WEBVTT - Life in the Weightless Void 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:13.600 Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:15.640 your mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm truly 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:18.520 Douglas Julie. Are you ready for life in space in 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:22.599 the witless Void? Yeah? Pretty much. Yeah, I've been in 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:26.079 training for it. Okay, yeah because zero Yeah, of course 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:28.200 you have to stay in training, that's the thing, right, Yeah, 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:30.480 yeah you can't. I mean that that is the problem 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:33.879 of our bodies, right, We're not really built for for 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:37.280 the void. Yeah, the void. It's quite a quite a 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:41.320 hurdle to overcome when we're trying to envision this long 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:46.080 term future in which humans really get serious about waiting 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:50.919 out into the cosmic ocean. Right to steal Sagan's term there. Yeah. 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:53.120 The thing is, though, I mean, it is on the horizon. 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.120 I mean, this is one of those moments you can 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:57.320 probably pause and think, Okay, all of this has seemed 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:00.600 like some sort of crazy agenda that will never get 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:02.960 to But the fact of the matter is that space 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:05.800 colonization is sort of around the corner if you take 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:08.840 the wide view angle, right, Um, I mean think of 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:12.120 someone like Elon Musk, the PayPal guy, I mean, he's 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:15.400 publicly stated that his long term goal is to privately 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:18.840 fund the colonization of Mars, and he doesn't wanted money 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:22.479 to do that. Right. Um, you have the Polar Explorers 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:25.800 Tom and Tina Shorgen, and they're designing a private flight 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:28.919 to Mars, and recently the europe based Mars one project 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:32.040 announced the school of establishing a human colony on Mars 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:37.120 by three. All these things are being funded privately, which 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:41.960 gives them a little bit more in terms of their realization. True, okay, 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:43.920 these are all great plans, but but I can't help 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:46.280 but be reminded. I think a lot of us in 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:48.920 our state early twenties, we may have gotten in our 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:50.960 mind at one point, I'm going to move to New York. 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:53.040 I'm totally gonna move to New York and I'm gonna 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:55.040 be I'm gonna get a job there, and the Department's 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:57.680 just going to movie and all. And granted, some of 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:01.280 us actually do that, but for the rest of us, 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:03.120 there comes a point when you realize that there's a 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:07.240 there are a series of steps between the idea and 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:10.960 the reality that have to be carried out. And um, 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:14.760 and it's easy to skim over those when you're dreaming. Um. 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:17.480 We in our recent episode about the movie Prometheus, we 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:22.160 discussed magic anti gravity and or magical gravity boards spaceships. 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:25.880 In these dreams where we try and envision what the 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.079 future of a man's space flight will be like, we 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:33.239 often will just throw out a cheap uh. Not all 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:38.200 that will explained is explained at all our artificial gravity scenario, 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:41.080 so that we don't have to deal with the realities 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:46.919 of weightlessness, zero g and micro g um during the flight. 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:49.120 Because as we know that, and as we're going to 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:53.000 discuss in this podcast, uh, gravity is really essential to life. 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:55.800 It's essential to life as we know it, to the 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.040 evolution of life as we know it, and life as 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:02.200 it exists all around this lives in a state that 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:04.799 depends on gravity. Okay, So, getting back to your New 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:07.520 York analogy to moving in your twenties, are you talking 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:10.600 about something like if you don't go in your twenties 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.120 and get used to living in two hundred square feet 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:16.120 of space and instead you stay in your comfy place 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:18.440 of a thousand square feet by the time you're thirty, 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:20.760 you'll never be able to adapt back to that two 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.680 hundred square foot foot of space. Well, I think that's true, 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:26.000 because you do get the impression that once people moved 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:28.240 to New York, they cannot move out, and then they 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:29.959 make you know, they'll say, oh, well, you know, I 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:33.040 love the art here, I love the culture here, and 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.080 I'm living my dream and and all this. But but 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:40.119 perhaps it's simply that if they actually moved to another location, 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:43.920 their bodies would just fall apart on them. Okay, so 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:46.200 there's yeah, that New York has its own gravity, that's 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.200 what you're saying, much like outer space has, you know, 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:52.480 micro gravity. So that's the problem here, right, this adaptability, 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:55.080 and yet we know that we are pretty adaptable as 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:57.760 a species. That's right, at least over the long term. 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:00.480 And they've been a number of science fiction and uh, 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:04.240 you know, ponderings about life in a weightless environment. But 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:06.760 one that comes to mind most readily because I'm reading 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.520 it right now, are the Alsters in Hyperion, Dan Simon's 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:14.480 novels uh kind of a you know, an epic philosophical 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:16.800 space opera type of deal. And there are these uh, 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:21.280 these humans that have uh in the past, traveled out 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:24.680 into the void and have grown used to a microgravity situation. 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:28.599 So now they're like long slender humans that have to 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:33.120 wear powered exosuits. If they're gonna go into a world 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:36.600 with gravitation, they have their their suits will often have 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:40.560 a robotic tail on the end that helps them, uh 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:44.479 navigate like weightless corridors, and we and like kind of 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:47.240 propelled them a little bit forward. Yeah. Yeah, which is 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:49.400 an interesting idea, you know, because you're you're bringing in 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:52.279 ideas of not only physical changes in a weightless environment, 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:57.760 but also uh cybernetic augmentation, uh to cope with this 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:00.480 new environment of space, which is something and we've gone 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:02.720 into in the past when we discussed cyboards and when 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:05.400 we discussed the future of man space travel in the 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.200 werewolf principle. So you know, if you guys have already 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:10.080 cleared into it, this is what we're talking about today. 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:15.160 This idea of, um, you know, when we colonized space. Uh, 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.200 what will that be like, you know, a hundred years out, 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.000 two hundred years out, a hundred thousand years out. Not 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:23.280 that we can necessarily answer answer that, but we can 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:25.880 talk about some of the challenges we have in the 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:30.440 way that we have been uh genetically modified for life 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:32.760 here on Earth as opposed to space. Yeah, and not 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:36.880 just our journey into space, but life itself, because we're 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:40.320 ultimately talking about not just taking humanity and granted we're 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:44.000 pretty vain, so pretty vain species, So we're largely talking 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:46.880 about thinking humanity, but we're we're essentially talking about taking 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:49.280 that seed of life elsewhere. What happens when the seed 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.880 of life, Earth, life, life as we know it is 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:56.200 taken to a weightless environment or another world with a 0:05:56.200 --> 0:06:01.560 different gravitational situation going on. It's so the most logical 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:05.080 starting point here is really to discuss some of what 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:08.760 we know about micro gravity and humans. Um. Ultimately, we 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:13.760 really didn't have a firm idea about the micro gravity's 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.600 effect on the human body until we actually got human 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:20.159 bodies up there. And uh, and research still continues into 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:25.640 how these how the effects of microgravity ravage us, how 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.719 we adapt to those of this environment, what effects it 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:31.919 has on the the life cycles of humans and the 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:35.800 bodies and life cycles of countless other organisms. Yeah, so 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:38.480 let's talk about what happens in microgravity when you throw 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:41.560 up a human in space. Um, yeah, and they just 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:45.000 stick up there. Um. What they have observed, among many 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.200 many things, is something called puffy face and skinny legs, 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:52.400 also known as Charlie Brown head. Okay, I like that 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:54.920 because he essentially up looking like Charlie Brown. Well, yeah, 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:58.680 because spaceflight causes a fluid shift from the legs toward 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:00.560 the head, and so you get the puffy face and 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:03.560 then your your legs begin and your muscles obviously to 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:06.039 begin to atrophy and become a bit thinner. And this 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:08.880 is what they call the bird like legs syndrome. Well, 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:12.160 our bodies are I mean, our veins are like rivers, right, 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:16.520 they have to flow and gravitation, gravitation, gravity, the pull 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:20.720 of gravity is factored into that quote unquote design. Well, 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:23.240 it's right, that makes perfect sense on Earth because you know, 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:27.080 you've got this heavy intercore of the Earth that is 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:29.680 pulling us toward it. Right that the gravity down is 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:32.400 so the fluid would flow down. But then you there, 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:33.880 you are in space, and what does it do? It 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:36.800 just flows up. So that is a huge problem actually, 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:39.680 and that's one of the reasons why, um, you do 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.520 have this muscle atrophy. And as you had noted earlier, 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.720 astronauts have to and crew members have to constantly work 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:49.880 out in order to try to keep the stasis in 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:52.760 their body. Yeah, there's not Basically, our skeleton is a 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:57.520 load bearing um structure, and if we if there's no gravity, 0:07:57.520 --> 0:07:59.880 then there's not really any load to bear. So we 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:03.120 end up just constantly said constant atrophy of our muscle 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:06.440 uh and our skeleton system. Yeah, your muscles become dormant, 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:09.120 and your spine even begins to straighten because it doesn't 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:12.840 again have that gravity, um, that weight that it's fighting against. 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:16.400 So people tend to get taller. Innocence, Yeah, and then 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:19.680 of course you're rather disoriented. I mean, you get more 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:22.120 or less used to the environment. But here on Earth, 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:26.120 our brain receives information about the environment through visual cues, 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:31.040 the eyes, muscles and tendons. Um. You have a set 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:34.560 of sensors to detect liquid movement located in the inner ear, 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:36.960 and when you're in a weightless environment, it throws all 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:40.120 of this out of whack. So again, just the way 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:42.920 we've perceived the environment around us, we've evolved to proceed 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:48.080 a an environment with gravity that is an updown gravity, 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:51.480 right right, Um, So what I think is interesting about 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:54.560 that is you you talked about the vestibular system, which 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:57.000 is in the inner ear. It's organ way deep in 0:08:57.040 --> 0:08:59.960 there and it's covered in thousands of tiny hair cells, 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:01.920 and then on top of these hair cells are tiny 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:05.000 little crystals that move and bend the hair cells, sending 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:08.680 information to the central nervous system to guide eye movements 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:10.760 and posture and balance. So if you don't have this 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:14.880 updown orientation, then all of a sudden, you don't have, um, 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.200 you know, a stable platform for this organ to work on. 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:20.600 And you began to get two different sets of data, 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:25.480 which caused something called space adaption syndrome, where you know, 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:28.800 there's nausea and vomiting. And of course I believe and 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:30.520 tell me if I'm right on this, this is something 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:32.760 that's just just happened in the first couple of days 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.720 of space flight, that your body does kind of even 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:38.160 itself out. But that's certainly a problem if you're gonna, 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:40.800 you know, puking for seventy two hours. Yeah, there's like 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:46.319 a whole series of phases one goes through on prolonged space, 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:49.960 well not really space journeys, but prolonged space in microgravity. 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:51.760 I have a blog post under somewhere I'll I'll be 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:54.559 linked to it in the in the blog post of 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:57.760 companies this podcast. But you end up basically going from 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:01.160 early on starting off with that, those feelings of nausea, 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.440 you're vomiting, um, you just feel all out of sorts, 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:07.560 and eventually you're reaching states where you're feeling rather euphoric, 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:11.600 and then there's some crankiness and just some and flash 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.120 once unless you're one of the few people that that 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:19.240 doesn't do that, the perfect astronaut. Uh. So we we 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:21.079 have all these things that can happen to the body 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:22.880 that will happen to the body in a in a 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:25.480 micro g environment, but we also have ways that we 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:27.599 try and combat it. Right. Uh. The big own of 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:31.559 course is exercise. Uh we're not we're not standing, we're 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:33.960 not walking, we're not we're not running around. So we 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:36.400 need to use those muscles. We have to use it 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:38.520 or lose it. So that's when you have things like 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:40.959 that like the cold Bear treadmill on I S S. 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:43.400 You know, it's it's let's get people on treadmill, let's 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:45.400 strap into a treadmill, and let's keep them moving. Let's 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:49.120 let's just keep the body active, uh, because it's I mean, 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:51.280 you can think of it in terms of say, say 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:55.240 someone's a powerlifter, they they can't take a year off 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:57.760 from training for powerlifting and then go back and expect 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:00.800 to lift gigantic weights. Right, you need to keep that 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:05.920 muscle tone up to do this abnormal activity. Well, your 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:08.160 body goes into the zero G and it's adapting, right, 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:09.920 it's saying, oh, well, we don't have to do that 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:12.640 work anymore. Uh, So you have to train for the 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:17.240 abnormal activity of daily life on earth. Yeah, there you go. 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:20.320 So that's a good way to try to combat it. Um. 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:21.920 And this is something I just wanted to say to 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:24.160 you that you know, for twenty three years we've had 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:27.880 human beings that have lived off Earth for periods of time. 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:29.560 So this is a lot of information that we have 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.080 about what's going on inside our bodies and also with 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:35.599 plants and other animals. Yeah. Yeah, we've we've put a 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:38.320 lot of thought into what happens when when people go 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:40.439 out there and they come back. We've studied them. Uh, 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:44.600 the Soviets did. They did a lot of interesting work too, 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:46.480 where they were answering some of like the early questions 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:48.559 like what happens if a man goes into space and 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:51.120 then a woman goes into space, and what if you know, 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:54.200 could could they could they even have have children? At 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:58.360 that point you know what I mean, so many questions. Uh, 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:00.480 we're raised early on and we're still answer during a 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:02.680 lot of the finer questions. Well, it's also leading us 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:05.280 to to look at their species like bears for instance, 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:07.520 to get those guys in space, you gotta get those 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:10.199 dudes in space. But more more to the point of 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:12.400 when they're hibernating, the fact that they don't have any 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:15.480 calcium loss, that their bones really strong. So you know, 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:17.920 we're studying their systems to try to figure out what 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.240 the magic is UM that we might be able to 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:24.240 that you're just getting out that we needed to get 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:27.559 grizzly bears in space, Well, we just do. We do. Absolutely. 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:30.959 Another thing that has been toyed around with UM it's 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.800 the use of exoskeletons UM. For instance, there was the 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:36.720 Russian Penguin suit back in the seventies which featured elastic 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:40.640 bands and pulleys UM to create the artificial force of 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:43.719 muscles and bones UM. And then there have been a 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.800 number of other suits have been that have been rolled 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:48.600 out and experimented with as well. And it's a really 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:52.640 interesting concept. You know, it's instead of an exoskeleton that 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:56.040 gives you superhuman strength, it gives you you have to 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:58.520 it gives you strength you have to struggle against. You know, 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:01.960 it's it's not trying to help you, it's workout. So 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:05.920 as I reach across this waitless environment, uh, and just 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:08.520 to grab my iPod or whatever that's floating in front 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:11.240 of me, the suit would actually make that more of 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:14.760 a chore than than micro gravity actually makes it. Um 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:17.400 So then that that is an interesting concept as well. 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:21.680 And both of these ideas show up in a little something. 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:24.560 I sent you a clip off earlier, and I'll i'll 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:26.760 clue this clip on the blog post that goes along 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:29.319 with this podcast. But there's a movie called The American 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:33.559 Astronaut by Corey mcabee. Came out several years ago. Really weird, 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:39.040 really fun flick, kind of US based musical, Western great 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:42.520 depression kind of a thing, very hard to descress, dustful 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:45.559 feeling to it, for sure. Yeah. Well there's there's a 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:49.199 scene where they encounter the silver Miners who are flying 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:52.040 around and under space in this barn shapes. It's like 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:54.960 it's a spaceship. It looks like a barn and they've 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:57.400 they have this weird thing where they're looking for this 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:01.359 source and this there's a star map and uh, they're 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:03.560 they're just as crazy as I'll get out because they've 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:06.360 been cooped up in these barns flying around in space. 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:10.400 Um totally waitless. So their bodies have become these distorted 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:14.480 things with giant swollen heads and long slender limbs and 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:17.679 uh and that they call it space punis in the 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:21.040 movie Get the Space PUNI. Yeah, And they're training one 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:22.840 of they have this one child is like the chosen 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:26.200 one to return to Earth to find this chart for them, 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:29.200 And so they've outfitted him in this body suit that 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:32.480 that has this kind of this kind of exoskeleton technology 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:35.040 that I'm talking about here, this penguin suit technology. The 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:37.400 idea being that this will train him up, and this 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:40.960 will make the child strong enough to sustain uh, the 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:45.960 Earth's gravitational pull. And yet and yet he's stupid, so 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:48.800 it doesn't work out. He's a good kid, But you 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:50.760 have to see the movie to find out how that goes. 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:53.920 But but I always found that that whole scenario interesting 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:56.880 because as silly as the film is, that actually ends 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:00.840 up tying into a number of interesting scientific questions. Actually, 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:04.440 I mean it's it's pretty great. It's very entertaining. Um, 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:07.920 all right, so let's talk about the space punis and animals. Yes, 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:12.320 so experiments on animals, that's uh and goes hand in 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:15.960 hand with space exploration and uh. And you know it 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:17.760 also allows us to do things like we're not gonna 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:20.520 be able to test when we certainly don't want to test, say, 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:24.800 human birth in space. We don't want to test. We 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:28.560 we can't test like longer life cycles of humans. So 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:33.200 we're we're very interested in seeing how various animals behave 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:35.960 And we've done this from the beginning, before we even 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.880 to put people in in um a spacecraft we launched 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:42.920 I think it was for seresis monkey, right, and then 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:47.640 a dog, and then various other animals insects, bears, no bears, Yeah, 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:51.000 but I mean it's it's really kind of surprising though, 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:53.880 because you look at some of these animals and some 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:58.200 adapt surprisingly well, and others that you think would would 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:02.480 just get along swimmingly um no fun intended don't don't 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:04.760 do quite as well as you would think. For instance, 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:08.240 they say that within five minutes, mice are floating around 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:11.800 in their living spaces, grooming themselves, eating, just carrying them 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:14.400 along like normal, whereas I can't help but imagine that 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:16.680 if I took my cat up there, Okay, would just 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:20.960 freak out the whole time. Oh yeah yeah. Um, fish 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:25.400 and tadpoles swimming loops rather than straight lines. There's just 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:29.080 no updown orientation here, which is interesting because you're they're 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:33.040 in a buoyant environment when we train, uh, we partially 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:36.920 train the astronauts in submerged environments to help them get 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:39.760 a handle on what's a weightless environment, what we like. 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.680 So so you would think things you think they wouldn't 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:44.400 they would adapt byther well, but it's not really the case. 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:47.360 Baby mammals have a hard time and space because they 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:51.200 normally huddle for warmth and space. Uh. And they are 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:53.680 usually going towards the nipple to to get milk. So 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:55.600 if you're floating away from the nipple, that makes it 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:58.600 difficulty traumatizing. That's a really horrifying image to imagine the 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:02.320 kitten floating away in the nipple. To see how many 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:05.400 times we can stay clotting away from the nipple. And um, yeah, 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:09.280 both birds and fish who can move three dimensionally in 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:11.760 their normal environments, um, they end up just going in 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:16.520 these loops. Um when they're when they're actually in a 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.320 micro g environment, so it just throws them off, even 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.200 though you would think a bird in a UH and 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:25.960 and a fish would do really well. Yeah. Orb spiders, Oh, 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:28.879 the orb spiders are pretty amazing. Now. They on you know, 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:35.600 on Earth, we've exquisite web designs, beautiful um you know, 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:39.360 very symmetrical, but as you would imagine in space, they 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:43.719 weave very wacky configurations. Again, they don't have some you know, 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:47.560 this access to to work off of UM and they 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:50.639 they're not anchored, so you do see some of the 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:54.080 similar actually reminded me of some of the studies of 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:57.560 hallucinogens and spiders and some of the strange configurations that 0:17:57.600 --> 0:17:59.720 come out of that. What's interesting though, I was reading 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:02.840 about the one of the first spider investigations. This is 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:06.560 back in the nineteen three Skylab. They took two garden 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:09.040 cross spiders, which is a type of war weaver, up 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:11.440 and they let him do the thing and then uh. 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:14.399 And then more recently they did another experiment on the 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:16.920 I S s UH this speck in two does eight. 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:20.359 But in both experiments, the spiders initially built really distorted 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:24.120 crazy webs. But when within a few days the spiders, 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:26.720 they say, seem to adapt to microgravity and begin to 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:31.400 spend more symmetrical webs, so you still see a certain level, 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:33.959 you know, the spiders up there, the animals up there. 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:36.800 It gets its bearings and then it's been is able 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:40.920 to to behave with this new environment. It works. There's 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:44.040 also this idea to you that size matters. The larger 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:48.760 the thing that that's there, the human or the spider 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:52.920 or the bacteria, the better the chances of survival and adaptation. Yeah, 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:54.720 and then the spider, it does seem like it would 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:56.960 it would do particularly well because here's a creature with 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:01.960 multiple limbs, um, very dexterior spinning webs to move around. 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:05.159 Like if if you had to pick an animal that 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:07.240 would behave well in a in a weightless environment, you 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:12.400 think the spider would would be great, especially web building spiders. Indeed, 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.720 all right, let's talk plants, because I thought this was 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:19.400 really interesting. Um that it's not just that they want 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:22.719 to study um, you know the way that plants behave 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:25.120 in space. But there is this idea to you, there's 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:29.159 a psychological level for astronauts, for crew members that if 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:30.960 they can see a seedling, if they can see a 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:35.080 bit of green, um, that this is really helpful in 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:37.359 terms of grounding them and making feel a little bit 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:40.879 more like, Okay, here I am, you know, living in 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.760 you know, very sterile environment. And yes, and yet I 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:46.320 feel connected to the earth in some way. Yeah, I 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:48.320 can't help me be reminded of Did you ever see 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:51.440 silent running sci fi film with Bruce Dearn in it 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:54.359 where he was he was in space and he had 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:58.000 these three little robots with him and he's he's caring 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:02.159 for these gardens, these massive biospheres in space. It's a 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:05.960 classic film, but better anyway, the idea that you're in space, 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:09.000 but then here are these natural green environments. There was 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:11.639 a film with a strong ecological message, but in watching 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:15.840 it you saw high tech space travel and green environments 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:19.200 together and it was very comforting. Um uh. The Danny 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:21.440 Boil movie Sunshine also had scenes where you see people 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:24.320 growing things and uh, and yeah, you can imagine going 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:26.119 a little seer crazy if you didn't have that around you. 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:29.639 But these movies also had artificial gravity. And when you 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:32.520 do not have a form of artificial gravity going along, 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:35.560 things get rather complicated because I mean, think of your plants, 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:39.000 I mean they're growing in soil. How does how does 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:42.320 this the soil nourish the plant? How does the plant 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:44.439 get water? Well? And you've got your window plant right, 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:47.440 so it's getting some you know, dright sunlight right there. Um, 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:50.920 you've got the soil and the water water droplets in 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:54.479 space floating away. Um. So yeah, I mean it's it's 0:20:54.520 --> 0:20:56.760 a bit of a conundrum. Yeah, I mean you end 0:20:56.800 --> 0:21:00.280 up with to depend more and more on hydroponic type 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:05.240 systems or um. Interesting, I saw you've seen these plants 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:07.719 that grow upside down, right, It's like an upside down planner. 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:11.520 You can maybe see something like that working working well 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:14.720 adapted because that too depends on gravity because you're putting 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:16.480 the water in the top of it. But yeah, but 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:21.720 I can imagine specialty planters might become popular. Well. University 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:24.359