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Speaker 3: Hey Daniel, how many times in your life do you

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Speaker 3: think you've moved, like from one house to another?

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Speaker 1: So many times. There was one period when we actually

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Speaker 1: moved back and forth across the Atlantic. I think it

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Speaker 1: was seven times and four years.

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Speaker 3: That's wild.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, from California to Geneva and back. It was insane.

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Speaker 3: Part is when you need to do renovations right, Like

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Speaker 3: if you're the home that you're moving into is not

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Speaker 3: quite habitable.

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Speaker 1: That's right. You want to get it just as you

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Speaker 1: like it. You want it to be nice and cozy.

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Speaker 1: You want it to be comfortable place to live. You

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Speaker 1: want all those things right, And that's hard enough when

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Speaker 1: the other place you're living is across town, or across

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Speaker 1: the country, or even somewhere else on the planet.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but now imagine if you have to move to

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Speaker 3: a whole another planet.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure I can get my wife on board

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Speaker 1: for taking the kids to Mars or to the Moon,

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Speaker 1: or to do bidter.

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Speaker 3: It's a little further than Geneva.

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Speaker 1: It's a tiny bit further than traveling in Switzerland. And

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure how we'd find a contractor to do

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Speaker 1: that work. Like, who's going to do the renovations of

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Speaker 1: my lunar base. He's probably got a company already for it.

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Speaker 1: He'll sell you five different kinds of flooring. It's called

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Speaker 1: house X, the flooring company.

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Speaker 3: The flooring company. Oh perfect. Hi am Horhean and I'm Daniel.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to our podcast. Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe.

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Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist, but I like thinking and talking

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Speaker 1: about all sorts of crazy things in science.

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Speaker 3: And I'm a cartoonists and mostly I'm just crazy.

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Speaker 1: I got nothing to say to that.

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Speaker 3: You're totally a sane and normal person.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm so not saying that. And this is our

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Speaker 1: podcast in which we take things in the universe and

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Speaker 1: try to explain them to you, make them understandable. We

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Speaker 1: don't want you to be intimidated by the fancy words

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Speaker 1: and science. Who wants you to understand them so you

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Speaker 1: can impress people at cocktail parties when they ask you

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Speaker 1: what is the Higgs boson or how does something actually work?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we want you to imagine what it's like to

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Speaker 3: travel the universe and to see all these amazing things

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Speaker 3: out there.

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Speaker 1: Today, we're going to talk about living on other worlds. Terraforming.

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Speaker 3: Terraforming is that like the ceramic thing that you make

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Speaker 3: statues out of.

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Speaker 1: I think if you want to make a really big

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Speaker 1: planet size statue, then you could call that terraforming.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, oh wait, I think I'm thinking about terra cotta.

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Speaker 3: That's different.

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Speaker 1: Terra cotta. Can you build a planet out of terra cotta? Right,

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Speaker 1: that'd be the largest pottery wheel in the history of

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Speaker 1: the universe.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So that's a big question is can we be

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Speaker 3: an interplanetary species? We can humanity live in multiple planets?

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Speaker 1: That's right? And this is a really important question because

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Speaker 1: if we want to survive for thousands or millions of years,

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Speaker 1: we can't keep all of our eggs in just one

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Speaker 1: planetary basket. You know, one comet comes and slams into

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Speaker 1: Earth and kills everything on Earth, poof, we're dead. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: But if we have people living on Mars and the

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Speaker 1: Moon and you know, and somewhere else, then we could

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Speaker 1: survive such.

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Speaker 3: Cataclysm as a species.

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Speaker 1: You mean as a species, not me or you individually.

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Speaker 1: Like I'm not going to jump up there and catch

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Speaker 1: the comet and save the planet or anything like that.

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Speaker 1: But from the point of view of humanity, it seems

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Speaker 1: like a really important project to get off this rock,

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Speaker 1: get living somewhere else.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Or like if we ruining this planet, right, Like,

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Speaker 3: if we mess it up somehow and Earth is no

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Speaker 3: longer habitable, what's going to happen to humanity? We have

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Speaker 3: to go somewhere else.

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Speaker 1: You make us sound like we're a bunch of kids

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Speaker 1: making a mess in the living room or something like

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Speaker 1: you don't have faith that we're going to be able

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Speaker 1: to take care of this planet. You think we're on

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Speaker 1: the trajectory to climate doomsday.

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Speaker 3: We're more like little kids burning tires inside of the house,

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Speaker 3: you know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: That's an official recommendation people, Jorge says, do not burn

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Speaker 1: tires inside your house. Just do it in the backyard.

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Speaker 3: Right, Generally that's a bad idea.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, is that how you start your cozy family evenings?

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Speaker 1: Let's go burn some tires outside. Yeah. But this is

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Speaker 1: even bigger than that. This is bigger than can we

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Speaker 1: go to another planet? Can we establish a base on

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Speaker 1: another planet? This is can we make another planet habitable?

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Speaker 1: So you can live outside, you can breathe the air,

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Speaker 1: you can run around, you can grow crops.

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Speaker 3: So meaning we can go to another planet and live there,

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Speaker 3: but we would be in spacesuits and inside of some

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Speaker 3: kind of base the whole time. That wouldn't be a

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Speaker 3: lot of fun.

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Speaker 1: That would not be a lot of fun. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think if you went to Mars and just build

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Speaker 1: a colony, like you know, out of ships and domes

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Speaker 1: and stuff like that, you'd basically be living on Antarctica,

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Speaker 1: you know, be cold and dry and unpleasant, and you

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Speaker 1: have to pee in a spacesuit all the time, and

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Speaker 1: it would not be like living on Earth. It'd be

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Speaker 1: very hard to imagine millions or billions of people living

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Speaker 1: that way on Mars, right or anywhere else. So, if

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Speaker 1: you really want to establish non Earth population centers, you

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Speaker 1: have to figure out a way to make the planet

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Speaker 1: itself habitable without spacesuit.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So that's where the term terraforming comes from. And so

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Speaker 3: we were curious to know how many people out there,

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Speaker 3: including you, maybe you this term.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So I went out in the street and I

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Speaker 1: asked people, have you heard of terraforming? Do you know

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Speaker 1: what it is? What does it mean? Is it possible?

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Speaker 3: Here's what people had to say.

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Speaker 4: I've heard the word before, but I don't would actually

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Speaker 4: know anything about it.

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Speaker 1: Like how the Earth got formed?

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Speaker 3: Okay, No, I haven't heard of terraforming before.

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Speaker 5: No, no, have no Okay, terrorform, I've heard of it,

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Speaker 5: I don't know the meaning of it. Okay, on another

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Speaker 5: planet forming the environment or something like that, something along

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Speaker 5: those lines.

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Speaker 1: All right, great, is that like where you dig up

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Speaker 1: the planet?

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Speaker 3: I have heard of the term, but not the definition.

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Speaker 1: What's your best guess what it might be?

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Speaker 3: How the Earth's worms or how any planet forms are?

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Speaker 6: Okay?

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Speaker 7: Cool?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I have heard of terraforming.

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Speaker 8: Terraforming is hopefully something when we can be a step

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Speaker 8: three civilization I forget the correct connotation, but you'll maybe

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Speaker 8: get a lot of energy from the Sun and be

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Speaker 8: able to use that to go and colonize another planet

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Speaker 8: and make the human race become a multiplanetary species.

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Speaker 1: Do you think that's realistic?

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Speaker 3: No?

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Speaker 8: I think we have way too much on Earth that

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Speaker 8: we need to take care of still, and that it's

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Speaker 8: a sexy idea, but I think that it's not going

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Speaker 8: to happen for some long.

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Speaker 3: Amount of time, all right, So a lot of nose.

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Speaker 1: Maybe I was asking the wrong question. I was asking

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Speaker 1: people have they heard of terraforming, And most of the people,

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Speaker 1: except for one very smart gentleman who had a lot

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Speaker 1: to say about it, had never even heard of the word.

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Speaker 5: Right.

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Speaker 1: They're like, just not even part of something they think

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Speaker 1: about or talk about or wonder about. Right, So that's good.

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Speaker 1: We can we can explain people what the word means.

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Speaker 3: Nobody thought it was terra cotta.

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Speaker 1: Nobody except for you things that has to do with pottery.

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Speaker 3: That's right, are very Chinese soldiers.

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Speaker 1: Except for now. Somebody now is going to be listening

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Speaker 1: to this podcasts. They're going to come away with it.

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Speaker 1: That's their takeaway, right, that terraforming is making an Earth

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Speaker 1: out of terra cotta. But maybe a more interesting question

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Speaker 1: to have asked would have been, like, do you think

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Speaker 1: it's possible to turn Mars into a habitable planet? Right?

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Speaker 1: That's I'm curious what people would have thought about that.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, in another universe and another multiverse, I asked

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Speaker 1: that different question.

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Speaker 3: Do you think people would have known or thought it

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Speaker 3: was possible or not?

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Speaker 1: I don't know, but I'm always surprised to hear what

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Speaker 1: people think. I would have would like to know what

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Speaker 1: people think is possible if that's sort of a feasible

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Speaker 1: project the humanity could pull off. I mean massive place

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Speaker 1: planitary engineering. As you'll hear in today's podcast, folks, it's

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Speaker 1: not a small project to undertake.

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Speaker 3: That's a cool word. Planetary engineering. The idea that you

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Speaker 3: can change an entire planet.

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Speaker 1: That's amazing, right, Yeah, And you know it's something people

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Speaker 1: thinking about for Earth. Right. Geoengineering is the study of,

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Speaker 1: like can we solve our climate climate problems by doing

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Speaker 1: some crazy engineering, you know, like deflecting the Sun's rays

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Speaker 1: or or you know, injecting things into the atmosphere or

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Speaker 1: pulling CO two out of the atmosphere. Like these massive

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Speaker 1: engineering projects as desperate measures to reverse climate change. It's

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Speaker 1: going to become center stage more and more, and then

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Speaker 1: in the next few years, I think, Wow, be cool.

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Speaker 3: To get as a degree, you know, in your diploma

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Speaker 3: planetary engineer.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you know, the more people burn tires outside

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Speaker 1: or in their living room, the more we're gonna have

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Speaker 1: to worry about this stuff and counteract it. So somebody's

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Speaker 1: got to think about it. There's a lot of really

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Speaker 1: fun paper it's about geoengineering. People have crazy schemes to

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Speaker 1: try to cool off the earth or I mean, a

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Speaker 1: lot of it sounds really risky to me. It's not

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Speaker 1: like we really understand and the way the atmosphere works,

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Speaker 1: so trying to tweak it and twiddle with it, like

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Speaker 1: dialing the knobs on the atmosphere that scares me.

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Speaker 3: Seems seems tricky. You don't have a lot of faith

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Speaker 3: in engineers generally.

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Speaker 1: I feel, well, you know, sometimes you have to put

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Speaker 1: your faith in the engineers because you have a desperate problem, right,

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Speaker 1: But when it's a system that you know they don't understand,

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Speaker 1: Like we can't predict the weather very well, right, so

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Speaker 1: how can you predict what happens when you seed clouds,

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Speaker 1: or when you put huge mirrors in space like and

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Speaker 1: that's a fine thing to do on another planet where

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Speaker 1: you know you have a million years to figure it

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Speaker 1: out or a thousand years to figure it out, an

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Speaker 1: infinite budget. But when it comes to Earth, our home

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Speaker 1: less open to this kind of crazy experimentation. I would

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Speaker 1: be very cos.

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Speaker 3: We only have one planet and so you know, if

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Speaker 3: we miss it up tinkering, it could be bad used.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly would you put the the whole climate into

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Speaker 1: the hands of engineers and say, hey, tinker away, see

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Speaker 1: what happens.

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Speaker 3: I think it'd be cool just to be be called

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Speaker 3: a PE, you know, like planetary engineer.

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Speaker 1: You just want the title, you don't want the responsibilities. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: say it part of a planetary engineer PHDNP.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So let's get into it. So what is terraforming?

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Speaker 3: Is what is the concept of terraforming?

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Speaker 1: Yes, so just from the word terra meaning Earth and

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Speaker 1: right informing meaning forming, it means take another planet like

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Speaker 1: Mars or another planet and make it like the Earth,

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Speaker 1: make it to be able to sustain human life, right,

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Speaker 1: make it habitable, yeah, make it habitable, make it a

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Speaker 1: place that you might want to go, right, right.

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Speaker 3: But is it so it's basically the concept of making

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Speaker 3: it so that you can step outside without a spacesuit,

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Speaker 3: take a deep breath, and enjoy the sun and the

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Speaker 3: air on.

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Speaker 1: Mars, yeah, or any other planet. I mean, and that's

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Speaker 1: exactly the kind of thing that happens in science fiction

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Speaker 1: stories all the time. Right, they land on some planet,

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Speaker 1: they set down, they open the door, they take a

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Speaker 1: deep breath, and they go, ah, yeah, yeah, smells pretty

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Speaker 1: sweet on planet XYZ four eight set.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there's nothing toxic or dangerous when I brief this air.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, exactly exactly, And that strikes me as very unlikely.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that would be wonderful if it happened, but

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Speaker 1: it strikes me as very unlikely. But that's the point,

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Speaker 1: is being able to step outside without a space food

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Speaker 1: and breathe and live.

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Speaker 3: But is that the only motivation, kind of to enjoy

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Speaker 3: the outdoors in another planet or is there something more

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Speaker 3: that you know, we can't physically live that many people

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Speaker 3: inside of a base or inside of a constrained environment.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I think if you want to, if you want

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Speaker 1: to really spread across the planet, you got to make

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Speaker 1: the whole thing habitable. I mean, if you're going to

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Speaker 1: build domes and live inside domes. That's that's not nearly

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Speaker 1: as fun, right, and it's it's constrained exactly. So if

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Speaker 1: you want to have agriculture that supports a large population,

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Speaker 1: you need to have plants growing. And so either you

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Speaker 1: have to build a dome the size of the planet

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Speaker 1: or just make the planet into a dome. Right, Eventually

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Speaker 1: having domes is impractical.

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Speaker 3: Interesting, Okay, so let's get into the detail. Then, what

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Speaker 3: does it mean to be habitable For a planet to

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Speaker 3: be habitable, like, what do we need to change in

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Speaker 3: other planets to make it more like ours?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? So you need an atmosphere. You need non toxic

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Speaker 1: atmosphere with oxygen in it. You need to have enough water, right.

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Speaker 1: You need the temperature to be reasonable, right, You can't

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Speaker 1: be a frozen instantly or boiled to a crisp as

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Speaker 1: soon as you step outside. You also, and that's not

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Speaker 1: even enough, right. You might think, well, that's a tall order,

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Speaker 1: and it is, but even that's not enough. You need

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Speaker 1: things like shielding from cosmic rays. Right. If you're in

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Speaker 1: a place where the radiation is much higher than it

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Speaker 1: is on Earth, then you need to be protected. Having

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Speaker 1: an atmosphere will do some of that for you, but

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Speaker 1: it might not be enough, right, So I'd say those

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Speaker 1: are the basics, water, temperature, atmosphere, and shielding from cosmic rays.

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Speaker 1: Those are the four elements. It's a lot of things

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Speaker 1: to get right, you know already. Yeah, I mean see,

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Speaker 1: it just seems like four things. But that's a big

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Speaker 1: list of requests for you, for the flooring company or

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Speaker 1: whatever it is we're going to hire to renovate the

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Speaker 1: Moon for us.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's just four things, but it's four things the

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Speaker 3: size of an entire planet, right, Like it's not but

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Speaker 3: like changing in a little dome, it's an entire gigantic

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Speaker 3: space that you need.

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Speaker 1: To have these, right, Yeah, exactly. We have that situation

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Speaker 1: on Earth, which is wonderful, but it's not like that

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Speaker 1: happened overnight. You know. This is a billions of year's

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Speaker 1: process to get to where we are today, and now

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Speaker 1: we're talking about engineering it and doing it in hopefully

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Speaker 1: less than a billion years, right, So it's going to

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Speaker 1: be harder to do on another planet, or it didn't

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Speaker 1: happen by itself in a shorter amount of time.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it kind of makes you think how precious it

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Speaker 3: is the conditions that we have here.

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Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. Maybe we should review, like roughly how that

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Speaker 1: happened on Earth, how we got to a habitable planet

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Speaker 1: on Earth. Earth was formed big ball of hot lava.

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Speaker 1: It's it's cooled down a little bit, but then it

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Speaker 1: was dry. And so, as we talked about a podcast

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Speaker 1: episode a while ago, we got water by having comets

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Speaker 1: smashed into the Earth's surface, and comets are basically huge

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Speaker 1: snowballs in space.

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Speaker 3: And brought water in from outer space.

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Speaker 1: We ordered it right on door dash or something. Hey,

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Speaker 1: can you deliver like a thousand comets tomorrow?

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Speaker 3: Hey arrowhead, we need a couple of trillion gallons please.

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Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. So that's where we got the water right

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Speaker 1: from space comets, and then life started right and life

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Speaker 1: and produced some carbon dioxides. This is very very early life,

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Speaker 1: like microbes that could eat things like metals and rock

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Speaker 1: and all sorts of stuff that existed on the planet

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Speaker 1: and produced some carbon dioxide. And we also got some

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Speaker 1: carbon dioxide by venting from volcanoes. So that's how we

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Speaker 1: got our atmosphere from microbes and from volcanoes. That gives

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Speaker 1: us an atmosphere that has a lot of carbon dioxide

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Speaker 1: in it, right, But then we need the oxygen. And

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Speaker 1: the oxygen came when microbes actually cyanobacteria in particular, and

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Speaker 1: then later algae and plants figured out how to photosynthesize. Wow.

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Speaker 1: For the synstansis essentially is breaking down CO two into

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Speaker 1: oxygen and carbon, right, And so some of that oxygen

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Speaker 1: is released in the atmosphere, and so you have huge

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Speaker 1: amounts of microbes and algae and plankt in the ocean

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Speaker 1: doing this all the time, and the trees now doing

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Speaker 1: this produced enough oxygen to give us an atmosphere that

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Speaker 1: was breathable for animals. Right. So that's how we got water,

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Speaker 1: we got pressure, we got oxygen.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's all sort of tied together, right. The

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Speaker 3: living things are tied together with the things and the

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Speaker 3: rocks and the things that came from out of space,

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Speaker 3: and it all sort of mixed together to and that's

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Speaker 3: where we evolve.

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Speaker 8: Right.

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Speaker 3: It's not like these are the ideal conditions for any life.

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Speaker 3: It's just that these are the conditions in which we

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Speaker 3: grew up in and so that's what we need, right.

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Speaker 1: That's right, And you're right, they're all tied together. It's

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Speaker 1: hard to get one without the other. You know, having

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Speaker 1: enough water helps you with all these cycles, and having

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Speaker 1: the right pressure in the atmosphere helps keep the water

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Speaker 1: on the planet, and keaps keep the temperature right. And

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Speaker 1: so it's a very complicated, delicate system, and it's very

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Speaker 1: easy to throw out of balance. I'm amazed, frankly, that

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Speaker 1: we haven't screwed it up already. You know, it's lasted

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Speaker 1: this long.

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Speaker 3: Where we're on our way, I think, yeah, your expectations

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Speaker 3: are not low enough.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Too many people are burning tires inside.

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Speaker 3: Okay, so let's get into the then, how you would

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Speaker 3: do it and another planet. Let's get into the details

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Speaker 3: of peeing, not peeing, but peing, planetary engineering a whole

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Speaker 3: other planet to be just like our cozy Earth.

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Speaker 1: applecar dot com. All right, so, how do we set

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Speaker 1: up a livable situation on Mars that we can do

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Speaker 1: cartwheels in the grass and enjoy and take deep breaths

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Speaker 1: and drink from rivers and raise our children care free? Right?

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00:20:22,760 --> 00:20:23,520
Speaker 1: That's the goal? Yeah?

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Speaker 3: How do we change a planet in which we would

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Speaker 3: die if we step outside to one in which it'd

437
00:20:28,720 --> 00:20:30,160
Speaker 3: be nice to go out and take a walk.

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Speaker 1: Right, We basically want to turn Antarctica into southern California.

439
00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:33,760
Speaker 8: Right?

440
00:20:33,880 --> 00:20:35,680
Speaker 1: That seems how hard could that be? Right?

441
00:20:35,960 --> 00:20:37,720
Speaker 3: Well, we're well on our way for that too.

442
00:20:38,720 --> 00:20:41,920
Speaker 1: Sure, Antarctic global warming is the new Southern California.

443
00:20:42,560 --> 00:20:45,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we're going to start with Mars because that's

444
00:20:45,280 --> 00:20:48,440
Speaker 3: the nearest planet. Right, That's kind of the best candidate

445
00:20:48,520 --> 00:20:51,679
Speaker 3: we have for maybe moving the entire species to right.

446
00:20:51,920 --> 00:20:56,240
Speaker 1: That's right. This is a ridiculous project, possibly potentially impossible,

447
00:20:56,560 --> 00:21:00,000
Speaker 1: costing zillions of dollars and maybe taking zillions of years. Book,

448
00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:04,600
Speaker 1: But of the impossible destinations we might consider, Mars is

449
00:21:04,640 --> 00:21:07,000
Speaker 1: sort of the least impossible. So, yeah, that's the one

450
00:21:06,920 --> 00:21:08,560
Speaker 1: people talk about a.

451
00:21:08,520 --> 00:21:13,320
Speaker 3: Lot the least impossible. Okay, so there's this sliver of

452
00:21:13,359 --> 00:21:15,560
Speaker 3: a chance that we might be able to pull this off.

453
00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:18,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And so to figure out whether this was possible,

454
00:21:18,800 --> 00:21:21,320
Speaker 1: I actually made a call to an expert, professor Jim

455
00:21:21,400 --> 00:21:24,040
Speaker 1: Castings at Penn State University. He knows a lot about

456
00:21:24,520 --> 00:21:26,600
Speaker 1: terraforming and Mars and he's thought about this. And when

457
00:21:26,600 --> 00:21:28,560
Speaker 1: I first called him up and I asked him, I said,

458
00:21:28,720 --> 00:21:32,160
Speaker 1: is terraforming Mars possible? He said, just flatly no, can't

459
00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:32,639
Speaker 1: be done.

460
00:21:32,960 --> 00:21:33,240
Speaker 3: Nope.

461
00:21:33,840 --> 00:21:36,360
Speaker 1: I was like, well, that was a short phone call, right, gonna.

462
00:21:36,160 --> 00:21:37,879
Speaker 3: Be a this will be a short podcast.

463
00:21:38,240 --> 00:21:38,440
Speaker 9: Yeah.

464
00:21:38,480 --> 00:21:40,080
Speaker 3: But then I said, is the reforming possible?

465
00:21:40,200 --> 00:21:42,959
Speaker 1: No, no, nex time, thanks for tuning in.

466
00:21:43,960 --> 00:21:46,040
Speaker 3: So he said no. He said he's an expert, he's

467
00:21:46,080 --> 00:21:46,720
Speaker 3: worked with NASA.

468
00:21:46,760 --> 00:21:49,119
Speaker 1: He's like no, yeah, he's thought about a He said no.

469
00:21:49,160 --> 00:21:50,479
Speaker 1: But then I said, okay, what if I gave you

470
00:21:50,480 --> 00:21:54,240
Speaker 1: an infinite amount of money. He was like hmm, okay,

471
00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:56,159
Speaker 1: maybe yeah. So then he considered it. I said, and

472
00:21:56,280 --> 00:21:59,159
Speaker 1: an infinite number of years and he said, okay, infinite

473
00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:01,960
Speaker 1: amount of time and infinite amount of resources, then we

474
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:03,440
Speaker 1: can do it. Wow.

475
00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:06,440
Speaker 3: So there's about the resources. When you say it's impossible,

476
00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:09,960
Speaker 3: it's not like it violates any loss of physics. It's

477
00:22:10,119 --> 00:22:14,080
Speaker 3: just that we he didn't foresee how we would pull

478
00:22:14,119 --> 00:22:15,840
Speaker 3: this off with the resources that we have.

479
00:22:16,119 --> 00:22:18,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, as you'll hear when we talk about this,

480
00:22:18,080 --> 00:22:21,160
Speaker 1: it's going to be expensive. Right. So the first problem

481
00:22:21,240 --> 00:22:24,040
Speaker 1: is Mars has hardly in the atmosphere, and the atmosphere

482
00:22:24,119 --> 00:22:28,160
Speaker 1: is mostly carbon dioxide. Right, there's almost no oxygen on Mars. Okay,

483
00:22:28,440 --> 00:22:31,760
Speaker 1: so problem number one is you need an atmosphere on Mars.

484
00:22:31,920 --> 00:22:34,560
Speaker 3: Right, by an atmosphere, you mean like a layer of

485
00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:38,080
Speaker 3: gas surrounding the planet, because currently it doesn't have much

486
00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:38,640
Speaker 3: of that.

487
00:22:38,640 --> 00:22:40,760
Speaker 1: That's right, So that when you step outside you take

488
00:22:40,760 --> 00:22:43,199
Speaker 1: a deep breath, you get a breath instead of like

489
00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:47,320
Speaker 1: your lungs boiling, which seems less comfortable. Right. I don't

490
00:22:47,359 --> 00:22:49,520
Speaker 1: want to when when we make ads for the resort

491
00:22:49,560 --> 00:22:51,040
Speaker 1: that we're going to start on Mars, we don't want

492
00:22:51,600 --> 00:22:54,240
Speaker 1: images of our guests having their lungs going inside out

493
00:22:54,280 --> 00:22:55,960
Speaker 1: and their blood boiling into space. Right.

494
00:22:56,400 --> 00:23:00,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, like Arnold Troshenegger in Total.

495
00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:02,400
Speaker 1: Rec Yeah, that was a documentary exactly. Yeah.

496
00:23:02,640 --> 00:23:04,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, well he went outside, he goes outside of Mars

497
00:23:04,760 --> 00:23:07,679
Speaker 3: and like his eyes bug out and it's a fun movie.

498
00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:11,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And so that's one problem is the atmosphere

499
00:23:11,359 --> 00:23:14,199
Speaker 1: connected to that is the temperature currently on Mars. I

500
00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:17,360
Speaker 1: checked the weather this morning. It's negative sixty three degrees

501
00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:21,520
Speaker 1: celsius on the surface of Mars. Right, Chili chili definitely

502
00:23:21,600 --> 00:23:25,520
Speaker 1: not Southern California standards. Right, And those two things are connected.

503
00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:29,840
Speaker 3: Is it connected to the fact that there is no atmosphere,

504
00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:34,280
Speaker 3: you know, like a vacuum is by definition kind of cold, right.

505
00:23:34,280 --> 00:23:36,560
Speaker 1: Well, there's that, I mean, but also there's nothing to

506
00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:40,200
Speaker 1: store the Sun's energy. Right. The Sun hits Mars and

507
00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:42,920
Speaker 1: warms it up, but then the energy just floats off

508
00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:45,840
Speaker 1: into space, right, It just radiates back onto space. But

509
00:23:45,880 --> 00:23:48,280
Speaker 1: an atmosphere acts like a blanket, right, and so it

510
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:51,040
Speaker 1: keeps the Sun's energy on the planet. That's one of

511
00:23:51,080 --> 00:23:53,200
Speaker 1: the reasons why we have global warming here on Earth

512
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:56,240
Speaker 1: is that we're thickening the blanket we have of carbon dioxide.

513
00:23:56,240 --> 00:23:58,600
Speaker 1: It's keeping more and more of the Sun's energy. So

514
00:23:58,640 --> 00:24:01,360
Speaker 1: Mars has almost greenhounds. Yeah, it acts like a greenhouse.

515
00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:04,080
Speaker 1: Mars has almost no atmosphere, and so most of the

516
00:24:04,160 --> 00:24:06,520
Speaker 1: energy is bounces right back in the space. So the

517
00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:08,640
Speaker 1: fact that you don't have an atmosphere and you don't

518
00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:12,399
Speaker 1: and you're too cold are connected, right, which is bad.

519
00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:14,160
Speaker 3: It had an atmosphere, it could warm.

520
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:17,639
Speaker 1: Up, Yes, exactly. So one strategy for warming up the

521
00:24:17,640 --> 00:24:21,080
Speaker 1: planet is to give it an atmosphere, right. So for example,

522
00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:24,000
Speaker 1: I asked the professor, I said, you know, what if

523
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:27,440
Speaker 1: we use the carbon dioxide that is on Mars, Because

524
00:24:27,480 --> 00:24:29,480
Speaker 1: Mars has a bunch of carbon dioxide. It has a

525
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:33,240
Speaker 1: bunch of water, but it's mostly frozen in the ice caps, right,

526
00:24:33,280 --> 00:24:36,399
Speaker 1: so in the polar caps. So there's these huge amounts

527
00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:39,520
Speaker 1: of basically dry ice which is frozen carbon dioxide on

528
00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 1: the surface. And so people have been thinking, what if

529
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:43,160
Speaker 1: we could melt that somehow? Right?

530
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:45,480
Speaker 3: What if you stick it in the microwave?

531
00:24:46,920 --> 00:24:49,479
Speaker 1: And if you can build a planet sized microwave, then

532
00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:53,200
Speaker 1: I think all these terriformy projects will be easy. But no, say,

533
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:55,320
Speaker 1: for example, you sent up a bunch of nukes, right,

534
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:59,679
Speaker 1: you nuked the ice caps on Mars. Yeah, vaporized all

535
00:24:59,680 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 1: of it, right, and then you would have some gas

536
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:04,439
Speaker 1: in the atmosphere, right, And so that's sort of a

537
00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:05,520
Speaker 1: step in the right direction.

538
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:07,640
Speaker 3: So you propose that to him, what did he say?

539
00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:11,040
Speaker 1: The problem with that is that there's not enough. Right,

540
00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:13,080
Speaker 1: Even if you did that, it would be like one

541
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:16,440
Speaker 1: fiftieth of the carbon diox that you need to make

542
00:25:16,560 --> 00:25:18,920
Speaker 1: enough pressure on the planet so that you could warm

543
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:21,639
Speaker 1: it up. Right, So you need some other source of

544
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:24,160
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide. Now, this is something which is in contention.

545
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:26,520
Speaker 1: Some people say, oh, there's a lot of more carbon

546
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:28,960
Speaker 1: dioxe that's sort of buried under the ground, and as

547
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 1: soon as you start warming it up, that carbodox will

548
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:33,960
Speaker 1: be released into the atmosphere and to sort of be

549
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:35,480
Speaker 1: a runaway greenhouse effect.

550
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:38,479
Speaker 3: Right, it has to already be on Mars, like we

551
00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:41,159
Speaker 3: can't bring enough CO two like we have. Our problem

552
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:43,560
Speaker 3: is we have too much CO two. We can't just

553
00:25:43,600 --> 00:25:44,520
Speaker 3: take it to Mars.

554
00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:47,520
Speaker 1: No, we could, that's another solution, right, But it's easier

555
00:25:47,560 --> 00:25:49,359
Speaker 1: to start with the CO two on Mars. And some

556
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:51,760
Speaker 1: people think there's just not enough CO two on Mars,

557
00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:54,200
Speaker 1: so that even if you melt the ice caps and

558
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:55,800
Speaker 1: warm up all the rocks, that you just won't get

559
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:57,879
Speaker 1: enough CO two. But that's a point of contention. Nobody's

560
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:01,120
Speaker 1: entirely sure. But if there is isn't enough CO two

561
00:26:01,160 --> 00:26:03,640
Speaker 1: on Mars. As you say, we could bring some in, right,

562
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 1: You could find some comets or some you know, asteroids

563
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 1: that are mostly CO two and just sort of nudge

564
00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:12,080
Speaker 1: them towards Mars and crash them onto the surface.

565
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:15,000
Speaker 3: Oh man, wouldn't that cause other problems?

566
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:18,040
Speaker 1: Well, I think you'd want to do that before you

567
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:21,760
Speaker 1: build your resort. But otherwise, I mean, what problems would

568
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 1: it cause? I don't I mean, it sounds sort of naive,

569
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:27,240
Speaker 1: but like, what's the danger with crashing an asteroid onto

570
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:29,240
Speaker 1: the surface of Mars, Like nobody lives there?

571
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:36,240
Speaker 3: Could happen asteroids onto other planets.

572
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:38,920
Speaker 1: No, that's a that's a realistic approach. And this is

573
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 1: what I meant when I said, like massive resources can

574
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:43,119
Speaker 1: Now you have to build a huge spaceship and you

575
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:45,119
Speaker 1: have to get it out there to the asteroids system,

576
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 1: and you have to somehow like find an asteroid or

577
00:26:47,600 --> 00:26:50,159
Speaker 1: nudge it towards Mars. And like this is already costing

578
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:50,879
Speaker 1: a lot of money.

579
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:55,000
Speaker 3: Now we're talking about asteroid wrangling. Yeah, that's another cool

580
00:26:55,040 --> 00:26:55,640
Speaker 3: job description.

581
00:26:56,200 --> 00:26:58,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, asteroid wrangling. You're gonna get a lot of PhDs.

582
00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:00,200
Speaker 1: You're gonna be like Bruce Banner, you're gonna like in

583
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:06,760
Speaker 1: PhD so you can solve any problem.

584
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:09,679
Speaker 3: Okay, So that's where the costs start adding up. Like

585
00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:13,760
Speaker 3: to get the atmosphere we need, you just need these

586
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:17,200
Speaker 3: huge engineering problems which caused money.

587
00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:19,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, for people to do and exactly you sign up

588
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:21,879
Speaker 1: for them, right, Yeah, But there's there's more problems like

589
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 1: say you could do that, say you could nuke the

590
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:27,000
Speaker 1: pull the ice caps. You can get some CO two

591
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:28,920
Speaker 1: and then you bring in enough asteroids and you get

592
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:31,280
Speaker 1: enough CO two to warm up the planet. Then you

593
00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 1: have another problem, which is that the atmosphere is then

594
00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:38,320
Speaker 1: toxic because in order to get enough CO two to

595
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:40,760
Speaker 1: make like a blanket to keep the planet warm enough,

596
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:43,159
Speaker 1: you need a lot more CO two on Mars than

597
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 1: you do on Earth. And the reason is just that

598
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:48,840
Speaker 1: Mars is further away from the sun and it's smaller,

599
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 1: so it doesn't get as much sunlight, so it needs

600
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:53,800
Speaker 1: a thicker blanket. Right, So you need a lot more

601
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:55,520
Speaker 1: CO two on Mars than you do on Earth to

602
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 1: get to the right temperature. The problem is if you

603
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 1: put that much CO two into the atmosphere, it kills humans,

604
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: so humans cannot breed that atmosphere.

605
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 3: Couldn't you just make up for it by adding more

606
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:07,160
Speaker 3: oxygen more oxygen?

607
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 1: Well, for you don't want an atmosphere with too much

608
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:12,840
Speaker 1: oxygen because then everything can just ignites simultaneously. And also

609
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:15,639
Speaker 1: oxygen doesn't have the same properties as CO two in

610
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:18,159
Speaker 1: terms of warming. Right, Each of these gases have a

611
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:21,479
Speaker 1: very different behavior in terms of planetary warming because they

612
00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 1: act different in the atmosphere. So that's just not possible

613
00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:28,080
Speaker 1: to do just straight CO two. But then the people

614
00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:30,000
Speaker 1: have some other ideas, like maybe we could bring in

615
00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:33,440
Speaker 1: some ammonia, because ammonia is a really good atmosphereic warmer,

616
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:37,400
Speaker 1: but pneumonia doesn't last very long. So then I asked

617
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:39,480
Speaker 1: the professor, I said, well, what if you had some

618
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:41,800
Speaker 1: other way of warming it? Right, instead of just using

619
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:43,520
Speaker 1: CO two? What if you brought the CO two up

620
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:46,000
Speaker 1: to a level where humans could breathe it, and you

621
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:47,840
Speaker 1: had some other technique for bringing.

622
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 3: Up the temperature, like burning tires.

623
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:53,240
Speaker 1: Do you have a lot of extra tires in your

624
00:28:53,280 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 1: life or you're desperate to get rid of Is that

625
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:56,000
Speaker 1: what I'm hearing here?

626
00:28:56,080 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 3: No? I mean like, couldn't you create heat another way?

627
00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 1: Yes? The planet? Yes? And So one other way is

628
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: to just increase the amount of solar exposure, right, to

629
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:09,920
Speaker 1: get more sunlight onto Mars. So build a big mirror

630
00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:13,040
Speaker 1: in space and just focus a bunch of energy onto

631
00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:13,920
Speaker 1: the surface of Mars.

632
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 3: You mean, like kind of like like little kids do

633
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:20,520
Speaker 3: with the magnifying glass and ants. Yeah, exactly, just kind

634
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 3: of focus more sunlight onto the spot where the planet is.

635
00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:27,480
Speaker 1: Yeah. Or you know, like those little camping ovens that

636
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:29,440
Speaker 1: are just aluminum foil, and you could put hot dog

637
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:31,000
Speaker 1: in the middle of it and it focuses the sun's

638
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:33,640
Speaker 1: rays on and eventually your hot dog warms up. That's

639
00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:36,040
Speaker 1: the scenario, except Mars is the hot dog.

640
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:38,760
Speaker 3: Okay, So but you'd have to build gigantic mirrors.

641
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Mars has about half as much solar radiation

642
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 1: as Earth does, so that means the mirror would have

643
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 1: to be about the size of Mars. Right. So now

644
00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 1: we're talking about huge planet sized mirrors in space, and

645
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 1: you got to get them right. You know, if you

646
00:29:54,760 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 1: too much or too little, and all of a sudden,

647
00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:59,000
Speaker 1: all of your guests in your resort are freezing or

648
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:01,840
Speaker 1: fried up. Right, So you're really going to be trusting

649
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 1: these phdpes to to get this right in to never

650
00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 1: fail right. This has to work forever and always right.

651
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a tricky task.

652
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:14,000
Speaker 3: Well and all of this, is it just to warm

653
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 3: up the planet? Right?

654
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 1: Yeah? Exactly, So you got to bring it.

655
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:18,600
Speaker 3: Is problem number one?

656
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly. Are you feeling less enthusiastic now, It's.

657
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 3: Just like turning on the thermostat, you know, that's just

658
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:28,160
Speaker 3: the beginning of your problems.

659
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you bring in an atmosphere somehow, you warm

660
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 1: up the planet, right, and then what do you have.

661
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:35,200
Speaker 1: You have a planet that has the right temperature, has

662
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 1: enough CO two in it. But you also want to

663
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:39,400
Speaker 1: be able to grow crops. You want to be able

664
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:42,520
Speaker 1: to breathe, right, so you need to produce oxygen. Now,

665
00:30:42,520 --> 00:30:44,480
Speaker 1: I remember the way that happened on Earth was that

666
00:30:44,520 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 1: we had basically algae and phytoplankton and all sorts of

667
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 1: little green microbes that are capable of producing oxygen. And

668
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:53,880
Speaker 1: that's cool, and we could do that again. We could

669
00:30:53,920 --> 00:30:57,720
Speaker 1: just like launch a huge tub of plants, you know,

670
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 1: of algae into the lakes on warm Mars and they

671
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 1: could just we could just wait for them to do

672
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 1: their thing.

673
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:06,479
Speaker 3: We could just make Mars moldy.

674
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:13,760
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, make Mars funky again. Yeah, and

675
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 1: that all sounds great, And you might be thinking that

676
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 1: sounds wonderful because then we're using the power of microbes.

677
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:20,880
Speaker 1: They multiply fast, and they can spread all over Mars,

678
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 1: and we can green the planet. So I talked to

679
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:26,680
Speaker 1: a microbiologist. One of them is my wife, and I

680
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 1: also consulted them, professor Heather Bean, she's at Arizona State University.

681
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 1: And they tell me that a reasonable estimate for how

682
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 1: long it would take to produce enough oxygen is about

683
00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:38,600
Speaker 1: a million years.

684
00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness. So even if we put giant tubs

685
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:45,360
Speaker 3: of algae there, it would take a million years to

686
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 3: process all that CO two into oxygen.

687
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 1: It would take a million years, unless you know, you

688
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:51,240
Speaker 1: want to add another degree and you want to do

689
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:54,640
Speaker 1: like plankton engineering and create some new kind of microbe

690
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:57,320
Speaker 1: that's better at producing oxygen. But yeah, take about a

691
00:31:57,360 --> 00:31:59,560
Speaker 1: million years. And you know, it took like ten to

692
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:01,440
Speaker 1: the six or so years on Earth. It was not

693
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:02,440
Speaker 1: a fast process.

694
00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:05,760
Speaker 3: Wait, so what's the factor. Do you just not have

695
00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:09,400
Speaker 3: enough algae or do you see algae just you know,

696
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 3: if you max out the number of amount of alergaies

697
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 3: you could have with Mars, it would still take a

698
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:14,360
Speaker 3: million years.

699
00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:17,160
Speaker 1: So in your mind's eye, you have like the surface

700
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 1: of Mars is covered with ten feet of algae or something.

701
00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:22,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm all right.

702
00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:26,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's go the max algae scenario. Even in that scenario,

703
00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: it still takes about a million years. And the reason

704
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:30,760
Speaker 1: is that algae are not in the business of producing oxygen.

705
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 1: It's not why they do it. They photosynthesize, and but

706
00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: in that process they produce oxygen. They also use some oxygen.

707
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 1: So the amount of oxygen that's like produced is spare

708
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:44,520
Speaker 1: is not is not a lot. And yeah, so they're

709
00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 1: sequestering some carbon, they're producing some oxygen. But it's not

710
00:32:47,680 --> 00:32:49,880
Speaker 1: an efficient way to make oxygen. I mean, it's it's

711
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 1: nice because it sort of runs itself, and it's historical

712
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:53,520
Speaker 1: because it's the way we did it on Earth. So

713
00:32:53,560 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 1: that's nice and cozy, but it's not a very fast

714
00:32:55,920 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 1: way to make a to make a planet have enough

715
00:32:58,040 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 1: oxygen in it. Wow, And I want to talk about

716
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:02,760
Speaker 1: that some more, but first let's take a quick break.

717
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:09,120
Speaker 1: When you pop a piece of cheese into your mouth

718
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:12,360
Speaker 1: or enjoy a rich spoonful of Greek yogurt. You're probably

719
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:16,440
Speaker 1: not thinking about the environmental impact of each and every bite,

720
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:19,120
Speaker 1: but the people in the dairy industry are. US Dairy

721
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 1: has set themselves some ambitious sustainability goals, including being greenhouse

722
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:26,040
Speaker 1: gas neutral by twenty to fifty. That's why they're working

723
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:28,400
Speaker 1: hard every day to find new ways to reduce waste,

724
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 1: conserve natural resources, and drive down greenhouse gas emissions. Take water,

725
00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 1: for example, most dairy farms reuse water up to four

726
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 1: times the same water cools the milk, cleans equipment, washes

727
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 1: the barn, and irrigates the crops. How is US Dairy

728
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 1: tackling greenhouse gases. Many farms use anaerobic digestors that turn

729
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:49,920
Speaker 1: the methane from maneuver into renewable energy that can power farms, towns,

730
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:52,040
Speaker 1: and electric cars. So the next time you grab a

731
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:54,080
Speaker 1: slice of pizza or lick an ice cream cone, know

732
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:56,840
Speaker 1: that dairy farmers and processors around the country are using

733
00:33:56,880 --> 00:34:00,040
Speaker 1: the latest practices and innovations to provide the nutrients and

734
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:02,880
Speaker 1: dense dairy products we love with less of an impact.

735
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 1: Visit usdairy dot com slash sustainability to learn more.

736
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:09,560
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737
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738
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749
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750
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751
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Speaker 4: There are children, friends, and families walking, riding on passing

752
00:34:56,719 --> 00:34:59,080
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753
00:34:59,120 --> 00:35:01,319
Speaker 4: ones who need them to get home safely. Protect our

754
00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:04,880
Speaker 4: cyclists and pedestrians because they're people too, Go safely. California

755
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:07,680
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756
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:16,960
Speaker 3: Okay, so then what can we do? Can we bring

757
00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:19,480
Speaker 3: oxygen in other ways?

758
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:22,239
Speaker 1: Yeah? Well we could bring water, right, we could bring

759
00:35:22,320 --> 00:35:24,480
Speaker 1: water in and we could split it, make the H

760
00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:28,239
Speaker 1: two O into H and O and use that oxygen.

761
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:29,719
Speaker 1: That would take a lot of time and a lot

762
00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:32,600
Speaker 1: of energy, right, splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen takes

763
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:35,480
Speaker 1: a lot of energy. But hey, if we're building planetary

764
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:39,520
Speaker 1: sized mirrors and shepherding asteroids around around the Solar system,

765
00:35:39,520 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 1: that I'm assuming we have access to a huge amount

766
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:44,160
Speaker 1: of energy. So yeah, we could certainly do that.

767
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:48,480
Speaker 3: Meaning maybe grab another comment with water and crash it

768
00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:49,280
Speaker 3: onto Mars.

769
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 1: That's right, Splash it now into your ocean of algae

770
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:56,600
Speaker 1: that you have, pumping away oxygen into your atmosphere.

771
00:35:56,120 --> 00:35:58,719
Speaker 3: Like a cooking project. We have this splane here, grab

772
00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 3: some comments from over here. There are some asteroids right here.

773
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 3: Mix it all together.

774
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:06,400
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's a cooking project. And even if you

775
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:08,760
Speaker 1: do that, even if you accomplish all of those things,

776
00:36:08,880 --> 00:36:12,160
Speaker 1: you still have another problem, which is that Mars doesn't

777
00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:15,280
Speaker 1: have a magnetic field, and the magnetic field is really

778
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:19,319
Speaker 1: important and shielding from cosmic rays. Remember, cosmic rays are

779
00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 1: just tiny particles from space and they're usually charged, and

780
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:25,480
Speaker 1: so magnetic field will bend them. Here on Earth, we

781
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:27,600
Speaker 1: have a magnetic field, and it bends a lot of

782
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:30,320
Speaker 1: the radiation from space and protects us and also protects

783
00:36:30,360 --> 00:36:31,839
Speaker 1: our atmosphere. Right.

784
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:35,560
Speaker 3: So wait, so so let's assume that we heat it

785
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 3: up the planet and we created enough oxygen for us

786
00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:41,960
Speaker 3: to step outside and breathe. We still have a big problem,

787
00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:44,840
Speaker 3: which is that it would all just blow away, right.

788
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:48,960
Speaker 1: That's right. The magnetic field keeps the atmosphere from getting

789
00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 1: blown away from the solar wind and from other kinds

790
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 1: of cosmic rays. And so we need to create a

791
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 1: magnetic field for Mars, and you know, of a planet

792
00:36:58,400 --> 00:37:00,799
Speaker 1: the size of the planet, And as as crazy as

793
00:37:00,840 --> 00:37:03,600
Speaker 1: that sounds, it's maybe the easiest task of all the

794
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:06,279
Speaker 1: things we've talked about today, because you don't need to

795
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: like go inside of Mars and like get the core

796
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:11,520
Speaker 1: spinning to give you a magnetic field, which is how

797
00:37:11,560 --> 00:37:13,239
Speaker 1: we think we have a magnetic field on Earth. You

798
00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:15,680
Speaker 1: just need to provide a magnetic shield, and that might

799
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:17,960
Speaker 1: be as simple as putting a huge magnet out in

800
00:37:18,040 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 1: space between the Sun and Mars to provide like a

801
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:24,280
Speaker 1: you know, a bending so that the particles don't hit Mars.

802
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:26,239
Speaker 1: And if you can get the magnetic field a little

803
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:28,200
Speaker 1: closer to the Sun, you can create sort of a

804
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:31,840
Speaker 1: magnetic envelope or a shadow to protect the planet.

805
00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:34,880
Speaker 3: Wait, this is the easiest problem that we have in

806
00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 3: this is creating planet size force field using the planet

807
00:37:41,560 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 3: size magnet.

808
00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:44,960
Speaker 1: That's right. If you had if you had to pick

809
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:46,840
Speaker 1: each of these tasks to solve, that's the one I

810
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:49,920
Speaker 1: would recommend pickering, because that one's the easiest and cheapest.

811
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:56,439
Speaker 3: Also, if you've solved all these crazy problems, you might

812
00:37:56,480 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 3: be able to make Mars habitable.

813
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:01,160
Speaker 1: That's right. So you build an atmosphere, you truck in

814
00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:03,360
Speaker 1: a bunch of co two, You warm the planet with

815
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:06,440
Speaker 1: some mirrors, you seed it with things that produce oxygen,

816
00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:08,240
Speaker 1: You provide a magnetic field.

817
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:10,839
Speaker 3: Then you wait a million years. You forgot to wait

818
00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:11,480
Speaker 3: a million years.

819
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:14,480
Speaker 1: Part don't pack your bags yet. You can put your

820
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:17,160
Speaker 1: underwear back in your drawer. Of people, it's going to

821
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:19,359
Speaker 1: take a long time before Mars is habitable, even if

822
00:38:19,400 --> 00:38:23,160
Speaker 1: we started tomorrow, and you know, we can get there

823
00:38:23,239 --> 00:38:25,880
Speaker 1: earlier with various basis, so we don't have to complete

824
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:28,680
Speaker 1: the terraforming to start living on Mars. But for the

825
00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:31,160
Speaker 1: deep future, if we want humanity to really have a

826
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 1: home on Mars, to be comfortable there, to have plants

827
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:37,160
Speaker 1: growing and crops and all sorts of things, really healthy ecosystem,

828
00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:39,200
Speaker 1: then yeah, we got to do the terraforming. And it's

829
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:40,120
Speaker 1: going to take a long time.

830
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:42,920
Speaker 3: So there is this liver of possibility. It would just

831
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 3: be really really expensive. Yeah, it might take a long time.

832
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:51,120
Speaker 1: Exactly, it would be expensive. It would take a long time,

833
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:55,960
Speaker 1: but it's not impossible. So given infinite time and infinite resources,

834
00:38:56,400 --> 00:38:58,320
Speaker 1: it is possible. And you know, on this show we

835
00:38:58,360 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 1: talk about things that are totally possible and things that

836
00:39:01,239 --> 00:39:04,160
Speaker 1: are just difficult and expensive. And I like when things

837
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:06,520
Speaker 1: are just difficult and expensive because then you can just say, well,

838
00:39:06,560 --> 00:39:08,520
Speaker 1: pass it off to the engineers. I'm sure they'll figure

839
00:39:08,520 --> 00:39:08,839
Speaker 1: it out.

840
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:11,720
Speaker 3: Right, You, as a physicist, can just wash your hands,

841
00:39:12,480 --> 00:39:15,080
Speaker 3: can be like, it's not my fault anymore that we're

842
00:39:15,160 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 3: dying as a species.

843
00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:19,400
Speaker 1: Exactly. Physicists, our job is to move something from impossible

844
00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:23,920
Speaker 1: to possible. The rest is details, right, that's what we

845
00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: have the engineers for. You know, eventually there'll be an

846
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:29,640
Speaker 1: app you know, you could just you know, terraform my

847
00:39:29,719 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: planet with your app or something. It will take five seconds.

848
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:35,080
Speaker 3: And who wrote that app? Engineers?

849
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:38,440
Speaker 1: Engineers, and they made all the money. Okay, so and

850
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:42,239
Speaker 1: they deserve it, right, A lot more rich engineers out

851
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:43,360
Speaker 1: there than rich physicists.

852
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:46,480
Speaker 3: If you ask me, oh, I was going to say something, but.

853
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 1: I forgot you were going to say something that you

854
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:49,960
Speaker 1: got distracted by the huge pile of cash you have

855
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:54,520
Speaker 1: as an engineer. Sorry, I was counting my gold coins.

856
00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:55,560
Speaker 1: I forgot what you were saying.

857
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:04,800
Speaker 3: Okay. So that's Mars. That's maybe one of the closest

858
00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:10,640
Speaker 3: and maybe least sour impossible tasting of the options. But

859
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:13,799
Speaker 3: there are other possibilities within our solar system, or maybe

860
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:14,920
Speaker 3: outside our solar system.

861
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:17,440
Speaker 1: Right, that's right. There are some other places that we

862
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:20,640
Speaker 1: could consider living. For example, there's the Moon, right. The

863
00:40:20,680 --> 00:40:23,600
Speaker 1: Moon is even closer than Mars, and so from the

864
00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:26,120
Speaker 1: point of view like getting stuff there and doing the engineering,

865
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:29,960
Speaker 1: it's even simpler. Problem is that the Moon has a

866
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:32,719
Speaker 1: lot of the same challenges as Mars, but it's even smaller,

867
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:36,399
Speaker 1: so the gravity is much much less, which means it'd

868
00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:38,839
Speaker 1: be really hard to hold onto an atmosphere. Even if

869
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:40,600
Speaker 1: you did all the work, you crashed a bunch of

870
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:44,640
Speaker 1: comments into the moon, you warmed it up somehow with mirrors,

871
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:47,239
Speaker 1: and you give it a nice atmosphere, the atmosphere which

872
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:49,920
Speaker 1: just leak away. Right, there's not enough gravity to hold

873
00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:51,200
Speaker 1: onto the atmosphere on the Moon.

874
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:54,239
Speaker 3: You have to be big enough. There's a size requirement.

875
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:55,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, you have to be big enough so that

876
00:40:55,840 --> 00:40:58,640
Speaker 1: you have enough gravity to hold onto the atmosphere. Right.

877
00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:00,760
Speaker 1: It's like you don't want to buy somebody a fancy

878
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 1: new jacket if they're just going to throw it away.

879
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 1: And that's basically what it would be like. If we

880
00:41:04,200 --> 00:41:06,080
Speaker 1: build an atmosphere on the Moon, it's just going to

881
00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:08,080
Speaker 1: float away into space because the Moon is not big

882
00:41:08,200 --> 00:41:09,160
Speaker 1: enough to hold onto it.

883
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:12,600
Speaker 3: At least you would have enough cheese, right, that's right.

884
00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:14,399
Speaker 1: It would be a fun party while it lasted. Right.

885
00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:17,080
Speaker 1: But if you're looking for like a you know, thousands

886
00:41:17,120 --> 00:41:19,279
Speaker 1: and thousands of years kind of solution, like you want

887
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 1: to establish a human base there, it's just not really

888
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:23,480
Speaker 1: a good good idea. I mean, it might last hundreds

889
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:25,400
Speaker 1: of years, you might even get a thousand years out

890
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:28,440
Speaker 1: of it, but you need to continuously replenish the atmosphere

891
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:30,320
Speaker 1: because it'd be constantly running away from.

892
00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:31,920
Speaker 3: You because it'll just float out into space.

893
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:35,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, You'll just be constantly farting out your life

894
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 1: source into space. So the Moon is.

895
00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:44,200
Speaker 3: Your parts back in that's right, your mini planet, all right,

896
00:41:44,200 --> 00:41:47,799
Speaker 3: So that's Moon, the Moon. What about other planets in

897
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:48,560
Speaker 3: the Solar System.

898
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:52,400
Speaker 1: Well, Venus is interesting because it has exactly the opposite problem, right,

899
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:55,480
Speaker 1: Venus Mars we talked about has almost no atmosphere. The

900
00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:57,920
Speaker 1: Moon is no atmosphere. Venus is the other problem, has

901
00:41:58,040 --> 00:42:02,319
Speaker 1: way too much Atmospherenus is like where afraid Earth might

902
00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:05,640
Speaker 1: be in a million years. It's covered in carbon dioxide

903
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:09,160
Speaker 1: and it's way too dense. It's like ninety times the

904
00:42:09,160 --> 00:42:12,279
Speaker 1: density of the atmosphere on Earth, right, so you'd be.

905
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:15,560
Speaker 3: Crushed in ninety six percent CO two.

906
00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:18,840
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, And all that CO two on that planet

907
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:21,200
Speaker 1: for all those years has really heated it up. So

908
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:24,280
Speaker 1: it's like four hundred and something degrees on the surface

909
00:42:24,280 --> 00:42:26,759
Speaker 1: of Venus all the time. Right. That's not just like

910
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:30,400
Speaker 1: during the summer, that's all the time. So the problem

911
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:32,480
Speaker 1: with Venus is the opposite. You need to get rid

912
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:35,680
Speaker 1: of some of that atmosphere and that'll help Venus cool down.

913
00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:38,399
Speaker 1: And so that's that's hard, Like how do you get

914
00:42:38,440 --> 00:42:39,439
Speaker 1: rid of atmosphere?

915
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:41,960
Speaker 3: It's the opposite problem. You need to take out CO two.

916
00:42:42,400 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so people have crazy ideas. They're like, well,

917
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:48,359
Speaker 1: you know, some ideas like somehow get that CO two sequestered,

918
00:42:48,719 --> 00:42:51,520
Speaker 1: you know, fire bunch of stuff into the atmosphere of Venus,

919
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:55,800
Speaker 1: like magnesium or calcium, or you know, bombarded with hydrogen

920
00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:58,480
Speaker 1: so that it forms water, or you know, with all

921
00:42:58,480 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 1: sorts of other stuff. Just try to get the CO

922
00:43:01,200 --> 00:43:03,520
Speaker 1: two out of the atmosphere onto the surface, which has

923
00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:06,359
Speaker 1: its own problem. And there are other strategies like make

924
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:10,960
Speaker 1: huge scoops and scoop off the atmosphere, right, like, like

925
00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:13,080
Speaker 1: just gather it up and scoop it off. Like that

926
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:15,279
Speaker 1: seems crazy to me, like you're going to build an

927
00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:19,480
Speaker 1: enormous spoon, like, you know, dig into the atmosphere Venus.

928
00:43:19,480 --> 00:43:22,560
Speaker 1: It sounds crazy, but reasonable people talk about this stuff.

929
00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:25,759
Speaker 3: You're like, it's physically possible, So get to work engineers.

930
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:27,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then I thought, you know what if we

931
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 1: could take some of the CO two off of Venus

932
00:43:30,160 --> 00:43:32,200
Speaker 1: and bring it to Mars. Right, we could solve two

933
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:34,040
Speaker 1: problems at once, Right.

934
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:37,160
Speaker 3: What if you could crash Venus into Mars and create

935
00:43:37,200 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 3: the perfect planet?

936
00:43:38,560 --> 00:43:40,479
Speaker 1: Now you're going too far. Okay, we can talk about

937
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:44,120
Speaker 1: planet sized mirrors, but we can't talk about smashing them together.

938
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:45,440
Speaker 1: That's just totally impractical.

939
00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 3: Oh see.

940
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:47,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's you have a limit.

941
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:51,880
Speaker 3: There's a limit to your flavors of impossibility.

942
00:43:51,400 --> 00:43:53,520
Speaker 1: That's right. And the other problem with Venus is that

943
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:57,120
Speaker 1: it rotates really slowly. A day on Venus is two

944
00:43:57,200 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 1: hundred and forty something days on Earth, right, so you

945
00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 1: have like really really long nights and really really long days.

946
00:44:03,680 --> 00:44:06,839
Speaker 1: That's a pretty hard way to live. So to really

947
00:44:06,880 --> 00:44:09,160
Speaker 1: live on Venus, you'd have to like speed up its

948
00:44:09,239 --> 00:44:11,759
Speaker 1: rotation somehow, right, And people have talked about how to

949
00:44:11,800 --> 00:44:14,239
Speaker 1: do that. K. Yeah, Like if you wanted to get

950
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:16,440
Speaker 1: rid of the atmosphere, you could build like a huge

951
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:19,360
Speaker 1: jet which punches, which pushes the atmosphere out into space,

952
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:23,360
Speaker 1: and that could act like a nozzle, right to speed

953
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:25,840
Speaker 1: up the rotation of the planet. Now, this, I mean,

954
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:29,560
Speaker 1: it sounded crazy, but like that's a real solution. Wow.

955
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:33,560
Speaker 3: Okay, so that's Venus. You have the opposite problem where

956
00:44:33,560 --> 00:44:36,279
Speaker 3: else where else could we go? Maybe outside of ours

957
00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:37,360
Speaker 3: our solar system.

958
00:44:37,560 --> 00:44:40,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the most promising things is not engineering

959
00:44:40,880 --> 00:44:43,839
Speaker 1: a planet that's close by, but picking the right one.

960
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:44,279
Speaker 7: You know.

961
00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:47,800
Speaker 1: It's like, don't choose from the cars that are available

962
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 1: to you in your neighborhood. If none of them work, like,

963
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:52,279
Speaker 1: go drive thirty miles to find the right one, you know.

964
00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:56,080
Speaker 1: And so one option is to look for extra solar planets,

965
00:44:56,160 --> 00:44:59,279
Speaker 1: right planets outside our solar system, around other stars. And

966
00:44:59,320 --> 00:45:01,880
Speaker 1: recently we have amazing technology to do this. We found

967
00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 1: thousands of them, and just find one that has the

968
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:07,480
Speaker 1: right characteristics, that has the right amount of solar radiation,

969
00:45:07,920 --> 00:45:11,920
Speaker 1: has an atmosphere, maybe even has liquid water, you know.

970
00:45:12,160 --> 00:45:14,719
Speaker 1: And from that point of view, we'd be starting from

971
00:45:14,719 --> 00:45:17,200
Speaker 1: a pretty good spot. It's not unlikely we could find

972
00:45:17,239 --> 00:45:20,600
Speaker 1: one that has carbon dioxide rich atmosphere with the right

973
00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:24,080
Speaker 1: pressure and the right temperature and liquid water. There's nothing

974
00:45:24,120 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 1: unreasonable about that expectation.

975
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 3: So that's more like terror finding than terraforming, right, you

976
00:45:29,640 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 3: know what I mean, Like it's you're looking for one

977
00:45:32,080 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 3: that already looks like ours.

978
00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:36,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, And even in that scenario, there are some big problems,

979
00:45:36,719 --> 00:45:39,439
Speaker 1: like problem Number one is it's super duper far away, right,

980
00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:41,839
Speaker 1: So it's going to take a long time to get there,

981
00:45:41,880 --> 00:45:45,239
Speaker 1: if that's even possible. And you have to figure out

982
00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:47,399
Speaker 1: that it's a good destination before you get there, because

983
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:49,319
Speaker 1: you don't want to travel for a thousand years and

984
00:45:49,320 --> 00:45:51,680
Speaker 1: then turn around because oops, you know, we forgot the

985
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:55,160
Speaker 1: shopping list or oops, went to the wrong place. The

986
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:57,200
Speaker 1: other problem is what do you do when you get there? Right,

987
00:45:57,239 --> 00:46:00,160
Speaker 1: you want to establish an ecosystem on the planet, and

988
00:46:00,360 --> 00:46:03,640
Speaker 1: having enough CO two, you seed it with life and

989
00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:06,160
Speaker 1: it produces oxygen. Even that is not enough to make

990
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:09,680
Speaker 1: like farmable land. Right. What you need then is soil.

991
00:46:10,080 --> 00:46:13,080
Speaker 1: You need to cover the planet somehow with dirt that

992
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:16,600
Speaker 1: you can use to grow plants. And that's complicated, right.

993
00:46:16,640 --> 00:46:19,800
Speaker 1: Getting dirt to work. Getting soil to work is hard.

994
00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:22,279
Speaker 1: We don't even understand how it works on Earth. You know,

995
00:46:22,320 --> 00:46:23,120
Speaker 1: people are studying.

996
00:46:23,200 --> 00:46:24,080
Speaker 3: It's not just dirt.

997
00:46:24,200 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 1: Dirt is not just dirt. I mean you can't grow

998
00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:28,560
Speaker 1: things and just sand, right, sand and water you need.

999
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:31,279
Speaker 1: Most of the soil that we have on Earth is

1000
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:34,440
Speaker 1: basically decayed plants, right, is leaf litter and other stuff

1001
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:36,600
Speaker 1: that has died. So now you got to start that

1002
00:46:36,640 --> 00:46:38,879
Speaker 1: process on another planet. You have to somehow seed it.

1003
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:41,120
Speaker 1: You can bring some soil and you can put it

1004
00:46:41,120 --> 00:46:43,640
Speaker 1: out there and it'll grow and spread. But to get

1005
00:46:43,640 --> 00:46:45,880
Speaker 1: the right balance of all those microbes working in just

1006
00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 1: the right way to support the plants that you need

1007
00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:50,960
Speaker 1: to feed your people, that's not an easy problem to solve.

1008
00:46:51,560 --> 00:46:53,839
Speaker 1: And you can't just like truck in a planet's worth

1009
00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:55,600
Speaker 1: of soil from Earth, right, the people on Earth are

1010
00:46:55,640 --> 00:46:57,400
Speaker 1: not going to be happy about that, and that's expensive.

1011
00:46:58,120 --> 00:46:59,840
Speaker 1: So it's a hard problem to solve. Even when you

1012
00:46:59,880 --> 00:47:00,359
Speaker 1: get there.

1013
00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:01,919
Speaker 3: You can just go to home deep one and buy

1014
00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:03,320
Speaker 3: trillion bags of soil.

1015
00:47:04,040 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 1: That's right. There's just not enough soil to fill another planet.

1016
00:47:07,239 --> 00:47:08,520
Speaker 1: And so that's the kind of thing that would take

1017
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:10,759
Speaker 1: a lot of experimentation and a lot of time, but

1018
00:47:10,840 --> 00:47:11,760
Speaker 1: it is feasible.

1019
00:47:12,080 --> 00:47:15,920
Speaker 3: Okay, So we learned that there are a lot of

1020
00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 3: different flavors of impossible.

1021
00:47:18,520 --> 00:47:23,200
Speaker 1: That's right, hoping beyond hope. Yeah, yeah, they're not impossible. Right,

1022
00:47:23,239 --> 00:47:25,920
Speaker 1: All these things could be done, and you know, these

1023
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:28,359
Speaker 1: are the ideas we have now. And if we're talking

1024
00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:30,680
Speaker 1: about things we're doing over thousands or millions of years,

1025
00:47:30,719 --> 00:47:32,920
Speaker 1: you've got to hope that human ingenuity is going to

1026
00:47:32,960 --> 00:47:36,520
Speaker 1: come up with even better solutions, better strategies, new energy sources,

1027
00:47:36,560 --> 00:47:38,920
Speaker 1: ways to do this kind of engineering. So give us

1028
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:40,800
Speaker 1: some time. I think we'll figure it out. Yeah.

1029
00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:43,160
Speaker 3: We might not be desperate now, but we might be

1030
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:44,439
Speaker 3: more desperate later.

1031
00:47:44,880 --> 00:47:47,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, so throw another tire on the fire and you know,

1032
00:47:48,200 --> 00:47:49,720
Speaker 1: make some plans to live on Mars.

1033
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:52,880
Speaker 3: It really makes you think about how fragile our planet is,

1034
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:55,480
Speaker 3: you know, like we're so lucky not to be like Mars,

1035
00:47:55,719 --> 00:47:57,680
Speaker 3: and if we're not careful, we're going to end up

1036
00:47:57,680 --> 00:48:01,160
Speaker 3: like Venus, you know, totally inh cabital in either case.

1037
00:48:01,560 --> 00:48:03,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's good to have negative role models, right.

1038
00:48:03,719 --> 00:48:06,239
Speaker 1: We see some pretty terrible examples around us of what

1039
00:48:06,280 --> 00:48:09,600
Speaker 1: happens when planets go off kilter. Mars lost its atmosphere,

1040
00:48:09,800 --> 00:48:12,839
Speaker 1: Venus overcooked it. So we're pretty lucky to be right

1041
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:14,560
Speaker 1: in this sweet spot, and we better take care of

1042
00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:16,520
Speaker 1: it because it's going to be a long time before

1043
00:48:16,560 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 1: we are capable of making another planet be home to

1044
00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:20,680
Speaker 1: a substantial population.

1045
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:22,879
Speaker 3: So the next time you go outside, take a deep

1046
00:48:22,920 --> 00:48:26,960
Speaker 3: breath and savor it. That's right, You're not likely to

1047
00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:28,319
Speaker 3: get that anywhere else.

1048
00:48:28,680 --> 00:48:30,960
Speaker 1: That's right, all right, everyone, Well, thanks for listening to

1049
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:34,400
Speaker 1: this upbeat episode of Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe.

1050
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:36,759
Speaker 1: If you have questions about what we said and you

1051
00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:38,480
Speaker 1: want to hear more about it, send us an email

1052
00:48:38,480 --> 00:48:41,880
Speaker 1: at feedback at Danielandjorge dot com. Or if you have

1053
00:48:41,920 --> 00:48:44,200
Speaker 1: another suggestion for a topic you'd like to hear us

1054
00:48:44,200 --> 00:48:46,440
Speaker 1: talk about, send it on over. Or if you have

1055
00:48:46,480 --> 00:48:50,680
Speaker 1: a question about physics or philosophy, or dating or small

1056
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:52,600
Speaker 1: mammals or whatever, just send it on over.

1057
00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:55,839
Speaker 3: Yeah. If you have questions about ceramics like terra cotta.

1058
00:48:56,239 --> 00:48:58,120
Speaker 1: Don't ask us. We don't know anything about us.

1059
00:49:01,239 --> 00:49:02,319
Speaker 3: All right, see you next time.

1060
00:49:02,520 --> 00:49:12,919
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. If you still have a question after

1061
00:49:13,000 --> 00:49:16,160
Speaker 1: listening to all these explanations, please drop us a line.

1062
00:49:16,160 --> 00:49:18,319
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. You can find us

1063
00:49:18,320 --> 00:49:22,120
Speaker 1: at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge that's

1064
00:49:22,120 --> 00:49:35,640
Speaker 1: one word, or email us at feedback at Danielanorge dot com.

1065
00:49:35,680 --> 00:49:37,439
Speaker 1: When you pop a piece of cheese into your mouth,

1066
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:40,719
Speaker 1: you're probably not thinking about the environmental impact, but the

1067
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Speaker 1: people in the dairy industry are. That's why they're working

1068
00:49:43,680 --> 00:49:46,279
Speaker 1: hard every day to find new ways to reduce waste,

1069
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1070
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Speaker 1: is us dairy tackling greenhouse gases? Many farms use anaerobic

1071
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1072
00:49:58,360 --> 00:50:01,960
Speaker 1: that can power farms, towns, and electric cars. Visit you

1073
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:04,959
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1074
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1081
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1086
00:50:51,120 --> 00:50:53,640
Speaker 6: including a free checked bag two times the miles on

1087
00:50:53,719 --> 00:50:56,400
Speaker 6: United purchases and two times the miles on dining and

1088
00:50:56,440 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 6: at hotels. Become an explorer and seek out unforgettable places,

1089
00:50:59,680 --> 00:51:02,880
Speaker 6: while in enjoying rewards everywhere you travel. Cards issued by

1090
00:51:02,960 --> 00:51:06,880
Speaker 6: JP Morgan Chase Bank NA Member FDIC subject to credit approval,

1091
00:51:07,040 --> 00:51:08,280
Speaker 6: Offer subject to change.

1092
00:51:08,440 --> 00:51:09,160
Speaker 1: Terms apply