuff that we were in. And that’s why we got stuck. So we took really close up pictures. So we could recreate that material in the testbed, but you’re exactly right. In the movie you get to see the testbed. Now the testbed looks a bit different, cuz we have bigger rovers in there. But it’s basically the same idea. But it’s really fun when you have problems like that to like, try and recreate them on Earth is a lot of fun.

Naomi Meredith  19:25

But would you say every day is pretty consistent for you. So what would be a typical day? You’re at the office, you’re working together as a team, you have a rover up in space. What are most days like and then do the times actually change as to when you can explore the data?

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  19:45

Yeah, great question. So no, not every day is typical. That’s one of the things that I really like about my job is every time we drive someplace new, and sometimes we’re in the same place for a few days, and maybe those days are pretty typical. But anytime we do arrive to a new location. It’s like a whole new mission, because we don’t know what’s around the corner. That’s why we’re exploring. We don’t know what we’re going to find. We’re very reactive, you know, we can’t always plan for everything. But a typical day as a mission operator would be to come into work. We have no idea what we’re about to see, data hits the ground. So I kind of talked about this earlier, but did its ground, we analyze it. And that analyzing part sometimes takes a while because there are conversations that need to be had with the science team. And there’s a lot of back and forth, you kind of see that in the movie to the engineers, and the scientists are always like, you know, having fun conversations with each other. But that is a pretty typical day. And then once we have, we’re on a time budget, like we have to radiate the commands to the Mars Rover at a certain time, because that’s the only time she’ll be listening for our commands. We have a window, we have to make that window. So a lot of times Steve Squyres in the movie, or the equivalent on Perseverance, our lead scientist has to kind of put their foot down and say, “Okay, this has been great conversations. But this is what we’re doing today.” Because we don’t have time to have any more banter or conversation. And we need we need that sometimes. We need someone to just step in and make a decision. So that is a pretty typical day. And then Naomi, you asked me another part to that question, and I forgot. 

Naomi Meredith  21:28

So your typical day and then the timezone. Is the time on Mars on the same timezone as us on Earth? Or does that change things as well?

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  21:40

That’s exactly what it was. So no, the Martian day is about 24 hours and 40 minutes. So it’s pretty close to an Earth Day, it’s only 40 minutes off. But that 40 minutes really is hard for human beings. Because let’s say, if we’re on Mars time, which we are for a good amount of the beginning of the mission, and let’s say we come in to work at 8am. Then the next day, we come into work at 840. Then the next day, we come into work at 920, then 10am. And it shifts by 40 minutes every day, because we’re on the rovers time and we radiate the commands up to the rover. Her day starts at the same time on Mars every day. So that that can be really hard on a human being, especially when it’s like okay, now we come in at midnight, and then 1240 and then 1:20am. And especially when you have little kids like I did with Perseverance when we started mission operations. You know my kids expected me to be there at certain time, I had a little infant, so I’m waking up at night with her. And then I had an infant on Earth and an infant on Mars, and managing all of that got a little crazy. And I’m sure teachers out there that are parents can kind of understand what I’m saying. But yeah, it is. It was a very interesting time in my life trying to keep up with the Martian time being on Mars time.

Naomi Meredith  23:07

Yeah, that’s not a timezone you typically see when you’re in the airport, when they say it’s this time in Denver, this time in New York, they don’t typically have it’s this time in Mars, but maybe they should. So for kids out there, they’re probably really pumped and excited, and you’re inspiring a ton of kids and adults. For any students who want to get into a job like yours, or into STEM or NASA, what advice do you have for them? There’s just so many opportunities out there, there’s jobs out there that don’t even exist yet. You’re like you said, living out your dream. So what advice do you have for kids who want to be like you?

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  23:48

Okay, great. So I’m glad you asked this question. First, if you want to work at NASA, let’s just say that’s your goal. First, I would sit down and ponder, do you want to do the science side of things? Or do you want to do the engineering side of things? And to help you answer that, that would be questions like, for the science that I want, and maybe you learned about this in your class, but forming a hypothesis, asking a question, did life ever exist on Mars? Does life exist in the solar system today? Those kinds of questions and looking at data, images and pictures, and trying to answer that question, if that really inspires you and like gels with you, then maybe you want to be a scientist. Or maybe you want to solve problems. You want to take the problems that the scientists or the goals that they’re trying to reach and build something that will help them achieve and get that answer. So maybe you like putting things together or taking things apart and looking in the innards of like electronics or something or maybe you want to try and something happens with your computer, your iPad or whatever it is, your phone and you want to like solve that problem. So those are kind of two different routes you could take to work at NASA. There are actually many, many more, but those are two general ones. And then what I would encourage is for you to pay attention in math and science classes, really anything STEM related. And it’s okay, if you’re not good or not great at math and science yet. There are people out there that can help. And I think for me, that was the biggest lesson I learned really not till college, I wish I had learned it earlier, ask for help. It’s okay to ask for help. I was not very good at math, actually. And people always said, “You got to be good at math and science to be an engineer.” That’s not true. I wasn’t very good at that, I got a tutor. And once I got a tutor, and they sat down with me for a whole year and took me step by step, I had to relearn a lot of stuff. It all of a sudden made sense to me. And then I was able to like keep up with my homework and do well on tests. But it’s okay to ask for help. So I think that’s another thing. Also, doing things like building robots, or getting into a robotics club or something like that can also really help you try and understand how math and science apply to real world problems like building robots and stuff. So I think all of those things are really helpful to line your pathway to get to NASA.

Naomi Meredith  26:28

I think that’s a really, really good advice. And I appreciate your vulnerability. And I love how you also use the word yet. It takes baby steps to get to where you’re at, and all the things that you’ve done when you’re young, and you’ve made mistakes. And here you are today, and you’re still growing as a person. So there’s always new challenges out there. So that is excellent advice for any kids who want to get into NASA or even any STEM related jobs out there. So with what you’re allowed to talk about, because we know NASA is a very confidential place, but what you’re allowed to talk about, is there any cool things that you guys are working on or a project? You talked about Perseverance, but anything going on, that we should keep our eyes and ears out for?

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  27:14

For sure. Yes. So a couple of things, the current rover that we have, so Curiosity, still roaming the planet doing fantastic science. And then we also have Perseverance, the most current one, Perseverance took a little buddy with her, a helicopter named Ingenuity. So keep your eye out for Ingenuity, which is still going on. Ingenuity was only supposed to last five flights, the little helicopter, but she is still going on almost two years of the planet. So that’s huge. Keep your eye and your eye out for Ingenuity and Perseverance findings on Mars. That’s a really, it’s really exciting right now what we’re seeing on Mars, and then yeah, keep your eye out for Mars sample return. That’s our next mission. We’re in the process of designing the mission right now. So it’s in the very, very early stages. But it’s, it’s really exciting. And it’s going to be probably the mission leading up to humans on Mars. So all of those things, if you think you want to be an astronaut someday, that’s also a really fun project to follow, because we’re just getting one step closer to that to

Naomi Meredith  28:20

Super awesome. Well, we will keep checking that out. Okay, so now, those are the questions from me. But we have a ton of questions from our audience out there. And they are very curious and want to hear what you have to say about these. So I’m going to try to put them in order, but they might not make sense in the order I say them. But we’re going to do this together. So from Steve Kedi, how much from the original team, so I’m assuming the original team from Spirit and Opportunity, still work at NASA?

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  28:56

Yeah, that’s awesome. Okay, so a lot of them have retired. But pretty recently, I would say they have started to retire. But Jennifer Trosper is in the movie a lot and she still works at NASA. I would say probably, I mean, it’s hard to put a number on it. But I would say probably 75% of people still work at NASA. I think what what we find at JPL and NASA is people tend to stick around. I know there are careers out there where people jump from job to job a lot, which there’s nothing wrong with that either. And staying in a position for about five years is, you know, typical, but at JPL and NASA people stay around for a really long time. So you’ll see that a lot. And I would say yeah, probably like 75% of the crew, the original crew is still at JPL.

Naomi Meredith  29:44

Awesome. That’s that’s really good stats. Wow, it’s pretty amazing. Okay, so this next one is from Samina and I apologize if I say your name wrong. And their question was, what did it feel like to be able to see Mars? So when you’re at NASA, and what did it feel like for you, when you actually could see Mars through those photographs and videos?

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  30:06

Oh my gosh, yeah, that, especially when I first started working there, that was like, a giddy moment for me when those images would come down. And I was the first person to see these images, or our team was, it was a feeling unlike anything I can really describe. And also like coming into work and trying to reorient my brain from Earth, and then to Mars and like, think about all the things I needed to do when I get to work, which was all on another planet. Yeah, you kind of have to pinch yourself sometimes. But yeah, the feeling is incredible.

Naomi Meredith  30:42

I’m sure. I mean, it’s uncharted territory. And you said Mars is really big. So there’s a lot of places that we haven’t seen yet. So that’s so exciting. All right, this one is kind of similar to a lot of the questions. So do you have to speak a different language to be an astronaut? So that’s by Larry.

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  31:03

Yeah, good question. Um, there are some. So there are Earth languages and then there are robot languages. So let me answer the robotic question first. So with the rovers, we actually speak to them in a different language we speak to them in what we call binary, and binary is really just a series of zeros and ones. And we have computer programs that translate binary, the language we speak to them to English. And we do talk to like we start typing in English. Even for all the instruments that are around the globe, we use English, but we have programs that were written by people to help us translate from English into binary. So the rover speaking binary, if that that’s one question. But to be an astronaut, there or like to be in the International Space Station, if there are astronauts that are working heavily with the Russian cosmonauts, or the European Space Agency, there are sometimes reasons to speak other languages, but going through the NASA or the astronaut program, they’ll tell you and train you appropriately. 

Naomi Meredith  32:14

That’s super cool. I always tell my students that coding is learning coding languages, you’re learning languages, there’s a lot of opportunities to learn a language.

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  32:25

In college, we’re required to take a foreign language at the University of Texas. But in engineering, computer programming counted as our foreign language. So we didn’t have to take another foreign language. It was our foreign language.

Naomi Meredith  32:39

And it’s probably one you wanted to learn anyway. All right, this one is this is actually a really good question, because the rovers are just hanging up out there. So is it possible for the rover batteries to die? And if so what happens? And that’s from Nicole King.

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  32:59

Yeah. So, Nicole, so if you think about your phone, your phone battery needs to get charged, right? So when you say die, we keep a really close eye on the batteries to make sure they don’t go all the way to dead. But even if they did, we have ways to charge them. So in Spirit and Opportunity we had solar panels, so the sun would charge them. But as you saw, or might seen in movie, when we have dust storms, or reasons why we can’t get sun on the solar panels, there is no way to charge the battery. And yes, batteries will die. And that’s bad day for the rover. But they do you know, eventually, sometimes you might find with your phone or your parents phone or whatever. Eventually, over time, that battery isn’t able to hold a charge anymore. The battery itself dies and there’s no way to recharge it. And that is what we have found at least with Opportunity and that ends up being one of the reasons one of the ways the rovers could stop communicating with us when the battery dies. And the batteries eventually will. They are lithium ion batteries. They’re not perfect. They’re really great. But um, yeah, they will run out of charge someday.

Naomi Meredith  34:10

That’s pretty amazing Spirit and Opportunity. Their batteries lasted a really, really long time to hang out up there on Mars for a long, long time. So they have really good batteries. Yeah, yeah, along with that, since they use the sun to recharge is there any other type of weather on Mars other than dust storms? So that’s by Lisa white.

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  34:33

Great question. So there isn’t really rain, at least not where the rovers are because we don’t have water moisture in the air. I’m saying really because at the poles is a different story. Dust storms are a big thing. Wind is a big thing. But other than that, it’s usually just pretty sunny because we don’t really have clouds or the Martian atmosphere is only one percent of the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s a very, very thin atmosphere. So there’s not a lot of opportunity for there to be more weather than than wind storms and dust storms.

Naomi Meredith  35:10

Very different. But they’re figuring that out for us to get up there. Alright, so this one is from Steve Keti. And this he asked, Do you still play wake up music? So in the movie, if you guys haven’t seen it, the rovers have a song, a wake up song every day. And I’m going to add on to that. Do you have a favorite wake up song?

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  35:32

Great. So we do still play wake up songs every morning. Not on Opportunity, unfortunately anymore, but because she’s passed away. But on Perseverance we play a wake up song every morning to wake the team up. And in the role that I was in on Perseverance, as a flight director, I was able to pick wake up songs. So I actually picked, well, I picked a lot. But there were some of my favorites that I personally picked. But I would say my favorite wake up song, and maybe this is cliche, but personally, my own opinion, my favorite wake up song had to be, I’ll Be Seeing You from Billie Holiday. And I think a lot of that had to do with that was in our last week of song on Opportunity. And if you haven’t seen the movie yet, I really encourage you to watch GOOD NIGHT OPPY. You’ll see why that would be my personal favorite wake up song. But it was the last week of song for Opportunity. Steve Squires and our lead scientist, he never picked the wake up song, but we let him pick the last one. So I think that will forever always be my favorite because it’s such a meaningful, emotional part of my life.

Naomi Meredith  36:43

Aww it’s really sweet. I got emotional watching that and I felt very connected to the rovers in the song played and I got emotional. So I can only imagine how you were feeling when that was playing. Okay, so let’s get a little positive. This one. So how long does it take to get the rovers to Mars and a few classes asked that so Stephanie B. and Jessica A., we’re wondering.

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  37:09

Great. So it depends on how the planets are aligned and the gravitational pull on the rover trying to get there. But on average, it takes about nine months, eight, seven to nine months to get the rovers to Mars. And so that’s like physically getting them there. And then we have to communicate with them. So we communicate at the speed of light. And depending on where Earth and Mars are in their orbit, that can be anywhere from like six minutes to 24 minutes of how long it takes for us to get a signal to the rover and back. So two different things. And not that you asked that particular question, but I just wanted to make sure and point that out communicating with the rovers is the speed of light, and it’s anywhere from six minutes-ish to 24 minutes-ish. But getting the rovers to the planet physically, we have our propulsion system to help us with that. And that takes anywhere from seven to nine months.

Naomi Meredith  38:07

Okay, so that’s actually probably a lot shorter than a lot of people might have guessed. Oh, that’s not terrible.

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  38:14

No, as long as it takes for a mom to be pregnant and have a baby. Okay.

Naomi Meredith  38:22

So there’s some reference for you guys. Um, have you ever dreamt about traveling to space? So St. Pius X fifth and sixth graders were wondering, and there was a couple other classes that were wondering that too.

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  38:36

Yeah. So I would love to go into space, but I get really homesick. I always have. So and I would miss my kids. Like if the question was would I ever go to Mars, the answer would be no not really because I love Earth. Earth is the best planet and my family is here and so I would miss them too much if I went to Mars, but I would love to go into space for like a day and come back and even better I’d love to take my family and we all go to space for like a day and come back. I’d love to see what it’s like to be weightless.

Naomi Meredith  39:12

Do you get on like motion sick?

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  39:16

I do. I also get motion sick. Yeah, I would definitely need to take whatever that medicine is to help me not be motion sick.

Naomi Meredith  39:23

So that’s same with me so I don’t know how that would go. I might be here on Earth by myself but we’ll see. Um, so with rovers they have some really cool names some really inspiring names and Javier A. was wondering, how do you all give the names to the rovers?

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  39:41

Oh, awesome. So there is a naming contest that happens about six months before we launch the rovers, so keep your eyes out when we have the next rover launch. Because we get you guys to help us name the rovers. We opened it up and kids write essays on what they think the rovers name should be and why. And then our team we get to read, we split the essays up, but we read through all the essays and pick out our top and we narrow it down and we finally pick the name for the rover. So there was a kid named Alex who named Perseverance. And his essay was awesome. Um, you can go read it if you go Google his essay entry on the internet, but um, yeah, so you guys help us name the rovers. That’s how they get their names.

Naomi Meredith  39:41

Oh, did you name Opportunity? Was that you?

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  40:33

I wish, but no. It was another kid, Clara named Curiosity. Trying to remember who named Spirit and Opportunity. But another student. I think she was like, in middle school, helped name both Spirit and Opportunity.

Naomi Meredith  40:47

That’s so cool. Okay, um, speaking of Spirit and Opportunity, we are at our last question. There was over 200 questions. So thank you for submitting. So hopefully we answered a bunch of those. So for Spirit and Opportunity, are Spirit and Oppy going to stay where they are? So they’re still up on Mars? Are they going to stay there? And that’s from Thomas Heart Academy.

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  41:10

Yes, they’re going to stay there. They will forever be there until or unless a human goes up there and moves it or brings it back home or something. But we probably won’t bring them back home, even if we could because they’re heavy. And everything we bring back costs money, but there might be reasons that they try and repair them on Mars someday or something, but they will forever be where they lie today. 

Bryan Miller  41:37

Hi, guys, this was an awesome conversation. I mean, I’ve been smiling, like my cheeks hurt. I’ve been smiling from beginning to end. Because these kids have asked all the questions that I too wanted to ask. And for those of you that may not have had your answers, or your questions answered, I’ve been watching all the questions come through. And I can tell which people have not yet watched GOOD NIGHT OPPY because there are so many questions in there that the movie answers for you. So I suggest if you had a question, go back and watch GOOD NIGHT OPPY because those questions will be answered within the movie’s timeframe. And if not, NASA’s website has unbelievable information for you, as students or teachers to access and use in your classroom. I used to teach fourth grade space, and I used NASA’s website literally for my entire curriculum. So they have so much available for you. So Bekah, I have a question for you. And it is around the distance that the robots travel in a day, because in the movie, it says some days the robot has good days. And as the robot aged, it got arthritis, right. And some days it had better days and got far. And in the movie, they make it seem like it was able to get from the one crater to the other in movie magic time. But in real life, how long does it take for a rover to move in a day? Or how far can it move within a day usually?

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  43:23

Yeah, great question, Bryan. So on average Spirit and Opportunity, on average would travel about half a football field, if you want to think about it that way. So like 50 yards ish, we use meters. But let’s fold it in half a football field, on a good day, potentially a football field 100 yards. And that’s about how fast they can go to. It’s their limitation of the motors. Perseverance can drive a little faster, but not much faster. So that’s that’s about how long they take to rove on any given day.

Bryan Miller  43:59

Very cool. And I mean, it’s amazing what movies can do to speed things up. But in reality, you’re all sitting there watching and sending that signal, which takes as you said, minutes or 24 minutes to get to it to say, Okay, do this. And you know, you guys are doing all your other work that you have to do and watching this all come to life and actually happen. So I think that that’s just so remarkable the planning stages that go into just what a day’s mission looks like, let alone the lifetime of mission and going from a three month mission to a 15 year mission. Right? I mean, it’s just absolutely incredible. And I’m sure it was magic for all of you to continue to push the boundaries of what you were exploring and coming up with new missions on the fly, I guess. I mean, the ultimate mission was to find pH water in the existence of Mars, but every day was probably like okay, what do we want to do with it today? And I loved hearing, like talking about wanting to do drag races, how fast they can get motion can get from one place to the other. I mean, it’s, it’s stuff that I as a person on earth would want to do with robots that I had sitting here in my room. And you’re doing this with robots that are controlled by, you know, NASA. And I think that that is just so much fun. What’s one of the like, the things that really is, like memorable, like a day that was memorable to you, you know, besides, obviously, like them going to sleep for their final time? Is there anything that stood out as like a memorable moment?

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  45:33

Yeah, for sure. So I think for me, personally, there was a time and I talked about this in the movie too. But there was a time when Opportunity was losing her memory. And I happened to be the person appointed to, we call it the tiger team lead, but really, it was like the, the lead to solve the problem. So I was leading the team to help solve the problem. And we worked really hard to figure out a workaround for Opportunity to figure out how to like help with these memory problems. And this part is not talked about in the movie, but it took months of me going into the testbed there, like version of the rover, and testing different things, I would be calling up people that were on the mission from the very beginning that were in the movie and like the old footage, but aren’t on the mission anymore, I’d be calling them up and being like Tracy Nielsen, like all these people that I had, didn’t know, but they were like legends in my mind, because I saw them on the TV when I was in eighth grade. But I’d be like, I’m gonna call Tracy Oh, my gosh, like she’s a legend. But I’d call her up and be like, Look, I have this problem. I don’t know. Anyway, they would help me. So I think one of the most memorable times was we came up with a solution to our problem. And I tested the testbed many times. And then I finally got to implement the solution on the vehicle, and Steve Squyres was there, and we were waiting for the data to come down. And we saw in the data that it works. And now it’s like, that was a huge thing for me in my career, and just personally, but also getting to report to Steve Squyres, Dr. Squyres that like, it worked, and he was excited. It was just like the best day of work for me, probably. But I think my favorite thing about working on the rover’s is the fact that I work with so many different kinds of people, so many different people, not only like the instruments themselves are from all over the world. So it’s like, it pushes our barriers down and our borders down. And we’re all like, people from France, and Norway, and whatever countries are coming together for this common goal. And there’s no politics and there’s no because we’re all really in it to help answer this question. So I love working and learning from people from all walks of life, all backgrounds, all cultures, it’s really rewarding to go into work everyday for that reason.

Bryan Miller  48:11

Oh, I mean, we thank you  for doing all this and, and continuing to research and help us learn about our existence here on earth through other planets. This was an amazing conversation. I wish we could go for much, much longer. But we know that you have a very busy day ahead of you and other meetings to attend to. Naomi, is there anything that you’d like to say last thoughts to wrap things up?

Naomi Meredith  48:35

Yeah, thank you so much for letting me chat with you. And just being an inspiration for my own students selfishly, but just students around the world because you never know who you’re going to impact out there. And just hearing from experts who are in the field, especially a woman in STEM is just so amazing and powerful. And your story is just super important. And just keep up the awesome work.

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  49:01

Thank you so much, Naomi, and Bryan and everybody that’s helped put this together. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much.