Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center

episode 281, returning the first Martians. I'm Gary Jordan, and I'll be your host today.

On this podcast, we bring in the expert scientists, engineers, and astronauts. Also,

let you know what's going on in the world of human spaceflight. We're continuing with a reboot

of our series that outlines a human mission to and from the Red Planet. The 11th and final episode

discusses the mechanics of returning the first astronauts from the surface of Mars

back home to Earth. The s episode was recorded on February 8th, 2021. Let's get started.

So today, we're wrapping up the series by talking about the end of the journey.

At this point, in a human mission, astronauts have used their spacesuits. They collected some rocks

and they packed their bags. Now they're ready to get back to planet Earth. Launching from the

surface of another planet is an element of a Mars mission that will be wholly new and the piece

that will be truly breaking new ground. So the unique piece here is an ascent vehicle that will

need to be prepositioned on Mars, ready for liftoff, way in advance, and launched flawlessly

without ground support that we're used to here for earthly launches. To help dive deep into this

area, we're bringing in four yes four experts. First is Tara Polesgrove. She has a degree in aerospace

engineering from Georgia Tech and a master's degree in systems engineering from the University of

Alabama. She currently serves as the lead systems engineer with the human landing system program,

part of the Artemis program. But before that, she was in a leadership role on the Mars architecture

team. We also have Dr. Tom Percy, who holds a PhD in aerospace systems engineering from the

University of Alabama and a master's degree in aerospace engineering from Georgia Tech and a

bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology. Tom currently

serves as the integrated performance lead for the human landing systems program, part of Artemis.

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