The Insane Biological Cost of Living on Mars - Scott Solomon

1. 0:00 – 3:44

   Is Living on Mars Actually Possible?

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      What's the NASA CHAPEA experiment? It's just hit the 100-day mark.

   2. SSScott Solomon0:06

      Yeah, it has. Yeah. So this is basically a, it's a simulation. Uh, it's a way of trying to understand what life would actually be like for people living on Mars. And the way that they're doing this is by, they've a- created a mockup of a space settlement, um, and they've built it in Johnson Space Center in, in Houston. So, uh, just down the street from me here, really. And, uh, it's built to be kind of like what they think it would actually be like on Mars, right? So they actually 3D printed it, which is one of the technologies that has been suggested for how we might build structures on Mars. And then a group of, uh, I believe it's four, a crew of four people have, uh, entered it, and they are living inside it, uh, as you said, for 100 days so far, but the plan is for it to last a full year. So this is kind of like a thing that people do when they're trying to understand what, um, different aspects of space settlement might actually be like, is they create what are called analogs, basically a model that sort of replicates some aspect of a space environment, a space, um, settlement in this case. And then they put people inside and, uh, and try to sort of understand what happens. So, uh, this is the second one that they've done. They did a, a, a full year already, um, and, uh, and this is the second full year study of, um, people inside this kind of mockup of a, uh, Mars habitat.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:44

      How much do you think they're testing physiological change versus psychological change?

   4. SSScott Solomon1:52

      Yeah. I think a lot of, um, what these analog studies, uh, try to get at, and, and is true of this study as well, is the psychology. Because of course, they can't replicate a lot of the physical conditions of being on Mars. You know, there's one-third the Earth's gravity, right? They're not, they're not simulating that. Uh, there's probably gonna be a lot higher radiation exposure on, uh, in a Mars habitat, and they're not, they're not simulating that. [coughs] Excuse me. Um, so some of the things that they can simulate are, of course, being in a confined space, uh, being in a area where, you know, you're limited to what you brought with you. They're not, um, they're not able to kind of come and go, and they're not able to bring new materials and supplies in or out. And, um, you know, another big part of it is sort of the, the, the interaction between the crew members. So what is it like to be, you know, more or less stuck with just the other, uh, three folks that you brought with you for an extended time period?

   5. CWChris Williamson2:56

      It's the most boring episode of Love Island ever filmed, but it lasts for an entire 12 months.

   6. SSScott Solomon3:01

      I really think they could make, uh, some reality TV shows out of these analogs because there's, uh, quite a few of these types of things that are in different places. I went and visited, uh, one of them actually when I was researching, uh, my first book, which just touched on the idea of, uh, of how we might change in space. Um, and that was out in Utah. It's called the Mars Desert Research Station, and a remote facility in a place in the desert that really kind of looks like Mars. And so I went out there and visited a crew that, uh, had just begun a simulation. Um, and it was fascinating to see kind of, you know, what they're doing and how... the ways that they try to kind of make it feel realistic and, and the kind of things that they try to learn. And there's a whole bunch of these.

2. 3:44 – 13:17

   Is Space Exploration Evolutionary?

   1. CWChris Williamson3:44

      How much is space exploration an evolutionary event versus a technological one?

   2. SSScott Solomon3:51

      Well, that's really the thing that I'm most interested in. So my background, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm an evolutionary biologist, right? And so the thing that got me most interested in this topic of, like, how will people be affected by being in space, is the question of would making a long-term settlement on Mars or, or anywhere else lead to evolutionary change? From my perspective, uh, you know, I think it's inevitable. I think basically if you are creating a, a situation where people are not just going and coming back, but they're going to live there, in other words, they're moving there, that's where their lives are, and most importantly, they're having families there, they're raising children there. Once you start talking about a multiple generation, uh, you know, generational presence on another world, we should expect evolutionary change. That's, that's how evolution works, right?

   3. CWChris Williamson4:47

      Mm-hmm. Well, migration in the past has caused divergence, right? What was that, uh, uh, Homo floreiens- florensius?

   4. SSScott Solomon4:57

      Floresiensis. Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson4:58

      Flo-

   6. SSScott Solomon4:58

      Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson4:58

      Floresiensis. The-

   8. SSScott Solomon4:59

      That's right

   9. CWChris Williamson5:00

      ... the pygmy, pygmy people.

   10. SSScott Solomon5:02

       So-

   11. CWChris Williamson5:02

       So can you... You're a evolutionary biologist. I've been telling this story on the show for ages. Can you tell me if this is true or not? So I'd heard, uh, they were, uh, Indonesia, right?

   12. SSScott Solomon5:11

       Yeah. That's right, the island of Flores, which is today part of Indonesia.

   13. CWChris Williamson5:15

       So Indonesia, if anyone looks at it on a map, it's kind of like someone's thrown crumbs over a table. It's very, it's very broken up. And what it seemed like was a particular hominid Homo previous species got split off, and the island that they were on was very, very restricted in terms of, uh, the calories that they could consume in, in, in terms of the resources. So that meant that over time, the smallest humans were the ones that were selected to survive because they needed fewer, fewer calories. Then one of the f- [chuckles] the story that I've always told is this restriction in resources wasn't just affecting the humans, but it was affecting all of the other species as well. So there are sights of tiny 3-feet, 4-feet high humans carrying tiny spears-... chasing tiny elephants or mammoths. So all of the creatures had been diminutized down to this tiny little level, uh, because they were all on this little island. Is that bullshit or am I right?

   14. SSScott Solomon6:14

       Well, that is one of the ways that we think about it, and, and you're- you've got a lot of the story correct there. So you're absolutely right that basically what people have found are these skeletal remains inside of a cave on this island of Flores of, uh, these very s- short statured, small-bodied hominids. Their, the structure of their bones shows us that they were different from any other species that we know about anywhere else in the world that's ever been found. They're only ever been found from this one island. So based on that, we assume they were restricted to the island. Somebody could later find them somewhere else, and that would change the story. But for now, you're absolutely right that our understanding is they only lived on this island. And because they're such, uh, short-bodied hominids in a, you know, is very different from pretty much any other species. I'll tell you the actual twist to that in just a moment, but yeah, we, we think what may have happened is that their ancestors made it there somehow. They were stranded on this island, and basically they evolved to be shorter, and as you pointed out, they're not the only species that evolved to be smaller. Um, we actually know that this is a common phenomenon that happens to species that are isolated on islands, is that they change size. So there's, all over the world, there's all of these examples of these miniature species that live on islands, and elephants are actually a good example. There's, there's small-bodied fossil, you know, mammoths and, and other elephant relatives on islands like in the Mediterranean and, and elsewhere in Asia. Um, so that definitely is something that happens on islands. But there's more to it, which is actually fascinating because on that same island of Flores, not only were there other small-bodied species, but there were actually giants too. So, you know, the Komodo dragon from Australia? This is, uh-

   15. CWChris Williamson8:06

       Mm-hmm

   16. SSScott Solomon8:06

       ... sorry, not from Australia, from, from Komodo. It's actually near the Island of Flores. Um, so there were species that were closely related to Komodo dragons but were enormous, these absolutely giant lizards, I mean, really like a, like a real dragon, uh, on that same island at the same time as, uh, Homo floresiensis. And that's the thing that happens on islands is, you know, a lot of times they'll get smaller, but sometimes they'll get much bigger. Think about, you know, giant tortoises like in the Galapagos Islands-

   17. CWChris Williamson8:37

       Mm-hmm

   18. SSScott Solomon8:37

       ... right? So we call this the island rule, and the idea is, like, things change size. They either get much bigger or much smaller, and that seems to be true of, uh, of hominids, which are basically, you know, humans or human-like species as well. Um, and I promised I would give you the, the twist. So, so there is actually, since that discovery, there was another discovery of another hominid, also small-bodied, on an island in the Philippines, and it's a different species. It's Homo-

   19. CWChris Williamson9:09

       No way.

   20. SSScott Solomon9:10

       Yeah, Homo luzonensis now, uh, Luzon. And so this-

   21. CWChris Williamson9:15

       Same effect-

   22. SSScott Solomon9:16

       We think-

   23. CWChris Williamson9:16

       ... but a different speciation.

   24. SSScott Solomon9:18

       That's the, that's the interpretation. We think that this is, like, yet another instance where-

   25. CWChris Williamson9:23

       So fucking cool

   26. SSScott Solomon9:23

       ... some type of hominid goes isolated and became smaller. So-

   27. CWChris Williamson9:27

       Well, wasn't the, wasn't the Flores man, they were still alive like 10,000 BC, 12,000 BC, I think.

   28. SSScott Solomon9:34

       So, so the initial dates when those fossils were first discovered were, were that they survived up until very recen- recently by like, you know, historical... not historical, by, by evolutionary standards, by sort of the geological timescale that, you know, we scientists are used to. Um, those dates have since been pushed back a bit-

   29. CWChris Williamson9:54

       Oh

   30. SSScott Solomon9:54

       ... as they've gotten more evidence. So still quite recently, I think it, I wanna say it's something like 50,000 years is now when they think they, they finally disappeared. But the thing is about that, that that still means that they probably overlapped with our species, with Homo sapiens, right? So, like, the first Homo sapiens were arriving in that area right around the time that Homo floresiensis disappears.
3. 13:17 – 21:46

   What Space Flight Really Does to the Body

   1. SSScott Solomon13:17

      there.

   2. CWChris Williamson13:17

      Okay. Before we even get to Mars, what happens during space flight?

   3. SSScott Solomon13:22

      Yeah. So, um, you know, it's, it's funny 'cause we haven't been flying in space for that long, right? Like, you know, w- w- we've got, what? Just like 70 years of, of history of, of human space flight.

   4. CWChris Williamson13:32

      And we're already looking past it. We're already thinking, "Ah, we've... You know, in space, we've got that. That's in the bag. What's next?"

   5. SSScott Solomon13:39

      Yeah. And, you know, in the early days, like, we had no idea. Like, literally, people thought, like, your eyes might pop out of your head if you go into space. Like, that was a question. Could you swallow? These were unanswered questions, uh, when people first went to space. But we've learned a ton. Like, we know quite a bit now about if you were to, you know, get on a, a rocket, fly up to space, uh, spend, you know, a couple days there and come back, I... You know, we could tell you with a lot of certainty kind of what is likely to happen to your body. And we know that, like, the main effects are the change in gravity, right? You're in a weightless environment typically when you're in space, and, um, and that does a lot to your body. It causes your, your, your muscles to weaken 'cause they don't have to work as hard, right? Especially, like, in your lower body, your back. Um, and, uh, and, and because your muscles aren't working as hard, your bones basically respond to muscle. And so they start to kind of break down. Like, they basically will start to absorb, the body will absorb some of the minerals, right, the calcium and the potassium that makes up your bones. And-

   6. CWChris Williamson14:43

      Is that, is that just because they're not being strained?

   7. SSScott Solomon14:46

      That's right. Yep.

   8. CWChris Williamson14:46

      Is this kind of, like, atrophy for the muscles but for the structure?

   9. SSScott Solomon14:50

      Exactly. And actually, one of the ways that, uh, people have studied the effects of prolonged space flight is through bed rest studies. So just by not moving your body much, it's not the... It's not a perfect replica, but it does simulate some of the, the ways in which being in a lower gravity environment impacts, um, the, the body. The circulatory system, right? Your heart's not having to pump as much to get blood through the entire body. You know, to get blood up to your brain, uh, you know, you gotta work against gravity here, but in space you don't. Um, so we know a lot about that. We know that, um, you know, the fluids in your body actually, not just your, the blood, but all of your body fluids start to be redistributed because, you know, gravity normally pushes them down towards your lower body. So, you know, if you look at pictures of astronauts in space, you probably can tell, like, especially at first, their faces look kind of puffy.

   10. CWChris Williamson15:40

       Moon face.

   11. SSScott Solomon15:41

       Yeah. And they-

   12. CWChris Williamson15:42

       Space face.

   13. SSScott Solomon15:43

       Yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson15:43

       Space face. They've got space face.

   15. SSScott Solomon15:44

       They have space face, and they have what they call chick- chicken legs, right? 'Cause their legs look super skinny-

   16. CWChris Williamson15:48

       [laughs]

   17. SSScott Solomon15:48

       ... because they've lost all this fluid. So they look a little silly, at least at first. Um, and-

   18. CWChris Williamson15:52

       What happens... Hang on just on that. At first, does that mean that the body somehow reaches a, a new kind of equilibrium? So I'm gonna guess a lot of this is kind of what glymphatic, lymphatic clearance stuff-

   19. SSScott Solomon16:03

       That's right.

   20. CWChris Williamson16:04

       Right.

   21. SSScott Solomon16:04

       Yeah. So, so, um, now that we've had people that have stayed for, for longer flights, you know, up to a year and even a bit longer, um, we have been able to see that, like, yeah, there are ways in which some of the systems in the body have, like, an initial adjustment period, and then they start to kind of, you know, reach a, a, a plateau or they start to kind of return to, to normal. You know, like, the body, when it has all of this extra fluid i- in the head or more fluid than you're used to having in the head, your body interprets that as too much fluid. And so one of the things that, uh, the body does is it starts to reduce the amount of, uh, plasma in your blood. And so, uh, you're actually losing blood volume by being in space for a longer period of time. And you start to reduce the production of red blood cells because your body's thinking, "I don't need so much blood." And so, uh, astronauts often come back from space anemic, um, and that has other health implications as, a- as you know. So, um, so that is something that is like an adjustment that the body makes, and then when you come back to Earth, you go through y- yet another adjustment. Um, and that's just gravity. There's also radiation, right? [laughs] So, so, um, that's something that, um, is going to be really important for thinking about deep space, um, because actually what we know about how radiation affects astronauts is mostly from how astronauts are affected by being, um, in low Earth orbit. So the International Space Station is in low Earth orbit. It's, you know, orbiting the Earth, but it's close enough to the Earth that it's actually still inside the magnetic field that is surrounding our planet, which extends out quite far into space.

   22. CWChris Williamson17:54

       Mm.

   23. SSScott Solomon17:54

       And so that magnetic field actually traps a lot of the space radiation and prevents it from getting closer to the Earth. So astronauts on the International Space Station aren't exposed to as much radiation as astronauts on the Moon, on Mars, or traveling, uh, anywhere beyond the limits of that magnetic field, the magnetosphereUm, those are called the Van Allen radiation belts. And-

   24. CWChris Williamson18:17

       Mm-hmm

   25. SSScott Solomon18:18

       ... interesting story how they were discovered. I, I talk about that in my book. But, um, you know, yeah, we know that that radiation affects the body, right? I mean, the thing that you typically think about is cancer. And, um, and the cancer risk for anybody traveling in space is certainly higher. It's one of the reasons that NASA limits the amount of time that, uh, astronauts are, are able to go to space. Astronauts essentially will kind of time out, uh, at a certain point if they have reached a, uh, a radiation exposure that NASA deems to be, you know, uh, uh, too risky. And so, um, you know, that's a known risk. Um, but, uh, you know, we also know that, uh, you know, there's things other than cancer that radiation does, right? So, uh, radiation can have cognitive effects. There's some really interesting research that, uh, looks at simulated space radiation and tries to understand, like, what does this do to, um, to our, our nervous system, right? And research on, on rodents, for example, shows that if they're exposed to simulated space radiation, they actually have slower responses to tasks that they've been taught how to do. That's pretty concerning for anybody planning on going deeper into space. Um-

   26. CWChris Williamson19:40

       Quick thinking, trying to problem solve-

   27. SSScott Solomon19:42

       Exactly

   28. CWChris Williamson19:43

       ... fix whatever this pipe is that's just broken. Oh, hang on, the environment-

   29. SSScott Solomon19:46

       Yeah

   30. CWChris Williamson19:46

       ... I'm in has made me stupid.
4. 21:46 – 25:14

   How Dangerous is Space Radiation?

   1. CWChris Williamson21:46

      What was that story about how the Van Al- Van Allen?

   2. SSScott Solomon21:50

      Yeah, the Van Allen radiation belts.

   3. CWChris Williamson21:52

      Yeah.

   4. SSScott Solomon21:53

      So, so, you know, it, it starts with basically trying to figure out, like, you know, where is radiation coming from? We can detect on the surface of the Earth that there's, that there's, you know, some radiation. And the initial experiments were actually done by putting radiation detectors on hot air balloons and, and allowing those balloons to go higher and higher. And the surprising thing was that the radiation exposure increased as they got higher and higher in the atmosphere. So at first, people thought, like, the radiation's probably coming from Earth, maybe from the center of the Earth. Um, no, it's coming from somewhere up high. And, you know, even... Maybe it's, maybe it's the sun, right? Well, if it's the sun, then those exposures should be higher during daytime than-

   5. CWChris Williamson22:34

      Mm-hmm

   6. SSScott Solomon22:34

      ... during nighttime.

   7. CWChris Williamson22:34

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   8. SSScott Solomon22:35

      Um, and it wasn't. Um, they even w- measured it during an eclipse. It should, it should, like, decrease slightly when the Sun is being blocked by the Moon, right? It doesn't do that. And then, um, what ended up happening was, uh, once we were able to send satellites deeper into space, uh, the initial measurements... This is done on a Geiger counter, right? So the, the thing that, like, clicks when you're trying to detect radiation. It makes, like, a... [clicks] It's kinda sound like that, right? And the more rapid the clicks are, the higher the, the radiation exposure. Well, the very first time one of these was sent up on, uh, on a, a satellite, uh, it's clicking, clicking, clicking, the rate is getting higher, and then all of a sudden it just stops. So it's like, what, what the heck's going on? What... Is there just no, suddenly no radiation? And it turned out, no. Actually, there was so much radiation, it was just overwhelming the sensors of the-

   9. CWChris Williamson23:30

      Mm

   10. SSScott Solomon23:30

       ... Geiger counter. Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson23:32

       Holy shit.

   12. SSScott Solomon23:33

       Exactly.

   13. CWChris Williamson23:34

       Wow.

   14. SSScott Solomon23:34

       So-

   15. CWChris Williamson23:34

       So I mean, I've, I've heard... Uh, this is, like, I'm using the dramatized, uh, series of Chernobyl as my, "Well, I've heard Geiger counters, and they were in Chernobyl." It's... Oh, okay. Um, but even at least in the... And it was trying to be, uh, accurate, I think, scientifically, and, um, even in that, the Geiger counter still made a noise.

   16. SSScott Solomon23:56

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CWChris Williamson23:56

       It wasn't as if it blew out the top of it. It was just ticking super, super fast. So yeah, if you think, "Well, there's an elephant's foot down there that's the most radioactive thing on the planet," but if you just go far enough away from us-You go to a point where Geiger counters just essentially top out. That's, that, that's pretty scary.

   18. SSScott Solomon24:15

       Exactly. Yeah. So, uh, they... You know what they did? They sent another, uh, a satellite with a different, you know, type of device or calibrated differently or whatever, and then were able to determine, oh yeah, you get to this certain kind of, uh, you know, elevation in orbit around the Earth, and all of a sudden there's just huge amounts of radiation. So we now know that there's, uh, these Van Allen radiation belts. There's like an inner belt and an outer belt. So you can kind of picture this as like, you know, imagine a ball that's the Earth, and then you take a rubber band that's bigger than that ball, and then you kind of pinch it in the middle around the ball. So you've got this kind of two sort of orbs coming out-

   19. CWChris Williamson24:51

       Mm

   20. SSScott Solomon24:51

       ... from, uh, from the Earth, and that's the shape of the Van Allen radiation belts.

   21. CWChris Williamson24:56

       Well, that's why if we didn't have the iron core in the Earth, uh, the magnetosphere, magnetic sphere-

   22. SSScott Solomon25:04

       Yeah, that's right

   23. CWChris Williamson25:04

       ... around us, w- would... all of these r- rays would just be able to pepper us. I mean, there would be a ton of other problems as well, but-

   24. SSScott Solomon25:11

       Yeah

   25. CWChris Williamson25:11

       ... um, one of them is that we would just get annihilated

5. 25:14 – 30:52

   What Would Mars Do To the Human Body?

   1. CWChris Williamson25:14

      by radiation. Okay. So we've... Somehow me and you have survived our journey, uh, across space, and we've managed to land in Mars. Some of the stuff may be reversible. Some of the stuff may not be reversible. We'll see. We can't work, walk too much. We got space face and space brain and chicken legs. Um, what will the different physics on Mars do to humans? Just more of the same from the, the space flight? Is there anything else to say on the, the sort of physics of the system?

   2. SSScott Solomon25:44

      Yeah. So, you know, first of all, it takes something like six to nine months just to get there. So you're talking about you've been traveling through space, microgravity, right, weightlessness for, for, you know, let's say six months, right? So your body is going through all those things that we were just talking about. Your, your, your muscles have become weaker. Your bones have become more brittle. The fluids have redistributed. That has other effects, like on our eyes. The vision actually, uh, has a tendency to get worse.

   3. CWChris Williamson26:15

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SSScott Solomon26:15

      So that's all happening. Then you arrive on Mars, and let's assume that the landing goes well, uh, and you are now on the surface. Now all of a sudden, you're in a one-third gravity environment.

   5. CWChris Williamson26:28

      Mm-hmm.

   6. SSScott Solomon26:28

      Th- three-eighths, about one-third gravity environment compared to, to Earth's gravity. So you went from, uh, weightlessness to one-third G. And so now all of a sudden there's all this weight, all this force on your body. Normally you-

   7. CWChris Williamson26:42

      Yeah, even though it's one-third of what's on Earth, it's an infinity more than what was in space.

   8. SSScott Solomon26:46

      Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so, you know, if you look at like, y- you know, anytime astronauts come back from, from being in space, uh, they need a lot of help in order just to get out of the spacecraft to walk. It's like it... There's a long adjustment period. So, um, one of the things is just immediately like that even though it's just one-third G, that's gonna be hard on somebody that has been in a weightless environment for that amount of time. So if there's nobody else there to help you, uh, just even getting out of your spacecraft might be, might be pretty tricky.

   9. CWChris Williamson27:17

      Robo legs, maybe some of those assistance things-

   10. SSScott Solomon27:20

       Yeah

   11. CWChris Williamson27:20

       ... devices. Well, I mean, they're trying to offset this. I've seen, um, astronauts using the sort of hand-crank cycling machines. You know, you can artificially recreate, um, force and, and tension and pressure by using stuff that has it built into the system itself. But, uh, the globalness of gravity, b- b- working on the spine, working on the organs, working on, working on the lymph system, working on circulation-

   12. SSScott Solomon27:46

       Yeah

   13. CWChris Williamson27:46

       ... working on, you know, reproductive organs, working on, you know, da, da, da, da, da, da. Um, yeah, I don't think, I don't think that y- y- you're gonna be really trying to pick up pennies here when there's a shit ton of $100 bills that you've left behind you.

   14. SSScott Solomon28:01

       [laughs] Right. Yeah. No, you're right. So I mean, astronauts do a lot of exercise in space. You're absolutely right. Uh, you know, u- using kind of resistance because you can't use... You know, weightlifting doesn't make sense in a weightless environment. Um, and all of that is really meant to minimize the, uh, the, the deconditioning that happens to the body, right? But it doesn't eliminate it. Uh, if you didn't do that kind of exercise... And, and they exercise about two hours a day every day. So this is not like a, a small amount. Um, if you didn't do that, you'd be in, in, in way worse shape. So, you know, we, w- we've, we've arrived at Mars. We're, we're... We've done our, our two hours a day, uh, every day. Still, it's gonna be a challenge to just get up and move around. Who knows what the cognitive effects of, of that radiation exposure. You've been exposed to galactic cosmic rays for six months. Uh, nobody's ever had that happen. We, we simply don't know what the effect will be. Um, and then there's another factor. What have you been eating all this time? You know, astronauts, uh, you know, s- we're all kind of familiar with the idea of like freeze-dried foods and stuff like that, that, that astronauts typically bring with them. Um, they are having to bring kind of, you know, shelf-stable food. Um, but even in the International Space Station, they're able to occasionally resupply them with some kind of fresh food, some fresh produce. There's a story of, uh, Russian cosmonauts, the first to be, um, living for a, a longer period of time on a space station. And, uh, and they smuggled in an onion. And [laughs]

   15. CWChris Williamson29:37

       Ooh.

   16. SSScott Solomon29:38

       And it was, it was the first ever birthday that a person had in space. And, and they gave this cosmonaut an onion for his birthday, and it was like-

   17. CWChris Williamson29:46

       That is the most-

   18. SSScott Solomon29:46

       ... the most wonderful thing

   19. CWChris Williamson29:48

       ... that is the most Russian shit I have ever heard-

   20. SSScott Solomon29:50

       [laughs]

   21. CWChris Williamson29:51

       ... in my entire life.

   22. SSScott Solomon29:53

       Yeah. It, it, it-

   23. CWChris Williamson29:53

       We have, we have birthday. We have onion.

   24. SSScott Solomon29:56

       Yep. Sm- uh, contraband onion, no, no less. Um-

   25. CWChris Williamson29:59

       Illegal onion.

   26. SSScott Solomon30:00

       Yep, yep. Um, and but, like, the point is people really get excited about any kind of fresh, uh, produce that you can have. Um, we have not made major advances in our ability... to grow large amounts of food in, um, in any sort of space environment. This is something that people are actively trying to work on. Um, they have grown plants on the International Space Station, uh, but at very small scales. Um, and the astronauts tend to get really attached to those, uh, plants. Um, and so, you know, we think that's gonna be a major limiting factor in our ability-

   27. CWChris Williamson30:36

       Yeah

   28. SSScott Solomon30:36

       ... to, to go deeper into space, is what are we gonna eat? You know, people-- nobody wants to go and eat, you know, canned food, packaged food for years at a time without, you know, mixing it up with, uh, with some fresh food. So, um, so that-that's another one of the challenges.

6. 30:52 – 33:39

   Will Mars Accelerate Genetic Mutations?

   1. CWChris Williamson30:52

      Given the radiation issues, does that mean there's going to be higher mutation load just generally over time?

   2. SSScott Solomon31:00

      I think it does. So I think we should expect that people are going to be exposed to higher radiation, even if they're living in, um, some kind of an environment that's trying to shield, block that, that radiation. You know, there's-

   3. CWChris Williamson31:12

      Special 3D-printed reflective-

   4. SSScott Solomon31:14

      Exactly

   5. CWChris Williamson31:14

      ... anti-radiation, where they've already done the nine months to get out there.

   6. SSScott Solomon31:18

      Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson31:18

      They're probably going in and out doing Mars walks or space walks or some sort of equivalent thing, and the 3D printing machines, at least for the first few centuries, are not gonna be able to block everything, uh, and there's more radiation.

   8. SSScott Solomon31:31

      Yeah, I mean, even if you built a fully radiation-proof enclosure that you could live in on Mars, who wants to go to Mars and never go walk around outside, right? I mean, you know, what's the point? So, uh, I think people will be exposed to more radiation, and yeah, uh, radiation causes mutations, right? It causes damage to the DNA, and when the body repairs that damage, it's never a perfect process. There's always a risk that, uh, the, the repair, uh, leads to a change in the sequence of DNA and, and that's a mutation. So, um, so that's a, that's a health risk, um, but it also has implications for our ability to adapt over a much longer timescale of, uh, many generations.

   9. CWChris Williamson32:14

      What, what does it do to adaptability?

   10. SSScott Solomon32:17

       Well, a-adaptation comes from natural selection, and natural selection on its own can only really sift through whatever variation there is. And so the only way you get new variation is through mutation. Mutation is the ultimate source of all diversity-

   11. CWChris Williamson32:33

       So should-

   12. SSScott Solomon32:33

       ... of all living things

   13. CWChris Williamson32:33

       ... why is this not a good thing then? Does this, does this not push the dice rolling more quickly?

   14. SSScott Solomon32:38

       So I think that what we should expect, if we do nothing else, is that if we're able to live for many generations in a space environment like on Mars, it would mean that basically you are kickstarting the evolutionary process. It would happen faster. Why that is something we should maybe be concerned about is that's a very messy and unpleasant process. We're basically talking about a lot of death.

   15. CWChris Williamson33:00

       And there's gonna be tons of errors. There's gonna be shed tons of errors.

   16. SSScott Solomon33:02

       Well-

   17. CWChris Williamson33:03

       That one doesn't work. That one doesn't work.

   18. SSScott Solomon33:04

       Yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson33:04

       That one doesn't work. That one kind of works. That one doesn't work. That one doesn't work.

   20. SSScott Solomon33:08

       Yeah. I mean, you're talking about a lot of suffering. You're talking about a lot of death. Um, and, uh, so th-that's... You know, it would happen. I think what I try to argue is that's sort of the default that we should expect, is that if we're living for many generations in this kind of an extreme environment, natural selection will do its thing. Mutation rates would be higher because of that radiation exposure. And so basically the process that we normally think of as being generally pretty slow-

   21. CWChris Williamson33:35

       Mm

   22. SSScott Solomon33:35

       ... uh, would actually happen faster.

   23. CWChris Williamson33:37

       Yeah. Well, okay, but

7. 33:39 – 38:15

   Would Life On Mars Create Selection Bottlenecks?

   1. CWChris Williamson33:39

      what about selection bottlenecks? 'Cause if Mars is going to accelerate this evolutionary roulette, you end up with selection bottlenecks.

   2. SSScott Solomon33:48

      Yeah, the idea of bottlenecks, I think this is an important concept that, uh, that we have to think about if what we're trying to do is to create a long-term settlement. Because we know that any time you take a large number of individuals and then you take a small number of them and put them somewhere else, right, you've gone through a population bottleneck. That's... You know, basically it's like pouring... I do this simulation in my classes sometimes where you take like a, a, a bottle that's filled with like different colored gum balls, right? And you know how many different colors there are, and then you pour out a few of them and then you ask, "Okay, is the proportion of different colored gum balls the same as it was in the bottle at the starting point or is it different?" And of course it's gonna be different. It's never gonna be exactly the same.

   3. CWChris Williamson34:29

      Mm.

   4. SSScott Solomon34:30

      So you take a small number of individuals from a large group, it's not gonna be representative. So that kind of, of reduction in population size that happens when, um, you know, when you found a new population, it leads to rapid evolutionary change, and we call that the founder effect in, uh, in evolutionary biology because it's a well-known phenomenon. Any time, you know, a new population is founded-

   5. CWChris Williamson34:56

      Mm

   6. SSScott Solomon34:56

      ... uh, you tend to get a reduction of genetic diversity. And whoever the individuals are that are the founders have this, like, really disproportionate effect on what happens later, like they're, they're really influential. Um-

   7. CWChris Williamson35:09

      Ha- have you ever read Seveneves by Neal Stephenson?

   8. SSScott Solomon35:11

      I have, yes.

   9. CWChris Williamson35:12

      Dude.

   10. SSScott Solomon35:13

       Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

   11. CWChris Williamson35:13

       This is-

   12. SSScott Solomon35:13

       Good one

   13. CWChris Williamson35:13

       ... this is exactly what this, the founder effect is, right?

   14. SSScott Solomon35:15

       Yep. That's right. Yep, yep.

   15. CWChris Williamson35:16

       Yeah. I don't wanna spoil it. It's in my, it's in my first reading list that, that lots of people have downloaded, so maybe loads of people that are listening also know the spoiler too. Um, actually, skip forward. If you haven't read Seveneves, skip forward by about 30 seconds. So halfway through the book after the moon explodes, there's seven women left. I think only o-one of them can't reproduce. I think one of them's like a matron marshal type lady, or maybe there's eight and seven can reproduce. And yeah, you end up with these seven different races in future.

   16. SSScott Solomon35:41

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson35:41

       And, uh, and, and, and e-each one is very distinct. And welcome back to the people that didn't read Seveneves.

   18. SSScott Solomon35:46

       [laughs]

   19. CWChris Williamson35:47

       And, uh, um, you end up, you end up with this sort of very distinct lineage and, um, that's the, that's the bit. Th-this is why hard sci-fi rules, because I get to learn about real, real stuff, and it's snuck in under the guise of it being a story.

   20. SSScott Solomon36:00

       Oh, there's so many examples of how, you know, a science fiction author has already thought through a lot of the real challenges and the real consequences.

   21. CWChris Williamson36:09

       Yeah.

   22. SSScott Solomon36:09

       Um-

   23. CWChris Williamson36:09

       Do you remember on the... Do you remember in Seveneves that there was such a scarcity of food halfway through that somebody invented the idea of soft cannibalism?Do you remember that?

   24. SSScott Solomon36:19

       [laughs] Soft cannibalism.

   25. CWChris Williamson36:20

       He ate his own, he, he ate his own legs because he decided that in space legs were-

   26. SSScott Solomon36:26

       You don't need them. Yeah, they're superfluous

   27. CWChris Williamson36:27

       ... arbitrary.

   28. SSScott Solomon36:27

       Yeah.

   29. CWChris Williamson36:28

       Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he reduced his energy requirement and increased his energy intake by eating his own legs.

   30. SSScott Solomon36:32

       Yep.
8. 38:15 – 42:59

   The Personality Traits You’d Need to Survive Mars

   1. SSScott Solomon38:15

      about it.

   2. CWChris Williamson38:16

      So presumably there's gonna be huge survival pressures on psychological traits, maybe just as much as the physical ones.

   3. SSScott Solomon38:26

      Psychological traits, definitely, and, um, and skills. I mean, you kn- think about who, who are the people you would wanna send to establish a new, you know, a, a new human population on Mars? I mean, you want people who are likely to be able to, to handle tough situations, but you also want people who know how to do all different sorts of things, you know? Um, you need different skills. You need different, uh, you know, uh, personality traits. But you also wanna make sure you've enhanced the kind of, you know, probability of success by making sure it's also a genetically diverse group of people, you know? I mean, uh, the more genetically diverse it is, the more opportunity there is for, for natural selection to be able to help people to adapt in future generations. So, um, yeah, you know, it's... I think it would have to be quite different from how we have kind of historically chosen who gets to go to space, right? You know?

   4. CWChris Williamson39:25

      Mm.

   5. SSScott Solomon39:25

      I don't... Did you ever read-

   6. CWChris Williamson39:25

      So you would actually want... You would actually... Oh, sorry, go ahead.

   7. SSScott Solomon39:28

      Well, so there's kind of this, like, famous, uh, uh, book from, I think, in 1979 called T- "The Right Stuff" by Tom Wolfe. I don't know if you've ever read that. It's, it's, like, one of the classic accounts of the early days of, um, of the US space program. But that, that title, that idea of the right stuff, like, who is it that has the right stuff that gets to be the, the select few that go to space? And at least initially for the US, it was all, um... well, first of all, it was all, it was all men. It was all white men, and then it was all, like, actually Navy, uh, uh, test pilots, right? So they took them from the military. It was only people who were already in the military. Um, and they were chosen for their ability to be able to handle the physical-

   8. CWChris Williamson40:12

      Mm-hmm

   9. SSScott Solomon40:12

      ... aspects of, uh, of a launch and, and being in space and also the psychological challenges.

   10. CWChris Williamson40:19

       Mm.

   11. SSScott Solomon40:19

       And, and, you know, I mean, the US space program is, it was huge success clearly. Um, but if you used those same criteria to select people for who's going to found a new population on Mars, you'd get such a tiny fraction of human diversity.

   12. CWChris Williamson40:35

       Yeah.

   13. SSScott Solomon40:35

       You'd, you'd be setting yourself up for failure.

   14. CWChris Williamson40:37

       Which is only gonna get more bottlenecked over time.

   15. SSScott Solomon40:39

       That's right.

   16. CWChris Williamson40:39

       It's gonna get tighter and tighter, so you need to make the base of this pyramid-

   17. SSScott Solomon40:42

       Yeah

   18. CWChris Williamson40:42

       ... as, as broad as possible. So I mean, I was thinking as you were speaking, you know, um, people who have, uh, brittle bones, for instance, maybe they have something which is actually useful in there because all of the selection pressures that we have currently, y- y- y- we want someone who's big and strong. Why?

   19. SSScott Solomon41:00

       Right.

   20. CWChris Williamson41:00

       Gravity is 30% of the... Maybe we actually want people who are really petite.

   21. SSScott Solomon41:04

       That's right.

   22. CWChris Williamson41:04

       And therefore they need fewer calories, and therefore they don't need to eat their own legs.

   23. SSScott Solomon41:08

       That's right.

   24. CWChris Williamson41:08

       So when it, when it comes to the personalities, are there some personalities that are more suited for space colonization than others?

   25. SSScott Solomon41:16

       Well, we do know from a lot of the, uh, studies that have been done in analogs, like we were talking about earlier, um, and this includes things like people who are, you know, working in Antarctica in, in the most sort of similar environment that exists on Earth to what it will be like there, right? You're in an isolated, extreme, confined environment surrounded by, you know, hostile en- conditions. So, um, you know, what are the factors that lead to success, especially for, like, people who are overwintering in Antarctica? Like, they're stay- you can't just, you know, leave whenever you want to because there's no way to kinda get a, a ship or a plane in. Um, people who, uh, who, who do well in that environment are people who, um, are good team players, are people who are, um, uh, you know, open about kind of how the experience is, is going for them, willing to talk about it, willing to talk about it with others. Um, you know, you also want a, a, a good chemistry among the group, right? So you don't want, uh, you know, all type A personalities 'cause they're likely to, to kinda clash, right? Um, and, um-So there's all these studies that have, like, looked at the psychology of group dynamics. An interesting one is you don't want an even number of people. You want an o-

   26. CWChris Williamson42:36

       [laughs]

   27. SSScott Solomon42:36

       You want an, you want an odd number.

   28. CWChris Williamson42:39

       Is that for voting?

   29. SSScott Solomon42:39

       It's because it can split into... Yeah. Basically, it could split into factions and, uh, and, and you need a, a tiebreaker, right? So, uh-

   30. CWChris Williamson42:48

       Wow
9. 42:59 – 46:37

   Who Should Really Be in Charge on Mars?

   1. CWChris Williamson42:59

      Wow. Okay. So you, you mentioned before about who gets to go to Mars first, sort of the best people, the strongest people, the richest people, the most obedient people. Who do you think should govern Mars? Is it Earth governments? Is it companies? Is it the colonists themselves? What about the politi- what about the astro Martian politics?

   2. SSScott Solomon43:17

      You know, I think we have this tendency to think about going to space as being, like, an opportunity to, to, you know, start completely fresh and get it right this time and, and I'll... You know, this like we're gonna have a utopia in space. I, I'm not convinced by that w- way of thinking about it. I think, you know, humans are humans, and we should, we should learn from what has happened before and, uh, and not expect that it would be different there. So I think we need to, to try to, you know, do the things that seem to work well here on Earth, right? I don't think you wanna have, for example, like, you know, a government, uh, from Earth dictating what happens on Mars, uh, because we know that that doesn't work well. You know, we know that people, uh, uh, need to have their own ability to, to make their own decisions. You, you want leaders who have skin in the game.

   3. CWChris Williamson44:07

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SSScott Solomon44:07

      Um-

   5. CWChris Williamson44:07

      It's also highly inefficient.

   6. SSScott Solomon44:09

      Sure. And there's a communication delay. We haven't even talked about that.

   7. CWChris Williamson44:12

      Yep.

   8. SSScott Solomon44:13

      You can't, you can't have this kind of conversation like we're having where one person is on Earth and the other person is on Mars because they're so far away that you'll have, uh, several minutes of delay between when you say something and when the person, uh, hears it on the other end. And it could be up to 20 minutes, uh, depending on, uh, where Earth and Mars are in their respective orbits. So you can send emails, you know, or video messages back and forth, but you can't really have a conversation. So yeah, imagine a, a government meeting where, uh, you know, you can't even, like, have a conversation, right? You think it's dysfunctional now. Man.

   9. CWChris Williamson44:47

      Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, there was a, a campaign when Elon first started floating around the administration, uh, to decolonize Mars, and what they meant by that was we don't want the same horrible inequity, oligopoly, powerful Matthew principle bullshit to go to this new planet. Uh, it was pointed out that there's a little bit of an irony in talking about decolonizing a planet that we haven't yet colonized. Uh, but yeah, the, the, the, the politics of this I think are just so, so fascinating. And again, y- my, my go-to, '70s from, uh, Neal Stephenson, they need to work out what happens with murder.

   10. SSScott Solomon45:33

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson45:33

       What happens if somebody commits a crime in space? Is there a prison? Who's the adjudicator? Uh, y- what are the law... Everything needs to be re-instantiated again, and if you've got people from multiple different countries... So well, the Russians do it this way, but the Americans do it that way, but the, the Ukrainians do it a different way.

   12. SSScott Solomon45:49

       Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson45:49

       Well, we disagree with your... Well, we need to... It's a new... It- people aren't from nations anymore, and if they are, that fa- those factions are just gonna become splinters that start to fracture what is supposed to be a cohesive unit into something which is, you know, uh, uh, very individualized, which you don't want. But d- do you wanna say to people that you need to recant your current identity? Well, after a few generations, what does that mean, and then how do you avoid there being new splinter factions? You don't have that much tolerance for error with this stuff when it comes to governance. You know, you can have a good bit of tolerance for error if there's 156 countries or something. If you've got three pods and 200 people, now y- you... 10 people die. That's a lot of... That's f- five percent. Right? That's a lot of people. So yeah, just I, I...

10. 46:37 – 56:26

    What Long-Term Isolation Does to the Mind

    1. CWChris Williamson46:37

       Endlessly fascinate. All right. Going, going back to the, um, the personality thing, the s- the psychological impact. What does long-term isolation in space do to the human mind? Uh, why, why a closed ecosystem so, uh, psychologically taxing?

    2. SSScott Solomon46:54

       Well, I think there's a few things, right? I mean, one is just, uh, you know, knowing that you can't leave, right? This is something that, you know, a- again, people in, in Antarctica research stations or, or, you know, some of the remote field camps that they experience. You can't just, you know, go for a, a walk or say, "That's it. I'm done. I'm out of here." Um, a similar kind of thing happens to, uh, people who are, um, on, uh, submarines, like nuclear submarines that have to spend a long period of time, uh, submerged, uh, during military operations, right? Uh, can't just step outside. Uh, you're, you're pretty much stuck there. Um, the difference there is, you know, they're working within a, a kind of a military hierarchy system is sort of, you know, built into, to the nature of the experience.

    3. CWChris Williamson47:40

       Mm.

    4. SSScott Solomon47:40

       That's not the case so much in, in Antarctica. But, um, you know, it's, uh... Knowing that you can't leave is, um, is something that, that definitely, um, takes a toll, you know? And you have to, you have to train for it, you have to be prepared for it, and you have to have, uh, you know, systems in place to allow people to, to deal with whatever comes with it, right? So you need to be able to have, you know, for example, um, you know, uh, a, a therapist available to speak with them. You need to have, uh, you know, resources in place to, to, to deal with crises when they do take place as well. So, so I think that's something that has to be built in. Um, but there's an interesting other side to it, right? So, so, you know, we think a lot about like, oh, how this is really gonna be hard, and it's gonna be, uh, something that's gonna have a m- maybe a negative impact on, on a lot of folks. Um, but there's also this idea that, um, going to space can have a profound positive impact on people. So some of the first accounts of, um, of astronauts really, you know-Talk about like just the awe and wonder. I mean, people still talk about that today. Everybody that goes to space talks about how incredible it is. And-

    5. CWChris Williamson48:53

       Including Katy Perry, yeah.

    6. SSScott Solomon48:54

       [chuckles] Yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, everybody does. I mean, how could you not-

    7. CWChris Williamson48:59

       Including the famed astronaut, Katy Perry

    8. SSScott Solomon49:01

       [laughs] And William Shatner. Did you see he-- when he went to space, he talked about this too. It was, you know-

    9. CWChris Williamson49:06

       What was it called? The blue dot effect or the, the whole earth effect or something.

    10. SSScott Solomon49:10

        It's called the overview effect.

    11. CWChris Williamson49:11

        Overview effect.

    12. SSScott Solomon49:12

        And so... Yeah. So that's the term that's been, uh, uh, given to this phenomenon by, by Frank White, who's, um, a, a philosopher of space who, uh, you know, he did all these interviews with, initially with, with, you know, sort of NASA astronauts and c- and, and cosmonauts as well. Uh, and, and even, um, up to, you know, more recent flights where we have, um, you know, people who are kind of everyday citizens that are going up on these commercial space flights now. And, um, and so he has basically argued that like people have this profound shift that happens to them by being in space and looking back at the Earth and, uh, and, you know, seeing, for example, how thin the atmosphere is. It just looks so fragile and delicate. Um, you know, seeing how you, you know, the Earth doesn't look like it does on the maps. There's no borders between nations. You know, this sense that like, we're really all in this together. And then just the vastness of space. So, you know, we're a tiny little dot, right, in, in the vastness of space. And so he has argued that basically, um, you know, it would be really good for as many people as possible to go into space and have that experience because it makes us, you know, better people. It makes us better stewards of-

    13. CWChris Williamson50:28

        Mm-hmm

    14. SSScott Solomon50:28

        ... uh, of our planet, of our environment.

    15. CWChris Williamson50:30

        But, but yeah, I, I get it, but the, the, the entire problem here is there's only one or two generations that are going to be actually traveling there. As soon as you have kids, the same tribal mechanism... Yeah, I mean, what, what makes you think that the steward of your planet would change? Because you can see your mum and dad's home planet over there, and you're on a different one now. The s-

    16. SSScott Solomon50:50

        Yeah

    17. CWChris Williamson50:50

        ... the s- the same psychological effects are just gonna kick in in a different atmosphere.

    18. SSScott Solomon50:54

        I think you're right. So th- this is one of the things I, I write about is that, you know, what-- I think it would be a fundamentally different thing for children born on Mars or, or born anywhere else.

    19. CWChris Williamson51:04

        Yep.

    20. SSScott Solomon51:04

        Right? You won't have that same connection. I mean, it's the same kind of phenomenon that happens with, you know, with immigrant families, right? The first generation, they still feel very connected to their home country and culture. And it, and it lasts for a few generations, but eventually you have this kind of like loose identity with that k- you know, home country. Uh, and maybe you go back and visit, and maybe you adopt some of the, the, you know, the culture, the cuisine, the dress, et cetera. But, um, you know, eventually people start to think of themselves as belonging to the place where-

    21. CWChris Williamson51:34

        Right. Dude

    22. SSScott Solomon51:35

        ... where they live.

    23. CWChris Williamson51:35

        Look at me. I drive, I drive a Camaro. I've only been here four years, and I've gone completely fucking feral. A quick aside, if your sleep's been off, you're taking ages to fall asleep, waking up at random times, feeling groggy in the morning, Momentous' sleep packs are here to help. They are not your typical knock-you-out supplement just overloaded with melatonin. It only has the most evidence-based ingredients at perfect doses to help you fall asleep more quickly, stay asleep throughout the night, and wake up feeling more rested and revitalized in the morning. These things are an absolute game changer. I take them every single night, and when I'm on the road. Uh, they're unbelievable 'cause they're pre-dosed. You just take this, and your sleep will improve. What you read on the label is what's in the product and absolutely nothing else. And if you're still unsure, they've got a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can just buy it completely risk-free. Use it. If you don't like it, if your sleep doesn't improve, they'll just give you your money back. That's how confident they are that you'll love it. Plus, they ship internationally. Right now, you can get a 35% discount on your first subscription and that 30-day money-back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to livemomentous.com/modernwisdom using Modern Wisdom at checkout. That's L-I-V-E-M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S.com/modernwisdom. Modern Wisdom at checkout. So I think, I think people understand that future humans will physically be different, right? It, it ma- it makes an awful lot of sense. And then if you understand how evolution works, there's gonna be some speciation over time. What I think is really surprising, shocking to a lot of people, will be to consider the idea that Martian human nature would be genetically distinct. Like the texture of their minds and the way that their brains function m- would be not only distinct but m- maybe unrecognizable. That sounds wild.

    24. SSScott Solomon53:23

        Yeah. Yeah, I think that's possible. I mean, one thing is, look, I think the most likely kind of environment that we would be living in, like what we would build, where would we live on Mars, would be underground because that is the easiest way to create a habitat that is-

    25. CWChris Williamson53:38

        Oh, so you don't have to build anything. You just-

    26. SSScott Solomon53:39

        ... protected. Yeah

    27. CWChris Williamson53:40

        ... you get, you get rid of the stuff that's in there. You don't need building materials. You just need building holes.

    28. SSScott Solomon53:45

        That's right. And you don't have to worry about the space radiation. You don't have to worry about... We didn't even talk about like meteor impacts, right? Without, uh, Mars has such a thin atmosphere. It has no magnetic field. Um, its radiation is very high. But, uh, also with that thin atmosphere, it's getting bombarded by meteors, uh, much more so than, um, than, than Earth. Um, you don't want a glass dome, you know, the way we often see depicted in, in, in sci-fi. Uh, you want something much more, uh, protected. And so what's the, uh, to, to your point, like, what is the, what is the psychology of an entire, you know-

    29. CWChris Williamson54:23

        Underground species

    30. SSScott Solomon54:23

        ... society underground? Yeah, that's right. That's right.
11. 56:26 – 1:06:44

    Can Humans Reproduce in Space?

    1. CWChris Williamson56:26

       so. Okay, uh, continuing future people, how, how, how are we gonna do reproduction in space? What happens with, what happens with keeping us going?

    2. SSScott Solomon56:36

       Well, I, I will say that in terms of, like, what we do know and what we don't know about, like, how space affects the, the human body and our ability to actually live in, in a space environment or on other worlds, I think this is the biggest black box, the biggest unknown. We have done so little amount of research on reproduction in, in a lower gravity environment, in a space environment, that the bottom line is we don't know. We're sort of assuming... Anytime we talk about, like, you know, moving to Mars or building, uh, a space settlement, we are assuming that reproduction is possible, that it will work well enough, and that's actually something that we can't be certain of without, without doing more research. Um, there have been some studies. So, um, there have been some studies in space going back to the, the space shuttle days and, and certainly through the, uh, International Space Station era. Um, some rodent studies, some studies on, on fish, some studies on, um, other invertebrate animals like sea urchins. Uh, but the bottom line is that it's kind of inconclusive. Like, we really haven't done enough, and we haven't done systematic enough studies to know that our own ability to, you know, um, to get pregnant-

    3. CWChris Williamson57:53

       Mm

    4. SSScott Solomon57:53

       ... to have a, uh, a full pregnancy to term, childbirth, um, and then child development. Like the entire-

    5. CWChris Williamson58:01

       Yeah

    6. SSScott Solomon58:01

       ... process of growing. You know, what happens to a child's body as your, your, your bones are growing-

    7. CWChris Williamson58:07

       Growing under zero or-

    8. SSScott Solomon58:09

       ... in a one-third G

    9. CWChris Williamson58:10

       ... close. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

    10. SSScott Solomon58:11

        We don't know.

    11. CWChris Williamson58:12

        I think I asked, uh, I asked, um, uh, Christopher Mason. You know him?

    12. SSScott Solomon58:15

        Yes.

    13. CWChris Williamson58:16

        Yeah. Yeah, of course. Um, he's been on the show once, maybe twice. He was great. And, uh, I asked him, "Has anybody ever had sex in space?" And he gave me this look. You're giving me the look as now as well.

    14. SSScott Solomon58:27

        Well, it's a question everybody wants to know. Absolutely. And the bottom line is that, uh, officially the answer is no. We, we don't have-

    15. CWChris Williamson58:35

        You've given me the same answer.

    16. SSScott Solomon58:36

        We don't have any documented-

    17. CWChris Williamson58:36

        Have you guys been given, have you guys been given some sort of talking sheet or something?

    18. SSScott Solomon58:39

        Well-

    19. CWChris Williamson58:39

        That's exactly what he said

    20. SSScott Solomon58:40

        ... th- this is a, this is a topic that, that comes up a lot. So, so there's a, the- there's, you know, uh, a lot that's been written about it, including I, I, I write about it in my book. Um, so yeah, we don't know. We don't know. Nobody, uh, claims to have had sex in space, and there is definitely not any documentation of sex in space. There was a married couple, uh, two NASA astronauts that were on-

    21. CWChris Williamson59:03

        Right

    22. SSScott Solomon59:04

        ... the space shuttle at the same time.

    23. CWChris Williamson59:05

        If you think, if you think that a married couple are going to space and they're not gonna, they're not gonna join the Million Mile High Club, you are out of your mind.

    24. SSScott Solomon59:15

        Yep. And so the, the... Because of that, there's been all this speculation that like, surely they must have. But, um, you know, NASA was very hush-hush about it. The, the two astronauts in question were very hush-hush. I've asked about this, uh, including, you know, contacts and, and friends of mine at, at, at NASA and in the space industry. And one of the things that I've been told is like, "Look, if you know what it was like on the space shuttle, there was no privacy." Like, there is... Like, if that happened, it would not have been done in private. And so that, uh, maybe, you know, makes it a little less likely that it happened, but.

    25. CWChris Williamson59:47

        Okay. Okay. Well, someone's, someone's gotta be the first, right? And there's not many... That, that's the real territory to conquer. I don't care about being the first on Mars. I just wanna be the first, I wanna be the first guy to bone in space. Okay. Um, reproduction. We've already... I've done a lot of episodes about, um, embryo selection, uh, about IVG, uh, some stuff with artificial wombs. Do you think it's realistic that reproduction will be technologically mediated to try and offset some of this stuff? W- w- how, how is the reproduction process gonna happen?

    26. SSScott Solomon1:00:23

        Here, here's the thing that worries me. If what we're talking about is Mars, so you're talking about a one-third gravity environment, not as, not a weightless environment, a one-third gravity environment. I think the risk is once we're talking about people who have lived their entire lives there, like a child born on Mars, right? Who then, you know, basically is, uh, you know, growing in that one-third gravity environment their entire childhood. By the time they get to adulthood and are, uh, you know, childbearing age, right? Um, imagine a woman who gets pregnant and is going to give birth. She will have had her bones, uh, losing bone density her entire life because her genetics areThe same genetics that, you know, we all have here on Earth, meaning that you're born with a certain bone density, but in a one-third gravity environment your entire life, you're losing bone density.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:01:17

        Hmm.

    28. SSScott Solomon1:01:17

        So her bones will have become more brittle and weak throughout her, her childhood and into her adulthood.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:01:24

        Hmm.

    30. SSScott Solomon1:01:24

        And now she is giving birth-
12. 1:06:44 – 1:15:00

    How Long Will Speciation Take on Mars?

    1. CWChris Williamson1:06:44

       Mm-hmm. Will we... Okay, how long will speciation take, do you think?

    2. SSScott Solomon1:06:48

       [chuckles] Yeah. So okay, here's the thing that I will say about that. So speciation, right, formation of new species, this is something I, you know, I talk about this in my classes with my students all the time. Um, it's not a black and white thing like, oh, now it's a new species, right? We as biologists debate constantly all the time about, you know, how to even define a species. Where do you draw the boundaries between one species and another? So partly it depends on, on that, but that's sort of dodging the question, which is not what I'm trying to do. Uh, I think the real question is like, how rapidly would you get-Individuals on Mars that we would recognize as being distinct from us, right? Like, in some recognizable, meaningful way. Um, and what I would say is I think it will happen much faster than what we would expect based on what we normally are used to here on Earth.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:07:42

       Mm.

    4. SSScott Solomon1:07:43

       Um, and, and it boils down to this. So, you know, we've already talked about how being on Mars is going to make people different, right? Psychologically different, genetically different, culturally different, all of those things. As long as you have people who are moving back and forth between Earth and Mars and able to travel freely between them and basically able to, you know, may- able to have sex, able to have children, able to reproduce. So if you can kind of move between those environments, that will kind of reduce the differences between those populations, right?

    5. CWChris Williamson1:08:18

       Mm.

    6. SSScott Solomon1:08:18

       Like, your... Yeah, as long as people are exchanging genes, you don't get speciation happening very easily. So, um, so then the question becomes, like, well, is that going to be the case? Will it be easy for people to move back and forth between Earth and Mars? And I don't think it will be. I think it will be much harder for people to move back and forth between planets than, um, we maybe have appreciated. And specifically I mean, like, people born on Mars.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:08:46

       Mm.

    8. SSScott Solomon1:08:46

       I think even as soon as the first generation of people born on Mars will potentially have a great difficulty with coming back to Earth. For one thing, it's the gravity that we've talked about, right? A child born in a one-third gravity environment is unlikely to build a skeleton that is strong enough to be able to tolerate Earth gravity. And this is... And we've been talking about science fiction, right? So, like, this shows up in, you know, I don't know if you watch The Expanse or read the, the series, but it's like that's, that's a, a theme that comes up is, like, you know, the idea that if you're from a lower gravity environment, high G is, you know, gonna be painful if not-

    9. CWChris Williamson1:09:24

       It's torturous to you, right?

    10. SSScott Solomon1:09:25

        That's right, yeah. Gravity torture is a concept from, from The Expanse. Um, that's one thing.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:09:31

        Should I read that? Is it good?

    12. SSScott Solomon1:09:32

        I-

    13. CWChris Williamson1:09:32

        'Cause I watched the first s- season, maybe season and a half, and then I kinda got a bit lost in it. Is the book... How do you rate the book? If Seveneves, if Seveneves for me is a strong eight, where's The Expanse?

    14. SSScott Solomon1:09:44

        All right, here, here, here's my, uh, admission. So I haven't read it. I've seen the series, but I haven't read the, the... I haven't read it. So-

    15. CWChris Williamson1:09:51

        Fair enough.

    16. SSScott Solomon1:09:51

        Yeah, my bad. Um, but so, uh, gravity though is something that, uh, I think will be a limiting factor. But I think there's an even potentially bigger factor that will keep people from being able to move between planets, and that is, uh, microbes, germs, our immune systems. So what happens to the immune system of a child born on Mars? They will only ever be exposed to whatever the microorganisms are that we bring with us, and that's gonna be a tiny fraction, right? I mean, they're-

    17. CWChris Williamson1:10:23

        Mm

    18. SSScott Solomon1:10:23

        ... going through the same bottleneck. The microbes are going through the same kind of bottleneck.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:10:27

        Oh, fuck, it's a big sterilization, uh, procedure for, yeah, for, for whatever you've brought with you. The, the peanuts, and the wheat, and the gluten, and the everything.

    20. SSScott Solomon1:10:36

        Yep. Yep, yep, exactly. And so-

    21. CWChris Williamson1:10:39

        Wow

    22. SSScott Solomon1:10:39

        ... now you've got a kid who has never been exposed to the vast majority of what we're breathing in right now a- and, and just all the microbes that are, are surrounding us. I don't think they would be able to easily come back to Earth, uh, without a whole lot of protection.

    23. CWChris Williamson1:10:51

        Have you got a name, have you got a name for this? 'Cause this is, this is a, a unique kind of... It's not speciation. It's a, a hardcore sort of a adaptation that's occurred due to being separated, where you're no longer able to go back to your original-

    24. SSScott Solomon1:11:08

        Yeah

    25. CWChris Williamson1:11:09

        ... habitat. Is there a name for this?

    26. SSScott Solomon1:11:10

        I don't know that there's a name for this specifically. I mean, I, I think that, though, this is basically the setup for speciation because what, what do you do in that situation, right? It would be-

    27. CWChris Williamson1:11:19

        You're locked into your new environment.

    28. SSScott Solomon1:11:20

        Yeah, you... It would be too dangerous for people from Mars to interact with people from Earth. And the other thing that's gonna happen is over time, the microbes on Mars are going to be mutating, adapting, changing. You're gonna get new infectious diseases on Mars that don't exist on Earth. They will evolve uniquely there. Even just the bacteria in our microbiome are gonna change by being on Mars, right? I mean, they're also exposed to a lot of radiation. They've also gone through a population bottleneck. So now it becomes dangerous for people from Earth to interact with people from Mars 'cause they've got germs that, you know, we're not used to. So what do you do? I think you enforce quarantine. You don't allow-

    29. CWChris Williamson1:12:01

        Mm. Mm

    30. SSScott Solomon1:12:01

        ... or you very greatly reduce any-
13. 1:15:00 – 1:21:51

    The Ethical Dilemmas of Living on Mars

    1. CWChris Williamson1:15:00

       what are the interesting ethical challenges that we've got here? What-

    2. SSScott Solomon1:15:06

       Yeah

    3. CWChris Williamson1:15:06

       ... this is a-

    4. SSScott Solomon1:15:07

       Well, there's some pretty serious ones. I mean, I... Here's the thing. Like, it- you and I could, uh, could decide that we're comfortable with the risk of going to Mars, right? And, and there are plenty of people who, you know, I've spoken with, who are like, "Yep, I would absolutely-"

    5. CWChris Williamson1:15:21

       And is it fair to condemn-

    6. SSScott Solomon1:15:21

       "... sign up to go"

    7. CWChris Williamson1:15:22

       ... your future progeny to the same thing?

    8. SSScott Solomon1:15:24

       Yeah, exactly. What happens when you're talking about bringing a child into the world who not only is, uh, living in a, a very, uh, dangerous environment, but they might not ever be able to go back to Earth? That, to me, is a, a, a totally different level of, uh, you know, uh, of, of ethical consideration. So, you know, one thing we haven't really talked about, um, is the idea that, well, rather than just sort of let natural selection, let evolution do its thing, maybe what we would do is, you know, take matters into our own hands and, um, and use, you know, use CRISPR, use, uh, you know, biological and genetic engineering techniques to facilitate, to make it easier for people to deal with the extreme, uh, conditions there. Um, and, you know, obviously there's important ethical considerations about, you know, altering our, uh, our genetics, especially if you're talking about altering unborn children, future generations.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:16:19

       Mm. Mm-hmm.

    10. SSScott Solomon1:16:20

        But, you know, in some ways, though, the ethics are sort of, you know, maybe reversed compared to how we would think about this on Earth. Because if you had the ability to alleviate suffering of an unborn child or of, you know, future generations, and if you didn't do that, is that ethical?

    11. CWChris Williamson1:16:38

        This is the entire argument that is put forward by the embryo selection crowd, which is as soon as you say that protecting against something that's really horrendous, you know, it's, it's, it's some, uh, genetic defect that would cause you to be in pain or not live a flourishing life or whatever. Even myopia, right? Even if you were to say we're able to select against people that don't have good eyesight. If, if you had-

    12. SSScott Solomon1:17:03

        Yeah

    13. CWChris Williamson1:17:03

        ... why do you think that LASIK and glasses exist? Because people want those traits. So if you have the opportunity to select against negative ones, you immediately open up the door for... It's a single parallel. It's a, it's a single spectrum from select against negative traits to select for positive traits.

    14. SSScott Solomon1:17:19

        Mm-hmm.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:17:19

        And that does seem the ethical thing to do. Now, as soon as you get into genetic enhancement, that becomes a very different game, uh, to me-

    16. SSScott Solomon1:17:27

        That's right. Yeah

    17. CWChris Williamson1:17:27

        ... ethically. As of yet, I haven't... I'm convinced on the value of embryo selection. Herasight is, is wonderful company that's doing great things in the space, that Jonny that runs it is just spectacular. I, I'm yet to hear an argument for genetic enhancement that doesn't make my toes-

    18. SSScott Solomon1:17:47

        Yeah

    19. CWChris Williamson1:17:47

        ... like curl underneath.

    20. SSScott Solomon1:17:48

        Well, and part of it, I think, is because the question is, okay, you're, you're arguing that this person's life is going to be better, but are there other ways that you could make that person's life better without making a genetic alteration? Right? Without making such a, a, a, a permanent change. And so I think, you know, any of the, the potential changes that we might make for a person here on Earth, um, in most cases, we have other ways of, uh, of, of protecting them from that risk or, or improving their lives in that particular way. Uh, for a child born on Mars, thinking about the gravity environment or the, or the radiation environment, right? There might not be any better way of doing it. So if that's the case, and if they don't have a choice, if that's the only place that they can live, I think it's... it, it might be different. Now, I'm not saying that we definitely should do that. But I think the, the ethics are, I think, somewhat distinct when you're talking about, um, you know, having a situation where people don't have the option of, of, of getting out of that situation, right? You don't have a way to get away from the risk. Um, but, you know-

    21. CWChris Williamson1:18:53

        Yeah. So there's, there's multiple levels of ethics here. Is it ethical to condemn your future generations and progeny to live on this environment which is going to be really inhospitable, and they've gotta be underground, and maybe they're gonna flourish less? Well, as soon as you do that, is it now incumbent on you to start manipulating their genomes so that they can survive this pr- prison that you had put them into more effectively than if they... You know, it's a real-

    22. SSScott Solomon1:19:18

        That's right

    23. CWChris Williamson1:19:18

        ... yeah, domino, domino effect.

    24. SSScott Solomon1:19:19

        Well, and then, and then there's the... added on top of that is the possibility that by making those changes, you might be improving their ability to thrive in that environment, but you might simultaneously-

    25. CWChris Williamson1:19:32

        Condemn them from being able to go back home.

    26. SSScott Solomon1:19:33

        Exactly.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:19:34

        Oh, dude.

    28. SSScott Solomon1:19:35

        Exactly.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:19:35

        It's a mess. It's such a mess

    30. SSScott Solomon1:19:37

        Oh my Lord.
14. 1:21:51 – 1:22:48

    Where to Find Scott

    1. CWChris Williamson1:21:51

       Scott Solomon, ladies and gentlemen. Dude, you are, you are spectacular. You are so fun. Uh, I think what-

    2. SSScott Solomon1:21:57

       Oh, thanks. This has been great

    3. CWChris Williamson1:21:58

       ... what a, what an awesome topic to talk about. Where should people go if they're gonna wanna check out everything you're doing, buy the book, all the rest of it?

    4. SSScott Solomon1:22:05

       Yeah, yeah. So I mean, the book is, is available now. It's Becoming Martian, um, and, uh, uh, MIT Press. Um, so yeah, you know, check it out. Um, we did a streaming series too. It's also called Becoming Martian. That's on CuriosityStream, which, uh, wa- was a lot of fun. Um, but I've also got a podcast. Uh, my podcast is called Wild World, and it's all about, uh, fieldwork and exploration right here on Earth. So, um, yeah, check that out too.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:22:31

       Heck yeah. Scott, I appreciate you, man. Until next time.

    6. SSScott Solomon1:22:34

       Thank you so much. This has been so much fun.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:22:36

       [outro music] Congratulations. You made it to the end of an episode. Your brain has not been completely destroyed by the internet just yet. Here's another one that you should watch. Come on.

Episode duration: 1:22:49