Landing on Mars

Hello, everyone! You are listening to the Red Shift - your connection to your piece of the sky. I'm your host, Emma Miller!

It's great to see everybody! Welcome in! Welcome, welcome. Happy to welcome you all into the Red Shift this week! Great to see you all! Hi! Welcome, welcome.

Well, I'm super, super excited for this week, so I kind of just want to hop right into the episode. As we draw closer to the arrival of Mission 4, I was thinking, you know, what do I specifically want the astronauts to share with me? You know, we've gotten a chance to see what their days look like and what's happening on Mars, but I was curious what… what, you know, the actual trip was like, traveling from Earth to Mars. I'm really, really fascinated with what it actually takes to accomplish that feat, and I assume that you all are too, if you're anything like me, and I think we're all pretty similar in that regard.

So with that being said, I actually asked three of the astronauts from Mission 4— Or, not from Mission 4, I'm sorry. From an earlier mission, from Mission 2, to give us the lowdown on what the journey is like and they sent me back some super interesting information about… about what the take off is like, what the landing is like, and of course, what it means to fly, or go through space to get from one planet to another, which is a pretty exciting experience for me to get a chance to ask the astronauts those questions and I'm super, super excited to share it with all of you because I think it'll be interesting information for you all as well.

And then, following the information from all of… from all of the astronauts that shared their perspective with me, we actually have an incredible flight simulation, or landing simulation rather, that was created by one of my friends at ISA Mission Control. If you remember way back when, we did an ISA training module and I wanted to kinda do something similar to that again, so this week we're actually going to get the chance to learn how to land a rocket on Mars! Obviously, a little bit easier here than it would be in real life, but we are going to get to have a pretty fun time. So I'm super excited about this!

With that, I think we're going to kick it off with the messages from our astronauts. I will kind of interject to give you an introduction to each one as we go, but first we're going to hear about John, or from John about the process of takeoff, and what it is like to take off from Earth and head towards Mars.

With that being said, I know it's been a couple of weeks since we heard from our astronauts directly, but these are, of course, their words, so keep that in mind. And I'll interject, like I said, in between each astronaut. So with that, let's hear what John has to say.

John’s note

So if you listen to The Red Shift, I bet some of you are thinking us on Mars— Or, are thinking of joining us on Mars someday. If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering what that trip will be like.

First, the launch. Imagine you’re strapped into the chair at a dentist, only the dentist office is sitting on top of 50 million sticks of dynamite, and the official plan is to set them on fire. But, you know, carefully. And I do mean carefully - I checked them myself.

Way back in the history of space travel, back in the Gemini days of NASA, John Glenn said in public what all astronauts said in private. When a reporter asked him how he– it felt to know he was about to be launched into space, he said, “I felt exactly like you would feel if you were sitting on top of two million parts - all built by the lowest bidder on a government contract.”

Assuming you don’t blow up on the launch pad, next comes the acceleration. At max you’ll pull about 3.5 G. Imagine again you’re in that dentist's chair and your brother gets in your lap and sits on top of you, and then your dad, and then a dog, but a big dog. A rottweiler or labrador or something.

The trick with launching is that it takes a lot of fuel, and fuel is heavy, so the more you carry, the more you have to use to get you off the ground. That’s why these days we lift off as light as we can and then refuel in orbit.

To do that, you have to dock with a refueling station. Sounds easy, right? But now we’re into the weird world of orbital mechanics, and everything you learned as a pilot on Earth isn’t just wrong, it’s going to screw you up. Aurore’s the scientist - I’ll let her explain it.

***

Alright, back to me, Emma.

I hope you're learning. I hope you're tracking. This was, to me, fascinating. Terrifying, but also fascinating. What do you guys think? Are you guys on board at this point to go on a mission to Mars? Feels like this is… this is definitely us on the way to Mars. I think we're ready. I appreciate that, Manja.

Well… Well, like Alex said, we're going to hear next from the– from Aurore about orbital dynamics and, of course, about the flight itself between Earth and Mars. So I will let Aurore's words take it away.

Aurore’s note

All astronauts learn to fly planes as part of their training, but, in fact, being a pilot teaches you many habits and instincts that hurt you when you leave Earth and go into space.

Let me explain.

If you imagine objects in orbit like marbles rolling around inside a bowl, the marbles near the center go quickly and complete a circuit quite fast. There’s lots of energy in movement, kinetic energy. They’re going fast, but are also down low, because there is not so much energy stored in gravity. The marbles on the outside go more slowly, they travel further, and are higher up, so they have less kinetic energy and more gravitational stored energy. Vous comprenez?

Because of the way orbital work– orbits work, the gravitational energy is a big contributor to the total, so the total energy is greater the higher up you go. And the other way around – if you add energy you go up… and go slower. Or if you take energy away, you drop downwards, and speed up!

Now imagine you are a pilot trying to dock with a refueling station in orbit around the Earth. You see the fueling station! It’s just a little bit in front of you! You hit the gas…

…but instead of going forward and catching up with it, you go up and slow down. Literally every time you step on the gas, the fueling station seems to drop away from you.

The early astronauts found this absolutely impossible to get around. There were famous examples where they exhausted practically all their fuel trying over and over to catch up with things, only to have them fall away beneath them.

Welcome to the curious world of orbital dynamics, where hitting the gas means you go up, hitting the brakes means you go down, and the name of the game is to try to get above and ahead of the station, then fire your rockets in reverse so you drop into the path of the refueling station just as it catches up to you, with just the right speed.

Now imagine that Earth and Mars are marbles themselves, going around the Sun. Mars is further from the Sun - it is ‘up’ from us, and we have to add a great deal of energy to match its orbit. Once every two years or so, Earth and Mars are in positions that allow us to use the least amount of energy to make that jump.

If you think about it like a physicist, we have to spend all that energy to get up to Mars’s ‘height’. When we come back, it takes the same amount of energy, but we are using our rockets to brake all the way, to match the lower energy orbit of Earth.

So now you understand that taking a rocket to Mars is not like driving from where you live to another city. In space, both those cities are moving at tremendous - but very different - speeds. What we have to do is get to the ‘height’ at which Mars orbits around the Sun, arriving there in such a way that Mars comes up behind us just as we get there. People use the phrase, “being trapped in a gravity well” but the truth is, gravity is very, very weak and we have to time everything very, very carefully to be ‘caught.’

How carefully? When the Mission 4 rockets make it to the position, Mars will be coming up behind them at 260,000 kilometers an hour. If the ISA engineers missed that calculation even by the tiniest fraction, we will either watch Mars sail past us just before we get there, or watch it sailing away just out of reach. And if everything is perfect then we have to boost like crazy to keep from being smashed like bugs hitting the windshield on Mars.

And this happens. in1999 NASA launched the 125 million dollar Mars Climate Orbiter. Unfortunately, before it even left the ground, an error had been introduced in the navigation math. Lockheed Martin had supplied acceleration figures in the English units of pounds/second instead of the metric measure of Newtons/second. Months and months later, the Climate Orbiter settled into the Mars orbital track like a fly, to be crushed by a fly-swatter the size of a planet.

But let’s say all your calculations are correct, and Mars comes up perfectly behind you, and you match speeds, more-or-less. Now what?

***

Alright, are you guys following with the orbital dynamics?

I had no idea that that was how space worked in terms of, like, applying more… Basically, if you step on the gas, you start going up and slowing down versus taking your foot off the gas and going further down, like, physically down. I was fascinated by that. I thought that was one of the most interesting things I have possibly ever learned. So, fantastic stuff!

Hopefully you are all following. Believe me, there won't be a real test. There'll be an easy test at the end. And by easy I mean easy by landing a rover, or a rocket on Mars standard. So it'll be a challenge, but not quite so challenging as what our astronauts are actually experiencing.

So with that, we are going to get into our final message, which comes from Alex, which consists of explaining how a rocket is landed on Mars. With that, I'll let Alex's words take it away.

Alex’s note

Mars has a little atmosphere. Not so much as Earth, maybe 1/50th. But still, it’s something, and we’re still going very fast, so still plow through a lot of atmosphere per second.

So first we use that atmosphere to burn off some energy. We drop in, the ships get very hot, but we lose speed, which is good.

Then we use parachutes. These help a little, too, but again - the atmosphere is very thin, so a parachute can’t stop us from hitting the surface very hard. When they have done what they can do, they break off with a little explosion so they get thrown away and don’t tangle us up.

The rest of the way down, it’s about rockets. We must fire them to slow down. We use radar and LIDAR to help us know how far we are from the ground and how fast we are coming to meet it.

At this point we are committed. You remember what John said - you try to take as little fuel as possible, because fuel is heavy. Once we have come all the way to Mars and gone down towards the surface with our rockets, if we find some reason not to land, it’s too late - we don’t have enough fuel to get back up to orbit and try it again.

Someday we will have a refueling station above Mars, too, so we can take lots of tries if we need to, but not yet.

So now, if you have been listening to The Red Shift, I bet you know what is the thing that scares us the most, yes? Right. Dust storms. Because when we launch the rocket from Earth, there is no way to tell if there will be a storm when we get to the other end. A big dust storm will take out the LIDAR for sure. 

It’s true the wind is not so “‘heavy’ as it is on Earth, but the dust… It’s like being sandblasted, so now you don’t know exactly how far you are from the surface. You are falling very fast and maybe drifting from your target. You hope that dust doesn’t clog one of your thrusters, or spook the radar, or damage the landing apparatus. 

And where we land, I mean, you see the map - there are other rockets nearby, and fuel tanks, like the one Korey was working on, too, so if the wind has bumped you into one of those… BOOM!

So even if you get to Mars orbit OK, there is still a lot to worry about. This is good, because if there was nothing to worry about, John Alves… His head would explode, and we need John to live.

We have been working very hard for weeks to get ready for Mission 4, but Emma and me worked with the Flight team at Mission Control in Seoul to make a little game for you today, how you can practice to land the spaceships.

As Korey said, good luck and don’t blow up!

***

So, with that being said, I hope you all have been following around– or, following along with what the process looks like as you take off from Earth, as you fly to Mars, and what that kind of experience is like, and then, of course, as you land.

We are going to get into our game, which, I cannot wait to share it with you. I am so excited for you to experience it. I think you will have a phenomenal time playing it. But before we get into that, we are going to take a break briefly to share our sponsor message and our weather report. And it will be great. It'll be a great time.

With that, I will let our sponsor message take it away.

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Commercial break

So you want to be an astronaut? You have the knowledge, you have the training in your discipline, you have the passion - now you need to take the final step. If you’re a bird ready to spring from the nest, the ISA’s “Flight School” is where you can learn to spread your wings and fly.

Located in Sydney, Australia, “Flight School” is the base course that prepares our astronauts for subsequent specialist training in their particular fields. It’s not easy. Long hours in the classroom build knowledge in astrophysics, geology, chemistry, and more - but that’s only the beginning. You will plunge into pool work, flight training, and many hours in our detailed simulations of low pressure and microgravity environments. Understand that many walk in to Flight School, but only the best will walk out as fully-fledged ISA astronauts.  

“Flight School” is where teams are born and friendships forged strong enough to withstand everything the Red Planet can throw at us. The work done in these first years of training will determine the trajectory of your life - and maybe the fate of humankind - for years to come, 

Are you ready to leave the nest? Join your fellow prospective astronauts for the flight of a lifetime at ISA’s Flight School.

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Weather report 

And now, for the weather!

Temperatures continue to be moderate for Mars, with highs of -10 degrees Celsius and lows of -95 degrees Celsius.

Atmospheric pressure is at 730 pascal, with winds ranging from about 3 to 15 meters/second, which is about ten to 55 kilometers/hour.

Atmospheric opacity is low at 0.3.

***

Alright, everybody, let's get into the game! I'm super excited to share this with you all, and it will be a great time!

So the way that the game is going to work, like I said, it is a Mars… Martian landing simulator. The way it will be played is that each round I will ask you to pick an amount using a multiple choice to decide on how much fuel to burn.

The more fuel you burn, the harder you will, basically… The harder the rockets are pumping. The harder the rockets are pumping and… pumping out fuel, the slower you will go, and you'll start to, basically, accelerate upwards instead of going straight downwards.

Your goal, of course, is to land on the Martian surface safely. We will have two rounds with two different sets of parameters. The first will… While I will show you your fuel level, so I'll show you– You're going to start with 100% of fuel and go down, you know, ideally to 100, but will not take into account the amount of fuel in the first one.

The second round is going to be harder because we will be turning on fuel monitoring. So you, of course, have to make sure that you manage to get to the ground without… without any… Or, without your fuel running out. Does that make sense?

So to just recap it one more time, the way it's going to work is each round - which is going to be equivalent of about 2 seconds of flight time - you are going to pick from a series of multiple choice how many tons of fuel you are going to be burning in order for you to safely land on the planet's surface. The more you burn, the slower you go, but, of course, the more fuel that you're running out of, and you could potentially run out of all of your fuel before you land safely on the planet. The less you burn, the faster you go, potentially, but you're not using as much fuel.

So, with that being said, we're going to also give you the option to select no burn, which will basically mean that you're just letting gravity take over for a round, or more than a… or more than a round, depending on what you guys decide. Sometimes it will make sense for you to just let gravity take over. It will not be using any fuel, but it will be less controlled and you will likely accelerate a little bit more towards the planet.

So, to safely land, you do have to reach the ground at 0 meter and have a speed of less than 10 meters/second, which will make sense when we start playing the game. You'll see where that information is and I will be reading it aloud as well.

I do want you to all keep in mind that this was made by a friend of mine at ISA Mission Control, so it does take into account Martian gravity, as well as the changing mass of ship as we burn fuel. So this isn't just, like, numbers pulled out of nowhere. This is actual calculations based on what the rockets would have when they get to Mars. It's also based off of… It takes into account Martian gravity, as well as, of course, where you would enter the… the Martian atmosphere, which is about 800 meters up.

With that being said, are you guys ready? I hope you are all excited to get into the game! I know I am. [Emma chuckles]  Let's go. Alright. It's going to be a great time.

So this is going to be–, a kind of a cool game. It's going to be very visual, so you guys are going to have to work with me. It's going to be a great time.

So, with that being said, let me show you your first image. This is going to be our starting point, like I said. And, like I said before, this also is without fuel scaling, which basically– Or, without fuel spending, so while it's going to show you in the image how much fuel you have, for this round and this round only it will not be something that you need to worry about.

So here's our very first image:

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As you can see, our rocket, which is shown by our little triangle, is at 800 meters up. And here is where we're going to put our vote:

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So do we want to start our burn by burning six tons, four tons, two tons, one ton, or no tons of fuel in our first burn? A, B, C, D or E?

Now, one last time - the more tons of fuel you burn, the slower your acceleration will be, but the… but the more fuel you'll burn.

Alright, so it looks like A is going to be our answer. So that is going to be at six tons. So let me go ahead and show you what our next round is going to look like… Our next round - and I'll read to you the information - our next round, as you can see, you are currently at a height of 471 meters, so you've fallen about 300 meters.

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Your velocity is currently at 129 meters/second and you're going downwards - that's what the ‘DN’ stands for - and your fuel is about 76% full still.

So now it's time for you to make your second decision. We gotta work together to figure out what our next decision will be. So what do we want to do next? Do we want to burn six tons of fuel again? Would we like to burn four tons of fuel, two tons of fuel, one ton of fuel, or no fuel? And one final time, just to recap one last time, we are trying to hit the surface of the planet. We want to be at 0 meter for our height and we want to be at an acceleration of less than 10 meters/second in order for our astronauts to survive.

Perfect! So it looks like B is our answer. So we're going to go ahead and we're going to burn four tons of fuel… Alright, our next image is… this one here:

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So, as you can see, you are currently at 259 meters of height. Your velocity going downwards is at 84 meters/second downwards, and your fuel is about 60%. So you're getting much closer to the surface, but you are slowing down. You are still coming in hot, but it’s not— you're not in, like, a bad way, necessarily.

So we have our next vote. What are we feeling like doing? A, B, C, D or E? Six tons, four tons, two tons, one ton or zero tons? You are still coming in at 84 meters/second downwards. Your fuel is at 60%. Your height is currently at 259 meters as well.

Alright, so it looks like we want to burn… It looks like we want to burn six tons, so I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to put in six tons and we're gonna see what happens.

Alright, so we are currently at… Let me get this image for you…. Looks like you guys are pretty good astronauts.

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Alright, so our next information, we have a height of 163 meters, so we're getting much closer to the planet's surface. Our velocity down is currently at 12 meters/second down, which is pretty good, but our fuel is at 36%, so we are at the… We are down at the lower… Like, we're getting quite close to the surface, and you are almost at the 10 meters/second. So what is our next… What is our next choice? Here is our image:

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Alright... Perfect. Alright. A, B, C or D? It looks like C is going to be our winner for this round. We're going to do this fast. It's got to be like, speed rounds, right? Each is 2 seconds. So two tons of fuel we're going to burn to get down to the planet surface. Let's see how we do…

Alright, so we have kind of our first potential problem here. Let me show you guys what I'm seeing… This is where the hard decisions have to get… have to get made.

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So ,right now, we are at 157 meters from the planet surface, but, if you remember, in our last round, we were at 163 meters, so we're only dropping by a little bit. And the problem is, now our velocity is actually 6 meters/second up. We don't want to be going up. Kind of the last thing you want to do while you're trying to land your rocket is to burn fuel while going upwards.

So, let's think, what do we want to do next? Do we want to burn A - six tons, B - four tons, C - two tons, D -  one ton, or do we want to not burn any tons of fuel at all and allow gravity to kind of take over for a little bit?

I'm seeing a lot of people writing zero. What are we feeling? A, B, C, D or E?

Alright, it looks like we're gonna go ahead and let gravity take over, so I'm going to go ahead and put in zero and see how we do.

Alright, I think you guys managed to get ourselves back on course, but let's see what we do next.

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So, we are currently at… You can just barely see the change there. Our triangle is kind of sitting on top of itself, but we are currently at a height of 162 meters. Our velocity is 2.-- Or, 2 meters/second down, so we are going in the correct direction, and our fuel is at 28%.

So what are we thinking? What are we thinking? Do we let gravity take control for another round? Do we… Do we want… [Emma chuckles] Do we burn more fuel? A, B, C, D or E?

It looks like E is a pretty rapid winner, so we're going to go ahead and make the split second decision to just go ahead and let gravity take over a little bit longer. Now, it is a very, like, time sensitive progress, or process to land our monitor, so it's okay if we're taking quite a few rounds to do this. Once again, these are happening– These are split second decisions.

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So we are currently at 151 meters. So we're going down again. We're traveling at a velocity of 9 meters/second down, and our fuel is unchanged at 28%. So what are we thinking? Do we let… I think– [Emma laughs] I think it looks like already there are votes for E from Vamaka. I appreciate that. Yeah, I think E, maybe... Let's see. A, B, C, D or E? A, B, C, D or E…

Alright, it does look like we are going to let our ship continue downwards with gravity. Alright, let me share with you our next image. We're making progress, though! We are getting closer– We are getting closer to the planet's surface.

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So now we are currently at a height of 125 meters, our fuel is still at 28%, and we are now traveling at a velocity downwards of 17 meters/second. So…

The only thing to keep in mind - and I'm helping you guys out in this round, you guys can listen to me or not - the thing that's important to keep in mind: you are 100 meters from the ground, and you are currently traveling at 17 meters/second. And if you look back, the gravity has accelerated you from 8 meters, or, 9 meters to 17 meters in one round.

So what do you all want to do? Do you want to burn six tons of fuel, four tons of fuel, two tons of fuel, one ton of fuel, or gravity? Let gravity take over. I'm immediately seeing D, there– Don't look at other options necessarily, but it does look like D seems to be leading the charge. So we're going to go ahead and we're gonna be– we’re gonna burn one ton of fuel, which… seems to be probably a good idea. So we're currently traveling at…

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We're currently traveling at a velocity of 12 meters/second down. Our fuel is at 24%, and our height is at 96 meters. So we're getting closer. We're getting very, very close. This is actually great. We need to land on the surface with the height of zero and our velocity at under 10 meters/second down. We do have 24% of our fuel remaining.

So, with that being said, what is our next decision? Six tons, four tons, two tons, one ton or zero tons? [Emma chuckles] What are we thinking? A, B, C, D or E? It looks like D is in the lead… Now, I'm gonna– I’m gonna just forewarn you - if you tie, I have a fail safe to… basically punish you for tying, so don't tie. Okay. It looks like B, ao we want to burn four tons of fuel. Four tons? Alright, I’ll put it in.

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Alright, so… here's where this might be a little bit of a problem.

So burning four tons of fuel, now that we are very close to the surface and low on fuel, is that we are now currently going 33 meters/second upwards and we are 117 meters from the planet surface. We're getting quite close. Galdwin, I think that that's a pretty accurate GIF to represent what's happening at the moment. [Emma laughs]

So what do we want to do next? Do we want to, A - use six tons of fuel, B - four tons of fuel, C - two tons of fuel, D - one ton of fuel, or E - zero tons? And just keep in mind, you are at 8% of your fuel remaining. Now, like I said, this first round, we're not keeping fuel… We're not monitoring the fuel, so if you do go into deficit spending for the fuel, it's okay, but just keep that in mind.

Alright, it looks like E. We're going to let gravity take over. So let's see what happens when you let E take over.

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So you're actually still accelerating upwards, but less. You are currently going… You are currently at 176 meters above the planet surface, with a velocity of 25 meters/second up and 8% of fuel.

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So now we have to make another decision. A, B, C, D or E? “Let's go back to Earth.” You are accelerating upwards! The problem is 8% of your fuel is not going to get you, now, out of the atmosphere. “Negative one.” Unfortunately, there are no… there are no thrusters that can help you get down a little bit faster. “When we run out of fuel, it will be a zero ton burn,” that's true, it will be a zero ton burn, but if you're going above 10 meters/second and you aren’t closer to the planet, if you do a zero ton burn, you will… you will probably plummet to the you'll probably plummet to the Earth– Or, to Mars.

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Okay, so it looks like E is our winner for this round, so let's go ahead and let gravity take over again. Alright. [Emma chuckles]

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Okay, so we are currently traveling at… Alright, “Brace for impact,” it’s… So you are currently at 219 meters above the planet surface. Your velocity is still 18 meters/second up… So you're slowing down! And your fuel is at 8%.

Alright, what is our next… our next choice? You're not lost. You're not lost. You could… It could… It will still be okay.

I think it looks like E is probably a very quick… a very quick winner… [Emma laughs] …considering it has its own vote. Alright, make sure you get your votes in on the image I shared. It looks like E is our winner. Let's go ahead and let gravity continue its course.

Alright, we are currently at– [Emma laughs] Oh… Alright, we are currently at… “Taxi or Uber.”

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We are currently at a height of 246 meters, so we're traveling up still, but we're traveling up at 10 meters/second up. [Emma laughs] The instant ‘E’ is very funny.

Alright, what do we want to do? “Press E.” [Emma laughs] Alright… [Emma laughs] “E!” I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to insert E because it seems like everyone is clicking E.

Alright.

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You are traveling at… Alright, you are traveling, currently, at… 2 meters/second up and at a height of 258 meters. [Emma laughs] At 8% fuel. So what do we want to do next? 

Alright, it looks like… It looks like we go down to… “So, with four, we go upwards 60 meters. From 10 meters/second, we can ride it, let it ride until 80 meters from ground, and we can burn one,” I– MaDAleN, I honestly think that you might be onto something there. There is something definitely to be said to that. So it looks like we're gonna– we’re gonna burn… Here, let me put this in here again, but I think we have all kind of agreed that it's just E, sso we'll go ahead and be prepared for that…

Alright, we are currently… at… [Emma giggles] Alright, here is this:

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Okay, you are currently at a height of 254 meters, a velocity of 6 meters/second down, so we're going down now, which is very exciting! And our fuel is at 8%. What do we do next? “EEEE,” Martian, I like that. We’re clicking E?

Alright, it looks like… It looks like E is our winner, so we're going to go ahead and we're going to burn zero.

Alright, so now, we are– [Emma laughs] We will eventually reach the planet's surface! I just don't know that it's going to go very well for us.

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Alright, we are currently at a height of 234 meters, a velocity down of 14 meters/second, and a fuel of 8%. Are we thinking we do E again? We are definitely crash test dummies here. “E.”

Alright, very slowly… Alright. [Emma laughs] Alright, let me send you… So now, we are…

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We are… currently… at… 199 meters above the planet surface. We are at a fuel percentage of 8 and a velocity of 22 meters/second down.

What next? [Emma laughs] Are you going to keep letting gravity do it– “When the E,” oh, no! Alright, are we E-ing it up again? Alright, it looks like we're gonna hit E.

Alright. My friends.. I'm going to have to reset our board in just a second, so give me a second to do that, but let me copy and paste this for you.

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Alright, “E for Emma,” perfect. Don't give me that credit!

Alright, your velocity down is currently at 29 meters/second, your height is 148 meters, and your fuel is at 8%. “We broke the game because we are so bad,” mo, that's not true at all. That is actually not true.

Alright, so let me just make sure that I get this information… I'm just going to set the game parameters. It'll make it easier also for you guys to see what's happening, so there's also that which is good. And your initial velocity is 29… We might… Hold on, let me just reach out really fast… One moment, my friends!

Alright. Alright! Ready to go! So what is our choice? E is our answer. So we're going to burn nothing. We're going to head straight down…

Let me just see really quick… Yeah, there's one thing I have to do… To do math… Which is always a difficulty.

Okay! [Emma chuckles] We are on our way! Okay, so… Alright.

Okay! Sorry, we're getting there! Alright, we're going to let gravity take hold. I'm gonna go ahead and do a burn of zero. This is going to be a lot easier for you guys to see now, so that will hopefully be helpful.

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Alright, with that being said, we are currently traveling at… I also– It did require me to reset the fuel, but you are currently at 2%. This is just… This is another round with no fuel spending, so it's… it’s okay. When you burn anything at this point, it will rapidly drop down.

So! You are at a height of 82 meters with a velocity of 37 meters/second down, and your fuel is at 100%. So you are within 82 meters of the planet surface and you're traveling at 37 meters/second. And you need to land at less than 10 meters/second. I'm just giving you the forewarning.

Do you want to burn six tons of fuel, four tons of fuel, two tons of fuel, one ton of fuel, or no tons of fuel?

It looks like we want to burn one. One seems to be a rapid winner. Alright, we're going to go ahead and we're going to burn one ton of fuel and see what happens…

Alright, we are currently at…

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Oh my gosh. [Emma chuckles] Alright, we are currently at… [Emma giggles] We are currently at 5– Or, 15 meters from the planet surface, we are at a velocity of 30 meters/second downwards, and we are at a fuel level of 50% of the… what it was calculated at. So, to give you a background, you initially had 25 tons of fuel, and now you're down– When I restarted it, you started at two tons of fuel, so you're at 50% now.

So do you want to burn six tons of fuel, four tons of fuel, two tons of fuel, one ton of fuel or none? And keep in mind, for this particular round - because we're going to play another one! - this particular round, you can go into the deficit with your fuel. So if you want to burn six tons of fuel, even though you don't have them, you can do that if you want. You can burn three tons to whatever– You can do a deficit spend if you'd like to. So what are we thinking? It looks like we're going to burn two tons of fuel.

“I say three tons.” Oh, I wish that they were three tons. We don't have that. And again, you do have the window of getting to 10 … You need to get to 10 meters/second down. So what are you thinking? It does look like C is going to be our winner. So two tons of fuel? Getting very close to the planet's surface… When I click enter right now it will tell me whether or not we successfully landed. What do we think? Do you think that you did it? We're at 2 meters…

[Emma sighs] So… unfortunately, chat…

My Shifters, unfortunately… Unfortunately, you… Even if you hadn't run out of fuel, you did land on the planet going too rapidly, which does mean that you were unable to successfully land this round. 

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That's okay. You… That's okay! You don't suck again! You're doing a great job! You all did a fantastic job!

So how do you guys feel? How do you guys feel? Hopefully you're feeling pretty good. [Emma chuckles] I think you guys did a really great job, honestly. I think that was really remarkable. I think you all did fantastic work. And now we're going to do it again!

{Emma giggles] I think you guys are winners! “I feel like we ruined people's lives,” well, luckily, you guys aren't actually landing the modules, or the ships, and quite frankly, you all haven't gone to Flight School, necessarily, and you all haven't been trained by the ISA’s training program, so it's okay! But are you ready to do it again? Are you ready to see if you can do it? And this time, fuel matters. It's going to matter. Do you think that we can successfully land this time? I think we probably can. I think we can do it.

If you, if you think back, the moment that we… we had a harder time with this round, or this past round, was when we burned too much fuel and we sent our rocket going upwards. So, this next round, we just have to keep that in mind and I think we'll be great!

So, with that being said, we are back to the… back to the start, and our new round, keeping in mind– E is definitely useful! Though I would, as a personal recommendation, not, probably, use E unless in a dire circumstance where you should let your rocket fall to the planet. As you can see, got a little out of hand, a little too fast.

So! You are now charged with making the decision - A, B, C, D or E? “E t’il end and pushhhh at the end,” I'm going to make a recommendation that that's not the choice you make, but I respect that that's the decision if that's what you guys want to do. And I– I should just clarify before we get into this, if you do tie the two top choices, I will apply an extra burn, so we will burn 7 tons of fuel as the ‘Emma punishing for tying’, so definitely don't tie, because I will run out your fuel and you will crash into the planet. I'm sorry.

So, B is our answer. We're going to go ahead and we're gonna start off with burning four tons of fuel. I just– You can't tie! Can you imagine if they were in the cockpit of the rocket and they were not able to agree on how much to… How much fuel to burn? It would be terrible!

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So we are currently at 84% of our fuel usage. We are traveling at a velocity down of 155 meters/second. Our height is 445 meters from the ground.

Do we want to burn six tons of fuel four tons of fuel, two tons of fuel, one ton of fuel, or no tons of fuel? “To E-finity and beyond!” [Emma laughs]

Alright, it looks like C - two tons of fuel - is pulling ahead. So we're going to go ahead and call it… Going to go ahead and we're going to call for C, so two tons of fuel.

Alright, so you are now at… “If we all tie we get +7 tons,” yes, but I'll run out all of your fuel.

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So you have currently reached the height of 154 meters, your velocity is 136 meters/second down, and your fuel is at 76%. So you're getting quite close to the surface. As a reminder, you do have to be at 10 meters/second down for your… for your descent velocity.

A, B, C, D or E? E, B, C, D or E… It looks like B is pretty rapidly pulling ahead. I'm gonna go ahead and call it for B. So we're going to go ahead and apply four tons of a burn.

Okay. [Emma chuckles} Okay… So… My friends… [Emma laughs]

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Aright, we are currently 14 meters from the planet surface. Our fuel is at 60% and our velocity is 111 meters/second down. So… [Emma laughs] What would you like… [continues laughing] What would you like to do?

Would you like to burn… [continues laughing] A, B, C, D or E? Six tons, four tons, two tons, one ton or zero tons? What do we want to do? What do we want to do…?

Alright, what do we want to do? [Emma giggles] “We need to make it a tie..” “We need to make it tie to survive.” So it looks like we want to burn four tons of fuel. Four tons of fuel? [Emma laughs]

Alright, we're going to go ahead and we're going to burn four tons of fuel…

Or “That's A,” oh, is it A? I'm so sorry. Oh, that is A, I'm so sorry! The placement was just in a different place. We're going to burn six tons of fuel. So sorry. So sorry. That was me poorly reading.

So, chat. My friends. My Shifters. My dear, dear friends… We might have misstepped somewhere along the way. [Emma laughs] So we… We hit the surface going at 107 meters/second down…

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Let's try one more time. I think you guys got it this time. I think we saw the problem there. That time we didn't burn enough fuel… We didn't burn enough fuel that go. Let's go ahead and do it one last time. You're not bad! You're learning! This is part of the fun, is learning, right?

Okay, so the first time we burned a lot early on and we were descending rapidly, but then we didn't burn enough, or, we burned too much, and then we went back up. The second time we didn't burn enough and we hit the ground way too fast. So I think there's somewhere in the middle that we can do. So third time’s a charm. Let's do it. What do we want to start with?

Do we want to burn six tons, four tons, two tons, one ton or zero tons? Keep in mind, if you don't burn the fuel, you are going to still land faster because your rocket weighs more still. Still holding onto the tons.

So it looks like B is going to be our winner here, which is going to be four tons. Let's go ahead and we'll go with four again. Now, remember, we did start with four last time, so let's see, let’s see. We're going to head to… let me show you your image…

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So we are currently at… a height of 445 meters from the ground, we are at a velocity of 155 meters/second down, and our fuel is at 84%...

So, do we want to burn six tons, four tons, two tons, one ton or zero tons? And if you remember, this was the moment last round that you burned two tons. A, B, C, D or E? Looks like B is rapidly going to the lead with four tons. Alright, we're feeling like burning four tons? Perfect. Let me go ahead and put that on there, see how we're doing. Okay, so. We are at…

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Alright, we are currently at a height of 180 meters, velocity down of 110 meters/second, and we're at fuel of 68%.

So, what are we thinking - burn six tons, four tons, two tons, one ton or zero? I'm immediately seeing people saying A - burning six tons. Probably not a bad idea, would be my guess… So let's go ahead, we're going to burn six tons of fuel.

Alright. We are currently at… We are currently at…

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We are currently at… a height of 48 meters. We are at our fuel percentage of 44% and a velocity of 52 meters/second downwards. What do we want to do next…?

A, B, C, D or E? It looks just like A is in the lead… A’s in the lead. B… We’re tying?! What are we doing?! A or B? Make your decisions… So you are– You are within 50 meters from the planet's surface and you have almost half of your fuel tank still. Which is about twelve tons of fuel.

A, B, C, D or E…? Am I right? Alright, it looks like A has pulled ahead with 6 meters per– or, six tons. Let's see…

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