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

Center episode 271, Concepts Near Science Fiction. I'm Gary Jordan, and I'll be your host

today. On this podcast, we bring in the experts, 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.

Second episode features Jason Dirliff, who breaks down Concepts Near Science Fiction and

explains how some of these ideas find their way into how we plan for missions to deep

space. The episode was originally recorded on April 2nd, 2020. Let's get started.

So on today's podcast, we bring in Jason Dirliff, program executive for NASA Innovative Advanced

Concepts program at NASA's headquarters in Washington. To help set the expectations for what's

to come, Jason dives deep into how many of us think of a future exploration mission based

on science fiction movies, TV, and books. See, in the science fiction universe, we've explored

the cosmos in all kinds of ways. Jason makes some of those technologies we think about in science

fiction, things like cryosleep, gigantic space stations, propulsion, and he applies it to how

an actual mission to deep space might just work. So here we go. Crazy ideas of science fiction

that just might work with Jason Dirliff. Enjoy.

Jason, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me today on the podcast.

It's a pleasure to be here Gary. Thank you for interviewing me.

Hey, I want to start with a little bit about you in your background because this is a pretty

interesting topic for us to dive deep into science fiction of Mars and space travel. So I want to

get a better picture of where you're coming from and what knowledge you bring into the table here.

I'm a bit of an odd duck actually for NASA. I went to school late after working extensively in

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