00:00:06
Speaker 1: Did you see the news reports that there could be life or signs of life on Mars. Hello Future, it's me Kevin. This is a dispatch from the Digital Frontier. The year is twenty twenty five. The planet is Earth. My name is Kevin Surreali and my guest today. I am so excited about it because there is no better journalist who has covered space for decades, for more than fifty years. I mean, he truly is like the Walt Kronkite of outer space. His name is Leonard David. He is a Space Insider columnist. He's an award winning space journalist who has been reporting on space activities for again more than half a century, and he is writing a space dot com Space Insider columnist and among his other projects, he has authored numerous books on space exploration, especially about Mars missions and more. His latest is called Moon Rush, The New Space Rush, and it was published in twenty nineteen by National Geographic. He also wrote Mars Our Future on the Red Planet again in a great partnership with National Geographic. Leonard, I am so excited to have this conversation with someone as experience and knowledgeable as you. Thank you so much for coming on Hello.
00:01:19
Speaker 2: Future boy. That's a big build up. I hope I can live up to Walder Cronkite.
00:01:25
Speaker 1: You already have, my friend, you already have so well. He was.
00:01:29
Speaker 2: He was an idol of mind over the decades that I watched the Space program. Grow quite a guy. But you know, you ask about the Mars new finding, and you know, part of me goes hum and why because I've always believed there's life on Mars. I think that cannot have it on Mars would be odd. It just seems like the more we look at the Earth and how many ways that life clings on to weird environments, it's a sure bet that Mars is sort of the same way, as well as a lot of the moons of Jupiter Saturn. So we're on a roll here, but even getting the public excited about the new discovery, about the potential of finding life on Mars again, I don't want to be blase about it, but you know, it's been a long time coming and let's get on with it.
00:02:26
Speaker 1: That's why I love your coverage and I check him. I've got like my RSS feed checked into Leonard David because everything that he publishes is you know, he's late years ahead of everybody else. I love how you say, ho hum, we just found potential biosignatures on Mars. By the way, it was last year. I like, what what a world, what a year to be living in where finding signs of life on Mars isn't even a front page news story. I mean, that's to your point. It's just it's just so incredibly insane to me as someone who is, you know, just starting out in this level of intrigue and as a huge science fiction fan. But you know, it's not like the Martian. I mean that they that they found this like that movie. I want to get to that in a second, but for those just to catch people up, A sample collected by NASA's Perseverance Mars rover from an ancient dry river bed in Ja Zero Crater, which is on Mars. It could preserve evidence of ancient microbial life. Not according to NASA's website, this was taken from a rock named the Chiava Falls and it was taken last year, and the sample is called the Sapphire Canyon. I gotta say they came up with some good names, Leonard, for this stuff, because sometimes you know, they name these asteroids, all these numbers and it's confusing to keep track of, but it contains potential biosignatures. So for people who are not as experienced, aka me, what does that even mean? Leonard translate it for me.
00:03:50
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, we've got two active rovers on Mars. Don't discount Curiosity, which is in another area of Mars. It's it's moving around, it's been there quite a while, and Perseverance is sort of the newbie on Mars. But clomping around Jezreeld Crater where Perseverance is right now. I mean that was the whole point of sending it to that particular site, because they fine tuned the landing site. It was picked because it had all the opportunity of ancient life and perhaps preserving some life today. Now, I think my big gripe right now about the whole thing is who's going to get to bring back samples from Mars? And your expertise, I think you've listened to a lot of chats about space over the decades, and I'm not sure China won't be the first country to bring back a return sample. We seem in the United States and NASA's frankly for an agency that is dealt with micro gravity for a long time. They're in a free fall position, and I'm not particularly happy with the budget numbers that NASA has been given. And you know, the way laying of our Mars sample return mission is up for grabs.
00:05:17
Speaker 1: So that's that's almost like not to not to cut in here, to interrupt you, but that's the big, big question in order to discover life on Mars. It's almost like, folks, if you've ever been in those one of those nineteen these arcades where you've got that metal claw that comes down and you try to scoop up the toy in that cage. Okay, so we've got Perseverance roven around up there on Mars, and we've got Curiosity, great names by the way that they came up with, and we got the claw went down, it scooped up the red rock. Essentially, I'm simplifying Leonard, correct me if it's too simple. But it got the rock and they're studying it. But now got to bring it back to Earth, folks, in order to see if the aliens exist, if these microbriel aliens are there, and to Leonard's point, if the Communist Party at China is investing so much money and they're racing. Can you imagine the precedent that that will set here on planet Earth if China declares that they got the Mars Rock to discover alien life on Mars. Can you imagine the victory lap that General Secretary's teaching ping will say as he's parading around and doing all of that. So to your point, Leonard, what is being done to make sure that the United States gets that rock back on the third rock from the Sun, from the fourth Rock?
00:06:46
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's very difficult, and I was just working on this this morning, trying to figure out what is NASA's strategy. Right now, You've got anenacting NASA administer, which right off signals the problem in NASA has. I don't need acting administrators. I want real people that have been assigned the duty and they're a clarified vision on where they're taking the agency. So we're off to a rocky start there, nice guy, But let's get on with this. And there's so many other problems NASA has in the budgetary framework, but the Mars sample return right now is least what I think is going on. You've had Rocket Lab in New Zealand. Peter Beck. Good, good, fantastic guy. And you've had Lockey Martin put in new proposals of how to do this mission for under ten twelve billion dollars at a time when NASA's budgetary crisis is right in front of us. They have a lot of problems with Artemis overruns and going back to the Moon, all the other things that we love NASA. But the private sector can do something different here. The question is whether or not they really can at a lower price. And it looks to me like even given a go ahead today, if China succeeds, they're going to have the first samples back way before a US program. But who knows, maybe we will augment the NASA program and do something spectacular which is not unlike what NASA has done in the past.
00:08:28
Speaker 1: Hello, Future, it's me keV. My guest today is Leonard David, an award winning space journalist. You can find him at SpaceNews dot com all of his latest reports. In twenty ten, he was the winner of the prestigious National Space Club Press Award, and he also recently co authored a book with Apolo Levins buzz Aldron, the book Mission to Mars, My Vision for Space Exploration was published by the National Geographic Society. Leonard David's work is just honestly, it truly is late years ahead of any other space journalists. He's been covering stuff. I want to do a lightning round on Mars, Leonard, if you'll indulge me just a little bit. And when I think of this quote, especially as we're talking about the potential for biosignatures that NASA discovered on Mars, the potential for life, I think of that Neil Degrass Tyson quote if quote if Mars formed life, then life on Earth could have been seated by life on Mars, making every life form on Earth descended from Martians end quote, which is kind of wild when you think about it. So lightning round for my guest today, Leonard Leonard, why should the average person care if there's biosignatures like little you know, the it, like little lab you know, microbes roaming around or wiggling around up on Mars, why should we care?
00:09:46
Speaker 2: What mean?
00:09:46
Speaker 1: We had enough problems on Earth?
00:09:47
Speaker 2: Leonard? That's right. And my whole career has been looking at why the public, a good chunk of the public still doesn't appreciate what spacexplor ice. I mean, it's a little bit on the white road problem. You know, I'm guilty of falling into space exploration writing a long time ago, you know, because my mom said, look up in the night sky, and and I have been. I broke my glasses and I had to make a telescope out of them, and that's when I started looking up and appreciating what's up there and wondering why it's there. But you know, some people just that doesn't resonate, and that's okay.
00:10:37
Speaker 1: I don't understand these people. I don't understand those people that are keep going.
00:10:42
Speaker 2: It's fine, you know. And that's you know, my neighbor is not a big space exploration fan, but that's fine because he has to keep hearing me yack all the time about what we just found. And you know, it's stunning. What's what's not only been found, but what's coming. Yeah. We are on some real mind bending things in space exploration, including you know, getting to the kind of a cliche question are we alone? You know, My thing is it's not are we alone? It's how crowded is it out there? Wow?
00:11:21
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's a good it's a good space to leave it. But my final question for you is I got two. I got two questions, So Leonard, I got two questions for it. One is in when when will the United when will we land on Mars? Predictions next decade, next two decades? What do you think?
00:11:38
Speaker 2: Well, you know again, you know, China is moving forward with their robotic program for Mars exploration, and they are discussing their own human mission to Mars. I think they're going to cut their teeth on their own Apollo like program and we'll see how they do. Now, they could fail, and they could lose Chinese tychoonots in space and have to read like we've lost quite a few astronauts on Shuttle missions and they'll have to reconfigure. But you know, I you know, in the TIS timeframe, I think we've got a window of opportunity for getting people on Mars. But you know, it's easy to say, Pees, what does that mean? Now You're going to have to have some fairly important leadership issue at a time when we have acting NASA administrators say we're going to be on Mars, like Kennedy said, within the decade. And that's the kind of drive that you know, I mean in my younger days. It drove me to be so passionate about space exploration and what it means for humanity. So we'll see. But my guess is between all this is a lot of progress that needs to be made, including the Orion and the Artemis program. I just see the astronauts named their capsule that are going to go circumling around the Moon Inegrity. I think that's a good name. I hope NASA holds up to it and and and proceeds into the future like we'd like it to do.
00:13:20
Speaker 1: Final question for you everyone who follows what I'm trying to do with with Hello Future and MTF dot TVs, Meet the Future and whatnot. I really have always wanted to go to space. I've always said openly for years I would love to have a round trip ticket. However, if it was Mars, I understand it might have to be a one way ticket to go colonize and to do that, I really, really truly believe in going to space as a form of medical research. I think that there's a lot of good that can be done for humanity here on Earth with with you know, various forms of cures for diseases and zero gravity and and whatnot? What is what? First of all, I'm assuming you believe that I can go to correct I mean you're a believer.
00:14:02
Speaker 2: Well, a lot of people I've had friends of mine go into space. So yeah, thank you. I appreciate your confidence of mine. I want you to go.
00:14:10
Speaker 1: Thank you. Ahead, Well, you're invited to my launch party at my return party, unless it's the Mars thing, in which case I'll zoom with you. Well, maybe not zoom on Mars, zoom the connection. But what is one thing that I can do today to continue my mission to be able to go tomorrow or to be able to go to outer space.
00:14:27
Speaker 2: I think anybody that's really interested in this topic is keep abreast of what the private sector is doing, what the government's doing, not only in the US, but globally, because India has a very passionate space program as well. The amount of countries that now have space agencies is really on the uptick, and so it's a global community effort. You know. Other than that, keep exercising, because you know, there's only so many ways you can get into the spacesuits, and you've got to be fairly thin and trim. Well.
00:15:03
Speaker 1: I love some work out and I love them. I love the Martian Andy Weir's book. What's your favorite sci fi book?
00:15:09
Speaker 2: It's not a book, you know, I kind of gave up reading sci fi books the movies. I've got a pretellar. Yeah, Interstellar's up there. I'm kind of way back, you know. Again, there's early Destination Moon Forbidden Planet. I like the thing. I love I love that old the thing. You know, James RNs played the thing of gun Smoke later when he was an actor is something. And and rama strain is a good one because I think one thing we didn't cover here much is, you know, we got to be a little concerned about bringing back samples of Mars, particularly when we now know that past life on Mars looks pretty favorable. But what about something in that sample that may have some potential case back into the euro atmosphere and ecosystem. And I agree with Tyson in the sense of this panspermia thing of passing microbes between planets looks pretty real. I mean, it looks like that is part of a process. Now, whether that really happened here, that's part of the mystery. And that's why it's so much fun.
00:16:22
Speaker 1: Well, it's so much fun to your point, I mean, you just raised a huge, huge question. I mean, because it does sound like a sci fi movie, folks, you bring back. I mean, and again it's why I want America to lead in this, because I think that you know, regardless of what your politics are, the science community in the United States, whether they're in the government or the private sector, I trust them way more than I trust the Chinese government unleashing an alien rock from Mars into the universe. I mean, Lord forbid there be a virus on that thing. We saw the CCP hand of the last virus. Good Okay, not good. And so to be able to have America leading and the private public partnerships leading the way on that is so incredibly, incredibly important, and so I just want to thank you Leonard Davis for walking us through again that's this announcement of the potential for biosignatures on Mars, huge announcement to not get nearly as enough coverage and to be able to interview you about that, Leonard David. Truly, honestly, I always get asked, especially when I was at my last job at Bloomberg and whatnot. Everyone would always tell me, who do you read how do you get your news? And this was way before I started opening myself up to being able to cover the future. And I would always say Leonard David, I mean, Leonard David is a Titan and there is no one else. I mean, he truly is, you know the guy. So I'm so appreciative that he would do an interview with me on Mars and come on, hello future, and Leonard David, thank you so much for coming on to break down what's happening on Mars. Appreciate it.
00:17:54
Speaker 2: Well, I thank you very much. And you've buggered me up so much I'm sliding down to the pole.
00:17:59
Speaker 1: Well, thank yep.
Speaker 1: Did you see the news reports that there could be life or signs of life on Mars. Hello Future, it's me Kevin. This is a dispatch from the Digital Frontier. The year is twenty twenty five. The planet is Earth. My name is Kevin Surreali and my guest today. I am so excited about it because there is no better journalist who has covered space for decades, for more than fifty years. I mean, he truly is like the Walt Kronkite of outer space. His name is Leonard David. He is a Space Insider columnist. He's an award winning space journalist who has been reporting on space activities for again more than half a century, and he is writing a space dot com Space Insider columnist and among his other projects, he has authored numerous books on space exploration, especially about Mars missions and more. His latest is called Moon Rush, The New Space Rush, and it was published in twenty nineteen by National Geographic. He also wrote Mars Our Future on the Red Planet again in a great partnership with National Geographic. Leonard, I am so excited to have this conversation with someone as experience and knowledgeable as you. Thank you so much for coming on Hello.
00:01:19
Speaker 2: Future boy. That's a big build up. I hope I can live up to Walder Cronkite.
00:01:25
Speaker 1: You already have, my friend, you already have so well. He was.
00:01:29
Speaker 2: He was an idol of mind over the decades that I watched the Space program. Grow quite a guy. But you know, you ask about the Mars new finding, and you know, part of me goes hum and why because I've always believed there's life on Mars. I think that cannot have it on Mars would be odd. It just seems like the more we look at the Earth and how many ways that life clings on to weird environments, it's a sure bet that Mars is sort of the same way, as well as a lot of the moons of Jupiter Saturn. So we're on a roll here, but even getting the public excited about the new discovery, about the potential of finding life on Mars again, I don't want to be blase about it, but you know, it's been a long time coming and let's get on with it.
00:02:26
Speaker 1: That's why I love your coverage and I check him. I've got like my RSS feed checked into Leonard David because everything that he publishes is you know, he's late years ahead of everybody else. I love how you say, ho hum, we just found potential biosignatures on Mars. By the way, it was last year. I like, what what a world, what a year to be living in where finding signs of life on Mars isn't even a front page news story. I mean, that's to your point. It's just it's just so incredibly insane to me as someone who is, you know, just starting out in this level of intrigue and as a huge science fiction fan. But you know, it's not like the Martian. I mean that they that they found this like that movie. I want to get to that in a second, but for those just to catch people up, A sample collected by NASA's Perseverance Mars rover from an ancient dry river bed in Ja Zero Crater, which is on Mars. It could preserve evidence of ancient microbial life. Not according to NASA's website, this was taken from a rock named the Chiava Falls and it was taken last year, and the sample is called the Sapphire Canyon. I gotta say they came up with some good names, Leonard, for this stuff, because sometimes you know, they name these asteroids, all these numbers and it's confusing to keep track of, but it contains potential biosignatures. So for people who are not as experienced, aka me, what does that even mean? Leonard translate it for me.
00:03:50
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, we've got two active rovers on Mars. Don't discount Curiosity, which is in another area of Mars. It's it's moving around, it's been there quite a while, and Perseverance is sort of the newbie on Mars. But clomping around Jezreeld Crater where Perseverance is right now. I mean that was the whole point of sending it to that particular site, because they fine tuned the landing site. It was picked because it had all the opportunity of ancient life and perhaps preserving some life today. Now, I think my big gripe right now about the whole thing is who's going to get to bring back samples from Mars? And your expertise, I think you've listened to a lot of chats about space over the decades, and I'm not sure China won't be the first country to bring back a return sample. We seem in the United States and NASA's frankly for an agency that is dealt with micro gravity for a long time. They're in a free fall position, and I'm not particularly happy with the budget numbers that NASA has been given. And you know, the way laying of our Mars sample return mission is up for grabs.
00:05:17
Speaker 1: So that's that's almost like not to not to cut in here, to interrupt you, but that's the big, big question in order to discover life on Mars. It's almost like, folks, if you've ever been in those one of those nineteen these arcades where you've got that metal claw that comes down and you try to scoop up the toy in that cage. Okay, so we've got Perseverance roven around up there on Mars, and we've got Curiosity, great names by the way that they came up with, and we got the claw went down, it scooped up the red rock. Essentially, I'm simplifying Leonard, correct me if it's too simple. But it got the rock and they're studying it. But now got to bring it back to Earth, folks, in order to see if the aliens exist, if these microbriel aliens are there, and to Leonard's point, if the Communist Party at China is investing so much money and they're racing. Can you imagine the precedent that that will set here on planet Earth if China declares that they got the Mars Rock to discover alien life on Mars. Can you imagine the victory lap that General Secretary's teaching ping will say as he's parading around and doing all of that. So to your point, Leonard, what is being done to make sure that the United States gets that rock back on the third rock from the Sun, from the fourth Rock?
00:06:46
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's very difficult, and I was just working on this this morning, trying to figure out what is NASA's strategy. Right now, You've got anenacting NASA administer, which right off signals the problem in NASA has. I don't need acting administrators. I want real people that have been assigned the duty and they're a clarified vision on where they're taking the agency. So we're off to a rocky start there, nice guy, But let's get on with this. And there's so many other problems NASA has in the budgetary framework, but the Mars sample return right now is least what I think is going on. You've had Rocket Lab in New Zealand. Peter Beck. Good, good, fantastic guy. And you've had Lockey Martin put in new proposals of how to do this mission for under ten twelve billion dollars at a time when NASA's budgetary crisis is right in front of us. They have a lot of problems with Artemis overruns and going back to the Moon, all the other things that we love NASA. But the private sector can do something different here. The question is whether or not they really can at a lower price. And it looks to me like even given a go ahead today, if China succeeds, they're going to have the first samples back way before a US program. But who knows, maybe we will augment the NASA program and do something spectacular which is not unlike what NASA has done in the past.
00:08:28
Speaker 1: Hello, Future, it's me keV. My guest today is Leonard David, an award winning space journalist. You can find him at SpaceNews dot com all of his latest reports. In twenty ten, he was the winner of the prestigious National Space Club Press Award, and he also recently co authored a book with Apolo Levins buzz Aldron, the book Mission to Mars, My Vision for Space Exploration was published by the National Geographic Society. Leonard David's work is just honestly, it truly is late years ahead of any other space journalists. He's been covering stuff. I want to do a lightning round on Mars, Leonard, if you'll indulge me just a little bit. And when I think of this quote, especially as we're talking about the potential for biosignatures that NASA discovered on Mars, the potential for life, I think of that Neil Degrass Tyson quote if quote if Mars formed life, then life on Earth could have been seated by life on Mars, making every life form on Earth descended from Martians end quote, which is kind of wild when you think about it. So lightning round for my guest today, Leonard Leonard, why should the average person care if there's biosignatures like little you know, the it, like little lab you know, microbes roaming around or wiggling around up on Mars, why should we care?
00:09:46
Speaker 2: What mean?
00:09:46
Speaker 1: We had enough problems on Earth?
00:09:47
Speaker 2: Leonard? That's right. And my whole career has been looking at why the public, a good chunk of the public still doesn't appreciate what spacexplor ice. I mean, it's a little bit on the white road problem. You know, I'm guilty of falling into space exploration writing a long time ago, you know, because my mom said, look up in the night sky, and and I have been. I broke my glasses and I had to make a telescope out of them, and that's when I started looking up and appreciating what's up there and wondering why it's there. But you know, some people just that doesn't resonate, and that's okay.
00:10:37
Speaker 1: I don't understand these people. I don't understand those people that are keep going.
00:10:42
Speaker 2: It's fine, you know. And that's you know, my neighbor is not a big space exploration fan, but that's fine because he has to keep hearing me yack all the time about what we just found. And you know, it's stunning. What's what's not only been found, but what's coming. Yeah. We are on some real mind bending things in space exploration, including you know, getting to the kind of a cliche question are we alone? You know, My thing is it's not are we alone? It's how crowded is it out there? Wow?
00:11:21
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's a good it's a good space to leave it. But my final question for you is I got two. I got two questions, So Leonard, I got two questions for it. One is in when when will the United when will we land on Mars? Predictions next decade, next two decades? What do you think?
00:11:38
Speaker 2: Well, you know again, you know, China is moving forward with their robotic program for Mars exploration, and they are discussing their own human mission to Mars. I think they're going to cut their teeth on their own Apollo like program and we'll see how they do. Now, they could fail, and they could lose Chinese tychoonots in space and have to read like we've lost quite a few astronauts on Shuttle missions and they'll have to reconfigure. But you know, I you know, in the TIS timeframe, I think we've got a window of opportunity for getting people on Mars. But you know, it's easy to say, Pees, what does that mean? Now You're going to have to have some fairly important leadership issue at a time when we have acting NASA administrators say we're going to be on Mars, like Kennedy said, within the decade. And that's the kind of drive that you know, I mean in my younger days. It drove me to be so passionate about space exploration and what it means for humanity. So we'll see. But my guess is between all this is a lot of progress that needs to be made, including the Orion and the Artemis program. I just see the astronauts named their capsule that are going to go circumling around the Moon Inegrity. I think that's a good name. I hope NASA holds up to it and and and proceeds into the future like we'd like it to do.
00:13:20
Speaker 1: Final question for you everyone who follows what I'm trying to do with with Hello Future and MTF dot TVs, Meet the Future and whatnot. I really have always wanted to go to space. I've always said openly for years I would love to have a round trip ticket. However, if it was Mars, I understand it might have to be a one way ticket to go colonize and to do that, I really, really truly believe in going to space as a form of medical research. I think that there's a lot of good that can be done for humanity here on Earth with with you know, various forms of cures for diseases and zero gravity and and whatnot? What is what? First of all, I'm assuming you believe that I can go to correct I mean you're a believer.
00:14:02
Speaker 2: Well, a lot of people I've had friends of mine go into space. So yeah, thank you. I appreciate your confidence of mine. I want you to go.
00:14:10
Speaker 1: Thank you. Ahead, Well, you're invited to my launch party at my return party, unless it's the Mars thing, in which case I'll zoom with you. Well, maybe not zoom on Mars, zoom the connection. But what is one thing that I can do today to continue my mission to be able to go tomorrow or to be able to go to outer space.
00:14:27
Speaker 2: I think anybody that's really interested in this topic is keep abreast of what the private sector is doing, what the government's doing, not only in the US, but globally, because India has a very passionate space program as well. The amount of countries that now have space agencies is really on the uptick, and so it's a global community effort. You know. Other than that, keep exercising, because you know, there's only so many ways you can get into the spacesuits, and you've got to be fairly thin and trim. Well.
00:15:03
Speaker 1: I love some work out and I love them. I love the Martian Andy Weir's book. What's your favorite sci fi book?
00:15:09
Speaker 2: It's not a book, you know, I kind of gave up reading sci fi books the movies. I've got a pretellar. Yeah, Interstellar's up there. I'm kind of way back, you know. Again, there's early Destination Moon Forbidden Planet. I like the thing. I love I love that old the thing. You know, James RNs played the thing of gun Smoke later when he was an actor is something. And and rama strain is a good one because I think one thing we didn't cover here much is, you know, we got to be a little concerned about bringing back samples of Mars, particularly when we now know that past life on Mars looks pretty favorable. But what about something in that sample that may have some potential case back into the euro atmosphere and ecosystem. And I agree with Tyson in the sense of this panspermia thing of passing microbes between planets looks pretty real. I mean, it looks like that is part of a process. Now, whether that really happened here, that's part of the mystery. And that's why it's so much fun.
00:16:22
Speaker 1: Well, it's so much fun to your point, I mean, you just raised a huge, huge question. I mean, because it does sound like a sci fi movie, folks, you bring back. I mean, and again it's why I want America to lead in this, because I think that you know, regardless of what your politics are, the science community in the United States, whether they're in the government or the private sector, I trust them way more than I trust the Chinese government unleashing an alien rock from Mars into the universe. I mean, Lord forbid there be a virus on that thing. We saw the CCP hand of the last virus. Good Okay, not good. And so to be able to have America leading and the private public partnerships leading the way on that is so incredibly, incredibly important, and so I just want to thank you Leonard Davis for walking us through again that's this announcement of the potential for biosignatures on Mars, huge announcement to not get nearly as enough coverage and to be able to interview you about that, Leonard David. Truly, honestly, I always get asked, especially when I was at my last job at Bloomberg and whatnot. Everyone would always tell me, who do you read how do you get your news? And this was way before I started opening myself up to being able to cover the future. And I would always say Leonard David, I mean, Leonard David is a Titan and there is no one else. I mean, he truly is, you know the guy. So I'm so appreciative that he would do an interview with me on Mars and come on, hello future, and Leonard David, thank you so much for coming on to break down what's happening on Mars. Appreciate it.
00:17:54
Speaker 2: Well, I thank you very much. And you've buggered me up so much I'm sliding down to the pole.
00:17:59
Speaker 1: Well, thank yep.
