Windows on Mars

[Music] this is Windows on Mars bringing you breaking news stories on scientists astronauts artists and young people together imagining and creating the future now here to put you in the picture is the entire Mars mission news team news anchor Donna Shirley former manager of the Mars exploration program feature reporters Jeff Sanchez and denell Morgan and Mars weather David [Music] Walters together with our exclusive team of coast to coast On Assignment reporters this is Windows on Mars welcome to Windows on Mars today's top story the possibility of a settlement on the planet Mars in the year 2030 as people talking not just talking Jeff scientists astronauts artists and all fields and young people of all ages are getting together to experiment and plan for this incredible mission in this special report of Windows on Mars we'll bring you the latest developments in four different areas a glass artist on a storybook Farm in Massachusetts and his astronaut wife in space how do Art and Science relate and how will the harsh Mars environment affect the kind of community we build there for humans to survive work and create on the red planet music from space Sounds a computer power book programmed with musical instruments is this how we take music to Mars and will it sound different from music on Earth storytelling before the fire how does it preserve our past as well as our future what new stories and new art might be created from amar's experience dance right out of a dream no problem on Mars what new challenges and possibilities when we move under reduced gravity so stay with us for all the exciting details and latest developments in these and Other newsbreaking Stories as we take a look through these four fascinating windows on Mars [Music] if artists and scientists began talking to each other what would they say and where well the sky is literally the limit in our first story one's down home on the farm and the others totally far out in space we go now to rural Massachusetts where a very special artist and Astronaut live when they're both at home here on Earth but this farm and this relationship are different since it literally is a marriage between Art and Science because Josh is a successful glass artist and Katie is a US astronaut I began to make planets really because of Jim LEL who was on his way back from the Moon on an Apollo Mission and uh Jim looked out the window of his spacecraft and said hey I can cover the Earth with my thumb and when I thought about that picture I began to make planets in order to blow glass you have to be a combustion engineer and you have to be an electrician and a plumber so without science without technology I can't do what I do the best of science is art and the best of art is science Katie Coleman has been an astronaut with NASA for seven years while on a recent Mission aboard the space shuttle Columbia our own Donna Shirley conducted this amazing interview with Katie in space and her husband Josh at home in Massachusetts Katie I'd like to ask you some questions about you're a scientist and your husband is an artist and how science and art work together and how you and your husband work together I I guess some people always tease my husband and I because he makes planets anybody who has the imagination to design and create artwork like that understand why someone like me like to go you know Katie that you and I just do amazingly different things um and yet we both kind of enhance each other's uh view of what we do how would you personally feel about being part of a Mars settlement I would be very very excited about a future Mars settlement I guess uh exploration been in my family for a long time and I've always wanted to know what else was out there how would Art and Science work together can you imagine that well I guess I can only speak from my own experience here in the shuttle we're up here to do a very technical job and yet we need to make sure that we take time to look out the window and look back at the Earth it's actually more beautiful than any picture you have ever seen that sounds really exciting but can you suggest some of the skills that a 100 person Village on Mars might need to take with them well I think in the beginning people will think uh technical skills they'll think well we need a Geist you know we need a pilot we need a commander and that we need folks that understand how to build the places that we're going to build but I think when we get this group of people together we're going to find that they also bring along many of the artistic skills that we've been talking about and where where they take those artistic skills what kinds of Art and music and display and dance and writing what kinds of things come out in that settlement I don't think we know yet and I can't wait to find out wow makes me wonder about all kinds of connections between science and art and how they might connect to build a community on Mars if you and your family were going to build a home what's the first thing you'd do I would take a good look at the land we were going to build it on first now these pictures of the Mars surface were taken by a camera on the 1997 Pathfinder Lander not too different looking from some desert lands on Earth but there are things about this piece of land that the pictures don't show for more on that let's go to David Walters with the day's Mars weather report at this very site David what have you got for us thank you Jeff well the high temperature today here at Aries valleys will be 7° F which is bommy for Mars after some high water ice clouds in the early morning hours but then get out your Woolen jacket for a very chilly minus 109° fah tonight I can already feel it wind should be light and variable coming from all directions and rotating around in their usual counterclockwise Direction and in the long range forecast we have the possibility of a very thin but nasty dust storm coming in by the weekend now for some comments on today's Mars weather I have a special guest Dr Diana blay planetary scientist at the jet propulsion lab in Pasadena California apart from the big range in temperatures if you and I were standing in this spot right now on Mars how would it be different well one of the big things you'd notice is that the gravity is a lot less the gravity is only about 38 of what it is on Earth if you weighed 50 lbs on Earth you'd only weigh about 15 pounds on Mars another thing is that the nighttime temperatures especially in the polar regions can get really really cold down to minus 190° F that's pretty cold the atmosphere is very thin and it's almost composed of all of carbon dioxide which is different than the earth which has a lot of oxygen and nitrogen so that would make it really difficult to breathe it would be impossible to breathe and finally because there's such a thin atmosphere there's nothing to stop the ultraviolet radiation from reaching the surface it's like if the Earth had absolutely no ozone layer all right well thank you Diana it's not quite the same as Earth that's it for Mars weather today back to you Jeff and more on what this means for human settlement on Mars what materials are available on Mars for creating Donna put this question to geologist Dr Joy crisp I'm here today from the Mars yard at the jet propulsion laboratory where we test Rovers and other things that we're going to send to the surface of Mars so joy we have a whole variety of things here what could we do with this on Mars if we were building a village of a hundred people on Mars what what would we do with these things well um you'd be quite limited um the first thing you could do is perhaps just take Boulders of of the basalt you might be able to make walls and things like that and start some structures the obvious thing that you might want is cement yes and uh you need to find some calcium carbonate type mineral so you might need to uh do some mining scouting for these minerals on Mars and the ones that you don't find you'd have to bring with you now that we know something of the materials available on Mars how would we go about designing a community living space we go now to the Los Angeles office of Architects Craig hodet and Ming fun Dell this is a company that designs a whole range of unique environments from buildings and traditional architectural settings to multimedia and virtual environment installations now I ask the owners about designing on Mars after putting the same questions to planetary scientist Albert Yen at JPL earlier today if you go back to the Stone Age on Earth um people just put a whole bunch of rocks together and build a something that'll keep them inside from the outside similar sorts of things can happen on Mars there are volcanic lava flows you can go and extract some rocks from that and and try to build a little house of some sort people all throughout history has always worked with the natural landscape to create their own habitat where they can leave you know whether you go up to the you know the Messa and the the Indian Pueblo and then they would you know carve their own um uh dwelling inside of the rock of the mountain well a planet like Mars by contrast the United States doesn't have a whole lot of different building materials the very tough thing is that there's no wood you know there's the things that we take for granted here don't exist even a variety of stones like we have here probably don't exist because the whole planet is made of the skin so far as we know is made of Bas salt so you could you could literally carve into the ground a some kind of dwelling as a space and in order to keep it thematically seal then you could inflate a Skin Within it and the skin would then attach itself to the cavity of that space and then you would have atically sealed environment the Martian surface is very different from the Earth's environment the atmosphere is much thinner and that allows uh UV radiation to get down to the surface these environmental situations which are unique to Mars can potentially alter the surface our solution might be to build some very very very large uh uh environments which keep the air in the air would come in and it would blow this up and pretty soon you'd have a dome that you could live in and maybe you could grow plants and trees inside and then you could build smaller structures in which people could live and kind of have their own individual lives we know that there is a large abundance of silicon in the Martian soils that has been determined by the Viking Landers as well as a Pathfinder Lander that went down and actually analyzed the soil the difficulty would then be extracting that silicon and making um it pure enough that you can make uh a glass I think I think that if we could make glass on Mars um it would open up so many opportunity to uh to build really quite incredible uh structures there like a stained glass cathedral window you could introduce in integrally to the glass all these wonderful colors and furthermore when you've got just the big old red desert out here in front big red desert out here then you can put those colors together that could be a lot of fun if we go over there it's like camping out a little bit you know when you go and camping trip you have to think about what are the necessity that would make you feel comfortable the essential things that we can bring with us to sustain oursel there but at the same time feel like we are at home what is it that we can take so that we can just barely survive there next up a look at the question how would you begin to design a community for 100 people on Mars especially given the limitations we've just heard about for some answers let's go now to correspondent Karen Redhawk for this special report before the European settlement of the Americas Native Americans lived in harmony with their natural surroundings which they use for sources of housing clothing food and art Michael horse of Apache and Yaki Indian descent is a distinguished native artist who relies on traditional materials to create jewelry paintings and Ledger art this is an old style bracelet it's all made from turquoise this is what turquoise actually looks like when it comes out of the ground as an Indian person you learn that everything in your environment is connected to everything else we learn from little children that every small bug that every plant that every rock that that the streams that the trees that all these things are all dependent upon each other in order to survive it's a mutual respect and I think that's the most important thing that we can take to other planets Michael met with Don Jackson Another Native American Artist and JPL scientist Matt golbeck to explore materials on Mars for creating man I'm really curious about what kind of of Minerals and Gems you would find on Mars the kind of materials we know that exist on Mars are the basic kind of rocks we have on the earth in fact the most common Rock on the earth is called Basalt and there's one thing on Mars that we know there's a lot of and that's red pigment I mean Mars is a red planet and there's an awful lot of dust that gives pretty much everything you see a red Hue Adobe where I'm from is one of the best insulated to build a structure there's a high probability we have Clays and it'd be easy to take that surface dust and and perhaps mix it with things and and make a structure out of it I would think anything that we find we use in our in our art so sure well art ties you into your environment it makes you become part of it and that's what we as native artists try and do when we do our art much can be learn from native American traditions relating to Future Life on Mars but there are still many questions that remain unanswered about Mars environment that can be answered by both scientist and artists this is Karen Redhawk for Windows on Mars a lot to think about as we designed the first community on Mars what do you think Jeff would you rather live in a dome or an underground Community definitely underground I think I think it would be cool well not literally cool because one of the reason we'd be there would be to escape the minus 100° temperatures on the surface well how would you use the space to make a community what do you mean well you got 100 people would everyone be living in one big space together or would each family have its own area and would you even take families I'll need some time to think about all that our next story NASA officials estimate that it cost around $10,000 to put one pound of materials into Earth orbit for the 2030 Mars settlement Mission the the lowest estimates run at $50,000 per pound of materials taken to Mars obviously what is carried on such a mission needs to be carefully considered Ellen kochansky and Jamie Davis have discovered creative ways to reuse what was thought unusable and combine it with natural materials what would they create on [Music] Mars I live in the country my family and I and and I have a chance to make Trails through my Woods leading down to a waterfall and in the process of making that trail I would have cuting of mountain laurel I would have stones and it occurred to me some sort of instinctively at some point well I should bring some of this home it was in my studio and I started putting it in the context of all this sort of high-tech commercial industrial materials that suggest that world [Music] Quilters are packrats Quilters have a way of recycling things as a force in their work and what we do is make our expression using something that might have been thrown away it was grandmother's night shirt it was a it was a piece of the living room curtain those kind of U of stories give all quilt work depth if I saw rocks on the surface of Mars I think uh in the context of my work something that might appear quite ordinary would become transformed you would look at it the details the shape the color uh in a whole new way and of course going to Mars we'll all have to realize there are no landfills and everything that goes must be recyclable reusable again and again the contents of that spaceship if people choose things that are made by hand they've chosen very specially those few things that are meaningful enough that they need that they'll use what we take with us to Mars the beautiful must be necessary and the necessary must be beautiful as you can see we know quite a lot about Mars that we didn't know even a few years ago imagination is where it really begins in creating artworks designing buildings and planning a community on Mars all space missions combine imagination with skill and sheer hard work by teams of dedicated people often in the face of doubters many people thought the Pathfinder team was crazy to use airbags landing on Mars like a beach ball others thought the idea of a Rover the the size of a microwave oven was equally silly imagination was where those ideas came from and Imagination made them work artists also use imagination to make ideas work artists like contemporary painter Chuck [Music] arnoldi paint comes in all kinds of colors and even though you can buy all these colors I'm never quite satisfied what happens is you get an idea so you pursue it and the problem is that ideas are beautiful and perfect it's like falling in love when you start to make the thing real it takes on life of its own and the imperfection start to show up and it becomes a battle this is real problematic with this painting it's looking pretty good I like it a lot but there are certain things I really don't like about and I can't figure out I've got to do some small thing is to pull it off all it is this pursuit of this imagination when I start one of these paintings I usually have an excitement an energy level I usually put a canvas up and I look at and then when I get this the right courage I go up and I just start to work anything you've heard about or seen it was done by somebody so if you have the inclination to want to be a rocket scientist or rock and roll star or an artist it's it's something some somebody does it you can do anything you want to do every idea I have leads to an action and every action that you do leads to infinite possibilities next up music and sound on the red planet how does sound travel on Mars what Earth music do we take and what new music might we develop there how far out are you willing to go these stories coming up on Windows on [Music] Mars welcome back in this segment of Windows on Mars we'll consider and listen to some possibilities for new music on Mars how does music come from people's experience on Earth or in space how would you take music from Earth to Mars and listen to it there what do you think about music in and for outer space first we take you to New York where our reporter Jamie Chen is standing by Jamie DaNell I'm here in the South Bronx where Los pleros de 21 a new york-based Puerto Rican music group is about to perform these Gardens are part of a community meeting place called The Casitas where they first first began playing together since then they've performed all around the world including many jazz festivals Carnegie Hall and a folklore Festival in Russia they believe that music comes from our need to express who we are and where we've come [Music] [Music] from laa is one of the forms of Music uh originated in Puerto Rico mostly from African descent started late 19th century early 20th century but this captures laa captures their personality of the Puerto Rican [Music] people the role the music plays is that that it tells a lot of stories and that culturally it tells about our way of life it talks about our Traditions our our airs it talks about gossip it talks about all kind of current events whenever something happens in a in a place close by here just like in Puerto Rico from town to town same thing here in the Bronx Manhattan or Queens uh you know pioneers of this music LA bomai and Pla we songs about that this is the newspaper of our land [Music] [Music] for he he's just you know 7 years old he just he just got it we can see that he no question about he will follow the tradition we pass it on because we want our Traditions to stay our Traditions to be around forever and our native language to be around and that's what that's what you need some of your own culture and that's what's going to give you your identity when you know about yourself you have fulfilled your dream I think you can go to another planet but you take your Traditions with you and your Traditions will always stay and your children will learn and know about that with music like this on Mars no one would forget who they are or where they came from this is Jamie Chen reporting from the South Bronx New York for Windows on Mars back to you DaNell thanks Jamie more on the music we'd take to Mars in a moment but first let's check in again with David for a Mars weather update on those dust storms developing there David Dell this appears to be a very large storm bigger than anything we're used to on Earth uh in fact scientists have reported dust storms that reached around the entire planet the blowing Red Dust is what gives the planet its red color as you can see and since you've been talking about sound on Mars I have a question about that for my guest today Dr Greg Wilson of JPL my question is uh the winds on Mars would they sound the same as the winds on Earth and and how does sound travel on Mars I think a a good dust storm on Mars is is is going to be a really violent event and you're going to certainly hear it but I think what we associate with wind blowing on Earth is it the wind blowing through your hair and your ears and that high-pitched whistle uh high pitch sounds don't travel very very well on Mars and so you certainly wouldn't hear that especially since you're going to be in a space suit and habitat because of the really thin Martian atmosphere sound doesn't travel nearly as well only really low frequency sounds uh can travel any great distance on Mars and you really have to yell and Shout uh to get that to get that heard wow thank you thank you very much doctor you're welcome back to you Jeff let's hear now from a man who has some very definite and practical ideas on how to take music to Mars composer Morton subbotnik discussing some possibilities with JPL engineer Rob Manning so what kind of music do you think we should bring to Mars does Mars have a special kind of musical content that you think that would uh be be prevalent in the future what we'd want to take with us has to do with the past and the present and we and from that we create the future but given the fact that we'd probably be bringing in on a little laptop computer we have actually we could bring thousands and thousands of pieces of music with us the computer becomes like an orchestra and you can control [Music] it so it it isn't just recordings you're bringing but it's a viable Dynamic changing thing that you have of impact you actually make it louder and softer if I touch this key you get a repeated note be that's this key you get that this key you get that this key you get that [Music] more where where does where does the science come back into your art do do you visualize the music and do you work with the music in a scientific and a mathematical way music is in fact a kind of higher math it has connections it has relationships and I think maybe the creative process is similar maybe in science and art you have a a general approach to what you think might be there it's testing it and then seeing if it works and then going back and changing the model itself or changing the way in which you do it which I think is a scientific method right it is the scientific method it's exactly what we do when we build our spacecraft so it looks like the most valuable instruments for music on Mars could be the computer and the human voice or anything else we come up with in the 21st century remember synthesized music wasn't even thought about a hundred years ago what do you think we'll hear that's a good question and while I'm thinking about it let's go to the jet propulsion lab in Southern California where scientist Dr Greg Wilson is with a music producer who has combined space data from NASA with the music of Bach Kelvin tell me about how you took the data that we collected from the atmospheric instrument on Mars Pathfinder how did you turn it into sound well uh actually what we did was to take the 22,000 bits of data that you sent us and uh creatively entered it into a computer that uh gave us some highs and lows we used our imagination as to what it might sound like or what the pattern might be in different places on Mars and then we assigned sound that earthlings detect as wind to try and create what we thought would be the Winds of Mars it's definitely more art than science but it's art that's certainly inspired by science do you think the environment is really what drives the artist and what type of art they create I think that music just like writing or sculpting or anything like that is is coming from your own personal experience and your environment is a huge part of that personal experience and Bach came into my mind because the music of Bach is in some ways it's very mechanical it's very mathematical if you will it I think it comes from the same kind of Minds that the dream up uh [Music] spacecraft so if you guys were going to Mars what instruments would you take from Earth or would you make your own I'd take a harp well I definitely think it's a lot easier to transport the human voice than it is Say musical instrument um but I think there's going to be a whole new realm of experiences that these people on Mars will encounter there are many kinds of music and many ways of taking it to Mars we visited with two youth orchestras this week and put this question to some young people what kind of music would you take to Mars I would probably take Mozart because he's my favorite composer Blues to rock to Classic Rock I'd probably take a jazz CD to Mars I'd probably take punk I think I would take Z fol Rock if I went to Mars I would take regae it would have to be something with a lot of soul I played in the orchestra and I really liked it I like the slowness of it and then how it can pick up big tiany drums in the background it's got a lot of heart to [Music] it I've grown up around it I've been playing violin since I was 4 and a half and takes me into like my really creative [Music] sources music is important to me because it helps me deal with everyday life it lets you have the chance to express all your [Music] feelings gives me a reason to get up in the morning if you have no one to talk to or if you're bored I just I just love it if I was going to Mars I would probably take the drums base piano guitar my violin my voice I we take bongos I would definitely want to make new music on Mars because it's it's a totally different place and like just your surroundings can totally influence you in the music you [Music] play when we come back a look at how folklore storytelling and traditional Arts might develop in a Mars settlement what do we take from Earth what do we leave behind and what new Arts might develop on Mars the answer to these and other questions stay with us for more windows on [Music] Mars where do stories come from in different cultures what stories might come out of a Mars Community in 2030 how would you choose the 100 participants for the plan settlement and what Earth traditions and folk Arts should they take with them and what New Traditions might they begin what role do traditional Arts play in a community here on Earth and what role could they play on Mars our lead story in this segment takes us to a Suburban home where young people are listening to stories from three very different Traditions African-American Native American and Mars Dan blesser files the Special Report folklore is the sayings and stories of of a people that are passed on from generation to generation they often tell the history and traditions of a race told in an entertaining way let's take a look at some stories from our three very special guests who do you think he met come hippity hopping down the road we have to be very good observers he which means this is what my grandfather told me we need to Main maintain the oral tradition and that is of sharing everyone laughed when we said we wanted to send a Rover this size to Mars stories are very powerful in uh telling us where we might go and giving us the visions of the future well you know back long long time ago back during the days when animals talked rabbits had little bitty short ears and long bushy tails the Grio the Storyteller in the African traditions we gather all the history and then in order to give the history in a way that would be remembered they would put it into a story or they would use instruments or they would use even a dance so all of the Arts were engaged in in telling the story and keeping the history so that people would remember there was a beautiful Pond and in this Pond over in what is now North Carolina lived STI s GOI little turtle storytelling in the Native American culture was a way of giving instructions it was how the people were taught through the stories you teach how to behave all of the all of the Cherokee stories that I've run across there is a moral to it and this is the Rover just like the Rover that's on Mars and she's named for a woman named Sojourner Truth who was an afroamerican woman freed slave slave who went around the South telling the truth about the evils of slavery so Sojourner Truth the Rover travels around Mars telling us the truth about Mars well Mars already has a lot of folklore going back thousands of years the Egyptians thought it was the star of death the uh Romans and the Greeks thought it was the God of War because it was red and uh so they named it Mars and Aries after their God of War so you like fish do you well I tell you how you can get all the fish you want you just go on down to the creek on any old cold cold night and you take you some bait and you uh put that bait on your tail and then you put your tail in the water I think it's really important for us to be able to share our stories because actually we are all here on the earth and we all share in it and so we're all part of it together and so what we want to do is to be able to share our stories together and know that we're one salugi the little turtle wanted to fly more than anything else in the world and MOS would tell him you silly Turtle you don't have any feathers you don't have any Wings how can you fly come on now stop being silly let's go play and they go in going to Mars and establishing a culture on Mars one of the first and foremost things to realize is to listen to those who have gone before and learn from them now after 3 months when the Lander's batteries died Sojourner couldn't talk to us anymore and so what she was programmed to do was after a week if she didn't hear from us and she couldn't hear from us cuz we couldn't hear from her she would start to go around the Lander saying hello and then she'd go a little farther and say hello the understanding of the place of Storytelling and the place of the the stories that Define how you are as a community are going to be very very important when we get an actual Colony on mars or a village on Mars because if 100 people are going to live together they have to tell stories to Define who they are so she flew around and grabbed hold of BR rabbit's tail and she pulled and she pulled and off came BR rabbit's tail and she th on out of there well don't you know ever since then from that day to this rabbits have had long floppy ears and short bushy tails and that's how the rabbit lost his tail and to this very day you go to a stream a lake or a pond and on a bright sunshiny day lined up on the rocks and the logs will be Turtles they'll have their little necks stretched out and their eyes will be shut they'll be dreaming about flying which is a lot safer if you're a turtle they go so Sojourner is up on Mars right now Frozen she's a r sickle but one of these days you're going to go to Mars one of you and pick up Sojourner and bring her home so I can have her here in my living room and that's the story so there you have it stories from our past present and future all telling us about who we are this is Dan bless are reporting for Windows on Mars what people and arts would you include on an international Mars team and what represents Earth culture that they might take with them one person who has thought and imagined how life might exist on Mars is well-known science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson what is the difference between science fact and science fiction to you well they have a relationship that is circular the science facts are what stimulate science fiction writers to do their work the science fiction writer the very first one said well we could easily Cobble together a human being from Parts in the graveyard and put the right electrical charge to it and this person would walk around again and that was Frankenstein by Mary shell um the first science fiction writer 19 years old at the time that she wrote that book talk a little bit about how you came up with the ideas that were the imagination part of your stories uh the things that were the people and how they acted and how they conducted themselves and so sure sure well it starts from the uh what I want for the stories and Beginning by okay very simple I want to walk around on Mars I want people there and then you from following from that they had to have a habitat they could live in you had to imagine what kind of people would go they would be people who would have multiple competencies so if you were going to be advising the chroniclers of the colony on Mars people who would be writing science fiction or writing on Mars what would you suggest for them well the first thing I'd suggest is knowing as much about science as they possibly can I think U the artists of the 21st century are going to be um heavily involved with the Sciences the two kind of melt together at the edges so there's a big utopian um aspect to all of our thinking about Mars right now when we think about Mars we're thinking about how can we make things better here so it's it's a a mirror to Earth or it's a lens through which we look at our our hopes for for what can happen here as well moving from science fiction to factual experiments and what we might take to Mars of Earth's performing arts and culture we go now to our reporter at a school in New York City where ethnic music Specialists Dr Craig Woodson JPL scientist Dr Claudia Alexander and an international group of children are exploring some possibilities Dr Craig Woodson has been been making musical instruments since he was 14 finding out about homemade musical instruments in other countries he decided to expand his work to concerts and children's programs like this one what kind of musical instruments would he make on Mars imagine we're going to Mars and can we take everything with us from Earth no if we were to go to Mars what sorts of things might we take with us from the earth well uh it probably we would take the I'd like to be able to take the music of the world so can you imagine an instrument that might have a tube and a cup and some string you might have to take string each one of these represent an instrument from different countries the Australian digy do would be similar to the horn what does that sound like elephant an elephant so you can put animal sounds digo from Australia uh the two- string instrument from from Africa called the [Music] gimbri and then the drum is uh very similar to an instrument from the Philippines Claudia how would you actually make music on Mars if you think about it the most difficult thing about making music in that environment is that you can't hear anything um it takes up sound carries through a relatively thick atmosphere so if there were no atmosphere my voice you know my my vocal cords would be moving just the same as usual but there's no medium to carry the sound to your ears now are you ready to make an instrument how about making this [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] one [Music] we know there's a lot of wind on Mars in spite of the fact that the atmosphere is thin it does move with wind and so if you had um stones and rocks arranged in a certain order as the wind passes through and if the rocks are made of the right material and can vibrate a little bit then you could have Sound by arranging the rocks in a certain order uh and have and have a sound that [Music] way when you set this up people are want wanting to bring their culture with them there's a saying in Africa uh called sanova which means you cannot move forward without remembering the past so stories and stories associated with those artifacts and it's not just musical instruments it could be cloth it could be food all kinds of things associated with any given culture would want to be represented in this mission [Applause] when we come back a window on dance and movement what effect will reduced gravity have on the way we move and dance on a planet like Mars all coming up on Windows on [Music] Mars welcome back in this final segment of Windows on Mars we'll consider the possibilities for dance and movement on Mars these dancers are Defying Gravity on Earth but what happens on Mars where you only weigh a third of what you weigh on Earth first let's go to a report on the gravity on Mars and who better to provide that than our very own meteorology man for Mars Mr David Walters thank you thank you Jeff for that buildup I really needed that now we know that when astronauts go into space and when we've landed on the moon where gravity is 1 six of the Earth's gravity it affects human movement like [Music] this now there's a new dance when we get to Mars where the gravity is 38 of that on Earth it'll be like the moon only less so now as you heard earlier my 155 lbs will be only about 60 lb on Mars I have as my guest today uh JPL scientist Dr Matt golbeck who can tell us a little bit more about what this means you're on Matt well gravity is important in everything we do it's the weight on you when you walk it affects everything you throw hold hit bat kick whatever it is and if there's less gravity then whatever you do kick or throw or bat will go much much further but if I jumped so if I jumped I'd be able to well you'd have to overcome whatever the mass of the space suit was and they're not light and on the moon in fact they couldn't walk at all they had to kind of lean forward and they kind of bunny hopped around that's the dance you were talking about that's that's the Bunny Hop and that's because they couldn't do anything else well if we pretend that we didn't have the space suit on and we were on Mars and we were bounding now you're talking now we need an Astrodome okay okay that that' be pretty cool I think it'd be very cool why did thank you very much doctor you're welcome back to you Jeff our first in this segment provides a look at a fascinating East Coast based dance group created by Elizabeth streb right here on Earth they are experimenting with movement that challenges Earth's gravity stb is a show and it's based on the issue of wild action enacted by human beings the body and it deals with time and space also so the kind of intersection of those three elements simple ideas it's based on the premise that I believe humans can fly I'm more interested in how do I create conditions of turbulence and then hurl us into them and watch us survive so it becomes an event and not a presentation the origin of my Inspirations are now coming from certainly the circus and certainly the rodeo and certainly boxing and certainly bodies in many disciplines that are willing to go off the edge of their comfort zone into what I see as new territory to find out more about the scientific and creative possibilities of moving in reduced gravity streb talked with Cornell University scientist Elena McCartney durational um Elena I'm really fascinated by the gravity on Mars and the nature of it as compared to the gravity on Earth it's one of my obsessive attachments and investigative tools yeah I had a great opportunity um as a researcher to fly um 11 times on the KC 135 which is NASA's microgravity aircraft the vomit Comet as it is known um and after you go over the top you're in zero gravity for approximately a half a minute there is no longer any up or down so you want to be very careful to tether yourself or have a hand hold you can grab now Martian gravity is about oneir gravity and when we go into Martian gravity on the KC 135 you float up into the air but maybe one heel will still be touching the ground you still maintain that little touch to the ground but if you jump up and down you know how when you're on a trampoline how light you feel and then if you get back down on the the ground and jump you feel like you weigh 900 lb right you'd have that lightness you'd come back down but with a light touch a lighter touch and that would give you some control over your next motion a frame of reference as you said if we got there to Mars and decided that everything we knew about communicating here had to go not not think about language in the way we had and start from scratch yeah might not even have to decide it might say Hey you over there you can't hear me so I'm going to make a motion that gets your attention and unless gravity you're more able to make those moves you could just imagine if language had meaning in that sense or I could do a flip and get your attention yes that would get my attention I think that it would be presumptuous of me to imagine I would know what I would do once I got to Mars but I think the first thing I would do which is kind of laying for to me learning is hang out MH I'd hang out on Mars and see how it feels Elena do you want to go to Mars I would love to go to Mars when you really get down to why a scientist would be interested in exploring space you you come down to that love of life that is shared by the scientist and the artist that there's that that excitement of being alive and experiencing something and we have different tools to do it with and a different use of our senses a different extension of our senses into space but I think on some level we can share that excitement and and that's where the Arts come in next how does dance and ritual preserve and show us our history and experience Karen redhaw has filed this report with one dance group doing just that Karen Dell as you may know 600 years ago the Aztec people had an advanced community in Central America complete with ceremonial pyramids ball courts their own calendar and knowledge of the Sun and planets in Los Angeles and several other communities of the Southwest many Mexican amans are breathing new life into the dance and Rital traditions of their Aztec ancestors these dances come from uh Mexico City and what we do is we maintain our tradition through different ceremonies that we have and these dances are taught within the ceremonies and after ceremonies you hear a lot of the older people a lot of the older dancers talk about dance tradition history music culture and through our old Stories We Tell of our children of who we are and where we're going to [Music] we lot which is the dove is a dance that we teach our children and there's Parts in the in the dance what we do is we drop our hands forward to teach the symbolism of dropping seeds and those seeds are then stomped by our feet to make fertile ground if I were to take something with me to start or to contribute to another planet one of the biggest things is Hope and the idea that man could survive anywhere if he has that fire with him and the fire can be anything that will let your your imagination and your thoughts just open and be born you know the good thing about taking dance to Mars is it doesn't require any equipment the human body is the creative instrument and you can not only recreate events of the past but you can create your own sense of the events that are taking place right there on Mars which takes us to our final story a group that is dancing out its Community story as well as experimenting with new themes like space travel we're watching a rehearsal of the Lula Washington Dance Theater a modern dance company that tours the US with uplifting programs for Youth and adults D D ah right yes good I started the dance as a u outlet for African-American choreographers uh to have a outlet to show their work and to give back to my community Chris turn your legs out we have a youth dance company which goes out into the community and performs they're being trained to use the Arts as a way of of continuing who they are as a way of saving self there's a whole bunch of us JPL engineer Linda robc joined Lula and her dancers to explain her role in the 1997 Mars Pathfinder mission on Mars Pathfinder I was in charge of a team that bolted everything together on the spacecraft you guys saw the video right of the way that thing all came in my team it was a team about this size we actually took all those individual pieces and bolted them together and taped them together and tied them together to make sure that they were all ready to [Music] go after watching NASA video of the 1997 Mars Pathfinder Mission Lula and her company created their version of a landing on Mars some of the stuff really jumped right out at me the red background for the red surface of Mars and then right at the beginning the the group is all together in in a circle Circle and they open up like the pedals of the Lander opening up the dancers that were in the center were sort of like the surveyor like going away and coming back and checking the scene out and coming back and then telling everybody else what to do and how to do it so because this gesture is very much like the antenna it had to stick up and then it had to send the information to Earth [Music] I think of science is very much trying to understand all the miracle of just existence and of living things and how things work but the Arts are celebrating it and both of them both the science and the Arts really need to feel the passion of the Mysteries of the universe in order to be able to E either investigate them or Express them Express [Music] them the possibilities are mindboggling and the only limitations are the imaginations of artists scientists and you and I and that's where we'll leave you in this special look through four fascinating windows on Mars we've hope you've enjoyed the journey as much as we've enjoyed taking you there and who knows maybe we'll see you on or Live From Mars in the year 2030 until then this is denell Morgan and Jeff Sanchez with David Walters Mars weather signing off and I'm Donna Shirley formerly of jpl's Mars exploration program as we learn more about Mars from current and future missions the answers to some of the questions we've considered here will become clearer and now it's up to all of us artists and scientists of all ages but especially you the scientists artists engineers and explorers of Tomorrow who could one day actually make that fantastic journey and so that's it thank you very much for [Music] watching this program was made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and its jet propulsion Laboratory for the Mars Millennium [Music] Project I would love to go to Mars but I will be too old that'd be a great thing to do you know be able to go up there and check out outer space I don't think they'd let me take my dog I'm afraid um but he's an awfully nice dog how would we change the soil or enhance the soil with what we know about how plants grow on Earth to try to make plant life Bloom on Mars if we went to another planet we would still create songs about the planet that we went to when you stand and you look up in the sky it's it's hard to believe that that this is the only place there is and I'm sure there's other places out there and I'd like to go and explore them well I'd want to wear the right clothes if I was picked to go to Mars I really believe everyone should wear black there this would be a neat thing to do to actually go there and and look around I would take the thoughts of my friends because those are my those are my touchstones if we were allowed to take maybe one or two animals or birds or or like I said seeds that will be the beginning for us people were to go to Mars and step there what what what a galvanizing moment yeah that would bring the world together the solar system really excites me and anything that shows me um the processes in the universe excites me and things on earth do as well it' be pretty interesting I'm into traveling so I mean if it's possible if the ship were leaving today I'd be on [Music] it