Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: And welcome back to Coast to Coast. George Norry with you,
Speaker 2: Chris Nippy with us as book worlds without End, Chris,
Speaker 2: is it possible? Is it conceivable that we are the
Speaker 2: offspring of a civilization that left its planet because it
Speaker 2: had to?
Speaker 3: It's possible, It's conceivable. But biologists would say they've uncovered
Speaker 3: evidence four billion years disco on the Earth of how
Speaker 3: we started from sort of primordial sludge and gradually grew
Speaker 3: more complicated and biology evolved over that time.
Speaker 2: It would be intriguing though, wouldn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, And there's no reason that intelligent and advance life
Speaker 3: shouldn't exist beyond the Earth, given how many biological experiments
Speaker 3: they are likely to be.
Speaker 2: Give us a scenario, Chris, kind of paint us a
Speaker 2: picture of the moment before the decision is made to
Speaker 2: leave planet Earth. What's happening on the planet.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a probably a dire scenario of some global
Speaker 3: pandemic or a nuclear war or environmental degradation that far
Speaker 3: exceeds what we're seeing right now. Where you know, people
Speaker 3: maybe for a while can live in little bubble domes
Speaker 3: and small environments, but it's not sufficient to house the
Speaker 3: population of the planet, so we have to go somewhere else.
Speaker 2: Do we have the technology now to go to a
Speaker 2: different place? I don't think so, do.
Speaker 3: We We don't. At the energy costs is enormous, and
Speaker 3: the physics behind that is pretty implacable. It's hard to
Speaker 3: get around, you know. And also the time taken to
Speaker 3: go beyond the Solar System would be enormous. We'd have
Speaker 3: to develop some suspended animation technology that we don't have yet.
Speaker 2: We haven't learned how to bend space and time and
Speaker 2: travel that way too.
Speaker 3: Like the right the technology. I mean, you know, people
Speaker 3: get excited about Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos from the
Speaker 3: space program that's going on in the private sector, but
Speaker 3: those are still chemical rockets, not very different from you know,
Speaker 3: the Saturn five. So we haven't really advanced that much
Speaker 3: on rockets.
Speaker 2: In your opinion, if we kept doing the way we're
Speaker 2: doing it today, how long does planet Earth got to list?
Speaker 3: What do you think, Well, if we get on top
Speaker 3: of things, you know, I mean hundreds, hopefully thousands of years,
Speaker 3: I don't think it's going to go South very quickly,
Speaker 3: but because at least everyone's paying attention now, well most
Speaker 3: most people are paying attention. I mean, if we were
Speaker 3: asleep at the switch, then I wouldn't give us more
Speaker 3: than a few decades if.
Speaker 2: There were no people on the planet, a couple billion
Speaker 2: more years. Do you think the planet could exist on
Speaker 2: its own before the cordiate?
Speaker 3: Life is very durable and robust, and it exists. You know,
Speaker 3: simple forms of life exist in very difficult environments, and
Speaker 3: you know life is going to survive long beyond us.
Speaker 3: The Sun will eventually call a halt to the whole
Speaker 3: thing in about four and a half billion years.
Speaker 2: What was that aha moment when you woke up and said,
Speaker 2: I'm going to write worlds without end?
Speaker 3: Well, I think it was when papers were coming out
Speaker 3: almost every week finding new earthlike planets, you know, like
Speaker 3: ringers for the Earth, almost Earth clones, and I was thinking, Wow,
Speaker 3: these are places where there's no reason there shouldn't be biology.
Speaker 3: We just don't know how to detect it yet, and
Speaker 3: that just makes your imagination go.
Speaker 2: Do you think, though, that we're really destroying the planet today?
Speaker 3: Well, we're running out of the environment, you know, we're
Speaker 3: using more of the environment. I read a biology article
Speaker 3: that said that our metabolic footprint of a modern industrial
Speaker 3: human it's sort of like King Kong. So each human
Speaker 3: is sort of like a King Kong in their footprint
Speaker 3: literal and metaphorical and energy on the planet. And that's
Speaker 3: a pretty scary thought.
Speaker 2: Are there other planets out there that could support life
Speaker 2: that you think are out there besides the ones that
Speaker 2: you just mentioned.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are. There seem to be hundreds that are
Speaker 3: about the Earth's size, about the Earth's mass. They're at
Speaker 3: the temperate zone where there should be water on the surface,
Speaker 3: and water is not a very rare molecule in the universe.
Speaker 2: I mean, could we start breathing there like right away?
Speaker 3: Well, we don't. That's a good question because the atmosphere.
Speaker 3: That's a difficult experiment to measure the atmosphere, So we don't.
Speaker 3: We haven't found an atmosphere that is a ringer for
Speaker 3: the Earth yet, and that's partly because we haven't done
Speaker 3: that experiment. It's just very hard to measure the atmospheres.
Speaker 2: And I wouldn't want to live with a mask on
Speaker 2: for the rest of my life, would you.
Speaker 3: No, No, that's not good. You might as well, live
Speaker 3: on Mars in a bubble dome if you're going.
Speaker 2: To have a mask on and then you always have
Speaker 2: that risk you're going to run out of oxygen or
Speaker 2: who knows what.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, this is still a pretty nice planet,
Speaker 3: whatever we're doing to it, it's still the best place.
Speaker 2: How many spaceships would we need to colonize a planet?
Speaker 3: Well, the minimum viable colony, according to biologists for genetic
Speaker 3: de and not having the sort of recessive gene issues
Speaker 3: is about one hundred and twenty or one hundred and thirty.
Speaker 3: So that's that's a minimal colony and you probably, well
Speaker 3: Elon Musk will tell you only need one of his
Speaker 3: big spaceships to get that many people to Mars.
Speaker 2: Is it worth keeping life going like that?
Speaker 3: Well, some people think that it's an adventure we should
Speaker 3: do regardless of what happens on Earth. That it's it's
Speaker 3: the goal of humans to explore, because we explore the
Speaker 3: Earth and now we're exploring off Earth, and some people
Speaker 3: are going to do this, you know, regardless of what
Speaker 3: happens on the Earth. It's just a crazy adventure that
Speaker 3: people will do.
Speaker 2: I think what about the moons for these exual planets,
Speaker 2: do they have any They might.
Speaker 3: And that's a good question, that's a that's beyond the payout.
Speaker 3: That's hard to do. So we have not detected an
Speaker 3: axo moon or a moon around an exoplanet just because
Speaker 3: they're small and that's the limit of technology. But yes,
Speaker 3: we imagine they must exist, just like their moons of
Speaker 3: the planets in our Solar system.
Speaker 2: Can we send a probe to an excele planet or
Speaker 2: just too far away?
Speaker 3: They're too far away. But there's a project called Breakthrough Starshot,
Speaker 3: which is funded by a Russian billionaire called Jury Milner
Speaker 3: one hundred million dollars at least, and they're planning to
Speaker 3: send fleets of nanobots, you know, gram sized spacecraft with
Speaker 3: solar sales, sending them at about five percent of light
Speaker 3: speed to Proximust Centauri, that nearby star that does have
Speaker 3: an Earth. That's a very visionary project, and they haven't
Speaker 3: you know, they're solving technology problems at the moment, but
Speaker 3: they plan in fifty or sixty years to get those
Speaker 3: probes to Proximust Centaury.
Speaker 2: Well, look what we've done in fifty or sixty years already.
Speaker 2: You know, we got to the moon and here we
Speaker 2: are doing our thing with little rover missions.
Speaker 3: Now it's very hard to extrapolate. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: think of fifty years of technology with computers or cell
Speaker 3: phones or whatever it is, and try and project fifty
Speaker 3: years more.
Speaker 2: It's really hard to do. What is your view of
Speaker 2: the Big Bang? I have to ask you that.
Speaker 3: Sure, it's you know, every now and then it takes
Speaker 3: some knox people say, oh, they found big galaxies in
Speaker 3: the early universe with James Webb, and that's that sort
Speaker 3: of knock knocks a hole in the Big Bang. I
Speaker 3: don't think the Big Bang theory is in trouble, but
Speaker 3: our understanding of how galaxies form and when they form
Speaker 3: is not very clear, and that's because we don't know
Speaker 3: what dark matter is or dark energy.
Speaker 2: What is the Big Bang? What I mean, how can
Speaker 2: something have started from nothing?
Speaker 3: Well, that's a problem. So the theory is interesting because
Speaker 3: it doesn't really answer that question. It just describes what
Speaker 3: happens from a very dense early hot state thirteen point
Speaker 3: eight billion years ago, and it just describes that going forward.
Speaker 3: It doesn't say what caused the Big Bang, and it
Speaker 3: doesn't say what came before.
Speaker 2: What do you think was before.
Speaker 3: Well, the universe started, if you believe the theory as
Speaker 3: a quantum entity, because the universe, the whole universe, one
Speaker 3: hundred billion galaxy, was one smaller than an atom, So
Speaker 3: it was a quantum event, and maybe there are other
Speaker 3: quantum events. So people speculate about what they call the multiverse,
Speaker 3: other universes emerging out of the thing that led to
Speaker 3: the Big Bang, so that our universe is not unique.
Speaker 2: Is it conceivable biblically speaking, that it was just formed
Speaker 2: by God out of nothing.
Speaker 3: It's totally possible because the science doesn't speculate a cause.
Speaker 3: The science is just mute on the cause. The theory
Speaker 3: doesn't describe it. So you know, you're free to imagine
Speaker 3: whatever cause we want actually for the universe itself.
Speaker 2: Now you've already said that you would prefer to stay
Speaker 2: and leave. But given a choice, what would you do?
Speaker 3: Oh, I'd stay. I mean it's going to be those explorers,
Speaker 3: those adventures, apart from the sheer danger, you know, many
Speaker 3: will not survive. As you said, it's going to be
Speaker 3: a tough in existence in a bubble dome or using
Speaker 3: a map to breathe in an imperfect atmosphere. You know,
Speaker 3: away from your friends and your family and everything that's
Speaker 3: familiar to you. You know, that's a lot of hardship.
Speaker 2: What would their rationale for leaving bee.
Speaker 3: It would just be the same rationale that leads people
Speaker 3: to go up Mount Everest where there's no air, or
Speaker 3: go to the Antarctic where it's bone chilling and cold,
Speaker 3: or go in the deep ocean where it can crush
Speaker 3: you in a microsecond. As we know, same thing. You know,
Speaker 3: the people who do that will also want to leave
Speaker 3: the Earth and go to another planet.
Speaker 2: Well, but those people who have just experimented with all
Speaker 2: these other things you've just mentioned, always planned on coming back,
Speaker 2: coming back down from Mount Everst, coming back from the
Speaker 2: view of the Titanic.
Speaker 3: Right, they did. But I think if they were smart
Speaker 3: and if they were savvy, they understood that, you know,
Speaker 3: one in three or one in five people die on
Speaker 3: Everth so you know, they understood there's a good chance
Speaker 3: they might not come back. And if you're leaving the Earth,
Speaker 3: you've got to know that going going into the adventure, if.
Speaker 2: You were addressing the United Nations ready to tell them that, folks,
Speaker 2: we must exit the planet, and assume we had the
Speaker 2: technology and we had the planet picked, how do you
Speaker 2: select the people?
Speaker 3: Oh, that's really hard. And then I don't know any
Speaker 3: rational way to do it. I mean the biologists would say,
Speaker 3: you want to balance gene pools, so you'd have to
Speaker 3: have a lot of genetic diversity, But you just have
Speaker 3: to have some huge, crazy global lottery. I guess that's
Speaker 3: the only rational way to do it. It would have to
Speaker 3: be random.
Speaker 2: Rather than leave the planet as this, because we think
Speaker 2: it's going to be over, should we just have some
Speaker 2: volunteers go to these other planets just to start a
Speaker 2: new civilization.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that might happen. I mean it may
Speaker 3: take century or more. It's not going to happen in
Speaker 3: a decade, but it could happen, and it'll be like
Speaker 3: a new branch of the human experiment, because when a
Speaker 3: subset of humans go to another world, there will be
Speaker 3: genetically a small gene pool, and so they will diverge
Speaker 3: from the human tree of life, if you like, and
Speaker 3: eventually become a new species, which is kind of a
Speaker 3: crazy thought.
Speaker 2: I mean, if they built a bubble on Mars the
Speaker 2: size of half a football field, let's say I still
Speaker 2: wouldn't want to go and spend the rest of my
Speaker 2: life there, would you?
Speaker 3: I don't think so, but of course we could do that.
Speaker 3: I mean, you just just describe a Mars base that
Speaker 3: is totally within reason to do in maybe fifteen or
Speaker 3: twenty years, so that will probably happen, and people will
Speaker 3: volunteer and they will go and maybe they'll be able
Speaker 3: to come back. Mars is not so far away. It's
Speaker 3: not only going to another planet in another Solar system.
Speaker 2: I just saw some video, Chris from the International Space Station.
Speaker 2: I'd be bored out of my mind up there.
Speaker 3: That's right. How do you entertain yourself? I mean, how
Speaker 3: do you recreate? How you know? How do you stay sane?
Speaker 3: You've got a limited number of people to talk to
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: We're going to take calls with Chris emp and in
Speaker 2: a day to questions for Chris, if you would just
Speaker 2: tell us if you would take a trip like that,
Speaker 2: a permanent trip. You've been given the offer to go
Speaker 2: to a different planet to start a new life, would
Speaker 2: you go? And what do you do about food and
Speaker 2: stuff like that? Chris? That's a mess.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I suppose we know. I mean we've seen from
Speaker 3: the Martian that you can grow potatoes, on Mars. That's
Speaker 3: not even fake. You can so I think we could
Speaker 3: grow food.
Speaker 2: After a week, i'd be tired of eating potatoes.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, probably eating pills mostly rather than.
Speaker 2: Potatoes should be interesting, possible, scary. Let's hope we never
Speaker 2: have to get to that point.
Speaker 3: I agree.
Speaker 2: World's willout end tell me about to cover all those
Speaker 2: little planets? What planet is that?
Speaker 3: It's an Earth clone? You know, a real Earth clone
Speaker 3: that we found some hundred light years away, sort of
Speaker 3: viewed prismatically, just to give the sense that there are
Speaker 3: many of these out there.
Speaker 2: You think if there was a poll taken from planetary
Speaker 2: system wide, what do you think the percent would be
Speaker 2: about those people who would offer to go to a
Speaker 2: different planet. I think it might be surprisingly high.
Speaker 3: Maybe. I think you're right that it's a harsh environment.
Speaker 3: It's a scary prospect. I think it would be small ish.
Speaker 3: But of course you don't need that many, because you
Speaker 3: can't send that many.
Speaker 2: The people who would be apt to go might be
Speaker 2: those that are unhappy with living here right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know if that forms a very good
Speaker 3: gene pool for a new civilization or a new society.
Speaker 2: Actually, And then how do you structure, organization law, all
Speaker 2: these things.
Speaker 3: Well, there's no space law. So that's an interesting point.
Speaker 3: I mean, space law doesn't really exist because there's some jurisdiction.
Speaker 3: The un doesn't run the law of space. So it'll
Speaker 3: be a wild West. They'll have to make their own laws.
Speaker 2: As they did when they came to the United States
Speaker 2: North America. Exactly interesting take on all of that. What
Speaker 2: a scientist say about this possibility, Well.
Speaker 3: They acknowledge it's possible. It's difficult to go to another planet,
Speaker 3: especially in the Solar System Mars. Mars is probably going
Speaker 3: to happen in decades, going to another star. Everyone thinks
Speaker 3: that's centuries away just because of the energy requirement, but
Speaker 3: it still might happen.
Speaker 2: With these extra planets that have been discovered, have we
Speaker 2: ascertained whether it has liquid water?
Speaker 3: Yes, we've found evidence for a water, vapor or liquid water.
Speaker 3: Not a huge number, but a significant number of these planets.
Speaker 3: And we know the conditions are right for liquid water,
Speaker 3: and we know that liquid water is a pretty common
Speaker 3: molecule in the universe. Actually, so the Earth is not
Speaker 3: even the most watery planet we've found Earth. The Earth's oceans,
Speaker 3: we're pretty small percentage of the planet's mass, and there
Speaker 3: are exoplanets out there with ten percent of their total
Speaker 3: mass or twenty percent of oceans.
Speaker 2: That's one hundred times the Earth socian years ago. Seth
Speaker 2: Shostak told us that he believes the primordial soup is
Speaker 2: the same throughout the universe, and I would agree with that.
Speaker 2: How about you sure?
Speaker 3: I think chemistry is universal because of astronomers and I
Speaker 3: do cosmology and look billions of light years away to
Speaker 3: distant galaxies. They have the same chemical ingredients. There's carbon, nitrogen,
Speaker 3: oxygen billions of light years away. There's water, you know,
Speaker 3: billions of light years away and other galaxies. So you
Speaker 3: know the corimordial soup is going to have a universal
Speaker 3: chemical composition.
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