Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Robert Zubrin, 22nd Century Martian

Episode Date: September 14, 2009

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Interview with a Martian, this week on Planetary Radio. Hi everyone, welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society. Our guest this week is Robert Zubrin. No, not the founder and president of the Mars Society, but a different Robert Zubrin who will be born on Mars in 62 years. This Robert Zubrin will someday write the definitive handbook on becoming a successful and even wealthy Martian. Emily Lakdawalla shakes things up on the moon in her Q&A segment,

and Bruce Betts will join me for our usual What's Up Look at the Night Sky, including a new space trivia contest with a special prize for one of you. So we'll head for the red planet right after Bill Nye shares some thoughts about heading back to the moon. Hey, hey, Bill Nye the Planetary guy here, vice president of the Planetary Society. This week, as you may know, the Augustine Commission is going to testify in front of Congress about their findings about what NASA should be doing with its billions of dollars. Well, I'm sure that'll be lovely. Meanwhile, NASA has a couple of spacecraft orbiting the moon. Among other things, they're going to crash L-Cross into a crater, hoping to see water.

And the reason they're looking for water, of course, it is of great scientific interest. The surface of the moon is a bit of a time capsule, storing everything that's hit it over the last thousand centuries or so. But what people are hoping for is they can find water on the moon, and that'll be a reason to go back to the moon with people from the U.S. Yes, that really won't be a reason to go back to the moon. People are not going to go there and start drinking moon water. This is not going to happen. Meanwhile, by the way, speaking of the moon, the Indian Space Research Organization, Shonduran Spacecraft, observed the Apollo 15 landing site. Not bad.

So for you hoaxers out there, you know, I was on Fox News a few weeks ago. For you hoaxers, there's another picture of Apollo spacecraft on the lunar surface. There is no reason for the United States to go back to the moon with people. Let the other countries that need to do it for their national pride, China and India, perhaps Japan, get that done. Meanwhile, we've got to go exploring new cool places because we've got to look for other places that might have signs of life because that will change life here on the earth. Now, you know, I may have said this before. Here's hoping that the United States takes a leadership role instead of a follow ship role. And we go on to, dare I say it, change the world. Now, for the rest of you who live in other

countries and are good members of the Planetary Society, thanks for your support. We will get through this. I got to fly. and build out of the planetary guide. We're going to try something this week that has never before been attempted. By special arrangement with the Lawrence Livermore Lab, we have opened up a wormhole, or space-time rift, that will allow us to talk with one of Mars' most successful citizens. This Robert Zubrin of the 22nd century has written what may be the best, or now that I think of it, the only guidebook to surviving and thriving on that nearby world. Luckily, it has been transmitted back through the rift to us

and has been published by Three Rivers Press. As you'll hear, this Martian actively distances himself from his 21st century namesake, even though the contemporary Robert Zubrin founded the Mars Society and co-created the Mars Direct Plan. I don't know how long we'll be able to maintain the Rift, so we better get started. Robert, it is a special pleasure to speak to you across, well, nearly a couple of centuries and get a chance to talk to you about life on Mars, which you cover so much, a lot of practical information in this terrific book, How to Live on Mars, a trusty guidebook to surviving and thriving on the red planet. I don't know if you know that you've received some great reviews for the book

back here in the early 21st century. Well, yes, I've heard about that. I've been able to research them in the historical archives. That's funny how that works. Listen, I know that you graduated from Robert Heinlein High in 2099 up there in the New Plymouth colony. How do Martians feel about that 20th century author? Because really, your book reminds me very much of his approach to things.

Well, I have to take offense at that. That guy was a humorless astronautical engineer. It's true he made some technical contributions, but he didn't know squat about how to game the system. Now, are you talking about Heinlein or your namesake, Robert Zubrin, from back in those days? The guy who had the same name as me. Oh, yeah, okay. But I'm assuming that Heinlein, since your high school is named after him,

that he's somewhat in more of a position of honor? Yes, Heinlein is held in great honor for not only his foresight of a space-faring civilization, but his belief in human freedom and human liberty, which we Martians all treasure greatly. Yeah, that certainly is a constant theme throughout the book. But let's talk about some of the practical advice that you offer. Let's say that I see you still have cell phones or telephones there in the 22nd century. If you have to get that, we'll let you, but otherwise, I've got a question for you. Let's assume that I've just stepped off a private freighter in that new Plymouth colony on the Red Planet. And by the way, that already indicates that I've taken some

of your advice, because I haven't used one of NASA's nuclear electric ships or those old cyclers, you call them. But now that I've set foot on Ares Firma, what are the most important things for me to know as I set out to make my fortune? Well, you need to know how to choose your gear, how to choose your wheels. You need to know how to choose your home. You need to know how to get a job that won't kill you. A lot of the open jobs here will. That's why they're open. And then you need to know how to make some serious money. Let me just grab one of those for a moment. I guess there are a couple of major choices in 22nd century technology spacesuits. And you really recommend the one that goes all the way back to our era.

Yes, that's true. There's a couple of things you guys got right. Yeah, there's two kinds of spacesuits you can get. You can get the old style pneumatic spacesuits, inflatable spacesuits, same kind that were worn way back in the Apollo period in the 20th century. Or you can wear these new style skin suits, elastic suits that fit your body like a second skin. Those can look very stylish if you have the right figure. But for most people, they can be quite embarrassing, and that's why I recommend going with a classic. All right. Well, we've noted that. It really is amazing the range of advice that you offer.

Everything from, well, you've named a lot of them, but even making your own food, making your own oxygen, of course. I find it amazing that so many settlers up there, frontiers people, find it useful to do everything from, yeah, making their own air to making their own plastics. And is that really practical? Well, it's very useful. Now, you don't really have to make all these things, but you have to be able to, because otherwise the people who are willing to supply them to you will exploit your dependence on them and charge you an arm and a leg. So some of these things you certainly do want to make yourself, like your own oxygen.

That can be easily done through the techniques explained in this book. We can strip oxygen out of the carbon dioxide Martian atmosphere. Others of them, making plastics, making metals. You may want to have someone in your local settlement do that, but you don't want to be dependent on either the Mars Authority or the criminal underground to supply you with them, because either one will be delighted to take advantage of your dependence. Actually, as you describe them, there doesn't seem to be much difference between the Mars Authority and the so-called sisterhoods.

That's, I take it, the sort of extra-legal element you were talking about? Yes, the sisterhoods. You know, if you think back to Earth, various immigrant groups at various times controlled certain aspects of the economy. For instance, at one point, Irish immigrants controlled crime in the United States, but then they moved on to the police force, leaving crime for a certain period of time to Italians, who

then left it on to others. Well, on Mars, women have taken over organized crime. And I bet they're better at it than a lot of the predecessors were. They do pretty good. Listen, speaking of women, who is this Becky Sherman that so many of you Martians have put up statues to? Well, Becky Sherman was a member of the first landing crew way back at the beginning of the 21st century.

And she was the exobiologist on the mission, by no means the most valuable member of the crew in terms of getting out of the various tight spots they got into. But she was the one who did discover life on Mars, and that's why she is famous on both Mars and Earth today. She really showed Martians today the way to celebrity, which is to make fantastical discoveries. Now, I do have a section in my book explaining how you can become famous, and a lot of people wonder about that because, you know, most of the great discoveries that could be made on Mars were either made by Sherman or the people that followed in the next few expeditions when the planet was fresh and, you know, there were amazing things to be discovered.

So how can you make a discovery? I have quite a list of discoveries that are waiting to be made. So how can you make a discovery? I have quite a list of discoveries that are waiting to be made on Mars. I can list a few of them for you if you like. Yeah, sure. I'd be happy to hear some of those. These are great opportunities. Okay, so here's a list. Live nucleated cells of a type never before seen, fossil traces of extinct multicellular organisms, fossilossilized bones of extinct vertebrates. Dinosaur footprints. Recently deposited wildlife stool droppings.

Tracks left by vehicles of unknown types. Rock inscriptions of unknown origin. Technological artifacts of unexplainable providence. Runes of structures clearly designed for non-humans. Alien statues. Remains of pre-spaceflight humans, for example, medieval knights, the Holy Grail, the One True Cross, angel skeletons, books or scrolls made of gold foil filled with writing that only you can decipher. Now, a lot of these

discoveries take a certain amount of work to make, but there are qualified professionals in New Plymouth who can manufacture virtually any of them, and also good publicists that can publicize them, who are more than worth their fees. We'll get more advice from 22nd century Martian Robert Zubrin in a minute. This is Planetary Radio. I'm Robert Picardo. I traveled across the galaxy as the doctor in Star Trek Voyager. Then I joined the Planetary Society to become part of the real adventure of space exploration.

The Society fights for missions that unveil the secrets of the solar system. It searches for other intelligences in the universe, and it built the first solar sail. It also shares the wonder through this radio show, its website, and other exciting projects that reach around the globe. this radio show, its website, and other exciting projects that reach around the globe. I'm proud to be part of this greatest of all voyages, and I hope you'll consider joining us. You can learn more about the Planetary Society at our website, planetary.org slash radio, or by calling 1-800-9-WORLDS. Planetary Radio listeners who aren't yet members can join and receive a Planetary Radio t-shirt. Our nearly 100,000 members receive the internationally acclaimed Planetary Report magazine.

That's planetary.org slash radio. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan. We are privileged to be speaking with the author of How to Live on Mars, a trusty guidebook to surviving and thriving on the red planet. Its author, Robert Zubrin, who lives there in the 22nd century, says he's no relation, really, to the Robert Zubrin in our own time, who heads both the Mars Society and Pioneer Astronautics. That Robert Zubrin will be our guest next week. Just before the break,

the future Robert Zubrin gave us his list of major discoveries still to be made on Mars, so long as you're willing to, well, be a bit creative in your approach. You know, you make hundreds of suggestions, this list among them, for ways to survive and thrive on Mars. Many of them appear to be, well, we said extra-legal earlier, maybe super-legal. Are a lot of you and your fellow Martians a bit larcenous? Larcenous, no. But we like to take advantage of the possibilities that an unexplored and undeveloped and untamed planet has to offer.

I mean, look, you know, for instance, there's a tremendous amount of real estate here on Mars, and it's of unknown value today and perhaps not that valuable today, seeing as most of it's desert. But, you know, there are plans to terraform Mars so that someday some of this will be beachfront property. Now, it's unclear exactly where the beachfront is going to be or when it will be, but it's going to be somewhere sometime. And if a Martian owns some land and he wants to

take an optimistic interpretation of its future value in order to sell it for an appropriate price to newer arrivals, well, you know, is that such a bad thing? I mean, after all, it could come true. You say several times during the book what appears to be your motto, fortune favors the brave. Yes, fortune favors the brave, without question. On Mars, or even Earth, I suppose, but certainly on Mars, where there are incredible opportunities, which in some cases involve a great risk, exploring in the outback. There are minerals that could be found there, perhaps, and in any way claimed where they have been found. It's a question of taking advantage of the possibilities.

You're a principal in both Aries Botanicals and Aries Asteroidals, and you do encourage investments in those in our era still to come. Well, that's only because these are such good investments that it would really be inappropriate for me not to allow other people to share my good fortune. Oh, yes, hopelessly irresponsible of them. Can you tell us a little bit about that latter firm, Ares Asteroidals, and what your business plan is? Oh, well, Ares Asteroidals is a business plan to mine the wealth of the asteroids. You know, the main belt asteroids, there are many of them that are quite rich in platinum group metals, platinum and gold, rhodium, all kinds of things that are incredibly valuable on Earth. And the fact of the matter is that it is much easier to reach the asteroid belt from Mars than it is from Earth, so that compared to mining operations based on Earth, we hold an incredible

advantage of position, and therefore our operation should be incredibly profitable. So I strongly recommend this as a place to get in on the ground floor. Let's look to your own future as we get near the end of our time here. I think our space-time rift is going to close up within a couple of minutes. There are some big projects going on up there on Mars, and really the biggest, you call it the biggest that humans have ever taken on, is terraforming. How's that going?

Well, the terraforming project has just begun. We're already seeing some results. And this, by the way, is the one project of the Mars Authority that virtually every Martian fully supports because this is going to massively improve land values on Mars. The creation of an atmosphere, the creation of lakes, oceans, beachfront property, this is something we're all looking forward to. And they're doing it by actually a technique that was first proposed way back in the 20th century by a scientist named Chris McKay to produce

fluorocarbon gases and just dump them into the atmosphere. They're very strong greenhouse gases. Back in those days on Earth, there were all kinds of people concerned about global warming. I don't know why. In any case, on Mars, we certainly favor global warming because this planet is too cold. And these gases are the most potent global warming gases you can possibly have, and they last a long time in the atmosphere. They're producing them. We've already warmed the planet up around 5 degrees. We've doubled the thickness of the atmosphere. This thing's moving forward, and all you have to do to make money off of it is just buy some land and wait for the beach to come to you.

Listen, there's so many more questions that I would love to ask you, but I've just gotten word from Lawrence Livermore that we're causing a brownout in San Francisco holding this rift open. So I just got one more. You mentioned Chris McKay. And I'll be darned if in the photo of the founders of what I guess you're calling the Free Martian Republic, if I didn't see somebody, in fact, a lot of people there who looked very much like they had an uncanny resemblance to 20th and 21st century Mars explorers and enthusiasts, the group that you call the Forerunners. Just a coincidence?

It has to be a coincidence. I can see no rational reason why the founders of the Free Martian Republic should look like people like Chris McKay and Carl Sagan and Ray Bradbury and Arthur Clarke and my namesake and so forth. Well, thank you so much for taking a few minutes out of your day and using up a little bit of that hard-earned oxygen up there to tell us about life on Mars in the 22nd century. And I know a lot of us back here look forward to setting all of us on our way to that future that you've achieved.

Okay. Well, you are most welcome. on our way to that future that you've achieved. Okay. Well, you are most welcome. Robert Zubrin is a Martian, born in 2071 in New Plymouth Colony, up there on the Red Planet. He graduated from Heinlein High in 2099. He's now a famous, not to say infamous, Red Planet entrepreneur. And as he said, he shares his name with a certain fellow named Robert Zubrin

back in our own time, here in the early 21st century, who was a recipient of the National Space Society's Robert A. Heinlein Award, author of a lot of great books, including The Case for Mars, founded and headed the Mars Society, and is quite a booster of getting humans up to that red planet. We'll be back with Bruce Betts for this week's edition of What's Up, right after we hear from Emily.

Hi, I'm Emily Lakdawalla with questions and answers. A listener asked, I remember that the Apollo missions left seismometers on the surface of the moon. Did they detect any moonquakes? Five of the Apollo missions deployed seismometers on the lunar surface. The Apollo 11 seismometer lasted only three weeks, but others operated until September of 1977. The seismometers successfully detected three different kinds of moon-shaking events. Two were natural, internally generated moonquakes and externally caused meteoroid impacts.

The seismometers also recorded ground shaking when mission controllers deliberately crashed leftover spacecraft into the lunar surface, including the third stages of Saturn V rockets and the used ascent stages of the landers. But what's the use of detecting ground motion on the moon? But what's the use of detecting ground motion on the moon? The shape and timing of seismic waves is by far the best way to study the interior of a solid world. It's because of the Apollo seismic experiment that we know the interior of the moon is cold, and that its crust is about three times thicker than Earth's at 60 kilometers thick. The experiment also told us that the upper 20 kilometers of the Moon is heavily fractured from past huge impacts. Natural moonquakes were concentrated at about 1,000 kilometers depth and occurred repeatedly at the same sites at monthly intervals,

indicating that it's tides from Earth's gravity that caused the Moon's natural quakes. Got a question about the universe? Send it to us at planetaryradio at planetary.org. And now here's Matt with more Planetary Radio. Back in the 21st century now for this week's edition of What's Up, which means Bruce Betts is at

the other end of the Skype line. He's the director of projects for the Planetary Society. Welcome back. How's the sky? Much clearer, but it depends on which way the smoke's blowing. We had a lot of concern for you, especially in light of the trivia question that we're going to answer this week. A few people who said that they hope that your home never gets as hot as the surface of Venus, which was a possibility. But it's all good.

It's all good now. Well, you know, at least for my home. So do tell us, what's up? Venus, extremely bright in the pre-dawn east with dimmer reddish Mars above it. Mars getting higher, Venus starting to get lower. And coming up here in early October, very low in the pre-dawn east, you can check out also Mercury and Saturn. And they're all going to be clustering together between like October 8th and 13th. I'll give you a little more detail as that comes up.

And then Saturn will be getting higher in the sky, Venus and Mercury going bye-bye. In the evening sky, still Jupiter the thing to watch, extremely bright, low in the east in the early evening. On to this week in space history. This is how I now mark time, Matt, because I like to always let you know the anniversary week of when Lost in Space premiered on TV in 1965. Can't believe another year has passed. You're absolutely right. This has become a tradition for us. Dr. Smith, we salute you wherever you are.

Danger, danger, danger, Matt Kaplan, danger. I wanted to be Billy Moomy. I even got to tell Billy Moomy that once, that I wanted to be him really bad. He said, no, he said, you really didn't want to be me. That also explains the restraining order. I always wondered about that. Yeah. Okay, you're telling all my secrets. Come on.

On to random space fact. Oh, a tender ballad today. Boom, boom. The space shuttle. Did you hear it the other day? I sure did, and that's exactly what I heard. My God, I thought it went over again just now because you did that. Well, I thought of recording it, but I knew that I could just recreate it so accurately.

Yes, space shuttle came and landed at its alternate landing site, Edwards Air Force Base. As you know, as I simulated, it has two distinct sonic booms that you hear when it goes flying over you, way over you. One from the leading part of the shuttle and one from the tail. The booms seem to be, there was more of a separation between them. I thought this time that's got to be subjective, right? Because I knew that that was the explanation and it seemed like maybe the shuttle was going over at about 30 miles an hour. Yes, it was this time, oddly enough. That's good. I'm glad they've perfected that.

Bonus space fact for you to show that's probably not true. Its landing speed is about 220 miles per hour, and that whole, you know, sonic boom has to be moving faster than the speed of sound. Unbelievable amount of energy, though. It amazes me that it can rattle windows all over Southern California when it comes in. Yeah, I had enough time to warn my wife to be ready for it so that she wouldn't think it was an earthquake. Yes, I have done that before. But this time we were out there ready and listening. So on to the trivia contest. We asked you all, what's the ballpark surface temperature on Venus?

How did we do, Matt, other than those warm and tender feelings about my home? Let me go right to the winner. We had a whole bunch of people who got it, and you did say ballpark, which is good, because there's a little bit of disagreement about this. But also there's some variation with altitude on the surface and such, although a lot less variation than you get on Earth or any other planet. Well, that only makes sense. Well, here's somebody who came in right in the middle of that who got picked out by Random.org as this week's winner.

It's Suloni Shirka. Suloni Shirka of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, of course. 870 degrees Fahrenheit or 465 degrees Celsius. So, Saloni, you get this week's Planetary Radio t-shirt and an OPT rewards card if you so choose. We did also hear from lots of other people who had interesting things to say, like William Stewart, and several others who talked about the pressure down there at the surface, what would be sea level, I guess, 90 plus bar. He pointed out that most submarines would be crushed on the surface of Venus, which that does kind of make it real for you, doesn't it?

It does make it sink in. I hardly agree. Lindsay Dawson said, yeah, you'd be cooked, corroded, crushed, and asphyxiated. But he figures that the big sport on Venus must be base jumping because the terminal velocity in that incredibly thick atmosphere is as low as 25 kilometers per hour. So maybe 15 miles per hour. Pretty cool. You don't even need a parachute. It'll just melt anyway, probably.

Yeah. It'll just get eaten away or melt anyway. So just jump. All right. And, it'll just get eaten away or melt anyway. So just jump. All right. And we have some excitement for this new contest. We sure do. This is big stuff. Great prize, folks.

And we're going to lead up to an even better prize. Well, we are giving away season one on Blu-ray of the History Channel series, The Universe. They're just starting kicking off their fourth season, and they have some excellent experts on this fourth season, by the way. Tell us about the special guest star on the episode that will air on the evening of September 22nd, Tuesday the 22nd at 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific. Well, as you might have guessed, I'm on it, as well as others, and we talk about 10 ways to destroy the Earth. Which is good. Only 10. I'm glad you managed to limit yourself there.

I will definitely tune in, and to mark that, I guess, the History Channel folks have given us some copies of previous seasons to give away. They have. So you've got this week we're giving away, again, a whole of Season 1 on Blu-ray. There's all sorts of planetary episodes in Season 1, as well as a few more exotic ones, galaxies and E.T. and things like that. And we're going to do the same next week, and then the week after that, we're going to give away the Collector's Edition of the Universe series. But go ahead and give us this contest that might win somebody those Blu-ray discs. All right, to the nearest centimeter,

how big is the Universe? No, no, no, no, no. That's not it. But it seems more appropriate. But my question for you, to the nearest, you know, not centimeter, the nearest reasonable amount of distance, the Apollo Command Module astronauts have sometimes been called the most isolated humans

ever because their closest other humans were on the moon. They're orbiting. How far away were they roughly when they were the farthest from any other human in the universe? Go to planetary.org slash radio. Find out how to enter and earn your fascinating and enjoyable universe. Blue Ray set. And you've got until Monday, September 21 at 2 p.m. Pacific time to go for this marvelous prize package because we'll include a T-shirt as well. All right, everybody, go out there, look up the night sky and think about juggling.

Thank you and good night. He's Bruce Betts and he is quite the juggler. You've got to see him in person sometime. He's the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society and he joins us every week here for What's Up. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California. Keep looking up. Thank you.