 We're here at National Geographic's Experience Mars event. It's a pop-up in New York City that's supposed to simulate what living on Mars might be like and their piece de resistance is 360, landing on Mars experience. It combines virtual reality and this suspended cable car slash roller coaster type thing to show you what it might be like to enter the Martian atmosphere and then land on its surface. Alright, we're in the control room, clearly. There's a lot of space in front of me. Oh, we're preparing for...oh, there's Mars! I see it happening. And here we go, entering the atmosphere. Oh goodness. Well, yeah, entering the atmosphere is not that fun. It's thinner than Earth's but still poses a problem. Hopefully our heat shield is holding up. Now we're going in. Oh, there's the sky. It's nice and red, not ominous at all. Oh, and we're tilting a lot. I don't know how we're going to land upright. Nachio's fictional ship, the Daedalus, uses supersonic retro propulsion to land on the Martian surface. It's what Elon Musk has proposed for landing on Mars as well. It's the idea of using the engines to slow your fall down to the planet's surface. So my technical specialty is landing things on Mars and so the landing portion was very important to me and I wanted it to be as correct as possible. So everything from the shape of the ship to have the right lift-to-drag ratio for the flight through the Mars atmosphere, to the use of supersonic retro propulsion technology to light up the thrusters when we're still traveling very fast towards the Mars surface and use those thrusters to move to just the right location on the ground at Mars. All of that was based on my experience designing similar things. Now we're in a canyon. Okay, I think we should have taken some more time to find our landing spot. There it is. Oh, okay, okay. All right, now we're landing, hopefully on a flat surface. On a nice flat surface, see? Okay, great. We made it. Nachio and SpaceX's way of landing on Mars is a great idea. It's a lot of testing that we need to do to make sure that it actually works and before we're confident enough to use it to land people on the surface of Mars. You see, landing on Mars is really tough, as we saw with ExoMars' Scapparelli lander, which actually made a new crater on the surface of Mars because it came in way too fast. But in the meantime, it's still really cool to visualize what it might be like to land people on the surface of another planet someday. Oh, goodness. Woo! My feet are barely touching. Oh, no. Now I'm heavy again.
 We're here at National Geographic's Experience Mars event.
 It's a pop-up in New York City that's supposed to simulate what living on Mars might be like
 and their piece de resistance is 360, landing on Mars experience.
 It combines virtual reality and this suspended cable car slash roller coaster type thing
 to show you what it might be like to enter the Martian atmosphere and then land on its
 surface.
 Alright, we're in the control room, clearly.
 There's a lot of space in front of me.
 Oh, we're preparing for...oh, there's Mars!
 I see it happening.
 And here we go, entering the atmosphere.
 Oh goodness.
 Well, yeah, entering the atmosphere is not that fun.
 It's thinner than Earth's but still poses a problem.
 Hopefully our heat shield is holding up.
 Now we're going in.
 Oh, there's the sky.
 It's nice and red, not ominous at all.
 Oh, and we're tilting a lot.
 I don't know how we're going to land upright.
 Nachio's fictional ship, the Daedalus, uses supersonic retro propulsion to land on the
 Martian surface.
 It's what Elon Musk has proposed for landing on Mars as well.
 It's the idea of using the engines to slow your fall down to the planet's surface.
 So my technical specialty is landing things on Mars and so the landing portion was very
 important to me and I wanted it to be as correct as possible.
 So everything from the shape of the ship to have the right lift-to-drag ratio for the
 flight through the Mars atmosphere, to the use of supersonic retro propulsion technology
 to light up the thrusters when we're still traveling very fast towards the Mars surface
 and use those thrusters to move to just the right location on the ground at Mars.
 All of that was based on my experience designing similar things.
 Now we're in a canyon.
 Okay, I think we should have taken some more time to find our landing spot.
 There it is.
 Oh, okay, okay.
 All right, now we're landing, hopefully on a flat surface.
 On a nice flat surface, see?
 Okay, great.
 We made it.
 Nachio and SpaceX's way of landing on Mars is a great idea.
 It's a lot of testing that we need to do to make sure that it actually works and before
 we're confident enough to use it to land people on the surface of Mars.
 You see, landing on Mars is really tough, as we saw with ExoMars' Scapparelli lander,
 which actually made a new crater on the surface of Mars because it came in way too fast.
 But in the meantime, it's still really cool to visualize what it might be like to land
 people on the surface of another planet someday.
 Oh, goodness.
 Woo!
 My feet are barely touching.
 Oh, no.
 Now I'm heavy again.