Ellen Stofan
Ellen Stofan
Ellen Renee Stofanis the Chief Scientist of NASA and serves as principal advisor to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on the agency’s science programs, planning and investments. Previously, she served as vice president of Proxemy Research in Laytonsville, Maryland, and as an honorary professor in the Earth sciences department at the University College London...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth24 February 1961
CountryUnited States of America
chance critical life mars stable surface time water
Mars was this water-based planet, and we know there was stable water on the surface for a long time, which is critical for life having a chance to develop.
business centered grew helping home life nasa question understand
I grew up in this business... A lot of my life has been centered around this question about how NASA is helping us to understand our own home planet... and to understand our place in the universe.
certainly conditions expect forms life periods single solar stability takes time
What we expect to find, certainly in our own solar system, are probably simple single or multiple-cell forms of life. To get to intelligent life takes stability of conditions over huge, long periods of time.
envelope life push seas
Water-based life is very much an Earth-centric view, and we can push the envelope on that here in our own solar system. We have the methane seas of Titan.
life scientists whether
To unambiguously settle the questions of whether there was life on Mars, it will take scientists down on the surface.
huge life whether
There's a huge question of whether you really need water for life.
biased issue life
I'm so biased to this issue of the origins of life and the limits of life.
bodies life
We're going to understand that there is life on other bodies in the solar system.
life question questions unlimited
If I had an unlimited budget, I would really be probing that question of life because we know what the questions are, and we know what the destinations are.
astronauts explore missions move outward reduced require sure survive thrive
Mars missions will require up to three years in reduced gravity, so we need to make sure astronauts can not only survive but thrive as they move outward to explore this new world.
formed venus
When you look at Venus and the Earth, they formed at about the same place in the solar system. They're made of about the same materials; they're about the same size.
agencies global mission road space wants
With the mission to Mars, the whole world wants to get involved. So we actually have 13 different space agencies from around the world working on the global exploration road map.
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We have to ask, 'How can we break a huge challenge like sending humans to Mars into a series of doable, affordable steps? How can we break that problem down into chunks in order to keep making progress?'
amazing cover crack far great human humans less next pick rocks science tedious throw
Humans can actually read a landscape, go through a lot of rocks - crack them open, throw them, pick up the next one. Rovers are great - they do amazing science - but it is a lot more tedious process; they go much less far than a human can cover in a day.