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Familes in space · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Audi adults. If you're listening to this show with kids,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: we just wanted to give you a heads up that
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: we're talking about the birds and the bees today, So
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: decide for yourself if it's time to switch to a
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: different episode of Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. Giving birth
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: is a truly profound and beautiful experience, but also it
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: really sucks and it's super dangerous. According to UNIEF, there
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: were two hundred and eighty seven thousand maternal deaths in
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty. That's down from four hundred and forty seven
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: thousand deaths in two thousand, so that's great news, But
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: labor and delivery remain super dangerous. Not all places are
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: equally dangerous, though, A lot of danger is removed when
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: you have access to nearby healthcare, which is why I
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: find myself a little concerned when Elon Musk proposes we
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: send one million people to Mars in the next thirty years.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: No humans will have ever been quite so far away
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: from a hospital. And on top of that, Mars is
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: a much harsher environment than Earth, for reasons we'll discuss today.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: The Martian environment could pose a lot of additional challenges
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: for pregnant moms and their babies. Can moms survived this
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: process and what about their babies? So today we're talking
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: about conception, pregnancy, labor, and subsequent child development in space.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Hi.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I've continued in
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: my family's tradition of being born in one continent, raised
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: in a second, and having a child on a third.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, go through the Where did you come from?
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: I was born in Israel, which technically part of a
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: raised in America, and one of my children was born
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: in Switzerland near the particle collider.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: That is very cool. I have no crazy travel stuff
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: like that. I was born in New Jersey, raised in Ohio.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Then I went kind of all over the US for
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: a while, but I've pretty much lived on this continent.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: It's exciting. Oh yeah, and I'm Kelly Wienersmith. I study
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: parasites and mostly stay here.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: All right. Well, then my question for you today, Kelly
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: is where is the strangest place you've ever heard of
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: a baby being born?
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: So in Antarctica. There's this slice of Antarctica that has
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: three overlapping land claims. So the UK, Chile, and Argentina
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: all claim this chunk of Antarctica, and for geopolitical reasons,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: there's it seems this desire to have babies on this
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: land chunk, so that if we do ever go back, Yeah,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: this is a great story. So if we do ever
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: go back to an era where sort of history matters,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: and you could say, well, like, yes, there's overlap claims,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: but we were here doing science and having babies and
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: and so I don't remember which it was, either Argentina
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: or Chile. They flew a pregnant woman out to the
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: middle of nowhere so that she could have a baby.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: Who agrees to that? Who agrees to have your birth
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: be part of like geopolitical discussions.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's an interesting birth story, but I don't know.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: And then the other nation to one up them, had
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: a baby conceived and born on their research base, and
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: so there's this like wit zach and I call it
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: counter stork technology or something like instead of yeah and
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: so so, yeah, I think that is the weirdest birth
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  Speaker 1: baby birth story I have heard, what about you?
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, that totally tops it.
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: Now.
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  Speaker 3: I mean I've heard of babies born like in transit
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: in the ocean, like you know, between continents. But I
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: was wondering if babies had ever been born under really
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: difficult circumstances like that. But I have to question, like
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: the moms, like are they really nationalistic? They really want
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: to play a role in these arguments between countries, like
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: literally being upon in global diplomacy. That's crazy to me.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I I feel like the dad's decisions could
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: have been you know, part of it too. But but yeah, no,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: I think parents, you know, having kids as part of
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: geopolitical one upmanship is not amazing, is it, TMI. We
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: can delete this if it is to mention that my
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: son was born on Halloween and they were little cat
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: ears over the like blanket on my knees when I
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: was giving birth to my baby because the doctor had
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: dressed up as a cat, and it was a weird experience.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: That's not to you, that's awesome.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So, you know, I think pregnancy is always a
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  Speaker 1: little bit weird, but sometimes it's just weirder than other times.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: Well, here's hoping that all of your pregnancies are smooth
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: sailing and do not involve diplomats arguing outside.
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  Speaker 1: So geopolitics, complic and other things that can complicate life
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: are being a difficult environments when you need to give birth,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: and there's maybe no environment more difficult than space. And
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: today we are tackling a question from a listener we
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: got that was inspired by the episode where we interviewed
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Erica Nezvold, and here is the question.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Now, Hi, Daniel, ye Kelly. My name is Glenn Rosas.
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  Speaker 2: During your recent interview with Eric and Neswold, a question
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: occurred to me. Now, we cannot be an air planetary species,
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: and let's we're able to have babies up there, and
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  Speaker 2: we know from our experience on the ISS that micro
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: gravity is not good for human physiology in the long term.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: So where can babies safely just date and womb away
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: from Earth? Thank you so very much for everything you do.
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  Speaker 3: Well, Kelly. This seems like a pretty basic question about
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: space exploration because I imagine we're not just going to
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: send like one generation of astronauts to colonize the Solio system.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: Those folks are going to want to have kids, and
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  Speaker 3: we're going to want to perpetuate the species. You know,
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  Speaker 3: Elon Musk is always talking about making us multiplanetary, that
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: involves having kids off Earth, right, So I hope that
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: we have like a really solid, well researched answer to
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: this because everybody's rushing into space, right.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Well, I think you can explore space without us having
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: the answer to this question, no problem. And Elon Musk
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: would argue that you could just send something like a
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: million people to space. You don't have to worry about
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: reproduction initially, you can get the whole thing up and going.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: And he's doing his best to create a million babies
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  Speaker 1: to send to Mars. He's still got a little bit
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: of a way to go, but he's getting there. But
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: you know, I do think that before we send people
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  Speaker 1: to settle Space, even if you send a million people there,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: I've met humans, there's going to be babies, whether you
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: plan on them or not.
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  Speaker 3: A million people are going to want to entertain themselves
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  Speaker 3: and making babies. This part of that.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, you told me that, Katrina. Let you know once
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  Speaker 1: that in Antarctica there is a lot of these sorts
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: of activities as a way to pass time. Imagine that
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  Speaker 1: human behavior will follow us to these other isolated and
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: confined environments.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, because they actually mandate your schedule in that Antarctic
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: Research Station. It's eight hours of sleep, eight hours of work,
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: and then you have eight hours like you gotta do something.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: And there's only so many times you can watch the
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: same set of DVDs that are down there. You know,
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  Speaker 3: they don't have internet streaming, and so, yeah, people entertain
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: each other. That's right, you know what I mean.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: That's right. Card games get boring, you gotta do something else.
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  Speaker 3: So we should know the answer to this question. We
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  Speaker 3: should understand whether this is something humans can safely do
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: off Earth, and then we should figure out like how
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: we can figure it out. If we don't have the answer.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: I would absolutely agree with you, and I think that
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: for a lot of folks, and for me in particular,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: when we started researching a city on Mars, we didn't
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  Speaker 1: know actually where we stand in terms of our understanding
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  Speaker 1: of how reproduction works in space. So let's back up
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: a bit here and ask our audience what do they know?
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  Speaker 1: What do they think? Is it safe for humans to
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: have babies on Mars?
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  Speaker 5: I would say main obstacles are psychological, medical, gravitational and
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  Speaker 5: radiation exposure is also a problem.
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  Speaker 6: If it's barely safe to have humans on Mars right now,
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  Speaker 6: grown adults who are trained to do it. Having babies
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  Speaker 6: on Mars doesn't seem super safe or ethical.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that should be perfectly safe.
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  Speaker 4: My bed is yes, but you may have higher rates
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  Speaker 4: of cancers and other bone density issues.
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  Speaker 7: I'm gonna say that you'd be lucky if your children
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  Speaker 7: survive the harsh climates and thin atmosphepere that doesn't have
• 8:38
  Speaker 7: breathable air and that has low gravity.
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  Speaker 3: On the surface.
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  Speaker 4: It's not safe for humans to have babies on Mars
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  Speaker 4: because it's not safe for all humans to have babies
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  Speaker 4: on Earth.
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  Speaker 8: I don't see any reason why not. Yes, it would
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  Speaker 8: be dangerous. However, we should have developed a safe as
• 8:58
  Speaker 8: it can be environment for humans to live anyway. So
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  Speaker 8: what difference does it make if that human is a
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  Speaker 8: little one.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah?
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  Speaker 9: Maybe, I think given that Mars is full of kind
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  Speaker 9: of toxic things like heavy metals and other contaminants in
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  Speaker 9: the soil, it might be really difficult to bring a
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  Speaker 9: child into the world that was healthy.
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  Speaker 4: The more different the Mars environment is from the Earth environment,
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: more likely it is that our offspring will be different.
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: I think we will have to use the precautionary principle
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: and play it safe.
• 9:35
  Speaker 8: No, it is not safe for humans to have Martian babies.
• 9:38
  Speaker 6: We are very much custom built for this planet and
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  Speaker 6: likely with pore adaptability for another planet.
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  Speaker 5: Of course, it's dangerous for a woman to give birth
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  Speaker 5: on Mars.
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  Speaker 2: Mars wants to kill you.
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  Speaker 4: I'm not really sure that it's safe to have babies
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: on Earth. Seem to need an entire hospital at your
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: disposal to be able to do it here. The lower
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: gravity environment may have fit the bones. Other than that,
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: I'm in a.
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  Speaker 10: Lost Ultimately, it probably will prove to be safe. Radiation
• 10:05
  Speaker 10: damage to the parents would be important, and maybe at
• 10:08
  Speaker 10: some point we can re engineer our genes to withstand
• 10:13
  Speaker 10: more radiation. After all, cockroaches do that quite well. Maybe
• 10:16
  Speaker 10: we can borrow their genes.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: So a lot of skepticism here. Yeah, folks have been
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: reading your book and listening to us talk about the
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: crazy dangers and the environment of space and realizing how
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: culshy we have it actually here on Earth. Giving birth
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: in Antarctica is probably really safe and comfortable compared to
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: anywhere else in this Solar system.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: That's true. But you know, there were also some folks
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: who who felt pretty confident that we would be able
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: to have babies on Mars, no problem. And I should say,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: right at the beginning, it's totally possible. They're right, We
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: really just don't know. And at the beginning of the
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: space Age, there were a bunch of medical doctors who
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: were concerned that just sending humans up into space we
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: would die. Like if you were essentially in free fall
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: experience and no gravity, you wouldn't be able to swallow,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: you'd never be able to eat. It would just be
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: a total non starter. So there is a long history
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: of worrying about things that don't end up being a problem.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: But I think we have pretty good reason to suspect
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: that some of these things will be problems.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: You know, sometimes these problems go away only because you
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: do worry about them. I mean, my Jewish heritage tells
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: me that worrying solves problems, and so, you know, don't
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: be down on people worrying, but less joky. I think
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: it's important to remember that our perspective is constantly shifting,
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: and that it's really hard to put yourself in the
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: minds of people who knew less about the universe. You know,
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: folks who thought maybe there was life on Mars and
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: who didn't know what space was like because it was
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: before the era of space exploration, and so it's easy
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: to look back on those folks and be like, ha ha,
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: what a bunch of goofs. But remember they really didn't know,
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: And people are going to look back on us in
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: one hundred years and be like, ha ha, what a
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: bunch of goofs. They didn't know xyz. But you know,
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: everybody's just doing their best.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and I think a lot of your current
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: experiences do color the way you look either forward or back.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: You know, like if we were a couple hundred years
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: in the past, anywhere on Earth where someone got pregnant,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: there'd be a pretty good chance that mom or the
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: baby would die, Like you would be more concerned about it.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: But now, at least if you live in the United States,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: for most people in good areas where there's affordable well,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know if there's a lot of affordable healthcare
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: in the US, but where you can access healthcare, you know,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: you expect that you're going to survive through labor. But
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: that's not even true in a lot of different places
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: in the world. And so, you know, I think a
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: lot of us don't hear about mothers and children dying often,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: though of course it still happens, but maybe that makes
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: us think it'll be easier just about anywhere we go.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: All right, So we do have some experience in space, right,
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: We've been sending people to space for fifty years or
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: so and even living in space on space stations. What
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: do we know from our experience in space stations about
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: women's bodies and conception and reproduction in.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Space, Well, not a ton. So only fifteen percent of
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: the people who have ever been to space have been women, which,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: like that percentage surprises me. So we've sent something like
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: seven hundred people to space, so that's still like a
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: fairly large number of individuals and a decent number of women.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: But they've all been, you know, up there for different
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: amounts of time, doing different kinds of missions, so the
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: data from all of them isn't necessarily super comparable. And
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: the longest consecutive stay by a woman is three hundred
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: and twenty eight days by Christina Koch. No other woman
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: has stayed up for even a year up until this point,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: and so we don't have a lot of data on
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: adult women bodies. We do know that bodies in general
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: tend to start falling apart when you're in free fall,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: so you're experiencing something like no gravity. And as we've
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: talked about on other episodes, muscles and bones degrade, visions,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: vision degrades, and we think all these problems are associated
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: with low gravity.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: And do we know, even from our limited data, if
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: it affects women differently, Like obviously women's and men's bodies
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: on average are different. Does freefall affect them differently?
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: That is a great question. It is possible that someone
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: has done that study, and I haven't seen it. I
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: didn't when I was reading like various reviews, I didn't
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: see a lot of you know, people saying things like
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: and bone atrophy is way worse for women or way
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: worse for men. So it's possible we know that, but
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: And the effects that we do know about which ones
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: are maybe most relevant for pregnancy and conception and birth
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: and that kind of stuff.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I think the data related to muscles and bones are
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: particularly concerning so astronauts in general, not necessarily just women,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: but the entire pool of astronauts that have been studied
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: on this question lose one percent of the bone density
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: in their hip per month. You know, when labor kicks
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: in and you're hoping that your hips are not going
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: to break like that sounds pretty scary. There's also been
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: a study where they sent rodents to space when they
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: were pregnant, and then they brought them back down to Earth,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: and those rodents had to do a certain type of
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: contraction twice as much, And the thought was that their
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: muscles degraded in space, so the kind of muscles that
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: they needed for contractions just weren't as strong as they
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: should be. So they were in labor for a lot longer.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: And any of the women out there who have been
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: in labor, they can all agree with me. You don't
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: want that to last any longer than it has to,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: especially if you didn't request the epidural soon enough and
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: you do it naturally.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: So the effects in the human body are primarily muscle loss,
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: which is going to impact going into labor. Bone loss,
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: and you need your bones also, don't You need to
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: provide basic building blocks to build your baby. All those
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: ingredients are taken from the woman's body, right, So if
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: you're losing them because of the environment of space, and
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: you're losing them because you're pregnant, that seems kind of
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: dangerous for the mom's health.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, absolutely, that seems dangerous for the mom's health.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, so you could send her up there with
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: the right kinds of foods, the right kinds of nutrients.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: We do know that when you're in freefall, you lose
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: a lot of fluids, So your body is kind of
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: thrown by the fact that a bunch of fluids are
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: so high up in your body, so you end up
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: peeing out a lot of it. We're not really sure
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: what kind of problems that's going to cause. Additionally, you know,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: muscles are important for how our cardiovascular system works. They
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: like push back against our blood vessels, and so women
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: who have had cardiovascular problems related to pregnancy might be
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: particularly at risk when they're in an environment where their
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: muscles are even more degraded than usual. So there's a
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: lot of problems that are sort of hinted at by
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: what we know about what happens on space stations. But
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: no woman who's been to space, as far as we know,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: has been pregnant or gotten pregnant, and as far as
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: we can find solid evidence for, and Zach and I
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: disagree about, you know, whether or not this has happened.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: We don't even know if sex has happened in space.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: Yet another thing I wonder is, you know, when a
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: woman is pregnant, she's told to have exercise certain ways
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: and eat certain ways in order to you know, counteract
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: some of these effects and support the growth of the baby.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: And then also when you go to space, you're told
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: do certain exercises, drink more fluids. Whatever. Do you think
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: any of those instructions disagree, are they in conflict or
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: you know what a pregnant woman in space basically just
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: like do both of those things, like eat lots of
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: protein and make sure you get extra exercise to avoid
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: boring loss.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's a great question. So I remember when
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I was pregnant, I was told, you know, like you
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: should exercise a lot, but don't overdo it because if
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: you know, you don't want to for a variety of reasons,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: you don't want to overdo it. But women or people
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: in space are supposed to exercise something like two to
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: three hours a day every day, and so it might
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: be difficult to balance not overdoing it with making sure
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: that you're keeping your bones and muscles strong enough. Also,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: you know, we change our diet in a lot of
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: ways when we get pregnant. So for example, you know,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: I didn't eat any processed meats because there was some
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: concern of listeria and what that could do. So there
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: were like no turkey sandwiches for me during my pregnancy.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: It was a massive hardship. But the environment, like you know,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: the space station is notorious for having like all kinds
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: of weird stuff like growing on the other sides of
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: the panels. People are more likely to get sort of
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: like weird infections on their skin. Their immune system is
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: already a little bit immunocompromise, so people who have for example,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: herpes latent herpes virus in their body, like the herpes
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: virus wakes up because the immune system seems to be
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: suppressed in some way. And so you know, these are
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of things that you could imagine possibly being
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: a problem for the mom or the baby, but we
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: just don't have a lot of a lot of data
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: on any of it.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: Well, here's another potential problem. Since we've had children and
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: two continents, we've discovered that the cultural norms for what
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: pregnant women should do are very different. So, for example,
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: here in the US, if you're pregnant and you're having
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: caffeinated coffee, everybody's like, how dare you? That's so bad
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: for you. But if you're in France, everybody's like, one
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: cup of coffee a day, no big deal, It's not
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: that big a deal. But if you have salad, oh
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: my gosh, they give you the look of death. Right.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: Salad is because of the risk some lettuce has things
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: growing on it. Like basically, you just don't eat salad,
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: and all kinds of soft cheeses you just don't eat
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: in France when you're pregnant. So the kinds of things
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: that people judge you for are very different different continents. Now,
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: imagine you're in the International Space Station. Do you follow
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: the French rules the American rules? Doesn't matter where you
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: launch from your citizenship? Like, who gets to judge you
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: about your pregnancy decisions?
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: I mean maybe everybody gets to judge you, because space
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: is a global humankind activity, you know, And so says
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: if moms aren't getting enough judgment, we can even more
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: in space.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: Awesome. Well, let's talk about how you get pregnant. You
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: referenced this. We don't know that anybody's actually ever done
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: that in space, But what do we know about the
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: science of reproduction? Is it possible? Is there anything we
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: know about reproduction that would suggest that it's more difficult
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: or easier or just weirder in space.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: So there have been some studies looking at sperm, for example,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: that have found that, like it was bull sperm move
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: a little bit faster. But there was recently a study
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: that found that sperm sent to space we're sort of
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: behaving weirdly. So, like the data that we have on
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: just about everything related to reproduction in space is really
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: haphazard and often gives conflicting results. And partly this is
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: because NASA is really queasy about sex and reproduction, and
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: partly that's because they don't want to be spending money
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: and then needing to go in front of Congress to
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: justify why like geckos were having sex in space, like
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: why is that important? And I've asked a bunch of
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: NASA people. I was like, is this is it fair
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: to say that NASA doesn't really want to fun stuff
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: like this? And they're like, no, absolutely they don't. And
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: so so you'll get studies that manage to get up
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: there because they're sort of studying something else. Related to
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: reproduction in space, and then the reproduction stuff will kind
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: of be a sideshow. But there have been some studies,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: including one on Earth, looking at cells associated with decidualization.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: So this is how the uterus prepares for implantation, and
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: it looks like something about gravity is required for this
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: process to go.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: Well, so what is the process I'm imagining deciduous trees?
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: Is there some analogy here to what's happening in the
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: lining of the uterus, that's a good question.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: So there could be so deciduous trees shed their leaves
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: and the uterus is sort of ripening and thickening and
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: providing more of like you know, sort of blood and
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: food for possible implanted embryo, and then you know, once
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: a month that sheds, And so I hadn't put that together,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: but way to go, Daniel, That's almost certainly what it means.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: And maybe gravity is to some extent required for that.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Oh and so we could have trouble getting pregnant for starters.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Don't necessarily know that we will, but it's possible. And
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: there's already a bunch of people on Earth who have
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: fertility issues and find it difficult to get pregnant in
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: the first place, and some of those issues I guess
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: could be exacerbated when we get to space.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: All right, So say I give you a large budget
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: to answer this question. What experiments would you do and
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: how do you do it in a way that's ethical.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: That is a great question, and I'm going to answer
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: it after the break when I take you to the moon.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: All right. So we talked about some of the problems
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: that have been sort of hinted at by having humans
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: on the International Space Station on how these problems might
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: indicate how reproduction could go in space. And Daniel asked
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: me what experiments I would do to try to figure
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: out if it's safe to have babies in space.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: Without worrying about what you're gonna have to say in
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: front of Congress.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: That's right. Oh, I don't know that there's any solution
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: for that. Maybe you get a private company to fund
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: these research experiments. That's that's above my pay grade. But
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: if somebody gave me a billion dollars or more, probably more,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: what I would do is I would either send satellites
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: out past our magnetosphere and start spinning them to create
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: something like Martian gravity. Mars is where most of the
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: space settlement advocates are pushing for us to end up
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: and so Mars has forty percent of Earth's gravity. We
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: already know that being in free fall and experiencing something
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: like zero gravity is a problem. So if you're in
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: a satellite that's rotating, you could make Martian gravity and
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: you could try to get a handle on you know,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: does forty percent gravity, for example, remove all of the
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: problems with bone density. Is forty percent gravity enough to
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: keep bones and muscles strong? We don't really know the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: answer there.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: We don't even know the answer to what happens to
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: your bones if you live on Mars for quite a while.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: No, nope, nope, no, no, boy. I mean there's Jacks,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the Japanese Aerospace Agency. They have a module up on
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: the International Space Station that now has oh the acronym
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: is Mars, but I forget what it stands for. It's
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: got these little wheels where one size has rodents that
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: spin to simulate different gravity regimes, and another side the
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: wheel doesn't spin, so you can see what happens in freefall.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: And so we now have some systems to start to
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: get a handle on that, but we don't have loads
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: of data coming from that system. Yet.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: All right, so you create the Martian environment in near
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: Earth orbit by using centrivical force. But I want to
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: know what you're going to do in that environment. What
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: experiment is Kelly setting up to answer these sixy questions?
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, for starters, I would just put like
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: a rodent colony in one, a mouse colony in another,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: maybe I don't know, a vole colony in the third,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and just kind of see like can they survive through
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: multiple generations? And then you know, every once in a while,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: harvest some of them and look to see if you know,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: there's anything weird happening with any part of their physiology.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: And another reason why you'd want to put them out
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: in orbit, but you know, out past our magnetosphere, is
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: that you could also start to get a handle on
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: how space radiation is impacting their bodies. You know, is
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: that causing mutations that are resulting in problems down the line.
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: And you're doing this in rodents because you don't care
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: about rodents feelings and whether their babies are mutated, or
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: because rodents are very similar to people in terms of
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: their reproductive systems, or why rodents.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Well, first of all, I'll say that I adopted a
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: rodent as a pet when it was done with some
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: cancer research because I like rodents very much. I think
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: they're very cute.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: I had rats as pets. I love them. They're absolutely wonderful.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Are absolutely wonderful. I had one sitting on my shoulder
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: while I was working for a while while I had it.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: But it's very cute. So rodents are like humans in
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of ways, but they're also not like humans
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: in a lot of other ways. And so if it
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: worked with rodents, I would feel like, Okay, we've to
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: some extent convinced ourselves that we've gotten over the first hurdle.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: And then after that I would say, you know what,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: probably these satellites are just they're not going to be
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: big enough to do what we need to do next.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: So maybe the next step is to head to the
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: moon and set up a research station.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: The real barrier is ethical, right, Like you wanted the
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: answering humans, but you can't just start with humans. You
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: can't just like put humans there and have them reproduced
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: and see whether the babies come out weird, right, because
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: you can't just make weird babies in your science experiment.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: But it's okay to do with rats. So how do
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: we get from we can't do this experiment of humans too?
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: We can do this experiment of humans. Do we need
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: to convince ourselves it works on rats and then on dogs,
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: and then on pigs and then on monkeys. Is there's
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: like a stair step ladder where at some point we
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: feel like this is a reasonable chance to take with people.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's a great question. And there's not like
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: a global pre existing, you know, step ladder that's been established, Like,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: first you do this and then you can test it
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: on humans. What I'm proposing is what I would feel
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: comfortable with, and so you know, I'd feel comfortable trying
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: it out on rodents first and then maybe scaling up,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: like you know, have some dogs at the research station
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: and see how they do. People like having dogs around anyway,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: and then send up chippanzees. But of course that is
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: ethically difficult, and so it's not clear how easy it
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: would be for you to get permission to do something
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: like that. But then maybe you could say, Okay, we're
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: gonna have a woman conceive on the moon, and we're
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: gonna check her out every single day, and if anything
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: looks like it's going wrong with mom or the baby,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: we immediately bring her back to Earth. So one of
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: the great things about the Moon is it's about three
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: days away, whereas Mars is six months away at best,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: if you're at the right window where you can leave
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: for it, which only opens every two years. So testing
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: stuff out on the Moon, if something goes wrong, you
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: can send them back really quick. Also, the Moon has
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: one sixth the gravity of Earth, and so if things
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: go well at one sixth Earth gravity, they're probably going
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: to go great at Martian gravity, which is even higher.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: That's kind of how I would do it. I'd test
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: things out in satellites and then move to the Moon
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: and sort of slowly scale up until I convinced myself
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: this is safe to do on the Moon. Now we're
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: ready to start trying it farther out. But what do
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: you think if you were in charge, what would you do?
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: Oh? Man, This is why I do particle physics, because
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: you don't need IRBs or ethical questions when you're smashing
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: particles together. This is even why I avoided any part
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: of physics that has like immediate applications. You know, my
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: parents worked in weapons programs, and I was like, yikes,
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: that's too complicated morally for me. I really like to
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: separate my research from these moral quests. And even though
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: the more questions are really fascinating, I don't want to
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: be in charge of making those decisions. And I can't
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: imagine experimenting on my baby like the women you talked
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: about who are willing to give birth in Antarctica. That
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: definitely comes with additional risks, right. I remember when we
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: were having kids, I wanted to absolutely minimize the risk
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: in every direction, because this is your kid's life you're
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: talking about. So I can't imagine saying like, yeah, let's
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: go get pregnant in a place nobody's ever gotten pregnant before.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: I just can't imagine being in that place. But hey,
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: everybody's different, you know. Some people want to break barriers,
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: But tell us what is unusual about the Moon's environment,
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: Like you told us about the effects on the human
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: body a free fall, But on the Moon there must
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: be other things that we have to worry about specifically.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so let me back up real quick for the
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: ethics issue. And so I agree, this is like a
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: difficult ethical thing to build up to. And you know,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: the first woman who gets pregnant on the moon, Like,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: I would not want that to be me, but what
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: I would not let it be me? But uh, But
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: one of the things that I worry about is that
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: space tourism increases, and you know, people get more alone
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: time when they're up there. I'm worried we're going to
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: get these data accidentally and in a like non consistent way,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: and so I would love to see us investing in
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: getting some more of these answers in a more consistent
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: way so we can let people know what the risks
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: really are. And I'll note that I also did everything
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: I could to reduce risk during pregnancy. But I met
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: plenty of people who I would say, like, here's what
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: I think the risks are about giving birth on Mars,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: and they either thought that I was like over selling
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: the risks. Like one of them said, you know, wombs
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: are a neutral buoyancy tank. Gravity's not going to matter.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: It'll be fine. I would have babies on Mars. And
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: so there are people who are not wospbags like you
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: and me, and would be willing to do it. But
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: that's not me yet.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: No, as long as people know what the risks are
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: and are well informed can make their decisions. But I
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: guess they're ethical issues. They're like, we don't let people
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: make some decisions about their babies, Like we don't let
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: people engineer their babies DNA, Right, just because your parent
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: doesn't mean and you have complete control over the pregnancy
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: and this kind of stuff. So there's some really tricky
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: issues there, even if we have some initial data.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: And you know, parents can sign consent forms but their
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: children can't. And we don't actually know that babies who
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: are born on Mars could ever return home. So maybe
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: developing in a lower gravity environment means your body would
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: never be strong enough to survive Earth gravity. But you
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: asked me about the Moon.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because I was listening to you say that we
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: could always bring the mom home, she's only three days away.
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: But I was wondering, aren't there some situations where a
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: problem has cropped up which is not reversible just by
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: going back to Earth. What are the particular dangers of
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: getting pregnant on the moon.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is a tough question. Okay, So say
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: we do get our research station on the moon, and
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: the rodents are doing great on the Moon, so then
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: we know that reproduction at low gravity one sixth of
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Earth's gravity doesn't cause any problems. We maybe at this
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: point have hopefully already figured out what happens when you're
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: exposed to space radiation and how to shield against that.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Because the Moon has no atmosphere and no planet wide magnetosphere,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: so all the space radiation hits the surface of the
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Moon straight on. So hopefully we've figured out radiation shielding,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: so that's not a problem.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: What about the regolith on the Moon. Is there anything
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: weird about that that we have to worry about?
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, that is some nasty stuff. So like you
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: probably want mom to stay inside the entire time, you
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: probably want almost everyone to stay inside most of the time.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: So the problem with the regolith is, and we talked
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: about this in our episode about challenges of working on
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: the Moon, it is electrostatic, so it clings. It's also
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: really fine pieces that are also super jagged, and so
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: there's concern that if you breathe it in it's going
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: to cause what's called stone grinder's disease here on Earth,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: where essentially these tiny sharp particles scar your lung over
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: and over again, making it really hard to breathe. So
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: we're going to have to be super careful to make
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: sure that we don't bring any of this into the
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: habitat with us. And between not going outside often and
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: radiation shielding, which is often in the four of or
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: often proposed to take the form of burying your habitat
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: in this regolith, you're not gonna be going outside much,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: and we don't really understand the implications of that. So like, yes,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: there could be some mental health implications of never going outside.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: But part of how we extract calcium from food and
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: then incorporated into our bodies is by using sunlight to
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: produce vitamin D. So if you are underground all the
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: time and not getting any sunlight, is that going to
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: mess with your ability to produce your own bones and
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: then to produce the bones in the fetus, We don't know.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: So maybe you'll have to sit in front of those
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: like full spectrum lights all day long to try to
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: get yourself enough vitamin D so you can make this stuff.
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: So you'll be nicely tanned.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: So you'll be nice. Yeah, I guess that's good. So
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: the moon is sort of like Mars light, Well, I
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: guess it's more extreme in terms of gravity. If things
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: work on the Moon you can have pretty good confidence
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: that a lot of things will be okay on Mars,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: and if things don't go well, you can get home quickly.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: But so let's go ahead and head out to So
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Mars is on average one hundred and forty million miles away,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: really far. With current propulsion techniques, it takes six months
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: to get there, and you can only leave every two
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: years when like an orbital when a window opens up
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: in Mars and Earth are and sort of like the
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: right locations as they're traveling around the Sun, so that
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: you could get to Mars as fast as possible. And
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: that means that if you're out there, you are like
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: on your own. If you need medical equipment, you are
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: not going to be getting a resupply ship, and so
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of planning that you need to do.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: I was going to ask during Katrina's pregnancy, were there
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: any medication she needs, but maybe you don't want to
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: share that on air.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Katrina is type one diabetes, so her pregnancy was
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: considered high risk. And actually when she was pregnant with Hazel,
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: near the end of it, she stayed in lab very
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: late one night and missed the last bus home and
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: she ran to catch it and sprinted at like thirty
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: eight weeks pregnant, and then started feeling out very good,
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: but came home and went to bed. At two o'clock
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: in the morning, she woke up and she was like,
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: something is wrong. So we rushed to the hospital and
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: something was indeed wrong. She had help syndrome, which can
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: be very dangerous, and the doctor was like, this will
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: kill your wife very soon. But the cure is we
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: just take the baby out. So she had an emergency
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: sea section, and so we were very glad to have
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: excellent medical facilities nearby. And I imagine if you're going
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: to build a colony on Mars and consider having pregnant
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: women there, that you're going to want excellent medical facilities there, right.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Yes, right, And I don't think we've gotten far enough
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: in any of our planning to say, like, Okay, the
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: third rocket is going to be filled with just equipment
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: for sea sections and stuff. But there's a lot of
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: equipment that we need to keep women and babies alive.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: And that equipment is why we do so well. So
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: you know, I ended up having hypertension for both of
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: my pregnancies. I had to be induced, which meant I
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: needed oxytocin, which needs to be refrigerated at stable temperatures.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: There was a study in Sub Saharan Africa that found
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: that a bunch of women were hemorrhaging. So oxytocin is
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: also used not just to induce the contractions that you
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: need to start labor, but all so to cause additional
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: contractions to pinch off blood vessels and stop hemorrhaging if
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: a woman is hemorrhaging at the end of labor, which
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: is the way most women die if they're going to
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: die in pregnancy. And this oxytocin wasn't working as well
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: in some regions of Sub Saharan Africa, and the hypothesis
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: was that somewhere along the trip that it made to
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Sub Saharan Africa, the refrigeration broke down and this, like
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: unsteady temperature, caused it to not be as effective.
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: So it only needs to be cold when you delivered.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: It needs to never have been warmed up.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: Ever, Yes, so you need backup refrigerators. You need to
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: figure out how much oxytocin you need. You need a
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: sea section equipment. You need blood pressure medication and that
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: needs to be shelf stable for as long as it's
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: going to take for resupply to get out there. There's
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: just a lot of stuff that keeps humans alive in
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: western countries that you know. Some people tell me, hey, look,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: we don't have to bring that stuff with us. There
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: are women who give birth all over the world without
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: that stuff, And well that's true. I think I think
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: that our lack of ability to provide adequate medical care
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: to women in like remote region isn't good. It's not
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: something we should be bringing with us out into space.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: We shouldn't be like, oh, we do it there, we'll
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: do it in space too. But I've gotten off track.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of planting that you need to do.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Mars offers a couple unique additional challenges. That regolith on
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: Mars is worse in some ways than that reguleth on
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: the Moon. And one of the ways that it's worse
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: is that it's laced with perchlorates. These are endocrine disrupting chemicals.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: They mess with the stuff that your thyroid does, and
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: the Food and Drug Administration warns that for fetuses, being
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: exposed to perchlorates can mess with nervous system developments.
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: But what are perchlorates? Are they an organic molecule. How
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: they made? Like, why do they exist on Mars not
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: the moon?
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: The Moon has a lot less of a bunch of
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: things like carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus. The Moon just sort of
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: generally seems to be poor and a bunch of stuff.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Mars has more stuff available to be reacted with and
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: somehow that results in perchlorates would be my best answer,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: But do you think you can sort of summarize it.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm definitely not a chemist, but perchlorates our combination
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: and oxygen, and I think there is more chlorine in
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: the Martian soil and then the UV hits that and
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: forms these perchlorates. But basically, these things are a simple
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: chemical compound, but they're bad for us. Can you tell
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: us why they're bad? Firms? From like the biological point
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: of view? Why is this thing so dangerous for fetuses?
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Sure? So, I believe the answer is that our thyroid
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: there's a iodine that our thyroid collects and uses to
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: make hormones, and perchlorate sort of interrupt the ability of
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: the thyroid to use the iodine to make the hormones
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: that it usually makes, and when that gets disrupted, you
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: get problems with metabolism and nervous system development.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: So that sounds especially bad for fetuses.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah. And a reason that this becomes particularly relevant
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: is not just because if you go outside you might
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: accidentally bring it back in if you get regolith on
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: your suit, but also when you grow plants in dirt
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: or soil that has perchlorates, the perchlorates get pulled out
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: of the soil and go into the plant tissues. So
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: if you're growing your plants in either water that has
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: happened to take up some perchlorates because perchlorates are water soluble,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: or you haven't gotten all the perchlorates out of the dirt.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: If you decide that you're going to like be old
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: fashioned and grow your food in the dirt, then you
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: have to be concerned that mom's taking in these perchlorates.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: Wow, so mom can't eat any food grown on native
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: Martian soil basically.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Well, so this is where I can hear the space
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: settlement advocates yelling while you're over selling the difficulty. It's
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: water soluble, so you could just bring regulyth in and
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: then rinse RNs, rins insurances, rens, rents, rent rents until
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: it's gone, and then you could grow in it, but
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: now you also have to make sure that you don't
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: have chlorates in your water. And I talked to a
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: friend of mine who's a geologist who works with perchlorates,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: and I was like, does that sound like just print
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: RNs rents are insurants? Problem solved? And he goes, I
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: don't know, man. All I can tell you is that
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: I only work with this stuff in fume hoods. That's
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: how nasty it is. I will only work with this
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: if there's a fume hood on. So I would be concerned.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: Like when we bought our farm, if they had said, well,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: if you rinse the soil the endercrendisrupt chemicals that are
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: in there, yeah, it'll be fine. You can still grow
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: food for your family, I'd be like, I'm living somewhere else.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: So anyway, you're just gonna have to be really careful
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: to make sure that this like pretty nasty toxin doesn't
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: get into your food or water in any way. But
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: let's take a break and then we will talk about
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: what will happen if it turns out that Martian gravity
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: is just not going to work for human reproduction. All right,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: So what if you get to the moon and you
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: find out that reproduction is just not working at one
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: sixth of Earth's gravity. You know, like moms bones are breaking,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: she doesn't have the right muscles for contractions. The baby
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: is just not developing at all, and it's just you know,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: development for the baby is just not going according to plan.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: And this is not outrageous. Right, Basically every human ever
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: conceived and carried and born has been within one G
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: and using the benefit of the Earth's atmosphere, and so
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: there's reasons why evolution may be dependent on it. Right,
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: It wouldn't be ridiculous to discover that these are necessary
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: for humans to conceive in birth successfully, right, right.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, this is the environment we're adapted to. It wouldn't
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: be surprising to me if we needed And so you know,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: maybe some people would say, Okay, it didn't work on
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: the Moon, but the Moon has one sixth of Earth's gravity.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Maybe Mars's forty percent will be enounced. So maybe we
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: go out there and we discover actually, the rodents can't
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: make it work at forty percent either. We talked to
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: some space settlement advocates who are like, well, there's another solution,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: maybe you just need Earth gravity. Well, you're pregnant, in
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: which case we can put you on like a banked
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: racetrack and create one g And I puked a lot
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: during my pregnancy. I think I would be puking a
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: lot more under that scenario.
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: I'm imagining those devices they use to test astronauts for
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: high GI where they like put them in those chairs
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: and then spin them around. And you're saying, no bed rest,
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: You got to sit in one of those things the
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: whole pregnancy, Oh my god, I.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Mean, Or maybe you only need to sit in it
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: at night, like eight you just sleep in it eight
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: hours a day. Maybe that's enough to make you strong enough.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Like we just we really don't know. But say, say
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: women decide they don't want to do that, they don't
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: want to spend their pregnancies on a banked racetrack. The
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: rotating space settlement people argue that now they are the
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: only game in town. So these rotating space settlements, they
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: are these giant structures. They can take a variety of
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: different shapes, but the one that I immediately imagine looks
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: sort of like a bike wheel and it kind of
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: spins and you live around the rim and you can
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: simulate gravity by spinning fast enough.
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: So you're saying, if it's not possible to have babies
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: in Martian gravity and nobody wants to sit in one
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: of those spinning racetracks, then you basically can't be on
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: the surface of Mars. You have to go up into
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: space and simulate Earth grapt in a space station.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, maybe you could just put on like an
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: incredibly weighted suit on Mars so that you maybe that
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: would keep your muscles and bones strong enough. We just
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: we don't know. I'm saying that it's possible that we
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: will discover there's no easy solution to forty percent Martian gravity,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: and then the rotating space station people can stand up
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: at the conferences and say we won, we won.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: But also you're just talking about the pregnancy itself. What
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: about the development of the kid, right, Like, what if
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: you need gravity to grow up into a normal human being,
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: then this kid's going to be on a racetrack until
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: they're eighteen or up into space.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: You can't go back down to Mars, right And so
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: I feel like this is where questions about social issues
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: start to come into play, Like what if some people
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: want to live on the surface of Mars, but moms
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: and children need to live in these rotating space stations.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: You know what kind of social dynamics does that create?
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: And you know, maybe you only need to live in
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: a rotating space station if the child ever wants the
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: option of returning to Earth. Maybe you can develop on
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Mars if you never plan on leaving. Like we just
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: we don't know how this kind of stuff will play out,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Like this is the current state of our knowledge.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: What a crazy decision you'd have to make for your kids,
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: Like you get to grow up on Mars, but you
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: can never go to Earth. That would be insane.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, Earth is so awesome, Like I mean, I
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: can imagine my family moved from Ireland to New York City,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: and I can imagine someone being like, well, what if
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: if you're born in New York City but then you
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: never get to go back to Ireland, Like what are
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: you doing to your child?
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: Well, you should feel responsible for raising your kids in Virginia.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, they didn't have a choice in that, right,
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: they have to always tell people they come from Virginia.
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: You settle them with that their whole lives.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: They seem very happy, They seem very happy, and in fact,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: you know when we lived in California, we experienced an earthquake,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: and I think that would scare Ada quite a bit
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: if she had been a bit older.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: She just they just have to learn to ride it out.
• 42:51
  Speaker 7: You know.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: It's fun. It's like a theme park ride.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: She also is I hope she doesn't listen to this episode.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: She's a little scared of some theme park ride. Me too, Yeah, yeah, no,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: some of them are intense. When I went to Cedar
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Point last time, I like the rides that I used
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: to love. Now when I go around the corner, I like,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: you know, my arms are in the air, I'm screaming,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: and then I pass out around the corner, which makes
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: me think I'm probably not a good candidate for those
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: banked race tracks either, spend the whole time passed out.
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: One more reason why you shouldn't go to space.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: As if we needed another one.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: All right, So we were talking about having moms and
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: maybe even their kids in high G environments near Mars.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: If we think that it's probably not possible to carry
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: the pregnancy and give birth and maybe raise your kids
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: in Martian gravity.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: You could abandon the Mars plan altogether. With and these
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: rotating space stations could go anywhere. So a lot of
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: the places that they're proposed are at like Lagrange points,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: where the gravitational pull of various objects more or less
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: cancels out, so you don't have to use a lot
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: of fuel to stay in one place. But you know,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: you could put them near the asteroid belts for resources,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: or near the moon or whatever. They could go anywhere.
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: I like your zz top pronunciation of Lagrange points. That's awesome.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Oh now, how am I supposed to say it?
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: Well? I think it's not named after the town in
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: Texas Lagrange, but probably the French mathematician Lagrange. But you know,
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: maybe I'm wrong.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Oh no, I'm thinking about all the conferences I've been
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: to now where I've said they're wrong. That was good.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: I also apparently have been saying magnetosphere. It's magnetosphere or
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: something I've been Anyway, I'm an embarrassment to my children
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: and always will be.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: No, I'm going to talk about Lagrange gians from now
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: on in particle physics.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, good, Well, your class will be more interesting because
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: of it, I'm sure exactly. But you know, these rotating
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: space stations, it's worth noting they're going to be difficult
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: engineering challenges, and we haven't built them yet. So, like,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: you know, if you think about how big the International
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Space Station is, to make a station that could hold
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of people and not have to spin so
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: many times that you'd feel sick due to the spinning,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: you would probably want it so that the wheel of
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: the rotating space station could fit around the International Space Station.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: So you know, I guess the diameter of the wheel
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: would be the same as the length of the International
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Space Station at its widest point. And already the International
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: Space Station is one of the most expensive things that
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: has ever been made, and it's not rotating, and so
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: when you start, you know, thinking about how you're going
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: to make these, it's going to be tough. Not possible,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: but it's going to be tough, and it's not the
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: kind of thing that, like, you know, if Musk sends
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: people to Mars and they start reproducing in the next
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: few decades, these sort of rotating space stations might not
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: be available yet so that you could like shuttle them
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: up there to try to save their lives.
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: But Kelly, I've heard entrepreneurs say with confidence, will have
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: our first rotating space hotel in twenty twenty seven. Are
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: you saying that's over sold?
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that's probably over sold. I mean
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: I could be wrong. Rotating space hotel by twenty twenty
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: seven really.
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: Huh m hmmm, okay with great confidence?
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Wow, And is it going to be rotating at one
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: g or just providing enough gravity that you're not going
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: to be incomplete free fall?
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question. I don't know.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: I feel like you want at least enough gravity to
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: make sure that, like when you're in the bathroom, everything
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: moves in the direction you want it to. That makes
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: everything cleaner.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: Well, maybe they can have a swimming pool at the
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: center of it, like a zero G bubble of water
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: really can float in. That would be amazing.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: Did you watch there was a movie with Chris Pratt
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: and Jennifer lawrenceingers, Yeah, where the gravity gave out and
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: the fiction and the water in the pool was anyway,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: that was a scary scene. But yeah, okay, So maybe
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: we will have tourist hotels by twenty twenty seven. I'm
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: a little skeptical. I don't think they're going to be
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: out at Mars at that point, and I don't think
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: they're going to be big enough to be a permanent
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: housing structure for thousands of people. I could be wrong,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: So there's one other place that folks propose if it
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: turns out gravity is a problem. And you are probably well,
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: you know me, so you're probably not going to be
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: surprised what the answer is because I've probably oh yeah,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: because you were on the call where we interviewed Guermo
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: Sunline for Daniel and Jorge explain the universe. But yes,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: Venus is the other place where people are proposing.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: Venus is the goddess of fertility, right, so oh.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, appropriate, And no one's proposing the surface of Venus.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: And why is that, Daniel, Because the surface of Venus
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: is totally inhospitable. It's very high temperature, it's very high pressure.
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: It's crazy like the things we've landed on the surface
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: of Venus have lasted for like minutes or hours before
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: being melted and crushed. It's also like sulfuric acid rain.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: It's basically not the kind of place you'd want to go,
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: even if you were like the rock. Not to mention
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: a baby.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: Anytime I read about Venus, it's always compared unfavorably to Hell,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: and as being like worse than Hell. But some folks
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: note that if you are up in the atmosphere, there's
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: a part of the atmosphere where you are like above
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: the sulfuric acid clouds and you're experiencing one G and
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: the atmosphere is thick enough to protect you from space radiation.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: So if you can make a floating environment, then you
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: could have the one G that maybe we're going to
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: need to have babies. And so you know, I think
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: the humans to Venus people would say, if we think
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: this gravity thing is a serious problem, we should be
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: serious about floating habitats in Venus.
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: That only makes sense to me if you want to
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: live on Venus anyway, Why otherwise would you go to
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: Venus to have babies, Right, Like, if you're going to
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: colonize Venus. Sure it's nice if you're going to have
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: babies on Venus, but if your goal is to colonize
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: Mars and explore the outer Solar system, doesn't seem to
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: me to me much in advantage to have like a
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: terrible floating place just above Hell that you could also
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: go to to have babies.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: Well, so I think they're saying that we just need
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: to find the places in our solar system where we
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: can create self sustaining settlements, and that we haven't been
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: serious enough about considering Venus as one of those places.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: So this isn't just like a nice place you go
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: during your pregnancy vacation. This is like where humans are
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: going to live out their lives and have families.
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: Oh, I seem forever, let's move closer to the Sun
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: instead of going out to explore the universe. I don't know,
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: it feels like going backwards to me. Not a big
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: fan of move in Venus.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not signing up for any of these plans,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: to be honest. So so I thought maybe we could
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: wrap up by talking about how optimistic I am that
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: we're going to be able to get this research done
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: before the tourists start giving us the answers. And to
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: be honest, I'm not super optimistic right now. So, as
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: I mentioned, NASA's super squeamish about funding stuff like this,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: So we're not getting government funding, and it's hard to
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: imagine companies being able to find profitable routes to finding
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: the answers to these reproduction questions.
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: Well, I know you don't like Elon Musk questions. But
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: do you think Elon's new influence on the government might
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: change that because he's a big proponent of making the
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: species interplanetary, and I know he likes to rush to
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: the sexy bits without necessarily doing all the homework. But
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: do you think like doing studies about pregnancy and childbirth
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: and space could maybe tickle those guys fancy?
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, that could be a silver lining. Musk does
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: not seem concerned about these questions. It doesn't seem to
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: me like he would want to be pushing the government
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: to spend a bunch of money to get the answers
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: to these questions. I think he feels like we will
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: go out there and find the answers to these questions
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: when we.
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: Get there, maybe with tragic consequences.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think that they that Musk and
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: others think that, you know, people like me are way
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: too risk averse. It'll probably be fine, and if not,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: we'll just let natural selection take care of things, which
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: is of course, like that means a lot of death.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: It's like a way that hides the fact that lots
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: of death could happen. It would be great if there
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: were funding. I think there are a couple companies that
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: are trying to study reproduction in space with the hopes
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: that the research will produce patentable technologies that can then
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: be used to pay for like the next step in
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: the process. I hope that works out. It's hard for
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: me to imagine, Like, I don't know. Maybe maybe you
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: do learn something about reproduction of microgravity that produces some technology.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: That would be great.
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: But people having babies on Earth in risky environments, you know,
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: people living in the Ukraine near Chernobyl exposed to higher
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: radiation or whatever. Can we do something learning from those
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: experiences those risks people are already deciding to take and
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: extrapolating from there.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's a great question. So the radiation and
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: Chernobyl that we would maybe be learned something from is
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: different than the kind of radiation we expect we're going
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: to experience in space, So I don't think you're going
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: to get a lot of great data from that.
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: What about pregnant stewardesses, because they spend a lot of
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: time at high altitude and they're exposed to more space radiation.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: If it turned out that they had more radiation associated
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: issues with their pregnancies, that would be good reason for
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: us to worry. But if they were fine, that wouldn't mean,
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: for example, that things like partial gravity is not going
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: to be a problem anymore. So there are some environments
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: that give us some insights, but the data are going
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: to be hard to collect in a systematic way, mostly
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: because of ethics associated with, you know, doing experiments with
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: humans like you wouldn't want to send the pregnant stewardess
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: up like more often to see if the extra radiation
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: causes problems.
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: You and your friend Cap o'hennon have a show on
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: exactly this question, don't you.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So she wrote this book called Eve about the
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: evolution of the female reproductive system, and she contacted me
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: and she was like, you know how much reproduction sucks
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: on Earth. I'm like an expert in that, and you're
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: an expert in how awful space is. We should do
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: a show together where we sort of jokingly inform people
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: about that. We could hire some artists to create outfits
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: that sort of imagine ways we might be able to
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: help women have safe pregnancies and labors in this environment.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: And we did the show at the MIT Museum, and
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: we're going to do it at the Royal Institute of
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: London on April seventeenth, and we might have a couple
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: other shows in the UK. We were there, so you know,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: maybe we can all laugh about this problem together.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: If you don't have answers, at least we have jokes.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: The motto of this podcast is well, that's right.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: It's you know, the best way I know to live
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: a life.
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: All right. So let me end by asking you when
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: do you think the first baby's going to be born
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: on Mars? If you had to put a year on it.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: So I think the answer is going to depend on
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: geopolitics and stuff like that. I would like the answer
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: to be thirty years from now or something, because I
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: think thirty years would be the right amount of time
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: to sort of biology research can't be rushed in a
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: lot of ways, Like you just you have to live
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: through the generations that it takes. And you know, if
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: you can successfully have a baby on the moon, you
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: probably want to stay there for a couple of years
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: to make sure they develop, okay, and maybe that they
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: go through puberty. Okay. So I just I feel like
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: we want to do this slowly, but I can also
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: imagine that you know, with Musk's newfound geopolitical clout. If
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: he is able to stay on his timeline, he could
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: have people finding the answer in what I think are
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: unethical ways much sooner. So I guess I hope the
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: answer is decades.
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: But do you fear it might just be a few years?
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, what do you think?
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: I think it'd be foolish to predict the future, That's
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: what I think. So I'm curious to see what happens.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: I'm curious and scared. So anyway, write your senators and
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: tell them that they should be funding sex and space.
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: That's right, and let's hope that the first baby's born
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: in space and on Mars are happy and healthy.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: See you next week. Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: produced by iHeart. We would love to hear from you,
• 54:01
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• 54:03
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• 54:06
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• 54:07
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• 54:10
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• 54:14
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• 54:20
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