Oh, hello, Hi, it's still your stepbrother's girlfriend with the pet rat because Ali Ward is back for yet another episode on Mars. I'm not on Mars because, honestly, fuck that. I get lonely, like on business trips. I'm on a business trip right now in a hotel room outside of Detroit. I'm a little lonely, but I understand. There are fireflies outside and I'm just waiting for it to get dark. But yeah, so this episode is on Mars. If you haven't heard part one yet, like, what are you doing here?
What are you doing? There's so many spoilers, such as the fact that we just found fish in a dry lake bed on Mars, so we talk about that in part one. Wait is that shoe? No it's not, but go back and listen to part one anyway. Part one will give you all the primers you need on what is Mars deal, why is it cold? Why was it
named after the deity of battle? What's up with its two moons, one named after the Fear and the other of the dread that a company wore, And why does one of them crash and reform itself over and over again? And how many rovers are up there? And what happens when you give birth to a moon rock? And where is the next Rover going? And what is the best Martian sci fi? Okay, all of that in part one, but now onto part two, all the weird juicy questions
you guys asked about Mars and had answered. But first I'm gonna be quick Ologiesmarch dot com. This is the part where I shouted out there are hats and shirts and tots and pins and backpacks, y'all. There's bathing suits now for summer. And I decided to have a summer sale, so through July, you can enter camp ologies for ten percent off your whole ding dang order, so get yourself something nice. Sales support the making of this podcast, as
does becoming a patron at Patreon dot com. You can do so for as little as a buck a month, because I like to keep thresholds of showing your love pretty low. Also, if you spend all your money on auto pops and inflatable pool unicorns, that's okay, I get it. You can support ologies even by rating or reviewing, are subscribing via iTunes. That keeps whole podcast Van Dad Board up in the charts for others to kind of stumble On. And also you know I read your reviews. I do
it every week. I just want you to feel seen and then to prove it. I read one each week because also it's really delightful that you guys even write that. So this week, first off, I want to say get well to Sara Maiah who left a review about snapping her FIBs and tibbs on a trail run Get better man. Also, Justin So wrote had to go to an Apple store to leave a review. I know how important iTunes reviews are for uncle al So, I may or may not have gone to an Apple store, used a MacBook there
and left her this five star review. I love this podcast and have been binge listening to it. Also, thank you to no Nicknames Left, who says remember when Discovery Channel, the Learning Channel and the History Channel word just all aliens and reality TV? Remember when you could randomly find a documentary on the three Gorgeous dam in China and would just be sucked in for the ologies?
Is that? So?
Thank you guys so much for leaving those reviews. I just read three of them. I normally just pick one, but today I just I just wanted to say thanks, to more than one person, but I do. I've read all of them that you guys left this week, and you're just charming, your charming human beings. But let's get the heck back on Mars. Do you want to? Okay? Good? So, first off, many of you were like, word areology. Has that got something to do with nip slips or what?
And sadly no, Areology comes from Aris, the Greek god of war, so Mars is his Roman stage name, and the nipples ariola region comes from the Latin for little garden, which I don't know. Maybe that says something about Roman breast hair. I'm not sure. I just wanted to answer that oversight of the part one episode that should have been the first thing I even talked about. Everyone's like, how did you not talk about ariolas? So boom part two?
I did it?
Okay, Speaking of questions, let's now commence the part two of all listener curiosities answered in very very squeaky chairs at Caltech by the very prepared and enthusiastic, wonderful, hilarious brainiac interplanetary rock enthusiast and areologist doctor Jennifer Booze. I have one million questions for you. Okay, is it okay? If I ask you one million? Yeah, okay, so many questions. I love that you know you are a patron. You've looked at some of these Yeah, you've looked at all of them.
The ones that were posted as of a few hours ago.
Like this is what I want in someone who studies other planets. Is this level of like detail and preparation, like this gives me faith the space program.
Well I didn't. I didn't want to leave anyone hanging.
They're amazing, it's amazing. Okay, Well, then in that case, I'm going to do a met of order. Oh my god, you're amazing. You have notes spread up. Oh my god, oh my god. Okay, I'll put my notes away. Maybe you can. You can reference them. You can reference them if you need them. This is the level of preparation is like warming my heart. Right, I was excited too deep roll. Okay, I'm going to do im a little bit out of order.
You go for it.
Jessica tubasaying wants to know was the god of war being named Mars a suitable choice? The god of war being named Mars? Was it a suitable choice? Yeah?
So I thought about it and so the reason they named it that is because it's red, and so they're like blood and war and stuff. And so I was thinking, like, are there other planets that would be like more warlike and I think maybe not planets, but like moons that have a lot of volcanoes and they're like turbulent kind of they're kind of more angry. But I do like that Mars. I think it's appropriate because it also has volcanoes and it has like ash deposits and stuff, so
you know that like stuff was exploding. Oh and uh, but it also has these like catastrophic flood events that we think happened, so like huge amounts of water just like flowing over a surface and like so it is like it does have some like super active processes and so yeah, I think it is appropriate. I like it, and I like that it's red.
I think a lot of people figure this is I'm saying a lot of people, I mean me, because it's red. We associate that with heat, and we associate like Mars with like fury and fire. I think it's hard to wrap your brain around how cold it is.
Yeah, now now it's cold.
I mean I remember I asked a question of of a friend who works at JPL. I was like, how do these rovers will stand the heat? And they're like, Uhmitch, it's cold there.
I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, well I thought it too, Like I was like, would Venus be better for a war planet because it's really hot on the surface of Venus. But then I was like, the volcanoes on Venus are like the lava from Hawaii, which is like really flowy and it's not very explosive. And I was like, that's not very warlike.
Okay, that's a good point.
Yeah.
How do you feel about the book mena from Mars? Women Are from Venus.
I don't know anything about that book.
It's garbage, Okay. Next question, Stu wants to know what is the latest stance on Mars habitability with regards to things such as bone density deterioration and other physiological aspects from reduced gravity and cosmic radiation. Biologically. Could we deal with Mars?
Yeah? I think it takes a lot of engineering, but we could. The Man is like one tenth the gravity of Earth, I want to say, and Mars is about one third the gravity. So there's still gravity on Mars, and so it's like probably not going to be as bad as like other places you go, for example, like the space station where it's like no gravity, so you can be a human, I feel like on Mars. But yeah, you got to take your other stuff with you, like your air and your water and your food.
Yeah, it's like byoe, like bring around everything.
Yeah, exactly for real. Yeah, but it's not impossible.
Okay, Yeah cool. Greg ariel Belk, Craig Curry, and Jorge Barnett all asked the same basic question. Okay, so this is a super question. Okay, in light of the giant dust storm that seems to have knocked out the curiosity, what is the most useful to humanity right now information that it has collected since its arrival to the red planet. So questions about dust storms yea, and what's the best stuff that the rovers have gotten?
Okay, So, like I was thinking about this a lot. What's the best stuff the rivers have gotten? I think that like seeing that Mars was habitable in the past was probably the most interesting and maybe useful to humanity kind of thing because we can see like how we see how Mars has changed with time and like how Earth might change with time to and also like what the different extremes like that we can have on different
planets are So that's like super interesting. And then yeah, the dust storm, I don't know, it's just like a cool global phenomenon it but yeah, for curiosity, we're not super worried about it. That's the other stuff, the other rivers.
And this is a pretty big one.
Yeah, it is a I think it is a global dust storm. And there have been global dust storms that have lasted I think like months. I don't know that they know how long this one will last because I think it's still getting worse. Oh yeah, the first like one of the first satellites they sent to Mars. When they got there, it was in a dust storm, so they actually couldn't even really see the surface, which so frustrating. And it was like a flyby too. I think it's like not like they could go back.
Oh it's like getting your period on your wedding day. Yeah maybe sorry, Mars red planet indeed, Okay, Elliott Anya and el Martinez both wants both want to know realistically how close are we both politically and technically to a crude mission to Mars happening. And by crude I mean crew see ew, not like a crude mission.
Where it's just like crud.
Yeah, like crude. And I'm saying crude because sometimes people still say manned, and let's be honest, it's crude if you're like, what, okay, So manned suggests all dudes, which is not accurate sometimes. And also, if we want more women in space, let's not suggest that they do not belong there. So manned is kind of as awkwardly specific
as saying woman crude, nice and neutral. So saying a manned mission to Mars just FYI in today's day and age is a little crude because manned is a little old fashioned.
Yeah, for sure. So, like NASA has plans to have humans on Mars by the twenty twenty thirty three. I think there's like a directive or something, but I don't think that there's like actual a lot of like stuff happening related to that. I'm not positive about that. But that was like they were like we will do this, we will do this, and then but like SpaceX, like they want to be on Mars like in the twenty twenties.
What yeah, that's uh, that's so soon, that's within like ten years. I one hundred percent have underwear older than that. But yes, NASA and SpaceX have crude Mars missions on their ten year to do list, So I.
Think that like, technologically, I mean, I'm not someone who does this kind of engineering work or whatever, But politically I think, I mean, like when NASA wants to go there, and then technologically I think like we're capable of some pretty incredible things. So my god, I don't think it's like impossible. I feel like it seems really soon to meet too though, But like I said, I'm not involved in that kind of stuff, so I don't know.
Who do you think they should pick for stuff like that.
There's a graduate she was a post doc in this department and she was just selected as as an astronaut last year. Her name's Jessica Watkins and she studied Mars.
Oh Man. This lady, Jessica Watkins from Colorado, former rugby player, pilot, thirty years old and officially an astronaut. I tried to see if she had an Instagram upon which I could fan girl, but alas I could not find her. So maybe the trick to kicking ass is doing less scrolling of memes and not looking at videos of people. Man handling slime late at night. I don't know, but if I ever meet Jessica Watkins, I'm going to ask her
for all of the life tips. Her tip will probably be, I don't know, just be me.
She's a marisciologist and now a NASA astronaut.
Holy I'd be.
So psyched if she was the one going on that.
Does she want to go?
Yeah, she's into it. Yeah, she's so into it. Oh my god.
Yeah, she's like, by Earth your toast.
Yeah.
I don't blame her. It's pretty garbage right now. Yeah, this is a good time to hit the eject button on All Earth where it's like, well we fucked this up. Mariner cosplay, Al Martinez, uh Irakasha, Stephen Titus, and Justin M. Gifford all wanted to know what are the biggest hurdles for terraforming and is there an initiative within NASA or another agency to do so. Also follow question from Ali Ward, what is terraforming?
I think terraforming. I don't know the definition, but I feel like it's when you make the surface like have grass on it. Really No, no, definitely not. That's just what I imagine is like.
What terraforming is landscaping. It's partial landscaping. Yeah, uh, you'll have to look that up. But so quick definition here. Terraforming is mostly at present a sci fi term, and it means to transform a planet to be more like Earth, presumably so that we can go live there. So I imagine in the future HGTV will have a whole Flip or Flop esque series dedicated to making over dry, barren planets
into like lush, boho habitats of our dreams. All we have to do is just painstakingly alter but already naturally exists.
Can you review the question?
Yeah, essentially, what are the biggest hurdles for terraforming?
Okay, so, yeah, that we don't have a lot of water or oxygen the atmosphere there's or or that the atmosphere is so thin in general. So uh, it's either going to have to be like you make the atmosphere thicker somehow by like melting the caps or like taking an atmosphere, but then you need a shield for the atmosphere.
So like I think if you, like if they existed in bubbles, like if we had like a big dome, maybe you could kind of start doing that that way, where you can like contain your atmosphere and your water and stuff like that. Yeah, so those are the big hurdles. In Radiation is another hurdle.
Because there's not a lot of atmosphere to shieldy from it exactly. Even though the sun is farther away, you're still like sizzling. So even if you landscape Mars, you're still going to get a pretty high dose of radiation because of a really thin atmosphere. And also the place is pretty dry, it's pretty sandy. Now there is water trapped in minerals, but getting it out would be, in technical terms, h a shit ton of work, which brings up the age old question of why bother Jeffrey Katz
wants to know. Is it worth the trouble and expense to send humans to Mars or should we put our effort into more sophisticated robots. Hello, I am a sophisticated robot now, ILike French films and expensive coffee.
So robots live for a very long time and you can put all sorts of cool instruments on them, and in that sense, robots maybe the way, But like humans, like we've gone to the moon and collected rocks and it's like so useful for a person to just like if you walk around and you know what's cool and you pick it up, you put it in your pocket and also be super sick to be on Mars. So
that's like really cool too. But then like if you go to Mars, you can't only be there for so long, I mean without taking like a ton of stuff with you, so like you probably need just like way more stuff with you, and so it's going to be like way more expensive than just sending like a robot that doesn't need food.
It's also it also seems like a pride thing, like why why send humans to Mars when we could have robots. It's kind of like because we can, Yeah, yeah, because it'd be cool because we did that.
Yeah, But the robots can accomplish a lot, and we can send you know, like ten robots to Mars, like to ten different spots. You know, it's just like way cheaper.
If you go to Mars and you pee on it. Who owns Mars? Do you own Mars if you just peede on it? Is that how it works? Or is it just like in an does the world? Does Earth even own Mars? Or does Venus own Mars?
Uh, yeah, I think it's like a big debate. I don't know if necessarily it's debated, but it's a big issue with with Mars. There's like a whole thing called planetary protection, where like when we send stuff, we have to go through like incredible lengths to make sure that
we're not contaminating the planet. Like NASA has like they're like, no, you can't do that, Like you can't even go a place place that you think there might be water because they're like, well, what if we accidentally took some bacteria and then we accidentally colonize Mars. You know, like there's all this debate about that. But then there's all these like private companies and they're like, well, we're going to do it, so I don't know.
We're kind of going to be trespassing. Yeah, So there is a wealth of information about planetary protection. This is keeping space microbes off of Earth and also not shipping our gross Earth microbes to Martians. These planetary protections include these complex equations of how many spores per square meter are acceptable on equipment so that we can send it into outer space, and the whole thing just kind of reads like a very long winded like employees must wash
hands after using the restroom sign like so duh. But also if these rules weren't in place, you know, some people would be like, Eh, whatever, Okay, Guy R. Thomas wants to know. My daughter wants to know how many different rocks have been identified on Mars and how long does it take to send commands to the rover and get a response back.
Okay, So there are many different types of rocks that have been found of Mars, but they're pretty much all the same as Earth rocks. So there's like basalt, which is like what we get like kind of lava from Hawaii type rocks. And then there's like sedimentary rocks that like from the lakes, so like layered rocks. There's like sandstones like mudstones. There are meteorites on Mars. Yeah, it came from other places, yeah, that we found with the rovers.
There's it's weird to think there's a chunk of Earth on Mars and someone's like.
What, Yeah, actually I think that like they wanted to send a part of a meteorite back to Mars just like a little bit. Yeah, but yeah, it's harder, I think to get a rock from Earth to Mars, like because of their orbits and they're dis instrument the sun. So I don't know. I mean, you know, there's probably as one though, because things there's been a lot of time in history.
Danny Kay wants to know, is it possible to have a water balloon fight on Mars the atmosphere.
Yeah, so so yes, in certain places at certain times. So the question is related to the fact that water's not stable on the surface for a lot of the time. So it's either it's like too cold, so it'd be ice, or it's like low pressure so it would be gas. So like liquid water is not really there, so you'd have like a like a soft like a baseball, or
like an exploding balloon. But if you go like low enough elevation, I think you can get in some places for brief moments in time enough pressure and enough atmosphereic I mean enough pressure and a high enough temperature that you could maybe do that.
Yeah, so certain spots, and that's why we need to send more rovers. It's to find out where to have the water balloon fights.
Yeah.
And also the street value of that water balloon is like millions of dollars because it had to be shipped from elsewhere. Yeah, so that's like having a balloon fight with a gold dust on our you know what I mean. Like, yeah, don't even think about a super soaker. This is asking too much. So side note for more information on the inventor of the super soaker, who was a NASA engineer. You can see my minisode about Summer that just went
up a few weeks ago. A yastology should be a word, So it's all about Summer in the history of water fights and also melan genetics. Laura Mulligan wants to know if you were to get bored or tired of Mars, what other planets would you like to study and why?
Okay, yeah, so, like I already studied the Moon, and I still think the moon's pretty cool. It's really cute and we can see it from Earth.
It's really cute. It is really cute that it is.
Yeah, and it's it's cool that it's like part of you know, it's part of Earth. There are a ton of small moons, like the moons of Jupiter and Saturn that I think are super fascinating, like the icy icy moons where there's like water underneath, and super volcanic moons and stuff.
Quick check in on Jupiter and Saturn's moons. So well, Earth has one moon, kind of kind of like a sweet elderly couple who fell in love in high school and have just been married for like billions of years. Jupiter and Saturn have more populous relationships with their moons,
like just a sexy, consensual poly situation. Saturn has sixty two moons and Jupiter has a blessed auspicious sixty nine, including the icy Europa, which is the star of an upcoming NASA flyby mission and a possible lander way down the line, all on the hunt for interplanetary critters. Despite that these two planets have like moon orgies and literally rain diamonds, perhaps the best planet is just whichever goddamn one you're sitting on.
I really like Earth too. I am a geologist, and sometimes I want to spend a little more time thinking about Earth.
Yeah do you do that on weekends?
Yeah? All the time.
Yeah. You just go hiking and you're like, look at that, yeah sandstone and that sentiment. Yeah, that's gotta be great, because you know how sometimes you'll go on a hike and if you don't know shit about geology, you'll like a bunch of cool rocks, but you kind of need someone to go with you to be like, look at that, look at that.
Look. Yeah, I know I have a problem right now, which is I just moved to flag Staff and I have one friend.
Flag staff people.
And flagstaff should come on an a geology hike with me.
Now I have to visit flag Staff. Yeah, I feel like you're gonna have some serious flag staff friends after this. Flag Staff hit up Jen booze at Bugaboos bug A b u z on Instagram. B friends enjoy some rock hikes. Yeah, you're gonna have a whole posse and flag Staff.
That'd be cool.
Okay, oloft doatch Key wants to know, is it true that the Mars day, which is twenty four hours and thirty seven minutes better suits the human bio rhythm?
Yeah? I think that would be really weird if that was the case. But so like the the rover teams when when the rivers first land the first ninety saws, they live on Mars time, so they are they artificially make their days that long and they do operations during that, but it's super hard because the Earth it's not on that time. So then then they'd be awake, like in the middle of the night and stuff. So it's hard for me to imagine that that's the case, but no idea.
Is it only another thirty seven minutes? Yeah, but it adds up.
Yeah, I mean, like, get like two days into it, you're already like one hour off and stuff. Yeah.
I think it's interesting that we call them days. They call them souls. Sauls, Yeah, sauls. Yeah, that's kind of cute.
Yeah it is. Yeah, so we celebrate the saals on Mars.
That's cute.
Uh A.
Lonth just straight up wants to know is their life on Mars.
I want to say that there's probably like no way that we took every single bug off the rivers that we sent, so like maybe there's like some little microbe still alive. And I want to say that, you know, maybe there were microbes way early on.
This was a very pregnant pause, pregnant with moon rocks.
Maybe I'm not gonna say you know what, I'm gonna just I'm just gonna say.
Yes, Okay, this is a good prediction because later, like when they find it, you'll be like, please see my twenty eighteen interview where.
I would just said definitively yes, I'm just gonna say yes.
But again, Christopher Barley had a great question that I didn't even I hadn't considered. He says, Uh, I seem to remember that the northern half of Mars is completely smooth while the southern half is full of craters. Yeah, what's up? Do we understand what caused this and why the inconsistency?
Yeah, so, like, uh, I think that maybe the major idea for this is that there was a big impact that that came in like at an oblique angle and just like shaved off the top of Mars and then it was like low. And there's also a lot of debate about the they're called the Northern Lowlands the Southern Highlands, and so they Southern Highlands are like way older, super eft up landscapes, and people think that and there's like, uh, what we think were like catastrophic floods going up there.
So there's some idea that there was an ocean up there too, which may explain that, and then like volcanism related to that like impact, so all things that could have smoothed it out.
Oh my gosh, that's so odd. I didn't even know that about about Mars.
Yeah, it's called the crystal dichotomy boundary. Oh, crystal dicotomy. So it's like it's got just like half of the crust is high and like left up and old, and the other half is low and smooth.
Oh that's so interesting. It's like it got an acid peel and it's like new, but it's exfoliated on a half of space. Yeah, it was a group on it half of Thomas Mayor wants to know what thoughts on elon Musk and nuking the poles of the planet. What is that question about.
Yeah, So there's this idea that like, if you want to make the atmosphere of Mars thicker, you could just like melt the poles and so all that water and carbon dioxide that's like trapped in dry ice and water ice will be in the atmosphere.
Got it.
Yeah, But I love Mars. It's like really pretty as it is. Yeah, I don't really want to do that. So that's my opinion on it.
And also, now that I'm a Mars expert, there's kind of not going to be an atmosphere to keep all that stuff in or would that give the atmosphere to keep it in. Is there any of a shield?
Yeah, I don't think you. You'd have to protect it. Okay, it would go away eventually, like the rest of Mars atmosphere dead. I mean, I'm weren't careful. I'm pretty much like your coworker now because I know so much. I'm just checking.
How do you feel about Elon Musk's fetishizing of Mars?
Yeah, I mean, like the same. ID. I would be really sad if I if I looked at Mars and it was just like another Earth, because it's so cool that it's not, and it's like, it's like so fascinating. So it'd be it's like, what, you know, your favorite desert landscape, and then all of a sudden it's a suburb. It's like not the same, it's the lame.
Suddenly there's a best buy on Mars and you're like the fuck?
Yeah, exactly, Chick fil A.
You're like, who are you Mars?
Yeah?
Why does Elon Musk have such a boner for Mars?
I don't know.
He's so horny for it. I'm gonna look into that. So why does he love it so much? I'm not quite sure, but he has said that Space travel is the best thing we can do to extend the life of humanity, and he said that he wants to die on Mars, just not on Impact. Now. In part one of Areology, I mentioned my hardcore, brilliant scientist friends, Casey and Christine, both NASA scientists, who introduced me to Jennifer.
So the day after this episode went up, Casey and Christine happened to have seen their other pal, the science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson, who I mentioned. He's the writer of these really beautiful books, the Red Mars series that people love. I naturally freaked out, and Casey and Christine were kind enough to conduct an impromt do interview with them that they just recorded on one of their phones.
Hi Eli, Hi Jennifer, It's stan Robinson.
To get his take about interplanetary habitation. What did a brilliant science fiction writer who owned describing Mars say about us being on Mars?
Well, it's a wrong idea, So you don't want a wrong idea hanging out there with the notion that and I think, actually, and maybe it's one of these ideas that floats around the Internet at the level of commentary that isn't really thinking, so maybe nobody really believes this idea, and it's not that much of a moral hazard, but the notion that we have any other place than Earth
is clearly falls. And it's not that you couldn't care for Mars, it's just that it might take ten thousand years to do it, and we've got a one hundred year emergency that we're living in, so the time scales are badly off, and you don't want to ever think
that we've got any other place than Earth. One thing that you do keep hearing from people is the idea that if we had five thousand people on Mars and the living semi independently of Earth, and then Earth was somehow, by some mysterious and basically fictional disaster that everybody on Earth died, that after that those five thousand people from Mars could come back to Earth and then it would all be okay. That you don't want to have all your eggs in one basket. This is how it's put
that there should be a backup to humanity itself. To me, the badness of that idea is not only the moral hazard, like maybe we could just go ahead and blow ourselves up, but that that would be any kind of compensation for the loss of so many humans that humanity isn't that valuable that if we were to lose all of humanity on Earth and all of the rest of the mammals, etc.
Etc.
Who cares if some humans come back twenty thousand years later. We probably should have gone extinct at that moment from our own stupidity. So I'm completely against that whole line of thought of we need an emergency population somewhere else in case we excellently killed everybody off on Earth. You can't kill off everybody on Earth. We're like cockroaches. The only conceivable thing that might do it is a gigantic
asteroid impact. To detect and deflect asteroids that are incoming and save ourselves from a big old bang is the obvious first thing that spacefaring work ought to be devoted to.
So saving our species while kicking it on an annex planet while Earth burns maybe not a good idea. Sandymore wants to know how much time and money do we spend studying Mars and the Earth's oceans. Should we focus on one more than the other when it comes to making life better for life on Earth? Like essentially why are we studying more so much when we are catastrophically fucking up Earth.
Yeah, there's actually a lot of people say, you know, we know more about Mars and we know about the bottom of the ocean. It's like really hard to study the bottom of the ocean. I don't know, Like Mars is like a thing that makes people so curious and like it just like broadens our perspective, and so does the bottom of the ocean. It's hard for me to really say we shouldn't study the bottom of the ocean.
But also there's that necklace from Titanic down.
There, Yeah, Mars, Like there is a lot of the reason that we study Mars is because it was like early on in its history was so earth like and so it's like basically an old version of Earth and it's like so fascinating to see how it evolved and so whereas like, I don't know, you could say that about the ocean. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't compare them so.
Much, but maybe it's like a cautionary tale.
Yeah, yeah, you know that could be us like cold and dusty.
Yeah, like when you watch Careful, like eat true Hollywood story and you're like, oh man, what happened? You know, yeah, what happened to them? So if you ever think that your life is kind of slow and boring, just think we are experiencing like a live fast, die young, crash and burn, tawdry cautionary tale every day just by using plastics and fossil fuels to ruin the planet. This was meant as like a lighthearted aside, but now I'm depressed anyway.
Mars exploration is important both scientifically and existentially. Jennifer says, Okay, so maybe I'm going to say that it's a cautionary tale thing.
I think it serves to broaden our perspective of life and of the Solar System and the evolution of it. And it's just like a great thing for us to think about. So that's how I think it gives us a little bit more of a perspective.
Yeah, do you think people get do you think people have a lot of existential crises thinking about Mars and other planets and that this isn't the only planet, Like, do you think that it's psychologically a lot of people kind of grapple with Mars and other planets as a concept.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah, I think, especially when we start to think about life. Yeah, so what does it all mean? You know, we're not alone on this Earth's not the only planet. I don't know.
Yeah, I mean how big.
There's like more earths now, you know, like with all these exoplanets being discovered, a super earths and other types of planets. Yeah. Do you think people often like feel very small when they think about these things?
Right? But I think it's almost a relief. I feel like you don't matter. Oh yeah, there's a relief in that, Like everything seems so huge, parking tickets and like this person like didn't follow me back on Instagram or whatever. And then you're like, oh shit, I'm just like a tiny microbe. It doesn't matter. Maybe I can relax a little bit.
Yeah, unless you start to think that we are the only life, and then you're like we're the only life and we're fucking it up. Oh no, you could take it both ways.
You're like an only child who ends up like being a HELLI in.
Yeah.
Well, I mean I do think that having an appreciation, fostering an appreciation for other planets maybe does make us look back. At least the question is being asked san anymore, like, should we be paying more attention to our own planet? Maybe appreciating Mars makes us have more appreciation of our own planet too.
Yeah, yeah, I don't think that Mars research is wasted money at all. I think it inspires a lot of people and it's super fascinating and we learn a lot about it and gives us a lot of perspective. So really, yeah, I don't think that. Yeah, in terms of like how much money we spend on it and stuff, I think it's worthwhile.
Right, do you know how much people spend on like hair restoration and viagra?
Yeah, like a lot of money.
So just a little FYI, the US spends about a billion and a half dollars per year on viagra. It's like seventy dollars a pill. I had no idea it was so costly. Did you know that? Don't tell me?
So.
The US Department of Defense alone spends roughly eighty four million annually on dick pills. So many dollars, So many dicks. Now, Americans spend eight hundred million dollars a year on hair restoration, and we collectively spend eight point five billion dollars on manicures in the us every year. So I don't know when it comes to what we spend our money on, I have no answers. I have no answers. It's all confounding.
I mean, we should probably spend more on food for people who need it, and clean water or corn dogs hugs are free. I don't know. I don't have answers. Billy Marina wants to know from the data we've gathered so far, have we learned anything from Mars that has significantly changed the way we understand Earth?
Yeah, so okay, So this is I was thinking about. We compare Mars lot to early Earth and so that in that sense, it is a little bit we have talked about a little bit about it because it gives us this different perspective of our own planet and like how these plants have evolved. But then there's also these like fundamental differences between Mars and Earth, Like Mars doesn't have a magnetic field, now, Mars doesn't have plate tectonics, Mars is super iron rich, Like what did those differences
mean for us? Like because we only have one data point here, now we have like more info on this other planet and seeing how those things make it different. So that's like those are the like the big things that we learned. Just like comparatively, Mars gives us a glimpse into the early Solar system and stuff that was going on in that in that early time, and then we learn like processes that happen on Earth could have happened on Mars, but like in totally different ways, like
sand ripples. Like my friend Mitiu did this work where it was like, uh, he found these like ripples on sand dunes on Mars that like are subequious here, but like they're they're just like because of the Mars atmosphere is different, they happen.
Oh wow, so we can compare geologic features and realize that they can be created under two completely different Yeah exactly.
It's like kind of mind blowing.
Yeah, that's nuts because you're like, oh that would this would lead you to believe it's definitely this causing it, and it's like not really exactly. Yeah, that's creepy. That's cool.
So that's I think that's like really valuable stuff.
Okay, Baron wants to know since once there was water on Mars, is Mars dust as horrifically nasty as lunar dust and Apparently dust on the Moon had no water to a road around the edges, and so it was spiky and super damaging to equipment and fleshy bits like say lungs.
Yeah, so the Mars dust in terms of like it being sharpened stuff, it's not as sharp as moondust. So it's just it's like really fine. It's like just like Earth a lot of ways, like earth dust, but it has sometimes it has like salts and stuff in it that are really toxic, so like you don't want to like you don't want to eat it necessarily, but it's not gonna like kill you either. I think you probably need to wear like a dust mask, but it's you know,
otherwise I don't. I think it's probably fine. And actually they study there's like experience where they have like fake Mars dirt and dust and they grow stuff in it. Oh, just like thinking about if we could grow stuff on Mars.
Does it work? Yeah, it does so from Andy Weir, taking your desiccated feces and mixing them with Mars dust possibly could work.
Yeah. I think I think they have to do some stuff to it, but like I think the idea is like could we And I think the answer is yes, right, Yeah.
Do you guys have to put money in a jar every time someone in your lab says, let's science the shit out of this.
No one ever says that just checking.
If someone did, would you guys be like, oh, come on.
I think so, I think there'd be some eyerols going on.
Katherine Woodrow and Michelle Sullivan both asked about microbial life on Mars. Which type of bacteria do you think would be the most likely to be found. Michelle Sullivan was like, a cinobacteria.
Yeah, so like extremophiles, I think for sure. I don't I couldn't like tell you a specific bacteria, but like extrema files are things that live in extreme places, and so I think that's what we could find there. And I think cyan there's some cyanobacteria that fit that category. And then like these microfossils that they thought were in this meteorite, those were magneto tactic bacteria. So if it were true that that were that they were fossils, then
maybe we could find that there. And since Mars did have a magnetic feel, it's not totally out of the question that they could have used it. Interesting, Yeah, and there's a lot of iron theres that's another possibility.
So quick aside. I got to tour JPL with my lovely NASA engineer friend, Hollybunder Hi Holly, and I was particularly struck by the observation deck that looked into a clean room, which appears to be a scene from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but with more golden capped on space tape and wires and less candy. And I was like, these people building these rocket ships, like, do they have to shower twelve times a day every time they come in and out of this room? How does this work?
If I applied to NASA, would they hook me up to a light detector test to find out how often I actually wash my hair? How do they know when they're building the rovers, when they're in the clean room that like it's actually clean.
I think they have a bunch of these like things that measure how many particles are in the air. Okay, yeah, so they like have to be below a certain particle count, and then I think they also like probably autoclave a bunch of stuff, right, But otherwise I don't know.
Jude Kidding wants to know what color is the sky on Mars, are there long sunsets or does it switch to dark quickly? And can you see Earth from Mars?
Okay, so the color of Mars, the color of the sky on Mars is like a butter Scotch COLORO.
Yeah.
So the which we know like from taking pictures and stuff of Mars. So there's a lot of like dust in the atmosphere, so it's dimmer. It's like way further from the sun than Earth is, so it's dimmer, but there's still sunlight, but it's just darker, and so you think, and the days are about the same length, so I guess in a way it gets darker quicker, but only because there's less of light to begin with. Maybe, Yeah.
But then the dust like interacts with the atmosphere in the sunlight differently than it does on Earth because it's just like super iron rich dust. And so I think that's why it's like a more butter Scotch color than here we have like this blue color.
I know that asking like why is this sky blue? Is a kid question trope, and I'm always a little embarrassed that I'm a grown adult and I don't really remember why it is blue. It's always like eh, is the sky blue? I don't know, so if you're like, H, me too, I just looked it up for the both
of us. So, according to a NASA web page made for five year olds, all the colors in the visual spectrum add up to white, but blue light is scattered more than other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves, so it scatters. We see it mostly blue. But on the red planet of Mars, the sky is this butterscotch color because of all the iron dust, which got me feeling very entrepreneurial. Hear me out, open up brunch place called blood and Butterscotch. It's all moder's themes. Everything is
made of past iron skillets. It's very iron rich. Okay, it's red. It's really cold. But we never turn on the.
Heater and we never dust anywhere.
Never dust anything.
It doesn't sound that advertizing. She gets points for honesty, but like it could have like that like interesting factor.
Maybe we could only have like freeze dried food.
Oh yeah, you know what I mean.
Composting toilets. I'm gonna work.
Oh yeah.
Kevin McPhillips wants to know five year old Finley McPhillips I'm thinking as a relative wants to know, would a helium balloon still float on Mars? Also, Finley, I'm sorry if you've heard me say the F word like fifty times in the course of every podcast.
So yeah, I think helium is still like lighter than the atmosphere of Mars, so it could work. But like, I guess you'd have to. So the way we have like balloons here is that they're buoyant, right, so like they're less dense, but there's like has to be enough density difference, including like the weight of the the balloon itself, like the plastic. So I think if it was designed well, I think it could work, but I think it could be better if it was hydrogen. I think the short answer is yes.
Okay, what is one thing about Mars that people don't know that would really flabbergas them at a cocktail party?
Just how like wet it used to be? People often ask me like, is it true that we found water on Mars? And I'm like, yeah, we found that like a million times already, Like, but that's the thing that they're often blown away by, right, But I think it's just still, for some reason not common knowledge yet that Mars used to be this like awesome place that was like not as cold and dry as it is now.
It's like wet, just lush pools and spaws.
Yeah maybe maybe slimy maybe. Well I was just thinking, like you said the last and I thought of like plants, but like in actually, if there was any life there would probably be like micro says like slimy.
Yeah, that's okay too. What about some flim flam about Mars that you'd like to debunk?
Flim flam?
Yeah, what's what's some real horseshit that you're like?
No, dang, that's a good question.
Is it that Matt Damon lives there?
So I got to make water and grow food on a planet where nothing grows. But if I can't figure out a way to make contact with NASA, and none of this matters anyway.
Once again, if you didn't listen to part one number one, what is wrong with you? Why didn't you listen to instructions from your old dad? I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed too. Also, the Martian Recap was a book then a movie with Matt Damon stranded on Mars.
Oh, I think that that actually, I think that has generated a lot of misinformation is the dust storms, like they are global dust storms, but they are not destructive like that. Oh there because the atmosphere is so thin. There are strong winds, but there's just not a lot of atmosphere, so it's like just like a breeze really, so like them. The whole premise of that, which is was like the major thing that was wrong with it was that they were like stranded because it was that
huge dust storm and destroyed their stuff. Right, But yeah, not going to happen.
Because there's not the winds wouldn't create that much force because it's not pushing a lot of molecules that are in the atmosphere.
There, things like aren't impacting you as much.
Right, because there's not a lot of air that's actually pushing past.
I think it's like one hundredth the amount of stuff in the air.
Oh my god, Okay, I that yeah, that is some solid flint flam that you just debunked. I never would have thought of that because you think about the dust storms and you're like, it's pretty much a hurricane full of dust.
That's what people think. Yeah, they think it's like this crazy catastrophic thing. But yeah, no, it's just like dusty.
Have you been caught in dust worms in Arizona or Mohave? Or have you been a burning man during a dust storm?
Yeah? Pretty much all of those things have happened.
Really, have you been a burning man?
Yeah?
How was it?
I went in like two thousand and seven, and like, I had a good time, I thought, but I don't know that well, I obviously haven't been back.
FYI. Burning Man is a festival set on this big dry lake bed in Nevada, and it features a lot of instagram worthy chainmail bikinis and steampunk hats and furry boots and glow sticks and electronic music and for some people a really sexy saturn in Jupiter's moon situation if you catch my drift kids. So, some people really into it, others not so much.
I didn't do like so many drugs, you know, So I think that's how a lot of people have fun. Right, And then I thought it was like a cool experience, but that I could just do that experience and not pay four hundred dollars for.
It, right, it costs even more than that now.
Yeah, I think when I went, I even applied like for a low income ticket. I was like, I'm a student, but I really want to go to this, and then they gave it to me and I sent them like drawing that's nice. Yeah, but I think you can't do that now. I think it's like really intense.
I think it's more intense. But what were the dust storms?
Like? They were? Oh, it was like really bad. I remember I was wearing goggles but and I had like a bandana over my face because that's what you do.
There.
Could have had a dust mask on, but no one has dust masks on bandanas. Yeah, but yeah, like people's tents were blowing over and stuff, and I was riding a bike around Applia and like couldn't see anything, Like would lose your sense of direction really easily. And it was really abrasive on your skin.
So if you need to go down a YouTube rabbit hole and you do, I highly recommend typing in Burning Man plus dust storm also known as a hoboob, which is appropriate for a festival that celebrates the freedoms of toplessness. So a user name just Joe captured one dust storm just ripping into the glamping oasis and it just looked like it turned it into a science fiction nightmare. Also, as long as we're diving into the etymology for Areola in this episode, why not follow up with a nugget
on boobs. So boob and boobs totally different word origins. The meteorological event comes from the Arabic for blowing furiously, while the Mamaran features get their names from the German for teats and grandma bubby. So is this podcast getting too weird? Is it getting uncomfortable? I'm just, I just I'm here to present facts. I just want to give you facts. What were we talking about? Dust storms?
So?
Are the dust storms at burning Man worse than on Mars?
Wow?
Sure? Yeah, way worse. Wow? More art cars though, Yeah? And more you can't see them. You can't see them. That's really good to know. Never would have guessed that. What is one thing that about your job that's sick?
What do you hate?
I guess like some days I don't want to look at pictures on the computer.
You said that in such a confessional tone, like Mom, I don't like your meat love.
Yeah. I mean it's really cool sometimes, but other times I'm like I want to go outside. Yeah.
Can you ever take your desktop and drag it outside? And or do you have like four huge monitors. No, actually, I could work outside. It's more that like, I'd rather be looking at a rock than a picture of a rock some days. I get it. Yeah, I understand. Yeah, it's like looking at a picture of your long lost love. You're like, I'd rather be just hanging out with exactly. Yeah, I get it.
And also, like I do get asked a lot, is it true we found water on Mars? That might be like maybe my least favorite question, although maybe it should be my favorite question.
But what do you say to that? Are you just like do you the first time? Are you like we did and then now you just like duh?
Yeah? I try not to, but I'm like sometimes a little bit too honest, and then I'd be like yeah, and that's like the opposite attitude I should have for people who are getting excited about Mars, which I love. So maybe that's why it should actually be my favorite question. I'm working on that. You got to you gotta flip the script? Yeah, I need to do that. Yeah.
Sorry, what's your favorite thing about Mars or your job surrounding Mars?
I love that I can be paid to think about another planet and what it used to be like and what we could have been like and just these like crazy questions that are you know, really removed from the day to day but that like that's my job, like because I could have a really practical job, but I instead get to do this really out out of this world thing literally. Yeah, and it's like a really cool to be part of.
These teams and so you're excited twenty twenty Rover, that's the thing that you're stuffed about.
Yeah, I'm sticked about that. I've sticked up out a lot of things.
Anything else that you're just like, I'm sorry that I turned into what sounded like a drunk dolphin. That was a happy noise.
Like a thing. I really want to look at our dry lakes in the Mohabby and like relate them to Mars. And so that's like another thing that I'm like super psyched to be able to do hopefully.
And any advice to anyone who's like I want to work on Mars.
Yeah, there's so many ways to get involved with Mars stuff. And like one great thing about NASA is that all of our data that we get is publicly available. You can anybody with the internet can go on the Internet and look at like dope pictures of Mars for free download data the rover guts, Like anybody can have the same data that the the scientists who work at NASA have, So you can literally just become You can just do that on your own, and you can go to like
seminars and stuff and meet people and read books. Like there's tons of podcasts and stuff like that. There's like a million ways to get involved with NASA stuff, and there's lots of NASA outreach that is like pretty accessible, I think to most people. Thank you so much for being on. Thank you, I am so excited. Thanks for caring about Mars. Dude, I do care about Mars. I love Mars even more now. Great it worked, So there you have it.
I am so much more about Mars than I was before meeting the amazing doctor Jennifer Booze Now to become her friend, either online or in Flagstaff again. Her instagram Bugaboos buga buz, where she posts photos of insects and rocks, and her website, What a Destination on this world wide Web. It features self portraits of her as a turtle with octopus hair. It's gorgeously perfect. It's j nnfr dot BZ, so it's her name novals Now. You can find Ologies
at Ologies on Instagram or Twitter. I'm on both at Ali Ward with one L and to support the podcast to make future episodes possible, you can head to if you want to Patreon dot com slash Ologies for hats and swimsuits and pins and totes. It's ologiesmerch dot com. We have you covered and once again summer sale code Campologies ten percent off everything in the shop in July and huge thanks to Shannon Feltas and Bonnie Dutch for
helping me round that. And thank you to Aaron Talbert and Hannahlippo for adminting the Ologies podcast Facebook group, which is really full of the Internet's kindest and most lovable nerds, no turds among them. It's amazing. Thank you as always to Stephen Ray Morris who painstakingly pieces these episodes together from a thirty page transcript and makes each episode so
so much better. The music is by Nick Thorburn of the band Islands, and special thanks to NASA engineer working on the Europa Clipper mission, Christine Corbett at Corbett Co, rb e Tt on Twitter and her husband Casey Hanmer ceg Handmer hndmr on Twitter, also of NASA's JPL for being such wonderful pals and supporters of ologies and conducting that supplemental interview with sci fi writer Kim Stanley Robinson.
What a surprise that was. Now, if you listen pass It credits, you may know that I tell a secret at the end of every episode. In this one, this might be the most embarrassing episode. That's not true. I have more embarrassing secrets. I just haven't told you them.
But this is pretty up there. So a few people asked me this week about Mars being in retrograde until August twenty seventh, and confession, I just read a whole article about it, even though I don't want to believe in it, and I don't, but still I'm like, should I not sign any contracts until after August? But I also just didn't understand what retrograde even was. And it turns out that it just means that it looks like the planet is traveling backwards in the sky, but it's
kind of an optical illusion. So I emailed Jennifer and I asked, is there any pos stability in any realm scientifically that Mars being in retrograde could fuck with anything for real, like electronics or angering ghosts, And she said, I usually say that an apparent retrograde orbit has no bearing on anything physical because it's literally just a change
in perspective. But the orbits are still the same. But as for ghosts, though, maybe they don't understand orbits and they live their afterlife strictly by apparent motions in the sky. So if Mars decides it wants to go backwards, they might also go backwards. Question mark, question mark, question mark. So I believe she was humoring me and entertaining my questions about Mars retrograde. I appreciate it. Okay, keep asking smart people stupid questions because I seriously I think that
they love it. I think it's good for all of us. Thank you for listening. I heart you all very much. Bye Bye, pacadermic college, hobbiology, crypto zoology, lithology, ureology, meteorology, atology, apology, seriology, selenology. Pop pup up, pint, pop up up up, pint, pop up up, pintup up up.
Yeah,