[00:00] Let's explore some of the scenarios that
[00:02] are going to be potentially the reality
[00:05] of us as a human race.
[00:06] >> Let's go right on down the list. Go
[00:08] >> the laundry list. Um, okay. Well, let's
[00:10] look at Mars in 2050.
[00:11] >> Oh, yeah.
[00:12] >> How how are we saying maybe, maybe not?
[00:15] You're kidding me. Oh, that's definitely
[00:16] going to happen.
[00:17] >> Yeah. Elon Musk, he has said he wants to
[00:19] put a million people on Mars by 2050 to
[00:23] have a self- sustaining civilization
[00:24] that will survive there even if you know
[00:28] the rockets from Earth stop coming
[00:29] because there's been an asteroid strike
[00:30] or nuclear war or something here.
[00:32] >> That's definitely not happening. There
[00:35] are a lot of reasons why that's not
[00:37] happening. Getting anyone to Mars by
[00:40] 2050 and bringing them back alive or
[00:42] just having them live there for a while,
[00:44] that would be incredibly difficult. The
[00:46] challenges just to put boots on Mars the
[00:49] way that we did on the moon are
[00:51] enormous, right? Just learning how to
[00:53] keep someone alive in deep space that
[00:56] far away from Earth for as long as it
[00:58] takes to get to Mars, stay on Mars, come
[01:01] back. We do not know how to do that yet.
[01:03] >> Chuck, that's the problem. They want to
[01:04] put boots on Mars instead of sneakers on
[01:06] Mars. [laughter] Sneaker contract,
[01:08] you'll pay the whole way.
[01:09] >> Nike would have put Nike would have been
[01:10] there by now. [laughter]
[01:12] >> They just do it. Yeah. Exactly.
[01:15] >> Excellent.
[01:16] >> Just do it.
[01:17] >> It ain't about boots. [laughter] It is
[01:18] about sneakers.
[01:20] >> I mean, so
[01:21] >> what are the biggest challenges of going
[01:23] that far into space? Is it radiation or
[01:25] >> Yeah, there's radiation. And that's not
[01:27] just when you're in space, it's also
[01:28] when you're on Mars, right? You know,
[01:30] the two things that primarily protect us
[01:33] from radiation here on Earth are our,
[01:35] you know, the Earth's magnetic field and
[01:38] the thick atmosphere that Earth has.
[01:40] Mars doesn't have either of those
[01:41] things. So when you're on the surface of
[01:42] Mars, you're getting pretty much the
[01:43] same radiation dose that you do like out
[01:45] in space. And that's not good, right?
[01:48] You know, like the thing that I tell
[01:49] people is the movie The Martian is
[01:51] science fiction. One of the things
[01:53] that's science fiction about it is if
[01:54] Mark Wattney really, you know, had to do
[01:56] all the stuff that he did in that movie,
[01:58] he'd come home and he'd be dead of
[02:00] cancer in a couple of years because he
[02:01] had too much radiation exposure hanging
[02:03] out on Mars.
[02:05] >> What about the ISS? If Scott Kelly could
[02:07] stay up there for a year,
[02:07] >> one of the twins, one stayed on Earth
[02:09] and one, right? Why couldn't you just
[02:12] extend that for whatever time necessary
[02:15] to go to Mars? Even if it's not to live
[02:18] there, if it's just to go there and dig
[02:20] a hole and come back,
[02:22] >> right? So, there's a couple of things.
[02:23] First of all, on the ISS, they're still
[02:26] in the Earth's magnetic field. They
[02:27] still have a bunch of the shielding.
[02:29] >> Oh, wait. And what's that called, Neil?
[02:30] Wait, the field that goes all the way
[02:32] out like that.
[02:33] >> Oh, yeah.
[02:33] >> Oh, it's called the Oh, magnetic field.
[02:35] >> No, it's not the magnetic. It's the
[02:38] magnetosphere.
[02:39] >> Yeah. Yeah. Think of X-Men. Yes, the
[02:40] magnetosphere. Go ahead.
[02:43] >> Yeah, exactly. It is like the X-Men.
[02:44] Yeah, they've still got that protection.
[02:46] Also, if something goes wrong on the
[02:49] ISS, they'll be back on the surface of
[02:51] the Earth in a matter of hours. Like,
[02:52] they can just abort and come back home,
[02:54] right?
[02:54] >> Yeah. At most, I mean, you can you come
[02:57] out, you you're down within a half hour.
[02:59] >> Exactly. Yeah. The hours is you want to
[03:01] line up so you don't land in the middle
[03:02] of sharks,
[03:03] >> right? [laughter] Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
[03:05] Yeah. Yeah. So like you can get out easy
[03:07] and you can also have a real time
[03:09] conversation with people on the ground
[03:11] because they're you know they're not
[03:12] that high up and so the speed of light
[03:15] delay with the conversation doesn't
[03:17] matter
[03:19] >> on Mars you know it's a minimum of
[03:21] something like I think 8 minutes each
[03:23] way and a maximum of something like 15
[03:26] or 20 one way and so if you send out a
[03:29] message you are waiting at least 15 20
[03:32] minutes to get a message back maybe more
[03:34] like
[03:35] Yeah.
[03:35] >> You better not be like, "So, how's it
[03:37] going?" Over.
[03:38] >> Yeah.
[03:39] >> Yeah. Put some content in there.
[03:40] [laughter]
[03:42] >> Or or watch out for the cliff.
[03:44] >> Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And the other thing
[03:46] is like if you have a problem on the
[03:48] surface of Mars and you want to come
[03:49] back, that's going to take you uh at
[03:52] least 9 months, maybe more if you happen
[03:55] to be near a launch window where you
[03:57] know the Earth and the and Mars are like
[03:59] in the right
[04:00] >> positions. If you're not near launch
[04:02] window, it could be well over a year
[04:04] before you can come home. And
[04:06] >> yeah, a full up roundtrip mission to
[04:07] Mars with ideal launch and return
[04:11] parameters is multiple years.
[04:12] >> Yeah.
[04:13] >> Right.
[04:14] >> But you can get to the moon and back in
[04:15] a week. Yep. In like a in a news cycle.
[04:17] Yep.
[04:18] >> Right.
[04:18] >> So if we overcome the logistics of
[04:20] getting from Earth to Mars Yeah. If big
[04:22] big if, where are they going to live?
[04:24] Cuz they're not going to go out there
[04:25] and start building.
[04:27] >> Yeah. And then
[04:28] >> why don't you just uh build a little
[04:29] sort of half underground thing that
[04:31] shields you from Sure.
[04:34] >> Yeah. Well, so then you have other
[04:35] problems, right? You know, there's no
[04:37] air. You got to bring in oxygen or, you
[04:40] know, do some sort of reaction to make
[04:41] oxygen on the surface, which yeah, you
[04:43] can do that, but it's not the easiest
[04:44] thing. Uh you got to bring in all your
[04:46] food. Can't grow it there. The Martian
[04:49] surface, the dirt on Mars is filled with
[04:52] toxic chemicals. You're going to have a
[04:54] hard time getting it out of stuff cuz
[04:55] it's very fine. It's not It's going to
[04:57] be that's going to be here on Earth
[04:58] soon, too. So, [laughter] chemical I
[05:00] mean I mean let's be for real.
[05:02] >> Yeah,
[05:03] >> but we know you can grow poop potatoes
[05:05] on.
[05:06] >> Yes,
[05:06] >> we know that.
[05:08] >> Yes, exactly. Yeah, there was a proof of
[05:10] concept in the movie The Martian.
[05:11] [laughter]
[05:12] >> Duh.
[05:12] >> No, but but actually it's it's funny
[05:14] though. The guy who wrote the book uh
[05:15] what's his name? Andy.
[05:17] >> Andy Weir. Yeah.
[05:18] >> In fact, we had him on the show. Yeah.
[05:19] He's in our archives. He has said that
[05:22] you know the discovery of these
[05:23] particular poisonous compounds in the
[05:26] Martian surface uh called perchlorates
[05:28] he didn't know about that when he wrote
[05:30] the book because it wasn't widely known
[05:32] and so now we know if you tried to you
[05:34] know farm poop potatoes on Mars they'd
[05:36] be poisonous.
[05:38] >> Yeah.
[05:38] >> So that's the unknown unknown.
[05:40] >> Yeah. Exactly. Right. [music]
[05:53] >> [music]
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