Benjamin Phillips Interview - GEMx
Narration: Ben Phillips
Transcript:
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My name is Ben Phillips, and I'm the program scientist at NASA headquarters.
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GEMx is the geological Earth mapping experiment. This is a great partnership between NASA and the US Geological Survey to map the mineral composition of the western US states.
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So GEMx is part of a larger initiative called the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative, which is led by the US Geological Survey. And, our partner, the USGS, approached NASA to, work together on developing this updated higher resolution, contiguous geologic map of the western U.S. it's a great partnership because USGS has foundational experience in mapping geology. NASA has unique capabilities, and technologies in our unique aircraft and instruments.
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So we can do this high altitude, broad scale mapping and deliver data to the USGS to produce these new mineral maps.
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So USGS has this, mandate under Earth MRI to improve our knowledge of the nation's geology and natural resources. And, they approach NASA because we have these unique capabilities with our airborne platforms and instruments. And so coupling together, USGS is, need their fundamental expertise in geology with our technology, creates this great opportunity, for this updated map of domestic resources.
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You might be wondering what is a critical mineral? This fundamental thing that we're seeking to better, characterize with GEMx? Well, critical minerals, are, characterized as, as those, that have, significance for, national economic vitality or national security.
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And they're things that, we find, in our everyday, activities and products like your cell phone, or your computer or your electric car battery. So they're really fundamental to, driving our, our modern economy, and critical to ensuring that we have, those materials to, to build, the current and next generation technologies that, that keep us going.
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So GEMx is ooking at a set of critical minerals, one that's familiar, is, where we're searching for, lithium. Think of your lithium ion batteries, in many of your, electronic gadgets. And so, Hectorite, is one mineral, that, is, lithium bearing and, a really exciting aspect of, the campaign is that very early on, we're able to positively identify, Hectorite.
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and confirm that we had the capability with this campaign to look for those resources across the western U.S..
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So the the amazing thing about, GEMx is that, you know, much of what we're looking for, to the naked eye, it looks like a rock or it looks like dirt.
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And, we don't necessarily have the fidelity in our own vision to discern that these different critical minerals are there, right there at the surface. This image in the background here is a great example. You see this brown hillside, and that's what we see right with our naked eyes. But what the campaign and our instruments see is this false color image, just just below, but that those colors are representing the different minerals that are actually there at the surface.
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So, this is why we need these, you know, advanced technologies to get us from the brown to the colors that represent that diversity of minerals that we're searching for.
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So NASA has, two key technologies that it's bringing to bear, in the campaign. One is our, our aircraft.
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so we have a unique aircraft, the ER-2, which can fly at very high altitudes, around 60,000ft. So that's about twice as high as your typical commercial airliner.
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And that allows us to get very wide swath, mapping as we fly over and capture large, contiguous areas. On those aircraft, we mount, our, spectral imaging instruments. There are two key instruments that we're flying for this campaign,
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avarice, with which maps in the visible to shortwave infrared range and master which maps in the thermal infrared range.
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Yeah. So you might ask, why is NASA doing this? Well, we have these world unique capabilities with our high altitude aircraft, the ER-2 and with our spectral imaging instruments, Harvest and Master. So we're really the only organization that has this combination of technologies to enable this really broad scale mapping of huge portions of the western U.S..
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Yeah. Day. A day in the life of the campaign. GEMx Is, you know, a very complex, initiative. And it takes a really large team to pull it off successfully. There are scientists that are, you know, setting up the the targets that we need to map. There are, flight, teams and crews that are readying the aircraft and actually flying the plane, instrument teams, making sure those instruments are ready to go and initiated on the aircraft.
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And, a number of other folks supporting logistics, including, weather conditions. And so a typical day in the life of the campaign, starts with this diverse team, you know, coming together to talk about the status of the day in terms of whether the targets that are, going to be acquired, the status of of all of the instruments, and, getting that ready to go, signal, which then, follows by, taking off the aircraft and flying for a number of hours, usually 6 to 8 hours, to cover, a swath of our target area, coming back and landing, downloading that data, off of the
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instruments and then doing a check to see what we've captured. Did we get what we expected? Are we going to have to look at updating, or revisiting any of those, targets in the future?
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really excites me about GEMx is it really embodies the NASA goal of use-inspired science.
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So we're doing this really fundamental thing of producing a new geologic map of the western US. And as a geologist at heart, that's just an unbelievable foundational contribution, that can enable a wide range of science that's going to make contributions across a broad spectrum. A little bit of a pun there, but it's really going to enable all of these really important applications, from the the primary mission to map, critical minerals and identify new, natural resources, for the nation to other applications like informing, potential natural hazards, related to landslides or earthquakes or volcanoes, better understanding, groundwater or or, vegetation resources.
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So we, we get this, incredibly detailed, snapshot that can enable fundamental science to critical applications. And, that's the NASA way
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Yeah. So so one of the ways we sometimes frame, NASA's objectives is, is as, use inspired science.
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So we're really interested in fundamentally how the earth works and having a better basic understanding of, of our planet. But we do that for a reason. Where we're looking to, make the world a better place to improve our understanding of, what resources are available and how they can be, you know, utilized, responsibly.
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So my hope for GEMx is that we take this foundational data set that we're creating and ensure that it really becomes accessible. And so it can be utilized, by the U.S. Geological Survey to produce their, detailed mineral maps. But then beyond that, for a broad set of stakeholders, across the government, in the private sector, and at the local level to, make use of this information, for all these broad applications from the critical mineral opportunity to the natural hazards implications, to understanding ecosystems and water resources.
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So making sure that we push that data and those products out in a way that more people can benefit from them, is really my great desire for the mission.
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So GEMx produces this foundational product, a new geologic map of the western U.S., but it has so many uses. We're also seeing vegetation. We're seeing implications for water on the surface. We're understanding potential natural hazards from fires or landslides.
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Yes. I think one of the great, challenges and opportunities for X is ensuring uptake of the products, that are made, these geologic maps, the mineral composition, making sure that we can communicate and reach broad audiences of users
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to exploit those data for the benefits of the U.S.
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You might be wondering what it's like actually on the ground and in the air. In a day of the GEMx campaign.
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It's a flurry of activity, but very calculated activity. Got a big team. Everybody has their own responsibility, and they're very focused on ensuring mission success. So it's very busy, but focused, on the ground. There are, teams working to ensure the instruments are, are ready and running. There are teams making sure the pilot is ready to fly and that's not a simple matter.
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In we're flying the ER-2, which flies at a very high altitude, about twice the altitude of a commercial aircraft. So the pilot actually needs to wear a spacesuit. Has a whole team to help him get ready, and, spend the whole day, in the air, with, a life support system. But this is what they live for.
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They're super excited about this particular mission and want to fly, fly, fly to collect these data and produce the results that we're after.
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What's my favorite mental? Well, it's impossible to pick just one. So for the purposes of the campaign, I'll say Hector.ite. Hectorite is the special mineral. Because it's lithium bearing. That's one of the key critical materials that we're looking for with Max. And early in the campaign, we were able to confirm that we can observe Hectorite.
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So that was a a great, sign of mission success to come.
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It's one of the really cool things about NASA is that we look out at the solar system and beyond, but we also turn around from up in space and look back down at the Earth.
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we can use many of the same techniques. That we, we use to look at other planetary bodies to learn more about the Earth. And this is a great example with GEMx, we have past experience mapping the mineralogy of the moon, the moon Mineralogy Mapper, mission.
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And we've learned from those experiments and brought forward that technology, improved and advanced it. And now we're using it here, back on Earth, the address instrument, is a, invention of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory that has contributed across Earth system science. We used to map the, aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to monitor emissions from the Aliso Canyon, gas leak, to map active and post, fire impacts across the western U.S. flying over the active, Hawaii, Kilauea volcano.
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And now we're using the very same instrument to map critical minerals of the western U.S..
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One of the great opportunities, of GEMx and in our line of work is partnership. And in this case, our partnership between NASA and USGS with the scientists, the technologists bring together this big team. And being a part of it, is just a really incredible experience. We achieve things that, none of us as individuals or even as individual agencies could accomplish on our own.
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And so this is just a really exciting time to be working together, to advance our understanding of the geology of the western US, with all of its applications.