Going Off World EP 6: Mars...Soonish? with Dr Kelly and Zach Weinersmith

Kelly and Zach Wienersmith bring their scientific rigor and trademark humor to the Offworld Podcast, challenging our assumptions about Mars colonization while offering a thought-provoking roadmap for humanity's spacefaring future.

The husband-wife team behind "A City on Mars" and the New York Times bestseller "Soonish" discuss how their research journey began with optimism about imminent space settlements but evolved into a pragmatic assessment of the monumental challenges we still face. From Kelly's expertise as a parasitologist to Zach's perspective as a science cartoonist, they provide a uniquely accessible window into complex questions about our cosmic future.

"The data we have from 50 years of astronauts orbiting Earth is largely irrelevant to life on Mars," Kelly explains, highlighting how the lack of medical data on reproduction in space, effects of prolonged radiation exposure, and Mars' 40% gravity create significant unknowns. Meanwhile, Zach brings sobering perspective to the ecological challenges: "Biosphere 2 had eight people in three acres. We're talking about supporting a million people on Mars, and we barely have the science for eight."

• Kelly's background as a parasitologist studying how organisms affect behavior provides unique perspective on biological challenges
• Zach brings his experience as creator of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comics to make complex science accessible
• Their previous book "Soonish" explored emerging technologies including space access and asteroid mining
• Medical data from space stations may not apply to Mars conditions due to different gravity levels and radiation exposure
• 40% Martian gravity might not prevent the health issues seen in zero gravity environments
• Human reproduction in space remains largely unstudied but critical for long-term settlements
• Closed-loop ecosystems like Biosphere 2 encountered significant problems with just eight people
• Creating self-sustaining habitats for larger populations requires massive scientific advancements
• Space law development is crucial now as it will shape humanity's cosmic activities for centuries
• Technical challenges must be addressed alongside social, political and biological considerations
• Mars settlement requires interdisciplinary collaboration between scientists, engineers, artists, and legal experts

Find Kelly and Zach's work at wienersmith.com, where you can also join their Discord community. Kelly co-hosts the podcast "Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe" twice weekly, and Zach continues creating SMBC comics available on his website and social platforms.

🎧 Listen Now On:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/going-off-world-moon-mars-venus-and-beyond/id1737881627

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6WjqRL2AZnLWO7Z3DTDjS1?si=d47c055cca1e4df7

Web: https://goingoffworld.buzzsprout.com/

Thank you for joining me on this ongoing journey into the future. Until next time, stay curious, and always think forward.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Offworld podcast, your gateway
to the cosmos beyond our Earth.
We will explore our familiarcelestial neighbors and venture
into the vast unchartedterritories of our solar system,
to the Moon, mars, venus andbeyond Coming up on today's show
.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
I think it is such an exciting time to be in space
right now, Like there is a fairbit of money going into certain
avenues, but things like spacelaw.
If you try to clarify what isallowed in space and you help
establish space law, eitherinternationally or for your own
nation, you could be changingthe way that we do things in the

(00:38):
heavens for hundreds of yearsto come.
It's a very important time tobe figuring out the rules of the
road for space.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Welcome to episode six of Going to come Like.
It's a very important time tobe figuring out the rules of the
road for space.
Welcome to episode six of GoingOff World.
I'm your host, steve Fisher.
Today, we're taking a criticaland often humorous look at the
challenges of settling Mars withKelly and Zach Wienersmith,
authors of A City on Mars andthe New York Times bestseller
Soonish.
From Kelly's background as aparasitologist studying how

(01:05):
organisms can affect behavior toZach's work as the creator of
Saturday Morning Breakfastcereal comics, they bring a
unique perspective to examiningthe realities of establishing
human settlements beyond Earth.
Through their extensiveresearch, they challenge many
common assumptions about spacecolonization, while highlighting
crucial questions we need toanswer before attempting to live
on Mars.

(01:25):
So whether you're curious aboutthe biological challenges of
having babies in space, thecomplexities of creating
closed-loop ecosystems or whatwe should include on humanity's
next message to the stars, youwill not want to miss this
fascinating andthought-provoking conversation.
Join us on this journey wherethe sky is not the limit and the
stars are just the beginning.
Kelly, zach, welcome to thepodcast.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Thanks for having us.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Awesome.
So I know you from your amazingbook about Mars, which we'll
get into shortly.
But for those who don't knowyou, will you each kind of give
your respective journeys andwhere we are today.
So, Kelly, you want to go first?

Speaker 3 (02:12):
Sure, so my journey doesn't really involve space at
all until the last couple years.
So I'm an ecologist who studieshow parasites change the
behavior of their hosts.
So I studied a brain infectingparasite of fish and looked at
how it changed the fish'sbehavior.
But I, you know, I'm likeafraid of getting bored, and so
anytime there's a new project,no matter how far outside of my

(02:35):
expertise, I'm like yes, I'm in.
And so Zach and I had theopportunity to write a book
about emerging technologies, andthat sounded great.
So we did it, and it turns outwe really enjoy writing books
together, and so then we decided, uh, space settlements were
probably coming soon, based onall of the hype and all the pop
sci articles that we werereading and all the like space

(02:56):
settlement advocates, yeah, wewere talking to, and so we
decided we'd write a book aboutthat.
And that's not the book weended up writing.
We ended up writing about whyit's probably not coming super
soon, uh, but yeah, that's mysort of tortuous journey to
right now what about you, zach?

Speaker 4 (03:12):
oh, I mean I was on that same trip.
Yeah, I, I, I think we we hadroughly the same change of
feeling about it about the sametime.
So, uh, I don't have too muchof a different story but.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
But what else have you done with your life?

Speaker 2 (03:29):
yeah, what am I?
Doing my life yeah, let's havesome.
Let's have zach, let's havesome deep conversations like so
what have you done?
What have you done with yourlife?

Speaker 4 (03:37):
what have I done?
Yeah, I'm trying to do less, um, uh, well, you know, I, I mean
I, I I'm a cartoonist and wekind of slipped into PopSci by
accident because the, you know,having a comic strip people read
led to the opportunity to writebooks.
And I think after our last one,we did a book called Soonish
and it did reasonably well, andso we got to write another one.

(03:59):
We wanted to do something alittle bit more in depth, or I
should say a lot more in depth,and it ended up being a lot more
in depth, um, and, and it endedup being a lot more depth than
we had imagined I would say umreasonably well, being a new
york times bestseller, that'syeah that's.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
That's reasonably well.
You know, yeah, um, we werehappy.
Yeah, I'm, I would be, as wellas you know, as a fellow author.
So you also created saturdaymorning breakfast cereal, so can
you?
What is that so for theaudience?
Like what?

Speaker 4 (04:29):
is that?
Uh it?
It's a comic strip.
It's like a daily uh joke comicstrip about a lot of different
things.
It's it's like been around for20 years now, so I think it's
like an old internet comic thatis uh shambled forward into the
modern era.
Um, comic that is uh shambledforward into the modern era.
Um, uh yeah, I don't know.

(04:49):
It's about science andphilosophy and dirty jokes and
kind of a little of everything?

Speaker 2 (04:52):
where did the inspiration come from to do it
like?
Where did it kind of start?

Speaker 4 (04:56):
uh, I guess it started that I had like a day
job I hated and uh, on likeearly internet it became clear
that you could make.
You know, very early Internetthere was no money and then at
some point there was a smallamount of money.
But when you're like 22, asmall amount of money is enough
to eat and and survive.
And so you know that seemedmore appealing than than having

(05:18):
a real job and then, by you knowluck and some amount of work,
it ended up being a career.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
And by luck and some amount of work, it ended up
being a career.
So when you were sitting aroundhaving coffee and you say, you
know, space colonization, let'swrite a book about that.
Like, did you have connectionsin the space industry?
Were you always like kind of,as I like to say, space junkies,
like interestedies, likeinterested in in space?
Like where did like is it justanalysis of the market?

(05:49):
You saw, like a lot like wheredid that all kind of because
soon let's go, maybe let's goback, let's talk about soonish.
Where did soonish come from?
Like from the conversations andand the and the kind of we'll
call it the opportunity analysis, as we like in you know you see
that opportunity, where didSoonish kind of come from?

Speaker 3 (06:08):
So Zach and I both try to pick projects based on
like what do we want to bespending the next couple of
years of our lives learningabout?
And so at the time we thoughtit would be fun to spend a few
years learning about emergingtechnologies and thinking about
what still remains to beaccomplished to make those
technologies part of our lives,and so basically, it just that

(06:30):
sounded like fun, and so therewas no like business analysis.
We were like that sounds neat.
And so there were two chaptersthat were related to space.
One of them was cheap access tospace, and that chapter was
hard to write because we hadsome stuff in there like space
elevators, which are still areally long way way off.
But then we were also writingabout how, like hey, coming soon
, we'll have these reusablerockets which will drop the cost

(06:52):
of sending mass to space.
And while we were writing it, wehad to keep updating the
chapter because SpaceX just keptdoing amazing things.
And by the time that chapter,you know, hit the shelves a year
after we submitted themanuscript to our publisher, it
was already way out of datebecause SpaceX was just like
doing such a great job.
And the other chapter was aboutasteroid mining, and so we

(07:13):
interviewed a guy from DeepSpace Industries and we talked
to some other folks who wereexcited about asteroid mining,
and they convinced us that lawwas changing to make asteroid
mining more feasible, that moneywas just being like absolutely
plowed into this field and that,like technology was moving
along fast enough that this issomething that could be feasible

(07:35):
in the not too distant future.
And at the same time, we weretalking to space advocates who
were saying, like these are thepieces we've been needing to
have settlements, like we knowhow to live in space.
The thing that's been holding usback is that it's really
expensive.
But now we can ship habitatsfrom Earth to space because
we're going to have this cheap,this way to get mass to space

(07:56):
cheaply with SpaceX rockets.
And if we don't want to sendeverything from Earth, we're
going to have asteroid miningand so we'll be able to build
stuff like habitats usingresources that are already
available in space.
And so, between those variouspieces of information, we felt
like we knew enough people thatwe could start writing this book
, but there were a lot of peoplewe still needed to meet along

(08:17):
the way, and it turned out therewas a lot of additional
research and that maybe we hadselectively met the people who
were excited about spacesettlements and were maybe
overselling them a little bit,and so, yeah, that's how.
That's how that played out.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
Excellent.
So I was thinking, like in thebook, you kind of said that,
like space elevators are faraway, what do you think you know
are going to arrive soonish-est, like what's in the scale of
things?
Because, well, let me prefacethis, because I think when I saw
the book and I read throughsome of it and I went through

(08:54):
parts of it, it reminded me ofthere's a book and I'm I want to
say the physics of Star Trek.
It was a book.
I think Michio Kaku wrote it.
It was about Star Trek.
It was like all the technologiesin Star Trek, like how far
things were away or what wasjust completely out of there.
The thing about Star Trek isit's an abundance society.
Right, he said that most ofthese things will kind of get

(09:16):
there, but the thing that'sprobably the amount of energy
required is like the replicatorto like materially transfer.
But you also talked aboutprogrammable matter inside of
the book as well.
So, yeah, what do you thinklike is in that scan, a scale of
like next 10 years, 20 years,versus like, oh, we've got a

(09:40):
hundred, you know it's a hundredlike way, it's way, still soon,
but not too close.

Speaker 4 (09:45):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, we really don't like to make, uh
, numerical predictions.
It's a very good way toembarrass yourself um but um you
know.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
You should tell that to everybody in that writes
predictions, because in about amonth we're going to be
blanketed with yeah, this iswhat I thoughturists do not
predict the future.
Let me I put the.
I will say this on everypodcast.
We look at possible futures.
There's the probable, there'sthe you know the preferred right
, but they're all kind ofpossible and it's on it Like the

(10:16):
predictions are more like youknow, bets, like on technology
or things that might happen.
They're not.
So yeah, so like.
Yes, you don't have to put thedebt, but how about just on the
range of like, don't put yearson it, but like soonish versus
soon, far away.

Speaker 4 (10:30):
Yeah, yeah.
So the way I tend to thinkabout this sort of stuff is like
, if anything is already on anexponential learning curve, it's
relatively easy to predict thefuture.
So the question is, could yougo through our like list of
technologies and say which areon that?
So if you look at, uh, reusablerockets, rocketry generally,
it's very clearly on a niceexponential learning curve.

(10:51):
The price is going down at afairly predictable rate.
Um, the amount of freight isgoing up, so you should expect
that to just keep getting better, with the one caveat that
there's really only one majorplayer right now.
Spacex is like over.
You know, people can talkabstractly about the change in
the space market, but it'sreally all down to SpaceX there
are a couple other players.
Maybe that'll change in the nextfew years.
But, anyway, so you can look at.

(11:12):
I actually think Fusion issimilar If you look at what's
called the triple product or theLawson criterion, which is a
measure of essentially how goodyou're doing.
Fusion.
That's been on a niceexponential curve over time, and
there's some cool projectsgoing on right now that are,
unlike 10 years ago, well fundedand run by non-cranks uh, such
as commonwealth fusion somepeople think, helium energy.

(11:34):
There's also, of course, eaterin europe, uh.
So I would say fusion, at leastyou know.
Getting to like, uh, ignitionseems like it'll happen fairly
soon.
Whether or not it'seconomically viable is a
different question and we don'tknow yet.
Um, most of the stuff we talk,oh, go ahead oh no, go ahead,
yeah, go ahead, go ahead oh yeah, just most of the rest of the

(11:56):
stuff we talk about are prettyskeptical.
So, like, just to give a fewexamples, like we talk about,
could you have a roboticconstruction of buildings?
And you know it's possible.
And AI is moving fast now andmaybe nobody knows, but you know
this keeps getting tried andit's just humans are really good
at like manual tasks thatrequire you to like assess

(12:16):
things like how viscous issomething, how hard is something
, you know.
So, like we talked, for example, about mortar, mortar is
actually a very sophisticatedprocess because Mortar changes
its consistency over the courseof the day and you have to do
this complicated move with yourhand, just kind of slop it in
place.
So if AI really turns out to beon the upper limit of what
we're hoping it does in the next10 years, who knows maybe?

(12:37):
But then other stuff, likeprogrammable matter, is really
cool.
Right now I have troublevisualizing the path forward,
like to get on a nice learningcurve.
It doesn't seem like there's alot of like like a short-term
viability for product, which Ifeel like is really important to
trying to imagine the future.
Yeah, I don't know.

(12:59):
Like asteroid mining, I'd saypretty questionable.
We were fairly skeptical in thebook that it was like
economically viable.
It was like cool if you'realready doing something in space
, but but but pretty skepticalthat it's like a good economic
move versus like digging areally big hole on Earth, which
will probably be cheaper forever.

(13:19):
So, I'm trying to be like adowner.
I'm mostly positive on fusion.
The rest are pretty skeptical.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
Well, it's funny when you talk I was earlier going to
positive on fusion, the restI'm pretty skeptical of.
Well, it's funny when you talkabout I was earlier going to
talk about fusion.
So I'm a big proponent offusion and even fish, like
nuclear, current nuclear fusiontechnology.
Because the reactor everyonethinks about Three Mile Island
they think about like these arereactors and technology from
like the 60s and 70s.
Like this is like the stuff nowthere was a documentary with

(13:43):
Bill Gates that they talkedabout I think him I forget who
he worked with his partner fromMicrosoft.
These things are small andthey're very they're.
The waste is minimal and it'svery safe, like you could really
regionalize, like nuclear power, like and they're.
I know they're doing it inChina because their coal is they
need to offset their energy andI also I haven't bought an

(14:05):
electric car purely out ofprinciple yet because the fact
that you're doing that you'restill burning coal at the end
state right, we need a fullstack energy solution and I
believe you're right.
I think you're going to seemore.
I think you're going to see alot safer.
Microsoft actually boughtthrough my island, I think, and
they're going to use it, so Ithink they're going to overhaul
it with the newer reactortechnology and kind of prove,

(14:29):
like I think that's a big casefor them, but their ability to
do AI using that tech withnuclear, that's awesome, right.
So then it changes the like,the acceleration curve of fusion
, of actual like, how do we getit commercially viable by the 20
, you know, mid-2030s, 2040s andkind of start a fusion era?
That that takes it.

(14:50):
So I agree, I mean you can'tput years on it.
I try and at least I put haveto put like kind of windows when
, when we look at you knowtrends and the, the signals and
tech, like people, like you said, the non cranks that are doing
it.
So you know we'll we'll talkabout CEO Mars in a second, but

(15:12):
you know, for those on thepodcast listening, like so we
both share something very cooland common.
We both have spouses, like mywife and I wrote a book and we
have another one coming Likewe've written a book together
and it's quite an experience.
So how is this?
Is, you know, as someone youcan ask this, but also to have

(15:34):
lived it, writing a book withyour spouse, your significant
other, what was it like for bothof you?
What did that kind of.
What was that?
You know, let's do thistogether.
Are you out of your?
Was this together?
Are you out of your?
Was anyone like you're out ofyour mind or like are we gonna
gonna kill each other?
Like what?
How did you kind of and youfind a flow.
So, yeah, tell me about theboth of you.

(15:55):
Like, what was your experiencedoing this?

Speaker 3 (15:59):
so we've worked together on other projects
before we wrote a book.
So we uh organized a live eventcalled boffest, the festival of
bad ad hoc hypotheses.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Uh, and organizing a live event wait, go back, go
back.
So if you explain that one,that one's people's gonna fly by
and even in the, even in the,the transcript subtext, when
there are people like what isthat?
Let let's deal with that.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
So the idea is you come up with a theory that is
quite clearly wrong, but you tryto support it with data anyway,
and so I think one of myfavorites is a guy named Michael
Anderson was arguing that asmen get older their waistlines
expand because in the past therewere lots of floods and this
would help them float and keeptheir families safe.

(16:45):
And so he went through and hefound a bunch of historical data
for like there used to beregular floods and like how much
more planned, are you?
This is like a whole yeah, wow,it's a whole thing.
So a bunch of people submitproposals and then we pick the
proposals that we think are, youknow, the most convincing and

(17:05):
hilarious.
We've got a panel of judges wholisten to the six proposals and
then they ask questions, andthey ask questions as though
they're seriously asking thequestion, like you know.
Do you?
Would you expect men with youknow broader waistlines to have
advantages, with global climatechange bearing down on us?
Will there be more floods?
And will those men you knowbroader waistlines to have
advantages, with global climatechange bearing down on us?

(17:26):
Will there be more floods, andwill those men you know being
more successful, or something?
And then you have to like,seriously answer that question.
And then at the end you get atrophy of a Hennig brand.
He was a chemist who boiled hisown urine and accidentally
discovered phosphorus, and so we3D printed a trophy of that
moment based on a famouspainting.

(17:47):
And so, anyway, we, we ordered,we did this live event in in
Boston, london, san Francisco,houston.
We did it in a bunch ofdifferent cities, and organizing
a live event is a lot of work,and so we're pretty good at
working together.
We also used to have a podcasttogether called the Weekly

(18:07):
Wienersmith, and so we're youknow, we like having projects
together.
And then when we got thisopportunity to write a book
together, we were like, yeah,okay, let's do it.
And it was different thanorganizing a live event and we
had we had there were some tensemoments.
What our biggest debate was uh,I really like microsoft word

(18:29):
and zach prefers google docs,and that got heated I totally
understand that.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yes, I I love scrivener, but you can't share
it.
You can't, you can't, you can't, you can't collaborate on it.
It's definitely for the singleauthor.
It's a wonderful tool, right.
But to your point, like, how doyou?
Yeah, we, we found detente withword because that was the way
to comment and work with oureditor.

(18:58):
That's like really, it's justfunny like people think why
would you like just use thistool, like when you're both
together and you have varyingdegrees of of opinions?
That's, it's the simple thingsand how you have a creative,
collaborative workflow, right,it's like that is tantamount to
just getting because you have tofocus on the content.
Like, how did you split thecontent?

(19:19):
Because I know jack, you're,obviously, you're an illustrator
, you're, you know, um, so,kelly, how did kelly's act?
How did you both and I'll shareour perspective I want to hear
yours like, how did you say,like, how did you divide and
conquer or break the book up?
Um, how did you do that so thatthe flow kind of started to
come?

Speaker 4 (19:38):
you want to take this one, zach, sure, yeah, we, um.
So this book was like this islike an extraordinary research
load.
I would say there's not a lotof like popular science that has
this much depth of research,and that was really hard.
And so we ended up having to domore division of labor to

(20:01):
essentially play to each other'sstrengths and talents.
So you know, at first we werekind of just doing whatever, and
then, maybe, like a year or twoin, we decided it had to be
broken down more carefully.
And so, you know, we both dideverything, but, loosely
speaking, it was kind of like weboth would do research, but I
tend to do, I generally did alot more like reading everywhere

(20:25):
, more light content, like.
So I was the one reading youknow, 800 astronaut memoirs and
like these weird old like futurecasting books about space from
like, uh, from the past and andbut also like technical stuff.
But but then for like the realdrill down, kelly was reading
like nas, nasa documentation andthat kind of stuff.
And then we would.
We had like a big Google drivefull of documents on different

(20:49):
topics that we would both fillout with notes on everything we
read and then Kelly would gothrough, you know.
So there was a chapter onpsychology.
Kelly's job was to like gothrough I think psychology
particularly was literally likea thousand pages of notes and
condense it into notes, a short,uh, much shorter draft.
That was kind of like a firstproposal for how this chapter

(21:11):
might go.
And then my job was to take thatdocument and convert it into
something a little more lightand fluffy, uh, for a, for a
general audience, and then the,the sort of humor and comic
stuff.
That was like the very lastthing that was done.
That was, um, you know me goingthrough and just putting a
little sprinkle on top, and thenkelly would say whether it
sucked or not, and then we wouldkind of fuss a little over the

(21:33):
language and then at that pointit was off to some experts, uh,
to make sure we didn't tell anywhoppers, uh, which usually we
didn't, and uh, and then, uh, Ithink at that point there would
be like a last pass and that wasit.
But yeah, it was.
It was a much more layeredapproach than we did like for
soon, as we essentially justdivide and conquer, like you do
this chapter, I'll do thatchapter, whereas this, like that

(21:54):
, that wouldn't have workedbecause it was.
It was too much work we had toplay to to like talent and
interest.

Speaker 3 (22:01):
Well, and then there was the very last stage, where I
went through literally everysingle line of the book and was
like what is our citation forthat?
What is our?
Citation for that, and so wehave another version that has
citations for every single line,just to make sure, like that
was our fact checking run thatwas like two months where I was
like all right zach, you'rewatching the kids.
Uh, I'm just going to lose mymind did you?

Speaker 2 (22:24):
did you hire so obviously.
So the proposal process forthose who who think about doing
a book or have done, you know,you know, aren't aware, like
usually do a book proposal, ifyou can find a literary agent
who can kind of promote it, getto the right publishers, that's
one pathway.
Another pathway is you find anacquisitions editor and your
target, you know maybe areferral or just through you

(22:46):
know half a cent and you getthem to the proposal and they're
.
That's a more direct, obviously, method.
Uh, when you wrote that, didyou how did did someone approach
you to like, write a book?
Did you put the proposaltogether and just kind of pitch
it out there, like how did itkind of come about?

Speaker 3 (23:04):
Uh, the the first book came about because, uh,
randall Monroe wrote a reallygreat book.
He does a comic called XKCD andhis book just like went huge.
And then the publishingindustry was like, oh well,
maybe this, like books writtenby cartoonists, is a good angle,
who's?
the next one on the list.
And so and you know, zach,that's Zach.

(23:24):
So we got approached by anagent who was was like do you
have any?
Have ideas for books?
Um, and so then we pitched ourbook and ended up at penguin for
soonish, uh, and then we took ayear or two off after soonish
and then we pitched the samebook to our uh editor, because
she's amazing and we lovedworking with her.

(23:45):
So we pitched it to the sameeditor, uh, and she was willing
to pick up this book.
And then she was a really greatsport when, two years in, when
we were supposed to be done, wechanged the thesis entirely and
took an extra two years to writeit.
Um, is that your memory of theprocess too, zach?

Speaker 4 (24:00):
oh well, I was.
We didn't take it extra to you.
I think we asked for threeyears and took three and a half
uh that's uh.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
so the, the it reminds me of.
So startup equation is a bookwe did.
Um, we started writing in 2013,right after we got married, the
day at the end of the day,literally the day after and.
But the, the, the manuscriptitself.
So our book is kind of likethat landscape book, like
business model generation, a lotof it.
So it had 140 graphics in it.
A lot of it was like diagrams,models.

(24:32):
It basically like taking 20pages of the venture capital
funding process and turning itinto a two-page infographic,
like making, you know, takingthat complex information to
distill it right.
So it was like the.
The book itself, like the coretext, was like I want to say a
year, six months to a year, towrite it, but the graphics took

(24:54):
like a year and a half becausewe had to like figure that out
and a lot of things we kind ofhad, but we didn't want to
create because we had a team, wehad to hire a visual.
I was the creative lead on it,but you don't want to create
graphics, just create graphicsRight and them out right.
So it was that kind of.
So when you went through that,you know, zach, you being the
illustrator and having that thatcapability?

(25:15):
Did you have things maybealready?
Were you kind of just kind ofconcepting and just kind of, you
know, like high level sketching, like we want this to go along
and like this, you know kind of,as you were writing, kind of
like how to flow it?
Did that help?
Because these I feel like it'sone thing to write a textbook,
like we just wrote a text based.
We have I don't know 15graphics in our new book and

(25:37):
that was easy to generate.
The book itself took about six,seven months to do the whole
manuscript and it's in right,very different process.
So like, how did you kind offlow that Very different process
?
So like, how did you kind offlow that?
Did you go back and forth withtech?
Or did you kind of write thebook and then do the visuals
with it after the fact?
How did you work that?

Speaker 4 (25:55):
Yeah well, so you know, I think it depends on what
you're doing.
So in the case of Soonish, theillustrations were really just
like for jokes.
It was like just being goofyFor A City on Mars.
We wanted the illustrations tomostly be um explanatory.
We have a few that are thrownin, mostly to like break up a
particularly, you know,potentially boring section, like

(26:17):
, say, say, like the nature ofinternational law.
We have a few that are justjokes or like aids to memory.
Uh, but actually I, I I dobelieve the way.
I mean, I think we had a fewnotions, but mostly it was like
once there was somethingresembling a chapter done, then
I would go through and suggestcomics and then Kelly would
comment.
But I think all theillustrations were done in like

(26:38):
under two weeks.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
Wow, Awesome Well.

Speaker 4 (26:41):
I'm part of.
You know it would be.
It would be very different ifit were a graphic novel or
something, when it was likewhere they really hung on the
illustrations, but you knowthese were substantial.
I mean, there's just some stufflike if you want to say, like
you know the the way astronautsgo to the bathroom in space, I
could describe it, but it's muchbetter to have a visual uh, but
it's not like for someone who'sa cartoonist, it doesn't take

(27:02):
long to draw that visual.
It's just you kind of get areference image and you say,
okay, it looks like this um so Imean, you know, whereas if we
had written a graphic novel, agraphic novel, you know, I would
have expected it to take a yearjust to do the drawing.
I think I've illustrated agraphic novel which was, I think
, 200 pages in it and, like,going at blazing speed, took
five months and that was likebrutal.

(27:22):
You know, I would have ratherhad a year.
So, but you know, part of beinglike a daily cartoonist is you
get pretty quick at turning insomething that looks good, or at
least good enough.
So but but no, in this, in thisbook, there wasn't as much back
and forth, it was mostly likewhat would help illustrate this
section or break up the text alittle.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
So you mentioned City on Mars, which kind of leads us
to the get your ass to MarsQuaid, part of the of this
episode, of this uh, thisinterview.
So the city on a city on marswas the next book and you know,
you challenge, I would say, manyof the uh we'll call it
optimistic, not not not utopian,but optimistic claims about

(28:03):
space colonization.
Um, I was like so have you gotany uh angry emails from any
billionaires?

Speaker 3 (28:09):
any uh, no, just you know any not the billionaires,
okay I don't think thebillionaires have taken the time
to read our book.
I don't think we expected theywould.
Uh, we've definitely gottensome angry emails or tweets, you
know.
One person compared our book tomind comp.
Someone else compared us to theunabomber.

(28:30):
Uh, wow, really, uh, reallyinteresting uh, comparisons
there.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Yeah, wow that's um, that's extreme, but we seem to
live in a world of extreme.
But you know, you've got thiskind of approach to colonizing
the planet.
You talk about things likethere's challenges right, having
kids in space, right it's likeor legal aspects.

(28:57):
I did an interview in aprevious episode with Sarah
Pusho, so she runs Space BridgePartners and one of the things
that they've been studying, oneof the things they've been
funding a mission for, isconceiving in space, right, or
like on low Earth, like if youhave a baby in low Earth orbit.
I mean, for those who saw theFor All Mankind episode, the

(29:19):
girl had a kid on Mars and theyhad to get out off, but he
actually needed to go backbecause of his body was used.
You know he was healthier onMars, right, but her research
has actually helped with earth,like IVF.
They've learned a lot aboutthat.
So there's a lot of advantagesin it.
But the research.
But so talk about the, thethings you think are challenges

(29:45):
we may not have talked about,like, like things that were
really not even thinking,because it's like let's just get
there and let's just have domesand let's, you know, go, you
know, cruise around the, aroundthe rock looking for ice like
but what?
What do you want?
You went a lot deeper.
Can you guys elaborate on, likeyour kind of journey and what

(30:06):
you kind of started?
How'd you pose the questions toyourself like?

Speaker 3 (30:11):
yeah, uh, babies, and then you want to do closed
loops, sure, okay, uh, so I Ithink when we we started off
looking at, uh, how the humanbody responds to space, uh, and
like what kind of medical datawe have so far, and we were
really surprised by how we havea lot of data but very little of

(30:31):
it is relevant to life on Mars.
So we have 50 years of data fromastronauts orbiting Earth.
So essentially like in constantfree fall, but the longest
journey is a year and a half, orless than a year and a half 437
days, and so the data that wehave are sort of like
inconsistent.
You get like a little bit ofdata from, you know, people who

(30:53):
are for a couple of weeks, andthen a little bit more data from
a whole different group ofpeople who are up for a month,
and we're being exposed tototally different things.
But at the end of the day, youknow, so they're in free fall
and we know that that's bad forbones and muscles and might
explain why vision degrades.
So the idea is that when you'rein free fall, your fluids shift
up towards your head and theyput pressure on your eyes and

(31:13):
they change the shape of youreyes and so, uh, lots of
astronauts come home with poorervision than when they went up.
Uh and so we know that free fallis bad and that maybe it also
causes, you know, maybe there'sa whole slew of other problems
that come along with it, but wedon't know if the 40% gravity
that you experience on Mars willbe enough to make those
problems go away.
So one problem that we like touse as an example is that hip

(31:38):
bones lose 1% of their densityevery month when people are
orbiting the Earth, and you know, the longest stay again has
only been about a year and ahalf.
No-transcript.

(32:17):
Be a be a problem in lots ofdifferent ways, but particularly
I'm thinking about reproductionand going into labor, uh, and
then additionally on theinternational space station and
all the stations that camebefore.
Earth's magnetosphere protectsyou from radiation for the most
part, and so we don't reallyhave a good sense of how space
radiation, which differs fromthe radiation we experience here

(32:37):
on earth, uh like how thatincreases cancer risk, for
example.
So now you're going to sendpeople out to mars and hope that
their gametes aren't mutated bythe high levels of radiation,
or maybe you're going to keepthem forever underground so that
they're protected fromradiation by, like, the regolith
above um.
Anyway, there's just a slew ofproblems that we understand kind
of okay from data on spacestations orbiting the earth.

(32:59):
But mars is just a totallydifferent environment.
It doesn't have a magnetosphereor a thick atmosphere to
protect us from radiation, soyou're just exposed to it and at
the end of the day, we don'tknow if moms or babies can
survive that ordeal and if we'regoing to be even able to have
babies on on the red planet.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
So cheery, I'm happy.
Yeah, you know you have a lotof humor in the book, so it's.
But it is, you know, dealingwith your, your, quite well.

Speaker 4 (33:32):
So for zach.
So closed loop system.
So like, how does that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah so.
So I think closed loop systemsare a really good example of how
often you talk to people whoare a little more engineering
and they tend to think asolution exists, therefore the
problem is solved.
So you literally get people whosay, well, like, mars has carbon
and nitrogen and oxygen so wecan eat, drink, breathe and have
food.
But it's like at some pointthere has to be an actual

(33:52):
process that converts theseelements into dinner, and so one
of the things you basicallyhave to have on Mars is local
consumable production, right?
So, for example, if you haveplants producing oxygen, that
means carbon dioxide is gettingscrubbed, plants are getting
grown and oxygen is beingcreated.
If you don't have those things,you have to use chemical means

(34:13):
to remove the carbon dioxide andchemical means to produce the
oxygen, notably havinghigh-density oxygen produce the
fire on Mir in the mid-'90s,right?
It's not ideally somethingyou'd rather not have, and so
you want to be able to produceconsumables on site, so you
don't have to boost them overand over and over and be sure
that you get a resupply todistant Mars Promise.

(34:34):
We don't know a lot about thisright.
So the biggest system evercreated by far was biosphere 2
in the 90s, which had eightpeople in three acres.
So you know, if you imagine itscales linearly and it might not
in either direction, we'retalking about having a million
people.
You need to go through sixorders of magnitude to uh to get

(34:57):
to be able to supply this, thismartian city, and we barely
have the science for eightpeople.
When it was run by the end,people were starving.
They lost a high percent ofbody weight.
At one point they weresuffocating because of uh the
structure leaching co2 out ofthe system, meaning it was
effectively leaching oxygen outof the structure, leaching CO2
out of the system, meaning itwas effectively leaching oxygen
out of the system.
There were all sorts of basicproblems.
They brought in animals thatdidn't perform as well as
expected.
A bunch of plants died.

(35:17):
They accidentally brought inlethal scorpions that they
didn't want and generally theyhad a hard time, even though,
unlike on Mars, they had directaccess to the sun and power off
the Arizona grid.
So you talk about having amillion people on Mars in 20, 30
years and no one's spending onthe science to get a project

(35:38):
like this done, even not atscale, like there are tiny
versions of this being donearound the world.
There's a facility in China forthree people.
There's one in Europe thatdoesn't even include people.
So if you were a billionairereally, really serious about
making this work, you ought tobuy Biosphere and refurbish it
and get it running, because wedon't have this closed loop
ecosystem science and we need it.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
Well, it's interesting, they're building
this major Elon Musk is buildingthis major Starship factory,
kind of like the Gigafactory forbatteries, and when you think
in Texas since he owns a portionof Texas at this point is that
create a biosphere there?
To really understand that inparallel, right as they prepare?

(36:24):
Because I mean right now, theycaught a rocket.
They caught a rocket in midair.
Most people don't understandthe.
The engineer like that is thatis historic.
I know people are like, oh, youcaught it, so there's more, but
be able to like take it, youknow, move it out, you know,
like kind of like catch it, moveit over.
I mean, the reusability is justinsane and yeah, but if we get

(36:48):
to your point, like when youwere writing the book, there's
things that we've alreadysurpassed and in the speed in
which that innovation happensand they're ready to go, but
they haven't done this type ofwork, okay, like, what are you
gonna?
You're just gonna get there andlike, hey, we got there, we're
good no doubt about it therockets are absolutely amazing.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
But there's a lot of absolutely amazing stuff that
needs to happen before we settlemars.
There's a lot of, like you know, research stations on the moon
would be great to get thebiology data that we need to
know it's safe to have babies onmars.
If you could have thesefacilities doing closed loop
ecologies in texas, that wouldbe amazing, but the money for
these things is just largely notshowing up.

(37:32):
And and you know musk is muskargues that like his job is to
get the rockets to get us thereand then other people can solve
the other problems, and that'strue, like he doesn't have to
solve all the problems.
But the other problems need tobe solved before we leave and at
the moment I'm not seeing a lotof progress happening on them
because there's just not a lotof money to answer these sorts
of questions.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
Maybe it keeps reminding me.
There's a classic movie fromthe 80s called Real Genius.
If you ever saw it, it's one ofmy favorite movies with Val
Kilmer.
So it's about he's like a oneof the top geniuses and they do
laser experiments.
They're like a Caltech but hehas to graduate and it's a
comedy but it's also seriouslycause.

(38:13):
It's also like the eighties,cold war, the defense department
.
So he creates this laser.
It's like a gig.
It's hugely powerful.
Like at the end he finallyfigured.
You know, they finally do itand they're in the bar.
At the end he's like do you knowwhat this thing can do?
He's like I don't know.
The engineers figure it out.
But then they realize it'sbasically, if you have a large
spinning mirror and a targetingtracking system, you can
vaporize people from space.
So even though you are theinventor and you just figured it

(38:37):
, you might want to actuallyfigure out.
You know the rest.
You just have a good sense ofthat, just saying yeah.
So I want to kind of take youknow, we've, we've heard the
books and the things together.
It's like you also have therespective work.
So, like kelly, you are aparasitologist.
Like you, I know nothing aboutthis field.

(38:59):
I've read.
I've read a few things on it.
Obviously people might think ofzombie apocalypse.
Um, but like what, what is thiswork and how does it kind of
contribute to?
Like maybe even the field ofexobiology, like you know, as we
look at it, for life on otherplanets, like that, yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:16):
I don't really know.
They're two totally separateparts of my life that I really
enjoy and I don't.
I don't think about the overlapbetween the two of them very
often.
Yeah.
I mean, I, you know, I willoccasionally think about, like
you know, if we're bringing, ifwe ever get to the point where
we can bring like tilapia withus to space to farm for protein
and I think that that's a longway off, Like you know how do
you make sure that they don'tbring parasites with them or

(39:38):
something?
And then there's a little bitof a concern that if people live
in environments that are toosterile, then that's bad for our
immune systems and that's whypeople get allergies or
autoimmune diseases.
And so sometimes I think about,like, what kinds of things
might we want to bring with usto space so that we can have,
you know, microbiomes that aresort of similar to what we have
on earth and you know whether ornot that will impact our health

(39:59):
?
But these all seem likeproblems that are way, way, way
down the line, and so I haven'tspent a lot of time thinking
about parasites in space yet.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Okay, good, so with the work here, like what is
someone, what does aparasitologist do?
Like on earth-based stuff.
So like what is that job?
Like people might want to know.

Speaker 3 (40:22):
Sure, I mean.
So there's lots of differentkinds of jobs that you can find
parasitologists doing, so someare medical doctors we're pretty
lucky in the United States tonot encounter parasitic diseases
very often but there aremedical doctors who do things
like study.
Tick-borne diseases like Lymedisease is common in the United
States, and then when you getcloser to the tropics there can

(40:46):
be more problems with thingslike malaria or hookworms,
various nematodes.
So there's a lot of medicaldoctors.
There's researchers trying tounderstand how these parasites
impact ecological communities,or, you know, fisheries and
stuff like that, so looking atparasite and animal interactions
.
And then there's curators atmuseums.

(41:06):
You know we do.
You find us in lots ofdifferent places and we're weird
wherever you find us.
Well, weird can be very good.
You know we do.
You find us in lots ofdifferent places and we're weird
wherever you find us.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
Well, we were just weird can be very good.
So on the so, Zach, you, you,you tackle some really complex
scientific stuff with comics.
So what's the most challengingtopic you've ever had to?
Like illustrate, likecommunicate, what's the craziest
one?

Speaker 4 (41:34):
like illustrate, like communicate.
What's the craziest man?
I don't know.
I I honestly, if it's it wastoo complicated, I probably
wouldn't illustrate it.
What?
about your quantum computing onewith scott aronson well, yeah,
that's right, we did a comictogether.
So so, um, scott aronson is awell-known, one of the most
well-known quantum computingscientists, and we, for Soonish,

(41:54):
actually, we had at one pointplanned to have a chapter on
quantum computing and webasically ended up feeling like
no offense to any of the variouspop treatments of the topic,
but it really can't possibly bedone in under about 30,000 words
, because, like to, tounderstand it in a way that's
not hand wavy, just requires youto build up a number of
concepts which are, which arelike, at core, mathematical, and

(42:17):
so, um, we ended up dropping it.
I think we had like a 20,000word chapter.
We were just like this is gonnaend up being like, you know, a
third to a half of our book,which is not good.
And, um, and scott was one ofthe people we talked to and so,
you know, I think he wasactually relieved when I read
him.
I was like we're giving up andhe was like I think that's the
right choice and, uh, but weended up doing a comic together,

(42:38):
which is mostly written by him,just kind of describing um, so
he, he called the mathematicalpart, which I won't get into,
the the adult conversation aboutquantum computing, which is
just, you know essentially thatit's it's more complicated than
the sort of like you tried theuniverse in parallel, etc.
Type of stuff about quantumcomputing, which is just, you
know essentially that it's morecomplicated than the sort of
like you tried the universe inparallel, et cetera, type of
stuff.
And so we did do a comictogether.
But even then, like you know,in terms of complexity,

(42:59):
essentially we were saying it'smore complicated, not telling
you what it is.
So I, you know, we've beentalking for years about could
you do a book on quantumcomputing?
And hopefully one of these dayswe will do it, but I think
that's.
That's like a graphic novel.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
I was just gonna say it sounds like it's a graphic
novel, like it's almost like youneed a protagonist to kind of
like almost like a researchertrying to figure it out.
You know, I'm not saying like aKeanu Reeves like you know
movie from what years ago?
Or something you know some kindof cold, that cold fusion movie
, but just something thatengages a reader.
I, I think of my, my son, is,uh, seven and a half and he, he

(43:37):
loves reading but he, he'sengaged when he gets to read,
like minecraft books or likereal.
I mean, his, his reading isexcellent now but it's really
helped him and I think, likethose type of graphic novels,
even for people just in highschool, it's just, it's it's a
complex topic, right, it's likeI deal with it.
So I know that, kelly, you're,you do a lot of academic

(43:59):
research.
So like, how do you balancethat work?
Are you teaching now?
Are you?
What research you work?
How do you balance that withthis type of, with this side of
the world of your work too?

Speaker 3 (44:10):
I balance poorly honest answer.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
We appreciate that yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:16):
Well, so between you know, trying to keep my research
program running and having kidsand writing and uh and all the
other stuff, it's tough.
So right now, mostly what I'mdoing is, uh, I have some data
sets that I collected during myphd and my master's and you know
so many data sets sit Icollected during my PhD and my
master's and so many data setssit on computers but never get
analyzed or written up, and soI'm working on actually

(44:37):
analyzing that stuff when I finda free moment.
And then I also mentor studentswho do various questions related
to behavior and parasites or Ido a lot of fish behavior work
also so if a student has aquestion that they want help
designing an experiment, they'llsend me an email and we'll chat
about how to do that and I'llhelp them analyze their data.
And yeah, so I'm staying up onresearch in that way, but lately

(45:03):
writing books and doinginterviews and stuff like that
has occupied most of my time,but I'm never bored.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
I know I can tell you both are quite a quite a put a
power couple in the fun way.
So not not the, yes, the,because it's also a balance
right, cause you have the kidsand you know you have to.
They come first.
So this is so much so manyother things right, and it's
like their, their needs, theirbalance, and then we, then we
have to find our creativecorners as well to keep us sane.

(45:32):
So you've written those books.
Taking a break, are youconsidering another project?
Are you looking at any kind ofspace exploration topics, things
you're looking to do in thenext one?
Is there anything that arecircling the orbit of your
creative brains right now thatyou're interested in?

Speaker 4 (45:55):
We are both working on stuff, so my other hat is I
write kids' books, and so I'mkind of knee-deep in that right
now.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (46:05):
And so that's what I'm doing.
I mean, I'm also doing comics,and I don't know.
Kelly has other stuff.
I don't know what she wants tosay, though.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
I'm thinking about.
So the next book I write, I'llprobably write solo, because I
want it to be about parasites,and Zach is not super excited
about parasites, which I get,and I'm not super excited about
writing kids books.
So we are taking separate pathsfor a little while.
Not super excited about writingkids books, so we are taking
separate paths for a littlewhile, and then, when we both
wrap up these projects, we'llcome together and figure out
what our next mega book, megaproject is going to be.

(46:36):
But uh, right now we're takingpaths of less resistance.
Uh, for a little while nice,nice.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
So it's good because you get the separation and could
work on and then come back.
That's, that's always great.
So let's um, I have some kindof uh, fun questions too,
because I had this kind ofimagining like, you know,
voyager, like voyager 3, like,not not the vger, like that goes
to, like becomes a star trek,uh, enemy or something you know

(47:03):
the super compute, super superintelligence, but like, if you
wanted to contribute, each one,to contribute something for
humanity, right, the new goldenrecord, if you will.
So, like Zach, if you had acomic pen, what would you depict
to communicate the world?
I love this kind of stuff,cause it's just like, just what.

Speaker 4 (47:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean you know, so the there are
a lot of people.
Actually, we're friends with aguy named Daniel Weitz and Kelly
does a podcast with him who'slike studied this type of
question a lot and from likereading his stuff I've become
fairly convinced that there'snot too much you could do.
That would actually bemeaningful, because we don't
like know what aliens would belike in a lot of ways.

(47:46):
You know, one of the things Ithought was very clever on the
Voyager disc is they have thisimage I think people see a lot
of ways.
Uh, you know, one of the thingsI thought was very clever on
the the voyager disc is theyhave there's this image I think
people see a lot they don't knowwhat it means which looks kind
of like a starburst and what itactually is is um, I think at
that time, something like 17pulsars were known, where we
knew their um, how they pulsedand their distance from earth,
and so each of them represents arelative distance, uh, and so,

(48:08):
like, in principle, some verysmart aliens could look at that
and decipher it, whereas, likeyou know, other stuff on that is
like a picture of naked humansand um, like jazz music and
classical music.
I'm especially skeptical of themusic working nicely.
Like lots of animals on earthdon't understand music.

(48:28):
Possibly, you know, if they'relike, uh, you know an organism,
something like us, they couldunderstand the naked people, uh,
but I I'm actually skepticalthat it, like you could, you
could make something really thatuseful.
I I think probably the leastbad option is is some sort of
math, but uh, I think even thenthere's reasons to to doubt that
.
So sorry for the non-answer.
We're just I like the.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
I like the interstellar GPS.
That is cool.
Like more pulsars Like you canyou know you're giving them that
map of interstellar location.
That's cool.
I love that.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
As you can see, any question you ask will find a way
to be downers.
We're not downers we'reconsistent.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
I look at it as pragmatist realists in the, in
the, in the fun sense, you know.
So would you, would you?
Yeah, because you talk about,yeah, music, art and literature.
It's like you know, would youinclude something?
Because it's like you don'tknow what they're going to
communicate, to take it ashostile because, like, you could
put like a parasite as a in ain a petri dish, but they could
think it's an alien.
You know, it's like it's a,it's a weapon, right, it's like,

(49:34):
well, yeah, that would be notbe good.

Speaker 3 (49:37):
It might be interesting if I had, if I sat
down with an alien and they werelike what have your people done
?
Where your people areparasitologists that you're most
proud of?
I think I'd say something likewell, we eradicated smallpox and
so, but.
But I don't know how you conveythat there was a disease that,
like, covered us in awfulpimples and we got rid of it,

(49:57):
like on you know succinctly.
So I would probably leaveparasites off the you know void.
The new Voyager disc.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (50:06):
So if you show okay, then let's get away from music.

(50:27):
This is a good one.
So this is both kind of think.
It tells you that our planet isa planet that has flowing water
, and so maybe that's useful insome way for understanding.
I mean, we think that'scritical for life, um, so yeah,
I don't know, I get the sound offlowing water.
What about you, zach?

Speaker 4 (50:44):
no, I think that's you couldn't do too much better
than that.
Like maybe sounds of atmosphereor something.
I mean, you know, like, like,like, obviously like uh, sega
and drayon went with uh, alittle more like cerebral stuff,
but but uh, we're we're big oldskeptics over here I mean.
I mean I also think, you know,when we send these sort of
things, it's it's much moreabout us than it is about aliens

(51:05):
, like the odds that voyager isever going to encounter
something that can interpret it,or pretty low.
So I think part of what we'redoing is is making art projects
for ourselves.
I think that's a maybe a betterway to think about the golden
disc.

Speaker 3 (51:18):
Oh, that's gotta be the most negative take on the
golden disc ever.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
Well, look, you said water and air.
I mean those are optimisticthings.
I mean mean you could have saidfarts.
So I mean like the sound of afart, yeah, you could have said
there's a lot of, there's a lotof sounds out, there growls,
yeah, yeah.
So I, I applaud you for thepositive.
You know your triangulationwater planet.
Either that's a come they'regoing be great, or we have a

(51:49):
resource planet to invade.

Speaker 3 (51:50):
So we don't know that's right, but stay here.

Speaker 2 (51:54):
Yeah, you know.
So I know we're, you know, aswe're coming to kind of wrapping
things up here, you've done somuch of the looking to the
soonish future.
Is there anything boldly you'dlike to kind of put out there?
I don't even say predictions,but just kind of like what

(52:16):
you've seen and what you're,maybe what you're excited about,
if it can kind of within ourlifetimes, that really kind of
you know through your work,maybe not even in the book, but
just really kind of like this dothese?
Each of you have like somethingthat's like.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
that's like wow, this is if this comes to pass or
this is going to come I mean Iwould be absolutely thrilled if
fusion research was bothfeasible and affordable, and
those are two pretty big hoopsto jump through, um, but I, you
know, I feel like you know a lotof people you know, read our
book and they're like, oh, thewienersmiths, they're like

(52:49):
downers because they don't thinkwe're going to be settling mars
anytime soon.
But I think if we actually gotto the work of answering the
questions we should answerbefore we do that.
That would be awesome, likelearning about how reproduction
works in space and trying tomake these closed-loop
ecosystems where you have tofigure out recycling very
efficiently, like that could begood for earth too, uh, and so I

(53:09):
don't know, I'm I'm excitedabout research always and I
would.
I just think it's amazing that,like in the next couple
generations, you know, we couldbe the people who figure out the
answers to these questions andthen that will open up space for
everybody and that would beincredible zach, what about you?

Speaker 4 (53:28):
um, I think what I get excited about in terms of uh
future stuff you know there's alot of talk about ai now and
it's gonna like take over theworld and and um and whatever
crazy stuff.
Um, I get more excited aboutthe potential for um like modest
increases in yearly laborproductivity change.

(53:48):
So like um, for me that's thebig cool hype about technology
like this.
If you go back to, you know theperiods we think of as
especially pleasant, at leastlike economically, like the 40s
through the early 70s.
One of the big differences isproductivity is growing about
twice as fast.
If you look at the period fromlike 1970 through the mid 90s,
it's growing quite slowly, um,and then it's again been growing

(54:11):
quite slowly since about 2005and then especially since the
financial crisis.
And there's this like twinkle ofhope in the data right now that
either because of ai or otherthings that are happening right
now, we could return tosomething like the 90s or the
the 40s or the 70s era and likethat's.
You know it's, it'slife-changing.
It's like the difference, likeif you set that back uh in the

(54:33):
us by one percent per year, it'sthe difference between, like
the us and mexico economically.
So you think about what we'remissing out by not having had a
higher rate of growth and humanproductivity.
Uh, so I'm I'm extremely hypedabout this boring macroeconomic
stat.
Uh, that might be changing inthe next 10 years this, this is
life in the Wienersmith househey.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
I, I, I shared, I want the four day work week.
You know I want.
I think it's going to be hardfor people, many people who just
see work as their identity andwanting to work, there's a work,
but then there's the other sideof people who don't want to
work at all and it's a questionof what?
Where does, where doesproductivity and where does
freedom to contribute to societygive you the space to

(55:16):
contribute?
Right?
You could make arguments in theUnited States here about health
care.
It's like what if we I'm notespousing any political position
, but like imagine if you, youhad healthcare paid for,
universal healthcare, right?
What would that do?
For you know, people, manypeople, take jobs because they
need the healthcare.
That's what you hear a lot.

(55:37):
What if you could have sixmonths to a year to start a
business and not have to worryabout that for your family?
Or you lost your job and you,you know you don't have to.
You know it's, it's a.
It's a very interesting.
I agree with you.
I just saw a video of robotsfolding towels in a hotel.

Speaker 4 (55:55):
Yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
Right, I mean, think of it.
They can go 24-7, right, butit's not about replacing the
labor, it's a redeployment ofthe skills, because I often
think of systems, design systems, things that are repeatable.
It's like it gives me the spaceto work on the hard stuff, so I
think if we can view it throughthe lens of that, it'll be in a
better place, you know.

(56:19):
So I think it kind of leads meto like, if you're giving advice
to other innovators, peoplethinking on this, you know your
pragmatic view like, what advicewould you give people maybe
trying to create um?

Speaker 3 (56:33):
they want to make a positive impact on this, like on
space and and just, maybe evenjust being writers, just want to
hear your, your advice to thefuture generation, if you will I
think it is such an excitingtime to be in space right now,
like there is a fair bit ofmoney going into you know
certain avenues, but like thingslike space law, like if you try

(56:56):
to clarify what is allowed inspace and you help establish
space law either internationallyor for your own nation, like
you could be changing the waythat we do things in the heavens
for hundreds of years to come.
Like it's a very important timeto be figuring out the rules of
the road for space.
So I you know if you'reinterested but like math isn't
your thing going into space lawcould have a profound effect.

(57:17):
And you know I encourageresearchers to start thinking
about you, know how theirresearch could contribute to
understanding things likereproduction in space.
There's just a lot of excitingquestions right now to answer.

Speaker 4 (57:39):
And almost any skill set that you have, you can
contribute in some way.
Zach, what are your thoughts?
Um, yeah, uh, well, I guess Iguess I could do.
I could do the arts.
Uh, since kelly's doing science, um, I would say, uh, you know,
there's a tendency now, I think, for media to be kind of
fragmented because everyone hasto be on like 18 platforms, and
that's probably going tocontinue to get worse.
And so one thing I argue withpeople is is, if you at least
get to a position where you havea little safety as an artist,

(57:59):
you should try doing crazythings, because, uh, one of the
effects of, I think, socialmedialization of everything is a
tendency toward mediocrity inorder to satisfy an algorithm.
So maybe leave a little moreroom to try dangerous stuff.
I think there's still a marketfor it, if people would just do

(58:20):
it.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
I agree.
I think there's, yeah, twoparts of that.
There's the race to the middle,the mediocrity to kind of do
the algorithm.
But then if you do the thingsthat are edgy or experimental,
it changes the algorithm.
Because I think about howYouTube or other channels have
changed because of what contentdraws people or, like, what kind
of breaks through.
Otherwise you have we'd have 15years of cat videos, you know,

(58:45):
and now you know.
But we have a lot know somethings good, some things you
know not.
My favorite is the reaction tothe reaction to the reaction.
I literally watched the.
I saw a video of a guy reacting, watching a reaction video to
an original video.
Reacting to the react like,what, like why I'm doing this
yeah don't do it I think that's.

Speaker 4 (59:07):
That's not, that's a, that's a discovery.
All this time we were makingscripted tv and trying really
hard and it turned out all weneeded to do was have like one
human doing something bad andanother human making faces.
That's, that's all we want, uhyeah, that's.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
That's the evolved version of that.
Yeah, the category, that's true, that's true so what's?

Speaker 3 (59:25):
what's your advice?

Speaker 2 (59:27):
oh, to people.
I think yeah, that's a greatquestion Be the interviewer.
I love you, I love you both.
My whole thing is to getfutures literate, understand
that everything is not shortterm, that there are
applications that solve problemshere on earth that just apply

(59:47):
to just as much as doing thingsin space.
I agree with you that this hasnever been a better time, other
than maybe the Apollo program,but that was such a narrow band
of people that could do that.
I think we're going to have aCambrian explosion of a space
economy and I like to say, like,space is a place, it's also
there's an economy and anindustry sector serving it.
But I think the next 15 yearsare gonna be so exciting to be

(01:00:13):
in this space.
So I would say, you know, findan aspect of, because it will
require not just the scientistsand not no offense, kelly, I
love you but but not just thescientists, the engineers, but
the artists, the philosophers,the musicians, the people who
communicate the beauty and thewonder and kind of challenge our

(01:00:37):
place in the universe, evenpeople of faith.
Like how do we positionourselves, you know, in
relationship to the universe?
I think we're ready as acivilization to kind of take
that next step.
I do because if an aliencivilization came over and be
like they're a backwater planetwith tribal warfare, that's
basically their position, youknow view of a.

(01:00:58):
So if we can rise above that, Ithink, if we can start to kind
of you know, that's the wholepurpose of this podcast.
This show is like how do wekind of become a multi-planetary
species?
How do we reach for the stars?
So, I think, you know, to bealive, you know, like our
children, you know they're goingto grow up with this.
It's not going to kind of loopitself into oh, here's the big

(01:01:21):
wave and now we're done.
Mars, like the apollo, likeapollo 17, was it, and there was
no need to go back or battle.
Or, you know, with the cold war, no, I think people, not just
the, the economic advantage ofit, but just the, the, the, just
the massive opportunities to to, you know, have careers in it

(01:01:42):
and just to do unique thingswith it.
So that's, that would be my,it's my advice.
So hopefully that that's good.
So, um, well, that's a greatway to kind of wrap things, I
think.
I think the best thing to do isalways how do people, you know,
and I've been on your discord.
Got to mention that.
That's fun.
That's a lot of.
I am on your discord.
I am crazy Irish.
Yes, I am on your discord.

(01:02:04):
So, um, how do people upstateit up?
Obviously they can get soonish.
You know a city on mars.
Like, how do they stay up withyour work?
Both of you, you have lots ofdifferent shows.
You have a lot of differentthings.
You're doing?

Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
uh I I have a go ahead, I have a website uh,
wienersmithcom, and uh I.
My new podcast, daniel andkelly's extraordinary universe,
comes out every every Tuesdayand Thursday, and that is taking
most of my time right now.
What about you, zach?

Speaker 4 (01:02:33):
I draw a comic called SMBC.
It's on the usual platforms.
I have a website and Instagram,et cetera, and in addition to
our space books, I wrote a.
I worked on a graphic novelcalled Open Borders, which is a
position book on immigration,and a kid's book called Beewolf,
which is an adaptation ofBeowulf, the old English poem.

Speaker 3 (01:02:58):
For kids.

Speaker 4 (01:02:59):
For kids.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
Without all the gory stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:03:04):
No scattered gore in the meat hall.

Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
Yeah, I read it in high school.
I'm like, yeah, I don't think Iwould give that to my son at
seven and a half.
He probably would love itthough, because it's you know.
But that's great.
That's great, and the Discordwhich you can find on your
website if you wanted to kind ofjoin the community there.
It's a great, it's a fun, funcommunity.
So thank you both for being onthe show today.
It's been great.

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
I'll have a lot of fun.
So thank you for the time today.
Yeah, great question.
Thanks so much for having us.
Thanks, thanks for listening tothe off-world podcast.
You can find us on all themajor podcast platforms and at
wwwoffworldpodcastcom.
See you next time.