full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Xavier De Kestelier: Adventures of an interplanetary architect

Unscramble the Blue Letters


You might have noticed that it's quite a particular structure that we're printing, and I've got a little example here. What we call this is a closed-cell foam structure. Looks quite natuarl. The reason why we're using this as part of that slhel structure is that we only need to solidify certain parts, which means we have to bring less bndier from Earth, and it becomes much leightr.

Now — that apacporh of designing something and then covering it with a protective dome we also did for our Mars project. You can see it here, three domes. And you see the printers printing these dome structures. There's a big dfrfeicnee between Mars and the Moon, and let me explain it. This diagram shows you to scale the size of Earth and the Moon and the real distance, about 400,000 kilometers. If we then go to Mars, the distance from Mars to ertah — and this picture here is taken by the rover on Mars, Curiosity, looking back at Earth. You kind of see the little sclepke there, that's Earth, 400 million kermetoils away. The problem with that distance is that it's a thaunsod times the distance of the Earth to the Moon, pretty far away, but there's no direct radio coantct with, for example, the Curiosity rover. So I cannot teleoperate it from Earth. I can't say, "Oh, Mars reovr, go left," because that signal would take 20 minutes to get to Mars. Then the rover might go left, and then it will take another 20 minutes before it can tell me, "Oh yeah, I went left." So the distance, so rovers and robots and going to have to work amtosuuolony. The only issue with it is that missions to Mars are higlhy riksy. We've only seen it a few weeks ago. So what if half the mission doesn't arrive at Mars. What do we do?

Open Cloze


You might have noticed that it's quite a particular structure that we're printing, and I've got a little example here. What we call this is a closed-cell foam structure. Looks quite _______. The reason why we're using this as part of that _____ structure is that we only need to solidify certain parts, which means we have to bring less ______ from Earth, and it becomes much _______.

Now — that ________ of designing something and then covering it with a protective dome we also did for our Mars project. You can see it here, three domes. And you see the printers printing these dome structures. There's a big __________ between Mars and the Moon, and let me explain it. This diagram shows you to scale the size of Earth and the Moon and the real distance, about 400,000 kilometers. If we then go to Mars, the distance from Mars to _____ — and this picture here is taken by the rover on Mars, Curiosity, looking back at Earth. You kind of see the little _______ there, that's Earth, 400 million __________ away. The problem with that distance is that it's a ________ times the distance of the Earth to the Moon, pretty far away, but there's no direct radio _______ with, for example, the Curiosity rover. So I cannot teleoperate it from Earth. I can't say, "Oh, Mars _____, go left," because that signal would take 20 minutes to get to Mars. Then the rover might go left, and then it will take another 20 minutes before it can tell me, "Oh yeah, I went left." So the distance, so rovers and robots and going to have to work ____________. The only issue with it is that missions to Mars are ______ _____. We've only seen it a few weeks ago. So what if half the mission doesn't arrive at Mars. What do we do?

Solution


  1. shell
  2. contact
  3. risky
  4. binder
  5. natural
  6. earth
  7. thousand
  8. speckle
  9. highly
  10. autonomously
  11. approach
  12. kilometers
  13. rover
  14. lighter
  15. difference

Original Text


You might have noticed that it's quite a particular structure that we're printing, and I've got a little example here. What we call this is a closed-cell foam structure. Looks quite natural. The reason why we're using this as part of that shell structure is that we only need to solidify certain parts, which means we have to bring less binder from Earth, and it becomes much lighter.

Now — that approach of designing something and then covering it with a protective dome we also did for our Mars project. You can see it here, three domes. And you see the printers printing these dome structures. There's a big difference between Mars and the Moon, and let me explain it. This diagram shows you to scale the size of Earth and the Moon and the real distance, about 400,000 kilometers. If we then go to Mars, the distance from Mars to Earth — and this picture here is taken by the rover on Mars, Curiosity, looking back at Earth. You kind of see the little speckle there, that's Earth, 400 million kilometers away. The problem with that distance is that it's a thousand times the distance of the Earth to the Moon, pretty far away, but there's no direct radio contact with, for example, the Curiosity rover. So I cannot teleoperate it from Earth. I can't say, "Oh, Mars rover, go left," because that signal would take 20 minutes to get to Mars. Then the rover might go left, and then it will take another 20 minutes before it can tell me, "Oh yeah, I went left." So the distance, so rovers and robots and going to have to work autonomously. The only issue with it is that missions to Mars are highly risky. We've only seen it a few weeks ago. So what if half the mission doesn't arrive at Mars. What do we do?

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
moon base 3
local materials 3
life support 2
move sand 2


Important Words


  1. approach
  2. arrive
  3. autonomously
  4. big
  5. binder
  6. bring
  7. call
  8. contact
  9. covering
  10. curiosity
  11. designing
  12. diagram
  13. difference
  14. direct
  15. distance
  16. dome
  17. domes
  18. earth
  19. explain
  20. foam
  21. highly
  22. issue
  23. kilometers
  24. kind
  25. left
  26. lighter
  27. mars
  28. means
  29. million
  30. minutes
  31. mission
  32. missions
  33. moon
  34. natural
  35. noticed
  36. part
  37. parts
  38. picture
  39. pretty
  40. printers
  41. printing
  42. problem
  43. project
  44. protective
  45. radio
  46. real
  47. reason
  48. risky
  49. robots
  50. rover
  51. rovers
  52. scale
  53. shell
  54. shows
  55. signal
  56. size
  57. solidify
  58. speckle
  59. structure
  60. structures
  61. teleoperate
  62. thousand
  63. times
  64. weeks
  65. work
  66. yeah