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Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety one, eight people entered Biosphere two. You

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Speaker 1: may have heard of Biosphere two. There was a polychchore

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Speaker 1: movie sort of based on Biosphere in the nineties, and

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Speaker 1: as a child of the nineties, I of course watched

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Speaker 1: it and learned so much about the value of friendship.

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Speaker 1: But Biosphere two was a three point one four acre

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Speaker 1: enclosure out in the Arizona Desert that was meant to

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Speaker 1: replicate Biosphere one, which is the Earth. So they had

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Speaker 1: a rainforest, a marsh, an ocean with the coral reef,

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Speaker 1: a desert, a savannah, agricultural fields, and human habitats. And

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Speaker 1: the people who started this giant experiment had future settlements

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Speaker 1: in space in mind. If you could figure out how

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Speaker 1: our Earth works and you can miniaturize that, maybe you

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Speaker 1: can take that out with you into space and create

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Speaker 1: sustainable habitats for humans in space. But during this first run,

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Speaker 1: the men lost eight teen percent of their body weight

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Speaker 1: and the women lost ten percent. They just were not

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Speaker 1: able to create enough food to keep themselves going. And

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Speaker 1: this was despite the fact that they were spending an

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Speaker 1: average of eight to ten hours a day five and

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Speaker 1: a half hours a week doing this kind of stuff.

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Speaker 1: And that doesn't even include the other kinds of things

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Speaker 1: that you would have to do if you were, you know,

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Speaker 1: trying to make a living on Mars, like running a

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Speaker 1: power plant. Biosphere too was running off of the grid,

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Speaker 1: so on Mars there'd be all this extra stuff like

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Speaker 1: crewing the solar panels that you'd have to worry about.

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Speaker 1: But we need more experiments like these. Probably it would

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Speaker 1: be better to start on a smaller scale and then

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Speaker 1: sort of scale up so we can understand the systems better.

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Speaker 1: But we need these kinds of experiments where you're in

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Speaker 1: a closed environment. The amount of plants that you're growing

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Speaker 1: determine how much oxygen you get and how much carbon

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Speaker 1: dioxide is extracted from the atmosphere. We need to prove

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Speaker 1: to ourselves that we can live in these systems while

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Speaker 1: growing sustainable amounts of food. These experiments take time because

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Speaker 1: they happen at the pace of ecology, which is slow.

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Speaker 1: So today we're going to talk about what we've learned

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Speaker 1: from these kind of closed loop systems so far and

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Speaker 1: what other kinds of challenges we might have as we

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Speaker 1: attempt to grow food to keep ourselves alive on Mars.

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Speaker 1: So welcome to episode two of our series on food

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Speaker 1: in space and Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. Hi.

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Speaker 2: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor at

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Speaker 2: UC Irvine, and I would never ever ever go into

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Speaker 2: biosphere too voluntarily.

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Speaker 1: I am Kelly Wienersmith. I study parasites. I have been

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Speaker 1: dying to visit biosphere too. Like I'm thinking of going

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Speaker 1: to a conference in Arizona so that I'll be close

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Speaker 1: enough to visit biosphere too. Why don't you want to

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Speaker 1: go in the same reason.

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Speaker 2: I get the chills when I visit Alcatraz and they

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Speaker 2: ask you to step into the cells, and I'm like, oo,

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Speaker 2: feels like you will asking to get trapped.

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Speaker 1: Huh. So I am claustrophobic, and I went into a

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Speaker 1: cave on with family and was like, I have to

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Speaker 1: get out of here. But I think three point one

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Speaker 1: four acres is big enough that I don't feel trapped.

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Speaker 1: But anyway we can differ.

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Speaker 2: Well, let me ask you another question about that kind

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Speaker 2: of scenario. Imagine you're living on the surface of Mars,

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Speaker 2: struggling to survive. Is there some kind of food that's

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Speaker 2: so gross you'd rather starve than eat it and survive.

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Speaker 1: Oh man, Okay, Well, so first, I just finished re

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Speaker 1: listening to the story of Adolphus Greeley's trip to the Arctic,

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Speaker 1: and I think that what you learn from a book

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Speaker 1: like that is that when you're hungry enough, you will

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Speaker 1: eat anything.

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Speaker 2: Did he like boil his shoelaces and make tea or something?

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Speaker 1: He did? Yeah, they were eating their shoes at the

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Speaker 1: end there.

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Speaker 2: Oh no, that was a joke.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it gets bleak. They were also accused of cannibalism,

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Speaker 1: but there's no solid evidence, but a lot of them

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Speaker 1: didn't make it. So I'm sure that if I got

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Speaker 1: to that point, I also be eating my shoes. But

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Speaker 1: I can say that most of the food that I've

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Speaker 1: read about as it pertains to life in space are

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Speaker 1: not things that I think would be delicious. Like I

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Speaker 1: happen to come from a culture that doesn't eat a

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Speaker 1: lot of insects, and that seems to be a major

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Speaker 1: recommended protein source in space. And you can find recipes

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Speaker 1: for how to like hide insects by like grinding them

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Speaker 1: and like mixing it up with wheat, so you can

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Speaker 1: have like cricket bread that doesn't taste so crickety, but

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Speaker 1: I don't know what about you. Are you more adventurous.

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Speaker 2: I'm pretty adventurous, and I think it's hard to predict

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Speaker 2: how you'd react in those situations. But I've thought about

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Speaker 2: the cannibalism question, like would I rather starve or eat people?

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Speaker 2: Oh boy, I'm very happy to not be in that

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Speaker 2: situation because I don't know how I would react. Probably

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Speaker 2: i'd be eating people.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think if I was gonna die before

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Speaker 1: the rest of my crew, I would want them to

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Speaker 1: eat me because I wouldn't want them to die. If

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Speaker 1: they could like stretch it out and increase the probability

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Speaker 1: that they.

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Speaker 2: Live, wouldn't matter who though.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I guess if I had a death wish

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Speaker 1: for someone, I feel differently. But uh, and you probably

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Speaker 1: reading about how these like closed loop systems work. Often

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Speaker 1: the crews end up hating each other, like in biospheric,

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Speaker 1: you know, they were spitting on each other. So maybe

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Speaker 1: I'd be like, you know, Jane can eat me, but

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Speaker 1: Brian cannot, and that is my dying wish.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, or especially if you're on a colony you might

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Speaker 2: be related to some of these people. You're like, all right,

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Speaker 2: my kids can eat me, but don't share me with

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Speaker 2: the Millers over there, because you know they've been jerks.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh, let's get space gets weird fast.

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Speaker 2: I know exactly. And that's why space is so fascinating,

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Speaker 2: because we know it's gonna be tough. We know it's

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Speaker 2: going to be difficult, we know we're gonna have to

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Speaker 2: push the limits of human ingenuity but also probably the

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Speaker 2: limits of human experience and culture and what we think

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Speaker 2: is appropriate.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that there's some things that you can

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Speaker 1: learn by looking at like Arctic expeditions, and I think

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Speaker 1: we should have an episode on that in the future.

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Speaker 1: But you know, you see that people will do so

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Speaker 1: I think two lessons there. One, people will do extraordinary

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Speaker 1: things to survive, but two, they still treat each other

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Speaker 1: really well at the end in most situations like there,

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Speaker 1: you know, as the Greeley expedition members were starving to death,

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Speaker 1: they were like spoon feeding each other and holding each

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Speaker 1: other and like they were it was very well sweet,

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Speaker 1: I don't know sweet sweets the right word, but their

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Speaker 1: humanity was maintained even in the case of this, this

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Speaker 1: horrible situation. It gives you a bit of hope for humanity.

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Speaker 2: Well, maybe they were just exceptionally nice people, because I'm

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Speaker 2: not sure everybody would end up babing so well, yeah, fair.

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Speaker 1: And then the question is are humans nutritionally complete? I

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Speaker 1: don't know if they are, so you also, you know,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot to think about when you're eating in Mars.

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Speaker 2: Do you need to add beans to your meal to

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Speaker 2: get all your proteins? Yes? Great question. Yes, And these

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Speaker 2: are just a sampling of the questions we're gonna be

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Speaker 2: talking about today as we explore how humans can feed

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Speaker 2: themselves in Space episode Part two.

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Speaker 1: So, Daniel, I'm wondering if any of the people that

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Speaker 1: you talked to on the street brought cannibalism up in

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Speaker 1: the conversation as quickly as we did when you ask

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Speaker 1: them about food on Mars.

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Speaker 2: Let's find out. I walked around the campus if you

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Speaker 2: see Irvine, and I asked people what they thought was

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Speaker 2: going to be the biggest challenge to feeding people in

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Speaker 2: a colony on Mars. If you would like to contribute

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Speaker 2: to these audience participation segments in the future, please don't

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Speaker 2: be shy. Write to us two questions at danieland Kelly

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Speaker 2: dot org. We'd love to have your voice on the podcast.

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Speaker 2: So think about it for a minute. What do you

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Speaker 2: think is the greatest challenge to feeding astronauts on Mars?

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Speaker 2: And is it finding the right marinade recipe for human thoughts?

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Speaker 3: Oh?

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Speaker 1: No, too much, this whole episode I might dump.

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Speaker 2: I'm just slowly trying to change your opinion about cannibalism,

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Speaker 2: because really it's just a cultural thing.

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Speaker 1: You know, there's a culture that was really into it,

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Speaker 1: and they got this protein disease called kubru, and so

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Speaker 1: I think there's good disease related reasons to not eat

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Speaker 1: your family.

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Speaker 2: All right, pull your biologists credentials there.

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Speaker 1: Fine, But I do have an expert on cannibalism that

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Speaker 1: we could talk to in a future episode because I

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Speaker 1: know all the best people.

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Speaker 2: That sounds great as long as it's not over dinner.

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Speaker 2: Let's get back to our audience participation segment. Here to

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Speaker 2: folks around the uc Irvine had to say about challenges

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Speaker 2: of living on Mars. The astronauts could make sprouts and

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Speaker 2: stuff like that, so on Mars a few ways to

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Speaker 2: do that too.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we all saw The Martian.

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Speaker 2: The Martian was not a documentary, but the process felt feasible,

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Speaker 2: Like they need water there first, to supply it, and

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Speaker 2: the climate.

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Speaker 4: I guess how cold it is. Nutrients in the soil,

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Speaker 4: so you have to bring like nitrogen, and I think

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Speaker 4: we basically have to find ways to make local fertilizer possible.

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Speaker 4: I mean also, I think at some point, like there's

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Speaker 4: this the bare minimum to keep people alive. It keeps

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Speaker 4: you alive, but it's horrific and nobody's gonna want to

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Speaker 4: come to Mars, so there's kind of a marketing inside

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Speaker 4: of this.

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Speaker 3: Well, so far we have not established an a sort

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Speaker 3: of colony on Mars there we could even grow any food.

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Speaker 1: So it's a bit of a premature question, to be honest.

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Speaker 3: I guess he did it in that movie The Martian

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Speaker 3: and not supposed to be accurate.

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Speaker 2: Not a documentary.

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Speaker 3: Not a documentary. No, that's right, But I guess you'd

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Speaker 3: have to do it someday. And you've got some frozen

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Speaker 3: water in the ice caps, so people always talk about

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Speaker 3: terraforming it and getting that liquid water, so maybe it's possible.

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Speaker 1: Well, no one brought up cannibalism, which is a little disappointing,

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Speaker 1: but you know, I'm glad they focused on the more

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Speaker 1: immediate challenges. Yes, water came up a few times. One

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Speaker 1: of the great things about Mars actually is that there's

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Speaker 1: kind of a lot of water. So there's water at

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Speaker 1: the poles and just about anywhere you go. If you

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Speaker 1: dig down far enough, you're gonna hit frozen water. We're

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Speaker 1: gonna talk a little later in the show about some

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Speaker 1: of the problems with that water, and it's going to

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Speaker 1: be hard to get, but there's water, whereas on the

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Speaker 1: Moon there's a lot less than it's even harder to get.

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Speaker 2: One thing I've found fascinating is how many people refer

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Speaker 2: to The Martian, and it's very entertaining, but it's also

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Speaker 2: amazing how much science people seem to have learned from

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Speaker 2: that movie.

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Speaker 1: Yes, so I like The Martian because it got a

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Speaker 1: lot of things right. So, like, Mars has one percent

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Speaker 1: of Earth's atmosphere, so you do get dust storms that

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Speaker 1: kick up like or that can engulf the entire planet.

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Speaker 1: But because you only have one percent of the atmosphere,

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Speaker 1: those winds are not probably strong enough to like knock

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Speaker 1: over a rocket. And as you correctly noted in these interviews,

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Speaker 1: it is not a documentary, and so it wasn't one

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Speaker 1: hundred percent correct, but it was very well researched, and

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Speaker 1: you know, I think it's fine for fiction to take

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Speaker 1: some scientific license.

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Speaker 2: Something I found fascinating is how many people saw the

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Speaker 2: movie and didn't understand that it was a made up story.

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Speaker 2: A bunch of people came out of theater and thought, oh,

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Speaker 2: this is a true story about something that really happened

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Speaker 2: to somebody on Mars.

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Speaker 1: No.

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Speaker 2: Really, a lot of people googling like is The Martian

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Speaker 2: a true story after they saw the movie, which is

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Speaker 2: like maybe a testament to the apparent realism of it.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, you're right, there's definitely some science issues with

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Speaker 2: that movie.

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Speaker 1: And again, I don't think that's a problem in my mind.

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Speaker 1: That's the only thing that matters is that you create

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Speaker 1: a world and then you stay consistent with the rules

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Speaker 1: you made for that world. And I think The Martian

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Speaker 1: was incredible, not complaining, but yeah, also not a documentary. Also,

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Speaker 1: when I was researching a city on Mars, I was

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Speaker 1: surprised by how many people in the literature on settlements

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Speaker 1: would be like, well, could such and such happen well

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Speaker 1: in the expanse, And I'm like, dudes, that's fiction too,

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Speaker 1: And like, I know the author, he's a great guy,

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Speaker 1: but He's like, he hasn't been there. None of us

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Speaker 1: have the author's quarrel, right, because there's two of them.

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Speaker 2: The expanse not a textbook, you.

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Speaker 1: Say, yes, that's right, very well thought out, great character development.

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Speaker 1: Not a textbook.

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Speaker 2: Well, I've written a lot of science papers and have

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Speaker 2: never cited science fiction in those papers. So maybe that's

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Speaker 2: something I should try. That sounds like a lot of fun.

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Speaker 2: But today we're not talking about science fiction. We are

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Speaker 2: talking about science, and I'm very excited to hear about

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Speaker 2: the science. I'm growing food on Mars whether we do

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Speaker 2: need to be pooping in our own gardens. But first, Kelly,

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Speaker 2: you were going to tell us about experiences here on

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Speaker 2: Earth that are sort of simulations for what life might

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Speaker 2: be like on Mars. Where do we start with that.

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Speaker 1: Well, let's start back in the nineteen sixties in the

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Speaker 1: Soviet Union, so while the space race was heating up

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Speaker 1: the Soviets, we're interested in figuring out like, okay, not

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Speaker 1: just how do you grow food on Mars, but how

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Speaker 1: do you make that food work for you in a

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Speaker 1: lot of different ways. So if you are in a

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Speaker 1: sealed environment, every time you breathe out that carbon dioxide

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Speaker 1: it just builds up and it could suffocate you. And

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Speaker 1: you know, people complain about headaches way before the suffocation happens.

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Speaker 1: So you could have chemicals and devices that remove the

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Speaker 1: carbon dioxide, but you could also just let the plants

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Speaker 1: do that work for you. And so they try to

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Speaker 1: come up with systems where the plants pull out the

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Speaker 1: carbon dioxide. The plants also produce the oxygen that you breathe,

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Speaker 1: and then you can like recycle the plant material, maybe

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Speaker 1: by feeding something else with it. And so just trying

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Speaker 1: to be as efficient and good at recycling as possible.

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Speaker 2: So making a system which is enclosed and self sufficient

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Speaker 2: and where things support each other so you don't need

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Speaker 2: to be injecting supplies from the outside. That makes sense.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so expensive to ship stuff from Earth to space,

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Speaker 1: and the stuff that you have you want to get

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Speaker 1: the most use out of. So you know, anything that

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Speaker 1: you can stretch the use of in space like you

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Speaker 1: want to do. And you know, every once in a

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Speaker 1: while it feels like this goes in cycles. But people

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Speaker 1: will get really excited about algae and so, you know,

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Speaker 1: algae grows fast. It you know, takes up carbon dioxide,

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Speaker 1: releases oxygen, it like you can grow it in a vat,

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Speaker 1: so you can get a lot of it in a

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Speaker 1: small area. And so the first experiment was called bios

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Speaker 1: that we're focusing on growing algae, an attempt to like

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Speaker 1: do a bunch of this stuff. And it worked pretty

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Speaker 1: well actually, but a major complaint was that algae sucks

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Speaker 1: to eat, and like.

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Speaker 2: Does it taste as bad as it smells, because it

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Speaker 2: don't smell great.

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Speaker 1: No, it smells awful. I hate that smell actually, And

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Speaker 1: I actually lived with two roommates who studied algae, and

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Speaker 1: they smelled great, but like they did not enjoy talking

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Speaker 1: to me about algae because I would always tell them

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Speaker 1: how bad it smells.

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Speaker 2: But you know, also, like blue cheese doesn't smell great,

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Speaker 2: and if you smell blue cheese for the first time,

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Speaker 2: you're like gross. So I wonder if algae is just

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Speaker 2: like an acquired taste, maybe in a thousand years people

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Speaker 2: will be like, oh my gosh, have you had this

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Speaker 2: algae vintage? It's incredibly complex.

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Speaker 1: Well, I can at least tell you that the Soviets

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Speaker 1: in this experiment did not come to that conclusion, and

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Speaker 1: so in the second iteration they added another wing where

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Speaker 1: they grew plants that were not algae, and then in

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Speaker 1: the third iteration, they were like, look, it's not worth

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Speaker 1: having any algae because none of us want to eat

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Speaker 1: this stuff. And so then they had two wings that

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Speaker 1: were just growing more traditional plants.

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Speaker 2: So do you think if it came down to it,

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Speaker 2: they'd be like, I'd rather starve than eat more algae, Like, really,

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Speaker 2: I'm just not going to do it.

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Speaker 1: I think the answer to this question is always going

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Speaker 1: to be when it comes between death and eating something else,

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Speaker 1: we become way less picky. Do you disagree?

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Speaker 2: I don't know. I feel kind of picky, but also

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Speaker 2: I know the human drive to survive is very, very powerful,

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Speaker 2: and people do basically anything in that situation. But based

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Speaker 2: on my knowledge of the documentary The Martian, it makes

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Speaker 2: me wonder in an enclosed environment like that, what happens

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Speaker 2: to the people's poop? Like are they pooping in their garden?

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Speaker 2: Is that for real?

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Speaker 1: That is for real in a lot of these systems.

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Speaker 1: I don't think they were doing that in these bios systems,

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Speaker 1: But when we move on to some of the other

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Speaker 1: systems we're going to talk about, yes they are, and

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Speaker 1: in space I think absolutely you're going to need those microbes,

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Speaker 1: you're going to need those nutrients, and you're just going

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Speaker 1: to have to be really careful to make sure that

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Speaker 1: you're not transmitting any diseases, so you can like screen

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Speaker 1: for stuff ahead of time. I think using human waste

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Speaker 1: on fields that's called like night soil or something like that.

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Speaker 2: That's a good name for it.

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Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it sounds way less, way more appealing when

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Speaker 1: you call it that, but you do get diseases transmitted

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Speaker 1: that way, so you have to be really careful about

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Speaker 1: how you do that. And I think that's why we

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Speaker 1: don't tend to do that in a lot of areas

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Speaker 1: where we're able to avoid it.

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Speaker 2: That reminds me of a dinner I had once in

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Speaker 2: France at some fancy restaurant where my wife ordered a

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Speaker 2: particular kind of dish she'd never seen before, and the

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Speaker 2: waiter warned her that the dish had quote a barnyard aroma.

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Speaker 2: She ordered it anyway, and yes, when it came it

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Speaker 2: smell like poop. What was it? It was some kind

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Speaker 2: of horrible sausage. I tried it also, I was like,

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Speaker 2: I just cannot eat that. Oh my gosh. You know,

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Speaker 2: the French they're very creative with their meat dishes, and

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Speaker 2: they eat a lot of things that a lot of

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Speaker 2: other people would be like, yeah, that's not food.

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Speaker 1: People will sometimes say that goat milk has a barnyard

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Speaker 1: after taste, and it does, but that's just the taste

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Speaker 1: of hay, which is way better than the taste of

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Speaker 1: feces or the smell of feces. So I guess there's

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Speaker 1: a variety of barnyard tastes out there.

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Speaker 2: So but back to BIOS three, they didn't have goats,

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Speaker 2: they didn't have barnyards. When is this all happening? Is

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Speaker 2: this like in the middle of the space race?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's before So sixty five was the first one,

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Speaker 1: so before we landed on the Moon in sixty nine. Oh,

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Speaker 1: and then they kept it going so like they I

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Speaker 1: think BIOS three was in nineteen seventy two, and then

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Speaker 1: the Soviet Union started running out of money and so

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Speaker 1: they kind of stopped. But like they so for a

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Speaker 1: while they were spending like twenty percent of their time

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Speaker 1: just like sort of tinkering with the system. So it

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Speaker 1: was very time intensive and they never achieved complete closure. Like,

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Speaker 1: for example, they weren't growing meat, they didn't have cows

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Speaker 1: in there, but quote Siberians must have their meat was

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Speaker 1: a quote I found in one of the papers. So

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Speaker 1: they were like doing meat deliveries regularly. And actually talked

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Speaker 1: to a guy who was born in Siberia and I

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Speaker 1: was like, Oh, it's so funny, and he's like, you

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Speaker 1: don't understand. In Siberia you need meat to stay alive.

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Speaker 1: And I'm like, I'm not sure that scientifically sound, but

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Speaker 1: I'm going to stop pushing you on the meat question.

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Speaker 2: Well, what's interesting If you're going for a closed loop

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Speaker 2: system and then you're like importing meat and you're exporting

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Speaker 2: human poop, it feels like you're not really close to

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Speaker 2: a closed loop system. Are you still learning something because

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Speaker 2: you're doing some closed loop stuff people haven't done before.

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Speaker 1: I think you're still learning something. So like you're getting

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Speaker 1: a handle on how long it takes to maintain these systems,

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Speaker 1: and you know, maybe a little bit about the psychology

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Speaker 1: of living in these systems, a little bit of information

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Speaker 1: about food production, but you know, so biosphere too. One

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Speaker 1: of the exciting things about that was that their goal

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Speaker 1: was nothing, no food comes in, and there were some

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Speaker 1: rumors that maybe like liquor snuck in at some point,

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Speaker 1: but like, I mean they lost the men lost eighteen

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Speaker 1: percent of their weight, the women lost ten, and so

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Speaker 1: like they were really they were sticking to it. But

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Speaker 1: they had the benefit of being on the grid, so

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Speaker 1: they didn't have to like worry about power or you know,

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Speaker 1: like cleaning solar panels or anything like that. And they

398
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Speaker 1: had these giant lungs that equilibrated the pressure, so like

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Speaker 1: on warm days, you know, like the air would expand

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Speaker 1: and so and the lungs would sort of adjust to

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Speaker 1: make sure that, you know, like the panels didn't burst

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Speaker 1: and break and fall in on them. So like they

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Speaker 1: did a good job of closing things, but there were

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Speaker 1: still things that they were able to, you know, benefit

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Speaker 1: from because they were on the Earth.

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Speaker 2: And so do we have like a linear progression from

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Speaker 2: the earliest efforts that are less closed loop to the

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Speaker 2: later efforts that are more closed loop or like making

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Speaker 2: progress or are we making progress? Or is it sort

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Speaker 2: of like a random assortment of Hey, let's try this,

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Speaker 2: let's try that.

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Speaker 1: You know, one of the most frustrating things about space

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Speaker 1: settlement related research is that it does seem to be

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Speaker 1: a grab bag of someone who's like, oh, I have

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Speaker 1: the right knowledge that to answer this question. And I've

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Speaker 1: got the right knowledge that to answer this question, and

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Speaker 1: there's no like funding for like. This is the like

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Speaker 1: step wise path we're going to take to get to

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Speaker 1: the answer. It's a bit more of a hodgepodge. Lunar

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Speaker 1: palace is one of the more recent ones.

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Speaker 2: So what is lunar palace?

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Speaker 1: So that is a facility in China. The palace part

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Speaker 1: is actually an acronym the permanent astro based life support

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Speaker 1: artificial closed ecosystem.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, do they have an acronym generating facility within their

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Speaker 2: experiment in case they need new acronyms so they don't

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Speaker 2: have to import them from the outside.

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Speaker 1: I mean they should, they should. And you know, if

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Speaker 1: there's a space race heating up between China and the US,

430
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Speaker 1: we should at least worry about China's acronym game because

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Speaker 1: they're rocking it.

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Speaker 2: Oh really, well, they're winning the acronym racey.

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Speaker 1: I mean it's close, it's neck and neck.

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Speaker 2: All right, I want to hear about this amazing acronym facility,

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Speaker 2: but first let's take a quick break. All right, we're

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Speaker 2: back and we are importing ideas into your mind and

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Speaker 2: exporting night soil. You know what that means. And we're

438
00:21:16,440 --> 00:21:19,240
Speaker 2: hearing about early efforts to try to learn how to

439
00:21:19,280 --> 00:21:23,119
Speaker 2: grow food on alien planets by practicing enclosed environments here

440
00:21:23,160 --> 00:21:25,760
Speaker 2: on Earth. And you were telling us about the Chinese

441
00:21:25,880 --> 00:21:29,159
Speaker 2: Lunar Palace. So this is neither a palace, nor is

442
00:21:29,200 --> 00:21:29,760
Speaker 2: it on the Moon.

443
00:21:29,800 --> 00:21:33,480
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that's right, but it is preparing for settlements

444
00:21:33,480 --> 00:21:37,720
Speaker 1: on the Moon eventually. And in my mind, this is

445
00:21:37,760 --> 00:21:40,919
Speaker 1: the most impressive closed loop system that's been set up

446
00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:44,920
Speaker 1: so far. So Biosphere two was like huge, but it's

447
00:21:44,960 --> 00:21:47,639
Speaker 1: so complicated that if something goes wrong, it's kind of

448
00:21:47,680 --> 00:21:50,919
Speaker 1: hard to tinker with the system to figure out, like

449
00:21:50,960 --> 00:21:53,040
Speaker 1: what would you would do differently if you are on Mars.

450
00:21:53,359 --> 00:21:56,480
Speaker 1: So Lunar Palace started a little smaller. They had two

451
00:21:56,520 --> 00:21:59,080
Speaker 1: wings where they were growing plants, and then they had

452
00:21:59,080 --> 00:22:01,760
Speaker 1: an area where like humans could live, and there was

453
00:22:01,800 --> 00:22:04,119
Speaker 1: a meeting space, and then they had a bathroom and

454
00:22:04,160 --> 00:22:07,040
Speaker 1: a waste treatment area. So they were trying to like

455
00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:10,880
Speaker 1: reuse the water from the urine. I think they were

456
00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:13,919
Speaker 1: using the feces for fertilizer, but actually I'm forgetting if

457
00:22:13,920 --> 00:22:16,080
Speaker 1: they did that for sure, but they did a great

458
00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:19,439
Speaker 1: job at capturing the water that they breathed out, that

459
00:22:19,480 --> 00:22:22,200
Speaker 1: they used for showers, that they urinated, and I think

460
00:22:22,240 --> 00:22:25,960
Speaker 1: eventually they made it to one hundred percent like water recycling.

461
00:22:25,680 --> 00:22:28,200
Speaker 2: Kind of like they do in Dune, that other documentary.

462
00:22:28,480 --> 00:22:33,760
Speaker 1: Oh, there's so many space documentaries. Yes, so impressive. I

463
00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:37,040
Speaker 1: watched the more recent version of that documentary just the

464
00:22:37,080 --> 00:22:37,520
Speaker 1: other day.

465
00:22:37,800 --> 00:22:39,520
Speaker 2: And for anybody out there who's not getting the joke,

466
00:22:39,600 --> 00:22:42,720
Speaker 2: obviously Dune, he's not a documentary. Don't write us emails

467
00:22:42,760 --> 00:22:48,720
Speaker 2: about how Dune exact right fiction? But you're saying that

468
00:22:48,760 --> 00:22:51,920
Speaker 2: they did actually achieve some amount of recycling all of

469
00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:53,800
Speaker 2: their water like they do induce.

470
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:58,399
Speaker 1: Yes, and there is a worm connection. So Dune there

471
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:01,600
Speaker 1: were those giant worms. There are not giant worms in

472
00:23:01,640 --> 00:23:03,359
Speaker 1: the Lunar Palace. And I'm going to stretch this to

473
00:23:03,400 --> 00:23:06,440
Speaker 1: make the connection. But so they one of the things

474
00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:08,800
Speaker 1: that they did that was unique in this facility is

475
00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:10,440
Speaker 1: that they took meal worms.

476
00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:12,920
Speaker 2: Oh no, are we about to eat worms?

477
00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:15,240
Speaker 1: We're about to eat worms? Yeah, So meal worms they've

478
00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:17,320
Speaker 1: got like an exoskeleton, so they're not like the worms

479
00:23:17,359 --> 00:23:21,359
Speaker 1: in your garden. They like become beetles eventually, so they

480
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:26,400
Speaker 1: were feeding the meal worms on the wasst the plant waste,

481
00:23:26,880 --> 00:23:29,480
Speaker 1: and so any part of the plant that wasn't digestible

482
00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:32,800
Speaker 1: by the people was being turned into protein by the worms.

483
00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:36,960
Speaker 1: And they created a meal plan, and the meal plan

484
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:39,240
Speaker 1: they were able to grow seventy eight percent of the

485
00:23:39,280 --> 00:23:42,919
Speaker 1: food by weight for this meal plan, and they included

486
00:23:42,960 --> 00:23:44,960
Speaker 1: the worms for like a protein source. They did bring

487
00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:46,840
Speaker 1: in things like different kinds of spices.

488
00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:48,920
Speaker 2: So they're saying they're using the meal worm to turn

489
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:50,679
Speaker 2: the plant waste in the proteins, and then they're just

490
00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:52,160
Speaker 2: directly eating the worms.

491
00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:55,280
Speaker 1: Yes, they would season them to make them more palatable,

492
00:23:55,320 --> 00:23:56,720
Speaker 1: and they'd like fry them up and stuff, and so

493
00:23:56,720 --> 00:23:59,120
Speaker 1: they had a couple different like recipes for preparing them.

494
00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:01,720
Speaker 1: But yes, they were being incredibly efficient. And so while

495
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:04,919
Speaker 1: this makes a lot of Westerners like you and I

496
00:24:05,160 --> 00:24:08,560
Speaker 1: not hungry, you know that's not true. And other places

497
00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:10,360
Speaker 1: in the world, other places in the world are way

498
00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:12,320
Speaker 1: more comfortable with eating insects than we are.

499
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:15,919
Speaker 2: So you're saying these Chinese lunar palasin knots or whoever

500
00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:18,240
Speaker 2: whatever you call these folks living there were totally cool

501
00:24:18,320 --> 00:24:20,120
Speaker 2: with this meal worm based diet. They were like yum

502
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:22,120
Speaker 2: yum yum, put some soy sauce on it, and it's good.

503
00:24:22,359 --> 00:24:25,399
Speaker 1: There was a survey and they raided the food favorably,

504
00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:27,600
Speaker 1: And I mean it could be because, like if a

505
00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:29,560
Speaker 1: lot of the people who do analogs are people who

506
00:24:29,560 --> 00:24:32,960
Speaker 1: are hoping that eventually this their nation Space Agency will

507
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 1: send them to space. So maybe they were like, I

508
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:38,400
Speaker 1: am just such a good sport about everything. These meal

509
00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:41,399
Speaker 1: worm tacos are just the best thing I've ever eaten.

510
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:44,360
Speaker 1: But they did report that they liked it.

511
00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:46,359
Speaker 2: Well, I have a science question for you, which is

512
00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:50,280
Speaker 2: I get how turning that plant matter into protein is useful,

513
00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:52,679
Speaker 2: but can't we have another layer there, Like, can't you

514
00:24:52,760 --> 00:24:55,720
Speaker 2: have something that we'd like to eat, eat the meal worms,

515
00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:58,520
Speaker 2: you know, feed the meal worms to talapia or something.

516
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:01,200
Speaker 2: Have a fish farm, then yeah, you get to eat

517
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:04,159
Speaker 2: fish and the fish get to eat mealworms and everybody's happy.

518
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:06,720
Speaker 2: Do you lose a lot of efficiency there because you're

519
00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:09,760
Speaker 2: like one step up the pyramid? Or is that pretty efficient?

520
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:12,679
Speaker 1: So this is a great question. Almost every plan that

521
00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:16,399
Speaker 1: I read for settlements on Mars stopped at insects. So

522
00:25:16,560 --> 00:25:19,600
Speaker 1: every time an animal eats another animal, you lose a

523
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:22,639
Speaker 1: lot of energy as it like converts what it ate

524
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:24,639
Speaker 1: into its own like muscle mass. A lot of that

525
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:27,240
Speaker 1: gets like lost as heat. So every time you add

526
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:29,439
Speaker 1: a step in the food chain, you're losing some of

527
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 1: the calories that you could have produced.

528
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:33,159
Speaker 2: So the way, like it takes a huge amount of

529
00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:36,000
Speaker 2: corn to support one cow, So you could replace a

530
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:37,960
Speaker 2: burger with like a huge amount of corn, eat a

531
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:40,440
Speaker 2: lot more food if you eat the corn directly exactly.

532
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:44,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I think there's zero chance of us bringing

533
00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:46,879
Speaker 1: cows to space and then your term, because they like

534
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 1: take up a lot of space and they fart a lot.

535
00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:50,760
Speaker 1: You're gonna need to like clean the air a lot.

536
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:55,240
Speaker 1: I wasn't even seeing chickens like listed as something that

537
00:25:55,240 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 1: we could handle bringing with us to space right now.

538
00:25:57,119 --> 00:25:58,760
Speaker 1: I mean, they make a huge mess and they're just

539
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 1: not efficient. I feel like eventually we're going to have

540
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:03,479
Speaker 1: to have that kind of stuff. So when I was

541
00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:06,199
Speaker 1: talking to people about like what we're going to do

542
00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:07,919
Speaker 1: so some you know, one person pointed out that a

543
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:10,400
Speaker 1: lot of people who start as vegetarians are vegans, something

544
00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 1: like eighty four percent of them can't stick with it,

545
00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:14,879
Speaker 1: at least in Western diets, and I personally was a

546
00:26:14,920 --> 00:26:17,440
Speaker 1: vegetarian for two years and then I had a craving

547
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:19,879
Speaker 1: for Arby's beef and cheddar sandwiches that I just could not.

548
00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:23,639
Speaker 1: My husband is like that. So my husband's been a

549
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:25,879
Speaker 1: vegetarian for twenty five years and he's like that is

550
00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 1: just so depressing that that's what threw you off.

551
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 2: Is it a pregnancy related thing? Was it when you

552
00:26:31,320 --> 00:26:31,760
Speaker 2: were pregnant?

553
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:34,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, wasn't pregnant. I was an undergrad.

554
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:35,760
Speaker 2: You can't even blame it on the fetus.

555
00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 1: No, maybe it was a hangover related thing, which anyway, Arby's,

556
00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:44,520
Speaker 1: if you want to advertise on our show, where we're

557
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 1: open for that. But so they were trying to figure out, like, well,

558
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 1: what do you do if you know that the people

559
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:52,760
Speaker 1: in your facility are going to be sad on Mars

560
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:56,200
Speaker 1: if they're not eating meat, And so their proposals were

561
00:26:56,760 --> 00:26:59,159
Speaker 1: it's called so based meats. But the ideas you like,

562
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:03,119
Speaker 1: take cells from cows, for example, and you feed them

563
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:06,439
Speaker 1: all the nutrients that those cells need to divide, and

564
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:09,680
Speaker 1: you grow them and essentially like a nutrient filled vat

565
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:12,080
Speaker 1: and then all you need is the cells and so

566
00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:13,879
Speaker 1: you don't need the whole animal. There's a lot of

567
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:15,600
Speaker 1: waste that way, and you don't have to worry about

568
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:17,640
Speaker 1: like humane treatment of those animals, and so you can

569
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 1: still get the cells. That science is like it's coming

570
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:24,240
Speaker 1: along pretty well. But like you know, when you bite

571
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:26,199
Speaker 1: into a steak or something, there's actually a lot of

572
00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:29,119
Speaker 1: different cell types that are in that steak that contribute

573
00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:32,440
Speaker 1: to the taste. And so I think trying to create

574
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:36,840
Speaker 1: a taste that is similar to actually eating cow if

575
00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 1: you're someone who eats cow, is difficult. But maybe bringing

576
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:42,400
Speaker 1: these cell based solutions with us will be a way

577
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 1: to make it happen.

578
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:45,440
Speaker 2: So you're saying, we can't bring cows, but we could

579
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 2: grow real meat sort of in the lab without having

580
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:50,960
Speaker 2: the whole animal, just by growing the cells. I think

581
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:53,080
Speaker 2: I've seen people do that here, Like they even just

582
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:55,520
Speaker 2: ban that in Florida because people were worried about the

583
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 2: effect on the industry or something.

584
00:27:57,200 --> 00:27:59,359
Speaker 1: Oh that's a bummer. So, like, I'm excited about this

585
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 1: idea because it seems less environmentally damaging and far more humane.

586
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:07,600
Speaker 1: So I'm excited about this technology personally, but I can

587
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:10,920
Speaker 1: see how, yes, lobbyists would not be happy to have

588
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:14,000
Speaker 1: cattle farms replaced by vats, and it does feel kind

589
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 1: of dystopiing it's.

590
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:18,199
Speaker 2: Sort of weird indeed, bad grown meat. But is it

591
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:20,639
Speaker 2: a lot more efficient or does it require as much

592
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:22,960
Speaker 2: or just different resources like energy, etc.

593
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:26,200
Speaker 1: I am not an expert. My sense is that it

594
00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 1: is more efficient, but I don't know that for sure.

595
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:33,919
Speaker 1: It's possible that those factories have some complicated extra stuff

596
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:35,280
Speaker 1: that makes it less efficient.

597
00:28:35,359 --> 00:28:38,160
Speaker 2: Well. Also, just in terms of satisfying the Siberians, plant

598
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 2: based products that taste like meat have come a long way, right,

599
00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 2: A lot of people happily eat impossible burgers or beyond

600
00:28:44,280 --> 00:28:45,280
Speaker 2: burgers or whatever.

601
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So my husband has tried a bunch of

602
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 1: those kinds of like fake meat. I call them feet

603
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:55,160
Speaker 1: and he doesn't appreciate that. But every once in a while,

604
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:57,080
Speaker 1: Who'll be like, oh, man, try this hot dog. It

605
00:28:57,120 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 1: tastes just like a hot dog. And I was like,

606
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:01,640
Speaker 1: you haven't had I eat in twenty five years. It

607
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 1: does not taste like a hot dog. Actually, I like

608
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:06,760
Speaker 1: eating a lot of those foods, but in my head,

609
00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 1: I never think, oh, I'm eating a hot dog. I

610
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 1: think like, oh, I'm eating something different. This is like

611
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:15,680
Speaker 1: protein something different. I don't classify it as meat in

612
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 1: my head.

613
00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:18,760
Speaker 2: I was a vegetarian for a long time, and when

614
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:22,000
Speaker 2: I was I wasn't into the whole like meat replacement things.

615
00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:24,360
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm a vegetarian. I'm into vegetables. I

616
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 2: like vegetables. Let's make an eggplant, let's roasta cauliflower, Like,

617
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:30,680
Speaker 2: let's eat the vegetables as vegetables and not force them

618
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 2: to pretend to be meat. But it brings up an

619
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 2: interesting question about these colonies, Like you have to think

620
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 2: not just about the initial colonists who just want to

621
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:41,200
Speaker 2: survive and will be able to choke down meal worms,

622
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 2: but you want to build a self sustaining population that

623
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:47,360
Speaker 2: lives and has quality of life and joy and can

624
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:50,400
Speaker 2: have barbecues and whatever. And so you're right, you need

625
00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:53,240
Speaker 2: to build up this technology to have like different kinds

626
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 2: of foods and actually tasty foods, not just Shackleton styles

627
00:29:57,400 --> 00:29:58,040
Speaker 2: scraping by.

628
00:29:58,480 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, but like even I Shackleton Expedition, they got to

629
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: like kill penguins and have fresh meat.

630
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:06,400
Speaker 2: All right, So we'll talk more about growing food on

631
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 2: Mars and the science of that, But you're telling us

632
00:30:08,600 --> 00:30:11,360
Speaker 2: about the lunar Palace is that's sort of the epitome

633
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 2: of examples of growing things in a self sustained colony

634
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:16,080
Speaker 2: on Earth.

635
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:18,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some companies who are trying to do stuff

636
00:30:18,160 --> 00:30:20,600
Speaker 1: like this on the small scale, but in my mind,

637
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:23,920
Speaker 1: Lunar Palace is the facility that has managed to close

638
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 1: the most things while doing the best recycling. But there's

639
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 1: still a lot to learn. So like, they had a

640
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:30,920
Speaker 1: run where it was three guys in there, and the

641
00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide levels were like fluctuating up and down. They

642
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:35,800
Speaker 1: were getting too high and then dropping down again, and

643
00:30:35,840 --> 00:30:38,120
Speaker 1: so they took two of the bigger men out and

644
00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 1: replace them with two smaller women, and then then the

645
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide levels were okay. And so like if that

646
00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 1: happened on Mars, like that's like that could have just

647
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:50,480
Speaker 1: been death for everybody. And so like right now we're

648
00:30:50,520 --> 00:30:53,160
Speaker 1: at the stage where like we're swapping out sizes of

649
00:30:53,280 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 1: humans to try to make things work, and so like

650
00:30:56,120 --> 00:30:59,520
Speaker 1: the papers from the Lunar Palace group have like many

651
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:02,840
Speaker 1: pages of storychometric equations where they're trying to like figure

652
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:06,600
Speaker 1: out where all of the different like atoms and molecules went.

653
00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:09,120
Speaker 1: There's still a lot we have to figure out it's complicated.

654
00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 2: So are we sending short people to Mars? Is that

655
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 2: what we learned from this experiment?

656
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:15,520
Speaker 1: So women are slightly more metabolically efficient, and on average

657
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:17,800
Speaker 1: we're smaller. I've heard people argue that we should be

658
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 1: sending just women to space, or and then my exac

659
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:23,440
Speaker 1: likes to joke that we should send just jockeys to space.

660
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 1: But it's worth considering. But at least initially, you know

661
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:34,320
Speaker 1: your cargo will stretch for longer if the people are smaller.

662
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 2: What about amputees. We could have amputees in space, right,

663
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 2: I mean, do you really need your legs anyway? Right?

664
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 2: Why support all that leg tissue?

665
00:31:42,320 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I mean Mars has partial gravity, and so

666
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:50,640
Speaker 1: there's still some benefit to having having to But maybe

667
00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:52,600
Speaker 1: it would be way more comfortable to have a prosthetic

668
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:55,360
Speaker 1: on Mars if there was less gravity pulling you down

669
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:58,120
Speaker 1: and creating like friction and pain at the interface between

670
00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 1: the prosthetic and the human body. So I don't really

671
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:02,800
Speaker 1: know the answer to your question.

672
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:07,320
Speaker 2: Somebody's going to type amputees in space into Google and

673
00:32:07,360 --> 00:32:09,280
Speaker 2: see some really really weird stuff.

674
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 1: There's lots of weird space stuff. Yeah, yeah, So Lunar

675
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 1: Palace did well. There's a ESA, the European Space Agency

676
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 1: is working on this system. Their acronym is Melissa, and

677
00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:22,400
Speaker 1: I don't remember exactly what it stands for. But they

678
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 1: are doing some experiments with algae. Again, algae's back, and

679
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:28,080
Speaker 1: they don't have humans in this system, but they're they're

680
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:30,479
Speaker 1: trying to figure out these equations for like, you know,

681
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:32,760
Speaker 1: how many for if you have like one hundred cells

682
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:35,959
Speaker 1: of algae, how much carbon dioxide can that extract from

683
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 1: the air, and how much oxygen does it give you back?

684
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:40,280
Speaker 1: And it does it depend on like what you're feeding them.

685
00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:42,280
Speaker 1: And I'm just sort of making things up here, but

686
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:44,760
Speaker 1: like the point is they're trying to like start at

687
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 1: the bottom and work out all of these little equations

688
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 1: that you're gonna want to have sort of figured it

689
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:52,360
Speaker 1: out before you go to Mars. And so there's there's

690
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 1: groups sort of tackling this from different angles. But we're

691
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:57,160
Speaker 1: I would say, we're definitely not there yet. All right, Well,

692
00:32:57,280 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 1: we have been having too much fun. I've lost of time,

693
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:02,280
Speaker 1: and it is time for us to take a little

694
00:33:02,280 --> 00:33:04,320
Speaker 1: break and we'll be back to talk more about food

695
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:05,440
Speaker 1: and space in just a second.

696
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:24,680
Speaker 2: So this is great practice and we're learning a lot,

697
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:26,959
Speaker 2: and we're tweaking our systems, and we're learning to love

698
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:29,480
Speaker 2: algae and meal worms because apparently it's the future of

699
00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 2: Michelin starred restaurants on Mars. But what do we know about,

700
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:36,360
Speaker 2: like the long term plan for growing food on Mars,

701
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 2: because as you said, we can't like shift food from

702
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 2: Earth for a long time. And you know, the whole

703
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:45,480
Speaker 2: plan I think is let's make humans multiplanetary. That's only

704
00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:48,960
Speaker 2: useful if we're actually independent. Right, if we have colony

705
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:50,959
Speaker 2: on Mars and it's totally dependent on Earth and then

706
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 2: Earth gets hit by an asteroid and it goes capute,

707
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:56,520
Speaker 2: then the colony, if it's dependent on Earth, it's going

708
00:33:56,600 --> 00:33:59,320
Speaker 2: to die out anyway. So what do we know about

709
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 2: like making a actually independent so you can survive on

710
00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:02,760
Speaker 2: its own.

711
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:05,320
Speaker 1: Well, we know it's going to be even more complicated

712
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 1: than doing it on Earth. So one of the reasons

713
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 1: it's going to be complicated. So in our prior episode

714
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:13,040
Speaker 1: on why it's going to be so hard to work

715
00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:15,920
Speaker 1: on the Moon, we talked about how regolith is a

716
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:18,200
Speaker 1: huge pain in the rear end. So like the dust

717
00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:20,879
Speaker 1: on the Moon and Mars. It's jagged. You don't want

718
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:23,919
Speaker 1: to breathe it in That jaggedness we think also makes

719
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:25,960
Speaker 1: it hard to grow plants in it. So there were

720
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:28,840
Speaker 1: these samples from the Apollo mission that folks tried to

721
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:32,920
Speaker 1: grow a Rabbitopsis thaliana in and the plants grew, and

722
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:35,960
Speaker 1: it wasn't just lunar regolith. It was like lunar regolith

723
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:38,960
Speaker 1: plus fertilizer and nutrients and water, like there was a

724
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:41,719
Speaker 1: lot of stuff done to like put lipstick on the pig,

725
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:42,800
Speaker 1: that is lunar regolith.

726
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:45,200
Speaker 2: So, but for people who haven't heard that episode or

727
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:48,680
Speaker 2: don't remember, you're saying, basically, there's no soil on the

728
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:51,439
Speaker 2: Moon and no soil on Mars, and that the dirt

729
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:53,800
Speaker 2: we grow our plants in has a lot of useful

730
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,440
Speaker 2: stuff and that stuff is just missing from Mars and

731
00:34:56,520 --> 00:34:59,719
Speaker 2: from the Moon. Yeah, And what is a Rabbitopsis thaliana

732
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:01,799
Speaker 2: For the of us who are not biologists.

733
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:04,080
Speaker 1: A rabbit ops Ofstheliana is a plant. It's also known

734
00:35:04,120 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 1: as sale criss and it's a workhorse for biologists. So

735
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:09,560
Speaker 1: tons of experiments have been done on this kind of stuff.

736
00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:12,279
Speaker 1: We know, like if you grow it under soil with

737
00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:14,600
Speaker 1: toxins in it. We know what genes turned on to

738
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:17,080
Speaker 1: tell us that the plant is stressed out, for example.

739
00:35:17,120 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 2: So it's like a well understood plant here on Earth.

740
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 2: Is it something that you could eat or is it

741
00:35:21,239 --> 00:35:23,560
Speaker 2: just like, hey, let's start with something we know how

742
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:23,919
Speaker 2: to grow.

743
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:25,960
Speaker 1: I think it's can you just start with something that

744
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:29,799
Speaker 1: we know how to grow. It's edible, edible, by.

745
00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:31,880
Speaker 2: The way, I like to describe my food source. What

746
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:34,399
Speaker 2: are we having for dinner tonight? It's edible. Don't worry,

747
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:36,760
Speaker 2: right right, Yeah, I feel now I'm worried.

748
00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:39,320
Speaker 1: I feel like foragers like to tell you that food

749
00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:41,200
Speaker 1: is edible a lot like I feel like what you're

750
00:35:41,239 --> 00:35:43,840
Speaker 1: telling me is that artificial selection has made food good,

751
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:49,480
Speaker 1: but nature provides edible anyway. Okay, it is edible.

752
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 2: So you're saying, they tried growing this thing in lunar regolis, right.

753
00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:56,239
Speaker 1: And they added all of this stuff to make it

754
00:35:56,280 --> 00:35:58,840
Speaker 1: more like Earth's soil, and the plants that grew showed

755
00:35:59,080 --> 00:36:01,960
Speaker 1: signs of stress based on their coloration and what their

756
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 1: genes were doing. And one of the hypotheses was that

757
00:36:05,200 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: all of those jagged lunar bits were like making it

758
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:10,319
Speaker 1: hard for the plant to put out roots, and maybe

759
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:13,120
Speaker 1: nutrients and water were leaking out because it kept getting poked.

760
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:15,279
Speaker 1: We don't really know. But the point is, even if

761
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:17,759
Speaker 1: you like supplement a lot, it's hard to grow in

762
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:18,280
Speaker 1: this stuff.

763
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:20,840
Speaker 2: So you're saying they basically grew it in earth soil,

764
00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 2: but with lunar regolith mixed in, and that was bad

765
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:25,839
Speaker 2: enough to make the plants stressed out.

766
00:36:25,920 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, and Mars is going to be worse.

767
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:31,160
Speaker 2: Now they're really testing the Mark Watney experiments, right. Basically,

768
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:34,239
Speaker 2: human poop plus regolith is not a great place for

769
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:34,879
Speaker 2: plants to grow.

770
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:37,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they didn't actually use human poop. They used

771
00:36:37,520 --> 00:36:40,920
Speaker 1: other fertilizers, but if they had wanted to be more

772
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:44,160
Speaker 1: realistic for Martian settlements, they could have used human poop.

773
00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:45,880
Speaker 2: So what do we need to add to regolith on

774
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:49,279
Speaker 2: Mars to actually make it soily enough that we could

775
00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:50,040
Speaker 2: grow plants on it?

776
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 1: So you might need to supplement with nitrogen and potassium.

777
00:36:52,760 --> 00:36:54,840
Speaker 1: So I think those things are both available on Mars,

778
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 1: but maybe not in the form that plants use, So

779
00:36:57,719 --> 00:36:59,200
Speaker 1: we might need to bring some of that with us.

780
00:36:59,560 --> 00:37:02,759
Speaker 1: We almost certainly need to bring boron and we understand

781
00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:06,319
Speaker 1: Martian soil in some areas where it's been studied well,

782
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:07,960
Speaker 1: but I don't think we have a good handle on

783
00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:11,560
Speaker 1: variability and what Martian soil is like. But some of

784
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:17,400
Speaker 1: the areas we've sampled have perchlorates, which are endocrine disrupting hormones.

785
00:37:17,719 --> 00:37:18,359
Speaker 2: That sounds bad.

786
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:21,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's bad right, so for developing fetuses. So like

787
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 1: if a pregnant woman was consuming food that had been

788
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:28,880
Speaker 1: grown in regulus with these perchlorates, the perchlorates get taken

789
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:30,840
Speaker 1: up in the food. We know that plants take it

790
00:37:30,920 --> 00:37:35,239
Speaker 1: up and it messes with nervous system development, so bad

791
00:37:35,280 --> 00:37:38,840
Speaker 1: for the baby, and it also messes with maternal metabolism,

792
00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:39,960
Speaker 1: so bad for the mom.

793
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:42,520
Speaker 2: So edible but poisonous.

794
00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:45,400
Speaker 1: So when I talk to folks who are pro space settlement,

795
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:50,880
Speaker 1: they always say, ugh, pah, it's water soluble. You just

796
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 1: gotta like rinse it and it's gonna go away. But

797
00:37:53,719 --> 00:37:55,400
Speaker 1: then I talked to a friend of mine who's a

798
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:58,520
Speaker 1: geologist and his lab works with perchlorates, and I was like,

799
00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 1: is it that easy? Do you just like rinse it

800
00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:02,360
Speaker 1: and it goes away? And he's like, we work with

801
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 1: that in fume hoods, only, Like, it's not that easy,

802
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 1: and he's and it's a big deal if you miss it.

803
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:10,200
Speaker 1: And also like if you imagine, you know, so Zach

804
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:12,960
Speaker 1: and I bought some farmland and we wanted we have

805
00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:15,520
Speaker 1: like a garden. If someone was to say like, hey,

806
00:38:15,640 --> 00:38:20,120
Speaker 1: it's cheap, it's got like these endocrine disrupting hormones in

807
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:22,160
Speaker 1: the soil, but like, just rinse it first before you

808
00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:25,239
Speaker 1: grow your plants. It's cool. Like I wouldn't be like,

809
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:26,600
Speaker 1: oh great, I'm fine with that.

810
00:38:26,840 --> 00:38:28,360
Speaker 2: And you have to rinse the plant, so you have

811
00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 2: to rinse the soil. Rise every rinse.

812
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:33,160
Speaker 1: The soil to get the perchlorates out. But then now

813
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:36,239
Speaker 1: you've got the perchlorates in the water. So basically, like

814
00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:38,880
Speaker 1: the more you talk about the regolith, like it's jagged,

815
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:41,160
Speaker 1: it's filled with chemicals. I think it also has toxic

816
00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:43,960
Speaker 1: amounts of aluminum. Maybe that's on the moon, but like

817
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:45,560
Speaker 1: it's gonna need to get cleaned up so it's not

818
00:38:45,640 --> 00:38:49,880
Speaker 1: toxic first. So a lot of folks say like, look,

819
00:38:49,880 --> 00:38:54,720
Speaker 1: this is all too much work. Let's just do hydroponics.

820
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:57,360
Speaker 1: And so the idea with hydroponics is you plant the

821
00:38:57,400 --> 00:39:00,360
Speaker 1: plants directly into water, like you give them something to

822
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:02,839
Speaker 1: hold on to, but they're just in water, and into

823
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:05,799
Speaker 1: that water you add nutrients and everything else that they need,

824
00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:07,799
Speaker 1: and then that way you don't need the soil at all.

825
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:10,440
Speaker 2: Everybody who like carved an apple before listening to this

826
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:12,759
Speaker 2: episode knows what you're talking about when it comes to hydro.

827
00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:16,240
Speaker 1: Don't understand I have a I have apple trees growing

828
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:16,640
Speaker 1: in my head.

829
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 2: Was a bong reference.

830
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:21,239
Speaker 1: Oh I thought this was a family friendly show.

831
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:23,680
Speaker 2: That's why I was making a subtle reference.

832
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:27,719
Speaker 1: Oh well, it goes right over my right over my head.

833
00:39:27,719 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 1: Can't be too subtle with Killy on the show.

834
00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:32,439
Speaker 2: Well, that tells me something about your college experience. First,

835
00:39:32,440 --> 00:39:34,120
Speaker 2: I want to go back to something you said about

836
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:38,840
Speaker 2: importing this stuff, Like you said bringing nitrogen and boron.

837
00:39:39,200 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 2: I've heard of nitrogen as something we need for plants

838
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:43,799
Speaker 2: to grow, but what is boron and why do we

839
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:44,840
Speaker 2: need it for plants?

840
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:48,080
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not a botanist, so I'm not one hundred

841
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 1: percent sure, but so like just you know, our bodies,

842
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 1: we were mostly made out of what knops I think carbon, hydrogen, oxygen,

843
00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:57,040
Speaker 1: phosphor a sulfur. Those the main things that are in

844
00:39:57,080 --> 00:39:59,239
Speaker 1: our body, but we also need other things and like

845
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:02,080
Speaker 1: trace amounts, and so something that plants need some of

846
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 1: but not loads of, includes boron, and I think that's

847
00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:07,680
Speaker 1: something that we just haven't found a lot of on Mars,

848
00:40:07,680 --> 00:40:09,520
Speaker 1: so it's something we'd need to bring with us. The

849
00:40:09,640 --> 00:40:11,520
Speaker 1: list of things that you need to bring for the

850
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 1: Moon is much longer, and you know, Mars has things

851
00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:16,920
Speaker 1: like there's carbon in the atmosphere in the form of

852
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide, and so you can get that carbon, whereas

853
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:23,319
Speaker 1: the Moon has very little carbon and it's hard to acquire. So,

854
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:25,920
Speaker 1: like Mars has a lot of good stuff, but you're

855
00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:28,240
Speaker 1: still going to need to bring some and recycle others.

856
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:29,960
Speaker 2: So we're going to need to pull some of the

857
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:33,800
Speaker 2: things we want out of the Martian environment and bring

858
00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:36,560
Speaker 2: a bunch of stuff in order to create an environment

859
00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:38,879
Speaker 2: where plants can be healthy and grow in a way

860
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:41,280
Speaker 2: that they produce food we want to like feed our children.

861
00:40:41,400 --> 00:40:43,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And the stuff that you pull out of

862
00:40:43,400 --> 00:40:45,439
Speaker 1: the Martian environment, it's probably going to be a pain

863
00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:47,400
Speaker 1: in the rear end to pull it out. So, like previously,

864
00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:49,640
Speaker 1: we're talking about how regolith is super jagged and how

865
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:52,480
Speaker 1: that makes it hard to run equipment because it's abrasive

866
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:54,520
Speaker 1: and it gets it clogs up the equipment and wears

867
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:57,200
Speaker 1: it down pretty quickly. And so anytime you're like extracting

868
00:40:57,200 --> 00:40:59,239
Speaker 1: something from the regolith, for example, you're going to want

869
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:01,600
Speaker 1: to recycle. It is probably easier to recycle it than

870
00:41:01,640 --> 00:41:04,200
Speaker 1: it is to extract it additionally, and so so these

871
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:06,560
Speaker 1: recycled systems are going to be super important.

872
00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:08,560
Speaker 2: And all of these things sound like they're going to

873
00:41:08,560 --> 00:41:11,560
Speaker 2: be very energy intensive, Like you're extracting things from Mars

874
00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:14,520
Speaker 2: and you're separating them and doing all these complicated processes

875
00:41:14,560 --> 00:41:16,399
Speaker 2: on them. I guess this is going to all run

876
00:41:16,440 --> 00:41:17,240
Speaker 2: on solar power.

877
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, so solar panels on Mars. We use them for

878
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:24,120
Speaker 1: our rovers for example, and so it's like a proven technology.

879
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:27,520
Speaker 1: But that one percent atmosphere that Mars has, as we mentioned,

880
00:41:27,600 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 1: is enough to support dust storms that can encircle the

881
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:33,640
Speaker 1: whole planet for like weeks at a time sometimes, so

882
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:36,239
Speaker 1: they can last for a long time. They're not super predictable,

883
00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:40,040
Speaker 1: and you can have battery packs to help you get

884
00:41:40,080 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 1: through those periods. But most of the folks that I

885
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:45,960
Speaker 1: talked to say, we're going to need to bring portable

886
00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:49,000
Speaker 1: nuclear reactors with us as well and plant them sort

887
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:51,560
Speaker 1: of far away from our habitats, so they're not, you know,

888
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:54,560
Speaker 1: irradiating the crew members. So we're probably going to be

889
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:56,600
Speaker 1: relying on both of those. You might be able to

890
00:41:56,640 --> 00:41:59,520
Speaker 1: get a little geo thermal energy from Mars, but that's

891
00:41:59,520 --> 00:42:01,759
Speaker 1: like a comple caid engineering project that I don't think

892
00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:04,359
Speaker 1: we'll be ready to tackle for a while. And there's

893
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:07,799
Speaker 1: no flowing water, so hydropowers out and unless there's big

894
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:10,800
Speaker 1: surprises on Mars, there's not going to be any fossil fuels,

895
00:42:11,120 --> 00:42:13,240
Speaker 1: so probably it's going to be solar and nuclear.

896
00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:16,680
Speaker 2: We've talked before about nuclear power in terms of spaceflight,

897
00:42:17,080 --> 00:42:19,319
Speaker 2: and one of the big questions is like, how do

898
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 2: you safely get the nuclear materials up there, because we

899
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:24,000
Speaker 2: mind them here on Earth and then we're going to

900
00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:25,600
Speaker 2: send them to Mars or send them to the Moon.

901
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:27,880
Speaker 2: Something we haven't talked about it, and I'm wondering if

902
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:31,440
Speaker 2: you know anything about it, is extracting nuclear materials on Mars.

903
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:35,000
Speaker 2: Like Mars has uranium, right, why not send the technology

904
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:39,080
Speaker 2: to Mars to extract uranium from Marsian soil itself, because

905
00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:41,919
Speaker 2: then we don't have to launch uranium in the Earth's atmosphere.

906
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 1: So I believe that those materials are available on Mars,

907
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 1: but just like on Earth, it's not just a matter

908
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:51,400
Speaker 1: of acquiring those materials. So, for example, if you're using

909
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:54,719
Speaker 1: plutonium to power your power plant, you need to like

910
00:42:54,800 --> 00:42:57,719
Speaker 1: centrifuge it to get certain kinds of plutonium and it

911
00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:01,200
Speaker 1: requires like massive facilities to do that. And so I think,

912
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:03,920
Speaker 1: you know, eventually, if Mars is going to be self sustaining,

913
00:43:04,320 --> 00:43:07,520
Speaker 1: they will need to collect and process their own nuclear

914
00:43:07,520 --> 00:43:10,560
Speaker 1: fuel for their power plants. But I think we're not

915
00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:11,719
Speaker 1: going to start that way.

916
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 2: Probably all these conversations have like two modes, like how

917
00:43:14,920 --> 00:43:16,960
Speaker 2: do you get there and get started? And then how

918
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:19,640
Speaker 2: do you become self sufficient? And it's incredible, like the

919
00:43:19,719 --> 00:43:22,400
Speaker 2: list of things you're going to need to run a society,

920
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:24,640
Speaker 2: you know, to grow all this food and to supply

921
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:27,320
Speaker 2: the power, and then all the people to run these facilities,

922
00:43:27,320 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 2: and then the schools to teach those people's children, and

923
00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:32,640
Speaker 2: then the factory to make the pencils for those children

924
00:43:32,719 --> 00:43:34,920
Speaker 2: to do their homework. And it's just like the tensils

925
00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:37,600
Speaker 2: of the complexity of the society are incredible.

926
00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:40,600
Speaker 1: Our global supply chains are so incredible, Like there's so

927
00:43:40,680 --> 00:43:43,080
Speaker 1: much that we benefit from. We tried to find numbers

928
00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:45,160
Speaker 1: on how many people you would need to create a

929
00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:48,520
Speaker 1: self sustaining society, so like how many people would need

930
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:51,280
Speaker 1: to be there before the Earth could explode and Mars

931
00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:53,560
Speaker 1: could survive without us? And I think we don't really

932
00:43:53,600 --> 00:43:56,480
Speaker 1: know the answer to that, But like I think Cuba

933
00:43:56,520 --> 00:44:00,200
Speaker 1: and North Korea, which are countries that maybe get the

934
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:04,560
Speaker 1: closest to running without interacting with other countries, they've got like,

935
00:44:04,880 --> 00:44:07,840
Speaker 1: what is it thirty million, like probably tens of millions,

936
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:10,279
Speaker 1: but neither one of those countries are places where most

937
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:13,000
Speaker 1: of us would be like totally, I want to live there, right,

938
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:15,279
Speaker 1: So they're like and I think a lot of them

939
00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:18,080
Speaker 1: would rather not be so closed or you know, maybe

940
00:44:18,080 --> 00:44:20,280
Speaker 1: not the leaders in those countries, but the average citizen.

941
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:22,480
Speaker 1: So it's going to take a lot. I've seen a

942
00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:24,800
Speaker 1: lot of estimates, but I think if you're going to live, well,

943
00:44:25,600 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 1: like there's something like one hundred thousand different kinds of

944
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:31,440
Speaker 1: medical specialists, you don't necessarily need all of them, but

945
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:33,880
Speaker 1: I'm glad they all exist and that they're available to

946
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:36,359
Speaker 1: me on this planet. So it's going to take I

947
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 1: think generations before Mars is completely self sustaining.

948
00:44:39,640 --> 00:44:41,680
Speaker 2: And do you think that answer changes if we only

949
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:44,080
Speaker 2: send jockeys to Mars, Like can we get there faster

950
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:47,280
Speaker 2: with just jockeys? Is it like a volume of humanity

951
00:44:47,360 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 2: question or like a number of heads?

952
00:44:50,560 --> 00:44:53,879
Speaker 1: I think it's numbers of heads and hands. But uh ok,

953
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:56,439
Speaker 1: I haven't done all the equations.

954
00:44:55,880 --> 00:44:58,719
Speaker 2: So you didn't say feet. So then like my amputee

955
00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:03,040
Speaker 2: only colony on Mars, you know, maybe that could succeed. Yeah,

956
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:05,319
Speaker 2: but speaking of bringing life to Mars, you were talking

957
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:08,000
Speaker 2: about importing all these materials to grow food on Mars.

958
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:11,040
Speaker 2: I was wondering about the little critters, like our life

959
00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:14,760
Speaker 2: here on Earth also relies on micro organisms in the soil.

960
00:45:15,239 --> 00:45:17,920
Speaker 2: Are we bringing sterile stuff to Mars to grow or

961
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:21,400
Speaker 2: are we bringing like Earth based microorganisms for our farms

962
00:45:21,400 --> 00:45:21,880
Speaker 2: on Mars.

963
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:24,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is tough. So for space stuff, you

964
00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:26,920
Speaker 1: try to bring as few microbes as possible typically, but

965
00:45:27,000 --> 00:45:28,919
Speaker 1: we're going to need to bring those microbes with us

966
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:33,200
Speaker 1: because bacteria and fungi are like very important collaborators with

967
00:45:33,239 --> 00:45:35,359
Speaker 1: the plants that we like to eat, so they need

968
00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:37,239
Speaker 1: to come. And you probably can speak to this better

969
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:39,439
Speaker 1: because your wife works on questions like this, But yeah,

970
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:40,560
Speaker 1: those are going to have to come. But so then

971
00:45:40,600 --> 00:45:43,200
Speaker 1: the hard thing is just bringing the organisms that you

972
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:46,359
Speaker 1: want and keeping out the organisms you don't want. So

973
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:49,359
Speaker 1: at the introduction we talked about how Biosphere two had

974
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 1: problems with plant pests and pathogens that they clearly had

975
00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:55,439
Speaker 1: not plans to bring with them, but they got in.

976
00:45:55,960 --> 00:46:00,200
Speaker 1: And Biosphere two also had scorpions that got in that

977
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:02,279
Speaker 1: they didn't mean to have in there, and they're the

978
00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:06,360
Speaker 1: only lethal scorpions in the United States and they managed

979
00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:06,879
Speaker 1: to get in.

980
00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:11,040
Speaker 2: Wow. Do they make good tacos? I bet there's a

981
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:12,560
Speaker 2: pretty spicy.

982
00:46:12,640 --> 00:46:15,879
Speaker 1: Yeah. They did not try eating them in Biosphere too.

983
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:20,040
Speaker 1: They were not hungry enough. Eighteen percent body mass loss

984
00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:21,960
Speaker 1: was not enough to get them to eat the scorpions.

985
00:46:22,520 --> 00:46:24,879
Speaker 2: At some point, you're eating scorpion tacos. But I guess

986
00:46:24,920 --> 00:46:25,839
Speaker 2: they weren't there yet.

987
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:27,680
Speaker 1: No, maybe they'll get there all right.

988
00:46:27,800 --> 00:46:30,719
Speaker 2: It's fascinating though, how we have these competing interests, Like

989
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:32,640
Speaker 2: on one hand, as you said, you don't want to

990
00:46:32,640 --> 00:46:34,640
Speaker 2: bring microbes to Mars because you still want to know the

991
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 2: answer to the question like are there already microbes on

992
00:46:37,719 --> 00:46:41,400
Speaker 2: Mars that either grew independently or through some sort of

993
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:44,600
Speaker 2: like pan spermian thing got to Mars from Earth or

994
00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:48,160
Speaker 2: maybe originally evolved on Mars and then got knocked off

995
00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:50,239
Speaker 2: the planet and landed here on Earth and seated life

996
00:46:50,320 --> 00:46:53,719
Speaker 2: on Earth? Like are we space cousins with the Martians?

997
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:55,799
Speaker 2: So you're right, we want to answer those questions, which

998
00:46:55,840 --> 00:46:58,359
Speaker 2: means we shouldn't be bringing those microbes. On the other hand,

999
00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:01,279
Speaker 2: we can't really go to Mars long term without bringing microbes.

1000
00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:03,080
Speaker 2: And so do we try to like set up some

1001
00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:05,839
Speaker 2: sterile barrier, I mean, the whole thing seems totally impractical.

1002
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:08,040
Speaker 2: Or do we just have to wait until we've answered

1003
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:10,440
Speaker 2: the science question before we can begin colonizing.

1004
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:13,399
Speaker 1: Well, I think have to wait is a tough way

1005
00:47:13,440 --> 00:47:15,520
Speaker 1: to put it, Like you don't have to wait for anything,

1006
00:47:15,560 --> 00:47:17,799
Speaker 1: should you wait? I would like to see us have

1007
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:20,560
Speaker 1: the answer to that question before humans go there, because

1008
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:22,160
Speaker 1: even if you're not like you know, so, the first

1009
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:24,560
Speaker 1: mission of Mars is probably not going to be trying

1010
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 1: to like grow their own food. They're probably going to

1011
00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:30,560
Speaker 1: pack stuff that's shelf stable. But they're humans, so they're

1012
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:34,040
Speaker 1: gonna come with their microbiome and like we're lousy with microbes,

1013
00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:37,560
Speaker 1: and so I think we'll contaminate the surface, you know,

1014
00:47:37,640 --> 00:47:39,759
Speaker 1: just by like touching our space suits before we put

1015
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:42,719
Speaker 1: them on for EVAs, So I think before humans go

1016
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:44,719
Speaker 1: at all, if that's a question that we think is

1017
00:47:44,760 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 1: important to answer, we should probably try to answer it

1018
00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:49,920
Speaker 1: with the machines we send out there, which probably also

1019
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:51,560
Speaker 1: brings some microbes, but hopefully fewer.

1020
00:47:51,760 --> 00:47:54,279
Speaker 2: Well. People are planning to visit Mars, you know, in

1021
00:47:54,320 --> 00:47:56,600
Speaker 2: the next decade or so, I can't imagine we're gonna

1022
00:47:56,560 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 2: have an answer, definitive answer to the question about life

1023
00:47:59,120 --> 00:48:02,239
Speaker 2: on Mars in that deck. So we're most likely we're

1024
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:04,799
Speaker 2: going to spoil Mars for this question scientifically.

1025
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:07,200
Speaker 1: Musk has just announced that in twenty twenty eight he's

1026
00:48:07,239 --> 00:48:09,680
Speaker 1: going to send people to Mars. I wouldn't hold my breath.

1027
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 1: I don't think that's going to happen that fast unless

1028
00:48:12,239 --> 00:48:15,240
Speaker 1: some so the United States government, I guess, would probably

1029
00:48:15,280 --> 00:48:17,480
Speaker 1: have to say no, you can't do that until we

1030
00:48:17,520 --> 00:48:19,040
Speaker 1: have the answer to this question, because I don't know

1031
00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:21,279
Speaker 1: who else would have the power to stop him.

1032
00:48:21,480 --> 00:48:24,040
Speaker 2: Does the US government have the power to stop him?

1033
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:27,320
Speaker 1: So, according to the Outer Space Treaty of nineteen sixty seven,

1034
00:48:27,719 --> 00:48:30,480
Speaker 1: some country is responsible for what Musk does out there.

1035
00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:32,720
Speaker 1: So Musk could decide, well, I'm not going to launch

1036
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:34,560
Speaker 1: from the US, I'm going to launch from some other country,

1037
00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:38,760
Speaker 1: and then that country becomes responsible. But given his current infrastructure,

1038
00:48:38,800 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 1: in his current nationality, he would probably be the United

1039
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:45,160
Speaker 1: States's responsibility. So they're the ones who would be issuing

1040
00:48:45,200 --> 00:48:47,960
Speaker 1: the launch license, so they're the ones who would have

1041
00:48:48,040 --> 00:48:50,440
Speaker 1: to put their stamp on the mission plan. So I mean,

1042
00:48:50,440 --> 00:48:53,000
Speaker 1: the international community could like make a fuss and the

1043
00:48:53,120 --> 00:48:56,560
Speaker 1: US could feel pressured, but I'm not seeing that happening.

1044
00:48:56,680 --> 00:48:59,040
Speaker 2: Another possibility I suppose is that we try to build

1045
00:48:59,040 --> 00:49:01,439
Speaker 2: colonies on Mars that are more separate from like what's

1046
00:49:01,480 --> 00:49:04,280
Speaker 2: going on on the surface. And I talked about living

1047
00:49:04,480 --> 00:49:08,440
Speaker 2: underground on the Moon. What about living underground on Mars

1048
00:49:08,760 --> 00:49:10,440
Speaker 2: also as a way to protect yourself from all the

1049
00:49:10,480 --> 00:49:13,320
Speaker 2: cosmic radiation the death from the Martian skies.

1050
00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:16,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we will probably live underground on Mars as well.

1051
00:49:16,520 --> 00:49:19,400
Speaker 1: So Mars, like the one percent atmosphere that Mars has

1052
00:49:19,560 --> 00:49:22,200
Speaker 1: isn't really sufficient to save you from all of this

1053
00:49:22,520 --> 00:49:26,360
Speaker 1: space radiation. And unlike Earth, Mars doesn't have a planet

1054
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:29,520
Speaker 1: wide strong magnetic field, so you're going to get exposed

1055
00:49:29,520 --> 00:49:31,919
Speaker 1: to space radiation. So most of the proposals I've seen

1056
00:49:32,040 --> 00:49:36,160
Speaker 1: do involve habitats either in like lava tubes or just

1057
00:49:36,200 --> 00:49:38,880
Speaker 1: buried underneath regolith. So first I'll say that burying yourself

1058
00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:41,200
Speaker 1: underground doesn't necessarily mean you're not going to contaminate the

1059
00:49:41,200 --> 00:49:43,600
Speaker 1: Martian surface, I think, because you're probably still going to

1060
00:49:43,600 --> 00:49:44,640
Speaker 1: be going on some EVAs.

1061
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:47,359
Speaker 2: And also it could be that there are microbes under

1062
00:49:47,400 --> 00:49:48,160
Speaker 2: the ground, right.

1063
00:49:48,120 --> 00:49:49,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, and that might be the place we're most

1064
00:49:49,840 --> 00:49:52,239
Speaker 1: likely to find them because they're not exposed to you know,

1065
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:54,879
Speaker 1: the radiation from space. Like maybe the most likely place

1066
00:49:54,920 --> 00:49:57,600
Speaker 1: we are to find these microbes could be in you know,

1067
00:49:57,680 --> 00:50:00,600
Speaker 1: lava tubes or caves underground. But this also this opposes

1068
00:50:00,680 --> 00:50:03,320
Speaker 1: problems related to growing plants because you're not going to

1069
00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:07,400
Speaker 1: get any sunlight. And already you were getting less sunlight

1070
00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:10,560
Speaker 1: than you would on Earth because Mars is farther from

1071
00:50:10,600 --> 00:50:12,120
Speaker 1: the sun, which is also going to be a problem

1072
00:50:12,160 --> 00:50:14,880
Speaker 1: for your solar panels. But now you're also underground, so

1073
00:50:14,920 --> 00:50:16,600
Speaker 1: you're going to need to be using a lot of

1074
00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:19,400
Speaker 1: energy to create artificial lights, or you're gonna have to

1075
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:22,239
Speaker 1: pipe the sunlight in somehow. So it's it's going to

1076
00:50:22,320 --> 00:50:25,560
Speaker 1: be complicated. But yeah, I don't think being underground necessarily

1077
00:50:25,560 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 1: protects the microbes, but it adds some complications when it

1078
00:50:28,480 --> 00:50:29,480
Speaker 1: comes to growing plants.

1079
00:50:29,719 --> 00:50:32,960
Speaker 2: Well, what about future technology. All this stuff assumes we're

1080
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:35,520
Speaker 2: going to be growing earth like plants and bringing earth

1081
00:50:35,640 --> 00:50:40,480
Speaker 2: like chickens. What if we genetically engineered, you know, chickens

1082
00:50:40,520 --> 00:50:42,960
Speaker 2: that were good at growing on Mars, or plants that

1083
00:50:43,000 --> 00:50:45,719
Speaker 2: were good in nine environment, or like loved Martian regularithic

1084
00:50:45,800 --> 00:50:48,080
Speaker 2: could like filter out these toxins. Is that just a

1085
00:50:48,120 --> 00:50:50,120
Speaker 2: pipe dream? Should I expect Andy Weird to write a

1086
00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:51,080
Speaker 2: novel about that next?

1087
00:50:51,120 --> 00:50:54,880
Speaker 1: Well, I'll read anything Andy wear rights. But so, I

1088
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:58,799
Speaker 1: hear a lot of folks pushing genetic engineering, and often

1089
00:50:58,800 --> 00:51:00,960
Speaker 1: they're talking about genetic engineer in humans, which I think

1090
00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:03,640
Speaker 1: has its whole a whole other range of ethical questions

1091
00:51:03,640 --> 00:51:05,440
Speaker 1: that maybe we don't want to dive into today. But

1092
00:51:05,800 --> 00:51:09,840
Speaker 1: you know, genetic engineering can improve crops in some ways,

1093
00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:11,840
Speaker 1: but I think there are a lot of problems that

1094
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:15,600
Speaker 1: are really complicated, and we don't understand which genes you

1095
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:18,320
Speaker 1: would need to tinker with in which way to solve

1096
00:51:18,320 --> 00:51:21,240
Speaker 1: those problems. Yet, So I think that eventually it could

1097
00:51:21,239 --> 00:51:24,440
Speaker 1: help us with a variety of problems, maybe like genes

1098
00:51:24,480 --> 00:51:27,600
Speaker 1: for radiation resistance or something like that. I don't know,

1099
00:51:27,840 --> 00:51:29,760
Speaker 1: although if you're underground that'll be less of a problem.

1100
00:51:29,800 --> 00:51:32,120
Speaker 1: But I would be surprised if right now we knew

1101
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:33,759
Speaker 1: what kind of genes we needed to tinker with in

1102
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:35,480
Speaker 1: a way that would actually be effective. And I know

1103
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:37,719
Speaker 1: there's people who disagree with me, so I guess we'll

1104
00:51:37,760 --> 00:51:38,280
Speaker 1: have to see.

1105
00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:42,000
Speaker 2: Well, I guess we'll just have to see which plants

1106
00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:44,799
Speaker 2: and which people survive in that Martian colony. And that's

1107
00:51:44,840 --> 00:51:47,239
Speaker 2: just sort of like a form of genetic engineering, right,

1108
00:51:48,120 --> 00:51:48,600
Speaker 2: that is.

1109
00:51:48,600 --> 00:51:51,520
Speaker 1: A form of natural selection, you know, So everyone should

1110
00:51:51,560 --> 00:51:53,799
Speaker 1: purchase a city on Mars and hear all about my

1111
00:51:53,880 --> 00:51:56,560
Speaker 1: opinions on this, But my opinion is that we need

1112
00:51:56,719 --> 00:51:59,600
Speaker 1: a lot more research ahead of time so that we're

1113
00:51:59,600 --> 00:52:01,759
Speaker 1: not said people out there and saying, like, all right,

1114
00:52:01,800 --> 00:52:04,680
Speaker 1: we're going to see what happens. Natural selection is going

1115
00:52:04,719 --> 00:52:07,239
Speaker 1: to select the best of you, and we'll see what

1116
00:52:07,239 --> 00:52:08,880
Speaker 1: happens there, like I would rather. I think there's a

1117
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:12,000
Speaker 1: lot of engineering solutions to this stuff, you know, like

1118
00:52:12,280 --> 00:52:15,480
Speaker 1: burying your habitat under regoliths probably helps. There might be

1119
00:52:15,560 --> 00:52:18,800
Speaker 1: certain like material science problems that could be solved for

1120
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:22,000
Speaker 1: like types of habitats that do better at absorbing radiation.

1121
00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:24,120
Speaker 1: There's a lot of work that can get done ahead

1122
00:52:24,120 --> 00:52:26,799
Speaker 1: of time to figure out the equations for you know,

1123
00:52:26,880 --> 00:52:29,440
Speaker 1: how much human poop do you need to fertilize your

1124
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:31,920
Speaker 1: plants take up this much carbon dioxide to make this

1125
00:52:32,040 --> 00:52:34,359
Speaker 1: muss oxygen. Like, there's a lot of work that can

1126
00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:36,360
Speaker 1: be done ahead of time so that you can reduce

1127
00:52:36,360 --> 00:52:38,359
Speaker 1: the number of people who need to die. And I

1128
00:52:38,400 --> 00:52:40,600
Speaker 1: think we need to do that stuff first, so that

1129
00:52:40,600 --> 00:52:43,520
Speaker 1: we're not relying on natural selection to hone the people

1130
00:52:43,560 --> 00:52:44,040
Speaker 1: for space.

1131
00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:45,960
Speaker 2: So you're saying we shouldn't just send a bunch of

1132
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:48,840
Speaker 2: people up there and see who lives and see who dies.

1133
00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:51,000
Speaker 2: We should prepare for that and try to minimize the

1134
00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:52,120
Speaker 2: number of deaths, right.

1135
00:52:52,120 --> 00:52:54,680
Speaker 1: Or we should send delicious people so that everybody can

1136
00:52:54,719 --> 00:52:57,680
Speaker 1: at least have some good meals while the end closes in.

1137
00:52:58,960 --> 00:53:00,799
Speaker 2: Well, I want all of those jobs to have nice

1138
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:05,560
Speaker 2: tasty meals from all their dead co colonists.

1139
00:53:05,920 --> 00:53:08,040
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we have come full circle to the

1140
00:53:08,120 --> 00:53:12,640
Speaker 1: forbidden meal. So I think that's probably good for this week.

1141
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:15,879
Speaker 1: And I'm going to probably not eat for a few

1142
00:53:15,880 --> 00:53:17,960
Speaker 1: hours because I think you've put me off of food.

1143
00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 1: But I will enjoy the wonderful variety of foods that

1144
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:24,480
Speaker 1: are available on Earth when I'm prepared to eat again.

1145
00:53:24,760 --> 00:53:26,800
Speaker 2: Well, I hope at least that this episode was food

1146
00:53:26,800 --> 00:53:29,640
Speaker 2: for thought, even if it didn't inspire an appetite in anybody.

1147
00:53:36,160 --> 00:53:40,000
Speaker 1: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio. We

1148
00:53:40,000 --> 00:53:42,440
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1149
00:53:42,600 --> 00:53:45,359
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1150
00:53:45,560 --> 00:53:47,240
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1151
00:53:47,360 --> 00:53:50,320
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1152
00:53:50,320 --> 00:53:53,319
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00:53:53,360 --> 00:53:53,759
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1154
00:53:53,960 --> 00:53:57,480
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1155
00:53:57,520 --> 00:54:00,040
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1156
00:53:59,920 --> 00:54:02,000
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1157
00:54:02,080 --> 00:54:05,920
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1160
00:54:09,840 --> 00:54:11,359
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