Can SpaceX Put a Million People on Mars? | with Dr. Scott Solomon

[00:00:02]You have fallen into event horizon with John Michael Godier.

[00:00:18]In today's episode, John is joined by Dr. Scott Solomon. Dr. Scott Solomon is a biologist, professor, and science communicator at Rice University, where he teaches ecology and evolutionary biology. He's also a research associate at the Smithsonian National Museum of National History. His work explores how life adapts from microbes to humans, including how space flight may shape our future evolution. He is the author of Becoming Martian and Future Humans and has created widely viewed courses, documentaries, and podcasts on science and evolution.

[00:00:57]>> Scott Solomon, welcome back to the program.

[00:00:59]>> Hey, thanks so much. I'm so happy to be back.

[00:01:02]>> Well, in in a roundabout way, perhaps if you want to call it that, we are one step closer to Mars in that uh we have now have the uh the the SpaceX IPO and the gains since then for them. Now, what does this mean for the SpaceX plan to go to Mars? Now, I will make a prediction.

[00:01:26]>> Hidden in this is the idea of a million people living on Mars. I predict there will never be within Elon Musk's lifetime, there will never be any more than 500 people on Mars. What do you think?

[00:01:40]>> Oh, interesting. Yeah. Well, okay. So, what does it mean for the plans for Mars? It mean it means quite a few things. First of all, at the moment, it means that uh SpaceX has a lot more money uh at their disposal because of all of the uh investments that have been made in SpaceX. Um and so, you know, they can choose to use those funds as they uh as they see fit, I suppose. Um but yeah, one of the things that um was very interesting to me that it was was um disclosed as part of the paperwork that SpaceX had to um submit u in order to have their initial public offering, they had to submit uh a document called the S1. Um and uh and if you look at that document, it's publicly available.

[00:02:24]Um you know, it was submitted to the the SEC, the Security and Exchange uh Commission. And and um basically what they what they outlined there is that uh you know one of the things that the company had set up earlier this year was an incentive structure in which their CEO Elon Musk uh would uh receive a very major um windfall if you will uh you know a huge uh benefit if he achieves certain benchmarks. Um and specifically there's a valuation and I think it was like gosh what was the number it was um you know like 7 trillion or something like 7.1 trillion something like that right so like a huge uh valuation threshold if that happens and one more thing happens and that one more thing is if there are a million people living in a quote permanent human settlement on Mars while he is CEO then he gets 1 billion billion with a B uh shares of SpaceX stock. But not just any shares.

[00:03:32]He gets the special class B shares. And these are uh basically you know normally a share come one share comes with one vote as a shareholder. A class B stock is uh 10 votes per share. And so these are you know super voting rights they're called. So basically if that benchmark is achieved, Elon Musk personally stands to reap this absolutely enormous benefit. So what that tells me is that SpaceX has incentivized its CEO to push to have a human settlement, a permanent human settlement on Mars within Elon Musk's lifetime. So that seems to suggest that of all of the things that SpaceX is doing as a business, right?

[00:04:19]Right. I mean, they're in AI now.

[00:04:20]They're they've, you know, quite successfully been um you know, deploying satellites to provide uh internet through Starlink, right? And u you know, they presumably continue to do those things uh now that they're a publicly traded company. But they should also be pushing very aggressively towards uh having a million people living on Mars if their uh CEO Elon Musk is going to indeed get that benefit.

[00:04:49]Yes, but I I I I have a certain uh suspicion that he won't be one of those million people.

[00:04:56]>> Um >> yeah, it didn't specify that he had to be one of them, did he?

[00:04:59]>> Yeah. I don't know that uh I don't know that that'll that'll occur because it's well obviously the most high-risisk thing you could do. Um climbing Mount Everest is Tinker Toys for this, but the type of person that will climb Mount Everest is the type of person that will go and try to settle Mars. So there will be some people I I don't want to be a pessimist about it, but do you foresee the ability to create a local economy and everything the infrastructure that you need to become independent of Earth on Mars? I admittedly don't think this is going to happen.

[00:05:38]>> Well, it's interesting because yeah, I don't know what the business model is, right? Like, you know, and I'm no business expert. I should be clear about this. I'm a, you know, I'm a scientist.

[00:05:44]I'm an evolutionary biologist. But uh I you know I I I understand I think the business model behind providing you know satellite based internet for the world.

[00:05:54]Um I can I can wrap my head around the idea that they might be able to to um you know become a major player in AI especially if the idea of having data centers in space pans out. Um you know they've done tremendous things with rocket launch rocket technology. Don't don't get me wrong. I mean, they've been uh an absolutely revolutionary company when it comes to um you know, access to space through their rockets, but I don't understand what the economic incentives would be to settling Mars. And I know people have tried to articulate these and I've I've dug into that. I'm familiar with the arguments. I don't see how SpaceX would be able to profitably um you know, benefit from and and its shareholders, right? uh would be able to benefit from having a million people living on Mars. And one thing I can comment on is uh the risks that those million people would be taking on and the in my opinion um you know uh almost impossibility of us knowing how dangerous or safe that would be within Musk's lifetime. So it's not that we could never do it. I think eventually we might know enough to be able to understand those risks. I don't think we can do it within the next let's be generous you know 40 years right Musk is 54 now. So right, if uh uh you know if he lives an average lifespan, the average lifespan for you know uh wealthy men in the United States is uh around the mid80s. Um let's give him the benefit of the doubt and give him 10 more years. So and say, you know, he's got 40 years, right? Um in 40 years, will we know enough to be able to understand the risks of living on Mars?

[00:07:40]I I don't think there's any way that that could happen. Um, not and and here's the thing, it's not just about what the risks are of having, you know, adults like you and me decide that we might be comfortable with going to Mars.

[00:07:56]Um, that that that I think actually I should be clear. I I think that might happen. I I won't be surprised if we do have um, you know, people traveling to Mars on roundtrip visits. And there could even be some adults that choose to go on a trip to Mars in the next uh few decades that don't plan to return.

[00:08:16]As an adult who understands the risks, you could sign off on uh on doing that and and you know be able to take that risk on yourself. But the real um problem I have with with the way this is um is set up actually is that the idea of a permanent human settlement, a city, a civilization on Mars, that requires more than just sending adults.

[00:08:41]That requires raising families. That requires having children. And that to me is the that there's the rub because um now you're talking about human reproduction. Um, and you know, we can get get into the the science behind it, but the bottom line is that we do not understand what the challenges of human reproduction beyond Earth are. We do not understand what the risks would be to um a person that became pregnant in in those conditions. We do not understand what the risks are for a child to be born and to grow and develop in the in that environment. Um and and to me to suggest that we would go forward with doing that within the next few decades would be unethical. I mean it would be it would be basically I think a very irresponsible and almost reckless thing to do because what you are putting a person in harm's way without actually understanding those risks and that unborn child can't consent to those risks the way an adult you know person could.

[00:09:46]>> I am not a pessimist. I I am a humanist and I believe that we should head out and and you know explore but adults >> no reproduction in space I don't think it's it's not even worth one try because there's there is no point to it um and it's hard enough here on earth frankly you know um yeah I mean there's a lot of you know right exactly you know there's um my mother-in-law is an OBGYn and she's practiced uh both in the US and uh in many places around the world and had many conversations with her about this, you know, topic because I'm I'm I'm really interested to understand what those risks could be. Um, and you're absolutely right that, you know, pregnancy and child birth are already risky enough for people here on Earth.

[00:10:33]And unfortunately, um, you know, uh, women die, um, regularly from pregnancy, from complications in childirth, >> and children do as well. So, yeah. So, we're talking about something incredibly risky. No, I I will be clear though. I think that, you know, there is a way that we could start to better understand that like if we really decided living and reproducing out in space is essential for our species long-term survival. This is a something that we need to understand. We could decide to embark on a research program that would allow us to start to get answers. I mean, we could do some studies with, you know, animal models, things like rodents. And there have been a few studies that have tried to do this uh in space. For example, studies that have had uh you know rodents that um you know were pregnant like pregnant rats sent to space and then come back to earth and and give birth. Uh there recently were some rats that were in space that um uh that then came back to earth and then were able to become pregnant and give birth and you know follow those over multiple generations. So these it's not that nobody has thought of doing these studies but we are at the very very early stages of doing them and so we would need to know you know okay what are all of the challenges that uh are you know the space environment creates for each step in the process starting with you know fertilization and going all the way through embryo development all the stages of pregnancy birth and also child development you would want to do that first in animal models and and you need to understand how does lower gravity affect each of those stages. You would need to understand how does higher radiation affect each of those stages.

[00:12:20]And only once you had a sense of whether this truly was something that seemed like it could be safe for animals, would you ever even consider doing something like that with humans? Right? You'd have to really be confident that this appears to truly be safe in animals before you make the jump to humans. We have not even started on the animal model research in any sort of serious way. And that's why I just don't see this being something that we could feasibly do within the next three or four decades.

[00:12:51]>> Now, I think we're actually still at the level of plants. Can we get a can we get a you know corn to seed on Mars and things like that in lower gravity and all these questions?

[00:13:02]>> Well, yeah, >> we're still asking those questions.

[00:13:04]>> There's the whole thing of what are we going to eat there, right? I mean that's so yeah seed seeds turn out to be incredibly important for our ability to survive in space because like you got to eat something and uh almost certainly it's going to be plants and so yeah like plant reproduction is you know also likely to be um you know affected by the conditions of space and so we need to any organisms we bring with us even the bacteria in and on our bodies right we talked about that a little bit last time but you know all of these organisms are going to be affected by being in the space environment none of them are going to stay the same. Um, and we have to really be able to wrap our heads around what all of those risks are and what those consequences will be for future generations of us and all the other organisms that you know are are the things that we bring along in order to survive.

[00:13:51]>> You know, there is some uh as far as the plants go, there is some encouragement there because there have been a lot of experiments there and those started long long ago. um for example both the United States and then the Soviet Union now now the Russian Federation that um brought tomato seeds.

[00:14:10]>> Yeah. and they brought back space tomatoes. And um I have the interesting distinction of having grown the NASA space tomatoes from the space shuttle in the 1980s in the classroom. And then I grew and am growing one now, the uh so-called cosminaut vol tomato, which is the descendant of the seeds that the Soviet Union brought up.

[00:14:32]>> That's so cool. How do they taste?

[00:14:34]>> Actually, they're very nice. Um I it's it's I'm not just growing it because it's a space tomato. It's also a very nice heirloom globe type tomato.

[00:14:42]>> Okay.

[00:14:43]>> And it has um you know tomatoes at the store have very thick skins. So when you grow these heirloom tomatoes, they're they're thinner and thus you don't end up with a you know tomato skin in your mouth.

[00:14:54]>> And um it's very good. Yeah, it's very good. You can't tell that it descends from a seed that mutated in space.

[00:15:02]>> But what a cool backstory, right? I mean that's incredible. Well, and there's also moon trees. So, uh, and we have one of these, uh, at the Rice campus where, you know, where I where I work. Um, and these are, yeah, the the, you know, descendants of, um, seeds that were were carried, um, around the moon and, uh, the Apollo program and and then planted, um, various places. And I think now, and I I wish I knew the whole backstory, but there's um, you know, like grafts of these trees that have made their way around the world, and they have gone on to make other seeds. So, there's, you know, multiple generations, the descendants, as you said.

[00:15:36]Yeah, there was a one of the astronauts had worked for the park service >> and brought up all these those seeds and we have no idea where all the moon trees are, >> right? Yeah.

[00:15:46]>> Some anonymous tree somewhere in a park and, you know, city park or whatever and it it may have uh it may be a moon tree and >> maybe they've taken over somewhere. The moon trees might be like displacing Earth trees and we wouldn't even know it.

[00:16:00]>> That would be horrible. We're in trouble. We're in trouble. See, we need to we need to do the science, man.

[00:16:06]>> And it's not gonna it's not going to stop because then soon comes the Mars tree.

[00:16:10]>> Yeah, that's right. And I don't know if you know on the Aremis 2 mission, did they bring any seeds? I don't remember hearing any.

[00:16:16]>> You know what? There there is such a darth of information about what they did as far as interesting, quirky things.

[00:16:23]>> It hasn't come out. I've been looking for it because I mean, look at look at Apollo. I mean, they brought up like a a Reuben sandwich, you know, things like that. One of the astronauts snuck a sandwich up.

[00:16:35]>> Wow.

[00:16:35]>> And I'm like, well, did anything like that happen with Artemis?

[00:16:39]>> Yeah.

[00:16:39]>> Um, >> they had a lot of cameras during the Artemis 2 mission. So, I feel like it would be harder. I mean, there was the moment when the Nutella jar sort of floated across the field of view and that that went viral. So, I feel like if there was a Reuben on board, we we would know about it.

[00:16:52]>> We would know. And the other thing is that that was one of the striking things was the amount of shutter uh clicks going on. They were taking photographs, especially when they were in the uh, you know, the unlit side of the moon.

[00:17:06]>> Yeah.

[00:17:06]>> They were taking photographs like crazy.

[00:17:09]I don't think they had time to even, you know, >> take it in, >> right? Right. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:17:15]>> But at the same time, we've got those photos and it's it's >> and they keep coming out like they keep releasing more photos. That's a So, I think last time I was on the show, we were we were talking about how cool it's going to be when we get these views and maybe the moon will be illuminated when they go around, but depends on when they launch. And now, like, oh my gosh, these photos were just mindblowing.

[00:17:33]>> But it was even better, Scott, because they saw some of the mysterious interesting stuff from the Apollo days where they were reporting flashes on the surface of the moon.

[00:17:43]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:17:43]>> When they were seeing it in dark, you know, the theory being that they're meteorite impacts >> and they saw them. Artemis saw them.

[00:17:51]Yeah.

[00:17:51]>> So, um >> I I >> the moon is just I don't know. It We're back in an It's interesting to be in a 1960s style space age again.

[00:18:01]>> Well, and and >> I don't think either of us were around.

[00:18:04]>> I wasn't around. No, but and also like but there's like Yes. Uh Yes. And you know we we have so much more ability to capture it to to stream it to have um you know the perspective of the people who are experiencing it in real time. To me, that was the thing. I was just glued to the live feed just constantly because, you know, it was just so fascinating to get to kind of live vicariously through through those the astronauts, right? And um and and you know, nothing like that was was happening during Apollo, right? As you know, as far as I understand. So, you know, we heard about it after the fact, but it was uh, you know, not possible to always be able to follow along in real time during u during those Apollo missions. So, yeah, it it is pretty pretty incredible time to be alive.

[00:18:55]>> Yeah. And the other thing is one thing I I especially enjoyed about Artemis, too, was uh Victor Glover, the astronaut, was really poetic. Yeah.

[00:19:02]>> Like the most poetic guy we've ever sent, you know, out there. And he was just putting things in certain terms that was, you know, was beautiful. And >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Was he the one that said there was a moment when one of them, I think it was during the eclipse that they that they got to experience, right? Um that, you know, from their perspective that the sun went behind the the moon and and and I it might have been Victor. He he said somebody said basically like it just went sci-fi. And to me that really like for the people that are in space going around the moon already having this absolutely incredible experience for them to say it suddenly feels like science fiction really kind of kind of hit it home for me. Like all of it seemed like science fiction in a in a way you know and then for them to be have their minds blown to that extent to me that that was really uh impactful. I can imagine it though because you know we all know the moon intimately. We all look at it and you know for every moment of our lives every night anyway and we we see the moon up there and it's it's almost comforting but it becomes an alien planet when you see it >> we see the face we can't see from here.

[00:20:14]>> You know it becomes it becomes something else. And I think that that was kind of coming through with the astronauts that this sense of u maybe I didn't know this thing as well as I thought I did.

[00:20:25]>> Well, it has to be disorienting because we're used to like you know we can see the earth from all different angles now and we're constantly getting images from from space or what you know or or or images that aren't even actual images.

[00:20:37]Like we're used to depictions of the earth from from pretty much every angle but we're not used to those depictions of the moon, right? the moon. We always see the same face of it. Um, and you know, so like to see it's the moon, but it looks different from the moon that that we all know, that has to be really disorienting.

[00:20:57]>> Uh, it is. And because, uh, anyone that's ever seen totality during a solar eclipse realizes that there's more to the moon than what, you know, a pretty thing that hangs in the night sky. This is this this thing is part of the solar system. you know, it's a card carrying member and it isn't Earth, you know, so >> you get a kind of a sense of that during a total solar eclipse.

[00:21:20]>> Yeah.

[00:21:20]>> Um, but to actually seeing it from space must be just mind-blowing. I I probably would not be able to recover.

[00:21:29]>> Yeah.

[00:21:30]>> I could probably go to Mars and come back and I'd be like, "Oh, that was like going to Los Angeles, you know, whatever." But I going to the moon would bother me more. that would affect me more because it's actually more alien than Mars is. What do you think about that?

[00:21:44]>> Well, yeah. I mean, it's true that the moon is more different from Earth than like Mars is, you know, incredibly different from Earth, but it's more like Earth than the moon is. And because as you say, we all like are used to seeing the moon and uh you know, and we've, you know, maybe looked through a telescope or even binoculars or something and kind of seen the moon up close. We have some kind of a personal relationship with it.

[00:22:06]It's hard to have that with Mars. I mean, you can look through a telescope and see Mars, or you can just look with the naked eye and see a red dot in the night sky, but that somehow doesn't have the same impact, I think, as as the moon. And so, I do think that um yeah, we just, you know, I don't know. I think going to Mars, it would be, hey, don't get me wrong, it would be a life-changing experience. It would be absolutely remarkable. But I bet some aspect of it would feel familiar in a way that being on the moon does not feel familiar. That's that that I'd be willing to to make that bet.

[00:22:44]>> Yeah. I think um just the idea of an atmosphere, >> you know, with Mars that where you can actually walk outside and it's daylight, you know, as opposed to the the stark >> daylight of the surface of the lit moon.

[00:22:58]Um whereas Mars you can look around you'll see a cloud you know you'll see a dust storm something like that you might feel a little bit of wind very low pressure but >> you might see some evidence of of of it you know whereas uh the moon no and there are things about the moon that we know less about because we don't have you know 247 nuclearpowered rovers sitting on it you know um that are still open questions the I think >> yeah I think the worst one the one that worries me about the moon is the terminator so as as the terminator moves across the surface of the moon there seems to be an electrostatic effect and Apollo actually spotted this Artemis didn't where the the dust actually levitates along the terminator and that can be very very dangerous and we know almost nothing about it you know we we just have no idea >> so bizarre Yeah. So bizarre. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:23:59]That'll be like the equivalent of like the um you know you know the uh the the what is it called? The green um you know you see a sunset at at sea and you have like the green flash.

[00:24:10]>> Green flash.

[00:24:11]>> Yeah. The famous green flash. Is that like the the moon like a strange phenomenon that happens at at sunset is like you know the dust levitates. That would be >> except that maybe it happens all the time. It it seems to and then they I mean there there's some detection of it but it's what the rules are we have no idea.

[00:24:29]>> Yeah.

[00:24:29]>> Um but >> do for what for two two weeks right?

[00:24:33]>> Yeah. Yeah. A very long time and the temperature immediately plummets.

[00:24:38]>> Yeah.

[00:24:38]>> So you you go from extraordinarily hot you know on the daylight side to extraordinarily cold immediately because there's nothing to hold heat or anything like that.

[00:24:49]>> Yeah. Yeah. Um, I guess you would have residual, you know, infrared from the soil itself, but other than that, there's there's just no atmosphere to hold it. Whereas Mars would not be that way. Mars actually can. And um, it can retain heat to some degree with its its atmosphere, but not as good as Earth does.

[00:25:07]>> Right.

[00:25:07]>> So, it's uh it's interesting. The other thing being is that Mars actually has areas on it at its mid latitudes that can get up to comfortable temperatures.

[00:25:17]>> That's right. you know, like 68°, you know, Fahrenheit.

[00:25:21]>> And so you're you're you don't have the concerns of extreme temperatures that you will on the moon. And we have yet, regarding the moon, we'll get to Mars in a minute. We have yet to spend the night on the moon because all of the Apollo missions when they landed, they were there only during the day >> and then they left. We haven't done it yet with uh with actually having to survive the lunar night.

[00:25:43]>> Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. And that's a challenge, I guess, in a number of ways, right? I mean, it's a challenge from like a an energy perspective because if you're using solar power at all, then you've got to find a way to, you know, be able to to to preserve your your your power during that long uh long lunar night. But it's also got to be a psychological challenge just being in the dark. I mean, you know, seasonal effective disorder and everything, right? But imagine like the night lasts two weeks long. That just sounds depressing.

[00:26:12]>> Yeah. And it's it's totally unexplored territory. Now, Mars will have this as well because there's just more unknowns than there are knowns perhaps. Um, but now let me ask you this a direct question regarding Mars as an evolutionary biologist.

[00:26:27]>> All right.

[00:26:28]>> Mars has hinted very strongly that it once had perhaps microbial life.

[00:26:35]>> You know, there's just a laundry list of hints that it may have had it and it may still have it. Excellent. And that we, you know, we also have things like the the Viking experiments that, you know, all came back positive and things like that. So there may be microbial life there. You think that's dangerous? Do you think that there's a way for a uh a Martian microbe to exploit something um you know, from a man mission to uh to Mars? you know, could it could it could could a human become infected and their their entire gut biome get replaced by a Martian pathogen?

[00:27:12]>> Yeah, what a great question. Well, look, here here's here I'll say a few things about that. One is I agree that uh that there is a growing amount of evidence that uh is pointing towards the possibility that that life once existed on Mars, probably microbial life. We don't really know, but uh we keep finding more and more evidence that is at least consistent with the idea that there was once um life on Mars. And if there was once life on Mars, it definitely uh begs the question, could any of it have survived somewhere possibly, you know, below the surface?

[00:27:47]Um u maybe maybe far below the surface and maybe not quite so far below the surface. So um if that is indeed the case then I think we have to consider your question which is you know is that life dangerous in some way? Um I would I would extend it to you know we need to know is it dangerous to humans but we need to know also is it dangerous to other earth life forms that we bring with us. Um that could be to the microorganisms that comprise our microbiome. It could be to the you know plants that we bring with us as our food source. Any other organisms that we choose to bring with us as well. Uh we need to know are uh could that um you know indigenous Martian life be a threat and then we need to know is there a possibility that we could transport that life back to Earth uh either accidentally or intentionally and could it pose a threat to to Earth in any way?

[00:28:48]Um, you know, all of those I think are possibilities. We can't rule that out.

[00:28:53]Uh, one of the as as a biologist, as an evolutionary biologist, one of the very first questions that I would want to ask if we discovered um extant life, meaning life uh on Mars that is still alive today. U the very first question I would want to know is is it related to Earth life? So, there's only two possibilities. either it is or it isn't.

[00:29:18]And and what I mean by that is either there is a deep historical connection between the life on Earth and the life on Mars because we it shares a common ancestor and that could mean that you know maybe life on Earth was first seated by life that came from Mars or you know uh you know both planets Earth and Mars were seated by the same source.

[00:29:42]That's a possibility. Could also be the reverse. It could be that life had first originated on Earth and uh was somehow transported to Mars. Um if that is indeed true. So if there is a a common historical link between earth life and Martian life, that would increase the probability that that life form would be a threat to us and to other uh earth life because by sharing the same basic blueprint, you know, having nucleic acids like DNA or RNA as the blueprint for our genetic code by having, you know, the same types of amino acids that make up the proteins. You know, having the same basic building blocks and being structured in the same way would make it more likely that we could serve as a host for a microbial disease on Mars. If the answer is no, that these are actually independent origins of life on each planet, um that doesn't rule out the possibility that that Martian life could be dangerous to Earth life, including humans, but it might decrease the possibility uh to a certain extent.

[00:30:58]So either way, first of all, it would be absolutely fascinating. And this would be, in my opinion, it would be the most important discovery ever made in the history of science if we find uh life on Mars that is still still kicking, still still out there uh uh doing its thing.

[00:31:14]Um, and in part it would be so so important because either of those outcomes, either it is related to Earth life and that tells us something about how life on Earth first originated, one of the fundamental questions in all of science, or if it actually evolved separately independently, that would dramatically increase the chances that there is also life in other places. You know, if if life independently arose on two planets right next to each other in the same solar system, then it just tells us that life is way more widespread and is probably very very common in in um in our universe and probably in others.

[00:31:58]>> Microbial life would pervade the universe. And I've always found that to be >> I I that's enough for me. I don't need, you know, alien signal. I I I need a microbe.

[00:32:08]>> Yeah. And that I can reasonably hope for within a lifetime that that we would find microbial life. And that would tell me, you know, if we you got it on two independent abiogenesis events in one star system, microbes are everywhere >> perhaps even much more which makes the Firmeny paradox get even stranger because we we don't see it. Um but also I wonder what the social effect of the it would be if we found that a biogenesis if related if Mars and Earth life you know assuming Mars life exists have a common ancestry that and Mars is older meaning that it all started there and there are reasons you know hidden reasons within science to suspect that maybe Mars might have actually been the better planet during the early history of the solar system.

[00:33:02]>> Mhm.

[00:33:04]>> Well, what happens if life is not indigenous to Earth and that it it came here by panspermia and that we're actually from Mars, in which case Elon will be uh reconquering the home world instead, you know.

[00:33:17]>> Yeah, we're just coming home. We're just coming.

[00:33:19]>> Yeah, we're going home. Um, but you know, when you look into religion and philosophy, a lot of it is based on Earth, you know, and well, what if we're not from here? What does that change?

[00:33:32]What do you think? Do you think there's a risk there as far as um, you know, a social upheaval?

[00:33:38]Well, look, I think uh discovering life elsewhere in uh be anywhere beyond Earth will lead to dramatic um gosh like a reckoning really like it would be it would like I said I I I do believe it would be the most important scientific discovery in history but I think that the impact of it would go far far beyond science. I agree that it uh it has implications for for many religions. Uh, it has implications for just how we see ourselves in the grand scheme of the cosmos. It has implications for how old life is. It has implications for how likely it is that life can persist far into the future. It has implications for almost everything that you can you can think of. Um, I don't know what the social reaction would be. I would like to think that people would be, you know, uh uh all tuned in and and you know, glued to their uh news feeds to find out more.

[00:34:40]Part of me is kind of skeptical that that would happen sadly because I feel like with our news cycle these days, it would be uh a big deal for a short amount of time and then people would move on. Um which would be a real shame uh because as I said, it's so it would be so significant. Um, but yeah, I I guess it maybe depends on on what exactly we find and how much we know about it. One thing I I I would predict is that it wouldn't be uh an all of a sudden we know everything thing, you know, like it tends to be uh the case with these types of discoveries that we sort of peel back the onion bit by bit and get a little bit more of a glimpse and a little bit more of a glimpse. And I think what that means for our the societal reaction because of the way uh the news cycle works is that there might not be that one moment. You know, there might just be sort of this gradual, oh, okay, now we know a little bit more.

[00:35:36]Yeah, seems pretty likely that there's life. Oh, look, it might be life that's connected to Earth. Oh, yeah. Now we think it really is. You know, and I wonder how that would affect the societal reaction, right? Not having that big headline news. this is the moment we discovered aliens are real, you know. Uh I I I I sort of worry that it would sort of dull the impact in a way that would be personally disappointing to me.

[00:36:01]>> I would uh I would I would counter with this that I think we're living through that where we're like, okay, well, we detected something in 1976, whatever.

[00:36:12]>> Yeah. With Viking, right? Yeah.

[00:36:14]>> Yeah. With Viking. we we're still fighting about it, you know, um 50 years later. And I wonder given the way that science proceeds and it necessarily has to do this, you know, as you know, um you're going to meet skepticism until the evidence is there's a prepoundonderance of evidence and everybody has to say, "Well, it must be short of actually seeing um Martian microbes under the uh you know, the microscope."

[00:36:42]>> Yeah. which um we can't do, you know, robotically yet. Um, short of that, it's going to be a long, slow process unless somebody gets a Martian cold, you know, going on a SpaceX mission to um, you know, going on vacation and they get the the next level cruise ship virus, you know, where where, you know, and then they bring it back and, you know, our corn gets infected by a Martian pathogen and and the corn goes extinct, you know, and these sorts of things. So there are ways this could go off a cliff is what I'm saying where we could step a little bit too far with with you know um private exploration of space and go beyond our science and what we actually know and experiments that need to be done aren't being done and we just go and stumble into it.

[00:37:36]>> Yeah. Do you think that we need a new Martian lifefinder mission that will directly, which NASA has has been afraid of this since the 70s, try to directly detect microbial life on Mars before we go?

[00:37:50]>> Well, I do think that it is essential to know if there is microbial life on Mars before we try to actually set up any kind of a settlement there. I think I think you you need to know that because in part because well there's logistical reasons there's practical reasons like what we've been discussing right there's risks associated uh but there's also ethical considerations right if it turns out that Mars is indeed uh you know inhabited by uh by microbial life by any kind of life if there are intact ecosystems going in and being there will disrupt them in some way and and to me that completely changes the the the the calculations in terms of like should we be doing this not just how should we be doing it but should we be doing it at all. So I think we need to know uh so I yes would absolutely like to see um you know studies that are more directly looking at uh is there any evidence for current life on Earth uh on on Earth on Mars um you know prior to any serious efforts to to try to truly live there.

[00:38:59]At least we have the Martian meteorites of which we actually have quite quite a few samples of, you know, but salts and things like that that were blasted off of Mars and fell here.

[00:39:09]>> And strangely enough, one of those Allen Hills 84001 um seemed to have structures in it that looked like the remnants of microbes.

[00:39:20]That's another hidden back into the history of science that we we still >> don't have a consensus on. Um although it's interesting because if it if those were life in that meteorite and that actually is evidence of life, it's way smaller, you know, it's like way smaller than normal microbes. And um you one wonders what the effect of that is if if if that's what that indeed indicates. But again, it was called into question because she you know, ambiguous evidence, you know.

[00:39:53]>> Yeah. and and and of course then like what is the effect of of you know traveling through space between Mars and Earth on on on any possible life form right so uh yeah it's the it's the best we've got at the moment but then there's also you know samples that the the Mars rovers have collected right so Perseverance is collecting samples now those samples are really targeting um you know ancient microbial life not not current microbial life um but man it would be good to get those samples back to Earth and be able to examine them properly with all of our our experimentation. Right.

[00:40:28]>> Yeah. Sample return mission appears to be dead even though we took the samples and they're sitting there waiting. Maybe China will go get them or something like that. But um >> yeah, at least the samples are there. So like, you know, my understanding is is that it would be possible to still retrieve them at a later date and get useful information, right? So yeah.

[00:40:47]>> Maybe you maybe private will do it.

[00:40:49]Maybe >> Exactly. Yeah. And I'm not giving up hope on that. I, you know, I'm I'm really uh >> man, I would really love >> that would be horrible if SpaceX is like, "We want to go get the samples so we can do testing for our colony." And the government's like, "Nope, you you can't get the samples. Those are federal property."

[00:41:08]Something horrible like that.

[00:41:10]>> Yeah. I mean, you know, if if there was a a human mission to Mars, um gosh, it would really be it would really be tempting to go and try to to to get to some of those depots and and get those samples, wouldn't it?

[00:41:22]>> Well, it it seems like it would seem like a common sense step.

[00:41:27]>> If if you need to do testing before you go, go get the samples that were designed for it because they're sitting right there, you know?

[00:41:34]>> Right. Right. Um, >> on the other hand, wouldn't you want to go to a place that we don't yet have any information about, right? You know, wouldn't you want >> plenty of those?

[00:41:42]>> Yeah, exactly. Plenty. Yeah. Yeah. Mo the vast majority of the planet.

[00:41:46]>> Well, that that we always pick the safe spots, you know, because we're doing it robotically, >> but if you have a human, you can drive out there, you know, or whatever. And so, we we haven't actually seen the wonders of Mars yet. Um, imagine if you will sitting there at Val Marinys looking at the Jet world, you know, the solar system's largest canyon. Well, what vistas would you see? You know, and we we simply haven't seen that because we go to the safe areas. We we land on the planes, you know, or, you know, like Illinois or Kansas, we go and we land in the cornfield because it's safe for the rover, but we haven't seen the mountains and the, you know, the the wonders of Mars yet. And it's I guarantee you it's got every bit as much as Earth does, you know. I mean, there will be amazing things, you know, amazing photographs on Mars once people get there. And that'll be fun. I mean, you know, because again, it's it is an alien planet.

[00:42:42]>> Absolutely. Yeah. Alice Marinaris, but also Olympus Mons, right? The tallest volcano in the in the solar system. Man, I want to go see that. That would be that would be incredible. so tall that it pokes out of most of the atmosphere of Mars, right?

[00:42:56]>> So, you know that the Mars has global dust storms, >> but you still see the top of Olympus Mons because it's above it. You know, its calderas are above most of the atmosphere and uh you know, it just never sees a dust storm. Um, where do you think that >> where do you think an opportune place, you know, for human life as best we can, you know, we're under a dome or whatever on Mars, where where do we need to go?

[00:43:24]Do we need to go to those mid latitudes or where where is a place that a company like SpaceX or NASA if they want to go to Mars, where what what is the best place on that planet to land? And I have a sneaking suspicion it might be at the bottom of one of those big craters, right?

[00:43:43]>> You know, where you have higher atmospheric pressure, which seems like that might alleviate some engineering concerns on your on your dome or whatever it is you're building, >> something like that.

[00:43:53]>> I mean, I think that here's the thing.

[00:43:54]There's like there's a challenge because there are different resources that we need and different considerations, right? So, um, you know, you mentioned atmospheric pressure, that's that's a consideration. Uh, temperature we were talking about before, right? So, as you pointed out, you know, near the equator, the temperatures are certainly more more mild. Uh, so that's attractive. Um, but at the same time, you need water. And so, um, you know, we know that there's a significant amount of of frozen water um at the poles. Uh, so, you know, South Pole might be attractive for access to all that water, but we suspect that there might be a reasonable amount of, uh, frozen water below the surface. If that turns out to be the case, then maybe you don't need to go to the poles.

[00:44:38]You know, the poles are going to be a rough place from a from a temperature perspective. Um, so it would be nice if you could find a reliable source of water closer to the equator, but the other challenge is the radiation environment, right? So, you know, everywhere on the planet, you're going to be exposed to much higher levels of radiation than um you know, than than even the the astronauts in um you know, in low Earth orbit because Mars doesn't have a magnetic field. So, um you know, you're going to have to to somehow find ways to uh to buffer to uh to shield people from that radiation. Um and one of the the ideas is to to go into ground, right? to either dig uh or to take advantage perhaps of uh pre-existing openings like lava tubes.

[00:45:30]So, um you know, if there are lava tubes near the equator, that might be the ideal place, especially if it turns out that as you get underground, you're finding um you know, significant amounts of water ice. So, that to me would be kind of the like optimal situation. Um but uh my understanding is we don't currently have a solid handle on exactly how much water ice there is under the surface or how deep you'd have to go to to access it.

[00:45:58]>> Actually the the only number that I've seen that we do know is that it's decreasing. We're seeing less in certain aspects anyway less water than we thought might have been there.

[00:46:08]>> Um which creates a big question as far as terraforming eventually that doesn't appear that we can terraform Mars. um at least not in uh the way of uh releasing all the water vapor. So >> yeah, not without introducing more of it, for example, from an asteroid, right?

[00:46:26]>> Yeah, you'd start to you'd have to sit there and spend a million years whacking Mars with comets, basically comets. And I I I don't see >> at that point at that point you start to wonder if the better candidate would be Venus in a way, >> you know, as far as if you're going to change a planet, which I don't think we will >> personally, but um but if you're going to change a planet, Venus starts looking a little bit more attractive because it it geologically speaking, it's the more Earthlike than than Mars is because it's, you know, by virtue of size, mass, you know, it's about the same as Earth, whereas Mars is not.

[00:47:06]>> Yeah. And that and because of that, Mars has an issue where even if you were able to terraform it, right, it's temporary because the lower gravity means that it is constantly having its atmosphere stripped away by the solar wind. So that means even if you did introduce um you know even if you did slam comets into it and now you've got the water that you need uh kind of circulating and having a a water cycle like we have on Earth, it's it's going to be, you know, slowly but surely lost to space as that solar wind strips it away. So you don't want to start bombarding it with comets once you've got people living there.

[00:47:44]>> No, no, that's that's the worst thing that you could do. Um well, no, there are worse things that you could do. You could you could try to migrate um Earth out as the sun turns into a red giant.

[00:47:53]You could try to migrate Earth out by running asteroids past it, skimming it, and causing the energy to move it outward. But you miss and hit Earth, you know. Welcome to dinosaur land, you know. Um but the the idea of terraforming Mars, it's just you can conquer Mars, you could create a colony, you know, the laws of physics don't prohibit that. But how much do you want to spend on making it into Earth?

[00:48:21]And that's I think going to be the biggest challenge for um a permanent colony on Mars is people, do you really want to stay there? All right, you've been there. You've you've climbed Mount Everest. You've summited.

[00:48:34]Do you want to go back to Earth and do something else? You know, and I think a lot of people will. Now, to SpaceX's credit, that's in the planning. You know, those those Starships will return.

[00:48:45]But I question the timelines. What do you think? Now, we were talking about, you know, this has to happen within Elon Musk's lifetime. And if he becomes a horrible cyborg, you know, you're looking like, you know, the Borg uh from Star Trek and it's Elon. Um, and he's 150 years old. Even still, I don't think that's enough time. You know, I don't think I don't think another uh 60 years is enough time to create a viable Mars colony. Um, what do you think about the timelines? Well, yeah, it depends on what you mean by so like in the wording of their their um you know uh S1 document that they that they filed with the SEC, it says a permanent human civilization. So what does permanent mean? Obviously like you know you can't ever know how long something is going to last, right? So into the future. So to me permanent implies that it is um self- sustaining like it is not uh dependent on resupply from earth uh either for um you know supplies material or personnel and that implies you've got uh you know a population that is if not growing at least stable and in order to do that you have to be replacing every individual with the birth of of new individuals. So, um, you know, I keep coming back to that as to me that is the potential showstopper for all of these plans. If we can't successfully have kids on, uh, on on Mars, then we can never have a permanent civilization there. Um, and there could really be a trade-off between being able to um to survive and thrive on Mars and being able to come back to Earth. What I mean by that is like, you know, if you look at future generations who were born on Mars, perhaps they start to adapt to the conditions on Mars, including the lower gravity, right? You know, it's 40% of of uh of Earth's gravity. Uh and so, you know, we don't actually know what that does to a person's body, especially a growing and developing body. Um but if we can assume that it's something like what happens to adults in uh you know weightlessness and effectively zero G then we would expect bone density loss you know muscle atrophy you know weaker muscles weaker bones among other things and if that is indeed the case and what you see is that future generations their bodies are adapted to be able to function well in that lower gravity what happens to them if they come back to earth right if those people with, you know, uh, uh, lighter bones, uh, weaker muscles, they might be fine on Mars, but it could be at the expense of being able to come and now weigh three times what you weighed on your home planet and and effectively be, you know, crushed by that uh, that higher gravity. So, you know, the bottom line is we don't know that, but that is a real possibility that it could really be challenging for future generations born in a lower gravity environment to come back to Earth. I'm just talking about the gravity. There's other issues like, you know, infectious disease, microbes, but um but the gravity alone to me is something that um that could really be a showstopper.

[00:52:05]>> Yeah, it could be. And we were warned by Arnold Schwarzenegger, if you recall, in that movie. And not only that, everybody was a mutant that was that was from Mars. It was it wasn't just the gravity.

[00:52:16]>> That Total Recall.

[00:52:17]>> Yeah, Total Recall. And uh >> I that was an interesting movie for sure.

[00:52:23]>> Well, you know, you're bringing up like science fiction. I think it's so relevant though because it's not like these are new ideas, right? You know, science fiction authors have explored these ideas for for years. And you know we were talking about what happens could you know could if if Mars has life today microbial life could it be dangerous to people you know this is the Andromeda strain right this is Michael Kiteon you know you know it and you can go back even further because it's also HG Wells and War of the Worlds right it was the bacteria that thwarted the Martian invaders uh all the way back in 1898 when >> can you believe that he wrote that in 1898 Oh yeah. And he was, you know, he was actually, you know, very much trying to apply uh what was known at the time from evolutionary biology specifically.

[00:53:13]He he was taught evolution by Thomas Henry Huxley, who was Charles Darwin's best friend and confidant, you know, like >> you can't make it up. You can't make it up. He was so early. Yeah. that um he actually knew these people and and he may well have I'm not sure when HG Wells was born but he may well have been born before we were really understood what a micro was. It was in the early days.

[00:53:36]Yeah. You know it's interesting like in that time so um this is slight sidetrack but it's it's relevant what we're talking about. You know Darwin didn't really think a lot about microbial life.

[00:53:46]He he wrote about so many different examples of different living things in all of his work starting with the origin of species and going into his later work. Microbes were really kind of something he didn't explore very much.

[00:53:59]He was aware of them. You know, it was known in his lifetime, but it was not very well known. And so that to me was always kind of a striking thing that was sort of a I don't I don't know if blind spot is too strong of a word, but it was something that he didn't really uh focus a lot on in his work. And he was man he but you know part of why that's surprising is because he had such a curious mind and such an encyclopedic knowledge of natural history and and life you know uh not only from what he had seen himself and his travels and and experiments but what uh you know he had read and and others had had shared with him but yeah micrups were one thing he didn't know that much about. So, I don't know.

[00:54:42]>> I I I think I have the explanation. Too much on his plate because evolutionary biology, you were looking at all of it, >> you know, and you're going to have to focus on the finches or something like he did. Um, especially ages on HMS Beagle.

[00:54:59]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know what?

[00:55:00]He, you know, coming back from the Beagle, he became the world's expert on barnacles, right? That was like the one thing that he like did a deep dive on before writing about evolution. And then he was studying earthworms. He has a moment where he's like playing the piano in his living room trying to see if the earthworms are reacting to the sound of music. And >> I wonder if they did.

[00:55:21]>> Uh I think the answer was no. No. Um no notable reaction, but doesn't mean that they didn't. Just you couldn't >> mean they didn't like the song.

[00:55:30]>> You couldn't obser Yeah, that's right.

[00:55:31]They maybe they didn't like they didn't like his playing. But >> yeah. Um but it it was th those were heady days and that HD Wells though back to him yeah had you know picked up on this in science fiction writing that early is one of the astounding things.

[00:55:47]He also did it with nuclear war if you can believe that. Um he wrote a novel envisioning a bomb so terrible that it set you know the earth a flame and it was it was a sort of a forcehock to um to uh nuclear weaponry. Right.

[00:56:03]>> Well, and then you've got Jules Vern talking about, you know, traveling in a in a basically a rocket ship to to the moon, right? I mean, you have people envisioning the possibility and the consequences as well. That to me is part of what is really important about science fiction is people think through not just what can we do, but but what then will happen next. There is actually there was an astronomer in the 17th century I think he lived 1670s something like that that had an idea about using a telescope to search the surface of the moon for animals. Hm. Yeah.

[00:56:40]>> So, he had that conception that, you know, the very very first, you know, glimmer of a SETI experiment is what it was. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, well, well, maybe we'll see animals walking around on that thing. And, you know, we need a big telescope and and that was what I don't think you ever did it, but that was the idea.

[00:56:57]>> And then when we did have telescopes, then people thought that they were seeing the canals on Mars, right?

[00:57:01]>> Yeah. Scaperelli and and Pul L. Yeah, they they saw canals and it was it was entirely a trick of the optics of the human eye and you know connecting the dots and things like that and then we go there and there are no canals.

[00:57:16]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But the idea is that people like imagined what could be and then as the technology comes on board we sort of like modify what our imagination can envision. And yet, you know, we still have these questions of, "Yeah, but what if? But what if this? What if that?" And that doesn't that doesn't end, right? We keep we keep extending it. I think that's exciting.

[00:57:39]>> Well, that that that ties back to what we were talking about about social, you know, issues regarding the discovery of alien life. A lot of people don't realize there was a time where we thought Mars had life.

[00:57:49]>> Yeah. Yeah. and and people lived there their almost their entire life from the period of lol and the canals all the way to to uh you know mariner when it when it saw that how dead Mars looks. Um but that that those people during that period fully thought yeah there's probably life on Mars and Venus probably has jungles you know and things like that and it it didn't collapse society it didn't do anything. Um the the most that ever happened was the very much overblown Orson Wells um you know War of the Worlds back to HG Wells uh broadcast but that didn't have the reaction that is popularly thought it wasn't anywhere near as bad most people >> because people thought it was actually we were being invaded right and Yeah.

[00:58:35]Yeah. Yeah.

[00:58:36]>> Well I think I think most people at the time there were a few >> from what I understand but I think most people at the time realized oh it's Arson Wells it's fiction. Yeah.

[00:58:46]>> Or they read the book and they're like, "Oh, it's worry. The worry is doing an adaptation, you know." So I I don't think that effect was was was very much.

[00:58:54]And I I think people just shrugged, you know? They're like, "All right, yeah, there's life out there. So what?"

[00:58:59]>> And now we've cried wolf. So what will happen if it uh when we really do discover Martian life, right? Fake news.

[00:59:05]That's what everybody will say. I don't know.

[00:59:07]>> That's what Yeah. That that's that's our, you know, the conditions of our time. And they will they'll say, "Ah, fake news. There ain't nothing there."

[00:59:14]you know. Um, so it it's just humans, you know, it's just humans, >> but it's good to be skeptical. I mean, like so like that the idea of like don't just accept it at face value. Like I think that's actually valuable, right?

[00:59:25]You know, like we we of course should be skeptical, but I think you used the phrase earlier a prepundonderance of evidence. That's what we need, right? We need to have, you know, overwhelming evidence. Was it Carl Sean that said, uh, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? Yeah, but I I actually disagree with the quote because I don't I You just need evidence.

[00:59:46]>> So, I would say extraordinary claims require a prepundonderance of evidence.

[00:59:50]>> Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You need Yeah.

[00:59:53]You need solid You need solid evidence and you need a good amount of it. Yes.

[00:59:57]>> But once you got it, you got it.

[00:59:59]>> Well, yeah.

[01:00:00]>> Once you have it, it's there. And that's when the fun begins because then you get to look at its genome. And I can't think of a more interesting thing than getting a look at a, you know, Martian organisms genome.

[01:00:12]>> I hope that we one day get to have a university department of Martian genetics. That would be super cool. And I want to I want to get my >> You could be the first scientist. Yes.

[01:00:22]You could be the first scientist in that field. The first astrobiologist with a subject to study.

[01:00:29]>> So >> yeah.

[01:00:30]>> Yeah. I I would go I I I'm not going back to school. Never mind.

[01:00:37]I'm not going to Mars either.

[01:00:40]Now, do what do you think? Now, we were talking about the viability and my prediction that there will never be any more than 500 people on the surface of Mars. Uh what do you think about that?

[01:00:49]Do you think that, you know, could is the possibility there in your mind for a viable colony of people living and reproducing and all of that on Mars?

[01:01:00]>> I mean, it depends on what time scale you're talking about. eventually. Sure.

[01:01:04]I I I'm willing to believe that there could be a future in which humans could be scattered beyond even just our solar system, that we could truly live on other worlds and thrive there and adapt to those worlds, etc. But I think we're talking about uh the very distant future. I don't think that's happening in in my lifetime. I don't definitely don't think it's happening in Elon Musk's lifetime. Um I don't think it's happening in the lifetimes of anybody alive today or their children or grandchildren. I think um you know I think we should be working towards understanding what the limitations are that might you know make those make that challenging. Um but I think there's so many steps in that process that have to happen before we could that you know we could begin to truly be living there. So eventually someday sure but not anytime soon. tell everybody about your book, Becoming Martian.

[01:02:01]>> Yeah, I mean, this is really what what my book is about. So, exploring uh uh the the possibility of living in space is is what I wanted to take on with with this book, Becoming Martian. So, you know, as an evolutionary biologist, I'm really intrigued by the possibility of eventually doing it, but I want to know what comes next. So, if we have people living beyond Earth, would they adapt? you know, would they eventually evolve into a new species? So, what I try to do in Becoming Martian is to take readers through the science and and tell the stories of the people that are actually doing the research today to help us understand not only what is Mars like and and could it ever have had life and maybe does it have life today, but also, you know, what do we know about how the conditions of space affect the human body? I went to the NASA, you know, space radiation lab. You know, I went to the uh, you know, Johnson Space Center's microbiology lab to see where they're monitoring the International Space Station for, you know, microbial growth and understanding how those microbes are adapting and changing. And what I try to do in the book is help people to see that first of all we are embarking already on uh trying to understand all of that science and I try to show how we can apply what we know from evolutionary biology and things like island biogeography. If you think of planets as islands just on a much bigger scale, we know a lot about how life changes when you take a small number of individuals and put them somewhere far away in a new environment.

[01:03:34]They adapt. They evolve and they change.

[01:03:38]They evolve into new species and and basically to kind of try to describe how that would happen to people living on Mars or anywhere else beyond Earth. So yeah, uh Becoming Martian uh MIT Press and um yeah, it's available on Amazon and uh uh all sorts of book sellers around the world. So check it out.

[01:03:59]the revenge of your your island's comment. The revenge of Darwin's finches because then that's when we begin to develop our different beaks as as Darwin noticed and at some point were different species than the Martians.

[01:04:13]>> Yeah.

[01:04:13]>> The day that that eventually we have to say, "Yeah, you're no longer homo sapiens sapiens."

[01:04:18]>> That's the thing. So, there are uh depending on who you ask, somewhere between 14 and 17 species of uh fences in the Galapagos Islands. They all can trace their ancestors back to one species of finch that arrived in the Galapagos Islands uh no more than one or two million years ago, which you know that's yesterday in terms of evolutionary history. The same thing would happen to people or any other organisms we bring with us up to the uh the islands in the sky. So yeah, I think we would evolve into new species if we're able to live there and reproduce and survive for long enough for future generations to be able to actually adapt and change.

[01:05:01]>> Were I a finch, the last finch I would want to be would be the first finch that ended up in the islands because it would it would it was probably sitting there.

[01:05:08]It's probably exhausted, you know, probably came from South America or something.

[01:05:13]>> It's always hard on the first uh f first immigrants, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. You're you're the first finch and you have the wrong beak.

[01:05:21]>> Yep. Exactly. Yeah. Well, and that, you know, it's worth pointing out that, you know, evolution, natural selection. This is not a friendly process. This is not a a happy fun easy process. This is there's a lot of death and suffering that goes into uh you know, evolutionary change. Um and so this is not it's not that like you know um we should be what do I want to say? you know, we shouldn't just sort of like uh be encouraging natural selection to to to run its course in uh in humans because this is a very unpleasant process. So, I do think it would happen to future generations living in space. But we need to be very openeyed and and clear about what that actually means and what it would mean not just for the first people that show up there, but for their children and and grandchildren as well.

[01:06:14]Yes. And you know the most common the most common outcome of evolution is extinction. And >> it's happened to almost every species that's ever lived. 99.99%.

[01:06:26]>> And that's that's a sobering thought in a certain way.

[01:06:30]>> Which is also part of the motivation for why some people think we should try to leave Earth, right? Is to try to avoid that fate. So that's to me the ultimate irony. If our motivation to try to go to space and live on Mars and elsewhere is to preserve our species to to prevent our species from disappearing. How ironic is it that doing so would actually change us, right? You can't stay the same forever. That's the that's the lesson from evolution is as much as you try to stay the same, you just keep you keep changing. So yeah, we can maybe preserve life, but it won't be the same life.

[01:07:06]>> Yes. But in its own way and this is the beauty of evolution is it's glorious you know look what it can do you know and look what a what a unplanned process can result in and um I find that encouraging >> it is and it's also the thing that I think I would miss the most if I was no longer living on earth is to me what makes earth so beautiful and wonderful is all of the other inhabitants that we get to share this planet with the other people yes but also all of the other incredible results of the you know three and a half billion years of evolution of life on earth. Um to me that's the richness and and the the the wonder of our planet is you know not just its its physical spaces but this is this planet is literally teeming with earth. It is alive and uh and that's the wonder of it. So um I think that's what all of us would miss if we went and lived somewhere that only had what we brought with us.

[01:08:04]Charles Darwin's musically tonedead worms.

[01:08:09]They those are the ones they they they are just completely indifferent to the rest of us.

[01:08:14]>> I feel like there's a Dune reference in there somewhere. I'm not sure how to get there.

[01:08:18]>> I'll think of it probably tonight.

[01:08:22]>> All right. Thank you, Scott. And I know you have a heart out and um I uh it's always fun talking to you and as this process of going to Mars and colonizing it unfolds, I'm sure we'll have a lot more conversations about this.

[01:08:37]>> Well, this was so much fun. Thanks for having me back on again. I appreciate it.

[01:09:03]Heat. Heat.

[01:09:30]Heat. Heat.

[01:09:36]Heat. Heat.

[01:10:12]Heat. Heat.