Houston, we have a podcast.

Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center,

episode 142, preparing for Mars.

I'm Gary Jordan. I'll be a host today.

On this podcast, we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, astronauts, all to let you know what's going on in the world of human spaceflight.

We have nearly 20 years of continuous human missions, not to mention the decades of human spaceflight missions and experience before that.

A lot has changed over time based on what we've learned, and a lot of questions have come up that

are important to understanding how things will change when traveling to Mars.

You might think that's a lot of experience already, so why don't we just go to Mars?

It's hard to imagine just how hard Mars is.

It requires near absolute perfection perfection and any deviation may be a risk to the safety

of the humans on board or the success of the mission. So the question is, are we ready? You can even ask, how ready are we?

Luckily, we have an organization right here at the NASA Johnson Space

Center and all across the agency looking at what we have and what we need to make a Mars mission successful.

Michelle Rucker is a Mars Integration lead at Johnson Space Center for the Mars Integration Group,

a team that spans across all of NASA.

She's a 33-year veteran of NASA, joining in the aftermath of the Space Shuttle Challenger

accident and supporting the investigation by conducting booster material tests and analysis.

She has participated in a range of exciting projects such as the International Space Station

Environmental Control and Life Support Systems, Hypervelocity Impact Research, Space Suit, and Space Walking Tools,

Space Station Exercise Equipment, System Engineering,

and Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle Testing and Verification.

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