WEBVTT - TechStuff Redux: Mars, Asterisk w/ Nathaniel Rich 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:14.520 Hi Os Voloscin here and Cara Price. We're taking the 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:15.000 week off. 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:18.480 Indeed, we'll be back with new episodes starting September tenth. 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:21.079 In the meantime, instead of leaving this feed empty, we 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:24.400 wanted to share an episode from earlier this year. This week, 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:28.520 we're reairing my conversation with Nathaniel Rich from January twenty ninth. 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:32.400 He's a novelist, essayist, and writer at large for the 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:36.720 New York Times magazine. We discuss a NASA experiment where 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:40.280 civilians take a simulated trip to Mars and try to 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:43.800 handle the isolation. Hope you enjoy it and thanks for listening. 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:47.159 NASA has a punch list of eight hundred problems that 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:52.199 must be solved before the first mission to Mars is launched. 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:56.400 Very few of them have to do with problems of 0:00:56.840 --> 0:01:01.280 human psychology or really even of in survival, which is 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:05.640 the subject of this experiment that I wrote about, called SHAPEA. 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:10.960 This particular experiment began with rather intriguing announcement on the 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:11.800 NASA website. 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:15.760 Yeah, it was a little bit like the Wonka Factory, 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:19.360 the Golden ticket that you know, four civilians would be 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:24.200 chosen to go to Mars Asterisk not really Mars, but 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:27.440 a habitat that was built on essentially a stage set 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:31.520 to look exactly like what they expect the first mission 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:35.520 to Mars to look like. And it generated enormous excitement 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:38.520 and people from all over the country rushed to apply. 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:42.640 They wanted the Golden ticket to live out. In most cases, 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:46.479 I think it's kind of childhood fantasy of space exploration 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:51.640 to see if they could withstand psychologically the challenges of 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:54.920 living away from the rest of the everyone else they've 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:56.200 ever known or met. 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:03.960 Welcome to tex Stuff the Story. I'm os Vloschen, and 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:06.440 each week we bring you an in depth interview with 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:09.440 one of the brightest and farthest seeing minds in and 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:17.680 about tech. Karen, I'm excited to bring you this interview 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:20.200 with Nathaniel Rich. When we ask people to come on 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:23.120 the show, it's always because one or other of us 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:26.359 has been fascinated by something they've said, something they've done, 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:27.720 or something they've written. 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:31.400 Well, Nathaniel kind of had me at Mars Asterisk. 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:34.919 Me too. You can't really understand tech today without understanding, 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:38.440 or at least investigating the dreams and the fantasies of 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:42.359 the tech Titans. Colonizing space is such an important touchstone 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.440 for Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in particular, and also 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:49.040 mentioned by Trump for his inauguration as quote the pursuit 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:51.000 of our manifest destiny. 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:52.519 He said, put stars and strip What do you say? 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:54.600 Put red, white, and blue? Are stars and stripes on 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:56.079 Mars Marsia. 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:58.440 So when I came across this article in the New 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:02.760 York Times magazine under the headline can humans withstand the 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:06.359 psychological torture of Mars? I had to know more. In fact, 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:09.120 I remember reading it and just getting goosebumps, and so 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:11.799 I kind of wanted to talk to Nathaniel about how 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:14.960 realistic the dreams of getting to Mars are and what 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:18.119 some of the practical dare I say, technical steps required 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:18.959 to achieve the mark? 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:20.600 Before you get too excited, Can you just tell me 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:21.600 who Nathaniel Rich is? 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:22.080 Sorry. 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:26.360 Nathaniel is an author. He's written novels like The Mayor's Tongue, 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:30.720 Odds Against Tomorrow, and King Zeno, but also nonfiction books 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:34.120 primarily about the environment, such as Losing Earth, A Recent 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:38.680 History and Second Nature Scenes from a World Remade. One 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:42.720 critic actually said Rich is a gifted caricaturist and a 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:47.520 gifted apocalyptist. It's his talent for describing the apocalypse which 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:50.280 brought him in some ways to reporting on the Mars 0:03:50.360 --> 0:04:01.200 June Alpha project, which asked to you about why did 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:02.120 you decide to write the piece? 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:07.080 The NASA part of it was almost came secondarily. I 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:14.160 had become obsessed with this history of isolation research, and 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:19.560 particularly by this incredible story of a man named Michel 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:25.320 Sefrey who had launched a series of cave experiments to 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:30.560 test the endurance of people in isolation, in environments where 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:32.680 they're completely cut off from the world. And so he 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:35.360 had run a series of these experiments that culminated with 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:38.480 this experiment by the first female participant in the series, 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:41.520 who was this woman named Veronique Legwyn was in the 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:46.040 late eighties, and she went underground and ended up setting 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:48.080 the record at the time as one hundred and eleven 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:51.880 days underground. And she kept a journal and she wrote 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:54.920 about everything she was thinking about and feeling, and ultimately 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.279 what happened was she went a little bit insane, but 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:03.520 also had these moments of great and enlightenment. And it's 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:06.920 a tragic story though, because she came out finally, and 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:10.520 after being celebrated and becoming a kind of national celebrity 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:13.800 for a period of time, entered into this great depression 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:17.800 and ultimately killed herself within a year. And she had 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:21.039 said before her death something to the effect of, you know, 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:23.080 I never was more alive than I was down and 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:25.960 underground when I was all by myself. And that led 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.640 me into a whole obsession with these types of experiments. 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:32.880 And I wanted to see if anyone was doing these 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:37.200 things now, because they're on one level, they're completely unethical 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:41.360 because basically what you'd expect happens, which is most people 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:45.120 struggle and often lose their hold on reality. And I 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:47.280 found that no one was really doing these experiments for 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:52.159 that reason, except for NASA, who had continued under the 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:54.640 guise of this Martian project. 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:58.640 So on the one had NASA putting out the cool applicants, 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.160 but on the other hand, they had to build mass 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:04.479 or at least a motion colony on Earth. 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:09.960 Yeah, they had to build or actually print using a 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:13.680 three D printer, a habitat, which is, by the way, 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:17.320 how they will do it. When we get to Mars. 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:21.000 You can't travel thirty three million miles with a house. 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:24.600 You know of towing a house behind you. Yeah, free. 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:27.920 So they can't quite do that, or they don't have 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:30.200 the technology to do that. It's not efficient. And so 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.000 what they will do is they will just lug a 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:37.920 three D printer up there and use Martian rock regolith 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:41.239 as ink for this three D printer. 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:43.599 So they'll tone the sand into cement somehow. 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:45.000 Yeah, and they can do that. 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:47.599 They do that on this planet too, And there are 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:50.159 you can find online some habitats that have been built, 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:52.280 some houses that have been built this way, not using 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:57.480 Martian rock obviously, but terrestrial rock. And they will construct 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:01.680 this house. It's a seventeen hundred square foot habitat and 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:05.719 they built it in a warehouse at the Johnson Space 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:11.360 Center in Houston, and it's their four little bedrooms and 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:17.120 a lounge and you know, a small indoor garden and 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:21.320 some computers and desks and like a little relaxation space. 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:27.480 And that seventeen hundred foot house habitat was where they 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:31.160 were going to send four people for more than a year. 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:35.720 And this habitat resembles exactly what they intend to build 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:37.720 on Mars when they get there. 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:42.280 Yeah, I'm sure subject to change, and I suppose part 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:46.560 of this experiment was to determine whether this particular model 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:48.000 would work best. 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:49.920 But yeah, this is the plan. 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:53.679 And the kind of simulated colony in the Johnson Space 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:55.800 Center had quite a romantic. 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:59.480 Name, Yeah, Marsdoo and Alpha is the name of the habitat, 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.880 and the the mission is named Shapeah, which is I 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:06.160 guess NASA's idea of a sexy name. 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:11.080 And so okay, So the call goes out for some 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:14.840 volunteers to go to Mons Dunolf. One of the people 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:20.520 who sees the advertisement is Nathan Jones. Who's Nathan. 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:25.520 Yeah, Nathan Jones is in many ways the most fascinating 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.240 figure for me in reporting the piece. He's an emergency 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:34.880 room physician from Springfield, Illinois, father of three boys, married 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:39.720 and Nathan was, like basically everyone I spoke to for 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:43.360 the story, was a kind of self professed NASA geek 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:49.280 or obsessive and had always dreamed of doing something special, 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:53.480 bigger with his life. He was obsessed with space travel 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:58.680 and when he saw this posting, he applied immediately and 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:01.880 then told his his wife, who was I think as 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:03.720 safe to say as it was a pault. 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.520 The sequence that seems a little all speaking as American man. 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:11.960 Yeah, I don't. I wouldn't have flied in my house. 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:15.240 But he was unique actually in that he was the 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:19.600 only one of the finalists who had children, and as 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:23.719 the father of two small children myself, I felt for 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:26.720 the family. And he was fully aware he was going 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:29.280 to miss out on a lot. You miss a year 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:31.240 with your children, you're missing a lot, and you come 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:34.360 back and the children look like different people. So there 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:39.120 was another dimension of an emotional challenge with him. But 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:40.240 he was determined to do it. 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:41.520 And how did he prepare. 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:48.760 He prepared very dutifully by him and his wife had 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:51.280 a whole series. I was fascinated by this, a whole 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:55.040 series of preparations that they did. He wrote little letters 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:57.760 to that he placed around the house in secret hiding 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:00.760 spots that the kids and his wife case he might 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:03.960 find over the course of the year. Sometimes little like 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:08.360 notes of encouragement, like he put a note in the 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:11.480 fuse box for like the first time the lights went 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:13.600 out and said, you know you can do this. I 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.120 trust you, just flipped this switch. And so they're all 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:19.600 these sort of sweet and for somewhat poignant point. 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:21.720 It's almost like the script of a movie where somebody 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:22.520 knows they're going to die. 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:27.640 Yeah, and there's but the poignancy is somewhat compromised. I 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:32.080 found by the fact that it was all a contrived 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:36.560 scenario he was. That's there's a kind of beathos to 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:39.720 the fact that, well, he wasn't actually going to Mars. 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:43.120 It's not quite the Matthew mcconnie Interstellar where he's missing 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:45.720 his children for this this major mission. He's just going 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.000 to sit on a stage set for a year. But 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:51.040 that tension between the kind of absurdity of the whole 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:57.120 proposition and then the real emotion that attended every aspect 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:00.000 of this process, for me, that was really the heart 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:01.280 of the story. 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:03.800 All you have to do is watch the video of 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:09.040 him about to go into the Mars Dunelfa. What did 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:11.240 you feel when you watch somebody you spend time with 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:13.920 his source in such distress? 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:18.400 Yeah, that was striking. He had predicted it. 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:22.679 But sure enough, when it came time to enter this habitat, 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.400 they had this dramatic ceremony. They were filmed right in 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.520 front of the main portal, which is basically just a door. 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:33.240 It wasn't like some major like you're entering a submarine 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.360 or something. But they were at a they get a 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:37.520 little press conference, and each one of them had to 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:41.600 give a talk, give a little statement, and he broke down. 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:45.000 He couldn't finish it because he was so overcome by 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:49.320 the thought of saying goodbye finally to his family for 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:50.680 this long period of time. 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:53.400 But I believe that tomorrow will only be possible because 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:57.840 we step into Mars Dune Alpa today. And with that 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:00.160 in mind, I also want to take a moment to 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:04.200 sincerely think the great many people who've worked tirelessly in 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:08.720 so many countless hours to get us to this point. Also, 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:11.520 thank you to our families and friends for their sacrifices. 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:16.280 We see, we know those sacrifices. We couldn't be here 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:26.720 without your love and support. Sorry, Sorry to my wife 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:28.320 and kids. 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:32.839 I love you, the moon. I'm sorry, bars and back. 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.920 And it's very moving and upsetting and sort of sweet 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:39.679 and horrible in some ways as well. It's something that 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:42.200 he brought upon himself. But I think what's key to 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:46.800 understand is that everybody in the mission, from the administrators 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:51.959 to the participants, felt very certain that what they were 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:57.319 doing was a critical next step towards this wonderful dream. 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:02.040 Of Humanity's next chapter, they felt that there is no Mars, 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:05.720 there is no exploration of Mars unless you have the 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:07.040 shapea experiment. 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:09.880 I'm not convinced that's true at all. 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:12.080 I mean, I wrote about that, but they certainly were, 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:16.679 and so they did feel that they were sacrificing, making 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:21.280 a major personal sacrifice towards achieving a great goal for 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:23.800 all of humanity, which. 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:25.720 May have kept them safe. And the woman you mentioned 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:28.280 at the beginning, the French woman who took her own life, 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:30.080 does she have that same sense of mission. 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:32.160 That's a great point. 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.360 There is some commonality, and that there was this idea 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:39.320 that they were on a kind of different frontier of 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:44.680 human psychology. But yes, it's not it was. I don't 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:47.800 think it was quite as ennobling. The stakes were quite 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:50.120 as high as you see with NASA and all the 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:51.200 trappings of NASA. 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:56.080 And also she was totally alone, whereas Nathan had three companions. 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:58.400 Right right, And so there's some distinctions there, although I 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:01.440 will say that in the long history of experiments in 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:06.920 which people are together in isolation, they suffer also, I mean, 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:10.000 maybe it's not quite as extreme, but you know, in 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:14.120 conducting the research for the piece I spoke with a 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:18.559 bunch of psychiatrists and historians of science and historians of psychology, 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:25.760 and I learned that the definition of isolation is not 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:31.200 necessarily being alone. It's being removed from your normal life 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:33.720 and from the people close to you. So you can 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:37.600 be in isolation with other people, and in fact, many 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:41.840 of the same psychological effects are experienced whether or not 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:44.600 there are you're with other people, if you're cut off 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:46.440 from the people who are most important to you. 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:49.520 When I think about the history of space movies is 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:53.040 obviously the famous Houston. We have a problem. Could Nathan 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:55.680 and co stay in touch with homebase and even with 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:58.360 their families while they were in Mars Dunolfa. 0:14:59.040 --> 0:14:59.320 Yeah. 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:04.600 They were very scrupulous about imitating the reality, the expected reality, 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:09.520 which is that there's this time lapse for any communication 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:12.640 from Mars because it's far away and you're dealing with 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:16.800 the limits of the speed of sound and technology, and 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:19.040 so there's something it depends on where it is in 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:22.160 the orbit, but essentially there's like a twenty nine minute lapse, 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:27.400 and so you can't have a conversation, any kind of 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:31.360 normal conversation, but they can send messages. But the other 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:36.200 problem is that every form of electronic communication from the 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:41.840 habitat has to go through the same channel, So that 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:44.880 includes any kind of data that the habitat is sending 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:47.720 back to Earth about I don't know, oxygen levels or 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:52.200 what's happening in the experiments, or any kind of computer connections. 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:56.000 And so that's sort of the best case scenario, and 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:59.600 that actually the lag can be much longer, and the 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:02.440 low larger the audio file or the text file, the 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:05.400 computer file, the longer it takes of sending a short 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:09.360 video even in low resolution, could take days, where sending 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:11.960 a one line text message maybe takes only half an 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.600 hour or so. So they could communicate, but only in 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:23.040 this clipped way with all of these ellipses essentially between communications. 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:26.720 So if there's an emergency, say back at home, they 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:31.040 couldn't just start having a conversation with them. Now, in reality, 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.440 since they were on a stage set, they could break 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:37.240 the experiment at any time if someone just like I 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:40.120 don't know, cut off their finger or something, but they 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:43.040 would try to they would do anything to avoid breaking 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:46.360 the experiment obviously, So yeah, they were reduced to these 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:51.320 sort of intermittent text messages essentially that would be relayed 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:53.200 at unpredictable intervals. 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:56.360 How did you choose the headline field story? 0:16:56.600 --> 0:17:00.520 I don't choose the headlines from a not a lot. 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:00.840 I don't. 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:02.720 I can consult on them, and I can say this 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:03.840 one's worse than the other one. 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:05.919 But the headline the New York Times magazine went with 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:09.639 was can humans withstand the psychological torture? 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:12.800 I mean, it's pretty good. I can't. 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:17.440 Yes, yes, And that's also what it's about, basically, can 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:21.320 we can people survive this? Because most of what NAS 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:24.960 has been asking over the course of its space program 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:28.080 is can we physically get people into space? Can we 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.320 physically put them on another planet? Very little thought has 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:37.440 been given into can human beings once they're there survive psychologically, emotionally. 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:41.760 And that's that's what this experiment is, at least ostensibly about. 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:44.000 And it's definitely what the story is that I wrote 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:44.800 us about. 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:48.800 When we come back. More from Nathaniel rich on why 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:52.040 we're so obsessed with going to Mars and how historically 0:17:52.400 --> 0:18:01.480 attitudes towards Mars have always revealed deeper cultural undercurrents. How 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:05.560 close is NASA to putting humans on Mos? They've been 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:07.760 predicting for many years that it's just around the corner. 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.000 They keep pushing back the window. 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:12.719 Even a few years ago, I think by twenty eighteen 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.320 they had predicted that it would be no later than 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:20.960 the end of the twenty twenties. I think now they're 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:25.159 looking more to the middle of the next decade. But 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:28.760 they are full speed ahead, and I think they're very 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:33.080 confident that they will get people to the planet in 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:36.680 a fairly short amount of time. The technical problems that 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:40.440 lay before them that we referenced are not seen as 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:45.080 intimidatingly difficult. They're just math problems to be worked out, 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:47.360 is the sense that I got from speaking with one 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:52.400 of these senior propulsion engineers. So there is, and there 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:55.359 has been for quite a while within NASA, quite a 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:57.040 lot of optimism that this is going to happen. 0:18:57.040 --> 0:18:58.080 It's going to happen pretty soon. 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:01.160 And why why mos Well. 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:03.960 That's the million dollars, that's the million dollar question. I mean, 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:06.800 there's a lot of different rationales. The main ones you 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:11.560 hear from NASA is it represents scientific progress. It's the 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:16.280 next step for human exploration of the universe, and certainly 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:20.560 human progress in this space exploration. There's also the rationale 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:25.680 that through the kind of innovation that's necessary to put 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:27.840 people on Mars or to reach any new milestone in 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:32.000 the space expeditions, that there will be some kind of 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:37.040 unpredictable benefits, technological benefits that can be applied for all 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:40.439 of humanity, so that maybe they'll invent new materials or 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.960 new types of devices that can then make our life 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:46.800 on Earth easier. And there are plenty of examples I 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:50.800 think of that in the past. And then there's a 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:54.399 kind of political rationale, which is to say that we 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:55.960 need to do it before someone else does. 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:57.840 There's a national pride on the line. 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:00.680 I mean, it's like in the sixties when I wanted 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:02.600 to put a man on the moon first. Is there 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:05.760 a parallel to the sixties in that respect, Yeah, I. 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:07.320 Would say not only is there a parallel, but I 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:10.600 think NASA in its whole frame of thinking. If you 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.680 can speak of something the size of an agency, the 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.679 size of NASA as a personified in some way, but 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:20.400 I think the whole enterprise is really stuck in the sixties, 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:23.000 if not the fit nineteen fifties one it's created. So 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:25.560 it's very much it's you know, you see this sort 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:29.640 of vestigial, almost cold war mentality that I think informs 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:31.960 all almost every aspect of the whole enterprise. 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:34.240 What does it say to you that in the sixties 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:39.359 it was the president JFK sort of outlining this national 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:43.840 mission to put a man on the moon, and now 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:47.080 in the twenty twenties it's l Musk and to a 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:48.320 certain extent Jeff Bezos. 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:52.399 Yeah, I think you can learn all you need to 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:55.280 know about a culture or a society by studying its 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:59.840 attitudes about Mars. You know, it's it's certainly now it's 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:02.920 dominated by a kind of There are a few different strands. 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:06.840 There's a kind of private enterprise strand, but that is 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:10.320 often including in the case of Musk, closely alloyed with 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:16.080 a libertarian fantasy of a lawless world in which people 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:19.040 can stake their claim a kind of wild West and 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:23.800 not have regulation and oversight. There are groups of Mars 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:29.880 enthusiasts out there that are very much explicitly libertarian ideologues 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:32.560 who hope to start a libertarian society on Mars. 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:34.040 So that exists if you. 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:35.760 Go back to the fifties and sixties, where at this 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:39.480 very different place in our culture, obviously in society, a 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:44.359 place of tremendous global cooperation relatively that gave birth to 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:46.879 the entire sort of modern space race, even though you 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:49.840 have a competition between the Cold War powers. But you 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:52.840 can even go back further and if you look at 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:59.800 the late nineteenth century when Chaparelli, a Milanaisy astronomer, observed 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:02.320 that there were canals on Mars, there was this great 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:06.160 fascination for decades about are people living on Mars? Are 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:10.280 Martians building canals? And it was very much an expression. 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:14.160 You can find very clear a correlation between the kind 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:16.960 of excitement of the industrial age, and there was a 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:19.960 period where people were competing with Mars to build more 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:23.400 canals as fast as possible, as also of course during 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:25.439 the same period of the digging of the sus canals. 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:27.680 So this was you know, this is the New York Times. 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:30.199 This is not just some like weird thing is this 0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:32.560 is at the time generally accepted that we're in this 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:35.800 race against the Martians. So it's always been a kind 0:22:35.840 --> 0:22:41.600 of repository Mars for the kind of subconscious of the 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:45.360 culture that observes it. And I think that's true today. 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.240 And I think as our society changes, probably our view 0:22:48.240 --> 0:22:51.040 of Mars will change. In tandem with it. 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:54.960 You've written that future Mars voyages will have to want 0:22:54.960 --> 0:22:57.119 to travel to Mars more than almost anyone else in 0:22:57.160 --> 0:22:59.560 the world. They'll have to embrace the knowledge that for 0:22:59.560 --> 0:23:02.560 at least five hundred and seventy days, they will be 0:23:02.600 --> 0:23:06.120 the most isolated human beings in the history of the universe. 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:10.560 Yes, they will have to, because that's what they're signing 0:23:10.640 --> 0:23:11.520 up up for. 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:12.760 What will that do to them? 0:23:13.200 --> 0:23:15.160 You know? I think a distinction has to be made 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:17.919 between the kind of person who wants to be an 0:23:17.920 --> 0:23:20.679 astronaut and wants to go on a mission like this, 0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:23.960 like the people I wrote about, like Nathan Jones. But 0:23:24.040 --> 0:23:28.920 then once we start talking about a permanent settlement or colonies, 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:31.960