Blog 6 - JPL (Tram Dang)
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a once in a lifetime experience that only a few people can say they have been. The lab has an open house once a year, where it is open to the public to tour the facilities and see live demonstrations of JPL science and technology. Otherwise, it is not usually open to the public and would be limited to the private tours that are available if scheduled well in advance. Just checking on the site, the tour needs to be book three weeks in advance (if there is availability) and must be with a group of 10 or more, which makes sense since one of the tour guides told me that their needs to be a facilitator for every three people (something like that), because it is a government building where vital work is done.
The overall experience at JPL was pretty amazing. The entire day didn't seem real, in my head, I was confused as to why they would let someone like me come here. It was just so cool to see the clean room with the Mars Rover 2020 being built. Like how many people can say they got to see the rover being made before it is sent into space. It was just so crazy to get to visit the different buildings and facilities to see how certain parts were built and the various science and technology that JPL had to play with. During our visit to the cleanroom, I was just fascinated by how careful and crazy it was even to see this through the glass window. The cleanroom only allows for 10,000 particles to exist within the space so that they don't get any trace of humanity/ human DNA on the spacecraft. They do this so that it would not obstruct the integrity of the research when the rover goes to Mars to explore and find traces of life.
It was also interesting to see the Mars Rover 2020 being built. As we were listening to our tour guide explain about the room, they explain that the Mars 2020 Mission is to seek signs of life by collecting rock and soil samples to understandability on mars. The rover will be powered using solar panels, which will cover the spacecraft. The rovers only work during the day and move at a slow and safe pace. It doesn't work 24/7 due to not having enough knowledge about the terrain at night. NASA doesn't want there to be any complication when up on Mars because it is an expensive rover worth thousands of dollars being sent up into space. The mission will launch in July or August of 2020 and will take around eight months for it to land on Mars. When we visited, our guide mentions that it has already been a year since they assembled the Mars Rover, so it will be exciting to see when it finally descends from Earth and land in February 2021.
Another interesting thing to note is the attention to detail they had inside the Clean Room. Not only are only they allowed 10,000 particles inside the space, but they keep the room well-insulated and temperature to mimic that on Mars. The temperature displayed on the television was 69.2ºF, with a humidity of 49.3%.
Another aspect that was funny and fascinating was the Voyager, but more specifically, the golden record that was attached to it. I think it was quite baffling to me when the speaker was going around, giving the entire group sitting in the auditorium a rundown of each of the different spacecraft surround us. Its predecessor, Pioneer 10 and 11, both carried a small metal plaque identifying their time and place of origin for the benefit of any other spacefarers that might find them in the distant future. With this example before them, NASA placed a more hopeful message aboard Voyager 1 and 2, a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. The funniest thing about this record player was not only the music and pictures that were selected but the direction on how to build the record player. Even when I was looking at the visual icons, if I weren't told what it was, I would not have been able to build the record player to listen to the track.
Upon further research, the content in the golden record included 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and thunder, birds, whales, and other animals. To this, they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earth made up of 55 different languages. Which honestly sounds like a great idea. How do we capture the essence of Earth in this one item? As I was browsing through the contents of what sounds, music, and images burned onto the disc, I realize that most of the music was very instrument and classical. It just made me wonder if we were to send an upgraded record that had rap music like Cardi B and include music from a different genre, what would extraterrestrial life think about it.
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