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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from housetop work

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And

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Speaker 1: so we recorded a special live edition of the podcast

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Speaker 1: last week at Star Trek Mission, New York, and all

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Speaker 1: three of us, Robert, Christian and I up in a

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Speaker 1: conference room full of Star Trek Conference attendees. Yeah it was.

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Speaker 1: It was really great. Hopefully some of the folks who

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Speaker 1: were there in person are listening now, and if so,

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Speaker 1: I just want to thank you once more for being

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Speaker 1: a fabulous audience. Everyone seemed to really get into the topical.

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Speaker 1: We had some fun chatting with folks after the show. Absolutely, So,

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Speaker 1: without further ado, here is our live episode of Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind. Robert, you've got to start us

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Speaker 1: Star Trek history. Okay, So um, when we're not going

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Speaker 1: to pretend to be like the the the perfect Star

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Speaker 1: Trek fans. Our knowledge is not perfect. But I certainly

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Speaker 1: have a very warm place in my heart for Star

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Speaker 1: Trek the Next Generation, especially because I grew up watching

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Speaker 1: it every evening in syndication at nine pm. It was

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Speaker 1: my my go to I would escape from the horrors

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Speaker 1: of Junior High and just just pour myself into the

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Speaker 1: hollow deck of Star Trek. Yeah, for me, I think

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Speaker 1: deep Space and nine was when I really dove in

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Speaker 1: deep But I was talking to these guys the other day.

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Speaker 1: Does anybody remember the Cheerios commercial right before The Next

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Speaker 1: Generation came out where you they offered like if you

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Speaker 1: cut out on the back of the box, you could

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Speaker 1: be like an extra in the Next Generation. That was like,

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Speaker 1: I was like five, maybe six years old, and that's

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Speaker 1: how we got Wesley Crusher. That glued right in my kid.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, I didn't. I guess I didn't make it.

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Speaker 1: I didn't make the cut. I am far less trek

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Speaker 1: ucated than these two, even I have to admit to

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Speaker 1: the room. I I love like the even numbered movies,

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Speaker 1: as they say. And I've watched some highlight episodes from

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Speaker 1: the original series, like a Balance of Terror and what's

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Speaker 1: the one where they Kirk and Spocko back in time

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Speaker 1: and they wear these like cool nineteen thirties suits and

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Speaker 1: some lady gets hit by a car. It Yeah, that

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Speaker 1: was a good one. Uh. Then, Also, I watched the

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Speaker 1: first season of Next Generation, and I really loved the

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Speaker 1: planets that looked like a nineteen nineties like family portrait

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Speaker 1: photo studio filled with potted trees. It was pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about the Prime directive

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Speaker 1: because it while we are by no means experts on

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Speaker 1: the Prime Directive, it does relate quite a bit to

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Speaker 1: the real world science that we're gonna be talking about. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and uh, I mentioned we don't we don't have

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Speaker 1: to tell you guys what the Prime directive is. You know,

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Speaker 1: it is, um, it's the philosophy of the federation. Right,

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Speaker 1: it is that it's an anti colonialist for that matter

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Speaker 1: of anti Vietnam War ethos the policy of of non interference.

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Speaker 1: Don't mess around with the natural progression or demise of

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Speaker 1: of life on a given world. Right is it, don't

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Speaker 1: get involved in it's it's cultural ascension. Let it, let

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Speaker 1: it happen. Yeah. And one of the major questions that's

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Speaker 1: going to be important to talking about planetary contamination later

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Speaker 1: that we had was is observing mere mere early observing

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Speaker 1: a violation of the Prime Directive? And from what I

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Speaker 1: could tell, it seems like no, Although it seems like, uh,

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Speaker 1: there's there's quite a bit of instances the one that

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Speaker 1: I remember the most is in Star Trek Insurrection with

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Speaker 1: you know, when Data is running around in the invisible

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Speaker 1: suit and goes crazy and rips his mask off and

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Speaker 1: everybody just sees a floating Brent Spiner head. This is

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Speaker 1: the one where f Murray Abraham played Allain. Yes, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so so that clearly violated the observing thing. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: then apparently I haven't seen this one, but there's a

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Speaker 1: next generation episode called Who Watches the Watchers where Ryker

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Speaker 1: and Troy put on makeup so they look like they're

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Speaker 1: members of this indigenous race so they can observe what's

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Speaker 1: going on there. Uh, we're not quite there yet. Uh,

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Speaker 1: but but it seems like observing is okay, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean as long as, of course you're not seen observing.

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Speaker 1: That's kind of the primatologist's view on it, right. You

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Speaker 1: you want to be able to observe, uh, these creatures

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Speaker 1: in their natural habitat. But if they see you, then

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Speaker 1: you you've already disrupted everything. And obviously nothing disrupts a

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Speaker 1: would disrupt a culture's ascension, of a planetary culture's attention

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Speaker 1: more than seeing a starship suddenly appear in the sky. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: exactly right. Oh yeah, that's another good example of that.

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Speaker 1: We'll talk about later when we get into cargo cults

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Speaker 1: is seen in a Star Trek into Darkness of course

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Speaker 1: at the beginning where they see the enterprise and then

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Speaker 1: they start sort of worshiping it by drawing the images

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Speaker 1: of it in the sand. Uh So, I can actually

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Speaker 1: think of worse if they piped in some like Van

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Speaker 1: Halen singles. I could see that that could go beyond

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Speaker 1: the starship. But you know, one of the things it

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Speaker 1: would be Beastie Boys given uh that that particular version

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Speaker 1: of multi Yeah. Uh so. Yeah. One of the things

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Speaker 1: about the prime to active as throughout the show, I

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Speaker 1: mean even a a a Star Trek light viewer like

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Speaker 1: me can observe is that it's not a rule that's

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Speaker 1: simply followed, but it's something that is often debated. People

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Speaker 1: are weighing the pros and cons uh that. You know,

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Speaker 1: they often want to have a conversation about, well, should

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Speaker 1: we follow the non intervention you know, guidelines, or should

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Speaker 1: we step into help where we can, And a lot

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Speaker 1: of times it's sort of like the following the lawful

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Speaker 1: path versus following the good path. Yeah, it reminds me

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Speaker 1: a lot too of the journalists Um Connundiam at times

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Speaker 1: like if I'm I'm not gonna observe, I'm gonna stand

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Speaker 1: back and take this photo, or do I jump in

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Speaker 1: and help in a situation where help is required. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So this leads us into the let's just break down

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Speaker 1: the very beginning or science that we're gonna talk about today.

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Speaker 1: What's the difference between planetary protection and planetary contamination. Well,

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Speaker 1: protection is a term that we give to our goal

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Speaker 1: to protect other celestial bodies. Actually, you know, we're talking

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Speaker 1: about planets, moons, comets, or asteroids here. Uh. We don't

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Speaker 1: want to contaminate them with life from here on Earth

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Speaker 1: as we're going throughout the galaxy, mainly the Solar System

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Speaker 1: right now and interacting with them. That's what's called forward contamination,

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Speaker 1: US contaminating other celestial bodies. And and later in this

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Speaker 1: presentation we will give you some examples where that has

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Speaker 1: already happened unfortunately. Uh, But we also want to protect Earth,

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Speaker 1: right We don't want a scenario like the Andromeda Strain

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Speaker 1: to happen. So we want to make sure that Earth

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Speaker 1: is protected from possible life forms that may have returned

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Speaker 1: from extraterrestrial samples. Anybody here familiar with the Osiris REX

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Speaker 1: mission that's taking off the next couple of I think

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Speaker 1: it's like in the next month, right UH, NASA is

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Speaker 1: sending a spacecraft called Ocyrus REX to the asteroid Baynu,

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Speaker 1: and the goal is to go to Baynu. UH scoop

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Speaker 1: a piece of dirt off of Baynu, put it into

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Speaker 1: a capsule, and then bring it back to Earth so

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Speaker 1: that we can study it. UH mainly about so that

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Speaker 1: they can get some ideas about the origin of life.

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Speaker 1: They think Baynu has got some particularly carbon rich minerals

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Speaker 1: in it that might give us some some kind of

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Speaker 1: history to the universe. So in that case, we really

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Speaker 1: don't want there to be I don't know, like space

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Speaker 1: worms on it that are affect everybody and turn us

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Speaker 1: into zombies or something. So in the unlikely scenario that

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Speaker 1: this UH, this return the soil returned from the asteroid

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Speaker 1: has some kind of microbe in it that could infect

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Speaker 1: our bodies. What if they bring it back and it

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Speaker 1: escapes from contamination there that received the retrieval areas. What

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Speaker 1: if it explodes in the atmosphere upon re entry and

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Speaker 1: then scatters all over the place. They're not very worried

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Speaker 1: about that with the Osiris REX mission because they're they're

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Speaker 1: not very good scientific reasons for thinking you're likely to

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Speaker 1: encounter life on an asteroid, and asteroids just a death zone.

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Speaker 1: It's out in the middle of space. It's bombarded I radiation,

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Speaker 1: micro meteoroid impacts, and there's just it's not a friendly

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Speaker 1: place to live. But there are some other places in

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Speaker 1: the Solar System that we do think are are much

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Speaker 1: more likely to be friendly to life. Yeah, probably the

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Speaker 1: bathrooms here at the jab At Center are friendly to life,

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Speaker 1: I would imagine. Uh No, But so we're talking about

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Speaker 1: backward contamination when we're talking about these asteroids bringing samples back.

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Speaker 1: In particular, NASA is worried about Mars. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if any of you have been down to the show

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Speaker 1: floor yet, but they have a really cool exhibit about

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Speaker 1: their plans for Mars missions. And if you talk to

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Speaker 1: some of the NASA volunteers that are down there, uh,

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Speaker 1: they know all about backward contamination and what their policies

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Speaker 1: are concerning this. We'll talk a little bit about today,

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Speaker 1: but we're not the experts, right. But then also you

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Speaker 1: might be asking so The reason for preventing backward contamination

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Speaker 1: is obvious. We don't want to get infected with space

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Speaker 1: germs and I'll die. Well, this is the selfish side

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Speaker 1: of it, right, I mean, we know, like, whatever you

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Speaker 1: get into out there, don't bring it back home, don't

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Speaker 1: not don't bring it back and then the potentially knows

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Speaker 1: of our environment. Right. But the motivations for preventing the

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Speaker 1: contamination of other bodies in the Solar System is maybe

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Speaker 1: less obvious, Like why would you care if a probe

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Speaker 1: that you send to Mars or Saturn's moon Titan has

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Speaker 1: microbes living on it? I mean, who cares? They're probably

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Speaker 1: gonna die anyway, What does it matter? Well, there are

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Speaker 1: several reasons we want to prevent that. One is protecting

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Speaker 1: science objectives. Uh So, if we're going to Titan or

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Speaker 1: to Mars to try to figure out if there is

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Speaker 1: microbial life living in the soil there, we don't want

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Speaker 1: to take contaminants with it that are going to make

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Speaker 1: it impossible for us to do that scientific research. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's like visiting a crime scene, right, You don't want

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Speaker 1: somebody to go in and leave their fingerprints or their

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Speaker 1: genetic material all over the place because we need to

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Speaker 1: get down to who has had access to it. Instance,

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Speaker 1: the case with with a foreign body. It would be

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Speaker 1: like if detectives investigating a crime scene couldn't investigate it

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Speaker 1: very easily without having all the prime suspects come in

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Speaker 1: and bleed everywhere, um exactly. But but it's difficult. But

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Speaker 1: then there are also other potential concerns. One is the

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Speaker 1: protection of in digenous life. So introducing microbial life forms

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Speaker 1: to a new environment very often kills what's already there.

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Speaker 1: And it's quite possible that if there are life forms

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Speaker 1: on Titan or on Enceladus Europa, Mars, and we bring

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Speaker 1: our own microbes there, there could be a battle of

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Speaker 1: the bacteria and our bacteria might win. Again, that's very

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Speaker 1: bad obviously for those bacteria. That you could have a

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Speaker 1: debate about whether that ethically matters or not, you know,

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Speaker 1: should we care about those bacteria, But it certainly matters

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Speaker 1: for the science. We we want to be able to

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Speaker 1: know if they're there, and so we don't want to

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Speaker 1: kill them all. And then a final reason is that

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Speaker 1: we can disturb natural environments by introducing life forms just

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Speaker 1: like bacteria here on Earth and and uh small organisms

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Speaker 1: have geoengineered the Earth. You know, they've changed our atmospheric composition.

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Speaker 1: We don't want to potentially do that to other planets

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Speaker 1: in the Solar System by accident. So let's give you

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Speaker 1: like a like a real world analogy that will sort

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Speaker 1: of hopefully bring it all together. Right, Like, whenever you

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Speaker 1: travel abroad with an animal here and on Earth, right,

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Speaker 1: you usually have to have documents of some sort that

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Speaker 1: they have their vaccinations. Right, So it's a similar sort

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Speaker 1: of situation. You don't you would sometimes quarantine an animal

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Speaker 1: in those situations you also don't want to, well you do.

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Speaker 1: You have to declare agricultural items when you come into

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Speaker 1: and out of certain countries, right, So how many people

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Speaker 1: here have been through customs before? That's supposed to It's fun, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, So like the example that we're gonna use

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Speaker 1: here is like what if we brought a watermelon up

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Speaker 1: here from Florida and it's just filled with mosquitoes that

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Speaker 1: are infected with the Zeke virus. Right, But that probably

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be a great example, uh because you guys would

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Speaker 1: hate that, But that would be forward contamination. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: you can find plenty of examples just by thinking of

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Speaker 1: all the missteps that we've we've taken in our in

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Speaker 1: our in our you know, recent history here on ourth

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Speaker 1: spreading invasive species across the planet and exactly stabilizing natural environments.

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Speaker 1: The carp car carp fish are notorious invasive species here

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Speaker 1: in America. Yeah, we have a podcast about that, by

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Speaker 1: the way, you can look it up. It's about jumping

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Speaker 1: fish in the rivers of the Midwest. They jump out

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Speaker 1: of the water and smash people's facebones. They do pretty cool. Joe,

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Speaker 1: is there any law? Is there anything that's like keeping

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Speaker 1: us from doing this? Like why can't I just build

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Speaker 1: my own rocket and shoot a zeke a mosquito and

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Speaker 1: outer space? That is a good question. So there actually

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Speaker 1: are guidelines for how you're supposed to behave in space.

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Speaker 1: In fact, there are tons of different organizations treaties that

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Speaker 1: put space law on space guidelines into place. Where's the

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Speaker 1: boundary between law and guidelines, I don't know a lot

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Speaker 1: of times we haven't tested that boundary, So we don't

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Speaker 1: know exactly what would happen if you broke certain guidelines,

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Speaker 1: but we have them. Uh, for example, what prevents Spain

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Speaker 1: from flying to Europa? Here? This is Jupiter's moon Europa.

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Speaker 1: It's believe that it could possibly contain life because it's

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Speaker 1: got an icy crust with liquid oceans underneath it. There

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Speaker 1: could be something living in that water. What prevents Spain

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Speaker 1: from flying a rocket to Europa, sticking a flag down

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Speaker 1: in the ice and saying, I declare Europa for Spain,

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Speaker 1: it is Spanish territory. Now, well, fortunately we have the

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Speaker 1: UN Outer Space Treaty, and all signatories and parties of

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Speaker 1: the treaty agree that, for example, you can't go claim

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Speaker 1: the Moon for your country. It doesn't belong to you.

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Speaker 1: It's the common heritage of all mankind and you can

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Speaker 1: access it equally. But there are other things that are

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Speaker 1: entailed by this treaty as well, right, Yeah, Well it

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Speaker 1: was developed in nineteen sixty seven. It was really you know,

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Speaker 1: in the middle of the Cold War, but they managed

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Speaker 1: to get the U S, the Soviet Union, the UK

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Speaker 1: and a couple of other countries to sit down and

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Speaker 1: you know, agree to this at the United Nations to

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Speaker 1: prohibit mainly countries from placing nuclear arms or other w

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Speaker 1: m D weapons of mass instructions UH destructions de duction

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Speaker 1: UH in outer space. So that was mainly why this

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Speaker 1: was put together. But it also holds all nations accountable

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Speaker 1: for whatever their various actions are in outer space according

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Speaker 1: to international law, so that's important. It does kind of

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Speaker 1: underlie one of the problems with any of this kind

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Speaker 1: of legislation is they always emerged from the time and

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Speaker 1: in which they're rolled out. They speak to very specific

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Speaker 1: near future concerns, and when it gets to the you know,

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Speaker 1: the more far future concerns, Uh, they don't really grapple

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Speaker 1: with them with with with a degree of detail that

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Speaker 1: might be necessary. Yeah, that's the thing of this And um,

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Speaker 1: there were arguments not like a year or two after

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Speaker 1: it had first been written that it was already either

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Speaker 1: too stringent or not stringent enough, and we're still seeing

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Speaker 1: arguments like that today, decades later. So a lot of

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Speaker 1: people argue the Outer Space Treaty is out of date

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Speaker 1: and needs to be updated. But in any case, how

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Speaker 1: it relates exactly to the topic we're talking about today

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Speaker 1: is that Article nine of the U and Outer Space

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Speaker 1: Treaty says that all parties to the treaty have to

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Speaker 1: avoid harmful contamination of the Moon and other celestial bodies,

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Speaker 1: and they also have to avoid adverse changes in the

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Speaker 1: environment of Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter.

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Speaker 1: So that's pretty vague, right it It basically just says,

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Speaker 1: don't pollute outer space with our microbes and don't bring

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Speaker 1: anything you find out there back here that could kill us. Uh.

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Speaker 1: So how's it gives to work? Like, so Spain's gonna

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Speaker 1: go plant their flag on Europa? Right, So how does

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Speaker 1: that work? Can can Spain just do that on their own?

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Speaker 1: They can't do it at all? What are you talking about? Exactly?

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Speaker 1: So Spain is supposed to go to all the other

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Speaker 1: international bodies and say, hey, we're about the send that

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Speaker 1: every I think everybody be pretty astonished if they did that.

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Speaker 1: But they they're gonna We're gonna send a flag up

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Speaker 1: to Europa. Right. They're supposed to tell everybody what their

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Speaker 1: plans are, what their mision, mission parameters are, and what

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Speaker 1: kind of regulations they have in place. Uh. Now that

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Speaker 1: holds for international bodies like nation states, It doesn't necessarily

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Speaker 1: hold for commercial entities. And we were talking about that

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Speaker 1: a little bit later. So for instance, UM, I'm sure

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Speaker 1: many of you have heard that the SpaceX rocket exploded

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Speaker 1: yesterday on the platform, right, Um, what if it didn't

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Speaker 1: explode on the platform. What if it exploded in orbit,

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Speaker 1: uh and it contained something? Yeah? Or what if it

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Speaker 1: was an orbit or orbiting Mars and it exploded there

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Speaker 1: and showered Mars with whatever was inside it. Or it

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Speaker 1: was returning from an asteroid orbiting Earth and exploded in

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Speaker 1: the atmosphere. So okay, so we've got this this Outer

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Speaker 1: Space Treaty from the United Nations. Okay, that's about as

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Speaker 1: close to the federation as we have right now. Um, well,

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Speaker 1: what do we do then for these guidelines? Like who

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Speaker 1: who cooks up these guidelines? Who decides between all these

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Speaker 1: various space agencies all over the planet right now? What?

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Speaker 1: How how do we prevent backward or forward contamination? Well? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so the U entreaty gives us the vague objectives. The

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Speaker 1: actual Uh, some more specifics I guess come from what's

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Speaker 1: known as the Coast Bar Planetary Protection Policy. Yeah. So

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Speaker 1: Coast BAR stands for the Committee on Space Research. It's

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Speaker 1: part of the International Council of Science. So it's an

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Speaker 1: international body, but it's it's mainly like a committee, uh

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Speaker 1: that has a panel within it. It's a little arcane here, Uh.

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Speaker 1: But the planet, the panel focuses on planetary protection. Now,

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Speaker 1: keep in mind the policies that Coast Bar puts out

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Speaker 1: are not legally binding in any way. It's just a

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Speaker 1: set of guidelines on contamination that nations should consider. And

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Speaker 1: they've got five categories that they look at, uh and

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Speaker 1: there for various possibilities. There's flybys, orbiters, landers, probes, non

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Speaker 1: earth returns, and then Earth returns and those are the

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Speaker 1: ones that were the most worried about because they're the

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Speaker 1: most likely to have backward contamination involved. Alright, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: take a quick break and when we come back, more

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Speaker 1: of this special live episode of stuff to blow your mind.

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Speaker 1: And we're back. Okay, Well, maybe we should transition to

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Speaker 1: another question, which is why should we even worry about this?

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Speaker 1: I mean, why tax dollars going to this? Yeah, well

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Speaker 1: it's an it's an interesting question because we look at

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Speaker 1: all this this legislation and sort of pseudo legislation in

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Speaker 1: some some cases where it really paints biocontamination up as

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Speaker 1: this is kind of like the ultimate sin, you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean, breaking the prime directive. Really, but what if

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Speaker 1: it's less of sin and more just the way things

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Speaker 1: work in the universe. What if it's a cosmic standard,

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Speaker 1: and in that it would line up rather nicely with

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Speaker 1: pan spermia hypothesis. And uh, the idea that life exists

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Speaker 1: throughout the universe. It spread from place to place by meteorites, asteroids, comets,

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Speaker 1: planetary fragments, and yes, even spaceships carrying hearty extreme of

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Speaker 1: file microbes. And there are a few different variants of

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Speaker 1: pan spermia um that play in this. Uh. The first

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Speaker 1: one I'm gonna mention he real quick is radio pan

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Speaker 1: spermia ambular podcasts. Right radio radio pant spermia. Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: can listen to it. I think it's a's out of

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Speaker 1: a w N y C. But this is the dust

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Speaker 1: in the wind hypothesis. Yeah, yeah, And this is pretty

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Speaker 1: cool because there's no rocks, no spaceships, the ideas that

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Speaker 1: the micro organisms may live in space driven by radiation

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Speaker 1: pressure away from distant distant stars. So it's very if

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Speaker 1: we have any lovecraft readers in the and the audience

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Speaker 1: is very love crafty and feeling like something like the

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Speaker 1: Mego creatures flying across the void of exhalation of cosmic horror,

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Speaker 1: just floating free. Fortunately for for any of you who

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Speaker 1: are not fans of cosmic hard drifting in UM. Most

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Speaker 1: of what we know about the lethal nature of space

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Speaker 1: radiation tends to rule this one out. Then then there's

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Speaker 1: a litho pan spermia, and this is the one that

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Speaker 1: most of the attention is revolving around. That's the idea

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Speaker 1: you of rocks, they go from one planet to another um,

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Speaker 1: and it jives far better with our understanding of life.

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Speaker 1: Microbes just have to be able to survive ejection from

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Speaker 1: their planet, survival through the radiation radiations wet void, and

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Speaker 1: then atmospheric reentry into planet b um. Yeah. And this

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Speaker 1: this is actually something that uh, some nations on Earth

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Speaker 1: they're trying to test the hypothesis of we'll talk about

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Speaker 1: a little bit later. That's one of the instances where

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Speaker 1: we may have been responsible for forward contamination right there.

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Speaker 1: There's even a you know, hypothesis that life traveled throughout

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Speaker 1: our own solar system, that life on Earth might have

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Speaker 1: originated on Mars exogenesen. Then there's some kind of major

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Speaker 1: impact that spread it from one planet to another. Again,

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Speaker 1: this is not something we know or that they're strong

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Speaker 1: evidence for us. Is very interesting possibility. Now as as

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Speaker 1: as far as panspermia goes. Obviously, you have two possible

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Speaker 1: variants here on top of this. There's accidental and then

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Speaker 1: there is directed Accidental is that the idea that the

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Speaker 1: Spanish go to Europa and they leave some trash. They're right,

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Speaker 1: that we accidentally eat life on the world. The other

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Speaker 1: is directed pants spermia. And this is the stuff of Prometheus.

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Speaker 1: This is the stuff of the founders and track right,

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Speaker 1: it means the deliberate seating of worlds. Uh. And it

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Speaker 1: comes up both in terms of near future concerns. We

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Speaker 1: don't want to accidentally see the world with life, according

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Speaker 1: to some, But then there are those who advocate, well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we we should see dead worlds. Why not? I mean,

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Speaker 1: life is kind of what we're all about. Uh, that's

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Speaker 1: that's kind of our thing here on Earth. Why shouldn't

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Speaker 1: we want to see this flourish elsewhere in the universe. So, Okay,

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Speaker 1: we've we've thrown a lot of theory at you all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden, all this pant spermia stuff. But let's

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Speaker 1: get down to some concrete examples. Where has this happened

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Speaker 1: before in our recent past? Well, arguably you mean fermia

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Speaker 1: or you know, you're talking about planetary protection polls. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about backward and forward contamination. Yeah. Well, let's

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Speaker 1: start with looking at some protection against backward contamination. I

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Speaker 1: want to visit a picture from Space History with you.

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Speaker 1: A lot of you may have seen this before, but um,

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Speaker 1: if you can see the screens. So here we have

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Speaker 1: a picture of the Apollo of an astronauts after they

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Speaker 1: returned from the Moon, and they are they're they're on board.

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Speaker 1: This is July believe did I get that date right? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: But anyway, so they're on board the USS Hornet in

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Speaker 1: the Pacific Ocean after they've splashed down, and the three

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Speaker 1: of them are contained inside this metal box. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: so what is this box? To me? This picture has

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Speaker 1: always looked like Nixon has trapped them in some sort

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Speaker 1: of steel pizza oven and he's about to bake them.

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Speaker 1: And he's explaining to them that he's about to bake them,

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Speaker 1: and how good looking happy they are about it. They're thrilled,

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Speaker 1: they're laughing. But yeah, anyway, so so what is this box? Well,

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Speaker 1: this box is known as the mobile Quarantine Facility, and

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Speaker 1: in reality it was a converted air stream trailer like

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Speaker 1: you would travel around in and uh, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I guess you take the family to go see the

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Speaker 1: Grand Canyon or something in it. But the trailer maintained

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Speaker 1: quarantine on the freshly returned astronauts. Now why would they

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Speaker 1: need to maintain quarantine. It's like that scene an Alien

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Speaker 1: when you know, uh Ash returns with the alien on

427
00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:14,159
Speaker 1: his face and and Ripley is saying, I don't think

428
00:23:14,200 --> 00:23:16,040
Speaker 1: we should let him in, and then they ignore her

429
00:23:16,119 --> 00:23:19,159
Speaker 1: and one of the great lawful neutral characters in science

430
00:23:19,160 --> 00:23:22,400
Speaker 1: fiction is overridden. Ripley is really kind of a patron

431
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:26,960
Speaker 1: saint of a planetary protection. Yeah, she is, totally I

432
00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:29,080
Speaker 1: would agree with that. But anyway, so, so how did

433
00:23:29,080 --> 00:23:32,200
Speaker 1: they keep this quarantine? Well, uh, they kept the air

434
00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:36,640
Speaker 1: pressure inside the airstream trailer lower than the pressure outside,

435
00:23:36,680 --> 00:23:38,640
Speaker 1: so things we want to be pushing in rather than

436
00:23:38,640 --> 00:23:41,480
Speaker 1: bleeding out. And then they filtered all exchanged air. And

437
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:43,840
Speaker 1: then also on their way from the splash down point,

438
00:23:43,880 --> 00:23:46,520
Speaker 1: when the astronauts came down in the water to the

439
00:23:46,880 --> 00:23:50,200
Speaker 1: m QF, they had to wear these sealed suits called

440
00:23:50,240 --> 00:23:54,480
Speaker 1: biggs or biological isolation garments, and they look great. They're

441
00:23:54,520 --> 00:23:58,000
Speaker 1: like full body gas masks. Uh, you know the kind

442
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:00,480
Speaker 1: of thing you see in those apocalyptic movie where there's

443
00:24:00,560 --> 00:24:03,240
Speaker 1: radiation event, everybody runs in with guns in the bio

444
00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:05,919
Speaker 1: containment suits. It's kind of like what Data wears in

445
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:09,159
Speaker 1: the episode where he's observing everybody and then he just

446
00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:11,840
Speaker 1: rips that mask right off episode. Wait that was a movie,

447
00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:14,520
Speaker 1: wasn't sorry the movie? Yeah, these are the kind of

448
00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:16,640
Speaker 1: details that are going to get us chewed out after

449
00:24:16,720 --> 00:24:20,480
Speaker 1: this panels over. Uh, wait to be afraid to show us.

450
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:23,000
Speaker 1: You have a theory here that I think you should

451
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:25,119
Speaker 1: share with the audience. Hold on, I'm getting to that

452
00:24:25,119 --> 00:24:27,560
Speaker 1: all right. Okay, So, so after the Apollo Paulo love

453
00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:30,160
Speaker 1: An astronauts. They've been on the moon, they returned to Earth.

454
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:33,439
Speaker 1: They were kept in quarantine in this trailer with a

455
00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:36,800
Speaker 1: bathroom and a kitchen. I'm sure it was just great. Uh.

456
00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:39,080
Speaker 1: They had to spend twenty one days in here to

457
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 1: make sure, yeah they have bathroom. Uh, to make sure

458
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:45,600
Speaker 1: that they didn't set loose anything that they brought back

459
00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:49,200
Speaker 1: with him. And I always wondered, Okay, so what happens

460
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:52,320
Speaker 1: if one of the astronauts does start to show signs

461
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:54,680
Speaker 1: that they have contracted in an infection? I mean, nothing

462
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:57,800
Speaker 1: happened but what would they have done if buzz Alderan

463
00:24:57,880 --> 00:25:02,320
Speaker 1: started erupting with parasitic moon worms? And would they just

464
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:05,119
Speaker 1: keep the other two guys in there and just have

465
00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:09,280
Speaker 1: like Nixon watching through the window like, oh, I don't know,

466
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:11,840
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, I'm pictures. It's like that scene in

467
00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:15,480
Speaker 1: the Thing where like the the one dog right starts

468
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:18,520
Speaker 1: turning and just like tentacles shooting everywhere, ripping the other

469
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:21,280
Speaker 1: dogs apart. They wouldn't have much choice. They just have

470
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:25,040
Speaker 1: to set the whole thing on fire. Well, anyway, fortunately

471
00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:27,760
Speaker 1: nothing happened to our brave astronauts. But but why were

472
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:31,400
Speaker 1: people so afraid? I have a pet theory? So this

473
00:25:31,480 --> 00:25:35,080
Speaker 1: was July of nineteen sixty nine. And do you all

474
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:40,120
Speaker 1: know what movie came out in nineteen sixty eight? What?

475
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 1: Wo Barbarella? I'm trying to get my okay, I'm sure

476
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:51,359
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon loved Barbaralla. I'm sorry, we're just here we go. No,

477
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:53,879
Speaker 1: it was Night in the Living Dead. Does anybody remember

478
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:57,520
Speaker 1: in Night of the Living Dead what explanation is given

479
00:25:57,600 --> 00:25:59,920
Speaker 1: by the scientists on TV who were talking about why

480
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:03,600
Speaker 1: the dead have come back to life? Anybody remember it's

481
00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:07,920
Speaker 1: it's radioactive contamination. That's hitching a ride on a probe

482
00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:12,120
Speaker 1: that has returned from Venus. The radioactive contamination part doesn't

483
00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:14,480
Speaker 1: really make any sense, but I can see how this

484
00:26:14,600 --> 00:26:18,159
Speaker 1: might have planted a seed in people's heads. Anyway, So

485
00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:21,480
Speaker 1: the procedure into and I'm kidding by the way, I mean,

486
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:24,520
Speaker 1: they've they've been talking at NASA about protecting the planet

487
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:27,679
Speaker 1: for for many years about forward and backward contamination. But

488
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 1: to discount the power that that fiction and popular media

489
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:36,080
Speaker 1: was on on the psyche, I think the idea, yeah, exactly,

490
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:38,400
Speaker 1: the idea was in the zeitgeist. I mean we're seeing

491
00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 1: it in U n policy, we're seeing in movies, and

492
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:44,479
Speaker 1: then obviously in actual space missions. What year did the

493
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 1: andromedas trained by Michael Crichton come out? Was that nineteen

494
00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:51,080
Speaker 1: sixty nine. I think it might have been so right

495
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:53,119
Speaker 1: around the same time. I mean, this was obviously on

496
00:26:53,160 --> 00:26:56,800
Speaker 1: people's minds, and you know, I think for good reason.

497
00:26:56,840 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 1: But then the procedure after it ended after Apollo fort Team,

498
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:02,320
Speaker 1: when scientists they're like, yeah, we've been to the moon.

499
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:04,879
Speaker 1: The Moon's dead. You know it's dead, We've seen it.

500
00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:08,440
Speaker 1: They just weren't really worried about microbial life being there anymore,

501
00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 1: and that that makes sense too, because the fear of

502
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 1: backward contamination is one of those things that we don't

503
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:18,120
Speaker 1: even know what all of the numbers to plug into

504
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:21,720
Speaker 1: our risk equation are because we don't know how common

505
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 1: life is out there. I mean, it could be that

506
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 1: all kinds of planetary bodies out there are teeming with

507
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:29,320
Speaker 1: life that we could bring back and could kill us.

508
00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 1: Or it could be a totally dead universe except for Earth.

509
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,480
Speaker 1: We we just have no idea yet. Are you familiar

510
00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:39,520
Speaker 1: with the Drake equation, So let's let's explain it just quickly.

511
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:43,159
Speaker 1: The Drake equation, Well, it's a hypothetical equation in the

512
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:46,679
Speaker 1: history of thinking about technological civilizations in the galaxy. For

513
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:49,080
Speaker 1: you know, you come up with a number of other

514
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:52,679
Speaker 1: technological civilizations in the Milky Way by multiplying together all

515
00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 1: these variables like the number of habitable planets, the probability

516
00:27:56,880 --> 00:28:00,120
Speaker 1: that life will arise on a habitable planet, the probability

517
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:03,919
Speaker 1: the intelligence will arise from life, And you multiply all

518
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 1: these together and you get your number of planets. But

519
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 1: the problem is most of the variables in the equation

520
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:11,320
Speaker 1: are just a big question mark, and so it's kind

521
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:12,919
Speaker 1: of the same if we were to come up with

522
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 1: a formula for backward and forward contamination. Right. But but

523
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:20,239
Speaker 1: this doesn't mean we should end our concerns, because after all,

524
00:28:20,280 --> 00:28:23,960
Speaker 1: scientists are gonna want to do sample returns from all

525
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:26,560
Speaker 1: kinds of objects in the Solar System, and until we know,

526
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:29,239
Speaker 1: it's probably a good idea to practice caution. So we

527
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 1: want to have Mars sample return. We pick up some

528
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:34,680
Speaker 1: soil from Mars, bring it back, pick up some methane

529
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:37,120
Speaker 1: soaked soil from Titan. I love the idea of what

530
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:40,040
Speaker 1: organisms might be like on Titan. They might be the

531
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 1: super cold, slow metabolism, long planning, slow moving organisms that uh,

532
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:48,440
Speaker 1: I don't know. The slow ones are scarier to me.

533
00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 1: I'm thinking like a greenland shark basically, yeah, yeah, very sleepy.

534
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 1: But also you let from D and D the land sharks. Yeah,

535
00:28:57,800 --> 00:28:59,800
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that is. We're gonna have

536
00:28:59,840 --> 00:29:02,760
Speaker 1: to I'll get chewed out for that too. But then

537
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:06,600
Speaker 1: also like water from the Jupiter's moon Europa, like we

538
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:10,520
Speaker 1: talked about earlier, from Saturn's Moonenceladus. But then there's also

539
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:14,479
Speaker 1: the forward contamination concern that we could look at from

540
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 1: the past. Okay, so you got Mars here, this is

541
00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:21,440
Speaker 1: the landscape of Mars. What if we want to send

542
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 1: a probe to Mars, what lengths should we go to

543
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:28,880
Speaker 1: to make sure that nothing is alive on that probe

544
00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 1: in case there's something alive on Mars to contaminate, or

545
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 1: even just in case that there are places where organisms

546
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:38,720
Speaker 1: we bring with us could settle in and and make

547
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:42,200
Speaker 1: a new home and contaminate our future science. Well, we

548
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:45,760
Speaker 1: have sent landers to Mars before. Of course you'll probably

549
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:48,680
Speaker 1: know that. How about the Viking Landers, right, we said

550
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:51,880
Speaker 1: the Viking Landers one and two down on the surface

551
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: of Mars in the nineteen seventies, and at the time

552
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 1: we had very little idea what might be on the

553
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:58,600
Speaker 1: surface of Mars. You had people like Carl Sagan and

554
00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:01,400
Speaker 1: saying that they're they're could be microbes there, and if

555
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:04,080
Speaker 1: there is a microbial environment on Mars, we don't want

556
00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 1: to destroy it. So we need to put rigorous standards

557
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 1: in place to make sure that the probes we send

558
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:12,600
Speaker 1: are as sterile as dental equipment. They're just you know,

559
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:14,800
Speaker 1: the war. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know if

560
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:19,160
Speaker 1: we set our dental equipment on fire. Well, you know this,

561
00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:20,960
Speaker 1: this underlies them. You know, one of the one of

562
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 1: the big problems about trying to be to behave um,

563
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:29,239
Speaker 1: you know, with with cleanliness to avoid uh contamination of

564
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:32,280
Speaker 1: other other planets is that it's it's kind of the

565
00:30:32,320 --> 00:30:35,120
Speaker 1: wild West. And yeah, the idea of like a sterile

566
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:38,960
Speaker 1: wild West just doesn't doesn't jive with how we operate.

567
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 1: I'd agree that's true. I mean then again, yeah, so

568
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:46,200
Speaker 1: this highlights this tension again like how much how much

569
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 1: time and money should we put into this? How much

570
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 1: does it really matter? Well, I'm glad that you asked, Joe,

571
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:55,840
Speaker 1: because there's two recent examples that will show you how

572
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 1: much or how little it may matter. Remember I was

573
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 1: talking about that there were some missions that were testing

574
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: this this han spermia idea. Right. Well, in two thousand

575
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 1: and ten, I don't know if you've heard about this,

576
00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:11,840
Speaker 1: but the director of the International Committee against Mars Sample

577
00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 1: Return that's a thing. His name's Barry E. D. Gregorio.

578
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 1: He wrote a piece in New Scientist Maggan's magazine about

579
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 1: how there's a Russia. There was a Russian mission that

580
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:25,600
Speaker 1: was going to Phobos Mars Moon, and it was called

581
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:28,800
Speaker 1: the Phobos grunt. I love the name of this mission,

582
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 1: Phobos grunt uh. And it was supposed to be similar

583
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:34,360
Speaker 1: to os Iris recks. It was supposed to go to Phobos.

584
00:31:34,400 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 1: It was gonna get a sample of the Moon, and

585
00:31:37,600 --> 00:31:39,520
Speaker 1: the idea was that while it was there, it was

586
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:45,200
Speaker 1: also going to test transpermia by leaving life behind on Phobos.

587
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:51,000
Speaker 1: That's transpermiama. We transferred deliberately an organism to this place

588
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:54,960
Speaker 1: and it survived. The basic idea being similar to the

589
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:58,000
Speaker 1: rocks thing we were talking about earlier, that that planets

590
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 1: get life forms on from rocks being ejected from meteorites

591
00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 1: or asteroid collisions. Okay, but the probe totally failed and

592
00:32:08,040 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 1: fell back to Earth that it was actually destroyed over

593
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 1: the Pacific Ocean. At the time, this is what six

594
00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 1: years ago now, Russia's space program had several space failures

595
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 1: in a row, and the head of their space agency

596
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:25,840
Speaker 1: actually publicly wondered if there were saboteurs at work. So

597
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:28,760
Speaker 1: maybe this committee against Mars sample return was up to

598
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:31,200
Speaker 1: no good. Well that makes me wonder if yeah, so,

599
00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:35,720
Speaker 1: do we have planetary protection Ninja's out there are spies

600
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 1: going around trying to enforce it's like the infection guidelines

601
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:42,800
Speaker 1: by sabotaging missions that are not appropriately about abiding by.

602
00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:45,960
Speaker 1: That's like Gary Abusey's son in contact, right, wasn't he

603
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 1: like against that? Uh? So there was another one. Unfortunately

604
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 1: it wasn't Russia this time, it was US. We we

605
00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 1: committed forward contamination when in eleven we're working on the

606
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 1: Mars Science Laboratory Curia City, were over after it already launched.

607
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:05,080
Speaker 1: They discovered that there was a set of drill bits

608
00:33:05,120 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 1: that they had put on board and they had not

609
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 1: been sent through their final sterilization step. God, dirty drill bits.

610
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:16,440
Speaker 1: That's horrible. They're very dirty. But it deviated totally from procedures,

611
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 1: so much so that NASA's Planetary Protection officer, who am

612
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:22,080
Speaker 1: gonna talk about later and is the most important woman

613
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 1: in the world. Uh, she recognized this is a problem.

614
00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 1: There was a lot of miscommunication. We're gonna trying to

615
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:31,280
Speaker 1: make sure it doesn't happen again. They weren't that concerned

616
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 1: about it because where they were sending this lander two

617
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 1: is a place called the Gale Crater on Mars, and

618
00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:39,400
Speaker 1: it was mostly just dead ice. They didn't think it

619
00:33:39,520 --> 00:33:41,440
Speaker 1: was possible if there was any life that could be

620
00:33:41,480 --> 00:33:45,760
Speaker 1: harbored there, especially as deep as these drill bits were

621
00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:49,000
Speaker 1: going to be going down. So they were hoping, crossing

622
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 1: their fingers that they weren't going to commit forward contamination.

623
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:54,160
Speaker 1: But it slipped through the system despite the fact that

624
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:57,240
Speaker 1: we've got cost bar and all these guidelines and every

625
00:33:57,280 --> 00:33:59,480
Speaker 1: you know, it comes comes down to just like this.

626
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:01,600
Speaker 1: The brigger is of sterilization because it's one thing to

627
00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:03,120
Speaker 1: you go to the dentist and you see that neat

628
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 1: little tray of items there, right, and yeah, it's like,

629
00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:09,040
Speaker 1: that's not that big of a deal, right to sterilize

630
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:11,440
Speaker 1: a few different instruments and have like a fresh little

631
00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 1: packet of horrible toothpaste to open. But they'll imagine going

632
00:34:15,080 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 1: on a family vacation, Like, how would you sterilize all that?

633
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:20,759
Speaker 1: You gotta sterilize the van, the clothing for the for

634
00:34:20,800 --> 00:34:24,480
Speaker 1: the children, right the toothbrush to the toothpaste the children.

635
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: Right there, you highlight a problem is that it's hard

636
00:34:28,160 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 1: to sterilize people. Um, so what are some protocol options

637
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:34,120
Speaker 1: we we gotta probe We want to send it to Mars,

638
00:34:34,200 --> 00:34:35,640
Speaker 1: we want to send it to Titan, and we want

639
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:38,880
Speaker 1: to make sure that it is just pristine has nothing

640
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:41,840
Speaker 1: on it. Well, So one option is we can build

641
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:44,319
Speaker 1: in a clean room. So like those clean rooms you see,

642
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:47,360
Speaker 1: electronics are constructed in people wearing the bunny suits and

643
00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:49,400
Speaker 1: then you have to go through decontamination to get in.

644
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:52,640
Speaker 1: Would this be the same as when I'm watching, say

645
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 1: like a drug dealer movie where they have in their underwear,

646
00:34:55,880 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 1: I think everybody, yeah, Uh no, I I don't think

647
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:03,919
Speaker 1: that they're about people trying to escape from the clean

648
00:35:04,040 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 1: room with pieces of the lander. But maybe. But so

649
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:10,920
Speaker 1: you can also clean it with solvents like spraight down

650
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:13,520
Speaker 1: with some cleaner, just wipe it out. You can This

651
00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:15,760
Speaker 1: is a wonderful phrase that I've heard from several NASA

652
00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:19,279
Speaker 1: scientists involved in this. You can bake it out, so

653
00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:23,279
Speaker 1: that's dry heat baking of the environment of the thing

654
00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:25,239
Speaker 1: you're gonna send. But the problem with that is a

655
00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:27,919
Speaker 1: lot of times they have sensitive instruments on them. Uh,

656
00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 1: these don't respond very well to a lot of the

657
00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:34,400
Speaker 1: sterilization tactics we want to use. So if you have

658
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:37,520
Speaker 1: sensitive equipment and electronics on something, how hot can you

659
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 1: bake it before you damage all that stuff? You can

660
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:43,799
Speaker 1: also encase it in some kind of BioShield essentially put

661
00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:46,920
Speaker 1: it in a big plastic bag or plastic container until

662
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 1: it gets out of the atmosphere. Um. You know, there

663
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:52,040
Speaker 1: have been also other methods that have been explored in

664
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:54,880
Speaker 1: the past, I know, like gassing things with killer gas,

665
00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: ethylene oxide, or radiation bombardment. Though a problem with radiation

666
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:03,040
Speaker 1: bombardment is that's not as effective at killing microbial life

667
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:06,080
Speaker 1: as it is at killing people, you know, larger organisms

668
00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:07,880
Speaker 1: like us. And then you go back to the sensitive

669
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:10,200
Speaker 1: instrument aspect of this. I mean, a lot of what

670
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:13,160
Speaker 1: we're talking about is internal stuff that is ideally not

671
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 1: going to be a factor unless the thing explodes or

672
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:19,920
Speaker 1: crashes or gets torn apart by like a large space

673
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:23,239
Speaker 1: monster and and partially consumed. Yeah, I mean you point

674
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:25,319
Speaker 1: out that this is a reason this is all much

675
00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:27,319
Speaker 1: harder than it sounds. So you think, like, okay, I

676
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:29,400
Speaker 1: could stare alze, you know, dental equipment again and can

677
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:31,879
Speaker 1: sterilize that white down. You can stare life the whole

678
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:34,000
Speaker 1: of something conceivably, But when you start talking about all

679
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:36,880
Speaker 1: the inside exactly, so if this thing explodes and the

680
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:40,120
Speaker 1: interior components leak out all over the planet, that they've

681
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:42,959
Speaker 1: got to be clean too, and that's so so hard

682
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:45,840
Speaker 1: to do. And then once you enter crude missions missions

683
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:48,400
Speaker 1: with humans on them, there's a whole other stage because

684
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:51,600
Speaker 1: you cannot bake out an astronaut. There's no way to

685
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 1: do it. You bring, you bring microbial life with you.

686
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:56,760
Speaker 1: They can't just wipe you down and make you clean

687
00:36:58,719 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 1: the stuff that's inside out of us. Well, for one thing,

688
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:04,440
Speaker 1: you poop some of it out. So that introduces the

689
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:06,799
Speaker 1: question of should we poop on Mars? I think this

690
00:37:06,880 --> 00:37:10,719
Speaker 1: is a very important thing going forward in human space exploration. Yeah,

691
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:13,319
Speaker 1: this should be a whole department dedicated to that. And

692
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 1: they just have those like doggie bags. Yeah, should you

693
00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:20,560
Speaker 1: bring the same ethics to to Mars that you bring

694
00:37:20,600 --> 00:37:22,399
Speaker 1: to your neighborhood when you go out and walk your dog,

695
00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:24,320
Speaker 1: you pick it up with you. Hopefully you wouldn't be

696
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:26,719
Speaker 1: pooping on the ground in Mars, but yeah, that would

697
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 1: be rough. However, there are current efforts that are in

698
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:32,920
Speaker 1: this area. Specifically, NASA is what we're going to focus on.

699
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:36,279
Speaker 1: So together with the the U N Treaty that we

700
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:41,080
Speaker 1: talked about and co SPAR, there is a basic guideline

701
00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:43,960
Speaker 1: idea for how we should go forward. With this stuff,

702
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 1: and it's all overseen by who I mentioned earlier, NASA's

703
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:53,400
Speaker 1: Planetary Protection Officer. She oversees compliance with requirements for each mission,

704
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:57,280
Speaker 1: and she's typically directly involved in the development and planning

705
00:37:57,320 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 1: stages of all missions that occur in our solar system.

706
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:03,760
Speaker 1: Her name is Katherine Conley. You probably don't hear about

707
00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:07,759
Speaker 1: her all that much. I don't know why she's super important.

708
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:11,239
Speaker 1: She makes sure that NASA and all us organizations that

709
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:14,920
Speaker 1: journey into space adhere to that U n Space Treaty.

710
00:38:15,239 --> 00:38:17,920
Speaker 1: She's way more important than a Kardashian, Like, I don't

711
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: understand why. And I don't mean Star Trek Kardashians, I

712
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:26,600
Speaker 1: mean the the reality TV ones. I'm just I'm surprised

713
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:29,319
Speaker 1: that she's not more high profile. Well, she doesn't represent

714
00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 1: like the sexy side of I know, but man, she's important, Like, yeah,

715
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:36,719
Speaker 1: no doubt if it if it weren't for her. She's

716
00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:39,359
Speaker 1: like Wilford Brimley and the thing. It's the kind of

717
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:42,840
Speaker 1: office where you immediately know the person occupying the office

718
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:45,640
Speaker 1: once there has been a major scrept exactly. Yeah, we'll

719
00:38:45,680 --> 00:38:49,160
Speaker 1: all learn her name when there's some huge catastrophe. But

720
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 1: she just did an interview with Scientific American in the

721
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:53,720
Speaker 1: last couple of years, and she stated that she's actually

722
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:57,080
Speaker 1: less worried about asteroids and you know, not so much

723
00:38:57,120 --> 00:38:59,840
Speaker 1: worried about the NASA stuff because they're following these guidelines

724
00:38:59,840 --> 00:39:02,840
Speaker 1: we talked about. Uh. The one thing that she's concerned

725
00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:06,879
Speaker 1: about our commercial entities sending missions into space, because NASA

726
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:10,359
Speaker 1: isn't supporting all of those, and there's no oversight for

727
00:39:10,400 --> 00:39:14,600
Speaker 1: any of them, especially with regards to planetary protection. So

728
00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 1: currently the Federal Aviation Administration is in charge of launches

729
00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 1: and landings, but only within our atmosphere. There's nobody in

730
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:28,040
Speaker 1: charge of space. So UH, NASA is in a regulatory

731
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:31,799
Speaker 1: agency and they can't do anything about it either. What happens, uh,

732
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:35,120
Speaker 1: if there's a commercial mission, like we mentioned earlier, maybe

733
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:37,480
Speaker 1: they scoop up some dirt off and asteroid or Mars

734
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:42,120
Speaker 1: or something and then accidentally backward contaminate the Earth. This

735
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:45,320
Speaker 1: is the opening of a James Bond movie, right somebody.

736
00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:51,680
Speaker 1: It's like Moonraker, except probably hopefully better. Uh Moonraker. I

737
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:54,120
Speaker 1: think if I had to rewatch a Bond film right now,

738
00:39:54,120 --> 00:39:56,120
Speaker 1: you would beat Moonraker. Moonraker is the one where a

739
00:39:56,120 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 1: pigeon does a double take. Can you remember that, Like

740
00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:01,120
Speaker 1: he drives by on a car that comes out of

741
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 1: the water and the pigeon. Anyway, we stray from the

742
00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:09,239
Speaker 1: subject back back to the requirements that we have for

743
00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:13,400
Speaker 1: these space space missions. We have certain cleanliness requirements, as

744
00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 1: Joe is talking about right, like how sterile they get,

745
00:40:16,120 --> 00:40:18,360
Speaker 1: how much we bake them out, all that kind of stuff.

746
00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:21,000
Speaker 1: So here's the question related to Star Trek. Does the

747
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 1: Federation have a cleanliness policy? I couldn't find anything about

748
00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 1: this online. Do they have like some clean rooms on

749
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:30,880
Speaker 1: board the ships where they make sure that everything is

750
00:40:30,920 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 1: like super clean and they don't have to worry about

751
00:40:34,239 --> 00:40:38,920
Speaker 1: back order forward contamination? Does anybody know? Oh, yeah, we

752
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:43,360
Speaker 1: have an answer somebody. Oh that's smart. Yeah, because the

753
00:40:43,400 --> 00:40:48,719
Speaker 1: transport kills everything that goes through it anyway, including you. Okay, okay,

754
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:50,880
Speaker 1: we were guessing that it had something to do with

755
00:40:50,920 --> 00:40:54,080
Speaker 1: the transporters, but we weren't sure. Yeah. Like for me,

756
00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:56,840
Speaker 1: I start thinking about cleanliness and transporters, and then I

757
00:40:57,080 --> 00:40:59,120
Speaker 1: just go down a rabbit hole thinking about the fly

758
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:01,759
Speaker 1: and like, how do you how do you root out

759
00:41:01,760 --> 00:41:04,319
Speaker 1: fly DNA when you have to worry about other like

760
00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:06,200
Speaker 1: all the microorganisms that are part of the human body.

761
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:08,560
Speaker 1: But that's a separate that's that's true. Brundle should have

762
00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:12,400
Speaker 1: become Brundle gut flora rather than just Brundle fly. The

763
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 1: general rules that we operate under now though, don't have

764
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 1: transporters unfortunately, So we try to avoid unintended encounters with

765
00:41:19,719 --> 00:41:23,879
Speaker 1: objects inner solar system, especially those that have a probability

766
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:27,520
Speaker 1: of no more than one in a thousand of their

767
00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:31,200
Speaker 1: being life on them. This is the ideal, is that

768
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:34,560
Speaker 1: it's supposed to extend for fifty years after emission arrives

769
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:38,480
Speaker 1: at its protected target. So, but think about all the

770
00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:42,799
Speaker 1: organic molecules that could accidentally get on something just from us,

771
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:45,319
Speaker 1: just from us breathing, Like this microphone right now, I'm

772
00:41:45,360 --> 00:41:48,759
Speaker 1: getting all kinds of bacteria on it, or shedding your

773
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 1: dead skin, all of them. Right. Yeah. We we basically

774
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:54,480
Speaker 1: walk around life and with with just a cloud of

775
00:41:54,520 --> 00:41:58,880
Speaker 1: dead skin falling behind us. We really do so. Similar

776
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:02,440
Speaker 1: to coastpar now, USA actually has five categories that they

777
00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:06,320
Speaker 1: use for planetary protection as well. Their main concerns are about,

778
00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:08,799
Speaker 1: you know, whether the mission is critical to discovering the

779
00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:11,839
Speaker 1: origin of life, how much of a chance there is

780
00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 1: that contamination will be a part of it, and they

781
00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:18,000
Speaker 1: look at protection requirements from everything from what is referred

782
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:22,840
Speaker 1: to as bio burden reduction UH to clean rooms and

783
00:42:22,920 --> 00:42:25,759
Speaker 1: bakeoffs as we talked about earlier. I think instead the

784
00:42:25,800 --> 00:42:28,320
Speaker 1: Great British Bakeoff, they should have the Great NASA Bakeoff.

785
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:31,440
Speaker 1: I would watch that just like cooking the Osiris rex

786
00:42:31,480 --> 00:42:35,880
Speaker 1: to perfection. But it's pretty rare that they actually sterilize

787
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:39,080
Speaker 1: any of these crafts. The most concerning of these missions,

788
00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:41,400
Speaker 1: like I mentioned earlier, are the ones that will return

789
00:42:41,480 --> 00:42:47,440
Speaker 1: to Earth after they've brought something back. Now there's unrestricted returns,

790
00:42:47,520 --> 00:42:49,879
Speaker 1: and that is when we go to something that has

791
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:53,080
Speaker 1: theoretically no chance of life, like the Moon, like we

792
00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:55,480
Speaker 1: just mentioned earlier, they be pretty sure that there's nothing

793
00:42:55,520 --> 00:42:58,200
Speaker 1: on the Moon unless there's like transformers buried under their like,

794
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:00,839
Speaker 1: they're at least confident enough to gamble with the life

795
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:03,520
Speaker 1: of everyone on Earth. But the restricted ones are the

796
00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:06,040
Speaker 1: ones that we're worried about. Those are the ones where

797
00:43:06,040 --> 00:43:08,440
Speaker 1: there is the possibility or a sign of what is

798
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:13,520
Speaker 1: referred to as a non terrestrial replicating organism, so so

799
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:18,000
Speaker 1: life yeah exactly, so we get worried about that. Here's

800
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:21,880
Speaker 1: the reality though, no matter what we do, these missions

801
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:26,520
Speaker 1: will never be a dent secure. Our detection methods are

802
00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 1: getting better and better every day, and we're starting to realize, oh, hey,

803
00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:31,799
Speaker 1: these missions that we thought were sterile that we sent

804
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:35,560
Speaker 1: off ten years ago, we totally they were filthy. We

805
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:38,359
Speaker 1: sent all kinds of things in space. So well, our

806
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:42,279
Speaker 1: biodetection capabilities are getting better. Yeah exactly. And like I

807
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:45,200
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier to that that U. N. Space Treaty is

808
00:43:45,239 --> 00:43:48,320
Speaker 1: just getting old and inadequate. So this stuff really needs

809
00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:52,200
Speaker 1: to be reviewed, especially when you've got elon musk firing

810
00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:57,160
Speaker 1: rockets up like every week. This. Uh. One more concern

811
00:43:57,200 --> 00:43:59,359
Speaker 1: I think we should introduce is the fact that this

812
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 1: is not just at an Earth problem. The forward and

813
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:05,120
Speaker 1: backward contamination problem is a problem that we take with

814
00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:09,240
Speaker 1: us anywhere we go. So if we establish a space station,

815
00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:10,960
Speaker 1: you know, like a big space station like they have

816
00:44:11,080 --> 00:44:13,879
Speaker 1: in I don't know, Mass Effect or something, it's got

817
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 1: people walking all over it, that that is essentially like

818
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:20,040
Speaker 1: a new Earth that has the same considerations with it.

819
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:23,799
Speaker 1: Anytime you leave it, you are taking a forward contamination

820
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:26,319
Speaker 1: risk with you. Anytime you come back to it, you're

821
00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:29,520
Speaker 1: taking a backward contamination risk with you. Uh. So this

822
00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:32,560
Speaker 1: is it's not so much about the Earth as a rock,

823
00:44:32,760 --> 00:44:37,280
Speaker 1: but about humanity and humanity's dwelling space, or not just humanity,

824
00:44:37,320 --> 00:44:41,000
Speaker 1: Earth life dwelling space. Okay, but now everything we've talked

825
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:44,080
Speaker 1: about so far has been bio contamination. We've been dealing

826
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:46,239
Speaker 1: with micro organism. But of course there are there are

827
00:44:46,239 --> 00:44:50,560
Speaker 1: other ways to contaminate, uh, an alien world, especially if

828
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:53,560
Speaker 1: that alien world, you know, potentially has language, it has

829
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:58,560
Speaker 1: a culture. Could we could culturally contaminate that world with

830
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:03,319
Speaker 1: you know, some of our our our top twenty musical hits, right,

831
00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:05,719
Speaker 1: the Van Halen hits exactly as we said before. So

832
00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:09,600
Speaker 1: maybe we should start with backward contamination concerns because that's

833
00:45:09,640 --> 00:45:12,840
Speaker 1: more clear to us what the risks could be. So

834
00:45:12,960 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 1: imagine we've got radio telescope array that we have decided to,

835
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 1: you know, listen to a certain patch of sky that

836
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:20,359
Speaker 1: we think might have alien life on it, and we

837
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:23,799
Speaker 1: actually do get a message. Uh you know, they're listening

838
00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:26,839
Speaker 1: to the Tao Setti system. It's about twelve light years away,

839
00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:30,520
Speaker 1: and this obvious sign of alien intelligence comes through. It

840
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:33,160
Speaker 1: is clearly a message. It's made for us to be

841
00:45:33,239 --> 00:45:36,719
Speaker 1: able to decode and understand it, and we do. And

842
00:45:36,760 --> 00:45:40,000
Speaker 1: what are the messages contain? Well, imagine it contains like

843
00:45:40,120 --> 00:45:43,600
Speaker 1: coded schematics for building some kind of machine. What is

844
00:45:43,640 --> 00:45:46,560
Speaker 1: the machine? Or it's maybe the holy text of a

845
00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 1: two setti in religion, or it is a statement of intentions,

846
00:45:50,560 --> 00:45:53,600
Speaker 1: just like hello, here we are, here's our attitude toward you.

847
00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:56,600
Speaker 1: I would argue that any of these things could potentially

848
00:45:56,680 --> 00:46:01,719
Speaker 1: be as destructive to humanity as a foreign microbe that

849
00:46:01,760 --> 00:46:04,040
Speaker 1: we brought down from Titan or from Mars. We'll just

850
00:46:04,040 --> 00:46:06,520
Speaker 1: think back to the primatologist example. If we just if

851
00:46:06,520 --> 00:46:09,799
Speaker 1: all we we had was a clear message, an undeniable

852
00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:13,359
Speaker 1: message that said, hey we're watching, or hey we've been

853
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 1: we've we've been checking out, Like that alone is enough

854
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:20,279
Speaker 1: to just cause just just cataclysmic dust the world. Well,

855
00:46:20,320 --> 00:46:23,160
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, so take this statement of intentions example.

856
00:46:23,200 --> 00:46:25,399
Speaker 1: They they're just saying, hey, here we are here, here's

857
00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:27,560
Speaker 1: something you need to know about us. What if that

858
00:46:27,600 --> 00:46:30,560
Speaker 1: message decodes to we are inbound to your planet at

859
00:46:31,520 --> 00:46:34,400
Speaker 1: the speed of light. We're decelerating currently and we'll arrive

860
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:36,600
Speaker 1: within less than one of your Earth years, and we're

861
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:40,320
Speaker 1: going to eradicate every living organism on your planet, even

862
00:46:40,400 --> 00:46:43,919
Speaker 1: if they're lying, even if that's not true, you could

863
00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:48,720
Speaker 1: potentially cause catastrophic damage to Earth just by spreading the message.

864
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 1: It would be a killer meme. I think that the

865
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:55,120
Speaker 1: counter here would be for for everyone to agree on

866
00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:58,200
Speaker 1: a lay down and play dead today. But the day

867
00:46:58,239 --> 00:47:01,120
Speaker 1: that we realize the aliens will arrive, everyone just just

868
00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:04,000
Speaker 1: just be really still, be really quiet. So we were

869
00:47:04,040 --> 00:47:08,200
Speaker 1: talking about this before we were researching this. I remember

870
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:10,200
Speaker 1: this TV show maybe some of you remember it was

871
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:12,160
Speaker 1: called Threshold and it got like maybe I don't know,

872
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:14,719
Speaker 1: like eight episodes. You remember that Bent Spiner was in

873
00:47:14,800 --> 00:47:17,359
Speaker 1: it and Peter Dinklage, and it was sort of the

874
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:19,879
Speaker 1: premise of that show was that like through like I think,

875
00:47:19,880 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 1: like a fourth dimensional entity was like somehow in you know,

876
00:47:24,280 --> 00:47:28,160
Speaker 1: transmitting information that was basically designed for us to destroy

877
00:47:28,239 --> 00:47:31,040
Speaker 1: ourselves so that they could take over our dimension. Well, yeah,

878
00:47:31,080 --> 00:47:32,839
Speaker 1: I mean there are other ways you could do it too.

879
00:47:32,920 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 1: That what if the coded schematics for the machine are

880
00:47:35,640 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 1: for a planet killer super weapon. It's a suicide machine

881
00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:41,520
Speaker 1: that they trick us into building, and they don't even

882
00:47:41,520 --> 00:47:44,280
Speaker 1: have to come here to eradicate us. Or it could

883
00:47:44,320 --> 00:47:46,680
Speaker 1: be you know what if the the holy text of

884
00:47:46,719 --> 00:47:50,279
Speaker 1: that Taosettian religion is actually very attractive. It's something that

885
00:47:50,360 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 1: a lot of Earthlings convert to, and it's a you know,

886
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:56,400
Speaker 1: destroy your planet religion. In any of these things I

887
00:47:56,440 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 1: think could be potentially possible, but you need to consider,

888
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:03,880
Speaker 1: you know, the coroll area of this, which is also

889
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:06,719
Speaker 1: it could go the other way. You could send a

890
00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:11,040
Speaker 1: meme from star system to star system that's encoded entirely

891
00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:14,920
Speaker 1: in information, but there's no exchange of matter. That could

892
00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:18,040
Speaker 1: be potentially very destructive, and we could be sending that

893
00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:22,960
Speaker 1: meme entirely by accident. Yeah, like Pristans, a warlike alien species,

894
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:26,600
Speaker 1: receives our hanging their cat poster, and they were they

895
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:29,480
Speaker 1: were about the sublime. They were about it's completely drift

896
00:48:29,520 --> 00:48:34,640
Speaker 1: off and just abandon all physical um complications, and they're like, no,

897
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:37,080
Speaker 1: we should hang in here and let's go conquer this planet.

898
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 1: But this brings up what we referred to on our

899
00:48:40,040 --> 00:48:42,239
Speaker 1: show a lot, because Robert's a big fan of E

900
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:46,120
Speaker 1: and M. Banks and his culture series. We talk about

901
00:48:46,200 --> 00:48:50,319
Speaker 1: outside context problems. If any of you are familiar with that.

902
00:48:50,520 --> 00:48:52,680
Speaker 1: We did an episode on cargo cults a couple of

903
00:48:52,680 --> 00:48:54,480
Speaker 1: months ago and this was a big one for that.

904
00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:57,600
Speaker 1: So think about it in relation to what we're talking

905
00:48:57,600 --> 00:49:00,560
Speaker 1: about here with this cultural backward or forward can amination

906
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:05,880
Speaker 1: the society. If a society or civilization encounters a problem

907
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:08,759
Speaker 1: or a threat or or a complication like like we're

908
00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:11,760
Speaker 1: we're talking about here, they have no context to prepare

909
00:49:11,840 --> 00:49:16,000
Speaker 1: for or effectively deal with. That's an outside context problem.

910
00:49:16,120 --> 00:49:19,399
Speaker 1: And as as far as the m banks goes, they're

911
00:49:19,400 --> 00:49:22,480
Speaker 1: pretty much always fatal. Like those societies are just yeah,

912
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:24,960
Speaker 1: like in a big trouble or at least transformed in

913
00:49:25,000 --> 00:49:28,040
Speaker 1: a really right I mean the restrial example is, you know,

914
00:49:28,120 --> 00:49:31,560
Speaker 1: a unless advanced society is out there on the beach

915
00:49:31,600 --> 00:49:34,160
Speaker 1: and then a warship shows up or a colonial vessel

916
00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:36,520
Speaker 1: shows up, and then you know, what are you gonna do?

917
00:49:36,640 --> 00:49:39,560
Speaker 1: You can't to fight is to be annihilated. All you

918
00:49:39,600 --> 00:49:43,320
Speaker 1: can do is give in and or meet it halfway

919
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:45,520
Speaker 1: and find a find a way to still retain your

920
00:49:45,520 --> 00:49:48,719
Speaker 1: beliefs while accepting these new movies. In the example that

921
00:49:48,760 --> 00:49:51,560
Speaker 1: we talked about on the show, and this is real,

922
00:49:51,760 --> 00:49:55,439
Speaker 1: cargo cults sprang up all over Pacific island societies after

923
00:49:55,480 --> 00:49:58,880
Speaker 1: the Second World War because of this very thing. American

924
00:49:58,880 --> 00:50:01,960
Speaker 1: battleships would show up, or maybe planes would land, and

925
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:04,200
Speaker 1: they would see them, and they it was very much

926
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:06,600
Speaker 1: like the beginning of Star Trek into Darkness. They would

927
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:09,319
Speaker 1: literally start worshiping them. They were they were they were

928
00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:12,279
Speaker 1: radio towers and airstrips out of bamboo. It's sort of

929
00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:15,439
Speaker 1: real life evidence of the principle that technology you don't

930
00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:18,040
Speaker 1: understand is magic to you. Yeah. I mean, they were

931
00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:20,960
Speaker 1: exposed to the military industrial complex, to the I mean

932
00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:24,480
Speaker 1: not not just to the physical manifestation, but to the

933
00:50:24,800 --> 00:50:29,759
Speaker 1: network that it represented. And and what can you do, Well,

934
00:50:29,880 --> 00:50:33,000
Speaker 1: you neither change or you die, I guess yeah. Um.

935
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:35,719
Speaker 1: And you know, but you extrapolate that out to a

936
00:50:35,800 --> 00:50:38,960
Speaker 1: larger scenario with us or maybe another maybe an alien

937
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:42,279
Speaker 1: civilization like that we're beaming cat memes to, uh, and

938
00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:45,440
Speaker 1: it gets a little bit more difficult. Yeah. So I

939
00:50:45,800 --> 00:50:49,040
Speaker 1: want to think about the potential dangers of this kind

940
00:50:49,080 --> 00:50:52,600
Speaker 1: of intellectual contamination between planets, and I'll venture a hypothesis.

941
00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:54,320
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if this is true, but it's something

942
00:50:54,360 --> 00:50:56,960
Speaker 1: to just think about. It. Could it be true that

943
00:50:57,080 --> 00:51:01,080
Speaker 1: any planet occupied by a species intell leigen enough to

944
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:05,000
Speaker 1: understand written language, understand a coded message, and receive it.

945
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:07,880
Speaker 1: With technology, it is possible to spread a meme that

946
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:11,880
Speaker 1: kills that species or potentially kills that planet. Yeah, and

947
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:15,160
Speaker 1: on that note, I want to bring up the Federation again.

948
00:51:15,160 --> 00:51:17,080
Speaker 1: I want to get back to the prime directive. So

949
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:21,000
Speaker 1: to join the United Federation of Planets, like generally, well,

950
00:51:21,560 --> 00:51:23,560
Speaker 1: you need to have your planet altogether, right, you need

951
00:51:23,600 --> 00:51:27,440
Speaker 1: to have a unified culture to a certain extent, everybody,

952
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:29,640
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a certain amount of peace, right. Uh,

953
00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:31,799
Speaker 1: and certainly I can. I think there's been a couple

954
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:33,520
Speaker 1: of episodes here and there where that has been an

955
00:51:33,520 --> 00:51:36,920
Speaker 1: issue that's come up. Yeah, Planning wants to join the Federation,

956
00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:42,000
Speaker 1: but there's still like two factions. You don't share our values, right, So,

957
00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:44,840
Speaker 1: but I but I wonder to what extent then, is

958
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:48,560
Speaker 1: a mono cultural world like this is it? Is it

959
00:51:48,680 --> 00:51:51,000
Speaker 1: kind of like having an entire field with one crop?

960
00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:54,799
Speaker 1: Is it like having an asexual organism that has no

961
00:51:54,880 --> 00:51:59,919
Speaker 1: genetic diversity? Uh? It makes it highly susceptible to its

962
00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:05,879
Speaker 1: disastrous meme, to a disastrous cultural contamination incidents, far more

963
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:08,719
Speaker 1: vulnerable right, yeah, yeah, in the same way that I

964
00:52:08,719 --> 00:52:11,440
Speaker 1: think you could argue that a diverse biosphere with a

965
00:52:11,440 --> 00:52:14,280
Speaker 1: lot of biosphere, with lots of genetic diversity and different

966
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:18,560
Speaker 1: types of organisms, would be more resistant to an invasive pathogen.

967
00:52:19,080 --> 00:52:22,279
Speaker 1: Could it be possible that a diverse culture is more

968
00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:26,239
Speaker 1: resistant to an invasive meme? So on one on one level,

969
00:52:26,280 --> 00:52:28,600
Speaker 1: you could well imagine that that something like the Federation

970
00:52:28,640 --> 00:52:30,759
Speaker 1: would want to say, hey, make sure you keep your

971
00:52:31,120 --> 00:52:32,880
Speaker 1: your population a little bit diverse, make sure you have

972
00:52:33,239 --> 00:52:35,920
Speaker 1: you know, sort of a sort of flood barriers of

973
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:39,359
Speaker 1: language there to keep this thing from from disastrous ideas

974
00:52:39,400 --> 00:52:41,960
Speaker 1: from running wild. But then, on the other hand, what

975
00:52:42,160 --> 00:52:45,000
Speaker 1: is the Federation but a kind of infection itself? Like

976
00:52:45,040 --> 00:52:47,319
Speaker 1: it it had it kind of sets back waiting for

977
00:52:47,360 --> 00:52:50,200
Speaker 1: the planet to have a certain amount of uniformity and

978
00:52:50,200 --> 00:52:56,240
Speaker 1: and monocultural susceptibility to infection in this case of beneficial infection.

979
00:52:56,320 --> 00:53:00,440
Speaker 1: So it's its own version of cultural forward contamination. But

980
00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:02,920
Speaker 1: but or maybe even inoculation if you want to look

981
00:53:02,920 --> 00:53:09,919
Speaker 1: at it, and even alsositive step. All right, So there

982
00:53:09,960 --> 00:53:11,960
Speaker 1: you have it. Hey, if you want to learn more

983
00:53:11,960 --> 00:53:14,600
Speaker 1: about stuff to blow your mind, if indeed, if you're

984
00:53:14,640 --> 00:53:17,680
Speaker 1: interested in booking us for some sort of an appearance,

985
00:53:17,719 --> 00:53:20,719
Speaker 1: some sort of a live podcast episode much like the

986
00:53:20,760 --> 00:53:22,880
Speaker 1: one you just heard up you can find is that

987
00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:26,359
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com, along with all

988
00:53:26,360 --> 00:53:29,320
Speaker 1: the podcast episodes, the videos, the blog post, and links

989
00:53:29,360 --> 00:53:33,160
Speaker 1: out to our various social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler,

990
00:53:33,239 --> 00:53:35,279
Speaker 1: and Instagram. And if you want to get in touch

991
00:53:35,320 --> 00:53:37,520
Speaker 1: with us directly to let us know feedback on this

992
00:53:37,560 --> 00:53:39,520
Speaker 1: episode or any others, or if you want to give

993
00:53:39,560 --> 00:53:41,800
Speaker 1: us ideas for episodes we should do in the future,

994
00:53:42,120 --> 00:53:45,000
Speaker 1: you can email us as always at blow the Mind

995
00:53:45,040 --> 00:53:56,920
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. For more on this

996
00:53:57,120 --> 00:53:59,600
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topic Is that how stuff Works

997
00:53:59,640 --> 00:54:16,000
Speaker 1: dot com. Mhm sem start