Ideas worth spreading

How going to Mars improves life on Earth

1,669,972 views | Eric Hinterman • TEDxMIT

Memory foam, air purifiers, scratch-resistant lenses: these are just a few of the everyday items originally developed for space missions. Aerospace engineer Eric Hinterman invites us to dream big and imagine what technological advancements could come next, explaining why establishing a human presence on Mars is a big step for life on Earth -- and a giant leap toward becoming a space-faring species.

Memory foam, air purifiers, scratch-resistant lenses: these are just a few of the everyday items originally developed for space missions. Aerospace engineer Eric Hinterman invites us to dream big and imagine what technological advancements could come next, explaining why establishing a human presence on Mars is a big step for life on Earth -- and a giant leap toward becoming a space-faring species.

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About the speaker

Eric Hinterman

Aerospace engineer

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Eric Hinterman is passionate about human spaceflight and plans to spend his career pushing the boundaries to enable human exploration of Mars and beyond.

Andy Weir | Broadway Books, 2014 | Book

The Martian

Mark Watney, a botanist-astronaut, discovers what it takes to survive on Mars after being accidentally stranded there by his crew. Weir describes the science and engineering necessary to survive on Mars in an entertaining and thought-provoking novel.

B. G. Drake, S. J. Hoffman and D. W. Beaty | IEEE Aerospace Conference, 2010 | Article

"Human exploration of Mars, Design Reference Architecture 5.0"

NASA’s latest comprehensive plans for what is needed to send humans to Mars and how we might accomplish it.

Michale Hecht, Jeffrey Hoffman, Dennis Rapp, John McClean, et al. | Space Science News, 2021 | Article

"Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE)"

An overview of the MOXIE instrument and its accomplishments thus far. MOXIE is currently making oxygen on Mars onboard the Perseverance rover.

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This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxMIT, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Read more about TEDx.

Take part as a citizen scientist to help NASA make important discoveries about our planet and the rest of the universe.