Nagin Cox: What time is it on Mars?
Nagin Cox: Quelle heure est-il sur Mars ?
Nagin Cox explores Mars as part of the team that operates NASA's rovers. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
the movie "The Martian."
à avoir vu « Seul sur Mars ».
it's a movie about an astronaut
c'est un film sur un astronaute
and his efforts to stay alive
et sur ses efforts pour survivre
to bring him back to Earth.
viennent le rechercher depuis la Terre.
à ré-établir la communication
astronaut Watney, at some point
on Mars until he can be rescued.
jusqu'au moment où on vient le sauver.
or even if you haven't,
ou si vous ne l'avez pas vu,
how far away it is and how distant.
combien c'est loin, et distant.
have occurred to you is,
of working on another planet --
quand on travaille sur une autre planète,
and there are rovers or people on Mars?
et des rovers, ou des gens, sur Mars.
families and co-workers
de la famille, ou des collègues,
or in other parts of the world.
ou d'autres régions du monde.
to communicate with them,
il peut bien être en Californie.
you probably first think about is:
de les appeler maintenant ?
with colleagues who are in Europe,
avec des collègues en Europe,
communication when people are far away?
lorsqu'on est physiquement éloigné ? »
right now, but we do have rovers.
mais on a des véhicules.
it is 6:10 in the morning.
pour Curiosity, sur Mars.
on Mars since the mid-1990s,
sur Mars depuis la moitié des années 90.
to work on three of them.
sur 3 d'entre eux.
a spacecraft operations engineer,
ingénieure opérationnelle,
in Los Angeles, California.
à Los Angeles, en Californie.
are our robotic emissaries.
and they see the planet for us
et ils voient la planète pour nous,
y envoyer des gens.
on other planets through these rovers.
sur d'autres planètes grâce à eux.
on envoie donc des robots.
on Mars right now,
une différence d'horaire sur Mars,
is longer than the Earth day.
est plus long qu'un jour terrestre.
à la Terre pour effectuer une rotation
the Earth to rotate,
40 minutes to rotate once.
environ pour effectuer une rotation.
is 40 minutes longer than the Earth day.
40 minutes de plus qu'un jour terrestre.
the rovers on Mars, like this one,
les véhicules sur Mars, comme celle-ci,
on Earth, but working on Mars.
mais travaillent sur Mars.
on Mars with the rover.
nous étions sur Mars, avec le rover.
of which I'm a part of,
dont je fait partie,
to tell it what to do the next day.
pour ses activités du lendemain.
or tell her whatever she's supposed to do.
et faire ce qu'il doit faire.
and the rover does sleep at night
le rover dort la nuit,
to recharge her batteries
the cold Martian night.
la nuit glaciale sur Mars.
on her program for the next day.
nous préparons son programme du lendemain.
martienne.
at the same time every day on Mars --
à la même heure chaque jour, sur Mars,
at work at 5:00 p.m.,
au boulot à 17 heures,
at 5:00 p.m. Mars time every day,
à 17 heures martiennes, chaque jour,
on the Earth 40 minutes later every day,
notre arrivée au boulot sur Terre,
d'un fuseau horaire tous les jours.
the next day 40 minutes later at 8:40,
le lendemain, à 8h40,
de 40 minutes tous les jours,
commence au milieu de la nuit,
in the middle of the night --
how confusing that is.
que c'est compliqué.
have been mechanically adjusted
a été ajusté mécaniquement
the rovers back then.
ont atterri sur Mars.
de montre martienne.
we'll just have the time on our computers
sur nos ordinateurs,
and that would be enough.
suffirait.
pas que travailler à l'heure de Mars,
working on Mars time,
about what time it was.
perturbé sur l'heure qu'il était.
on your wrist to tell you:
de cette chose à notre poignet
What time is it on Mars?
et l'heure sur Mars.
that was confusing;
qui était confus.
to talk to each other about it.
d'en parler ensemble.
again, 24 hours and 40 minutes.
et il dure 24 heures 40 minutes.
that's happening on the Earth,
qui a lieu sur Terre,
« ausold'hui ».
"Oh, let's invent a language."
d'inventer une nouvelle langue.
walked up to me and said,
où mon interlocuteur dit :
on the vehicle tomorrow, on the rover."
sur le rover demain. »
or Mars, tomorrow?"
demain sur Mars, ou demain ? »
we needed a way to talk to each other.
parce que nous devions communiquer.
ou « solmain ».
for the words they use.
and some of you might say "pop."
et d'autre de Coca,
"nextersol" or "solorrow."
« demasol » et d'autres « solmain ».
a few years of working on these missions,
au sein de ces missions,
on the rovers, we say "tosol."
sur les rovers, nous disons : « demasol ».
landed missions that don't rove around,
sur des missions martiennes sans rover,
you worked on from your Martian accent.
vous travaillez selon votre accent.
and you're detecting a theme here, right?
Vous en percevez le sens, n'est-ce-pas ?
s’emmêler les pinceaux.
could confuse us.
terrestre nous perturbe.
you've come to work
de la nuit martienne,
from the windows
illumine nos fenêtres,
this image of the control room
de la salle de contrôle
about a week before landing,
une semaine avant l'atterrissage.
until we went off Mars time.
avant notre départ de Mars.
for the house, for at home.
and my husband is like,
de Mars pour la 3ème fois
and dark curtains and shades
et tire tous les rideaux.
this darkened environment, but so was he.
mais mon mari aussi.
emails from him when he was at work.
des mails plaintifs depuis son bureau.
so he needs a Mars watch.
une montre martienne.
so there's an app for that.
il y a une appli pour ça.
we can also use our phones.
par notre téléphone.
was just across the board;
était général.
who were working on the rovers
qui travaillaient avec les rovers.
one of our flight directors,
un de nos directeurs de vol.
with his family at 1:00 in the morning.
avec sa famille, à 1h du matin.
to school until September,
à l'école avant septembre.
with him for one month.
avec lui, pendant un mois.
tous les jours.
and had these great adventures,
un mois et ont eu plein d'aventures,
in the middle of the night
that we all discovered
que nous avons tous découvert,
n'importe où à Los Angeles
when there's no traffic.
quand il n'y a pas de trafic.
and bother our families,
et gêner nos familles.
going locally to eat something,
Au lieu de manger à proximité,
all-night deli in Long Beach,
ouvert 24h sur 24 à Long Beach,
it was like the 60s, no traffic.
Comme dans les années 60.
and the restaurant owners would go,
du restaurant nous demandaient :
at 3:00 in the morning?"
dans mon restaurant ? »
that there were these packs of Martians,
qu'il y avait une meute de Martiens,
in the middle of the night --
de Los Angeles, la nuit,
start calling ourselves Martians.
à s'appeler les Martiens.
would refer to ourselves as Martians,
de Mars, s'appelaient les Martiens,
a time-zone every day,
de fuseau horaire quotidien
from everyone else.
"I survived Mars time. Sol 0-90."
« J'ai survécu à l'heure de Mars. Sol 0-90. »
up on the screen.
is because we work on Mars time
nous travaillons à l'heure de Mars
with the rover on Mars,
le plus possible,
for more than three to four months.
que 3 ou 4 mois sur le fuseau de Mars.
time, which is what we're working now.
modifié. On y travaille actuellement.
your bodies, it's hard on your families.
pour nos corps, nos familles.
who actually were studying us
dans le sommeil nous ont étudiés,
to try to extend their day.
pour des humains d'étirer leurs journées.
sleep deprivation experiments on.
de privation de sommeil.
et je m'endormais systématiquement.
and I fell asleep in each one.
this eventually becomes hard on your body.
pour le corps.
with the other members on the team,
tous les membres de l'équipe.
steps out into the solar system.
dans le système solaire.
on more than one planet.
sur plus qu'une seule planète.
to become multi-planetary.
notre perspective
a Star Wars movie,
from the Dagobah system to Tatooine,
le système de Dagobah et Tatooine,
people spread out so far.
d'avoir des gens si éloignés,
of the distances between them,
separate from each other
to Mars yet, but we hope to.
sur Mars, mais on espère y arriver.
comme SpaceX et la NASA,
space agencies of the world,
internationales dans le monde,
in the next few decades.
d'ici quelques décennies.
and we truly will be multi-planetary.
Nous serons bientôt multi-planétaire.
présents dans la salle
in this audience or listening today.
de cet équipage martien.
on these missions since I was 14 years old
depuis que j'ai 14 ans.
in the space program,
pour les programmes spatiaux.
you don't have enough time in your day,
avoir assez de temps dans la journée,
of your Earthly perspective.
de perspective terrestre.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Nagin Cox - Spacecraft operations engineerNagin Cox explores Mars as part of the team that operates NASA's rovers.
Why you should listen
Nagin Cox has been exploring since she decided as a teenager that she wanted to work at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She was born in Bangalore, India, and grew up in Kansas City, Kansas, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Her experiences as a child in a Muslim household showed her how easily we separate ourselves based on gender, race or nationality, and it inspired her to do something that brings people together instead of dividing them. The Space Program helps the world "look up" and remember that we are one world. Thus, she has known from the time she was 14 years old that she wanted to work on missions of robotic space exploration.
Cox realized her childhood dream and has been a spacecraft operations engineer at NASA/JPL for over 20 years. She has held leadership and system engineering positions on interplanetary robotic missions including the Galileo mission to Jupiter, the Mars Exploration Rovers, the Kepler exoplanet hunter, InSight and the Mars Curiosity Rover.
In 2015, Cox was honored as the namesake for Asteroid 14061 by its discovers. She has also received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal and two NASA Exceptional Achievement Medals. She is a U.S. Department of State STEM Speaker and has spoken to audiences around the world on the stories of the people behind the missions. She has also served on Cornell University’s President's Council for Cornell Women.
Before her time at JPL, Cox served for 6 years in the US Air Force including duty as a Space Operations Officer at NORAD/US Space Command. She holds engineering degrees from Cornell University and the Air Force Institute of Technology as well as a psychology degree from Cornell. (Sometimes she is not sure which one she uses more: the engineering degree or the psychology degree.)
Cox is currently a Tactical Mission Lead on the Curiosity Rover, and every day at NASA/JPL exploring space is as rewarding as the first. You can contact her at nagincox(at)outlook.com.
Nagin Cox | Speaker | TED.com