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Speaker 1: Okay, Daniel, how many times in your life do you

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Speaker 1: think you've moved, like from one house to another so

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

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

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Speaker 1: seven times in four years. That's wild. Yeah, from California

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Speaker 1: to Geneva and back. It was insane. Well, the hard

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Speaker 1: part is when you need to do renovations right, Like

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Speaker 1: if you're the home that you're moving into is not

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Speaker 1: quite habitable, that's right. You want to get it just

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Speaker 1: as you like it. You wanted to be nice and cozy,

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Speaker 1: you wanted to be comfortable place to live. You want

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Speaker 1: all those things right. And that's hard enough when the

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

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Speaker 1: or even somewhere else on the planet. Yeah, but now

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Speaker 1: imagine if you had to move to 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 did you better it's a little further than Geneva.

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Speaker 1: It's a time of it for the traveling in Switzerland,

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

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

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Speaker 1: of my lunar base Elon Musk. He's probably got a

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Speaker 1: company already for it. So you five different kinds of flooring.

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Speaker 1: It's called house X the flooring company. The flooring company.

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Speaker 1: Oh perfect. Hi, I'm h and I'm Daniel. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe. I'm a

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Speaker 1: particle physicist, but I like thinking and talking about all

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Speaker 1: sorts of crazy things in science, and I make cartoonists

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Speaker 1: and mostly I'm just crazy. I got nothing to say

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Speaker 1: to that. You're totally a sane, a normal person, and yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm so not saying that. Um. 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 of cocktail parties when they ask you

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

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Speaker 1: we want you to imagine what it's like to travel

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Speaker 1: the universe and to see all these amazing things out there. Today,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about living on other worlds, terraforming, terraforming.

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Speaker 1: Is that like the ceramic thing that you make statues

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Speaker 1: out of. I think if you want to make a

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Speaker 1: really big planet size statue, then you could call that terraforming. Yeah. Wait,

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Speaker 1: I think I'm thinking about terra cotta. That's different. Terra cotta.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Can you build a planet out of terra cotta? Right?

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Speaker 1: That would be the largest pottery wheel in the in

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Speaker 1: the history of the universe. Yeah. So that's a big

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Speaker 1: question is can we be an InterPlaNet hairy species? Can

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Speaker 1: we can humanity live in multiple planets? That's right? And

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Speaker 1: this this is a really important question because if we

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

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Speaker 1: can't keep all of our eggs in just one planetary basket.

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Speaker 1: You know, one comet comes and slams in the Earth

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Speaker 1: and kills everything on Earth. Poof, we're dead. But if

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Speaker 1: we have people living on Mars and the Moon and

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

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Speaker 1: cataclysm as a species. You mean as a species, not

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Speaker 1: me or you individually. Like I'm not going to jump

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Speaker 1: up there and catch the commet and save the planet

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Speaker 1: or anything like that. But from the point of view

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Speaker 1: of humanity. It seems like a really important project to

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Speaker 1: get off this rock, get living somewhere else. Yeah, Or

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Speaker 1: like if we ruling this planet, right, Like, if we

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Speaker 1: mess it up somehow and Earth is no longer happenable,

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Speaker 1: what's going to happen to humanity? We have to go

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Speaker 1: somewhere else. And you make us sound like we're a

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Speaker 1: bunch of kids making a mess in the living room

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Speaker 1: or something like you don't have faith that we're gonna

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Speaker 1: be able to take care of this planet. You think

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Speaker 1: we're on a on the trajectory to climate doomsday, where

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Speaker 1: more like little kids burning tires inside of the house,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like that's an officially recommendation people,

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Speaker 1: Jorge says, do not burn tires inside your house. Just

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Speaker 1: do it in the backyard. Right, Generally that's a bad idea. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: is that how you start your cozy family evenings? Let's

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Speaker 1: go burn some tires outside? Um. 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. So you

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Speaker 1: meaning we can go to another planet and live there,

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Speaker 1: but we would be in space suits and inside of

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Speaker 1: some kind of base the whole time. That wouldn't be

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

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Speaker 1: of fun. I mean, I think if you went to

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Speaker 1: Mars and just build a colony, like you know, out

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Speaker 1: of ships and domes and stuff like that, you'd basically

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Speaker 1: be living on Antarctica, you know, be cold and dry

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Speaker 1: and unpleasant, and you have to pee in a space

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Speaker 1: suit all the time, and it would not be like

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Speaker 1: living on Earth and be very hard to imagine millions

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Speaker 1: or billions of people living that way on Mars right

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Speaker 1: or anywhere else. So if you want to really want

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Speaker 1: to establish non Earth population centers, you have to figure

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Speaker 1: out a way to make the planet itself habitable without

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Speaker 1: space suit. Yeah. So that's where the term terraforming comes from.

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Speaker 1: And so we were curious to know how many people

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Speaker 1: out there, including you, maybe knew this term. Yeah. So

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Speaker 1: I went out in the street and I asked people,

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Speaker 1: have you heard of terraforming? Do you know what it is?

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Speaker 1: What does it mean? Is it possible? Here's what people

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Speaker 1: had to say, I've heard the word before, but I

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Speaker 1: don't actually know anything about it. Okay, I used the

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Speaker 1: form like how the Earth got formed? Okay, No, I

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Speaker 1: haven't heard terraform before. No, No, I have no terraform.

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Speaker 1: I've heard of it, I don't know the meaning of it. Okay,

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Speaker 1: um on another planet forming the environment or something like that,

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Speaker 1: something along those lines. A right, is that like when

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Speaker 1: you dig up the planet. I've heard of the term,

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Speaker 1: but not the definition. What's your best guess what it

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Speaker 1: might be? How the Earth forms or how any planet

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Speaker 1: forms or good. Yeah, I have heard of terraforming. Terraforming

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Speaker 1: is whole fully something when we can be a step

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Speaker 1: three civilization. I forget the correct connotation. But you'll maybe

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Speaker 1: get a lot of energy from the Sun and be

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Speaker 1: able to use that to go and colonize another planet

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Speaker 1: and make the human race become a multiplanetary species. Do

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Speaker 1: you think that's realistic? No? I think we have way

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Speaker 1: too much on Earth that we need to take care

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Speaker 1: of still, and that it's a sexy idea, but I

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Speaker 1: think that it's not gonna happen for some long amount

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Speaker 1: of time. All right, So a lot of nose. Maybe

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: of a lot to say about it, had never even

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Speaker 1: heard of the word. Right. They're like, just not even

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Speaker 1: part of something they think about or or talk about

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Speaker 1: or wonder about. Right, So that's good. We can we

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Speaker 1: can explain people what the word means. Nobody thought it

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Speaker 1: was terra cotta. Nobody except for you things that has

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Speaker 1: to do with pottery, That's right, very Chinese soldiers. Except

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

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Speaker 1: this podcasts. They're gonna come away with it that that's

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Speaker 1: their takeaway, right, that terraforming is making an earth out

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

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Speaker 1: have asked would have been like, do you think it's

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

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Speaker 1: I'm curious what people would have thought about that. But anyway,

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Speaker 1: in another universe and another multiverse, I asked that different question.

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Speaker 1: Do you think people would have known or thought it

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Speaker 1: was possible or not? I don't know, but I'm always

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Speaker 1: surprised to hear what people think. I would have would

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Speaker 1: like to know what people think is possible if that's

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Speaker 1: sort of a feasible project the humanity could pull off.

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Speaker 1: I mean, man, massive planetary engineering, as you'll hear in

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Speaker 1: today's podcast, folks, it's not a small project to undertake.

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Speaker 1: That's a word, planetary engineering. The idea that you can

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Speaker 1: change an entire planet. That's amazing, right, Yeah, And you

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Speaker 1: know it's something people thinking about for Earth. Right. Geo

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Speaker 1: Engineering is the study of, like, can we solve our

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Speaker 1: climate climate problems by doing some crazy engineering, you know,

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Speaker 1: like deflecting the Sun's rays or or you know, injecting

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Speaker 1: things into the atmosphere or pulling CEO two out of

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Speaker 1: the atmosphere, like these massive engineering projects as desperate measures

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Speaker 1: to reverse climate change. It's gonna become center stage more

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Speaker 1: and more, and then in the next few years, I

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Speaker 1: think be cool to we get that as a degree,

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Speaker 1: you know, in your diploma planetary engineer. Yeah. Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: the more people burned tires outside or in their living room,

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Speaker 1: the more we're gonna have to worry about this stuff

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Speaker 1: and counteract it. So somebody's got to think about it.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of really fun papers about geo engineering.

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Speaker 1: People have crazy schemes to try to cool off the

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Speaker 1: Earth or I mean a lot of it sounds really

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Speaker 1: risky to me. It's not like we really understand the

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Speaker 1: way the atmosphere works. So trying to tweet it and

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Speaker 1: twiddle with it, like dialing the knobs on the atmosphere,

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Speaker 1: that scares me. Seems tricky. If you don't have a

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Speaker 1: lot of faith in engineers, generally, I feel, well, you know,

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Speaker 1: sometimes you have to put your faith in the engineers

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Speaker 1: because you have a desperate problem. Right, But when it's

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Speaker 1: a 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 year is to figure

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: would be very concous. We only have one planet and

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Speaker 1: so you know we if we miss it up tinkering,

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Speaker 1: it could be bad news. Yeah, exactly, Um, would you

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Speaker 1: put the whole climate into the hands of engineers and say, hey,

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Speaker 1: tinker away, see what happens. I think it'd be cool

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Speaker 1: just to be be called the P you know, like

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Speaker 1: Planet arr engineer. You just want the title, you don't

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Speaker 1: want the responsibility. Ye say it part of com planetary

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Speaker 1: Engineer pH D and P. Yeah. So let's get into it.

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Speaker 1: So what is terraforming? What is what is the concept

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Speaker 1: of terraforming? Yes, so, just from the word terror meaning

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Speaker 1: earth and right informing meaning forming, it means take another

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Speaker 1: planet like Mars or another planet and make it like

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Speaker 1: the Earth, 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, But

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Speaker 1: is it? So it's basically the concept of making it

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Speaker 1: so that you can step outside without a space food,

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Speaker 1: take a deep breath and enjoy the sun and the

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Speaker 1: air on Mars, yeah, or any other planet. I mean,

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Speaker 1: And that's exactly the kind of thing that happens in

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Speaker 1: science fiction stories all the time. Right, they land on

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Speaker 1: some planet, they set down, they open the door, they

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Speaker 1: take a deep breath, and they go ah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: smells pretty sweet on planet x y Z. But there's

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Speaker 1: nothing toxic or dangerous when I breathe this air, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: exactly exactly, And that's 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. But is that the only motivation

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Speaker 1: kind of to enjoy the outdoors in another planet or

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Speaker 1: is there something more that you know, we can't physically

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Speaker 1: live that many people inside of a base or inside

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Speaker 1: of a constrained environment. Yeah, I think if you want

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Speaker 1: to if you want to really spread across the planet,

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Speaker 1: you've got to make the whole thing habitable. I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you're gonna build domes and live inside domes, that's

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Speaker 1: that's not nearly as fun, right, and it's it's constrained exactly. So, um,

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

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Speaker 1: you can need to have plants growing, and so either

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

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Speaker 1: planet or just make the planet into a dome, right,

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Speaker 1: eventually having domes impractical? Interesting? Okay, So let's get into

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Speaker 1: the details and what does it mean to be habitable.

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Speaker 1: For a planet to be habitable, like, what do we

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Speaker 1: need to change in other planets to make it more

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Speaker 1: like ours? Yeah? So you need an atmosphere. You need

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Speaker 1: non toxic atmosphere with oxygen in it. You need to

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Speaker 1: have enough water, right. Um, you need the temperature to

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Speaker 1: be reasonable. Right. You can't be a frozen instantly or

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Speaker 1: boiled to a crisp as soon as you step outside. Um.

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Speaker 1: You also, and that's not even enough, right. You might think, well,

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Speaker 1: that's a tall order, and it is, but even that's

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Speaker 1: not enough. You need things like shielding from cosmic rays. Right.

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Speaker 1: If you're a place where the radiation is much higher

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

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

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Speaker 1: but it might not be enough. Um. So I'd say

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Speaker 1: those are the basics. Water, temperature, atmosphere, um, and shielding

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Speaker 1: from cosmic rays. Those are the four elements. It's a

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Speaker 1: lot of things to get right, you know already. I mean,

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

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Speaker 1: a big list of requests for your for the flooring

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Speaker 1: company or whatever it is we're gonna hire to to

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Speaker 1: renovate the Moon for us, Well, it's just four things,

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Speaker 1: but it's four things the size of an entire planet, right,

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Speaker 1: Like you, it's not about like changing in a little dome.

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Speaker 1: It's it's an entire gigantic space that you need to

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Speaker 1: have these, right, Yeah, exactly. And 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 years

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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 gonna be

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

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Speaker 1: by itself in a shorter amout of time. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: kind of makes you think how precious it is the

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Speaker 1: conditions that we have here. Yeah, exactly. Maybe we should review,

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Speaker 1: like roughly how that happened on Earth, how we got

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Speaker 1: to habitable planet on Earth. Earth was formed big ball

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Speaker 1: of hot lavats that it's cooled down a little bit,

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Speaker 1: but then it was dry and so as we talked

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Speaker 1: about a podcast episode a while ago, um, we got

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Speaker 1: water by having comets smashed into the Earth's surface. And

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Speaker 1: comets are basically huge snowballs in space, and so we

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Speaker 1: brought water in from outer space. We ordered it right

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Speaker 1: on door dash or something. Can you deliver like a

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Speaker 1: thousand commets tomorrow, Hey arrowhead, we need a couple of

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Speaker 1: trillion gallons please, yeah, exactly. So that's where we got

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Speaker 1: the water right from space comets um. And then life started, right,

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

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Speaker 1: very early life like microbes that could eat things like

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Speaker 1: metals and rock and all sorts of stuff that existed

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Speaker 1: on the planet Um and produced some carbon dioxide. And

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Speaker 1: we also got some carbon dioxide by venting from volcanoes.

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Speaker 1: So that's how we got our atmosphere from microbes and

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Speaker 1: from volcanoes. That gives us an atmosphere that has a

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Speaker 1: lot of carbon dioxide in it, right, But then we

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Speaker 1: need the oxygen, and the oxygen came when microbes, actually

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Speaker 1: cyanobacteria in particular, and then later algae and plants figured

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Speaker 1: out how to photosynthesize. For the instance, this essentially is

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Speaker 1: breaking down C O two into oxygen and carbon, right,

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Speaker 1: and so some of that oxygen is released in the atmosphere.

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Speaker 1: And see, you have huge amounts of microbes and algae

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Speaker 1: and plank in the ocean doing this all the time,

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Speaker 1: and the trees now doing this produced enough oxygen to

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Speaker 1: give us an atmosphere that was breathable for animals. Right,

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Speaker 1: So that's how we got water, we got pressure, we

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Speaker 1: got oxygen. Yeah, And it's all sort of tied together, right.

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Speaker 1: The living things are tied together with the things in

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Speaker 1: the rocks and the things that came from out of space,

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Speaker 1: and it all sort of mixed together too, and that's

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Speaker 1: where we evolve. Right. It's not like these are the

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Speaker 1: ideal conditions for any life. It's just that these are

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Speaker 1: the conditions in which we grew up in and so

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Speaker 1: that's what we need, right. That's right, And you're right there,

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Speaker 1: all tied together. It's hard to get one without the other.

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Speaker 1: You know. Having enough water helps you with all these cycles,

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Speaker 1: and having the right pressure in the atmosphere helps keep

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Speaker 1: the water on the planet, and caps keep the temperature right.

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

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Speaker 1: very easy to throw out a balance. I'm amazed, frankly

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Speaker 1: that we haven't screwed it up already. You know that

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Speaker 1: it's lasted this long where we're well on our way.

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Speaker 1: I think expectations are are not low enough. That's right.

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Speaker 1: Too many people are burning tires inside. Yeah. Um, okay,

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Speaker 1: so let's get into the then how you would do

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Speaker 1: it and another planet. Let's get into the details of

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Speaker 1: of peeing, not peeing, but peeing planetary engineering a whole

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Speaker 1: other planet to be just like our cozy Earth. But

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Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break. Al Right, So, how

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Speaker 1: do we set up a livable situation on Mars so

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Speaker 1: that we can do cartwheels in the grass and enjoy

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Speaker 1: and take deep breaths and drink from rivers and raise

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Speaker 1: our children care free? Right, that's the goal? Yeah, how

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Speaker 1: do we change the planet in which we would die

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Speaker 1: if we stepped outside, to one in which it would

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Speaker 1: be nice to go out and take a walk. Right,

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

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Speaker 1: That seems how hard could that be? Right? Well, we're

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Speaker 1: well on our way for that too. Antarc global warming

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Speaker 1: is the new Southern California. Yeah, so we're going to

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Speaker 1: start with Mars because that's the nearest planet. Right, that's

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Speaker 1: kind of the best candidate we have for maybe moving

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Speaker 1: the entire species to Right, that's right, this is a

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Speaker 1: ridiculous project, possibly potentially impossible, costing zillions of dollars and

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Speaker 1: maybe taking zillions of years. But of the impossible destinations,

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Speaker 1: we mightsidder, Mars is sort of the least impossible. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's the one people people talk about a lot, the

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Speaker 1: least impossible. Okay, so there's a sliver of a chance

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Speaker 1: that we might be able to pull this off, yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: And so to figure out whether this was possible, I

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Speaker 1: actually made a call to an expert, professor Jim Castings

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Speaker 1: at Penn State University. He was he knows a lot

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Speaker 1: about terraforming and Mars. He's thought about this. And when

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Speaker 1: I first called him up and I asked him, I said,

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Speaker 1: is terraforming Mars possible? He said, just flatly no, I

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Speaker 1: can't be done. I was like, well, that was a

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Speaker 1: short phone call, right, it was gonna be a this

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Speaker 1: will be a short podcast. Yeah, But then I said possible,

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Speaker 1: no next time, thanks for tuning in. So he said no.

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Speaker 1: He said he's an expert, he's worked with NASA. He's

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Speaker 1: like no, yeah, he's thought about like you said no.

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Speaker 1: But then I said, okay, what if I give you

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Speaker 1: an infinite amount of money. He was like, okay, mab Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So then he considered it as an infinite number of

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Speaker 1: years and he said, okay, infinite amount of time and

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Speaker 1: infinite amount of resources, then we can do it. Wow.

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Speaker 1: So there's it's about the resources. When you say it's impossible,

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Speaker 1: it's not um like it violates any laws of physics.

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Speaker 1: Is just that we he didn't foresee how we would

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Speaker 1: pull this off with the resources that we have. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: as you'll hear when we talk about this, it's going

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Speaker 1: to be expensive. Right. So the first problem is Mars

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Speaker 1: has hardly in the atmosphere, and the atmosphere is mostly

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Speaker 1: carbon dioxide. Right, There's almost no oxygen on Mars. So

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Speaker 1: problem number one is you need an atmosphere on Mars. Right,

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Speaker 1: But an atmosphere you mean like a layer of gas

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Speaker 1: surrounding the planet, because currently it doesn't have much of that.

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Speaker 1: That's right, So that when you step outside you take

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Speaker 1: a deep breath, you get a breath instead of like

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Speaker 1: your lungs boiling um, which seems less comfortable. Right. I

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Speaker 1: don't want to we adds for the resort that we're

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Speaker 1: going to start on Mars. We don't want um, images

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Speaker 1: of our guests having their lungs going inside out and

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Speaker 1: their blood boiling into space. Right, yeah, like Arnold trash

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Speaker 1: Negger in total recall. Yeah that was a documentary exactly. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well he could when he goes outside of Mars and

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Speaker 1: like his eyes bug out and yeah exactly. Um. And

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Speaker 1: so that's one problem is the atmosphere. And connected to

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Speaker 1: that is the temperature currently on Mars. I checked the

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Speaker 1: web this morning. It's negative sixty three degrees celsius on

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Speaker 1: the surface of Mars. Right, Chili chili definitely not Southern

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Speaker 1: California standards. Right. And those two things are connected. Is

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Speaker 1: it connected to the the fact that there is no atmosphere,

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Speaker 1: you know, like vacuum is by definition kind of cold. Right, Well,

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Speaker 1: there's that, I mean, but also there's nothing to store

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Speaker 1: the Sun's energy. Right. The Sun hits Mars and and

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Speaker 1: warms it up, but then the energy just floats off

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Speaker 1: into space, right, It just radiates back onto space. But

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Speaker 1: an atmosphere acts like a blanket, right, and so it

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Speaker 1: keeps the Sun's energy on the planet. That's one of

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Speaker 1: the reasons why we have global warming here on Earth

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Speaker 1: is that we're thickening the blanket we have of carbon

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Speaker 1: dioxide is keeping more and more of the Sun's energy.

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Speaker 1: So Mars has almost greenhouse, right, Yeah, it acts like

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Speaker 1: a greenhouse. Mars has almost no atmosphere, and so most

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Speaker 1: of the energies bounces right back into space. So the

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Speaker 1: fact that you don't have an atmosphere and you don't

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Speaker 1: and you and you're too cold are connected, right, which

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Speaker 1: is bad. Had an atmosphere, it could warm up, Yes, exactly.

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Speaker 1: So one strategy for warming up the planet is to

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Speaker 1: give it an atmosphere. Right. So for example, um, I

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Speaker 1: asked the professor, I said, you know what if we

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Speaker 1: um use the carbon dioxide that is on Mars. Because

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Speaker 1: Mars has a bunch of carbon dioxide, It has a

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Speaker 1: bunch of water, but it's mostly frozen in the ice caps, right,

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Speaker 1: so in the polar caps. So there's these huge amounts

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Speaker 1: of basically dry ice which is frozen carbon dioxide on

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Speaker 1: the surface. And so people have been thinking what if

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Speaker 1: we could melt that somehow? Right, what if you stick

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Speaker 1: it in a microwave? If you can build a planet

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Speaker 1: sized microwave, then I think all these terraformy projects will

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Speaker 1: be easy. Um. But no, say, for example, you sent

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Speaker 1: up a bunch of nukes, right, you nuked the ice

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Speaker 1: caps on Mars. Yeah, vaporized all of it, right, and

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Speaker 1: then you would have some gas in the atmosphere, right,

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Speaker 1: And so that's sort of a step in the right direction.

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Speaker 1: So you propose that to him, what do he say?

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Speaker 1: The problem with that is that there's not enough. Right.

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Speaker 1: Even if you did that, it would be like one

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Speaker 1: of the carbon dioxide, you need to make enough pressure

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Speaker 1: on the planet so that you could warm it up. Right,

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Speaker 1: So you need some other source of carbon dioxide. Now,

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Speaker 1: this is something which is in contention. Some people say, Oh,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of more carbon dioxide that's sort of

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Speaker 1: buried under the ground, and as soon as you start

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Speaker 1: warming it up, that carbondox will be released into the

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Speaker 1: atmosphere and it's sort of be a runaway greenhouse effect.

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Speaker 1: It has to already be in on Mars. Like, we

424
00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:37,600
Speaker 1: can't bring enough CEO two, like we have. Our problem

425
00:21:37,600 --> 00:21:39,840
Speaker 1: is we have two munch c O two. We can't

426
00:21:39,840 --> 00:21:42,720
Speaker 1: just take it to Mars. No, we could, that's another solution, right,

427
00:21:42,960 --> 00:21:45,439
Speaker 1: but it's easier to start with the CEO two on Mars.

428
00:21:45,560 --> 00:21:47,480
Speaker 1: And some people think there's just not enough c O

429
00:21:47,520 --> 00:21:49,760
Speaker 1: two on Mars, so that even if you melt the

430
00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:51,760
Speaker 1: ice caps and warm up all the rocks, that you

431
00:21:51,760 --> 00:21:53,400
Speaker 1: just won't get enough C two. But that's the point

432
00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:56,960
Speaker 1: of contention. Nobody's entirely sure. But if there isn't enough

433
00:21:56,960 --> 00:21:59,280
Speaker 1: CEO two on Mars, as you say, we could bring

434
00:21:59,320 --> 00:22:02,640
Speaker 1: some in it. You could find some comets or some

435
00:22:02,960 --> 00:22:05,280
Speaker 1: you know, asteroids that are mostly CEO two and just

436
00:22:05,280 --> 00:22:07,960
Speaker 1: sort of nugs them towards Mars and crashed them onto

437
00:22:07,960 --> 00:22:12,600
Speaker 1: the surface. Oh man, wouldn't that cause other problems? Well,

438
00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:14,720
Speaker 1: I think you'd want to do that before you build

439
00:22:14,760 --> 00:22:18,520
Speaker 1: your resort um otherwise, I mean, what problems would it cause?

440
00:22:19,440 --> 00:22:21,479
Speaker 1: I don't I mean, it sounds sort of naive, But like,

441
00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:24,119
Speaker 1: what's the danger with crashing an asteroid onto the surface

442
00:22:24,119 --> 00:22:27,960
Speaker 1: of Mars? Like nobody lives there. What's the worst that

443
00:22:28,040 --> 00:22:33,720
Speaker 1: could happen if we on other planets? Um? No, that's

444
00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:35,560
Speaker 1: a that's a realistic approach. And this is what I

445
00:22:35,560 --> 00:22:37,679
Speaker 1: meant when I said, like massive resources can Now you

446
00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:39,680
Speaker 1: have to build a huge spaceship and you have to

447
00:22:39,720 --> 00:22:42,080
Speaker 1: get it out there to the asteroids system, and you

448
00:22:42,160 --> 00:22:44,320
Speaker 1: have to somehow like find an asteroid or nudge you

449
00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:46,880
Speaker 1: towards Mars, and like this is already costing a lot

450
00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:50,680
Speaker 1: of money. Now we're talking about asteroid wrangling. Yeah, exactly,

451
00:22:50,760 --> 00:22:54,080
Speaker 1: that's another cool job description. Yeah, asteroid wrangling. You're gonna

452
00:22:54,080 --> 00:22:55,840
Speaker 1: get a lot of PhDs. You're gonna be like Bruce Banner,

453
00:22:55,880 --> 00:22:57,520
Speaker 1: You're gonna have like seven pH D so you can

454
00:22:57,520 --> 00:23:04,840
Speaker 1: solve any problem. Okay. So so that's where the costs

455
00:23:04,880 --> 00:23:08,880
Speaker 1: start adding up, Like to get the atmosphere we need,

456
00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:12,840
Speaker 1: you just need this these huge engineering problems which caused

457
00:23:12,880 --> 00:23:16,640
Speaker 1: the money for people to do exactly sign up for them, right, Yeah,

458
00:23:16,640 --> 00:23:19,239
Speaker 1: but there's there's more problems, like say you could do that,

459
00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:22,320
Speaker 1: so you can nuke them, pull the ice caps and

460
00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:23,720
Speaker 1: you can get some c O two, and then you

461
00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:25,920
Speaker 1: bring in enough asteroids and you get enough c O

462
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:29,080
Speaker 1: two to warm up the planet. Then you have another problem,

463
00:23:29,119 --> 00:23:32,800
Speaker 1: which is that the atmosphere is then toxic because in

464
00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:35,080
Speaker 1: order to get enough c O two to make like

465
00:23:35,119 --> 00:23:37,920
Speaker 1: a blanket to keep the planet warm enough, you need

466
00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:39,679
Speaker 1: a lot more c O two on Mars than you

467
00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:42,560
Speaker 1: do on Earth. And the reason it's just that Mars

468
00:23:42,640 --> 00:23:45,560
Speaker 1: is further away from the Sun and it's smaller, so

469
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:47,560
Speaker 1: it doesn't get as much sunlight, so it needs a

470
00:23:47,560 --> 00:23:50,280
Speaker 1: thicker blanket. Right, So you need a lot more c

471
00:23:50,440 --> 00:23:51,919
Speaker 1: O two on Mars and you do on Earth to

472
00:23:51,920 --> 00:23:54,080
Speaker 1: get to the right temperature. The problem is if you

473
00:23:54,119 --> 00:23:57,200
Speaker 1: put that much CEO two to the atmosphere, it kills humans.

474
00:23:57,200 --> 00:24:00,240
Speaker 1: So humans cannot breathe that atmosphere like could and you

475
00:24:00,320 --> 00:24:03,920
Speaker 1: just make up for it by adding more oxygen more oxygen. Well,

476
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:06,200
Speaker 1: for you don't want an atmosphere with too much oxygen

477
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:09,280
Speaker 1: because then everything it just ignites simultaneously. Um. And also

478
00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:12,080
Speaker 1: oxygen doesn't have the same properties as CEO two in

479
00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:14,600
Speaker 1: terms of warming. Right. Each of these gases have a

480
00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:18,200
Speaker 1: very different behavior in terms of planetary warming because they

481
00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:20,800
Speaker 1: act different in the atmosphere. So that's not just not

482
00:24:20,840 --> 00:24:24,080
Speaker 1: possible to do just straight CEO two. Um. But then

483
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:26,120
Speaker 1: the people have some other ideas, like maybe we could

484
00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:28,480
Speaker 1: bring in some ammonia, because ammonia is a really good

485
00:24:28,800 --> 00:24:33,160
Speaker 1: atmospheric warmer. Um. But pneumonia doesn't last very long. Um.

486
00:24:33,280 --> 00:24:34,760
Speaker 1: So then I asked the professor, I said, well, what

487
00:24:34,800 --> 00:24:37,159
Speaker 1: if you had some other way of warming it? Right,

488
00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:39,200
Speaker 1: instead of just using CEO two, what if you brought

489
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:41,520
Speaker 1: the CEO two up to a level where humans could

490
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:44,040
Speaker 1: breathe it, and you had some other technique for bringing

491
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:48,240
Speaker 1: up the temperature, like burning tires. Do you have a lot,

492
00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 1: a lot of extra tires in your life and you're

493
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:52,359
Speaker 1: desperate to get rid of Is that what I'm hearing here?

494
00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:54,359
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like, couldn't you create heat

495
00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:57,880
Speaker 1: another way? Yes? Planet, Yes, And so one other way

496
00:24:58,520 --> 00:25:02,399
Speaker 1: is to just increase the amount a solar solar exposure, right,

497
00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:05,719
Speaker 1: to get more sunlight onto Mars. So build a big

498
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:09,159
Speaker 1: mirror in space and just focus a bunch of energy

499
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:11,639
Speaker 1: onto the surface of Mars. You mean, like kind of

500
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:14,879
Speaker 1: like um, like little kids do with the magnifying glass

501
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 1: and ants. Yeah, exactly, kind of focus more sunlight onto

502
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:21,560
Speaker 1: the spot where the planet is. Yeah, you know, like

503
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:24,960
Speaker 1: those little um camping ovens that are just aluminum foil,

504
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:26,359
Speaker 1: and you can put hot dog in the middle of

505
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:28,399
Speaker 1: it and focuses the sun's rays on and eventually your

506
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:31,919
Speaker 1: hot dog warms up. That's the scenario, except Mars is

507
00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:34,119
Speaker 1: the hot dog. Okay, So, but you'd have to build

508
00:25:34,119 --> 00:25:38,120
Speaker 1: gigantic mirrors. Yeah, the Mars has about half as much

509
00:25:38,359 --> 00:25:42,320
Speaker 1: solar radiation as Earth. Does that means the mirror would

510
00:25:42,320 --> 00:25:44,960
Speaker 1: have to be about the size of Mars right now,

511
00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:49,120
Speaker 1: we're talking about huge planet sized mirrors in space, and

512
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:51,360
Speaker 1: you gotta get them right. You know, if you too

513
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:53,399
Speaker 1: much or too little, and all of a sudden all

514
00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:56,280
Speaker 1: of your guests and your resort are freezing or fried up. Right,

515
00:25:56,320 --> 00:25:59,040
Speaker 1: So you're really going to be trusting these pH d

516
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:02,960
Speaker 1: p s to to get this right into never fail right.

517
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:07,400
Speaker 1: This has to work forever and always right. So it's

518
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:09,719
Speaker 1: a it's a tricky task, and all of this is

519
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:12,879
Speaker 1: just to warm up the planet, right, Yeah, exactly, So

520
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:17,280
Speaker 1: you've got to bring into problem number one exactly exactly.

521
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 1: Are you feeling less enthusiastic now, it's just like training

522
00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:23,919
Speaker 1: on the thermostat you know, that's just the beginning of

523
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:26,720
Speaker 1: your problems. Yeah, So you bring in an atmosphere somehow,

524
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 1: you warm up the planet right, and then what do

525
00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:31,040
Speaker 1: you have? You have a planet has the right temperature,

526
00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:34,200
Speaker 1: has enough CEO two in it. But you also want

527
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:35,600
Speaker 1: to be able to grow crops, You want to be

528
00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:38,919
Speaker 1: able to breathe, right, so you need to produce oxygen. Now,

529
00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:40,879
Speaker 1: I remember the way that happened on Earth was that

530
00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:43,959
Speaker 1: we had basically algae and phytoplankton. And also it's a

531
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 1: little green microbes that are capable of producing oxygen. Um,

532
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:50,080
Speaker 1: and that's cool, and we could do that again. We

533
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:53,720
Speaker 1: could just like launch a huge tub of of plants,

534
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:57,840
Speaker 1: you know, of algae into the new lakes on warm

535
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:00,479
Speaker 1: Mars and they could just we could wait for them

536
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:04,080
Speaker 1: to do their thing. We could just make Mars moldy.

537
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:08,800
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, make Mars funky again. Um. Yeah,

538
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:12,160
Speaker 1: And that all sounds great, And you might be thinking

539
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:14,760
Speaker 1: that sounds wonderful because then we're using the power of microbes.

540
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 1: They multiply fast, and they can spread all over Mars

541
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:20,480
Speaker 1: and we can green the planet. Um. So I talked

542
00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:22,960
Speaker 1: to a microbiologist. Um. One of them is my wife,

543
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:26,160
Speaker 1: and I also consult consulted them Professor Heather Beans, she's

544
00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:30,160
Speaker 1: at Arizona State University. And they tell me that agreason

545
00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 1: will estimate for how long it would take to produce

546
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:36,600
Speaker 1: enough oxygen is about a million years. Oh my goodness.

547
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:40,159
Speaker 1: Even if we put giant tubs of algae there, it

548
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:42,960
Speaker 1: would take a million years to process all that t

549
00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:45,200
Speaker 1: O two into oxygen. You would take a million years

550
00:27:45,280 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 1: unless you know, you want to add another degree and

551
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:49,879
Speaker 1: you want to do like plankton engineering and create some

552
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:52,879
Speaker 1: new kind of microbe that's better at producing oxygen. But

553
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:54,720
Speaker 1: you have take about a million years, and you know

554
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 1: it took it took like ten of the six or

555
00:27:56,560 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: so years on Earth. It was not a fast process.

556
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:02,199
Speaker 1: So what what's the factor? Do you just not have

557
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:05,840
Speaker 1: enough algae or do you see algae juice? You know,

558
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:08,280
Speaker 1: if you max out the number of amount of alogies

559
00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 1: you could have on Mars, it would still take a

560
00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 1: million years. So in your mind's eye, you have like

561
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:15,320
Speaker 1: the surface of Mars is covered with ten ft of

562
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:18,920
Speaker 1: algae or something or something. Yeah, I'm all right, let's

563
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 1: go into the max algae scenario. Even in that scenario,

564
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:24,639
Speaker 1: it still takes about a million years. And the reason

565
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:27,200
Speaker 1: is that algae are not in the business of producing oxygen.

566
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 1: It's not why they do it. They photosynthesize and but

567
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:33,879
Speaker 1: in that process they produce oxygen. They also use some oxygen.

568
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:36,679
Speaker 1: So the amount of oxygen that's like produced is spare,

569
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:40,719
Speaker 1: is not It's not a lot um And yeah, so

570
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:43,960
Speaker 1: there's sequestering some carbon. They're producing some oxygen, but it's

571
00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:46,000
Speaker 1: not an efficient way to make oxygen. I mean, it's

572
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 1: it's nice because the sort of runs itself, and it's

573
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 1: historical because it's the way we did it on Earth.

574
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 1: So that's nice and cozy, but it's not a very

575
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 1: fast way to make a to make a planet have

576
00:28:54,280 --> 00:28:57,000
Speaker 1: enough oxygen it and I want to talk about that

577
00:28:57,080 --> 00:29:11,959
Speaker 1: some more, but first let's take a quick break. Okay,

578
00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:14,120
Speaker 1: So then what can we do? Can we bring oxygen

579
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 1: in other ways? Yeah? Well we could bring water, right,

580
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 1: we could bring water in and we could split it,

581
00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:23,320
Speaker 1: make the H two O into H and O and

582
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 1: uh and use that oxygen. That would take a lot

583
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: of time and a lot of energy, right, splitting water

584
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 1: into oxygen and hydrogen takes a lot of energy. But hey,

585
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 1: if we're building planetary sized mirrors and shepherding afterwards around

586
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:37,280
Speaker 1: the around the solar system that I'm assuming we have

587
00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:39,840
Speaker 1: access to a huge amount of energy. So yeah, we

588
00:29:39,880 --> 00:29:43,960
Speaker 1: could certainly do that. Meaning maybe grab another comment with

589
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 1: water and crash it onto Mars. That's right, splash it

590
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:51,160
Speaker 1: now into your ocean of algae that you have, pumping

591
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: away oxygen into your atmosphere like a cooking project. We

592
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 1: have the splant here, just grab some comments from over here,

593
00:29:56,760 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 1: some asteroids r here. Mix it all together. Yeah, yeah,

594
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:03,200
Speaker 1: it's a cooking project. Um. And even if you do that,

595
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:05,800
Speaker 1: even if you accomplish all of those things, you still

596
00:30:05,840 --> 00:30:08,920
Speaker 1: have another problem, which is that Mars doesn't have a

597
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 1: magnetic field, and the magnetic field is really important in

598
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:16,480
Speaker 1: shielding from cosmic rays. Remember, cosmic rays are just tiny

599
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 1: particles from space and they're usually charged, and so a

600
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:22,120
Speaker 1: magnetic field will bend them. Here on Earth, we have

601
00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:24,240
Speaker 1: a magnetic field, and it bends a lot of the

602
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 1: radiation from space and protects us and also protects our atmosphere. Right,

603
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 1: so let's assume that we heated up the planet and

604
00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:36,440
Speaker 1: we created enough oxygen for us to step outside and breathe.

605
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:39,720
Speaker 1: We still have a big problem, which is that it

606
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:42,640
Speaker 1: would all just blow away, right, that's right. The magnetic

607
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 1: field keeps the atmosphere from getting blown away from the

608
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:50,080
Speaker 1: solar wind and from other kinds of cosmic rays. And

609
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:53,080
Speaker 1: so we need to create a magnetic field for Mars.

610
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 1: And the size of the planet, the size of the planet,

611
00:30:55,720 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: and as um, as crazy as that sounds, it's maybe

612
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 1: the easiest task of all the things we've talked about. Today,

613
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 1: because you don't need to like go inside of Mars

614
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:06,600
Speaker 1: and like get the core spinning to give you a

615
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 1: magnetic field, which is how we think we have a

616
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:10,520
Speaker 1: magnetic field on Earth. You just need to provide a

617
00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:13,280
Speaker 1: magnetic shield. And that might be as simple as putting

618
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:16,280
Speaker 1: a huge magnet out in space between the Sun and

619
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:19,239
Speaker 1: Mars to provide like a you know, a bending so

620
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:21,440
Speaker 1: that the particles don't hit Mars. And if you can

621
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:23,840
Speaker 1: get the magnetic field a little closer to the Sun,

622
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:26,240
Speaker 1: you can create sort of a magnetic envelope or a

623
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:29,760
Speaker 1: shadow to protect the planet. Wait, is it the easiest

624
00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 1: problem that we have in this is creating planet size

625
00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 1: force field using a planet size magnet. That's right. If

626
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:42,000
Speaker 1: you had if you had to pick each of these

627
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 1: tasks to solve, that's the one I would recommend pick

628
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:51,040
Speaker 1: because that one's easiest and cheapest. Also, if you've solved

629
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 1: all these crazy problems, you might be able to make

630
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 1: Mars habitable. That's right. So you build an atmosphere, you

631
00:31:57,280 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 1: trunk in a bunch of CEO two, You warm a

632
00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 1: planet with this, mirrors, you seated with things that produce oxygen.

633
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 1: You provide a magnetic field then you wait a million years.

634
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:09,720
Speaker 1: You forgot to wait a million years apart. Don't pack

635
00:32:09,760 --> 00:32:11,720
Speaker 1: your bags yet, you're gonna put your underwear back in

636
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 1: your drawer. People. Um, it's gonna take a long time

637
00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:18,680
Speaker 1: before Mars is habitable, even if we started tomorrow. Um,

638
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:21,479
Speaker 1: and you know, we can get there earlier with various basis.

639
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 1: We don't have to complete the terraforming to start living

640
00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 1: on Mars. But for the deep future, if we want

641
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:29,440
Speaker 1: humanity really have a home on Mars, to be comfortable there,

642
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 1: to to have plants growing and crops and all sorts

643
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:34,760
Speaker 1: of things, really healthy ecosystem, then yeah, we gotta do

644
00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:37,080
Speaker 1: the terraforming. And it's gonna take a long time. So

645
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:39,520
Speaker 1: there is this liver of possibility. It would just be

646
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:45,280
Speaker 1: really really expensive and might take a long time exactly.

647
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:48,240
Speaker 1: It would be expensive, it would take a long time. Um,

648
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:52,440
Speaker 1: but it's not impossible. So given infinite time and infinite resources,

649
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:54,880
Speaker 1: it is possible. And you know, on this show we

650
00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 1: talk about things that are totally impossible and things that

651
00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 1: are just difficult and expensive. And and I like when

652
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:02,400
Speaker 1: things are just difficult and expensive because then you can

653
00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:04,400
Speaker 1: just say, well, pass it off to the engineers I'm

654
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 1: sure they'll figure it out. Right, You, as a physicist,

655
00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:10,080
Speaker 1: can just wash your hands, be like, it's not my

656
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:13,520
Speaker 1: fault anymore, that we're dying as a species exactly. If

657
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:16,520
Speaker 1: physicists our job is to move something from impossible to possible.

658
00:33:16,680 --> 00:33:20,520
Speaker 1: The rest is details, right, That's that's what we really

659
00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 1: have the engineers for. You know, eventually there'll be an app.

660
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:26,000
Speaker 1: You know, you could just um uh, you know, terraform

661
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 1: my planet with with your app or something. It will

662
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:32,800
Speaker 1: take five seconds. And who wrote that app? Engineers? Engineers

663
00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: and they made all the money. Okay, so and they

664
00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 1: deserve it. A lot of a lot more rich engineers

665
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:41,840
Speaker 1: out there than rich physicists. If you ask me, I

666
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 1: was gonna say something, but I forgot you were going

667
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 1: to say something, but you got distracted by the huge

668
00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:49,920
Speaker 1: pile of cash you have as an engineer. Sorry, I

669
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:59,000
Speaker 1: was counting my gold coins. I forgot what you were saying. Okay,

670
00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:01,400
Speaker 1: So that's Mars. That's maybe one of the closest and

671
00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 1: and maybe least sour impossible tasting of the options. But

672
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:10,319
Speaker 1: there are other possibilities within our solar system, or maybe

673
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 1: outside our solar system. Right, that's right, There are some

674
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:16,120
Speaker 1: other places that we could consider living. For example, there's

675
00:34:16,160 --> 00:34:19,080
Speaker 1: the Moon. Right, the Moon is even closer than Mars,

676
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:21,400
Speaker 1: and so from the point of view like getting stuff

677
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:24,759
Speaker 1: there and doing the engineering, it's even simpler. The problem

678
00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:26,840
Speaker 1: is that the Moon is has a lot of the

679
00:34:26,880 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 1: same challenges as Mars, but it's even smaller, so the

680
00:34:29,640 --> 00:34:32,959
Speaker 1: gravity is is much much less, which means it would

681
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:35,400
Speaker 1: be really hard to hold onto an atmosphere even if

682
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:37,200
Speaker 1: you did all the work. You crashed a bunch of

683
00:34:37,200 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 1: comments into the moon. Um, you warmed it up somehow

684
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 1: with mirrors, and you give it a nice atmosphere, the

685
00:34:43,120 --> 00:34:45,960
Speaker 1: atmosphere which is leak away. Right, there's not enough gravity

686
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: to hold onto the atmosphere on the Moon. You have

687
00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:51,040
Speaker 1: to be big enough. There's a size requirement, yeah, exactly,

688
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:52,919
Speaker 1: have to be big enough so that you have enough

689
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:55,880
Speaker 1: gravity to hold onto the atmosphere. Right. It's like you

690
00:34:55,880 --> 00:34:57,920
Speaker 1: don't want to buy somebody a fancy new jacket. If

691
00:34:57,920 --> 00:34:59,560
Speaker 1: it's they're just going to throw it away. And that's

692
00:34:59,560 --> 00:35:01,600
Speaker 1: basically it would be like, if we build an atmosphere

693
00:35:01,600 --> 00:35:03,279
Speaker 1: on the Moon, it's just going to float away into

694
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:05,239
Speaker 1: space because the Moon is not big enough to hold

695
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:07,520
Speaker 1: onto it, but at least you would have enough cheese. Right,

696
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:10,239
Speaker 1: That's that's right. It would be a fun party while

697
00:35:10,280 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 1: it lasted, right. Um. But if you're looking for like

698
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:15,280
Speaker 1: a you know, thousands and thousands of years kind of solution,

699
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:17,520
Speaker 1: like you want to establish a human base there, it's

700
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:19,120
Speaker 1: just not really a good good idea. I mean, it

701
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:21,239
Speaker 1: might last hundreds of years, you might even get a

702
00:35:21,239 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 1: thousand years out of it, but you need to continuously

703
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 1: replenish the atmosphere because it'd be constantly running away from you,

704
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:30,040
Speaker 1: because it'll just float out into space. Yeah, exactly, and

705
00:35:30,239 --> 00:35:32,720
Speaker 1: just be constantly farting out your life source into space.

706
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:40,440
Speaker 1: So the Moon your far back in right, your planet,

707
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:43,600
Speaker 1: all right, So that's moon, the Moon. What about other

708
00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:46,839
Speaker 1: planets in the Solar System. Well, Venus is interesting because

709
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,040
Speaker 1: it has exactly the opposite problem, right, Venus Mars we

710
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:53,160
Speaker 1: talked about has almost no atmosphere. The Moon is no atmosphere.

711
00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:56,319
Speaker 1: Venus is the other problem, has way too much atmosphere.

712
00:35:56,480 --> 00:35:59,360
Speaker 1: Venus is like we're afraid Earth might be in a

713
00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:03,440
Speaker 1: million years is it's covered in carbon dioxide and it's

714
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:06,439
Speaker 1: way too dense. It's like ninety times the density of

715
00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:12,640
Speaker 1: the atmosphere on Earth, right, so you'd be crushed two, right, Yeah,

716
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:15,600
Speaker 1: And all that CEO two on that planet for all

717
00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:18,080
Speaker 1: those years has really heated it up. So it's like

718
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 1: four hundred and something degrees on the surface of Venus

719
00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:24,080
Speaker 1: all the time, right, That's not just like during the summer,

720
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:27,680
Speaker 1: that's all the time. So the problem with Venus is

721
00:36:27,719 --> 00:36:29,400
Speaker 1: the opposite. You need to get rid of some of

722
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:32,799
Speaker 1: that atmosphere and that will help Venus cool down. And

723
00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 1: so that's that's hard, Like how do you get rid

724
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:37,719
Speaker 1: of atmosphere. It's the opposite problem. You need to take

725
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:40,840
Speaker 1: out CEO two. Yeah, And so people have crazy ideas.

726
00:36:41,080 --> 00:36:43,440
Speaker 1: They're like, well, you know some ideas like somehow get

727
00:36:43,480 --> 00:36:46,720
Speaker 1: that CEO two sequestered, you know, fire bunch of stuff

728
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:50,759
Speaker 1: into the atmosphere of Venus like magnesium or calcium, or

729
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:53,320
Speaker 1: you know, bombarded with hydrogen so that it forms water

730
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:55,880
Speaker 1: or um, you know, with all sorts of other stuff.

731
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 1: These strategies to try to get the CEO two out

732
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:01,040
Speaker 1: of the atmosphere onto the surface, which has its own problem.

733
00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:04,680
Speaker 1: And there are other strategies like make huge scoops and

734
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:08,279
Speaker 1: scoop off the atmosphere, right, Like like just gather it

735
00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 1: up and scoop it off Like that seems crazy to me,

736
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:14,239
Speaker 1: Like you're going to build an enormous spoon, like, you know,

737
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:17,840
Speaker 1: dig into the atmosphere Venus. It sounds crazy, but reasonable

738
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:20,760
Speaker 1: people talk about this stuff. You're like, it's physically possible,

739
00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:23,399
Speaker 1: So get to work engineers. Yeah, and then I thought,

740
00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:25,440
Speaker 1: you know what if we could take some of the

741
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:27,759
Speaker 1: CEO too off of Venus and bring it to Mars.

742
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:30,640
Speaker 1: Or we could solve two problems at once, Right, what

743
00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:33,759
Speaker 1: if you could crash Venus into Mars and create the

744
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:36,560
Speaker 1: perfect planet? Now you're going too far. Okay, we can

745
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:39,680
Speaker 1: talk about planet sized mirrors, but we can't talk about

746
00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 1: smashing them together. That's just totally impractical. Um. Yeah, so

747
00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:46,760
Speaker 1: that's you have am there's a limit to your flavors

748
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:50,080
Speaker 1: of that's right. The other problem with Venus is that

749
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 1: it rotates really slowly. A day on Venus is two

750
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:57,120
Speaker 1: hundred and forty something days on Earth, right, so you

751
00:37:57,200 --> 00:37:59,719
Speaker 1: have like really really long nights and really really long

752
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:02,719
Speaker 1: day So that's a pretty hard way to live. So

753
00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:04,759
Speaker 1: it to really live on Venus, you'd have to like

754
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 1: speed up its rotation somehow, And people have talked about

755
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 1: how to do that. Yeah, like if you wanted to

756
00:38:10,640 --> 00:38:12,960
Speaker 1: get ready the atmosphere, you could build like a huge

757
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:15,880
Speaker 1: jet which punches, which pushes the atmosphere out into space,

758
00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:19,359
Speaker 1: and that could act like, um, like a nozzle, right

759
00:38:19,400 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 1: to speed up the rotation of the planet. Now this

760
00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:24,600
Speaker 1: is I mean, it sounded crazy, but like, um, that's

761
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:28,759
Speaker 1: a real solution. Okay, So that's venus. Um. We have

762
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:31,440
Speaker 1: the opposite problem. Where else where else could we go?

763
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 1: Maybe outside of our solar system. Yeah, one of the

764
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:39,200
Speaker 1: most promising things is not engineering a planet that's close by,

765
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:42,520
Speaker 1: but picking the right one. You know. It's like, don't

766
00:38:42,600 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 1: choose from the cars that are available to you in

767
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:46,960
Speaker 1: your neighborhood. If none of them work, like, go drive

768
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:49,440
Speaker 1: thirty miles to find the right one, you know. And

769
00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:52,879
Speaker 1: so one option is to look for extrasolar planets, right

770
00:38:52,920 --> 00:38:56,320
Speaker 1: planets outside our solar system around other stars. And recently

771
00:38:56,320 --> 00:38:58,920
Speaker 1: we have amazing technology to do this. We found thousands

772
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:02,239
Speaker 1: of them and just find one that has the right characteristics,

773
00:39:02,239 --> 00:39:05,440
Speaker 1: that has the right amount of solar radiation, has an atmosphere,

774
00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:09,279
Speaker 1: maybe even has liquid water, um, you know, and from

775
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:11,319
Speaker 1: that point of view that we'd be starting from a

776
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:13,920
Speaker 1: pretty good spot. It's not unlikely we could find one

777
00:39:13,920 --> 00:39:17,640
Speaker 1: that has carbon dioxide rich atmosphere with the right pressure

778
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:20,600
Speaker 1: and the right temperature and liquid water that there's nothing

779
00:39:20,680 --> 00:39:24,320
Speaker 1: unreasonable about that expectation. So that's more like terror finding

780
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 1: than terraforming, right, you know what I mean? Like it's

781
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:30,920
Speaker 1: you're looking for one that already looks like ours. Yeah,

782
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:33,240
Speaker 1: and even in that scenar area, there of some big problems.

783
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:35,960
Speaker 1: Like problem number one is it's super duper far away, right,

784
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:38,359
Speaker 1: So it's gonna take a long time to get there,

785
00:39:38,400 --> 00:39:41,319
Speaker 1: if if that's even possible. Um. And you have to

786
00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:43,680
Speaker 1: figure out that it's a good destination before you get there,

787
00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:45,719
Speaker 1: because you don't want to travel for a thousand years

788
00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 1: and then turn around because oops, you know, we forgot

789
00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:51,439
Speaker 1: the shopping list or oops, went to the wrong place. Um.

790
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:53,080
Speaker 1: The other problem is what do you do when you

791
00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 1: get there? Right, you want to establish an ecosystem on

792
00:39:55,520 --> 00:39:59,399
Speaker 1: the planet, and having enough CEO two and you seed

793
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:01,640
Speaker 1: it with lie if and it produces oxygen, even that

794
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:04,960
Speaker 1: is not enough to make like farmable land. Right. What

795
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:07,480
Speaker 1: you need then is soil. You need to cover the

796
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:10,239
Speaker 1: planet somehow with with dirt that you can use to

797
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:14,400
Speaker 1: grow plants, and that's complicated, right, getting the getting dirt

798
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:16,759
Speaker 1: to work, getting soil to work is hard. We don't

799
00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:19,120
Speaker 1: even understand how it works. On Earth. You know, people

800
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:21,759
Speaker 1: are studding. It's not just dirt. Dirt is not just dirt,

801
00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:23,880
Speaker 1: you I mean, you can't grow things and just sand, right,

802
00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 1: sand and water you need. Most of the soil that

803
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:29,719
Speaker 1: we have on Earth is basically decayed plants, right, is

804
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:32,359
Speaker 1: leaf litter and other stuff that has died. So now

805
00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:34,400
Speaker 1: you've got to start that process on another planet. You

806
00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 1: have to somehow seated. You can bring some soil and

807
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:39,360
Speaker 1: you can put it out there and it'll grow and spread.

808
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:41,800
Speaker 1: But to get the right balance of all those microbes

809
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:43,840
Speaker 1: working in just the right way to support the plants

810
00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:46,439
Speaker 1: that you need to feed your people, that's not an

811
00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:49,320
Speaker 1: easy problem to solve. And you can't just like truck

812
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:51,759
Speaker 1: in a planet's worth of soil from Earth. Right, people

813
00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:53,200
Speaker 1: on Earth are not gonna be happy about that, And

814
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:56,239
Speaker 1: that's expensive. So it's a hard problem to solve. Even

815
00:40:56,280 --> 00:40:57,799
Speaker 1: when you get there. You can just go to home

816
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:01,560
Speaker 1: deep and by trillion bags of soil, that's right, It's

817
00:41:01,600 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 1: just not enough soil to fill another planet. And so

818
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:05,279
Speaker 1: that's the kind of thing that would take a lot

819
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:08,960
Speaker 1: of experimentation and a lot of time, but it is feasible. Okay,

820
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:12,960
Speaker 1: So we learned that there are a lot of different

821
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:18,399
Speaker 1: flavors of impossible. That's right, hoping beyond hope. Yeah, yeah,

822
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:21,239
Speaker 1: they're not impossible, right, All these things could be done,

823
00:41:21,760 --> 00:41:23,640
Speaker 1: and you know, these are the ideas we have now.

824
00:41:23,800 --> 00:41:26,400
Speaker 1: And if we're talking about things we're doing over thousands

825
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:28,560
Speaker 1: or millions of years, you've got to hope that human

826
00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:31,040
Speaker 1: ingenuity is going to come up with even better solutions,

827
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:33,799
Speaker 1: better strategies, new energy sources, ways to do this kind

828
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:36,239
Speaker 1: of engineering. So give us some time. I think we'll

829
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:38,600
Speaker 1: figure it out. Yeah. We might not be desperate now,

830
00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:42,120
Speaker 1: but we might be more desperate later. Yeah, so throw

831
00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:44,880
Speaker 1: another tire on the fire and uh, you know, make

832
00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:47,160
Speaker 1: some plans to live on Mars. That really makes you

833
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:49,880
Speaker 1: think about how fragile our planet is. You know, like

834
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:52,560
Speaker 1: we're so lucky not to be like Mars, and if

835
00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:55,360
Speaker 1: we're not careful, we're gonna end up like Venus, you know,

836
00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:58,919
Speaker 1: totally uninhabitable. In either case. Yeah, you know it's good

837
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:01,160
Speaker 1: to have negative role model. Right, we see some pretty

838
00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:03,840
Speaker 1: terrible examples around us of what happens when planets go

839
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 1: off kilter Mars lost its atmosphere, Venus overcooked. It's so,

840
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:10,200
Speaker 1: we're pretty lucky to be right in this sweet spot,

841
00:42:10,239 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 1: and we better take care of it because it's gonna

842
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:14,600
Speaker 1: be a long time before we are capable of making

843
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:17,719
Speaker 1: another planet be home to a substantial population. So the

844
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:19,960
Speaker 1: next time you go outside, take a deep breath and

845
00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:24,160
Speaker 1: savor it. That's right. You're not likely to get that

846
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:27,120
Speaker 1: anywhere else. That's right. All right, everyone, Well, thanks for

847
00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:30,960
Speaker 1: lifting this upbeat episode of Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe.

848
00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:33,319
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Speaker 1: ask us. We don't know anything about it. All right,

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