Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) systems engineer Bobak Ferdowsi helps search for extraterrestrial life in the right places. He’s a crowd favorite when it comes to building robotic spaceships and solving complex aerospace problems, all while sporting a super cool mohawk haircut.
Currently, Ferdowsi serves as the failure protection lead on the joint NISAR Earth observation mission with India and the Europa Clipper mission planner at NASA JPL. Previous responsibilities include launch, cruise, approach engineering manager and flight director on Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity and science planner on the Cassini-Huygens mission to the Saturn system.
Ferdowsi, the “Mohawk Guy of NASA,” was an integral part of the Curiosity rover’s entry, descent, and landing (EDL) team for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory when he became instantly famous on the Internet thanks to his radical Captain America hairstyle (accented red and blue with white). stars on the shaved sides) during the live television broadcast of Curiosity’s landing on the Red Planet on August 6, 2012.
Related: Netflix’s ‘3 Body Problem’ Is the Gripping Story of a Hostile Alien Invasion (Review)
Ferdowsi was recently featured in an appearance for the eighth and final episode of Netflix’s “3 Body Problem,” the “Game of Thrones” alien invasion miniseries from David Benioff and DB Weiss and Alexander Woo’s “True Blood.” During the dedicated Project Staircase sequence where an experimental probe carrying Will’s brain was launched to meet the San-Ti invasion fleet, Ferdowsi calmly portrayed a fictional mission director making routine follow-up calls.
We sat down with the famed rocket scientist to discuss his work as a science advisor and actor on “3 Body Problem,” drawing inspiration from the episode’s veteran director Jeremy Podeswa, and the feasibility of the nano probe -series sail pushed into deep space by an array of detonated nuclear bombs.
Space.com: How did you get involved with “3 Body Problem” and were you familiar with the trilogy of novels by Cixin Liu that the series was adapted from?
Bobak Ferdowsi: DB Weiss, one of the showrunners, was mutual friends with someone and a while ago I met him and we chatted and hit it off. During the pandemic we were meeting for drinks in his garden and he mentioned he was working on “3 Body Problem” as a possible opportunity. He asked me if I had read it and if I liked it. Another friend gave me the books and I was completely captivated. Six months or a year later he told me they were going to do it and he wanted to hire me as a technical advisor. That’s what I signed up for initially and we started there, working on these scenes, especially for the mission director.
When they asked me if I was interested in playing the role myself, I was a little hesitant; I’m not an actor. But one of my life goals is to challenge myself, put myself in uncomfortable situations and see how I do. This is a supportive team and I knew they weren’t going to let me fail and do a terrible job.
Space.com: Where did you travel for filming and how long did it take you to shoot your scenes?
Ferdowsi: We filmed in the summer of 2022 and of course it came out in March so almost two years apart. This was done outside of London, at Shepperton Studios, and it was a fun experience. A friend of mine is a composer and you’d go to the soundstage where they’re recording stuff where they recorded the original “Star Trek” music. It seems very practical there and less nostalgic in Shepperton than some Hollywood scenes.
I like it because I like seeing how things are built, and that’s why I’m an engineer. I think the shows are no different on some level. This person has this job to operate this room and it’s like a different breakdown. These are huge, coordinated efforts and that’s true for both sectors.
I was on that set for two days. I deliver my lines and we shot most of my stuff pretty quickly in the second half of the second day. What was new for me was doing the ADR work afterwards, redoing the lines of edits and updates based on how the edit looked.
Space.com: What direction did Jeremy Podeswa give you for your performance?
Ferdowsi: Above all, he tried to give us a lot of support. I was sweating profusely by the time he shouted, “Action! He was like, “That was great, can you give me a little more emotion?” » Especially when things got worse with the investigation. Mostly it was about making sure my lines were clear and trying to get it right. get as authentic a performance as possible from me. We had a bigger story on the mission and the build-up to it was condensed into a few seconds on screen.
Space.com: How accurate is the science behind the “3 Body Problem” Stair Project?
Ferdowsi: I don’t think anyone has demonstrated exactly that. We have elements that have certainly been proposed in the past for missions based on nuclear explosions, including the idea of dropping bombs behind a pusher plate and using the explosions to propel the probe forward. I think Jin references this earlier in the season and one of the other scientists dismisses the idea saying you can’t carry enough mass with all the bombs.
To do this, we exploited existing elements such as light sail technology which uses photons from the sun. Or if you look at something like the Starshot project, the one that was proposed a few years ago with the laser-accelerated light sail. It’s a similar concept. In this case, we use the electromagnetic pulse from the bomb to accelerate the light sail itself and make it take off.
The hardest part actually would be: can you get the timing and position accuracy to that level where you can control both the amount of acceleration and the direction of the angle of incidence of the veil to be correct? When you start talking about speeds of eighty kilometers per second, and of course it gets faster as you go, how precisely could you time all these events and optimize your trajectory?
Space.com: What was the most fun aspect of filming this sci-fi production?
Ferdowsi: On the technical side, I think my favorite part was seeing how things work. Like many people, I wish I could have more than one career in my life. Getting a glimpse of that was awesome. The other part was that it was a great group of people and it was a testament to the showrunners for creating that environment. Everyone was very friendly, kind and supportive.
We left as friends and I still keep in touch with many people. It got me thinking about how I would create those same positive, healthy environments where everyone feels like they’re on the same team when I’m working in my day job as well. That was one of the big highlights for me.
“3 Body Problem” is currently streaming all episodes exclusively on Netflix.