This Week in Space 196: Becoming Martian!

Summary

This Week in Space 196: Becoming Martian!

Date: February 6, 2026
Host: Rod Pyle, Tarek Malik
Guest: Dr. Scott Solomon (Rice University, author of "Becoming Martian")

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Overview

This episode dives deep into the question: What does it truly take for humanity to become Martian? Hosts Rod Pyle and Tarek Malik are joined by Dr. Scott Solomon, evolutionary biologist and author of "Becoming Martian." Together, they explore the biological, ethical, and social challenges of long-term human settlement on Mars, as well as the evolution of human life beyond Earth. The discussion is punctuated with cutting-edge news from space exploration, science-inspired banter, and thoughtful speculation grounded in both scientific research and science fiction.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Space News Rundown (Starts ~02:19)

Artemis 2 Delayed—Persistent Hydrogen Leaks

• Artemis 2's launch to the Moon was pushed back due to recurring hydrogen leaks discovered during fueling tests.
• NASA faced similar issues with Artemis 1 three years prior, raising frustration about unresolved technical challenges.
• Cold weather and potential disruptions during the 12-hour, 4-mile rollout may have contributed to the leaks.
• Current estimate: Launch postponed to no earlier than March 6, 2026.
  "They've had just over three years to fix this issue, and then they saw it happen again... they're pretty frustrated." – Tarek Malik (04:03)

Perseverance Rover—AI Drives on Mars

• NASA’s Perseverance rover conducted its first AI-powered traverse, allowing autonomous, intelligent navigation on Mars.
• Previous generations (Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity) required step-by-step planning and input from Earth. Perseverance can now plan and execute routes on its own, increasing mission efficiency.
• The technology is limited by radiation-hardened, outdated processors on the rover but marks a breakthrough for planetary exploration.
• "This was an entire traverse that was planned by the AI and then executed by the AI... it'll be very interesting to see how this goes." – Tarek Malik (06:00; 08:42)

Human Reproduction in Space—A "Hot Topic"

• Recent research emphasizes the urgent need to understand if and how human reproduction is possible in space environments before committing to long-term settlements.
• Ethical, biological, and practical challenges abound, and existing studies are sparse, especially for humans and other mammals.
• "It's not just the physical part—can we procreate in space? There are a lot of questions beyond that." – Tarek Malik (10:30)

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2. Interview with Dr. Scott Solomon (~16:48)

A Unique Path to Space Biology

• Dr. Solomon explains his journey from evolutionary biology (and studying ants!) to exploring human adaptation and evolution in space.
• He was drawn into space studies through student curiosity about ongoing human evolution, leading to his books "Future Humans" and now "Becoming Martian."
• "If we left Earth and were living somewhere else, that would put us on this very different trajectory, no pun intended..." – Dr. Scott Solomon (19:11)

The Harsh Reality of Space for Human Biology

• Earth's environment is uniquely suited for us—gravity, atmosphere, magnetic protection from radiation—all absent or diminished elsewhere.
• Microgravity leads to muscle atrophy, weaker bones, fluid shifts (causing vision changes), and increased exposure to cosmic radiation beyond Earth's magnetosphere.
• Our data is robust for microgravity (weightlessness) but extremely limited for partial gravity (Moon: ~16%, Mars: ~38% of Earth's gravity).
• “We know about 1G, we know about 0G, but we don’t know much about what happens in between those two. That’s a big question.” – Dr. Scott Solomon (29:36)

Unknowns of Reproduction and Generational Survival in Space

• The key showstopper for multi-generational colonies is reproduction—no successful, long-term mammalian studies have been done in space or simulated partial gravity.
• Early studies explore rodents, but comprehensive human studies are lacking due to ethical complexities.
• Projects (like Spaceborne United in the Netherlands) aim to test in vitro fertilization under partial gravity using animal models first.
• “Every step of the process ... is something that we still don't have enough information about, starting with sex itself and going all the way through child development.” – Dr. Scott Solomon (33:48)

Ethics and Methodology of Space Biology Research

• Ethical constraints are major. The recommended path is to start with animal models (fish, rodents), then move to human samples (e.g., embryos), only ensuring safety at each step.
• "Is it ethical, this research?... Only once there’s good evidence that what you’re doing isn’t causing harm... then you could perhaps proceed." – Dr. Scott Solomon (37:36)

Creating a Martian Ecosystem—Lessons from Biosphere 2 and Ant Colonies (!)

• Replicating Earth's ecosystems is profoundly complex. Ant colonies in Biosphere 2 highlighted how one species can destabilize a closed system.
• We don’t fully understand the ecosystem interdependencies, making it risky to reproduce them elsewhere.
• "We don't understand these ecosystems on Earth in a way that would allow us to break them down and rebuild them..." – Dr. Scott Solomon (43:44)

Biological Adaptation vs. Technological Adaptation

• There’s a tension between modifying ourselves (through gene editing or natural selection) vs. modifying the alien environment (terraforming, habitat engineering).
• The "founder effect" asserts that even in idealized, terraformed environments, evolutionary divergence will occur simply due to genetic sampling and isolation.
• “If you go to the islands in space that we call planets ... we should expect that we would evolve and change too.” – Dr. Scott Solomon (47:42)

Infectious Disease – The Hidden Risk

• Pathogen exposure and immune response in isolated Martian populations could be dire. Children born off-Earth might lack resistance to Earth-borne microbes, making return hazardous.
• "What happens to the immune system of a child born on Mars... if that kid tried to come back to Earth, the average bacteria in the dirt is likely to be dangerous." – Dr. Scott Solomon (53:32)

Genetic Diversity and the "Africa Advantage"

• Greater genetic diversity in Mars settlers increases survival odds. Africa, as the cradle of Homo sapiens, houses more human diversity than the rest of the world combined.
• “You do pretty well by just selecting Africans to be the founders... but you want a huge representation from the continent of Africa to set us up for success.” – Dr. Scott Solomon (57:07)

The Future Post-Human Identity

• Over generations, Martian-born humans will become biologically and psychologically distinct—a new chapter for humanity.
• Radiation, mutation rates, isolation, and adaptation will accelerate this divergence, creating perhaps “Martians” in fact as well as in name.
• "I think we would expect there to be rapid cultural change, societal change. And I think people would start to view themselves as being different from folks on Earth." – Dr. Scott Solomon (59:01)

Star Trek or The Expanse?

• Dr. Solomon hopes for a Star Trek-like future—peaceful exploration and scientific collaboration—but warns we may simply export human conflict to new worlds.
• “I hope it’s the peaceful Star Trek version... and not to fight and not to take all that stuff with us.” – Dr. Scott Solomon (61:47)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the difficulty of replicating Earth in space:
  “We don't understand these ecosystems on Earth in a way that would allow us to break them down and rebuild them.”
  — Dr. Scott Solomon (43:44)

• On diversity in founding populations:
  “There’s more human genetic diversity within the continent of Africa than in the rest of the world combined. It’s kind of remarkable.”
  — Dr. Scott Solomon (57:07)

• On evolution in space:
  “If we leave Earth with the intention of staying... it’s not really possible to go into a new environment like that and over many generations remain the same.”
  — Dr. Scott Solomon (47:42)

• On becoming Martian:
  “Biologically, I think there’s also reason to expect that there would be a lot of change quite quickly ... I think people would start to view themselves as being different from folks on Earth.”
  — Dr. Scott Solomon (59:01)

• On epidemic dangers:
  “If that kid tried to come back to Earth, the average bacteria in the dirt is likely to be dangerous.”
  — Dr. Scott Solomon (53:32)

• On the unknowns of space life:
  “All of the research has been done on healthy adults ... what does partial gravity do to a child’s growth and development?”
  — Dr. Scott Solomon (34:21)

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• Opening News and Updates: 00:00–12:34
  • Artemis 2 (03:03–05:24)
  • Perseverance & AI on Mars (06:00–10:05)
  • Study on Space Reproduction (10:05–12:17)
• Interview with Dr. Scott Solomon: 16:48–64:43
  • Path to space biology (18:01–22:36)
  • Human adaptability & evolution (24:40–29:36)
  • Effects of partial gravity (29:36–32:41)
  • Reproduction & ethics (33:48–39:44)
  • Ecosystem complexity & ants (41:05–44:43)
  • Pathogens and immune response (53:32–55:14)
  • Genetic diversity (57:07–58:12)
  • Post-human Martians? (59:01–61:01)
  • Star Trek vs The Expanse (61:01–61:59)
• Closing Plugs & Farewell: 62:00–64:43

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a compelling, sometimes humorous, often sobering tour through the cutting-edge science and open questions surrounding Martian settlement. The exploration is grounded in evolutionary biology and informed speculation, pushing beyond the sci-fi tropes towards the real dilemmas and wonders awaiting humanity as we become an interplanetary species.

Find Dr. Scott Solomon’s "Becoming Martian" on Amazon or your local bookstore. Connect with him online at Solomon Rice.edu.

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Summary prepared for listeners of "This Week in Space" Ep. 196.

Transcript

[Tarek Malik]

Coming up on this week in space. Artemis 2 launch to the moon, delayed again. Perseverance on Mars drives by AI and what does it take for humanity to truly become Martian? We've got Dr. Scott Solomon, the author of Becoming Martian, to tell the tale. Tune in and check it out.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is truth.

[Rod Pyle]

This is this Week in space, episode number 196, recorded on February 6, 2020. 2026. Becoming Martian. Hello, and welcome to another episode of this Week in Space, the Becoming Martian edition. I feel like I'm halfway there already. I'm Rod Pyle, editor in chief, Badass magazine. I'm here with my favorite Martian, Tarek Malika, Space Dot com. How are you today, Martian?

[Tarek Malik]

Oh, I love that deep pull to the old TV show. I am doing well, Rod, how are you?

[Rod Pyle]

Good. I saw it in First. First run, believe it or not. Yeah, you probably believe it. This week we'll be speaking with Dr. Scott Solomon, a professor at Rice University who's been researching what our future and other worlds might look like. Especially when we're looking in the mirror.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Wiggle the eyebrows.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, that'll keep you compelled. But before we go there, please don't forget to do us a solid. Make sure to, like, subscribe and support the podcast with all your might, because it means the world and beyond to us, and we hope it means the same to you. And now, in direct contravention of actually encouraging you to do anything nice for us, I have a space joke.

[Tarek Malik]

I love it. Let's hear it.

[Rod Pyle]

Barry Hayworth.

[Tarek Malik]

Barry.

[Rod Pyle]

Hey, Tarik.

[Tarek Malik]

Yes, Rudd?

[Rod Pyle]

Why is Bashful. Why is Bashful's favorite star Proxima Centauri?

[Tarek Malik]

I don't know. Why?

[Rod Pyle]

Because it's a red dwarf.

[Tarek Malik]

Aw, that's cute. The Snow White joke, everybody. Snow White joke.

[Rod Pyle]

Now, I've heard that some people feel that our lack of humor dwarfs our taste. But you can help by sending us your best, worst or most indifferent space joke. At Twist Twit tv, we just. Gnome. You can do it.

[Tarek Malik]

That one. That one surprised me. I like it. I like it. I dig it.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Now it's all.

[Rod Pyle]

But to redeem ourselves, let's move on to.

[Tarek Malik]

Oh, my God. God.

[Rod Pyle]

Let's move on to headline moves. Headline news.

[Tarek Malik]

Headline news.

[Rod Pyle]

Headline news.

[Tarek Malik]

Hey, that's my job.

[Rod Pyle]

Sorry. All right, so Artemis is a leaky soccer. We got rocket farts and.

[Tarek Malik]

What's going on, Rod? You and I are not in Florida. Can you believe it? Yeah, they have a delay for Artemis 2. Yeah, I know. Who could have predicted Rod? Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

Which one of us, or Both sat for 10 or 10 or 14 days waiting for shuttle launches when they had hydrogen leaks?

[Tarek Malik]

Who could have, who could have thought that when they put the first launch attempt of the Artemis 2 rocket within a week of the first fueling attempt of the Artemis 2 rocket that they would have a delay? Who, who? Unfathomable. But no. No, to be serious, this week NASA did finally have the first fueling test of the Artemis 2 moon rocket. This is the SLS, the Space Launch System rocket that will take the Artemis 2 astronauts around the moon. It was scheduled to launch on February 8th, and this test was scheduled for February 2nd. Delayed a couple days because of some cold weather in Florida and a bit disappointing to NASA. They actually had fuel leaks, hydrogen leaks, during the actual test, a couple of them. They were able to address them and still complete the fueling process. But the leaks never went away. And if that sounds familiar to you, it's because the exact same thing happened four times, I believe three or four times during the Artemis 1 mission back in 2022. So they've had just over three years to fix this issue. And then they saw it happen again. And you know, they're, they're pretty frustrated. They think that there's a couple things that could have happened during the four mile rollout, that it took 12 hours to get the Artemis rocket on the pad. You know, it's possible that there was some jostling of special to be clear.

[Rod Pyle]

That that that line is connected to the rocket while it's being transported.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, yeah. So they think that maybe it became unseated like a little tiny bit that allowed for this liquid hydrogen leak to occur. They, you know, they think that maybe they didn't have all of the testing that they needed for the real, not the reality conditions, the real conditions. You know, they did a lot of tests separately of independent systems, but not like a test before. And then, you know, they rolled out the, the gem rod. That hydrogen is a small molecule and so really hard to control, which is what we heard a lot of during the Artemis 1 run up. So another fueling test is needed. And when that might be, we don't know. But we know that it won't happen before the end of the February window, which closes on February 11th. So the launch for Artemis 2 now, no earlier than March 6th as we're recording this. And at the start of that window.

[Rod Pyle]

In that darn, that sneaky little hydrogen.

[Tarek Malik]

And there were other glitches too. There was like some issues with the hatch on The, I believe the aeroshell for the abort housing on the Orion spacecraft. There were a few other glitches too. But it's this helium or this hydrogen leak that really is like the big sticking point. They have to get this fixed.

[Rod Pyle]

All right. Speaking of fixed. Well, that's not exactly right, but we have a new feature on Perseverance. Just push the button and watch it go.

[Tarek Malik]

That's right. The Perseverance rover on Mars. How long has it been? It landed in 2021, it launched in 2020. And so it landed in 2021. Now here we are five years later and it has taken its first drive powered entirely by AI. So you thought that it was confined to Earth, but no, like it is spreading to other planets now. But the folks at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory used generative AI to allow the rover to plot and execute its drive to see if it would save some time and still allow to get, to get some science done. And it seems like this test was a success. And they're saying that it shows a lot of promise in the streamlining of the whole autonomous navigation for off planet driving. Of course, these systems have gotten more advanced over the years where, whereas, you know, the first rovers back in 97 with Sojourner, you know, they would have to plan the drive, you know, send it, and then the rover would go and do it. Same thing happens in the earlier days with Spirit and Opportunity, but with Curiosity and Perseverance, they were able to devise more and more smarter computing systems to say, hey, go to this place. And then it would drive itself there. And now this was an entire traverse, you know, that was planned by the AI and then executed by the AI so that it can go ahead and do that entirely. And ideally this would help trim down the amount of planning and execution time on the engineering front of the scientists so they can go in and study more detail, choose better subjects, that sort of thing, and it'll make the rover a little bit more aware and reactive in real time to hazards that, you know, maybe would pop up and then be too, too tricky to handle because of that communication distance between Earth and Mars. Very exciting to see that it's able to do this.

[Rod Pyle]

It is. And I think it lets them. When I was writing the Curiosity book, so obviously very early part of that technology, but as you mentioned, the earlier rovers had some of this capability, although autonomous was stretching the phrase a bit back then. But you look at the work that went into the people in the room planning the drive, and they're wearing VR Goggles, and they've set out virtual rocks in front of them and they're walk, walking around, trying to see, okay, if we nudge the Rover over 2 degrees that way, what happens and so forth on the ground. And then it has to go into the room that codes everything. And then you have the actual rover driver who's managing it from, you know, 20 minutes away and so forth. Radio time. It was pretty involved. And those were really short polls. I think the big advantage here is you could say, okay, go there and take care of yourself while you're doing it. So they're able to go further a little quicker than they are in the past.

[Tarek Malik]

Exactly, exactly. Which covering more ground faster on Mars with these rovers is like the holy grail, because as we've heard, I think it was. We've heard past, past scientists say that a human geologist on Mars could accomplish what it would take, you know, weeks or years for a rover. You could, yeah, you can walk over to the crater and go knock, you know, knock the rocks around with your hammer and like Eureka, you know, so, so it'll be very interesting to see how this goes. Now, it's a little early to say that there's like a Waymo on Mars. There's not, you know, and this is, this is a test. So they'll be, they'll be iterating this. But it'll be interesting to see how this technology is incorporated in the future. Like the next Mars rover that we send, hopefully.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Exactly.

[Rod Pyle]

So got to bear in mind that while the technology is advancing rapidly on our end down here on Earth, the technology of the rover, the chip technology in the rover is locked back in the early 2000s because they're still using those radiation hardened chips that are Power PC. I think they're an 040 chip, if I remember right. Or maybe a 750. Anyway, by today's standards, they're glacially slow, very simple, low processing capability. But that's what you get for hundreds of thousands of dollars of radiation hardened chipped. As opposed to what you got off the shelf.

[Tarek Malik]

Yep.

[Rod Pyle]

That's a whole nother conversation. All right. And finally, it's time to think about human reproduction. That's something I do from time to time. Oh, in space.

[Tarek Malik]

In space. In space. All right. You got to walk the line, my friend. It's a family show. Family show. My mom and sister listen to the show. Come on.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

I said reproduction.

[Rod Pyle]

How much more generic does it get than that?

[Tarek Malik]

Very apropos to our subject line today. There was a study that came out In a science journal journal this week, all about how a team of nine different authors who study reproductive medicine, aerospace, health, bioethics have said that, you know, they put their heads together and have come up with all of the questions that we do need to answer. And we need to start thinking about answering them soon before we actually commit to a permanent moon base or a commercial moon base or a civilian moon base, a civilian Mars base because of the, I guess, acceleration of commercial spaceflight, the fact that we're going to be shifting over to commercial space station soon. NASA and their partners and their competitors like China and Russia are committed to off world exploration with astronauts and an eventual settlement that we need to start thinking about answering the questions of human biology and reproduction in space in the near future. And it's not just the physical part, is it possible to procreate in space? You know, it's also the questions that, that surround all of the science for that too, like what are the ethical concerns about doing reproductive experiments in space with, you know, human tissue or, or even, you know, you know, extended mice or other mammal type of experimentation? There's a lot of questions beyond that. Just, can we physically have children in space? What is it like in zero gravity on the moon, on Mars that need to be answered? And so these, these scientists basically got together to say that we need to start looking into this as an urgently practical need for the future of human exploration of space.

[Rod Pyle]

And that's going to be a hot topic in our upcoming interview with our guest, who we'll be back with in just a moment. We'll be back with Dr. Scott Solomon of Rice University, who we found from his excellent Wild World with Scott Solomon podcast and his new book, Becoming Martian. Stay with us.

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[Rod Pyle]

And we are back with Dr. Scott Solomon, professor of biosciences at Rice University in Texas. Thank you for joining us, Scott. How are you today?

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

I'm great. Thanks so much for having me.

[Rod Pyle]

It's always fun to get somebody from Rice because of course you guys had that cool podium where JFK did his speech back in the 1960s. And we always think kindly of it. And why does Rice play Texas anyway?

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

I know, I love it. You know, he hand wrote that little addition to the speech into what was originally planned. Isn't that funny to know?

[Rod Pyle]

Well, Antarok and I were wondering beforehand what the other things were.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Oh, what are the list of things that we do, not because they're easy, but because they're hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was fly the Atlantic. It was scale, I think, like scale the highest mountain, something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, it was the, the.

[Tarek Malik]

And do the other things that we were trying to figure out what the other things were.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, we're trying to figure out if that was nuking the Soviet Union or what he had in mind. Well, anyway, that's not for you to solve. What is for you to solve is to tell us what it's like to be a professor of biosciences at Rice University, something I've ever done.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

It's wonderful. Honestly, it's a great place to be. I've been here 16 years now, almost 17, and it's great. We're a small school, but we're a school that really focuses on high quality teaching. So I love that because I get to interact with students all the time. I have classes that are relatively small. And I get to know my students. Our students are amazing. So that's the best part of my job, is getting to work with really fun, interested, smart people.

[Rod Pyle]

Tarek?

[Tarek Malik]

Well, yeah, I was going to follow up with, I guess, how you found yourself pondering the final frontier. Right. Rod and I have been space cadets since we were kids, but not everyone finds their path to space in the same way. And I'm just kind of curious how a bioscientist, is that what you call yourself? A bio.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

You can call me anything you want, but a professor of bioscience? Yeah, biologist, evolutionary biologist, whatever you like.

[Tarek Malik]

So how do you find your path to space? What was the road that got you there?

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Yeah, probably a little different from a lot of the folks that you guys talk with. So, I mean, I guess on the one hand I've always been interested in space. As a science geek growing up, of course space is going to be fun. I mean, I grew up during the shuttle era and it was always exciting. But in terms of what I've been interested in and working on recently, the weird way that I got here was actually through. It was through teaching, really, it was through the students here at Rice, because when I first started off as a faculty member and I was assigned to teach introductory biology the second semester of our two semester sequence, and my course was really all about evolution, and that's my training, so I was excited about it. But like any teacher, you want your students to kind of not just know the material, but to appreciate why it matters to them. And I was trying to get those students to think about whether, you know, well, not whether the fact that evolution is not just something that happened in the past, it's also an ongoing process. So as a teaching prompt, I asked them, well, do you think humans are still evolving? And if so, how do you. And that ended up being the most stimulating question. I think I asked them all semester because you could tell they didn't want to stop talking about it. And that led me to kind of do a deep dive myself into, well, what do we really know about this? And long story short, that led me to write my first book, which is called Future Humans. And it's all about basically the fact that human evolution is still ongoing. And I get into some speculation at the end of the book about what might become of our species in the long run. And the very end of that chapter, the final chapter in the book, I just very briefly mentioned the idea that at some point in the future, what if some people left Earth and were living Somewhere else. That would put us on this very different trajectory, no pun intended. It would put us on a different path for our evolutionary future than if we didn't do that. And I put it out there as sort of like a thought experiment. But after that book came out, it turned out, first of all, everybody wanted me to talk about that. Anytime I was doing an interview or giving a talk, people were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, talk about people in space. And so, you know, clearly that was something that resonated. But the other thing that happened, as you guys are well aware, is this started to move away from the realm of fantasy, speculation, science fiction, and into something that people were actively working on. So that really captured my interest and I started to ask like, okay, what can we actually say about what would happen to people who were living beyond Earth? Like, how would they change? So, yeah, that's been my path.

[Tarek Malik]

It's like science fiction, but the reality part of it. Yeah, I mean, we've seen like the expanse, right, where there's like Mars humans and belt humans, moon humans. But you're talking about becoming Martian, Right? That's the book that caught our eye. And. But that's a really interesting way into it because it's not like you always wanted to be an astronaut, but it was your science found space and not space helped you find the science. That's great.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Yeah, except that, like I said, I always was fascinated by space. So in a way it sort of gave me this sort of excuse to. Excuse to indulge my, you know, my inner kids curiosity about like, space and, you know, living in Houston, as you said, being at Rice, living in Houston. I mean, we're right here in the center of so much, not just history, but what's happening today in terms of certainly of human space exploration. So, I mean, researching this book has just been an absolute blast. It's been fascinating to get to talk to people who are at the forefront of trying to answer these questions.

[Rod Pyle]

So I'm a little older than you and so I'm old enough to remember the Apollo program, some of Gemini, and of course was an avid reader of science fiction as a kid. And I loved especially the stuff from the 1940s, 40s and 50s, you know, the pulp era, because those were the strap it on and go years. You know, you got in your spacecraft and you put your seatbelts on, you pushed a button. And of your rocket, maybe the last 5% was actually the engine and the fuel. Never did explain how they did that and off you went. But the general message in There was. The solar system was a much kinder and gentler place then. You know, Venus was a warm, swampy planet that might have dinosaurs and Mars was colder than Earth and had a thinner atmosphere, but you could probably walk around with an oxygen tank in your back and so forth. Radiation was not even mentioned. Then we get into the 50s and the 60s and suddenly we start discovering the solar system is a very nasty place to live and the space really hates human beings and wants to let us know that. And at the risk of being too reductionist here, I mean, I think that is one of the ideas behind your books, which is, look, let me explain how incredibly challenging this environment is and then we could talk about some of the things we might do to survive out there. And of course the big question that we'll be asking towards the end is what about the long term resettlement of people? But let's just start with. Space is icky, right?

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Man, it sure is if you're made of flesh and blood. Yeah, it's. You know, we evolved on this planet and we're pretty good at living here, but as soon as you get beyond it, it is a toug place to live.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, and that's an interesting point. We have talked about that a fair amount on the show. I've been to some fairly bleak parts of the planet. And as bad as an Arctic desert is, you know, I can stand in 1g, so the fluids in my body know where to go, my bones know to keep regenerating, new cellular structure, I can breathe, I'm not being punished by too much radiation. And my body isn't turning inside out because I'm standing in, in one atmosphere. And you start messing with those variables, even just being in orbit for a matter of weeks, and the body starts getting confused. I mean, we had the early Gemini long duration flights and then we had the Apollo flights after the moon, which could last up to two weeks. And that's. I think we first started getting the idea, okay, this could really be a problem. Especially once you leave low earth orbit and you get out into, into the severe radiation environments out there. Speaking of a radiation environment, you like that one, Tarek? No, that was irradiate ourselves with a great spot and we'll be right back. Stand by.

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[Rod Pyle]

We heard you.

[Tarek Malik]

Nine years of bring back the snack wrap and you've won. But maybe you should have asked for more. Say hello to the Hot honey Snack wrap. Now you've really won. Go to McDonald's and get it while you can. I feel like Rod's point is a really good point, like spot to stop and ask you, Scott, like about those, those key differences. Because I think we all come from the perspective of Earth. We grew up here, we know what it feels like. But how, like in becoming Martian, for example, how fundamentally different is an environment on Mars or I guess anywhere in space that you've been studying that would force a change? Because we've had people in space for 60 plus years right now. Surely we would know what the effects are in space of a long period of time.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Yeah, well, so there are things that we do know about what happens to the body in lower gravity. Right. I mean, we've been studying astronauts for 60 years now. So we know that being in the lower gravity, certainly a weightless environment makes your muscles weaker, it makes your bones more brittle, it causes the fluids in your body to be, you know, distributed more evenly, which has the effect of making it feel like there's too much fluid in your head. And that leads to things like vision changes. So there's this thing called space associated neuro ocular syndrome that astronauts like Scott Kelly have had to deal with. He's written about this and he actually wrote the foreword for my book. So it was great to get sort of his direct perspective. Like he noticed his vision getting worse as he was spending longer periods of time in space.

[Tarek Malik]

Of course, Scott Kelly spent a year in space on NASA's year mission. Identical twin, his brother Mark Kelly on the Earth used as a comparison. That must have been great for you as a scientist. I didn't mean to do a segue into that. We could talk about that, about how that helps. So sorry, keep going, keep going. About the.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Yeah, no, totally. Yeah. I mean, the NASA twin study with Scott Kelly and Mark Kelly was, was kind of the first kind of, you know, very detailed look that we got into. Exactly how does space affect all the different systems of the body? But you know, we could go back to sky. That was the first time when we really had the opportunity to spend for Americans at least to Spend longer than just a couple of weeks in space? Because you guys mentioned the Apollo missions were up to two weeks. These were relatively short duration trips. The Soviets started doing space stations before we did, but then with Skylab, we started doing these longer trips. So we've been learning since then about how does space affect the body, how does long duration, relatively long duration visits affect the body? But here's the thing. All of that is in essentially weightlessness, right? And all of that is within low Earth orbit. And low Earth orbit is close enough to Earth that it's still largely protected from a lot of the worst forms of radiation by the Earth's magnetic field, the magnetosphere. And so, yes, we have learned a lot. But at the same time, going to Mars, going even to the moon, going to deep space, there are things that are different, right? So much more radiation exposure is certainly one of them. And then the other thing that is, you know, worth pointing out is partial gravity, right? We know about, obviously, 1G, like on Earth. We know about effectively 0G weightlessness. We don't know much about what happens in between those two. So of course, the Apollo astronauts went to the moon. That's. What is it? It's like it's about 16%. Okay, 16%. Thank you so much. Versus weightlessness. Right? So we all seen the videos of the Apollo astronauts kind of bouncing across the Moon. We have some idea of what that's like, but we didn't actually collect that much data about what was happening to their bodies. And they were only on the surface of the moon for at most a few days. So what does partial gravity, how does that compare to, you know, being in a weightless environment? And Mars is about a third of Earth's gravity. So if we're talking about spending a long amount of time in one third gravity, we don't actually know. We can guess that it's somewhere in between 0 and 1G, but we don't know. Is like 1/3 enough gravity that your bones and your muscles will kind of be okay if you do some regular exercise the way astronauts do on issuing that. That's a big question.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, those poor guys up there. Two, two to two and a half hours a day on a treadmill, I can barely get myself to do 15 minutes on Earth. So this is a really interesting part of the conversation and thing I've often wondered maybe, maybe you're able to talk to people and figure it out is, you know, I believe it was jaxa, the Japanese agency, set up a small mammal centrifuge to be used on the space station, and I think it was run a couple of times, but there were no long term experiments. And the whole point, I thought, was to put rodents in a centrifuge at partial gravity and spin them long enough to see long term changes in their physiology and maybe even reproduction, which is the big topic here. We're going to come back and talk after the break. But what happened to those experiments? Was there ever any data generated?

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Yeah, I've been surprised at how little there is on partial gravity. So there have been a few studies here and there. There have been some simulated studies, Earth as well. But of course it's harder to simulate less gravity than it is to do more. So you know, there really, at the moment, there just isn't enough for us to draw any conclusions. That's the bottom line. I think once we are able to have greater access to space, once there are commercial space stations, that's going to open up the possibility for all of this research on partial gravity that will start to give us real answers. And that was one of my biggest surprises, honestly, in researching this topic, is that we haven't done that much study on the effects of partial gravity.

[Rod Pyle]

Tarek?

[Tarek Malik]

Oh, I thought you said you were going to go to a break. I don't know, I zoned out there.

[Rod Pyle]

Not yet. We got five minutes.

[Tarek Malik]

Well, I do want to then just kind of follow up on Rod's question there. Just about the idea of sustaining like a human presence in space over generations there. Because you're talking about short term studies, we're talking about the space station missions of, you know, up to a year right now, I GUESS they're at nine months for the rest of the ISS's lifetime. But you know, in terms of like the, the biological challenges not just to our bodies, like our bones and our muscles in this reduced gravity environment, but about having other kids to then keep your colony going. I mean, it seems like we haven't answered any of those fundamental questions either. There was like a study, you know, just this week about how we need to really start looking into that. And I'm curious what your research told you about what I guess at least what we know about how reproduction in space could occur from these mammal studies, if it's even possible on a human scale.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Yeah, you know, look, this is the thing that I think is the potential, you know, showstopper in all of what we're talking about. Right. So any plans to actually have a sustainable presence beyond Earth absolutely require reproduction. There's no, there's no way around It. And so, you know, the question is, like, do we even know if that's possible? And the short answer is we don't know where. There has not been enough research, especially with mammals. There's been some, you know, there have been some studies. You know, we've been talking about rodents before. There have been some rodent studies, but there's some studies on fish, there's some studies on sea urchins, some studies in insects, but not enough systematically that we can actually say, yes, it is possible for human reproduction to proceed in a lower gravity, higher radiation environment. Gravity being really the biggest question, because you can, of course, potentially protect against some of that radiation exposure. So every step of the process of human reproduction is something that we still don't have enough information about, starting with, with sex itself and going all the way through child development. I mean, think about it. All of the research that's been done on how is the human body affected by the conditions of space has been done on healthy adults. And so if we're talking about raising children, what does partial gravity, what does like one third G do to a child's growth and development? Could they build their bones, their skeleton in the same way? In a way that would be healthy in that lower partial gravity environment? And so there's questions about, like, would that work well enough to be able to live on Mars? But there's also questions about maybe if they are able to live just fine there, would they be able to tolerate 1G? Could they come back to Earth? That's a real, I think, important question for us to answer before we can, you know, start having kids up there.

[Tarek Malik]

Well, I do have a follow up, but I think we have to go to a break first, if memory serves. So let's go ahead and do that, and then if I can ask Rod if it's all right, I'll ask my question there. Okay, let's do it.

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[Tarek Malik]

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[Tarek Malik]

February 13th now, Scott, we've all seen Star Trek, right? Where they have, like, the kids running around on the, on the, on the Enterprise.

[Rod Pyle]

Excuse me, that was your Star Trek.

[Tarek Malik]

Oh my gosh, Star Trek.

[Rod Pyle]

No kids, but pray continue.

[Tarek Malik]

Well, they had colonies that had kids on them and everything. And you know, and you've already outlined a lot of what we don't know in terms of like just the biological processes of everything. And I guess one of the follow ups that I had for that when I was, you know, going through the prep was how do we even find that out? Because it seems like there's a lot of ethical concerns just from the get go about trying to investigate if humans can even procreate in space. In space, you know, from on a, on a laboratory level on, you know, because seeing all the debates that we have on Earth over that sort of thing with stem cells on, on the, on the ground.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Sure. No, I think you're bringing up some really important points. I mean, there might be very good reasons why we don't have answers to these questions so far. And if we decided this is something we need to know, you know, we have to ask, like, is it ethical, this research? So I think the normal way that you would proceed with this kind of thing is you have to establish first that the conditions are safe for an animal model. So you would maybe start with something like fish, that's a vertebrate animal, not a mammal. And if it looks like it's going well for those, then maybe you move into something like a rodent model. And only once there's, there's good evidence that what you're doing isn't causing harm, isn't putting individuals at risk, then you could perhaps proceed to samples that use at least human embryos before you start even talking about human children or human adults. Actually, one of the things that was really interesting to follow in my research for this book, there's actually a company based in the Netherlands called Spaceborne United and they have been working on this very question. They are working on the technology to be able to do some studies in low Earth orbit initially using rodent embryos. They're basically trying to see can you do in vitro fertilization, IVF in low Earth orbit. And they have developed this device that can spin at different speeds to simulate partial gravity. So you could actually test whether lunar or Martian gravity allows for those early stages of embryo development to proceed before you start looking at anything like that in humans. So I think it's interesting and they're starting to try to launch some of their early studies right now. So I've been fascinated following what they're doing, doing.

[Tarek Malik]

Can you imagine, like people will, will pay premium for like oh, this ring was flown in space. And then they'd be like, oh, like my embryo was flown in space, you.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Know, or, or well, yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

Oh my gosh.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, let's listen to Elon. He's clearly good at having babies. He can, he can build his own.

[Tarek Malik]

Watch and run. Okay, okay, don't feed the haters.

[Rod Pyle]

So let me move on to a slightly different part of the conversation that I think is really fascinating. You know, for years we've had people in Antarctic bases for long duration studies, especially for psychology. Same with nuclear submarines, you know, six, nine month deployments, all that stuff. What they can't study, however, and what to my knowledge has only really been looked at in any granularity at Biosphere 2 is how we move this biome, this environment we live in, to another planet or the moon or a free space space station with all the crickets and ants and goobers and microorganisms and so forth. I don't think he said goobers for an awful long time. I don't think we had any idea how interconnected and complex this is. And of course biosphere, you know, part of the problem was the oxygen being affected by the curing concrete and all that.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Yep.

[Rod Pyle]

But if you've been there, I'm sure you have. Yeah, the empire of the ants arose and took over everything. And it's like, who would have thought, you know, that your moon colony could get wiped out by an ant colony?

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

I would. That's so, that's.

[Tarek Malik]

Oh no, no.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

This is the funny thing. So, okay, my. I didn't even say this when you asked how I got to space. But my background, my research training, my dissertation research for my PhD is on ants. So now everybody that knows that is always asking me like, how did you go from studying ants to studying space? So thank for making that connection clear for me.

[Tarek Malik]

It's like from one colony to another, I cannot stand ants. And now I'm like freaking out.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

We need to have a whole separate conversation about why ants are fascinating. But yes, I could have, I could have told you that, you know, the, the, the weak link in your ecosystem design might just well be ants. They get everywhere. It's hard to keep them out. Yep, yep. And then they wreak havoc.

[Rod Pyle]

Right.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

So.

[Rod Pyle]

But aren't they also part of the necessary balance in this?

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Well, they are an important part of the ecosystems that they live in. So part of the thing there at Biosphere too. And yeah, I, I had visited years ago just while passing through the area, but I went back now when researching this Book because the Analog Astronaut Conference takes place every year at Biosphere 2. And that was just fascinating to go and spend a longer time and meet with folks that have done extensive Analog simulations and are still doing those. And then the story of Biosphere 2 is so central to the story I was trying to tell in the book. But yeah, they had the rainforest book. Biome was, I think, the place that first had ants. That started to become a noticeable problem during the two year simulation. And the funny thing was when I was there for the Analog Astronaut Conference, I'm going through the different biomes that you can tour today and I have video of the ants in the rainforest because I got distracted. I'm like, like, oh, wait, hold on. What are these ants? Oh, I need to, I need to see what's going on here. I get easily distracted by ants. But to your point, yes, they are an important part of the ecosystem. Ecosystems are complex. And as an ecologist, evolutionary ecologist, that's a big part of my training and my background. I did my dissertation in the Amazon. So I'm familiar with how complex these ecosystems are. And the idea that we would need to replicate them in order to survive in space is concerning because we don't understand these ecosystems on Earth in a way that would allow us to break them down and rebuild them. I mean, we're trying to just hold them together right now, as you know. You know, so that is a problem. You know, we need to understand how these systems work on Earth if we even have a hope of knowing, like, what are the necessary components? What, what species do you bring with you?

[Rod Pyle]

Right?

[Tarek Malik]

That's like, it's like Destiny's Road. I don't know if anyone's ever read that by Larry Niven at all.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

I have not.

[Tarek Malik]

Turns out that they, they colonize a planet and it's great. Everything works, the ship works, everyone's fine. They get there and they can't grow potassium, they can't make potassium. They have none of no potassium. And apparently that's what I learned from that book because I was like, you know, a kid. You need potassium in your brain, you know, to think and whatnot. So. So it leads to a whole class thing about the people that get potassium and the people that don't, you know, and that is, that is crazy to think about.

[Rod Pyle]

And this touches on a good point of, you know, it's one thing for people to live in a colony on meals ready to eat from the military, but when you're talking about having an environment that will support cultivation of the kind of crops you want and all that. I mean, these are not going to be terribly, at least in the first hundred years or so, these are not going to be huge continent spanning farms. Right. They're going to be things in domes or in caves or something. So you've got the sunlight to figure out, you've got radiation to deal with and all this stuff. And now we have to worry about which insects to bring and how many of them to sprinkle in there so that just the right stuff is done to the soil so we can grow the food. And by the way, Tarek, next time you're in Southern California, I'm going to remind you that you're standing on the tip of the spear of the great Argentinian ant colony that spans from the tip of South America all the way.

[Tarek Malik]

Think about it.

[Rod Pyle]

Under Los Angeles County.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Yep.

[Rod Pyle]

And when I was a kid, sorry, this is a bit of an aside. When I was a kid, we had red ants here. Yeah, they're gone. They got out, competed. We had caterpillars, they're gone. What was the last thing that disappeared in Los Angeles? Crickets.

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[Rod Pyle]

So we're seeing here how quickly these things could change.

[Tarek Malik]

You imagine being on Mars, competed by humans, by other ants, Argentine ants.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Yeah. Don't mess with ants. They are forced to be reckoned with an Africanized beast.

[Rod Pyle]

Bees.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Yep.

[Rod Pyle]

You know, every now and then I'll get a bee in my garage. And I learned long ago not to piss them off because in the old days honeybees would go, oh, sorry and fly away. Now they bring back all their friends and come after you. It's a little scary. Okay, I'm going off the deep end here. Let's go to a quick break and we'll come back with Tarek's next compelling question. Standby.

[Tarek Malik]

Well, Scott, you know, the line of inquiry that Rod was going down, I think really, really provokes a question about what we should and shouldn't think about in that far century plus of having a colony. Because as you mentioned in the book, there's a lot of things to think about about having a colony of a certain size. So that early decisions, if you have to vote that there's an uneven number of people there so that you can at least get a result to your vote and not ties over time or having a stable population of like 10,000 people or so in the future. And I got to wondering about if we should fight evolution of the human body on the moon in the asteroid belt on Mars, or lean into it through medication or whatnot, or try some kind of adaptation thing entirely. And I'm just curious if the research, research that you had found has identified any specific, most advantageous tactical approach, most effective tactical approach for the human physiology to be able to sustain itself in these different environments.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Well, I think you've hit on a really key point. So basically one of the real take home messages that I try to make in this book is that if we leave Earth with the intention of staying, of establishing a permanent presence elsewhere, we should expect that that will lead to. Not really possible to go into a new environment like that and over many generations remain the same. I mean, this is what, you know, evolutionary biologists, the reason that we study islands going back to Darwin and the Galapagos is because islands, by being isolated and by having different environments from where the ancestors of those species came from, that is a recipe for evolutionary change. We know that. And so, so if we go to the islands in space that we call planets that have different environments, we should expect that we would evolve and change too. So to your question, like, should we resist that or should we facilitate and lean in, as you said, should we help people who are going to go to this extreme environment by perhaps modifying their bodies using crispr, gene editing, using whatever techniques we have to alleviate suffering and help them to thrive in that environment? One of the things that I think we have to recognize is by doing that, you might be making people better at thriving in that environment at the expense of being able to come back home, being able to come to Earth. Now, they might not view Earth as home, but there might be a trade off between being able to live and thrive in say, on Mars, Mars versus being able to move back and forth between the two places, especially once you talk about many generations in the future. So I just highlight that as I don't know that I have answers to that. I just think we need to recognize that that is what we would be setting ourselves up for. We have to be able to come to terms with that if we're going to embark on that endeavor.

[Tarek Malik]

It's so fascinating because it's like that's the realm of science fiction. In the comic book series Spaceman, they engineer people to live on Mars and then they never send them because they run out of funding for the Mars mission. Or in seven eves, there's like three different branches of humanity to work in different places on the surface. Sorry, Rod, looks like you were going to say something.

[Rod Pyle]

Talk about wandering off the range. So this brings me to a point that I've always found fascinating, which is this balance between modifying the environment and modifying ourselves. So we've talked on this show before about transhumanism. I raised my hand and said I would be the willing volunteer to have, have my probably way smaller than average brain transplanted into a little mechanical cockroach because I'd have extra hands and legs and I'd be able to withstand great amounts of radiation and my brain would probably function about as it does now. And I want to be called, I want to be a new genus called Homo stellaris. But anyway, what about this balance? We've had people on the show that were talking about, about some new ideas on terraforming Mars using biological factors instead of strictly physical ones, which was very interesting because we're talking if they're right, if she's right, decades instead of centuries to millennia. But at a certain point it does seem, and you really leaned into this, I think in the book, that we're going to have to at least discuss and be open to the idea of either that will evolve by natural forces or as you mentioned with CRISPR and so forth, that we nudge evolution and we say, okay, we want to be more radiation tolerant. We want to be able to translocate between this low gravity environment on Mars and a full gravity environment on Earth. But where do you see that balance between modifying the environment and not just living in caves all the time, for instance?

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

No, that's a great point. So I think let's imagine for now that it is possible to modify the environment to the extent where it would become much more Earth like, and then you wouldn't have the, those same forces of natural selection trying to help people to adapt to something new and different. Here's the thing, you would still expect evolutionary change. We have this phenomenon that we call the founder effect, that again, looking at studies of islands on Earth is a common thing that happens. Anytime a small number of individuals goes and establishes themselves in a new place that that species didn't occur before. The founders of that initial population bring with them whatever, whatever genes, whatever traits that they happen to have. And if you don't have them as kind of a representative sample of the population that they came from, you get evolutionary change. And so we have to take that into consideration. Like the who you send matters, not just the identity of those people, but how many, how diverse they are. And then how often you have people moving back and forth between those places has a big effect on their evolutionary change. Change. But the main thing is they'll still change Even if the environment isn't that different.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, so then though. Sorry, Tarek, I have a follow up I should have told you. Following on that, I'm sure you've been to the Galapagos. You stayed the finch. I went to the Galapagos a couple years ago and they go through, you know, fairly complicated procedures to try and keep that environment pristine to the point of having, you know, when you walk off the airplane, you walk through a little chemical bath to, to cleanse your shoes. They come in and spray all your baggage before you get off the plane, which you're breathing, of course, but whatever. So we have a Mars colony. It's been there for 20 years, and then some Earth tourist comes up with some new pathogen, or at least one that's new to that environment that they don't catch, and the next thing you know it's blankets and smallpox, what happens?

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Yeah, you've hit on another thing that I think is so key to talk about, you know, the role of, of infectious disease. Microorganisms. We bring microbes with us everywhere we go. There's, you know, new species of bacteria have been discovered on the iss, because it is, those species are evolving too. We brought them there, you know, on our bodies, on our stuff. And so we should expect that we'll bring microbes to Mars and those microbes will change. Some of them might evolve to become more dangerous to us. But here's the other thing. We'll only bring a tiny fraction of all of the microbial life on Earth. Earth, anywhere we go. Even if we tried to bring it all, we couldn't. We don't even know how to do that. So what happens to the immune system of a child born on Mars that isn't exposed to all of the microbes you and I are breathing in right now? If that kid tried to come back to Earth, the average bacteria in the dirt is likely to be dangerous. So I think infectious disease is really likely to be an important, important problem facing anybody hoping to move back and forth between planets once you have people that are living and growing up in that environment.

[Tarek Malik]

So like booster shots. You couldn't take booster shots for like Earth or something like that?

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Your Earth vaccine? In theory, yes. But here's the thing. What would you put in the vaccine? Right? So here's that. We don't even know about all of the microbes that are around us. We know about a lot of them. We're learning more, we need to learn more. But we couldn't do that right now if we tried to so, yes, in theory, you could inoculate somebody with. Here's a little shot of, you know, of, you know, the part of Earth that you're going to be visiting or something like that.

[Tarek Malik]

That seems so ironic that we could be so successful at, like, developing another planet only to have our home planet be, like, lethally dangerous to our progeny. You know.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

This was the plot of H.G. wells. Right. Of the War of the Worlds. So, again, sci fi has kind of, in so many ways been prescient here, I think, because just to remind everyone, the plot there is aliens from Mars are coming to Earth and invading, and our technology has no ability to stop them. What only stops them in the end is infectious disease. They have no immunity to our germs.

[Rod Pyle]

See, they needed to grow more red weed, and then it would have been ready for. For them to stay.

[Tarek Malik]

Also, the plot of the Space Between Us, starring Asa Butterfield as a child that grows up on Mars, comes back to Earth, and then has to go back to Mars because he can't survive on Earth.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Can't survive on Earth. Exactly, exactly. I love that.

[Tarek Malik]

It's nice to know, Scott, that you watched that movie, because I liked it and it seems like it didn't get enough love.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

It didn't do well. But I think it was really ahead of its time in terms of thinking through the things.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah. So we haven't even had a chance to touch on the psychological aspects, the cultural aspects of having people from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds living together. I mean, there's. There's so much to talk about here, I guess. You know, I've got to, like, pick one thing out of this juicy list of questions. What's the Africa advantage in terms of genetic diversity?

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Yeah. So we were talking about how who you send matters. Right. So this idea that the founders of a new population, you know, going somewhere new, they have this really disproportionate effect on the potential evolution of that, you know, future generations. And so, you know, ideally, you want to send the most genetically diverse sort of starter population that you can to establish, establish a presence somewhere. So if you were trying to do that, if you were going to say, we're going to take 1,000 or 10,000 or even a million people from Earth and they're going to be the founders of a new human settlement on Mars, who do you pick? How do you choose them? One way that you could do that would be to say we want the most genetically diverse representation. And actually, one of the things that we've learned in recent years about Human, Human diversity is that there's more human genetic diversity within the continent of Africa than in the rest of the world combined. It's kind of remarkable. So basically the point that I made in the book is like, you do pretty well by just selecting Africans to be the founders of that population. Now, you might want to do more than that, but you want to certainly include a huge representation from the continent of Africa to set us up for success. Success.

[Tarek Malik]

There's a. I keep harping on science fiction, but Jack McDivitt has all of these far, Far Future books. And in, in one of them, they, they touch on the fact that like everyone in space, because it's like thousands and thousands of years of, of, of, of people expanding through space. They've all homogenized into like a, a, a darker, like a brownish olive color because the diversity was there at the beginning. And then it's all evened out in, in space, which is crazy to think about. But that actually got me thinking about maybe one last question. If we've got time. And that's just, you know, in the far future, Scott, will these people on these other planets, these other settlements, you know, if it's in space or on the moon or on Mars, do they end up still being human at the end of it? Or do you have to call them whatever they've adapted into.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

On their place?

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

I mean, that's such a fascinating question. It's one of the things that prompted me to take this, this project in the first place and run with it. I mean, okay, so the title of my book is Becoming Martian. So that's probably part of the answer to your question. But I mean, I think there's the psychological aspect. I think that people several generations in, of living on another world would just view themselves as being of that place. That's the way it seems to go for people that move around on Earth. But biologically, I think there's also reason to expect that there would be a lot of change quite quickly. One of the things that I argue is that the evolutionary changes we've been talking about are likely to proceed much faster in the environments of space, including on the surface of Mars, than we're used to here on Earth. And it's because of things like radiation causing more mutations. That kind of increases the mutation rate, and that's the raw material for natural selection, just to give you one sort of sense of it. So I think there would be rapid biological change. I think we would expect there to be rapid cultural change, societal change. And I think people would Start to view themselves as being different from folks on Earth. I mean, even just the fact that you couldn't have a conversation like what we're having right now between Earth and Mars because of the time delay. Right. It takes as much as 20 minutes to send a message one way. So that would make it hard for people to feel as connected back to Earth as, you know, as we all feel here. So yeah, I think it would happen and it would happen fast Mutants, like.

[Tarek Malik]

In Total Recall too. Okay, so everything goes back to sci fi there.

[Rod Pyle]

Enough with your sci fi. So looking ahead. Well, I just said it, but looking ahead, do you see more of a Star Trek future or more of an Expanse future? It's always kind of the fork in the road we look at here.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Yeah, I know, yeah. And I actually said something like that in the book too. I would love to see a more peaceful future where people are able to move back and forth between planets and explore and visit. I worry though that going to space is not going to solve our problems. That we're just going to sort of recreate the same issues that we have had throughout human history. And it's one of the reasons that I, they really argue we should make sure that if we do this that we're doing it knowing that we're setting ourselves up for success and not creating a situation. We're just going to dissolve into factions the way it seems like we always do as humans. So I don't have an answer, but I have a hope. I hope it's the peaceful Star Trek version. We go with an eye towards exploration and science and discovery and, and not, and, and not to fight and not.

[Tarek Malik]

Take all that stuff with us.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, I'm with you on, on the hopes and dreams. Although for any of us that ever had to go to a sleep away summer camp, I think we know for people. But hopefully we'll evolve past that. I mean we've, we've seen good international cooperation on the International Space Station which has survived the rift with Russia over Ukraine. So you know, hopefully we can, we can get past this and our future will be mob upholstery and push button button gravity, just like they have in Star the Next Generation.

[Tarek Malik]

So bright we gotta wear shades.

[Rod Pyle]

Rod Scott, I want to thank you very much for joining us today for episode 196 that we're calling Becoming Martian. Because that's the name of a cool book. Speaking of which, where can we get your book and where can we find you unraveling the secrets of our future online?

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Yeah, thanks so much for having me, guys. Yeah. So the book is called Becoming Martian. It's available on Amazon and all the other kind of book retailers and some great local independent bookstores as well. You can look for me online. I'm on Instagram, I'm on Blue Sky, I'm on all the places and you can find my website, Solomon Rice. Edu. Thanks so much.

[Rod Pyle]

Fabulous. Tarek, where should we look for you doing whatever it is you do and we're not looking.

[Tarek Malik]

Well, you can find [e-mail] as always, not this weekend in Florida for the Artemis 2 launch.

[Rod Pyle]

So.

[Tarek Malik]

And on the socials, Tarikj Malik on YouTube, Spacetronplays and this weekend, huddling close to not turn into a taric icicle because of the cold front that's going to come hit the east coast. So wish me luck.

[Rod Pyle]

A tarsicle. Well, clearly you need more water bear genes in you, so you can just hibernate.

[Tarek Malik]

There you go. There you go. I gotta modify my genetic structure.

[Rod Pyle]

You can. You can find me reliving my past [e-mail] [e-mail] well, I'm future glories too, remember. You can always drop us a line at Twistwit tv. We love your comments, suggestions and ideas. And we answer as was asked by an email that I opened day before yesterday. Yes, we answer each and every email unless somehow we miss it. Occasionally things fall through the cracks in the ether, but anything we see, I will answer because Tarek is too, too busy. New Episodes this podcast publish every Friday on your favorite podcaster. So please make sure to subscribe. Tell your friends that give us reviews. We need all the love we can get. You can also follow the Twitt Tech Podcast Network at Twit on Twitter and on Facebook and Twitter TV and Instagram. Scott, thank you very much. We look forward to having you back whenever your next book or paper comes out. And sell lots of books.

[Dr. Scott Solomon]

Thank you. I appreciate it. This has been so much fun, guys.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, thank you.

[Rod Pyle]

Take care. See you everybody.