Dava Newman: Space Exploration, Space Suits, and Life on Mars

Dava Newman is the Apollo Program professor of AeroAstro at MIT and the former Deputy Administrator of NASA and has been a principal investigator on four spaceflight missions. Her research interests are in aerospace biomedical engineering, investigating human performance in varying gravity environments. She has developed a space activity suit, namely the BioSuit, which would provide pressure through compression directly on the skin via the suit’s textile weave, patterning, and materials rather than with pressurized gas.

This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on Apple Podcasts or support it on Patreon.

This episode is presented by Cash App. Download it, use code LexPodcast. You get $10 and $10 is donated to FIRST, one of my favorite nonprofit organizations that inspires young minds through robotics and STEM education.

Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

00:00 – Introduction
03:11 – Circumnavigating the globe by boat
05:11 – Exploration
07:17 – Life on Mars
11:07 – Intelligent life in the universe
12:25 – Advanced propulsion technology
13:32 – The Moon and NASA’s Artemis program
19:17 – SpaceX
21:45 – Science on a CubeSat
23:45 – Reusable rockets
25:23 – Spacesuit of the future
32:01 – AI in Space
35:31 – Interplanetary species
36:57 – Future of space exploration