0:49

Astronomycast, episode 752, should we

0:51

go to the moon or

0:53

Mars next? Welcome to Astronomycast,

0:55

our weekly facts -based journey through the cosmos, where

0:57

we help you understand not only what we know,

0:59

but how we know what we know. I'm

1:01

Fraser King, I'm the publisher of Universe Today with

1:04

me as always is Dr. Pamela Gay, a

1:06

senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute and

1:08

the director of CosmoQuest. Hey Pamela, how you

1:10

doing? I am doing well,

1:12

and happy is that a

1:14

meteor, a satellite, or a

1:16

lightning bug season for all

1:18

those who celebrate. Wow.

1:22

I wish we had lightning bugs. We

1:24

have non -lighting lightning bugs. Oh,

1:27

bugs. Yeah. They are genetically

1:29

lightning bugs, but they don't light

1:31

up, which is really disappointing. Those

1:34

are failed lightning bugs. Yeah, they

1:36

have one job. But man

1:38

spring is just exploding all around

1:40

us. It's amazing how much of

1:42

just the swallows are back All

1:44

of my tulips are up the

1:46

devils are up and like we

1:49

are laughing and

1:51

It's the lyrids and the

1:53

aida aquarids. So if

1:55

for some reason you feel

1:57

the need to get

1:59

up before dawn It's it's

2:01

wild out there and

2:04

the the because It's

2:06

often easiest to see

2:08

meteor showers in the couple

2:10

of hours before astronomical

2:12

twilight and sunrise. You

2:15

were seeing them at the same

2:17

time that sunrise has already occurred

2:19

at orbit. So I

2:21

know that the meteor showers are

2:23

about to tick up at

2:25

the same time that I start

2:27

seeing more and more satellites.

2:29

Yeah. And so I swear. It

2:31

is always this, is that

2:33

no? Is that no? No,

2:36

that meteor is moving too

2:38

slowly. Yeah. Or

2:40

it's a lightning bug in switched directions, one

2:42

or the other. Right, right, right. And

2:45

so one other piece of news, I just

2:47

bought a C -star S -50. We've been touting them,

2:49

but we've never actually owned them or used

2:51

them. And so I just got one. And

2:54

I'm already sort of

2:56

climbing the difficult... mountain

2:58

of new knowledge, but please I'm sure some

3:00

of you out there have these things

3:02

and you've already gone through all of the

3:04

The things that you had to learn

3:06

early on and so if you've got recommendations,

3:09

let me know please all right We

3:11

are on the verge of sending humans back

3:13

to the moon at the same time

3:15

others would prefer we focus our exploration on

3:17

Mars It's tough choice because there are

3:19

costs and benefits to both Let's try to

3:21

give this conversation some nuance and we

3:23

will talk about it a second, but it's

3:26

time for break And

3:30

we're back. So before

3:32

we have this conversation,

3:35

I want to have a

3:37

larger fundamental conversation about

3:39

the value of human space

3:41

exploration. Because I think there's going

3:43

to be a bunch of people who are listening

3:45

to this who are going to say, why are you

3:47

talking about the Moon or Mars? The answer is

3:49

neither. We

3:51

send the robots. So

3:55

let's just take a

3:57

second and explain why we

3:59

think that there is

4:01

a place for human space

4:03

exploration. So,

4:07

there's two different groups of humans

4:10

that go to space now. One

4:13

of them is the

4:15

folks that are going

4:17

up on government -funded

4:19

missions, typically, and

4:21

these humans are

4:24

doing this for a

4:26

tree of reasons. One

4:29

is just general peacekeeping.

4:31

Being able to keep the

4:33

International Space Station functioning

4:35

as a multi -national endeavor

4:37

is perhaps one of the

4:39

things that keeps the

4:41

US and Russia talking on

4:43

good grounds. And

4:45

our two nations have been,

4:48

and the USSR prior

4:50

to that have been

4:53

trying to enable peace

4:55

through science for decades. So

4:58

peacekeeping is one reason that

5:00

you put humans in space. Then

5:03

there is also the

5:05

fact that we have thumbs

5:07

and creativity. And

5:09

having humans in space

5:12

allows us to tinker and

5:14

to fix and to

5:16

figure things out in ways

5:18

that would require purpose -built

5:21

robots at this point. Having

5:25

humans allows creative

5:27

activities that otherwise

5:29

just can't quite

5:31

happen yet. We're

5:33

really good construction

5:35

workers and mechanics.

5:39

And so putting humans in

5:41

space to do those things

5:43

that are spur of the

5:45

moment and to fix those

5:47

things that suddenly go boink

5:49

in the night is something

5:51

that we're also good at. And

5:54

then the third reason to

5:56

put us up there is

5:58

we're studying the biology of

6:00

it. We are our own

6:02

test subjects. And

6:04

we need to find

6:07

the humans as test

6:09

subjects because then there

6:11

is that second population

6:13

of humans, the extremely

6:15

wealthy, who are going to

6:17

go no matter what. Who will

6:20

think about them? And

6:23

it's probably for the best that

6:25

we're able to go, look, look.

6:28

You need to know before you go,

6:30

this is how you

6:33

stay alive. Because we

6:35

have already learned that

6:37

capitalism causes people to

6:39

do unsafe things. And

6:41

unfortunately, an entire

6:43

crew of submariners Thought

6:46

it was a good or very

6:48

wealthy would -be submariners thought it

6:50

was a good idea to get

6:53

in a tank controlled by a

6:55

video game controller. Yeah to attempt

6:57

to go to the Titanic and

6:59

While going to the bottom of

7:01

the ocean is actually way harder

7:03

than going to low Earth orbit

7:06

That mission demonstrated people will do

7:08

stupid things So I want

7:10

to completely disagree with your

7:12

first two premises and partially disagree

7:14

with your third premise. All

7:16

right, go for it. So I

7:18

think that there is no

7:20

reason, no justifiable

7:22

reason to send

7:25

humans instead of

7:27

robots. to anywhere,

7:29

ever. You think the robots are

7:31

good enough now? The robots are good enough, and

7:33

they're going to get better, and they do it

7:35

for a fraction of the price, and they are

7:37

safe, and nobody gets hurt, and so you always

7:39

send it. If you need an outcome, then you

7:41

send a robot. If you want to

7:43

explore Mars, you send a robot. If you want to explore the

7:45

moon, you send a robot. If you want to explore space, you send

7:47

a robot. You always send robots. Robots are robots. But

7:50

space is

7:53

what's next.

7:56

And so once you have stripped away

7:59

all of your reasons and rationales

8:01

and justifications, all you're left with is

8:03

because that's the next place for

8:05

human beings to go because we're curious

8:07

and we want to do it

8:09

and we want to prove it. And

8:11

I think the most powerful words

8:13

that have ever been spoken about space

8:15

exploration that came from Kennedy when

8:18

he said, you know, we choose to

8:20

go to the moon not because

8:22

it's easy, but because it's hard. That

8:24

that it brings out the best

8:26

of us that that accomplishing that feat

8:29

Demonstrates to ourselves that that's the thing

8:31

that we're able to do and and

8:33

so you know we will say we

8:35

should just send robots to the moon

8:38

and Mars You know that I always

8:40

counter with well, why don't you just

8:42

send your iPhone on a European vacation,

8:44

right? So I do want to point

8:46

out you asked the question to space

8:48

sure and Space versus another world are

8:50

slightly different questions. Well, I think you're

8:52

I mean, I think if you're gonna

8:54

use the same reasons, you know You

8:56

can still send a robot to Mars

8:58

like it doesn't matter that you send a

9:00

robot with thumbs Yeah, so and I

9:02

just think that because because as soon as

9:05

you make this argument that we need

9:07

You know that makes it more sense to

9:09

send human for for all of these

9:11

different reasons Then someone will go look I

9:13

made a robot It's got thumbs and

9:15

now your argument falls apart and then human

9:17

space exploration is is locked away forever right?

9:19

An old thumbs bot

9:22

2 .0 goes to Mars, gives

9:24

us a thumbs up, and we

9:26

never send people. And I think

9:28

we don't want to close off

9:30

that avenue of exploration, that there's

9:32

just something special about a human

9:35

climbing a mountain, about a human

9:37

getting into a better built submarine,

9:39

and going down to the deep

9:41

ocean, about a human going to

9:43

the surface of the moon and

9:45

a human going to Mars. And

9:47

that Once you strip away all

9:49

of those reasons, you're left with

9:51

one that is pure, and there

9:53

really is no argument against it.

9:55

We go because that's what's next.

9:57

We go because that is the

9:59

heart of exploration. And

10:02

humans can be disobedient,

10:04

which sounds like a really

10:06

stupid justification. But

10:08

there is a story of

10:10

NASA astronaut basically being like,

10:12

we're going to get that

10:14

rock. And it was a rock

10:16

they weren't supposed to get. It was a rock they

10:18

were told to ignore, head back, and

10:20

they got the rock. And the

10:22

rock turned out, if I'm remembering

10:24

the story correctly, to

10:27

have probably been a meteorite from

10:29

another world that hit the moon

10:31

that we brought back to Earth.

10:33

Yeah. Again, I think we can

10:35

send rebellion bot with thumbs to

10:37

the moon and Mars So again,

10:39

you know if you're looking for

10:41

this kind of control rebellion, I

10:43

think you can still program it

10:45

into a bot But okay, so

10:48

so I just wanted to get

10:50

that That first thing and so

10:52

the people who are like never

10:54

send humans only send robots Like

10:56

we hear you and we did

10:58

we disagree and we disagree for

11:00

faith -based reasons So it's

11:02

really hard to have an

11:04

argument with us now about this

11:06

because we feel in our

11:08

bones that it would be cool

11:10

that humans could go to

11:12

the moon or Mars. All

11:15

right, now we're going to make the case for

11:17

those two worlds, but it's time for another break. And

11:22

we're back. All

11:24

right, so make the

11:26

case for sending humans to

11:28

the moon first. Launch

11:31

windows. It turns

11:33

out that because the moon

11:35

is going round and round to

11:38

the earth and the biggest

11:40

concern at a certain level about

11:42

when to land is what

11:44

is the phase of the moon

11:46

when you get there, we

11:48

can pretty much go once a month, no big

11:50

deal. And

11:52

with Mars, we're looking

11:54

at a launch

11:56

window November, December,

11:59

2026, another one,

12:01

December 2028, January 2029.

12:03

Yeah, every two years. Yeah.

12:07

And it turns out iterative

12:09

design to a point is

12:11

really the way to figure

12:14

these things out. So just

12:16

like with the Apollo program, you

12:18

go, you orbit, you make sure your

12:20

spacecraft is good to come home. You go,

12:23

you almost land or land, you

12:25

come home. And

12:27

this constant iterative design to

12:29

make sure your spacecraft

12:31

and everything else works, this,

12:34

get all of your goods there

12:36

before you get there. You

12:39

can do all of that so

12:41

much faster when you have the potential

12:43

for a monthly cadence of launches. And

12:46

the flight time to the moon

12:48

is days, just a couple of

12:50

days. And so the amount of radiation in your experience

12:52

is very low. The ability to

12:54

send resupply

12:57

and you know you don't even have

12:59

to necessarily follow that launch came to

13:01

be need to send emergency supplies you

13:04

could send it. Off cycle

13:06

and still haven't get there like

13:08

you're not going to time it perfectly

13:10

for the for the day But

13:12

it doesn't matter if they really need

13:14

more toilet paper you can send

13:16

that instantaneously and it'll get there the

13:18

amount of time they spend in

13:20

in direct radiation is Lower because you

13:22

in theory once you're on the

13:24

moon you can hide from the from

13:26

the radiation And then when you're

13:28

done and you want to come home

13:30

you can come home anytime you

13:33

want And so I 100 % agree

13:35

with you that what you're getting is

13:37

this launch cadence, this mission cadence,

13:39

that you are quickly cycling through your

13:41

ideas, you're learning your mistakes, and

13:43

you're fixing them as rapidly as possible.

13:46

You're getting 24 times as

13:48

many chances to learn

13:50

lessons by going to the

13:52

moon as you are

13:54

by going to Mars. It's

13:58

more like 26, 28,

14:00

but yeah. It's

14:02

wildly more chances. And

14:05

you can even, if

14:07

you feel like it, land

14:10

and take off when

14:12

it's dark. So come and

14:14

go as you please.

14:16

Some of the orbits are

14:18

slightly more energy efficient

14:20

than others, but come and

14:22

go as you please. Well,

14:26

we very rarely take advantage

14:28

of that with the International

14:30

Space Station. Astronauts who are

14:32

up there have stayed up

14:34

there when parents have passed

14:36

away, when other terrible things

14:38

have happened down on Earth,

14:41

and their job kept them in

14:43

place. But if

14:45

a medical emergency did arise,

14:48

we could deal with it in

14:50

some cases easier than we can

14:52

deal with medical emergencies and Antarctica. So

14:55

if someone gets cancer on the

14:57

moon or the International Space Station,

14:59

we don't have to worry about

15:01

the fact that it's winter, so

15:04

you can't take off. Or you're

15:06

on Mars, so you can't come

15:08

home. Right, exactly. So

15:11

that increased launch

15:13

window gives us the

15:15

chance to recover

15:17

from mistakes. It gives

15:19

us the chance to

15:21

iteratively design rapidly. It

15:23

gives us the chance to

15:25

just try things and know if

15:27

this doesn't work, we're just

15:29

a couple of days away from

15:31

home. And is that 95 %

15:34

of the reason to go

15:36

to the moon first? No.

15:38

OK. You think there are some other

15:40

good reasons that have nothing to do with

15:42

cadence, OK, and distance? Yeah. So

15:46

beyond that, the moon

15:48

has some nice places for

15:50

dealing with thermodynamics, for

15:52

lack of a better way

15:54

to put it. The

15:56

rise and fall of temperatures that

15:58

you have to deal with on

16:00

these worlds that don't have as

16:02

much light are killer. Now

16:04

Mars does have something of an

16:07

atmosphere. It doesn't have the extreme swings

16:09

in temperature that you find in

16:11

the moon. but

16:13

what the moon has

16:15

is permanently shadowed craters. There

16:18

are permanently shadowed craters, but there

16:20

aren't any permanently illuminated peaks on

16:22

the moon, but there are places

16:24

that are illuminated 97%. You're gonna

16:26

get a couple of hours of

16:29

darkness and the rest the time

16:31

you're in sunlight. For

16:33

all intents and purposes

16:35

of battery packs, they're good.

16:39

On Mars, places

16:42

near the pole have

16:44

polar ice caps that come

16:46

and go. And I

16:49

don't know about you, but

16:51

I am perfectly comfortable

16:53

with burrowing into a crater

16:55

to build a home

16:57

in its rocky goodness. And

17:00

I am uncomfortable on Earth's

17:02

glaciers and definitely do not want

17:04

to be trying to build

17:06

a home on Mars glaciers. Yeah,

17:08

that's pretty scary. And

17:11

then I think, you

17:13

know, you're getting four

17:15

times as much sunlight at

17:18

Earth and the moon as

17:20

you are on Mars. And

17:22

so you need dramatically bigger

17:24

solar panels to be able to

17:26

accumulate that energy. You know,

17:28

once you're out to Jupiter, I

17:30

think it's one twenty -fifth the

17:32

solar energy that you had

17:34

to collect. So if you want

17:36

to live on Europa. But

17:39

so just. And power is going to be

17:41

pretty good. Like power is everything. Like whether

17:43

or not you survive, it comes down to

17:45

can you generate enough energy? You're going to

17:47

need to have more energy if you're going

17:49

to go to to Mars. So that's that's

17:51

another really big one. And

17:53

then as you start

17:56

thinking about needing solar

17:58

panels, we all have

18:00

memories of those poor

18:02

rovers. We were actually

18:04

together in Huntsville when

18:06

we learned about spirits

18:08

demise. If

18:12

you get too much dust piled

18:14

up on a solar panel, it's

18:17

no longer going to be able

18:19

to do its job. And

18:21

if you get a dust

18:23

storm that is too thick for

18:25

too long, it doesn't matter

18:27

if you are capable of going

18:29

outside with your squeegee and

18:32

squeegeeing off that solar panel. If

18:34

the clouds aren't letting the sunlight

18:36

through, you're still going to run

18:38

out of power. And these storms

18:40

can last tremendous amounts of time.

18:42

And, well, things like radiothermal generators

18:44

are an option. Do you want

18:46

to be living with those? They're

18:50

great for robots. They're not as dangerous

18:52

as a lot of news stories make them

18:54

out to be. But they

18:56

still don't seem like the solution for

18:58

keeping your base going during a

19:00

dust storm. Yeah, you're going to need

19:02

like you're going to need some

19:04

kind of portable fission reactor is

19:07

probably going to be what it's going

19:09

to be. You're going to be

19:11

huddled up to. And, you know,

19:13

those have challenges all on their own.

19:15

All right. So are there any

19:17

other reasons why you think the

19:19

moon makes sense? There's.

19:21

As far as we

19:24

know, less deadly stuff in

19:26

the regolith. Wait

19:28

a minute. Now I'm going

19:30

to question that because it doesn't

19:32

have perchlorates. Right. That's

19:34

what I'm thinking. But it is

19:36

like asbestos compared to the

19:38

modest stuff. So you're going to

19:41

bring dust inside in a

19:43

lot of the different spacesuit scenarios.

19:45

There are a few that

19:47

I actually really, really like where

19:49

you essentially dock

19:51

the back of your space

19:53

suit to your habitat and

19:55

you wiggle your arms out

19:57

and reach up and pull

19:59

yourself out, which is going

20:01

to be easier on the

20:04

moon than on Mars. And

20:06

these kinds of scenarios are

20:09

designed to help keep that

20:11

sharp as glass dangerous as

20:13

asbestos. sand out of the

20:15

confines of the capsule or

20:17

habitat on the moon But

20:19

it's gonna get everywhere like

20:21

it's gonna get into every

20:23

piece of equipment and machinery

20:25

and every joint and everything

20:27

and this stuff is like

20:29

is is Going to grind

20:31

and cause wear and tear

20:33

on equipment. Yeah, it's gross

20:35

and terrible and on Mars

20:38

the dust and dirt has been

20:40

thoroughly weathered, not as weathered as

20:42

here on Earth, just because the

20:44

atmosphere isn't as thick and there

20:46

hasn't been water for a good

20:48

long time. But it does

20:50

have more wear, so we

20:52

aren't fully, like, we

20:55

don't have a dust sample

20:57

from Mars to understand exactly

20:59

how does the sharpness compare

21:01

between the two worlds. But...

21:05

I don't think anyone's planning to

21:07

try and start a garden with

21:09

unprocessed regolith that they've just mixed

21:11

poop in and planted potatoes, all

21:13

of them Martian. I mean, those

21:15

experiments have been run. I mean,

21:18

not the poop part, but people

21:20

have attempted to grow plants in

21:22

lure regolith on the Chinese did

21:24

this on the moon. So, all

21:26

right. All right, now we're going

21:28

to make the case for Mars

21:31

in a second, but it's time

21:33

for another break. And

21:37

we're back. All right,

21:39

so we have it. It feels like

21:41

the moon is an overwhelmingly good choice.

21:43

If you're going to go somewhere, why

21:45

not go to the moon? But there

21:48

are some things that Mars has going

21:50

for it as well. So,

21:53

where to start? I mean,

21:55

the best place to start is

21:58

it's at humane temperatures. Ish.

22:00

Ish. Ish. So,

22:03

I... Yeah, it can

22:05

get unfreakin' believably cold on

22:07

Mars, but I still

22:09

remember the day that little

22:11

opportunity landed. I was

22:13

in my office in Harvard.

22:15

They were talking about

22:17

the temperatures on Mars, and

22:19

I looked at the

22:22

thermostat, not the thermostat, the

22:24

temperature readout for our

22:26

weather station up on the

22:28

roof. And it

22:30

was warmer on Mars that

22:32

day. Yeah, I mean like

22:34

near the equator Mars can get up

22:36

to 20 Celsius. Yeah,

22:39

yeah, you can

22:41

get reasonable temperatures -ish.

22:45

The air pressure is still such

22:47

that if you attempted to

22:49

go outside with just an oxygen

22:51

mask, you would have massive

22:53

amounts of bruising. The capillaries on

22:55

your skin would be like

22:57

And we explode now. Yeah, it's

23:00

like a 100 times less

23:02

air pressure than Earth. So, but

23:04

it's still better than the

23:06

moon. Like I think, you know,

23:08

if you want some atmosphere,

23:10

then Mars is better than the

23:12

moon. And that atmosphere gives

23:14

you protection from radiation. It gives

23:17

you like a certain tiny,

23:19

tiny little level of, of atmospheric

23:21

pressure. So though it's still

23:23

like Mars is in the, like

23:25

you're already like, oh, they

23:27

are, they are pressure is so

23:29

low. Well, yeah, but. Beats

23:31

the moon right and and this

23:34

also adds a certain dimension

23:36

of safety so on the moon

23:38

If you put yourself in

23:40

a permanently shattered region, which honestly

23:42

I recommend Your heating goes

23:44

out you die because you freeze

23:46

to death and everything you

23:49

have with you freezes to non

23:51

functionality you just freeze if

23:53

you put yourself in

23:55

a sunlit area, you're dealing

23:57

with this constant temperature cycling,

23:59

hot to cold, hot to

24:01

cold. And that is

24:03

not good for any

24:05

structure, because things thermally expand

24:07

and contract. On

24:10

Mars, you don't

24:12

have the same amount of thermal cycling. You

24:15

have a yearly

24:17

thermal cycling, and you

24:19

have more earth -like

24:21

day night. Like

24:24

I said, not identical,

24:26

temperature cycling. And

24:28

if your systems go out,

24:30

this is going to give you

24:33

a lot more time to

24:35

try and recover. We

24:37

know how to dress for

24:39

the cold. We can send

24:41

stuff so that these astronauts

24:43

can literally bundle themselves up

24:45

and probably not freeze to

24:47

death while they're trying to

24:49

fix all of their systems.

24:52

It also means because there's more pressure

24:54

outside that if you get a leak

24:56

in your system. Don't

25:00

do like the Russians did

25:02

and attack the leak trying to

25:04

figure out what happened. The

25:06

video if you have never seen

25:08

it, there was a very

25:10

upset cosmonaut that literally attacked one

25:13

of the components of the

25:15

International Space Station trying to figure

25:17

out a leak. It is

25:19

hilarious and terrifying. Do not do

25:21

that. But while you're repairing

25:23

the leak, air is going to

25:25

escape slower through the same

25:27

size holes. So all

25:29

of these slight improvements buy

25:32

you time to try and figure

25:34

out how to fix things

25:36

that you don't have if you're

25:38

on the moon. You've got

25:40

more gravity. Yes.

25:43

So with more gravity, we are

25:45

still trying to figure out

25:47

we do not have enough data

25:49

on this. How

25:52

much gravity is

25:54

necessary to keep

25:56

human systems happy? We

26:00

don't know at what

26:02

point does calcium loss stop

26:04

being as big a

26:06

factor. We don't know at

26:08

what pressure does ocular

26:10

damage stop being as big

26:12

an issue. But

26:14

with higher gravity, if you're

26:16

trying to compensate through

26:19

exercise, You're probably not

26:21

going to have to spend

26:23

quite so many hours banded

26:25

up trying to exercise against

26:27

elastics. Yeah. Yeah. Um,

26:29

yeah. And so that

26:31

day length, you know, on the

26:33

moon, it's 14 days of day

26:35

and 14 days of night. Yeah.

26:37

on Mars, it's pretty much almost

26:39

the same as earth, like 20,

26:41

45 more minutes. Yeah. Yeah. So

26:43

just shy of 25 hours. And

26:45

that's, that feels like the. almost

26:47

the nicest thing and it's interesting.

26:50

People have done experiments like

26:53

people have gone into caves

26:55

and let their circadian rhythms

26:57

just become detached from the

26:59

actual day -night cycle and it

27:01

turns out human beings can

27:03

shift to longer rhythms. So

27:06

it should be easy to

27:08

adapt to Amar's day. There

27:11

was one insane

27:13

researcher If he

27:15

was sane when he went

27:17

in he was not entirely

27:19

sane when he came out.

27:21

Yeah, who put himself in

27:23

a completely dark scenario for

27:26

I want to say it

27:28

was 75 days and His

27:30

day night cycle shifted to

27:32

about 30 hours. Yes So

27:34

this room there to breathe

27:36

for sure. Yeah, so the

27:38

longer day Especially if you

27:40

put it all into your

27:42

sleep Lord knows

27:45

most of us don't get enough

27:47

sleep It's gonna be a

27:49

good thing and then you know

27:51

we talked about and I

27:53

think this one is the wash

27:55

which is that on the

27:57

moon the regolith is glass and

27:59

Will cause long -term health damage

28:01

if it gets into your

28:03

body into your bloodstream the it

28:05

is less Jagged on Mars,

28:07

but still not totally safe like

28:09

there's some There's

28:11

some research we've been reporting on

28:13

this, well not even just the perchlorates,

28:16

we'll get to that in a

28:18

second, but that even the shape of

28:20

the stuff on Mars is potentially

28:22

dangerous, that it can be very small,

28:24

the dust can go into your

28:26

lungs and can cause potentially damage, emphysema,

28:28

bronchitis, things like that. on

28:32

Mars, it is filled with perchlorides,

28:34

or not filled, but has like

28:36

one percent of its weight is

28:38

perchlorate, which is poison. So

28:41

you have to wash this

28:43

stuff if you want any chance

28:45

of interacting with it and

28:47

not causing damage. You know, your

28:49

poo potatoes will need to

28:51

be in wash regolith, not just

28:53

straight up. Yeah. Yeah. Are

28:57

there any other advantages

28:59

to being on Mars?

29:04

So, moons? I

29:07

mean, there is option

29:09

C. And

29:11

any of you who remember the

29:13

early days of the constellation program

29:15

back under the Obama administration, it

29:17

feels like every president has their

29:19

own goals for space exploration. There,

29:22

the idea was

29:24

moon asteroid Mars. And

29:27

the reason that you want

29:29

to go to something like

29:31

a distant moon, so

29:34

phobostemos, go to an asteroid that

29:36

is not in the main

29:38

asteroid belt but is closer, is

29:41

these are that

29:43

intermediate experiment where we

29:45

don't know if

29:47

we can successfully land

29:49

on Mars and

29:52

then take back off.

29:55

could very easily be a one -way

29:57

journey. We know that we know

29:59

how to take back off of

30:01

lower gravity things like the moon.

30:04

And asteroids come in sizes

30:06

that are very moon -like and

30:08

smaller down to as small

30:11

as you want, basically. And

30:14

so these lower

30:16

gravity environments allow

30:18

us to go

30:20

someplace that has

30:23

All the challenges of Mars

30:25

in terms of distance, in

30:27

terms of light, travel time,

30:29

lag, that's something that didn't come

30:31

up is you can have an

30:33

awkward real -time conversation with someone

30:35

on earth if you're on the

30:38

moon. You're looking

30:40

at times when there's

30:42

absolutely no communications allowed

30:44

because the sun is

30:46

annoyingly located. With

30:49

Mars there's blackout windows. There's

30:51

20 minute delays even in some

30:53

of the most optimum conditions

30:55

And then I think there's a

30:57

bunch of stuff that's awash

30:59

There's lavatubes on both worlds, so

31:01

you can use those. There

31:04

are local resources that you can

31:06

use, various kinds of metals and

31:08

silicon and oxygen and all this

31:10

kind of stuff on both. There

31:12

is access to water in both

31:14

places in different spots. So I

31:16

think a lot of that stuff

31:18

is a wash. So I

31:20

think we've reached the end of our episode now. So

31:24

I guess we'll both vote but I

31:26

suspect we're gonna say the same thing

31:28

Which is that if you then had

31:30

to come you know someone said choose

31:32

Kelly you got to decide what it's

31:35

one or the other We're going to

31:37

the moon. We're going to Mars Or

31:39

to an asteroid first What is your

31:41

answer? The moon. Yeah,

31:43

me too. Yeah, it's the moon.

31:45

It's it's so clearly the moon

31:47

Like but okay, like I want

31:49

to throw a bone to the

31:51

Mars people. Yeah If

31:54

we in all of humanity's future

31:56

space exploration were only able to

31:58

go back or go to one

32:00

of those worlds and we did

32:03

it and we were very successful,

32:05

which is the one that you

32:07

would have preferred that we would

32:09

have gone to? Mars

32:11

because I want to go

32:13

fossil Mars Mars yeah, like the

32:15

one that we want to

32:17

go to is Mars Yeah, but

32:19

the one that we think

32:21

is practically makes sense is

32:24

the moon first, then

32:26

go to Mars. So I

32:28

think we have no

32:30

disagreement with the Mars people.

32:33

It's just baby steps. Can we practice first?

32:35

Can we practice first? Yeah. Yeah. Before we

32:37

put it all on the line and go

32:39

to the world that is so much farther

32:41

and so much more dangerous. Yeah.

32:43

And like I said, fossil

32:45

hunting. You can do fossil hunting

32:47

on Mars. Yeah. Mars is

32:49

just so cool. Yeah. And,

32:51

yeah, all of these places,

32:53

someone's mentioning in the chat, right?

32:56

Valzmer and Eris, Olympus Mons, these

32:58

incredible terrain that Mars is just

33:00

going to feel like, to be

33:02

in that one third gravity, Mars

33:05

is going to feel like another

33:07

place. It is the one that

33:09

I emotionally would rather us explore.

33:12

If someone's saying we've already been to the moon, that's

33:14

exactly true. We've already been to the moon. So

33:16

Mars is the one that emotionally we want to

33:18

go to. But practically, if we want to do

33:21

this right, if we want to be careful and

33:23

rational, we go to the moon first, we

33:25

learn all our skills, and then we go

33:27

to Mars. And I

33:29

want to recommend the book Red

33:31

Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's

33:33

older, but it still stands up

33:35

as one of the few to

33:37

look at all the sociological issues. of

33:40

going to Mars and

33:42

don't buy into terraforming, that's

33:44

not gonna happen anytime

33:47

soon. Anytime soon. But, yeah.

33:49

Yeah, and then I think the one that will

33:51

talk you out of all of the reasons that

33:53

people give for going and living on Mars is...

33:55

I know what book you're gonna say. Yeah, is

33:57

A City on Mars by Zach and Kelly Wienersmith.

33:59

exactly. It's so good. Um, you know, you would

34:02

just be, you're going into going, I think we

34:04

should build a giant city on Mars. You know,

34:06

come up the other side of it going, there

34:08

is no point to build a giant city on

34:10

Mars. Um, so

34:12

all right. Well, that was awesome.

34:14

Thanks Pamela. Thank you, Fraser, and

34:16

thank you to all of our

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patrons out there. We would not

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35:00

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35:21

Thank you all so very much.

35:24

Thanks everyone, and we'll see you

35:26

next week. Bye -bye everyone.

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