The prospect of human life on Mars, once a science fiction fantasy, now seems increasingly plausible. But does actually warrant being anything other than a fantasy? This week, Adam speaks with Dr. Kelly and Zach Weinersmith, authors of A City on Mars, to discuss the practicalities of becoming a space-faring species, the challenges that lie ahead, and whether it’s even a good idea to begin with. Find Zach and Kelly’s book at factuallypod.com/books
SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/adamconover
SEE ADAM ON TOUR: https://www.adamconover.net/tourdates/
SUBSCRIBE to and RATE Factually! on:
» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/factually-with-adam-conover/id1463460577
» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0fK8WJw4ffMc2NWydBlDyJ
About Headgum: Headgum is an LA & NY-based podcast network creating premium podcasts with the funniest, most engaging voices in comedy to achieve one goal: Making our audience and ourselves laugh. Listen to our shows at https://www.headgum.com.
» SUBSCRIBE to Headgum: https://www.youtube.com/c/HeadGum?sub_confirmation=1
» FOLLOW us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/headgum
» FOLLOW us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/headgum/
» FOLLOW us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headgum
source
Listen to Am I Doing It Wrong? wherever you get your podcasts.
Fastmail is a leading email provider that puts your privacy first. Use fastmail.com/factually to get 20% off your first year using Fastmail. Put your privacy first.
Backblaze makes backing up and accessing your data astonishingly easy. Go to backblaze.com/factually to start your 15-day no credit card required free trial!
Shit talking naysayers trying to hock a book.They had a couple good points.
Human life on Mars wouldn't just suck, it is flat out impossible 😅
Tons of space junk in orbit. Cool, cool. So when a new asteroid is discovered on a collision path with Earth, NASA won't be able to deflect it because nothing will be able to get above the Billionaire garbage dome. Nice.
Don't tell Elon until after he's left.
I wholeheartedly disagree with the pessimistic notion that spaceflight doesn't contribute much to the global economy and technological progress. There's a lot of reasons to not do spaceflight like was mentioned in this video, but I think the best way forward is proper international regulation to make sure every nation is held to the highest safety standards. It means something to have an actual person go to infinity because we are illogical and emotional creatures and that's a beautiful thing, but it needs to be done right .
I love the game Surviving Mars. It accurately recreates the every colonist dies every time aspect of Mars colonies.
I'm not gonna lie, when I first read the title of this video, I thought it meant, "Why you don't want to live with Kelly and Zach Weinersmith in space," and like five minutes in, I was like, "I dunno, man they seem pretty cool so far, it sounds like it's space that sucks." What a goof.
Fascinating episode.
The whole point of choosing to go to Mars is to figure out all of these things. It's a goal for scientists and engineers. Every time they say "we don't know this, maybe we shouldn't do it", they are arguing for exactly why we should do it.
I can’t fathom thinking it would be easier to colonize and survive on mars then just fucking try to fix earth.
Human martians do not even exist yet and I already don't trust them.
But in all fairness, I have been watching The Expanse a bit too much lately. 😂
We can't even manage to inhabit the deserts, mountains, and oceans of Earth. Maybe we should try to tackle that first, before we go racing to space?
Worst and stupidest – in a nutshell.
Every time I think about that supercolider and how those excavated tunnels are just filling with water, it's like a stab to the heart.
Fun fact we do have artificial wombs, and yes they are as horrifying as they sound. So 6 minutes and we’ve already see the experts not knowing a technology exist to a problem
"We were so busy wondering if we could have babies on Mars, we forgot to ask if we should."
I feel like the first Mars colonises will be like the colonisation of Australia: sending the convicts and the poor there first and then if they don't die, everyone else can join them.
Musk 100% wants a compound on Mars and no one will ever convince me otherwise
The peoples dirty houses are making it hard to focus
Zach is the only person I love specifically for demolishing things I like
I feel the need to point out that there is almost no natural disaster on earth that would compare to daily conditions on any planet we know of.
Conditions at the height of the Permian extinction were still more hospitable to mammal-like life than Mars is on a good day.
Even if an apocalyptic event occurs, we could use all that technology here. Any outposts on another world would be almost infinitely more fragile than ones on Earth
OMG, I remember Kellie's insect zombie thing, and Zach is just generally adorable. Now it's x, so nah. (I'm beyondnerva, if you want cred)
This is why I love these wonderful people, and why I love both of them.
I do think they are being a bit dismissive about the commercial benefits of space exploration. Just to name a few things that came out of the Apollo program, we've got modern avionics, advances in protective equipment, advances in fireproof materials, advances in computer technology, certain food preservation techniques, and many others. It might have been a dick measuring contest, but it was still worth doing and a lot better than our traditional method of settling issues of national prestige: war.
When you talked about the health problems my cursed brain immediately started imagining how natural selection could work them out. Rapid evolution is real and very cool, but NOT fun!
no need. have panspermia….when the big comet comes it will discharge or smear that human dna through space and the solar system then through the galaxy on to Andromeda to become the Sol Strain that kills out the native life on some other planet.
There is a great anime about space junk called Planetes. One of the best
4% of the budget is a rounding error. 2023 NASA budget was about 1.5%. And what do you get for that? A heckuva lot more than you get from ‘defense’ spending.
The basic science research alone that is funded by NASA pays off in huge dividends to the world by researching things that don’t appear to have a short-term payoff that a typical corporation is looking for. It also pays off in technology transfer that results in nearly every techno gadget in your home, every piece of medical equipment and countless drugs and procedures that benefit from that sliver of the budget. smh
In my view, we have a duty to get into space before the sun dies. It's just not a very urgent concern.
Every stated problem is something that has to be solved before we move to Mars. It doesn’t mean wringing your hands and saying, “it’s hard so we shouldn’t try.” It means address it, deal with it, solve it and then move on.
Agree with most points and arguments, but I feel like this came from a place of over-cynicism. I think saying that space is pointless or has no scientific use is just wrong. I agree that space is overhyped for various purposes and it isn't going to bring on a utopia any time soon, but to say that Lunar or Mars missions would have no scientific value is just a dangerous idea to advertise. It's dangerous because that backs the idea that not all science and research have equal value. That idea to "streamline and focus resources" only accomplishes one thing, it drastically decreases funding for science and research. So many discoveries came by accident or from studies that were underfunded and at risk of cancellation because there wasn't any useful science to gain from it. mRNA medicine came from an underfunded study constantly at risk of cancellation because the field was deemed to be a dead end and an impossible problem to solve.
There’s a point, I wanted to buy tickets for bahfest
SMBC theater should have done a space baby skit.
This makes me realize either how mature I've become or how cynical.
I like to think the former. There are still some sci fi-esque things we can do here on earth. Solar panels and wind turbines are freaking nuts. Solar and wind are dirt cheap and super safe. All we need is better storage, but there are already a lot of realistic solutions in the works.
SMBC is my all time favorite webcomic
Life on Mars would be lonly, harsh, and probably short. Nothing like spending all your life in a cave.
Zach is also a Webcomic artist, and runs Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, which is a geeky and fun webcomic that seems like a colorized knockoff of XKCD, which he often jokes about.
I'm all for exploring Mars, maybe set up research colonies for potential future expeditions to other star systems, but trying to migrate our species there is a complete nonstarter.
Mars Colonization is all about ASTEROID MINING!
We should send the billionaires to Mars.
Starlink is the worse possible solution to shit internet coverage. Literally people need to make decent money to pay for it. Poor people in India, South Dakota, South Africa, wherever aren't gonna get access to star link. Just fight for broadband if your upset your county/town/country doesn't have good internet uuuugh
If we're going to settle anything offworld it should be the Moon first; we'll have to deal with almost all the same problems we would on Mars, but it's only 3 days away instead of 6 months.
If.
Why is it that the house they're being interviewed from looks like a run down shack?
If there is a God in heaven His message would be "Learn to keep it clean first. If you can't clean your planet, you likely can't clean your room or yourself."
Love to see Kelly and Zach here!