A City On Mars

Can humanity really make Mars our next home? Strap in with me, Simon Devere, as we traverse the uncharted territories of space colonization, fueled by insights from "A City on Mars" by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith. Prepare to confront the stark health realities awaiting us in the cosmos, from the battle against muscle atrophy to the siege of radiation on our cells. This is not just about the majestic rockets and star-studded dreams—it's a deep dive into the intricate ballet of maintaining human life where no man-made structure has ever stood.

Join us on Mind Muscle where we decode the rigorous fitness regimes and nutritional blueprints essential for spacefarers. I'm pulling back the curtain on the pristine image of astronauts to reveal the gritty details of their extraordinary lives, the physical toll of microgravity, and the psychological labyrinth of long-term space missions. It's a candid conversation on the triumphs and trials of those who dance among the stars, and how music, of all things, can be a lifeline in the silent expanse.

Cap off your cosmic journey by wrestling with the AI conundrum alongside Margaret Mitchell's critical eye, and sink your teeth into the meaty discussions of health and nutrition in the final frontier. As SpaceX gears up for an IPO that could skyrocket public interest, we scrutinize the reality behind the razzle-dazzle, measuring real progress against the buzz. From the practical to the philosophical, we're lifting the veil on space health, inviting you to join the discourse that could shape our interplanetary future. Keep lifting and learning, right here on Mind Muscle.

Producer: Thor Benander
Editor: Luke Morey
Intro Theme: Ajax Benander
Intro: Timothy Durant

For more, visit Simon at The Antagonist

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Mind Muscle Podcast.
He is your host, simon Devere,and welcome back to Mind Muscle,
the place we study the history,science and philosophy behind
everything in health and fitness.

(00:24):
Today I am Simon Devere andthere is nothing new except all
that has been forgotten.
So recently I finished up abook called A City on Mars Came
out in 2023.
Kelly and Zach Weinersmith.
If you guys want to pick it up,it's a fun read.

(00:47):
In short, we're not going to doa book review, but the book is
basically taking on the idea ofspace colonization, not from the
standpoint of is this a good orbad idea.
The book more takes on.
What will we actually need todo in order to make that less

(01:09):
science fiction, more sciencefact, if you will?
So, first off, I do recommendthe book, just because it's a
fun read, but it did bring to myattention many of the issues
that deep space travel, orcolonization, presents to human

(01:31):
thriving, namely in the realmsof health and nutrition.
But up top, let's get this out.
This is like the disclaimer atthe beginning.
Keep in mind, today's episodeis again going to be almost
purely theoretical, as weextrapolate from the literature

(01:52):
that is available on the effectsof deep space travel.
But again, there's a lot of.
I'm not an expert in this, noris anybody else, because we
don't have any studies on deepspace travel, because it's never
been done, but again, we doactually have a pretty wide
amount relatively, but we dohave some health information on

(02:16):
many of the astronauts that havebeen going up to space for many
years now.
There are some issues withthose sample sizes.
We'll touch that later.
But again, we're going to focusmostly on looking at the
available literature and, ofcourse, attempting to
extrapolate from that how thesechallenges may figure into deep
space.

(02:37):
But let's just flag it up frontA lot of this is going to be
theoretical, should not betreated as gospel or the way
that these things will develop.
I think this is a fun topic.
We do have a little bit ofstudies, so I think we can have
a little bit of fun and takesome guesses about how this may
play out.
And again, I don't have anypretensions that I'm the expert

(03:04):
these people need.
But again, what I do get to seeare the pieces that are
available in the.
I'm going to stop using theterm mainstream because I feel
like that's used by a pejorative, so I'm going to use the term,
the popular press, and what Iobviously mean by that is
anything that's popular.
If I go into the iTunes storeand your podcast is in the top

(03:26):
10, though you may not considerthat mainstream I do Just any of
the most available contentcreators, whether they are
establishment or not, if theyare popular.
I tend to notice most of thesearticles are focusing on the
same thing, and I think thatperhaps, if we do look at the

(03:48):
available literature, we mightbe able to ask some better
questions than I believe thediscourse is providing presently
.
Let's give a few examples, ifyou will, and again, these are
not necessarily in my wheelhouse, but we can either add Haman
and me as a trainer who doesn'thave a right to think about

(04:10):
these things, or we could try togive counter arguments to the
points that I'm going to make.
The latter would be moreintellectually honest, but if
you just want to write me off asa guy who isn't deserving of
having an opinion, you'recertainly.
Almost anybody would bequalified to write me off in
that regard.
But maybe you've seen thesearticles about.

(04:30):
Why are we thinking ofcolonizing space?
One of the top answers isobviously overcrowding, which,
again, I guess I would just goand look at population data
before I would make that my mainpremise of why humans need to

(04:51):
leave Earth.
I'm not sure that that is thedirection Demographics indicate
that we're headed right now.
Most wealthy countries are notreplacing their populations.
The countries that havereplacement level birth rates
all tend to be in what we wouldcall the developing, or they
used to call the third worldwhatever word you like but
that's where it is.
It's not in the wealthycountries and anyway it's

(05:14):
actually just not looking thatstrong.
That overcrowding is going tobe a huge problem in the future.
The current projections we areon don't really indicate that
that actually is a massiveproblem, another one that I see
coming up a lot in the popularpress.

(05:34):
Of course we're doing this tosave humanity.
We have an impending climatedisaster and just in case we
wreck the Earth, we should havea backup plan.
So I think there's an obviouscontention of that that I
actually have seen some peoplemake.
That's well, if we just takethe same people that destroyed
the planet and put them on Mars,what's the chance they don't

(05:55):
destroy Mars?
That one, I think, is moreobvious than the one that
probably should be a little bitmore obvious, and it's that,
first off, we all know thedifficulties that we would have
with modeling or projectinganything, let alone predicting
the damage of climate changemoving forward.
But for the sake of this point,let's just restrict it to the

(06:16):
worst case scenarios.
Find the worst case model thatyou can show for what Earth will
look like in climate change andthen now compare that
environment and its ability tosupport human life versus Mars
or versus any moon base or anobject, and what you'll kind of
quickly realize is actually,even like a vastly reduced

(06:41):
quality of life on Earth stillhas a better potential of
supporting human life than anyof the other locations that
people are talking about.
So again, I don't think thiscompletely writes that off, but
just the means that it wouldtake to make Mars habitable are
going to be less than evenmaking the worst case scenario

(07:03):
on Earth habitable for humans,just based on a lot of factors
the gravity, the atmosphere.
We'll touch on all that stufflater as we start diving into it
.
But I don't know if avoidingthe ill effects of climate
change, I'm not sure that's agreat reason and actually full
disclosure.
I actually regard us becomingan extraterrestrial species as a

(07:28):
very worthwhile goal of ourspecies.
Again, I'm questioning thereasons that I see given.
Now you know another one.
Obviously we're going to dosome mining and we're all going
to get rich Not possible.
But then I just do question thewho is we in that we are going
to get rich?
Because it's going to send me acheck?
I doubt it.

(07:49):
If that were to take place, Iimagine a very small group of
people would get rich andeverybody else would get.
You know, you got a nice iPhoneor something.
You could watch them gettingrich and the things they spend
their money on.
But that's about as close as Ithink it will get to you being
enriched by it, if I'm beinghonest.
But hey, we can all buy stock,do whatever.

(08:09):
Yeah, whatever, someone's goingto make a ton of money Ph level
every month, every dollar.
This one might be the worst oneand I actually saw this in.
It's funny because one of thesetech guys had had a big meeting
and he had all his you knowreasons prepped and actually a
question from the audience kindof killed him on this one.
But you know, of course wemight need to evade super

(08:29):
intelligence if chat GPT becomesself-aware and Same tech
founder actually tried to signan open letter to pause it, and
it still hasn't becomeself-aware.
But let's just say he's right.
Let's say that that we arereally, really close to
Superintelligence, that jet GPTis not artificial narrow
intelligence, that it's alreadya GI and that it's getting ready

(08:49):
to jump to superintelligence.
You know, I don't believe anyof that, but a lot of people do,
so let's follow their premisewe need to leave earth to evade
the super intelligence that isgoing to try to kill us here on
earth.
Now audience member raised thehand and said why wouldn't they
follow us to Mars?
And then tech founder didn'thave an answer for that.
So, again, this is where I havethis ego, or this just absolute

(09:16):
audacity that I think I mayhave something to add to this,
simply because I Think, at thisjuncture, we are not really
asking great questions.
These are probably just a shortlist of some of the dominant
themes you're seeing in inarticles about space
colonization, and I don't thinkany of them are actually that

(09:38):
Relevant or pertinent to thetask that we have at hand, and
again, we're actually talkingabout somebody who I Find this a
great goal, quite frankly, youknow.
Another fallacy that I'll note,though, is Whenever you start
doing what I just did andquestion those common narratives
, you'll get accused of being aLuddite or you know, trying to

(09:59):
resist human progress.
There's even a set within thisparticular group that will Say
that your resistance is actuallyunethical, because my
resistance here in the presentis actually slowing down the
pace and they're not going to beable to build their sentient
AI's.
And if they can't build Athousand, you know sentient AI's
, I am the one who killed them.
It is, and these are not myarguments, by the way.
I don't believe any of this, butmany people with a lot more

(10:21):
power and influence than myselfdo.
They would argue.
People like me Would be sayingthat when, when the oceans were
being explored, that I would bearguing to stay in Europe.
And again, I think there's likesome really fundamental things
that they don't ignore.
I know they think that's agreat example, but and and this

(10:43):
is actually going to be kind ofthe focus of the episode but
Exploring space is differentthan exploring Earth.
So extrapolating from the age ofexploration on Earth how that
went and then extrapolating thatexperience out into space, I
think that is actually Painfullynaive and again ignoring the

(11:04):
reality that is this cold,indifferent landscape that is
space.
I Get it that when the peopleset off from Europe, they they
maybe didn't know where theywere heading but we do and there
was land on the other side thathad Climates and things that
actually were, you know,relatively Really similar to the
world that they lived in.
This age of exploration is afundamentally different

(11:28):
challenge and I think thatanalogy is is very bad Because
it makes it seem a lot simplerthan it actually is.
If we use Earth exploration asa proxy for the challenges we're
going to face in in spaceexploration, that proxy is
making the task seem a loteasier than it really is.

(11:50):
So anyway, again, I actually doregard Deep, deep space travel
or, you know, long-term coloniesin space, as a completely
worthwhile goal and ambition ofour collective human effort, if
you will.
So I I'm not going to bequestioning Whether we should do

(12:10):
this or not.
That that's a valid discussionto be had.
Where you are, again, what Ikind of want to focus on with
with our discussion.
I really want to focus more onthe health, fitness, nutrition
side again, because I canactually speak to that a little
bit and I think we canextrapolate from there.
Obviously, we're not going totalk about what we'll.

(12:33):
We'll mention it quickly, butI'm not even gonna offer you
guys solutions on how wemitigate the impacts of of
radiation out in deep space, thepropulsion systems, the fuels
that's clearly a discussion forother people.
But I also think that there isa lot of value focusing on more
like the rubber meets the road,the nuts and bolts things,
because it can kind of establishhow far out are we really.

(12:56):
And so, again, today'sdiscussion I really do, even
though it's super fun and wemight touch on a few here and
there, let's try to avoid theplots of our favorite science
fiction stories and focus onwhat it is actually going to
take to put humans out in space.
So, again, if we are ever goingto make this into scientific

(13:19):
fact, not science fiction, weare gonna have to focus on some
of these things that are alittle less interesting.
You're not gonna get like acool video of bone density law
studies.
So, yeah, I am gonna use ourtime together to focus on some
of the less interesting but whatI think are at least, if not

(13:43):
more important than some of theother problems that I know we
are given a lot of effort to tryto solve.
So, yeah, with that out of theway, I think, the way we're
gonna break it up, let's focusfirst on we'll run down just
real quick the health impacts ofbeing in space.

(14:04):
A couple themes that weintroduced there are gonna pop
back up again when we starttalking about how to work out
and get our proper nutrition inspace.
But so I think first it'llbenefit us just to run down
quick list of some of the healthchallenges and then obviously
some of those are gonna come upagain when we get back into the

(14:24):
workouts and nutrition.
But yeah, so without furtherado again, I guess I wanna start
just in.
That analogy of exploring Earthis nothing like exploring space.
The environment is againentirely different.

(14:46):
One of the most important orthe biggest differences that
really impacts not only humanhealth but the technology we
have to use.
You name it.
This is gonna have impactsacross the board, but it is the
impacts of microgravity.
So if you actually get to Mars,the colonists there would be

(15:07):
experiencing about 38% ofEarth's gravity.
We know from putting people inspace for a few years now that
this can lead to muscle atrophy,bone density loss,
cardiovascular deconditioning.
So you are gonna have to havesome means to be able to perform

(15:31):
regular and rigorous workouts.
This is something that we willtouch on later.
Of all of the problems thatwe're gonna discuss today, that
may be the easiest one Trainingin space because the rules of
training don't change.
It's not that hard a problem,but there are definitely,
because of gravity, some thingsthat we have to consider.

(15:55):
Another big change in space isactually the increased radiation
exposure.
There's no atmosphere, and outin deep space the amounts of
radiation are much higher thananybody would experience within
Earth's protective magneticfield and atmosphere.
So whether you are doing a deepspace trip or you're actually

(16:15):
living on Mars, you would beexposed to much higher levels of
cosmic and solar radiation.
We do know that increasedexposure to radiation of course
carries an elevated risk ofcancer, degenerative diseases,
cardiovascular disease, and thishas something that we do have

(16:36):
small sample size.
But of the Apollo astronauts,they were roughly four to five
times more likely to die fromcardiovascular disease than
other astronauts, not averageAmericans, other astronauts.
So I think that actually isquite meaningful and kind of
speaks to the fact that we don't, or even short exposures to

(16:59):
deep space and the radiation.
Well, we don't even go out todeep space yet.
So a moon mission.
These astronauts were exposedto way less radiation than what
anybody moving out to Mars wouldbe exposed to.
So, of the Apollo astronauts,it 43% of them who have died did
so from cardiovascular disease.

(17:22):
So, again, one of thetechnologies that you're gonna
need to bring online before thiscould even be possible is some
means of protecting yourastronauts from radiation.
So, right now, just doing onetrip to Mars would exceed the
lifetime dose of radiation thatNASA currently allows for an

(17:46):
astronaut in its entire lifetime.
That being said, I doubt itwould actually be hard to find
astronauts For them.
This is something that theytend to want to do, and it's not
gonna be hard to findastronauts who would be willing
to accept that risk.
The challenge is gonna be infinding non-astronauts who are

(18:09):
willing to accept those healthrisks, and this actually does
bring me to a quick sidebar thatI just wanted to bring up, that
astronauts in no way are normalpeople.
Astronauts are some of the mostexceptional people in every way
in health, intelligence,athletics, you name it.

(18:32):
It's incredibly competitive toactually get to fly on any space
mission.
So, again, even the studiesthat we have, which are not good
as it pertains tocardiovascular disease.
Keep in mind these are roughlythe equivalents of, let's say,
like Olympic athletes or NavySEALs.
These are not normal people.

(18:55):
I think it is reasonable toassume the health impacts in
non-astronauts are probablygoing to be a lot worse than we
have observed in astronauts, fora number of reasons but one
because, again, becoming anastronaut is highly selective.
Nobody has ever made it intospace without excelling at

(19:15):
pretty much everything.
But additionally, even thestudies we have, it's fair to
assume that there are morehealth complications than our
studies show.
And this again gets into sortof the astronauts and doctors.
To be quite frank and this iscoming from the astronauts and
doctors themselves they have avery complicated relationship.

(19:37):
Doctors are the people that canground astronauts.
So astronauts are pretty clearin this that they lie to their
doctors when oftentimes theyknow they're sick.
And you never tell the doctorwho's controlling a flight that
you're sick unless you want tobe grounded, which none of these
people do.
They have tried very, very hardand excelled at a lot of things

(19:59):
to get to where they're at.
So trust me, if you got alittle head cold or something,
and even though it says you'renot supposed to do that, from
what I hear, astronauts tend tolie about those things.
So I again think, as we try toextrapolate from the known
health impacts to astronauts, wedo need to keep in mind one,

(20:22):
the health impacts are probablyworse than reported and two, the
non-astronaut population is notgoing to fare as well as this
population of astronauts or ourfirst people up in space are
probably going to be.
They're going to fare some ofthe best, just for obvious
reasons they were the best.

(20:42):
That's why they were selectedto go in the first place.
So all that just to say.
I do think that it's going tobe hard to draw conclusions to a
general population from studieson astronauts for those reasons
they're physical, intellectualoutliers who lie to their
doctors.
But anyway, one of the things Ifound interesting obviously

(21:04):
sleep is very important, whetheryou are on earth or out in
space.
Arguably it's more important inspace because you're probably
doing an important mission thateverybody's lives on the ship
kind of count on.
So yeah, sleep very important.
People on earth generally don'tget enough.
In space, sleep's a littledifferent because obviously

(21:27):
you're not on earth so you don'thave a 24-hour day.
They do still keep the 24-hourday but like, let's say, you
were on the International SpaceStation.
In a 24-hour period, you'regoing to see about 16 sunrises
and sunsets per day, so we'reobviously not using our
circadian rhythm to dictate whenwe do things.

(21:48):
Being in space is a little likebeing in a casino.
You got to look at the clock,otherwise you're probably going
to lose track of time prettyquickly.
Time is experienced verydifferently in space.
Again, a lot of the cues thatwe get throughout the day from
the light are completelyirrelevant in space.
But that being said, though,after a little bit of

(22:10):
acclimatization, most astronautsdon't really have a hard time
sleeping.
So I don't think there's likeany great challenges that will
be presented in that.
One note that I just kind offound fun, because I'm usually
making fun of people forming toomany opinions from watching
movies.
But the astronauts really dowake up to music.
I was reading this story andthen it was kind of reminding me

(22:32):
because so many movies in space, like the first shot is like a
shot out the window of thespacecraft with some song
playing in the background andthe person kind of waking up.
And that's actually true toform Because, again, you don't
have the light to wake you up.
So it is very often that theyuse music Another anecdote I
liked from our NASA astronauts.

(22:54):
But I guess the families downon earth are the ones who picked
the song that will wake you up.
So it's a fun game to try topick out which song is yours,
and that's something that seemslike a small thing but actually
is a big deal, because this willjump us into the next point.
But stress due to isolation andconfinement is a big big deal.
So little things like that thatcould seem not that important,

(23:18):
like looking forward to a songthat your family might have
picked for you.
The people who have really beento space say that that's a big
deal for them and that actuallygets them through the isolation
and confinement that's kind ofcentral to the work they're
doing.
But again, stress is a big dealon any mission.

(23:42):
If you were going to do alonger mission now, obviously
the psychological makeup of theindividuals and the group that
you put together is going to bevery, very key for success.
You're going to have to reallyunderstand the psychological
profiles of every person you putinto a mission like that, and
then you're also going to needstrategies like the wake up
songs or just various thingsthat could provide some mental

(24:07):
health support.
As communication has gottenbetter, with some of the
missions we've been able to doemail some communications.
Again, I don't know how thatworks actually out in deep space
, but it's important.
I know that and it was evenmentioned.
Just a back to the psychologicalimportance of reducing stress.

(24:28):
Astronauts have said that if ateddy bear is going to help you
get to sleep, then it's actuallyan essential item for the
mission.
So even though this can seemlike not as important a
technical problem as some of theother things, this one really
is a very, very big problemactually and I am sure that we
have plenty of methods to workat it.

(24:50):
But having systems in place todeal with the stress and the
psychological effects ofisolation and confinement is a
big deal in a mission like we'retalking.
If we're going to deep space orMars, we've never gone that far
.
The timelines would be muchlonger.
Now we'll fly over this one alittle quickly, but probably put

(25:13):
it talked about this earlier on.
But lacking gravity is actuallygoing to impact a lot.
It's not just the muscleatrophy and it's not just the
bone density loss.
When we actually get into thecirculatory systems.
How fluid redistributes thebody, the immune system,
evacuation, birth there's a lotof things that are kind of

(25:37):
reliant on gravity drivingcertain actions, and so we just
well, some we don't know.
Obviously, childbirth, we don'tknow much about that, but this
was a funny one.
In the 1950s there was a patentmade Because, again, I think
it's worth reminding people havebeen talking about space
exploration more than just inthe last year or so.

(25:57):
I think that we forget thatwe've already done some things,
and as we are hyping up thisnest cycle, we're kind of
ignoring the fact that we'vealready tried a few things.
And so one patent that I sawthat existed in the 50s, when we
were talking about the idea ofputting people up into permanent
space stations, was basicallylike a centrifuge-like thing.

(26:19):
So let's say that you getpregnant, they would put you in
the centrifuge and it would spinand that could create the
gravity that we would need tohelp the fetus develop properly
and give birth.
But anyway, I don't know howmany people would want to sit in
one of those things for ninemonths or if that's what was
acquired.
But all that to say, if we'regoing to make permanent colonies

(26:42):
or settling, that might besomething you want to figure out
first is what does birth looklike in space?
How are you going to deal withthat?
But even just smaller things.
It's known that when you go intospace without the gravity,
fluids tend to pool in differentparts of the body.
It can disrupt hearing, balance, eyesight.

(27:03):
The longer the missions go, thebigger these problems obviously
get.
We've set certain thresholdsand any mission to Mars would
obviously be exceeding those bymany, many factors.
Now, kind of Mars specific, ifyou will, mars does have a very
thin atmosphere.
It's most of carbon dioxide, socolonists would obviously need

(27:28):
a supply of breathable air.
Where that's coming from, whoknows?
It's probably going to have tobe shipped in.
And now I'm a little out of mywheelhouse here, but so I know
that there's this period that'scalled the transfer window.
It happens, I think, every.
It's either four or two years.

(27:48):
Go look me up, get the realnumber.
But that's when Mars and theEarth are the closest.
So anyway, it isn't easysupplying a Mars base with
regular anything, but that'sobviously something that would
just need is regular breathableair.
There's no atmosphere on Mars,also just a very different

(28:12):
environment.
Circling back to this ain't likegoing from England to New
England, when you land on Mars,you're going to be dealing with
like dust storms that haveradiation particles in their
temporary extremes that you'venever felt, lower gravity.
There really isn't Earth proxy.

(28:35):
The closest thing that youcould get would maybe be like
some of the stations down inAntarctica, or maybe living on a
submarine.
Those environments would beclosest to living in a Mars
colony, quite frankly.
So again, I don't think weshould have in our heads like

(28:58):
the age of exploration here onEarth.
The environment is so differentyou really have to take that
into account and imagine thatthe lives people would be living
are also going to befundamentally very, very
different.
So now, with all that out there, we're going to have to circle
back to these.
But I do want to focus more inon just the nutrition component

(29:21):
of all of this, so similar tohaving to provide air to an
environment.
If we're doing a Mars base, alsonutrition is going to be
critical for any long mission.
If you're doing the long spaceflight out obviously no resupply
You're going to have to do thatin one fell swoop.

(29:41):
If we're setting up a base now,we can open up the possibility
of being able to resupply it,but again you're going to need
to be able to send enough thatit can cover those gaps in the
transfer window, which I believeis two years, but anytime you
would resupply you're stillgoing to have to have.
Longevity, basically, is goingto be really important.

(30:02):
Even if you're doing resupplymissions, the food is going to
have to have a really long shelflife and then it can't lose
nutrition, quality, taste,safety in that process.
The packaging again we talkedabout this with impact to the
human body, but deep space theradiation is different, so we're
going to need some differenttype of packaging to protect the

(30:24):
food from the environment.
The radiation can actuallydegrade the quality of nutrients
over time.
So if we're storing all thisfood for, say, a year and it's
out in this environment, you'reobviously going to need
something to control and protectfor that.
Mres obviously the military usesthis.
Astronauts have used this for along time.

(30:44):
I'm sure we would be usingsomething similar.
One drawback though and this isless of a problem on shorter
missions, but a lot of peopleactually don't really like MREs.
Some of the astronauts callthem meals rarely edible or
meals regularly requiring enemas.

(31:04):
So, again, on shorter missions,that's not a big problem, but
as the missions get longer,actually this does become a
really big problem.
Back to the polar explorationand this, you know stuff we're
doing down in Antarctica rightnow.
Good food is one of the mostimportant psychological factors

(31:27):
in day-to-day well-being and canreally extend the amount of
time that people can stay inenvironments like that.
If you can't secure that,people just kind of burn out a
little bit faster.
Quite frankly, you know funstory to me that we got from a
space exploration.
But so I guess when you are upin space again, one of the

(31:48):
impacts of you know radiationcan be that it actually dulls
some of our taste receptors.
So in space foods tastedifferently.
This is what the astronauts sayanyway.
And so the spicy flavors, sourand sweet things are generally
more appetizing in space.

(32:10):
And there's a fun anecdote in acity on Mars, but about how
taco seasoning.
I think it's a vasco, but thatcan become basically like like
cigarettes in jail or like itbecomes like a form of currency,
because taco sauce is one ofthe most valuable commodities
when you're traveling in space.
So again, do not underestimatethe importance of having food

(32:36):
that is tasty and enjoyable.
If you can't solve that problem,the chance that your mission
goes long and well is not good.
If we're talking longermissions in deep space, you're
going to have to have not onlybalanced and nutritious food,

(32:57):
but stuff that again can betransported into deep space and
is at least somewhat tasty.
One aspect you also have toconsider is that and we touched
on this, but it's going to behighly unlikely that you're
going to be able to haveconstant resupplies or any
regular, so there has to be someeffort of sustainability.
This is another anecdote that Ilike from current space travel.

(33:21):
But astronauts talk a lot ofyesterday's coffee and what
yesterday's coffee is.
If you're drinking any watertoday, there's a really good
chance because they filter anduse all the fluids on board and
recycle it that you're actuallydrinking yesterday's coffee.

(33:43):
But anyway, I just thought thatwas funny and obviously, if you
were talking about a longmission, we're probably going to
have to have it even more waysof being somewhat sustainable.
All right, we'll reference ascience fiction movie, but the
Matt Damon one, where he goes toMars and he grows some shit
potatoes.

(34:03):
You might actually have to comeup with something like that.
You have to have some food thatyou could at least grow on the
way.
You're not going to be able toresupply everything.
Good news to that, though, isthey actually have pulled off
some peppers, because, again,astronauts really love Tabasco
sauce.
So we have pulled that off.
But again, people like nicethings.

(34:26):
I don't think they weresupposed to bring alcohol up,
but I'm pretty sure the Russianshave on the International Space
Station, and for the chancethat you would like, ever grow
enough potatoes to make a bottleof vodka unlikely looking at
like eight kilograms of potatoesto get one bottle.

(34:47):
So, again, I think it's going tobe very, very difficult to
source and supply a diet thatwould sustain people in every
way Nutrition, psychology, taste, you name it.
But again, best practices wehave is looking at polar
exploration, and so, yeah, Ijust take that at face value

(35:08):
that there are a lot ofpsychological challenges in
addition to sourcing,sustainability.
Those are all going to be majorissues in deep space travel or
colonization.
Save this one for last,actually, because I really do
think this is the easiest one,and working out in space, of all
the challenges that we talkedabout today, is, again, I think,

(35:31):
the easiest, because, basically, the principle is good training
Don't change in space, theenvironment does.
So you have space considerations.
There's no gravity.
We're clearly not usingexternal loads.
You could lift 600 pounds witha pinky, no problem in zero
gravity.
So there are different types ofequipment and things that the

(35:52):
astronauts have to use, butwe've pretty much sorted all
that stuff out.
I don't think that this isgoing to be one of the major
challenges, as much as I wouldlike to maybe consult NASA on
some workout stuff.
But that's just because Ialways wanted to be an astronaut
.
That'd be cool to work onsomething like this.
They pretty much got this partsorted out.

(36:16):
But first I will say up frontthat actually some astronauts
have come back in better shapefrom missions.
Don't count on that Challengeswe mentioned about the radiation
and gravity.
That's not a rule, but it ispossible.
You actually can make gains ina space station.
But another thing I think weshould mention is that it is

(36:36):
mission essential, so time isspecifically set aside for it.
You have to work out, and thereason is again just the impacts
of microgravity.
Every single thing that you doin space is easier just walking
going anywhere.
So this to me is almost likethe opposite.
When we're talking fat loss andI'm encouraging people to get

(36:59):
neat, they're non-exerciseactivity thermogenesis up.
The low gravity environmentjust makes it.
So you're neat, basically doesnothing.
You're not overcoming gravityever.
So again, just even if you'redoing your job around the space
station, the chance that you getany sufficient work is not good

(37:20):
.
So workout time is requiredAgain.
Think about our sample sizeAstronauts.
These are going to be generallyfit people who are already
disciplined, so it's again notthat shocking that some have
been able to improve theirfitness while on the space
station.

(37:41):
But I don't touch on, though isthe equipment differences.
So most of what we have on ourmodern missions have been a
stationary bike, a treadmill andthen a strength training
apparatus.
But all of this equipment looksreally different than it does
back on earth, again because oflack of gravity.
So the treadmill they actuallyhave like what kind of look?

(38:05):
Like some bungees or cords thatyou just attach roughly to the
shoulders and they keep you onthe treadmill Instead of
bouncing around the cabin.
The stationary bike is similar,but you don't need a seat,
there's just a couple of pedals.
But here's one thing that Ididn't think of you actually
can't just use like any oldapparatus, because the vibration

(38:27):
that's created from yourworking out can actually start
to create its own gravity.
So, believe it or not, exerciseif you don't have the right
equipment on a space station canactually disrupt the
experiments that they're doingon the space station.
So, yeah, that was justsomething that was not intuitive
to me, that even just pedalinga stationary bike could actually

(38:48):
generate enough gravity in thatenvironment to alter the
experiments that they're upthere to do in the first place.
So that's just a considerationI've never had to make in gym
design.
That I found really interesting.
And then for strength training,obviously they're not using
external loads.

(39:08):
You can't pick up a dumbbelland squat, but you can do
basically any type of pullingexercise or using springs, bands
, stuff like that to load anymovement.
And so you know, springs, bands, stuff like that all works.
But they actually have a mostadvanced device they use is
something called the advancedresistive exercise device, and

(39:33):
this thing looks cool.
Basically it creates a platformthat your feet can stand on.
So while you're pushing againstthat like, let's say, you're
doing a deadlift your feet areon the platform, you grab the
bar that's there and you canactually execute a deadlift in a
zero gravity environmentbecause you're pulling actually

(39:55):
against a set of springs thatgenerate the resistance.
So yeah, just as someone wholikes to play with different
machines, this just lookedreally cool.
I would love to play with oneof those.
Though I did mention at the topof this section that some
astronauts have come back inbetter shape, that's not the
rule.
It's not like it's a greatfitness camp.

(40:15):
Many astronauts do complainabout muscle loss, chronic back
pain and bone density loss.
So there's some of the mostcommon issues.
That's why working out is soimportant and that's why they
have dedicated the amount ofinfrastructure to fitness on
board space missions.
The lack of gravity just quitesimply does seem to weaken the

(40:37):
body.
This is something that must beaccounted for on a long mission,
the type of degradation that wehave seen on some of our
shorter flights.
It would not be inconceivable,if we took one of these longer
flights that by the time theastronauts got there, that they
would be physically incapable ofperforming whatever task, that

(41:00):
they're supposed to build acolony or start mining some
really expensive stuff.
So yeah, if we don't reallysolve those problems in routes,
the chance that we even have anypeople that will be capable of
doing the work that needed to bedone not good.
One of the most common thingsthat astronauts do complain

(41:22):
about coming back to Earth isgoing to be chronic back pain.
And then again, I just want toremind us that we are talking
about much smaller doses of deepspace travel that are already
turning up these issues.
So I think it is again fair toassume that on a trip to deep
space or in a space colony, thatwe can actually expect these

(41:44):
effects to be even larger thanwe've observed to date.
So, yeah, that kind of runsdown to stuff that I want to
talk about with regard to ourhealth.
Now, that being said, there'sstill two different approaches.
Well, there's many more, but Ithink we can break down the
approach to how we do this intwo major camps.

(42:05):
We've got the weight and go bigversus the small and
incremental.
Not going to take a side inthis, I just want to present,
because I think there are prosand cons to each one.
So let's look at that insteadof weighing in on what the best
way to do it is going to be.
So, weight and go big, like thename implies that this would
focus on launching large,well-equipped missions with many

(42:30):
people, substantialinfrastructure and after lots
and lots of preparation andtechnological development.
Advantages to this time is thatthis is going to allow you time
to develop and answer some ofthe questions that we brought up
, some of the technologies andthe systems that you'll need to
do it.
Economies of scale are alsogoing to be something you're
going to be able to takeadvantage of if you weight and

(42:51):
build out these operations intolarge-scale operations instead
of doing them in small batches.
Psychological benefit, but alarge mission, I think, can
capture the public imagination.
That being said, though, I'vecertainly watched them land the
Falcon rockets.
So yeah, with a small andincremental approach, maybe we

(43:13):
can still capture the mines.
I would say big risk associatedwith weight and go big is just
that risk.
Concentration you put a lot ofeggs in one basket on a big
mission like that.
If there's failure on that, youjust lost a big-ass mission.
Obviously longer preparationtime, technology change in those

(43:36):
times that's maybe somethingthat you're not going to want to
consider.
And then this approach again,to me would probably take higher
upfront investment.
If you go incremental and small, you can probably dole out the
cost.
You're going to spend more inthe long run that way, but you
can space it out.
That being said, though, I dothink the weight and go big is

(43:59):
probably best for projects likebuilding a colony or like a
large space station, small andincremental.
I think some of the advantagesare going to be a little
different with that approach Ifwe were to go that route.
It's going to give us a littlebit more flexibility and
adaptability.
We can adjust our proceduresbased on the previous outcomes

(44:20):
of missions.
Now we can spread the risk outa little bit.
Any one mission failingwouldn't be catastrophic and
this way again I think thiscould also get just as much
excitement.
Just with we have that steadytrickle of an exciting launch
here and there.
Maybe it keeps the publicinterest and the will involved.

(44:42):
I don't know the disadvantagesI would say is it probably takes
longer to achieve.
If your goal is colonization,it probably takes longer this
way, probably a highercumulative cost, and it is going
to require a fair amount ofcoordination and complexity to
have any chance of success.
That being said, I think thesmall and incremental approach

(45:06):
probably is going to be best forcloser settlements, maybe moon
bases, asteroid mining, stufflike that.
I'm going to jump out of thissection but just remind you guys
that right there, purelytheoretical side of it, that I
think is a very open debate asto which the best approach

(45:27):
really is.
But anyway, now that we'vecovered some of the health, I
hope we can start asking somebetter questions than I'm seeing
float around, because now we'regoing to get to the opinion
portion of the program.
Again, as someone who respectsthis goal as a really worthwhile
goal for humanity, the marketparticipant and trader in me

(45:49):
right now is saying sell thenews.
If you know what I mean.
I think the hype and themotivation to drum up that hype
is quite large right now and, aswe kind of ran down today a lot
of the impacts to health, Ithink maybe we're farther out
than it seems following thisissue in the press.
We can just take a slight turnfor a second.

(46:14):
I want to revisit that AI pauseletter back in March of 2023.
And as I get into this, I knowhow unpopular what I am about to
say is, because I'm not findingmany people in real life that
agree with this, but I don'tthink I've laid it out this
thoroughly before.
So I think we have a teachablemoment about what could be going

(46:35):
on with space exploration, withAI.
So if I can just remind youguys that in March of 2023, the
Future of Life Institute put outan open letter asking us to
pause AI or these are my wordsnow terminator, skynet,
paperclip problem.
Trust me, bro, lots ofscientists, but anyway, they put

(46:58):
out a letter saying that theywere deeply concerned with the
fate of humanity and that wemust pause AI and sort these
problems out.
The letter got a lot ofattention, but it also didn't
Well, first, let's just behonest there was a lot of

(47:18):
signatures on it from people whodidn't actually sign it.
Number of scientists whosenames are on there did not
actually support it, and thatdidn't really get covered.
As time moved on, the Future ofLife Institute itself was
funded back in 2015, not solely,but major contributions by Elon

(47:43):
Musk, who was the top signatoryon that open letter.
I just want to remind peoplethat Elon, over the years, has
made many, many promises aboutAI, that kind of follow the
longer arc of tech promisesalmost going back to like the
mechanical Turk.
Anyone remember that?
But anyway, there's this longarc of people over promising

(48:06):
that technologies are going tobe ready and game changing and
then they don't come online.
If you've been following thefull-stealth driving Teslas in
2019, they were supposed to befull-stealth driving, they were
supposed to not be depreciatingassets and they were supposed to
be robotaxis, so none of thathappened, by the way.
So, anyway, for me, who's very,very jaded?

(48:28):
I did kind of look at this like, oh, it's funny to me that all
the people who are affiliatedwith companies, who are behind
in AI, are asking to pause andnobody affiliated with companies
out at the front is.
But I did kind of look a littleharder, since that was the

(48:48):
feeling I was having.
And then one of the papers thatwas even cited in this open
letter is called StochasticParrots and it was written by a
scientist named MargaretMitchell.
But unfortunately, mitchellactually wrote a separate piece
saying she did not support theletter, even though they used
her work in it to make theircase.
And so let's just go toMargaret Mitchell's words.

(49:10):
So she says well, there are anumber of recommendations in the
letter that we agree with andproposed in our 2021
peer-reviewed paper, knowninformally as stochastic parrots
, such as Providence orwatermarking systems, help
distinguish the real from thesynthetic.
They are overshadowed byfear-mongering and AI hype,
which steers the discourse tothe risks of imagined powerful

(49:32):
digital minds with humancompetitive intelligence.
Those hypothetical risks arethe focus of a dangerous
ideology called long-termarismthat ignores the actual harms
resulting from the developmentof AI systems.
Today, the letter addressesnone of the ongoing harms from
these systems, including workerexploitation, massive data theft
to create products to profit ahandful of entities, the

(49:53):
explosion of synthetic media inthe world, which both reproduces
systems of oppression andagendas are information
ecosystem, and the concentrationof power in the hands of few
people, which exacerbate socialinequities.
So there's more and we'll getthere, but this was a lot of my
frustration and why I keepframing it that way when I talk
about this issue and peoplecounter with the plot lines of

(50:15):
science fiction movies.
Stop, there are real issuesthat you could be talking about
instead.
I saw those same movies and, tobe honest, we probably had
these discussions back in the80s or the 90s when those movies
came out.
I'm done, and you should be too.
We need to focus more on therubber meets the road, real
problems, and I don't thinkpeople are discussing them when

(50:39):
we get into the hype cycle.
Let's let Margaret finish up,though.
Well, we are not surprised tosee this type of letter from a
long-termist organization likethe future of life institute,
which is generally aligned withthe vision of the future in
which we become radicallyenhanced post humans, colonize
space and create trillions ofdigital people.
We are just made to see thenumber of computing

(51:00):
professionals who have signedthis letter and the positive
media coverage it has received.
It is dangerous to distractourselves with fantasized AI
enabled utopia or apocalypse,which promises either a
flourishing or a potentiallycatastrophic future.
Such language that inflates thecapabilities of automated
system and anthropomorphizesthem, as we note in stochastic

(51:23):
parrots, deceives people intothinking there's a sentient
being behind the synthetic media.
This not only lures people intouncritically trusting the
outputs of system like chat, gbt, but also misattributes agency.
Accountability properly liesnot with the artifacts, but with
their builders.
Thank you for sticking with methrough that, because I really
do think that I can draw thisback to the issue we talked

(51:45):
about today.
With AI currently, right now, Ibelieve that there is a lot of
hype driving most media coverage, just like Margaret Mitchell
said.
But when I've been saying itfor the last year, it doesn't
matter, because I'm just atrainer.
So anyway, there's my appeal toauthority.
Somebody smarter than me saidit, so maybe people can listen.

(52:08):
But if you go out and look inthe media.
Right now with AI, it is alldoom or boom For one second.
Can we just please set asidethe generative AI debate and
just go listen to what peopleare actually saying and then
swear to God, we can get back toall the debating later?

(52:32):
Zidario Amorti, who has raised7.3 billion for his startup.
He says that there's a 10-25%chance that AI technology could
destroy humanity, but if thatdoesn't happen, it'll not only
go just fine, it'll go really,really great.
Fei-fei Li has said that AIcould pose catastrophic risks to

(52:56):
society, but includes that therubber meets the road.
Practical problems ofmisinformation, workforce
disruption, bias and privacyinfringements are more likely
than the apocalyptic scenariosthat we hear unfolding.
There is just a massive bit ofirony that I cannot get over.

(53:17):
And so much of this debateunfolds on Twitter.
That is owned by somebody who'strying to launch an LLM to
rival chat GPT, so your debateon Twitter is training an LLM.
That's just funny.
Quite frankly, it doesn'tmatter what opinion you're

(53:39):
putting out there on Twitter.
You're helping train a languagemodel with that.
So if you're against it,perhaps you should see yourself
out of that debate.
I don't know, but the founderof that company is also trying
to build a neural link whileputting out an open letter
saying he's going to help thefate of humanity.

(53:59):
I literally can't keep up and Idon't know which it is.
So part of it wants me to getpeople to pick a side and stay
there.
But no, anyway, I actuallydon't care which side of the
debate, because it's new, noneof us know.
All of this is fair, but as itpertains to the AI debate and I
am going to come back to spacehere in just a second both sides

(54:21):
of this debate share the viewthat AI is gigantically powerful
, but that it's either going todestroy us or save us.
Probably true either way, right.
But I have to point out thatthis is also a very self-serving
view that puts their work atthe center of everything, and
right now, a lot of these arebeing used to drive finance and

(54:44):
funding into the space, if youknow again.
So space like AI.
Now we'll circle back, butspace is also a very popular
investment theme right now.
As such, you need to have ahealthy dose of skepticism with
what you are seeing in thepopular media.

(55:05):
So this isn't to say that theseare not going to be big
game-changing things.
The internet was a biggame-changing thing.
That being said, the stockprices in 2000 were way
overcooked, and this is thesimilarity that I'm seeing right
now with our media and with theway these issues are being

(55:28):
talked about in the popularpress.
There's a lot of greatcompanies that have convinced me
.
They have great products whosestock charts still look like
Cisco and Oracle in the year2000.
So, if you missed that, oracletook 13 years to regain its 2000
peak and Cisco is currentlytrading at 62% of its 2000 peak.

(55:52):
So again, I would just I thinkthat right now is probably a
good time to have again just aska few questions.
I'm not saying these are notgoing to be game-changing
technologies.
I just think that with both AIand space, there's a lot of doom

(56:14):
and boom that I actually thinkis serving the companies that
are trying to bring attentionand finance into the space.
All right, let me circle backand get back on topic, though.
We covered a lot today.
We looked at the obstacles thatare going to be presented by
the harsh and indifferentreality that deep space is.

(56:38):
We covered some of themotivations behind humanity's
pursuit of the goal, contrastingthe aspiration with the
realities, and obviously I don'tknow if I buy into the popular
reasons that I'm seeing forspace exploration, namely
overcrowding, climate change,economic gain or evading

(57:00):
superintelligence.
I don't think any of those aregreat reasons, but I do remain a
huge supporter and proponent ofjust the human exploratory
spirit and it really isn't myintention to pour any cold water
on the idea.
What I did want to do today wasactually get our focus on health

(57:23):
nutrition.
Some of the rubber meets theroad challenges, so that we can
almost have I don't know almosta checklist of sorts to track
how far out we really are,because if we're engaging these
things in the popular media, I'mnot sure that we're going to be
getting great information.
If you want to really keepstock on how close or how far
out are we when we startanswering some of those

(57:46):
questions.
I don't think I answeredanything today, but when we
begin to answer some of thequestions that face human health
in space, then I think we'regoing to be a little closer than
we are right now.
These issues, I admit, are lessinteresting and less visible
than rocket launches, but I amgoing to continue to argue that

(58:07):
they are at least as important,possibly more so.
If we can't get humans outthere, I'm not sure what the
point actually was.
Obviously, the environment ofspace is going to create a ton
of challenges to health.
Number one the impacts ofmicrogravity, of radiation.

(58:28):
They are going to impacteverything from our basic bodily
functions to the nutritionqualities of our food.
We have to have answers forthese things before anything
like this is actually possible.
We're going to need food withlong shelf life or packaging
that can withstand theconditions, or we're going to

(58:49):
have to have ways that we canactually procure food while we
are out there in space.
Again, these are just thosekind of rubber beats the road
boring things that I just wantto point people's minds in, as
this debate is just going to getlarger.
Immediately, there's a SpaceXIPO coming up.
The horrible capitalist in methinks you're going to see lots

(59:13):
and lots more press coverage onthis, and it's going to get
worse and worse as we get closerto the IPO.
But why worse and worse?
I mean trying to motivate youto be active in finance.
That's kind of my jaded take offollowing finance very closely.
So, again, and part of why Iput this out there, too, though,
is it is actually going to befun to come back and see how all

(59:38):
of this fared Just like I wassaying, with the open letter.
It's a great habit to go backand check.
As I think I made time toqualify, I'm not the expert on
any of this.
That being said, I do thinkthat we are able to ask some
questions that I'm not seeingpeople ask in the popular

(01:00:00):
discussion.
So if I think that I added anyvalue, that's it right there.
I am very interested to followthis, like anybody else.
To be totally honest, and as Itouched on, I legitimately think
there are multiple approachesto accomplish this goal.
I don't know what the rightanswer is, so I hope nobody,

(01:00:22):
coming back from this episode,thinks that Simon even has a
systemic belief on how thisshould go.
I find this story really, reallyinteresting and I want to keep
monitoring the developments asthey go and then, as I'm trying
to understand what the pace is,the list I gave you guys today

(01:00:46):
around the health things.
That I think is really going tobe a more reliable metric on
how far out we are than some ofthe other aspects that I see the
popular press focusing on today.
But anyway, guys, hey, might aswell recommend the book again,
the book that motivated all ofthese thoughts.
For me that is again going tobe a City on Mars 2023, kelly

(01:01:09):
Weiner Smith and Zach WeinerSmith.
Really fun read.
That just got my mind thinkingabout what are the challenges to
health, nutrition and fitnessthat we need to meet in order to
make one of our favoritescience fiction plots actual
scientific fact.
So, anyway, if you enjoyed this, make sure to share this with
somebody else that might too.
Let's keep growing ourcommunity.

(01:01:31):
Do what we do.
Remember mind and muscle areinseparably intertwined.
There are no gains withoutbrains.
Keep lifting and learning.
I'll do the same.