Deep Dive: Discussing the Juno mission with a NASA/JPL engineer (Tomorrow Daily 289)
Deep Dive: Discussing the Juno mission with a NASA/JPL engineer (Tomorrow Daily 289)
40:55

Deep Dive: Discussing the Juno mission with a NASA/JPL engineer (Tomorrow Daily 289)

Culture
On today's show we deep dive into drones catching other drones with nets. Projection mapping your christmas ornaments and augmented reality magazines. We also talk to the very lovely engineer From NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Emily Manner Chapman, about the Juno Mission, and take a look at what's going on over at NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. I got to take a field trip, it was the best ever! It's Star Wars day! [MUSIC] Greetings citizens of the internet. Welcome to Tomorrow Daily's best geek talk show in the whole universe. I know, it's Star Wars da, this is our. That was my kermit.gif. That was me doing Kermit. [CROSSTALK] I'm like Oscar winner Sally fields. Oh, you guys like me, you really like me. Oh it's Star Wars day. Yeah. Guys, it's finally here. We did it, we made it through. We lived. I for one, avoided spoilers successfully. I haven't seen any. I have not seen the movie yet. You saw it. I did, I got a chance to go to the world premiere here in Los Angeles, which was an amazing moment in my lifetime. And you're fired, get out. [LAUGH] And I will lord it over you for Forever. I hate you for that. Producer Logan and I are gonna see it tonight. And we're all pretty excited. Okay, today's show is full of delights, fun. We're gonna take a closer look at this drone stuff. I mean I really just can't wait. So, let's talk about that. Let's talk about it. [MUSIC] [LAUGH] Honestly, if I were laying on the couch eating some Cheetos and watching some TV. And I was thinking to myself. If I was a Japanese police officer and I was thinking to myself, gosh I'd really love to be able to capture drones. How do I do that? Not the drone defender where it Interrupt the segment. No. Too easy. Too easy. Definitely not shooting them out of the sky, too dangerous? Too dangerous. So, obviously, the epiphany, the light bulb moment came, and it was? You know what, guys? Let's just get a bigger drone. Well, you know what? You know what? As it is Star Wars day. We don't talk about the prequels a lot. But one thing I learned from Episode 1, there's always a bigger fish. That's true. [LAUGH] We saw that with the Gungan city. This is the grown version of there's always a. A Escape from Gungan city. This is the giant drone grabbing the smallest drone. So a little background on this, if you guys missed earlier this week's show, This is a Japanese invention of course. Because where else would you have this? It's the greatest thing ever. And this is Japanese police testing our a drone that is gonna capture rogue drones. Look at it go! It's like oh I'm gonna get you! Gonna get you drone! And then he goes and this drone goes and it literally just snaps it right out of the sky. It's amazing. Okay. Here's the missed opportunity here. Okay. This needs to be a sport. 100% This needs to be televised Yeah. And this needs to be drone capture 2000. I wanna see something very similar to, you know those shows on, like, Animal Planet where they follow the ASPCA? I wanna see only drone catchers. Yeah! I just want a whole show called Drone Catchers and they go around catching drones. And there needs to be a guy who's like There he goes, there he goes. Go, go, go, go, go, go. That would be amazing. [LAUGH] I would literally pay money for an app channel that is only that. Look at this drone, It's like writhing around. How mean [UNKNOWN]. It looks like a tuna [UNKNOWN] in a net. It's very sad. [LAUGH] But okay, so to be fair, they actually really do need something to help capture- Rogue drones. These drones because Because earlier this year in April, a drone of radioactive material landed on the Prime Ministers house. And so that is bad. Ouch. We should not, that shouldn't be happening. But you know what is the anti radioactive material Annette. Annette. [LAUGH] True, no radiation involved there. Yeah. Not even a little bit. Is this amazing, is this brilliant or is it too simple to be workable? I think it's brilliant because it's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. And also I'd like to discuss other things that I would like drones. You capture with nets, or stuff. Yeah how many birds are they going to inadvertently kill? Yeah we talk about capture birds in the sky. Also, we also need to discuss. I would like those drones to go out and capture people on hoverboards. [LAUGH] This will like stop them. Yeah. This stops people on hoverboards like just throw a net over them, a weighted net. [CROSSTALK] Capture them. What about the guy who's gonna be like getting a drone, putting a net on it and just flying it over major league baseball parks trying to catch home runs. Trying to catch home, no it. I can see it Catch them out of the sky. In At the field in San Francisco, they're all gonna be waiting inside, in the bay. They're all gonna be sitting there with drones, with little nets. And they're gonna be like oh man, I'm gonna catch that last home run ball. It's gonna be amazing. I want this to be a sport. You don't even have to catch other drones. Just use drones to catch stuff. At some point, I would like to see a future in which there are drone police. And the drone police have little lights on them, and they chase after you, and then they shoot a bolo. Yeah, there you go. Net. And they catch you. Like with a bolo net. Just like. I mean it would be. The most dangerous. The most dangerous game. Played with drones. Let me ask you this question, Ashley. Okay. Who polices the drone police? Who watches the drones who watches the drones? It'll be a series of larger drones with even larger nets. And then at some point, it's literally just going to be a giant building with Withheld propellers on it, and realize, oh, you get mashed, you can crush everything. This is a slippery slope. It really is. We got, Christmas time is here. That is true. I love Christmas time. I love, one of the things my wife and I did just a few days ago, is we drove around and we looked at all the Christmas lights in the neighborhood. (- That's always fun. ) You go to those neighborhoods that like blow it out big, you know? And they just go crazy with Christmas lights. (- And there's traffic) I love that. There's traffic, and they tell you tune to a specific radio station, and they have all the synchronized music with the lights and everything, it's crazy. That's one of my favorite things about the holiday. (- Pretty great.) Is how crazy people go. Well, this story that we did a few days ago about projection mapping onto a Christmas tree. I like it. Creepy lights. You liked it? I'm a lazy decorator. So let's be clear here. We put up our Christmas lights maybe two weeks ago and we still have not put like a single ornament on the tree. Really? And my cousins like, when are we gonna decorate this tree? I'm like, I don't know I think it's looks nice with just the lights on it, like. [LAUGH] Do we need to? Do we need to? I have no idea that, I feel like you would be the person that would go nothing [UNKNOWN]. Usually, I get really into it. But just this year, I was like, like I know I saw this and I was like. Oh why don't I have this? This is amazing. Oh Ashley this is not this not less work. This is I gotta have it. more work. I know see I 'd have to create my own mapping software. Exactly. Like this is the whole thing. These guys 3D modeled the tree. This is not the lazy person's version. Listen if I kick start the thing with the iPhone that lets you make a 3D model of something. Yeah. Okay like there's step one so I kick started that I've got that going. Huh. And then I'll just call up Ambos, which is the design studio that did this. They're a Brazilian design studio. I would call them up and be like, hey. Hey, guys. [LAUGH] Amigos, cuz they're in Brazil. Light up my tree, somehow. [UNKNOWN] amigos, I would love to borrow your mapping software, because I already have my 3D model, but I just I really need some help here coz I don't know how to program anything and then they'll be like sure you guys are the best. And actually you're so much fun and we'd love decorate your tree this holidays. That is one version how it might go. That is version or they could They'd just be like, no. [LAUGH] [LAUGH] They'd be like, who is this? Who is this? Crank caller! Then they'd hang up- Go away. Yeah. Click. I think it looks pretty cool. It's gorgeous. And from that perspective, it's a cool idea of just, like, throwing Imagery onto a tree. It maps perfect to the tree. So, there's no spillover. I mean, anybody could do it. You get a TV projector and just shoot it at the tree but the fact that it's like very precise. Very specific to that tree. They also have. You can see ornaments on the tree. So, they do have ornaments on a tree and they just scan them and basically like write ornaments They can change in colors of them. And they're all in different texture. So they look different. It kinda like what they do at Disneyland on the mansion. When they have a face and they project the talking of the face onto it. Okay, you just gave me a great idea. A honomancer in a theme, Christmas trees. Now you're in. Where I can have the face in singing. Oh. Christmas carols. Terrifying Christmas tree. Inside the ornament. How come all the children cry at Ashley's house. At Christmas time. Well I don't have any kids, I don't care. While the children that come over. When the children come over it's like a haunted house. You're welcome. We terrify you and delight you at the same time. Nightmare Before Christmas at Ashley's house. That's right. It's always The Nightmare Before Christmas at Ashley's house. [LAUGH] All right. The very last thing which I found on Kickstarter, we reported on this on CNET, and I was like that sounds really weird, and then I went and looked at the video and tried out the demos. Very strange. It still looks very weird. Funn Magazine with two n's, Funn Magazine. So this is a crowdfunding effort, a campaign where they wanna make an augmented reality magazine. So this is the idea. Down here on the video you didn't see it. They want you to be able to use your phone, they have an app that you would then, once you hover over a page in the magazine all the stuff would come to life, pop up and then you'd be able to interact with it. Looks cool in theory, I mean the idea of stuff jumping off your magazine. So You can have the magazine on the phone or you could have the magazine in a paper version. Right. And in either way, if you look through it with using their app on your device, it'll add- You can see the augmented reality. Studio, it'll add audio, a lot of cool stuff. Cool in theory, except who wants to read a magazine through another device? Yeah. Here's what it's gonna look like. This is what I've decided. You're going to be like this. You'll be like okay I'm looking at this magazine, it looks amazing. Wait a minute, how do I turn the page? Yeah, you use your nose. Use your nose. There you go, there you go. But it's with actual paper. So you're doing. Or your nose. You gotta change the page somehow. I don't know how you're going to do that. See I'm very very very Excited for augmented reality. I am, too. Hollow lens. I have tried the hollow lens. Yeah, it is not quite there yet, but we're very close. I'm very excited. But this is why people aren't gonna trust it, cuz of these kinds of gimmicky things that make it look silly. Make it look silly. I was actually going to say this sort of reminds me, if we see the very beginning of this video again, With all the little spinning arrows and stuff, it makes me laugh, this right here. It reminds me of a Geocities web page, where it's a little busy. And there's a lot of animated GIFs happening. And music on every page, autoplay music and stuff. I can just see this getting really out of control. This is cool, it's not, not cool. Right. It's just a 1.0 version and it Right. There's no person that's gonna wanna look through a thing to look at another thing. Right. Not for an extended period of time. I love the idea of the little AR cards, that could be awesome. Right. But if I want video in my magazine, just put it on the first device. Just make the magazine video on the device. Right. Interactive. Right, but I think people really like this idea of oh, it's alive. Until I have goggles or something I'm wearing anywhere, if you're glasses, the glasses you're already wearing right now, if they could do that, then now it's comfortable and it's integrated into life and it makes sense. Right. But this whole, like, double thing, I just don't know. I think we feel the same way as Colin who wrote in using our hashtag HeyTD this week and he said it be a pain to carry around this magazine and hold up your iPhone or iPad at the same time to the magazine in order to experience it. We agree. Yeah. 100% We agree. So that is it for our headlines. Yes. That's it. We're I would say, it's $25 for one issue of Fun Magazine. One issue. Yeah. So I would say maybe wait and watch because I have a feeling these guys like as they get better at making the magazine, it could be really cool. And maybe if Hollow Lens launches, then you are able to actually flip through the physical magazine with Hollow Lens. That's something I'm interested in. Yeah. That's what I want to see. Something that's hands free. Anyway, we're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back we're gonna have the very delightful NASA JPL engineer Emily Manning. What is better on Star Wars day than to have someone who actually works on getting people to space and things to space? And actually has a spacecraft out in space. Pretty rad. Currently right now, heading to Jupiter, which is amazing. So yeah, Emily Manor Chapman when we come back. Don't click away. It's Tomorrow Daily. [MUSIC] Welcome back to the show. We are very excited about our guest today. She is a member of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Yeah, she's also an engineer on the Juno Mission. Emily [UNKNOWN], thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Yeah. We're super jazzed. We're big NASA fans. So having someone who works for NASA, is a big treat for us. And we're excited to hear about all the things that you do. Yes. With that being said, we should probably help. Anybody at home who is not familiar with the Juno Mission hear a little bit about what you guys specifically do on that team. Sure, so the Juno Mission is a mission to Jupiter. The space craft is on its way right now. We launched back in 2011. And we're gonna go into orbit on July 4th, 2016. So we're just about 200 days away. From going to orbit. So it's a really exciting time, we're getting ready, we're doing all our final preparations for when we get to Jupiter and start taking all of our prime mission science data. What is that? What are the final preparations? what do you do in the meantime? So like this week and last week we were going through a test. We put together all these processes and say okay, this is how we're going to plan. This is when we need to have our plan ready so we can send it to the space craft. And so we go through those Those steps and practice them out. And be like does everyone know when your file's due? Who do you give it to? What does that team do with it? And so it's all these things that we go through to make sure we know how to do it. So when we get there we don't have to kind of work out these little details because we've done it all in advance. It's like running drills for the big game. Yeah. It's like, that's really cool. But a really nerdy big game. I love the idea that you guys launch something, it's gonna be in space for a while, so in the meantime let's all just like practice. Practice. Practice the moment. Yeah, it's really cool. It's like getting the baby bag together. You're like here's how it's gonna go. Like once we get into orbit we're gonna we gotta get in the car and this is the route we're taking. A lot of breathing. You gotta breathe. Everyone's gotta breathe properly like I love this. So how long has the Juneau project been in development? Like the Juneau mission been in development? I'm not sure but it was it would have started at least several years before the launch date. It usually takes When you come up with a mission, someone initially will come up with an idea. For Juno, one of the mission at NASA calls their New Frontiers Class, so Juno would have been proposed to a proposal that NASA put out and said For our next New Frontiers mission, we want ideas and so Juno was proposed. We'd have gone through the whole competition process before NASA selected it. Then once it was selected then we went into the final design- Design. and field process. Gotcha. So that would have taken several years. Before than we'd lead up to our launch date. I'm curious, here we are on Star Wars day, [CROSSTALK] you're wearing a Star Wars shirt. [LAUGH] I would love to know, what's the relationship between science fiction and science fact? At NASA. Are there people like yourself that are into the science fiction, are you inspired? Is that what got you to want to be at NASA? Definitely, there is so many people who love Star Wars or other sci-fi properties at NASA and I think for many of us it was an inspiration. For myself, I'd always been interested in space exploration as a kid but it was really in high school School, where I got into Star Wars, and also about the time I started thinking about going into engineering. So they all kinda came together when I was in high school for me, and Star Wars was definitely an inspiration to wanna go into engineering. So what were the steps if someone's watching this right now, and they're young, and they're like, I wanna- Another young lady out there who's like, I also love Star Wars, and I would also like to send craft into space What are the steps? What was your path to get there? So my path is that I kind of got interested in high school. So that was about the same time I started looking for colleges. So I started looking into engineering programs. I decided I wanted to be an aerospace engineer, specifically. So I started looking at who had an aerospace engineering program. Were might I wanna go to school. And if I start looking at those things. If you're younger as I was, are you interested in engineering. I definitely look for summer camp or other, maybe groups at your school, we'll have a robotics team, a robotics competition and other things. There is a lot of school resources out there that you could find. And I say, just go out and start trying stuff. I feel like getting out there, getting your hands on it, trying different things, is really the way you find your passion. So you might think engineering's cool. But then it's like well, what kind of engineering would I do? And then as you go out and you try those different things, I think you'll find which one it is that you like. You get there and you're like, oh wait a minute. Maybe I don't like this kind of engineering. Yeah. Maybe I'll like this other kind of engineering that I didn't even know existed, until I tried this other kind. So Going to college and getting a degree in theatre, not I shouldn't have done that? To work at NASA? If the goal. Listen you're here interviewing an engineer. It's like I'm pretty close. I'm pretty close. This is about as close as we're gonna get to being an engineer is just actually sitting next to one. Yeah. I'll take it. It's about as good as it's gonna get. For us. [LAUGH] So I'm curious as to. So Juno's mission, when it finally gets into orbit on Jupiter, what exactly are the goals of the Juno mission? So what we do is study kind of the origins of Jupiter, it's interior structure, what it's made of, the environment around Jupiter. And by studying all these things, it'll help us learn more about our solar system's beginning, how our solar system formed. Kind of really the key piece to understanding how our solar system came out. Also keeps us safe. Gravity, pulls all those dangerous asteroids came to be. Where does Jupiter sit as far as our knowledge base? Is it a planet we know a lot about? Know a little bit about? I would say We know a pretty good amount. We've had previous missions that have gone to Jupiter or flown past it during the Pioneer mission. Back in the 70s, Galileo was the first mission to orbit Jupiter. And now were sending Juno. Juno' s gonna go closer to Jupiter in it's orbit than other missions have. We will also be the first mission to really explore Jupiter's poles. Hm. So we're definitely gonna explore some new regions. And we've never been into the Jupiter system. Now how do you deal with something like the intense gravity pull of Jupiter? Because obviously to put something in orbit [LAUGH] in Jupiter is kind of, especially coming from here, it's moving pretty fast. And how do you guys handle, or how do you guys work out, how to keep it from getting sucked into Jupiter, and being destroyed really? We have really good models you know from the missions we've sent. Ground based observations so we understand I think you know how to orbit Jupiter pretty well just from previous missions. And I'm always amazed by the things that our trajectory designers at JPL can come up with. They come up with the most amazing Flight path, it just, it blows my mind because- They have styrofoam balls and they paint them red, and a little. Maybe that's how we can get in. We can paint the little styrofoam models. Because we have artsy degrees. [LAUGH] There you go, yeah. I think that's a, they need some more creativity in there, we'll be like the little kindergarteners finger painting down the stairs. That will be us. So Fourth of July comes, big day. It finally arrive at Jupiter. What are you doing? What is your job on that day? My job will probably just be waiting. [LAUGH] And being nervous. And being nervous. But we have a whole team who's focused right now on getting us ready for that big maneuver because we have to slow We're going by, we're streaking out to Jupiter, we gotta make sure we get into orbit and let it capture. So we have the burn that we're gonna do. We have a whole team that's working on it right now. And going through the timeline, probably minute by minute, is this thing happening here and here and here. When the thing is about Space travel is that everything is pretty far away, so we don't have instantaneous communication. So, on the Day of JOY, it's gonna take us about 48 minutes to send a signal between Earth and our spacecraft. Wow. Oh, wow. So what that means is we need to build everything in advance. Everything we want the spacecraft to do, we have to tell it in advance. We're gonna send it up there, we're gonna test it a lot here on the ground to make sure it's what we want the spacecraft to do, and we'll send it up to the spacecraft and say, at this time, execute this plan. Do these things, right, okay. And we'll be waiting here, waiting for this thing to come back. [UNKNOWN] And see what happens. Wow. And that's sort of somewhat of what happened with curiosity, right. You guys had that time frame where it was like we don't really know if it's successful and we're waiting to hear back, but Fingers crossed. [LAUGH] Yes. There was sorta that window of time where nobody really knew if it was successful or not. It was like, we just have to trust what we've done is correct, and everything is gonna work out properly. Exactly. Wow, 48 minutes, that is a For a long time. Now what's the difference between, so Jupiter obviously farther out in space, longer time period to wait, how what is it for Mars again? Is it 20, was it 20 minutes? Something or less than that, so Jupiter can be anywhere Orbit from 30 minutes to an hour for us. Wow. So, sitting right in the middle of that window when theorize. Wow. And then how long does JUNO stay orbiting Jupiter? How long will you be able to get data? So, we have about 37 orbits over there. The first couple orbits, we'll take some science data but they're really focused on getting us into the right geometry that we want for science. So then we'll have about 33 orbits once we're in that right geometry that'll be really dedicated where we're going to get most of our science orbit Jupiter. And that goes until February, 2018. Oh wow, cool. About a year and a half or so. [CROSSTALK] One of the coolest things about NASA is how open you are and transparent and there's so many ways For people to get, watch what you're doing. To learn and get. To learn about what you're doing. And information. That's true. Will you be live streaming that day? Do you know about those plans? I don't know what those plans are, but I'm sure our outreach and public relations team are working on something for it. It's so cool. It's amazing. Okay, so You guys have Juno going on. I know that also another project that's being worked on is Europa, like that's the project that's moving forward. There's just so much happening in the space program right now. Compared to let's say for us in the public's eye 10 years ago. Now I know about five to six different space missions that are either planned or something that's in progress. And where do you guys go after Juneau, after Europa? What's the next thing that everyone kind of has there eye on, that's like, oh, man, this would be just, what's your pinnacle? What's your dream project? That's a trick question because there's So many great ideas out there. There is all ease, teams at JPL or other sensors at universities coming up with really awesome ideas for places that we could go. We have Europa, we have Mars 2020, NASA's laying out this plan on how they eventually wanna get humans to Mars. So the planetary side personally, working more on the planetary science. I'd like to see something to Venus, I think would be a really cool mission to work. Kinda like Earth's twin, but with this runaway greenhouse effect. I think it would be really cool to send another mission there. It's been a while since we've sent a mission to Venus. Or I think even going Out past Saturn to Uranus and Neptune. Doing a dedicated mission out there I think would be really fun. Wow. Long time though. Yeah. Long time getting anything out there. So far. All right, so couple of fact questions as a fellow Star Wars fan, light side or dark side? Light side. All right, you are wearing a Rebel Alliance t-shirt. Favorite Star Wars character? Out of all of the movies. All of the movies. And I know you haven't seen Force Awakens yet. The only person at this desk who's seen it is this guy. And I can't ask him who his favorite Favorite character. I can tell you, I can tell you guys everything right not. No, no. I don't wanna know. All right, I'm not gonna say anything. I will bludgeon you with Gangham if you let out a spoiler on today's show. [LAUGH] Favorite Star Wars character. Another host killed today, sorry. Other internet posts. It's always such a hard pick for me, maybe R2? R2, yeah I think that's a perfect choice for someone that [INAUDIBLE] I think he's kind of like a little satellite beam sent out getting data. I love that. I've heard a theory that Star Wars is actually the story of R2-D2. Well Hard to argue with that. R2D2 over the, over six films. He's the only character that always knows more than everybody else. [LAUGH] Yeah and also often saves the day. [CROSSTALK] Like he's the actual hero of Star Wars which I always found a very interesting theory. Yeah. Were you a Star Wars over Star Trek or do you like both equally? I'm definitely Star Wars over Star Trek. Even though I was really into space exploration as a kid I wasn't into sci-fi. I don't know why I wondered maybe it was I didn't have someone there to be like hey, check out all these cool sci-fi things. Fair enough. And so I didn't really, I knew what Star Trek was but I really wasn't introduced to it probably until I met my husband because he's probably maybe more of a Star Trek fan then a Star Wars fan. So I've watched several episodes and movies with him since then. So you're a mixed marriage is what you're saying. We are. They are. [LAUGH] I'm definitely bringing him around to the Star Wars. That's good. Bring him around. You bring him around abound. All right, well thank you so much for coming on the show. This was amazing, super informative. We really enjoyed it and feel free to come back any time. Great. We'll have you back after Juno goes into orbit. That sounds fantastic. Give us all the nitty gritty on all the terror moment that you experience while waiting in that window of time. That 48 minutes of absolute like, Oh man, like I just want to hold onto my seat and really cross my fingers on this and hope everything went right. Do you have a way people can keep up with you and this project? Yeah? Yeah, so NASA has social media presence, and we have a JUNO Facebook page, a Twitter feed, so definitely you can go out and find anything. Want to be able to follow you on whatever platform that you'd like. We have a couple different social media sites. Wonderful. And if you guys wanna head over, obviously, nasa.gov, you'll literally learn everything you could ever want to know about everything NASA's going on right now, which is pretty cool. All right. Emily Manor-Chapman, thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah it was great, thank you. For coming on our show and speaking of NASA, I'm going to toss this amazing video that producer Logan cut together. I get to take a little field trip to- Oh, I'm so jealous. Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas and check out some amazing things going on there. So take a look at this and we'll be back after that with Into It. [MUSIC] Manned missions to Mars is the new hotness for anybody who's interested in space exploration. Recently I was invited to Johnson Space center in Houston Texas to learn more about what NASA's got cooking for current and future astronauts. Field trip. The trip was coordinated by 20th Century Fox, which is promoting the December 22nd digital HD release of The Martian, the movie starring Matt Damon as an astronaut forced to survive alone on the red planet after being left behind. Our first stop on the trip was a Q and A where we heard from various NASA employees including Doctor Jim Greene, NASA's director of planetary science division on how a manned trip to Mars by the 2030s could unfold. After the Q&A we headed over to a huge hanger where many different kinds of pets and projects were in progress. I got to meet the first and second generation of robonauts, the robot astronauts designed to help astronauts by completing more menial tasks in space. I also got to listen to Orion Crew module landing. [INAUDIBLE] And recovery system. Functional area manager Stuart McClung, explained how his team is working on hardware that will help land safely and be able to be recovered without damage, for a return trip home for our astronauts that head to Mars. Unlike the movie, NASA does not want to leave any astronaut behind. I also spent a few minutes talking to NASA astronaut Drew Feustel, and asked him if there was anything He wasn't quite prepared for during his first space flight When you see the perspective of Earth from space and realize that it's just a blue marble and there's nothing nearby, there's nothing else out there, that is overwhelming and humbling and makes you realize how insignificant our lives are.. In the scope of the Universe itself. Once the interview ended I got to do what was my personal highlight of the trip. Ride inside a real rover. It had independently operating wheels and it carted handfuls of us around a rock yard with a manmade hill in it. Seriously there is nothing I could say that would enhance this bit of the trip, so just check this out. [SOUND] [MUSIC] I know. Right? It was so awesome. I learned a lot about what NASA has in store for its future missions. And I definitely want to go back to the Johnson Space Center someday to see more. I'm really, really excited to see what the space program will accomplish in the next 20 years or so. So, let's go to Mars. [MUSIC] [LAUGH] What a great ad. [LAUGH] What a great commercial. It's amazing. [LAUGH] Welcome back to the show, everybody. We're here- Seamless. Seamless, so, before the break, you guys saw my field trip to Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. Super cool. Really fun, Riding in that rover was an amazing experience. You know I've ridden in the rover too. Have you? Yeah. When we were doing Always On here on Cnet I got a chance to go and ride around in the rover. Pretty cool. Pretty amazing. So thank you so much to NASA and also to 20th century Fox. As I mentioned in the video you can pick up The Martian on digital HD next week which is- [CROSSTALK] Highly recommended by me. Good movie. Highly recommended. One of my top movies of the year, which we'll be discussing next week. But I won't tell you what position it ended up in. All right, guys, it's Thursday, which means we tell you what we're into. So this is Into It. You know what- [CROSSTALK] It's Star Wars day! [LAUGH] You can't even keep it in your mouth. It's Star Wars day, what else are we gonna be into today? There's nothing else. To the alpha and the omega, Star Wars is what we're into so So much this week I'm gonna start crying. No, we're super good but- I predict you will cry in the movie. I already know I'm going to. Listen, in the trailer where she's like, the Force is calling you, I literally get choked up. I'm like, I know Carrie Fisher I know it is calling to me. You're right, it is calling to me. So we were talking about some of the things that could like. Keep us energized as we make our way towards screening time. But we don't wanna just gush about Star Wars. We wanna actually bring you something slightly informative. So I brought some fun facts about Star Wars courtesy of, I should say, thank you, Masville.com It was a really great little list of I think it's 30 things. And I was really enjoying reading it the other day. And I was like we should talk about these on the show. All right, so hit me with some facts that I might not know about Star Wars, thought I think I know a lot. Well, I don't know about that. Do you know that Yoda was almost played by a monkey? That doesn't sound right.>> That is actually true. So apparently according to the book, The Making of Star Wars, George Lucas originally planned for Yoda to be a monkey with a mask and a cane. [LAUGH] Why is that monkey constantly clawing the mask off his face? And Please stop the, please keep the mask. And tearing the faces off our actors. You want to know what happened to Mark Hammel, it was not actually a car accident. It was a monkey- It was a monkey mauling. It was very upsetting. It was bad. Yeah. That would have been a huge mistake in my opinion. Well, no, I mean Frank Oz, that would have Maybe, very, very strange. Right, I mean, I guess a puppet seems like a risky, you know, you're making this very serious movie. That's true. A puppet seems like a risky choice, too, at the time. That is true. But Henson, I mean, knew, like, all of those puppeteers, and especially in the 70s and 80s, like, I mean, were so Passionate about what they do. Sure. And even now, I mean there's so many good puppeteers. Now you can't imagine any other way. No you can't. I mean, yeah, CG Yoda, fine. The monkey way. [LAUGH] Fighting CG but oh, a monkey that would've been very strange. Oh boy. Okay, here's another one. Banana you give me. Oh boy.>> Sorry, was that? I shouldn't? Nope, never you know what I'll accept it today. [LAUGH] Return of the Jedi almost ended by Luke removing A dying Darth Vader's helmet, putting it on and saying, now I am Vader. And that would have been. Wow. That's a different ending. That would have been Return of the Jedi, a way to end the trilogy on a real downer. Now I am Vader. Yeah, maybe George Lucas was just feeling really said that week. Like he was bumming out about something. And he was just like you know what? Everyone was deserves a downer ending. And if he's just like this is how it;s gonna be. [LAUGH] Luke puts on the Vader think and just gives the Stone Cold Salute and he's just like stop making me make these movies. And then John Cena plays and that's that. [LAUGH] Yeah he's like I hate everything. Yeah and George Lucas walks on and goes [SOUND] This is what you deserve everyone. No I'm glad it didn't end that way. Although I think a lot of people would've thought that was way cooler than the Ewoks, cuz the Ewoks Not from me, but from others, get a lot of heat. Well, I think I would have preferred, if I'm being honest, I think would have [UNKNOWN] Return of the Jedi cuz it's not one of my favorite Star Wars movies. Oh, it was always my favorite when I was a kid. Really? That's the one I always watched. I can quote- I wanted them to go to Kashyyyk. Yeah. So I wanted them to do a You wanted [CROSSTALK] Sort of like Wookies. That would have been, because it's like Chewbacca and like all this other and instead like we got the Star Wars Christmas Special which was super weird. And then we didn't get to see the Wookie planet. We only saw it for 10 minutes? Yeah. In Attack of the, was it Attack of the Clones? Yeah. Attack of the Clones, I think. Or beginning of Revenge? No I think it's [CROSSTALK] Attack of Clones. I think it's Attack of the Clones. I think. [CROSSTALK] Yeah, haven't watched them in awhile. I'll tell you how many times I watched Return of the Jedi as a kid. The interpreter for Jabba that approaches Luke when he comes in. Mm-Hm. He goes, Da wata wanga. Da Jabba wanga. [FOREIGN] Wow. Yeah. Alien language memorized by this kid when he was six. That is really impressive. Yeah. [LAUGH] I am super impressed. You know I do a great Jupri McCool impression where I just play the piano and kind of nod. That's my Droopy McCool. Apparently, Yoda has no determined species. Did you know that? I thought that changed, though. I thought that changed with the prequels, because didn't they have the other Yoda. Supposedly. The other Yoda character? [CROSSTALK] species has never been officially named, supposedly. But Again, this is, I don't know, maybe you're right. That's what I heard. This is about a year ago. So, I brought in some stuff from Guinness, actually the Guinness Book of World Records did a post today about Star Wars specific world records. Okay. Which is pretty impressive. Obviously, The obvious ones are most money ever made by franchise, most money ever in licensing ever made by a franchise -. Biggest fan ever, Jeff Canada. I mean there's a picture of me in the Guinness Book of World Records going [LAUGH] I wish. I wish that was true. But some of the things you might know is just a few weeks ago, or a couple months ago, I guess it was right before May 4th. Star Wars day. So somebody set the new world record of stacking cups. As one does. And they are Star Wars cups. They are Star Wars the Force Awakens cups. Oh boy. Check this out, 40 Yeah. I think it was 47,000 or 42,000. [CROSSTALK] Did Disney provide these cups? I want to know. I'm sure they had to get them from somebody. But I mean did they buy them or did Disney just give them for free and was like, build a pyramid. [CROSSTALK] Make the largest [CROSSTALK] If you build it come they will. [LAUGH] Look at how rad this is though. [CROSSTALK] That is pretty amazing. One poorly time dropping of a cup and it all goes. My favorite thing is, they don't show this in the video. I don't like this at all. I would want to go running at full speed. Run at it. and just dive into it See what happens. That would the most amazing thing. Can we just ask it if anybody does anything like this? If you wanted to To destroy it afterwards and do it slo-mo video. That, we will do it, 100%. That would be our dream come true. 50 layers of cups. 42,900 cups. That's a pyramid I'd like to be buried in. Look at that. Put my tomb- That's a cool record. Can you make a tomb inside there in which I could then be buried in a Star Wars shaped millennium [UNKNOWN] sarcophagus. It's her final wishes. They should be respected. It's my last wishes, please. Please. Man, that's pretty amazing. Yeah. Make sure you go check out that The Guinness Book of World Records. Yeah. There's a lot of other cool stuff in there. Lot of block office records. Obviously, a lot of money-making records but there's also Yeah, there's also the guy who has the world's largest collection of Star Wars stuff. It's probably a little out of date now that there's so much more to get. Right. But he has 90,000 individual items. I mean I have like 85,000 Nightmare Before Christmas items, but I gotta draw the line somewhere. Well, and now your new projection mapped tree will be your ninety hundred and first. [CROSSTALK] I'll have 5,000 tiny little ornaments. [LAUGH] All singing at you. Not unlike the head meatballs in Nightmare on Elm Street. On the pizza. All right- It's a very terrifying moment. I just think it's cool that you know- You'll never repeat that again. [LAUGH] Today is a very special day. It's not every day that this happens. No, I mean it will at some point starting next year it will be like once a year this will happen. Right. But I think this is the most special time because it's such a different scenario. I mean, this is not a George Lucas Star Wars, this is a Disney Star Wars now. This is. A Kathleen Kennedy Star Wars, a JJ Abram Star Wars. What does that look like? What is it? How are they gonna go forward? How are they gonna do the spinoff anthology films? You know, what are we gonna see in Rogue 1? What are we gonna see Am I gonna finally get my Bubba Fett film? Am I gonna finally get a young Han Solo film in the underground of [UNKNOWN], because I would like to see that movie? Yeah, it's an amazing time. It means something. These movies mean something. I think that's what all this points to, these facts and the guiness stuff. It's such a cultural It really it means something. It certainly means something to me and I think it means something to a lot of people and the fact that we are all as a culture sort of coming together on this day. Experiencing it all together. And we're all going to see this movie and What a feel. Stay away from spoilers. Yeah. Don't- If you haven't seen it yet. You won't get any here. I promise. As I said, I will actually, physically harm Jeff [CROSSTALK]. There are things you can spoil in this movie, so just avoid it, and you'll be happier. Be a good human and don't spoil the movie for anybody. All right, guys, speaking of good humans, you guys are amazing in sending in your phonetography. Here's our phonetographer for the day. [MUSIC] Our photographer for the day today is Justin, and you are going to be obsessed with this photo. I'm sure I will. Justin wrote in and sent us this. Look at that. He says hey CNET, I was watching a short clip of yours tonight and saw that people can submit photos for use on your show. This one was taken of a snow leopard while wandering through the Micke Grove Zoo near Lodee, California. Lodi. Lodi. Is it Lodi? Mm-hm. Okay. Near Lodi. Where else can the public go for an urban safari than their local zoo, and places like this need a lot of support. Supporting a local zoo can be as simple as showing interest and just going at least once a year. I believe this one was taken with my iPhone 6 Plus and then edited in Lightroom to combine pictures for the HCR effect. Wow. Best wishes for the holiday season. Suggestion. It's a beautiful animal. Gorgeous animal. And listen, if you're gonna shoot a big animal, make sure you do it with a camera. That's what I always say. [LAUGH] That's a good piece of advice. The only way you need to shoot them, yes. Always be kind. The only way we should shoot them is with a camera, because they are incredible creatures, and man, what a great picture. And you are absolutely right, Justin, you should support your local zoos because They really do take care of animals and teach people how to conserve them in the wild. Mm-hm. And I think that that's really important. I know there's a lot of people who say, oh man. Oh, don't support zoos cuz they keep everything enclosed and it's really sad for them. But the thing is is some of those animals can't be Put back into the wild, one, and secondly some of them are so rare that it's too dangerous to have them back in the wild because they could go extinct. So head over to your local zoo, head over to a zoo that you support, that you believe in, and kick them a couple bucks because honestly They really do a great job of getting kids, who grow into adults, excited about animals and care about them. Yeah. So we agree, and nice work. Great picture, thanks for sending that in, that's awesome. Yes, it's pretty great. If you guys wanna send in your phonetography, you can email us. We're gonna have some beautiful credits, happening down here. Email us at tomorrow@cnet.com, send us your pictures, tell us what you took it with and also give us some reviews on our show, because we sort of need that. And then of course you can find us all over social media. We're Tomorrow Daily all over the shop, and we're also on individual, we're our own people. On twitter as well. I'm @Ashley Esqueda.>> And I'm @Jeff Cannata and our producer is @Logan Moy. You can go find Logan Moy, and fight him in Guitar Hero Live.>> Oh Yes.>> Cause he's He's good. He's kind of a rock star and needs to be taken down. [LAUGH] That is it for the show today you guys, we will be back next week With some very special episodes. Yeah, it'll be a post-Star Wars world. We'll be after having seen it. [LAUGH] Living in a post-Star Wars world. Yeah, and we got our best ofs coming next week. Very, very excited about that. Best of games, best of movies, best of tech. All kinds of fun stuff. Yeah, it's gonna be awesome. So no regular shows next week. We'll have three longer shows Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Then we are off until after the holiday, where we come back. On the live stage at CES. Wow. Which is pretty exciting. Yeah. So stay tuned next week, for all of those best ofs. Get your list ready, cuz we're gonna each have a top five. So get your top five list ready. And we will see you next week. Be a good human. Bye. [MUSIC]

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