Packing for Mars (Part 2)

In “Packing for Mars Part 2” Neil asks astronaut Mike Massimino and author Mary Roach questions the press avoids: how to go to the bathroom or have sex in space.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now in our second hour. Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist in New York City with the American Museum of Natural History in studio. Chuck Nice, comic. Always good to have you.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  Always good to be here Neil.

• 0:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In this hour, we're talking about sending humans to the red planet.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The red planet Mars. And I gotta do that with an actual live astronaut, a New Yorker at that. Active astronaut Mike Massimino.

• 0:51Mike Massimino?

  Great to be here.

• 0:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Great to have you here. And we have clips from an interview I conducted with Mary Roach. She's a journalist and has written interesting books about unusual topics, one of which was just how to get to Mars and all the weird and odd experiments and research papers that were done to try to make that happen. And all the consideration that you have to go through with the food, the radiation shielding and will you tick off your other astronauts because they're tired of your jokes?

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Right. That would be me. That's where I come in. The first one to be jettisoned from the mission.

• 1:33Mike Massimino?

  Nah, you keep everybody going. Vital part of the whole thing.

• 1:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now here's something that the press hardly ever talks about, but kids do. You gotta, Mike, am I right? If you speak to elementary school kids, what's the first question they ask you about space?

• 1:50Mike Massimino?

  The same one you would ask. How do you poop and pee?

• 1:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do you go to potty?

• 1:55Mike Massimino?

  How do you go to the bathroom?

• 1:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In space. So. So.

• 2:01Mike Massimino?

  Everybody, you can't pour that one off on the kids. Everyone wants to know.

• 2:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But adults have, yeah, kids don't know that they shouldn't be asking the question.

• 2:09Mike Massimino?

  Or adults tell them to ask it. Everybody wants to know.

• 2:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so in my, let's find out what Mary Roach has to say and then we'll get your reaction to this. On what it is to go to potty in space.

• 2:22Mary Roach?

  Are you familiar with a positional trainer?

• 2:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm actually afraid to ask, but I will, go on.

• 2:27Mary Roach?

  Okay, you should be afraid.

• 2:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to remind our listeners, there is no room that you walk into where they turn off the gravity. So to create zero G is essentially, it's not possible unless you go one of these.

• 2:37Mary Roach?

  Unless you go on a parabolic, up and downy flight.

• 2:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you go, yeah, on one of the airplanes that simulate it.

• 2:42Mary Roach?

  And they test those toilets. So technically, I could have been the poor schmo who sits on the toilet to test it on the parabolic flight, but I wasn't. But the positional trainer, it's a toilet with a video camera in it facing upwards. It's a closed circuit TV.

• 2:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The camera is in the toilet?

• 2:58Mary Roach?

  The camera is in the toilet and it's aiming at your butt.

• 3:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 3:01Mary Roach?

  Okay, okay, let me explain.

• 3:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is at NASA?

• 3:04Mary Roach?

  This is at NASA.

• 3:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is my tax money at work?

• 3:05Mary Roach?

  Johnson Space Center, yeah, yeah. And it's a closed circuit.

• 3:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Show me the camera looking at my butt.

• 3:10Mary Roach?

  It gets better.

• 3:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anything can get better after you tell me there's a camera looking at my butt.

• 3:13Mary Roach?

  The display, what's being filmed on the camera is right next to you on the toilet. So they turn on the light and now you see what the camera is seeing.

• 3:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why?

• 3:23Mary Roach?

  Because your angle of approach on a space toilet is important. People often sit back too far and it's a smaller hole and if your angle's wrong, then you gum up. You gum up the air holes because it works by airflow and it kind of pulls the material. Because there's no gravity to pull the material down into the bowl, as it were. So you've got airflow. It's like a shop vac. You're sitting on a shop vac.

• 3:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. And so it's why an airflow to simulate what would have otherwise just been gravity doing it for free.

• 3:50Mary Roach?

  Yes, it gives you good separation.

• 3:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the camera is for your own private amusement?

• 3:55Mary Roach?

  The camera is for YouTube.

• 3:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's not being put on YouTube or on the internet.

• 3:58Mary Roach?

  No, no, no. It's actually not filming. It's just.

• 4:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a monitor.

• 4:01Mary Roach?

  It's a monitor. Thank you. You are the only person, hopefully, that has access to what it is showing. It's a docking maneuver.

• 4:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what it is?

• 4:09Mary Roach?

  You're practicing docking.

• 4:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're docking your butt to the toilet seat in the right spot.

• 4:13Mary Roach?

  The right angle. It's not easy because you're not sitting in zero gravity. You don't sit on a toilet. You hover a little bit above.

• 4:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're hovering, you're floating.

• 4:20Mary Roach?

  You're floating. Right. So you've got to get used to that.

• 4:24Mike Massimino?

  Mike, what is she describing here? Well, first she terrified me when she used the word filmed and video and I'm glad you clarified that that thing really is only going into the cat, the video, the monitor that you're seeing in front of you. Closed circuit monitor. But alignment is really important and this is a, this is for the shuttle toilet. And yes, she would, and in fact, this is important. The only time everyone gets serious and Chuck, even you would be serious is when you get the brief on the toilet. Because you want to know how to use that. You don't want any material getting loose in the cabinet. No, you don't. Material. You gotta know how to use the toilet. Health and hygiene. And it's so important that in quarantine, you have access to that positional trainer so that you can practice right before you leave for the Cape to go launch into space. What is quarantine? What is quarantine?

• 5:07Mike Massimino?

  Quarantine, a week before the flight, we, we go to quarantine. We started out at the Johnson Space Center. We have a quarantine here to want to keep you healthy. Johnson Space Center in Houston. In Houston, right. And then we also, when we fly to Florida, this is in the shuttle days, we fly to Florida and we go to quarantine at the Kennedy Space Center. So one of the things you do- I can't believe he said, he said- Those were the shuttle days. The shuttle, I hate to say it, but-

• 5:27Speaker 01

  It just sounds wrong.

• 5:28Mike Massimino?

  Now we go, we go further. But one of the things you want to practice on our shuttle flights, you'd want to have it fresh in your mind, the right position. And what you'd want to do is use that camera that she described to get the right alignment and you would try to memorize this for when you got to space. And what I memorized was I felt like I was Peter Fonda on Easy Rider riding a chopper. Like I was sitting in a chopper and that was the position that worked for me in the trainer and that's what I tried to memorize that body position. So I would get a good, a good strike in space. Why are you in quarantine before the flight? Because they don't want you getting sick. So it's really, it's a, they don't want any germs to come near you. So anyone that visits you has to get checked out by the flight surgeon, by the flight doc ahead of time. You're in a sterile environment. They clean the place really well. Make sure there's nothing that's going to get

• 6:13Mike Massimino?

  you ill because that could put the mission in jeopardy. The whole mission, right. That's communicable. Right.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  As opposed to actually pooping in space and having space scat all over the place because that's healthy.

• 6:24Mike Massimino?

  No, that's, that's why we practice. Yeah.

• 6:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Space scat, oh, that's a phrase. So it, where is the bathroom? I mean, is it, you just floating in the middle of the joint? Or is that, how does this work?

• 6:35Mike Massimino?

  No, and on the, uh, on this, on the space station, there is a, a, a, a toilet area. There is a, a, there is a space hall that's different than what we had on the show. It's more, it's more on the Russian design, which was basically a can.

• 6:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can.

• 6:48Mike Massimino?

  Right, so you can poop in a, in a can, and there is a little seat on it. And you do, you don't really hover, as she described it. You do want to have a, a good connection with that seat.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  You want to dock firmly.

• 6:58Mike Massimino?

  Right, so you want to, you want to.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  You want to dock firmly.

• 7:00Mike Massimino?

  So you can use your, absolutely, yeah, I don't, I disagree with the hovering.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:03Mike Massimino?

  On the shuttle, we had, uh, little arms that would come over and, over your thighs that would keep you on the seat. Or you could push down on the ceiling.

• 7:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Arms over your thighs?

• 7:11Mike Massimino?

  Little, it's like, uh, little handles that you can.

• 7:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Handles, thank you.

• 7:13Mike Massimino?

  Handles that come and put.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, I actually hire a little person to do that for me.

• 7:18Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, thank you for clarifying.

• 7:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Arms, yeah, okay.

• 7:22Mike Massimino?

  These little handles that would come over and push you down, on your thighs that would push you down. Or you could push against the ceiling and, and the, uh, on the station, same thing. You could push against the ceiling, or you could use, uh, your feet footholds.

• 7:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or were you pushing against the floor?

• 7:33Mike Massimino?

  Pushing against the floor, well, it depends, that's another good one. That's a, that's a.

• 7:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, what I'm saying is, why is there a ceiling or floor at all? You're in space, weightless.

• 7:41Mike Massimino?

  Uh, just, just so you can read stuff, you know, you have orientation here and there, and you know where things are. Um, but, and, but, uh, another big thing on the station is that we recycle the urine.

• 7:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you drink it.

• 7:52Mike Massimino?

  And, yeah, you drink it, you can make food with it. It's, all the water gets recycled. They recover about 70% of the water.

• 7:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck is ready to barf, right, right at this moment.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  That is so.

• 8:01Mike Massimino?

  I should have brought some with me.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:03Mike Massimino?

  I'll bring some with me. If you have me back, I'll bring you some water to drink.

• 8:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bring some pee water.

• 8:07Mike Massimino?

  You got it.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Can't wait.

• 8:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, when we come back to StarTalk Radio, more on what it is to pack for Mars, and all the challenges that that involves. This is StarTalk Radio.

• 8:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. In studio, Chuck Nice, comic. Yes. Mike Massimino, astronaut. Yes. What a combo I got here. A comedian and an astronaut.

• 8:35Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 8:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, you know, who gets to say that?

• 8:37Mike Massimino?

  You don't see that very often.

• 8:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, we were, when we, where we last left off, we were talking about, uh, basically how you go to potty in space. But here's another challenge. Once you go to potty, what happens to the, okay, you told me what happens to your urine. They recycle it. They have filters, I guess. And then it, you drink it. You keep, you recycle your fluids.

• 9:03Mike Massimino?

  Right.

• 9:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 9:04Mike Massimino?

  You have to. You need, you need water.

• 9:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. But I would find the nearest comet. Nope. I'd do like a swap with the comet. Come on, you take my pee. I'm gonna get some nice ice cubes.

• 9:15Mike Massimino?

  I'm gonna get some ice.

• 9:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, but, uh, when you get to Mars, for example, there's this accumulation of human waste. And this is still, I think, an unresolved problem. What, do you bury it there? Do you, and Mars is this pristine environment, and here we come.

• 9:30Mike Massimino?

  You don't wanna, right.

• 9:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here we come.

• 9:32Mike Massimino?

  Talk about leave no trace camping.

• 9:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 9:34Mike Massimino?

  You don't wanna, hello Martians, this is what we have for you. Yeah.

• 9:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the thing is, when you go camping, we take for granted, in fact, it's just a fundamental part of our understanding of nature, that it will decompose.

• 9:45Mike Massimino?

  Right.

• 9:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And become part of the woods.

• 9:47Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 9:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that, that's why they want you to bury your trash and bury your poop. Or take your non-decomposable trash out, but bury that which is decomposable. But decompose means there are bugs out there that are chowing down on what it is that you put there and it returns it to its base materials. On Mars, where there aren't no, no known microorganisms, you bury, you bury your coke can there. It's there forever.

• 10:09Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, it's gonna, you come back and get it later.

• 10:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your poop is there forever.

• 10:14Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, right.

• 10:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right?

• 10:15Mike Massimino?

  Yeah. That's a discovery for future generations.

• 10:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's different. And, so in my interview with, uh, Mary Roach, we also talked about other, um, topics that the press doesn't usually address. Let's find out.

• 10:32Mike Massimino?

  Ooh, can't wait to hear.

• 10:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What those include.

• 10:36Mary Roach?

  There was a guy who advocated, one of the criteria for choosing astronauts should be what kind of intestinal flora you have, so that you don't produce too much methane. Not because it stinks, but because it's explosive.

• 10:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, especially if they're guys, because you know, that's all they do. They just light each other's farts, is what guys do.

• 10:51Mary Roach?

  And there was rumors that on the space station, they would use farts like rocket propellant to launch themselves across the middeck.

• 10:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That will so happen. It's just Newton's laws, equal and opposite reaction.

• 11:02Mary Roach?

  There's an astronaut who tested it, and it did not.

• 11:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why not? It has to work.

• 11:05Mary Roach?

  He said, he said, "It's not enough, because a fart is only about like three soda cans worth of air."

• 11:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 11:10Mary Roach?

  The human lungs hold much more. You can't exhale and propel yourself. He tried. He tried. He said, "It wasn't enough to accelerate the mass of 180-pound men."

• 11:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I don't believe that. Because any force will accelerate any mass.

• 11:21Mary Roach?

  He farted and tried.

• 11:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He needed a little more beans in his diet. No, what I'm saying is-

• 11:25Mary Roach?

  He said it was, quote, "A-"

• 11:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What may have happened is-

• 11:27Mary Roach?

  "Prodigious and rapidly expelled purge."

• 11:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow. That's got to get the euphemism award for the year. "Prodigious and rapidly expelled..."

• 11:37Mary Roach?

  Purge.

• 11:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Purge.

• 11:38Mary Roach?

  And he said, "I failed to move noticeably." Okay, he's done the sign.

• 11:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's it, okay.

• 11:43Mary Roach?

  Case closed.

• 11:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Experiment done. I'm guessing that, you know, the space station has air currents, just simply by the circulation of air to keep it fresh and filtered, and they actually filter out the moisture and the humidity. So, I'm guessing that rapid purge was not distinguishable from other air currents going on in the room, so that it could not overcome other random air forces that are operating on his body. Otherwise, it would have moved him, period. It may have been slow, but it would have moved him, and that's Newton's law.

• 12:14Mary Roach?

  Well, I, he was going down to Cape Canaveral, and he was going to ask around to see if anybody else had any input, but nobody was spilling the beans, so to speak. So, it's anecdotal, I admit.

• 12:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So, I'm saying Newton's laws win in the end, but I think there's probably other air currents that would have interfered.

• 12:29Mary Roach?

  He also thought perhaps because he was wearing pants that the-

• 12:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was wearing pants!

• 12:32Mary Roach?

  Okay, he was wearing pants. I know, I know. But his next flight was mixed gender, so he couldn't strip down naked and try it again.

• 12:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are laws against that.

• 12:39Mary Roach?

  There are other laws, not Newton's.

• 12:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not Newton's laws.

• 12:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you have it, Newton's law analysis of flatulence.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Dude, that was awesome. Did you see the smackdown that Neil just put on Mary? It's like, no, no, it works that way. I'm telling you. There's no way. See, the problem was, it was a prodigious purge. And he just said, "I got a ripper."

• 13:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  I just ripped one.

• 13:05Mike Massimino?

  It wasn't a clean experiment, though, with the pants and the air.

• 13:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, if it pants, you can't, yeah, if it's contained, you can't.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  You can't do it.

• 13:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't do it. He had to be mooning while he did it.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Right. The space suit needed a fart flap. Fart flap. And then it would work.

• 13:18Mike Massimino?

  Right.

• 13:21Mike Massimino?

  He would have to call Bear Butt on the midday.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 13:24Mike Massimino?

  And give fair warning to do that.

• 13:27Mike Massimino?

  Give fair warning for people that what was going on.

• 13:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Put on your space helmets.

• 13:31Mike Massimino?

  In the name of science. That's the way the experiment should have been conducted.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 13:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the name of science. But just to be, to be precise, that's exactly how the shuttle lifts. It expels gas out of one end and the physical shuttle recoils in the other. That's how any rocket launches.

• 13:49Mike Massimino?

  Which makes a case for bigger and fatter astronauts. That's what you're saying, Nick.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  They also serve as rocket fuel.

• 13:56Mike Massimino?

  There you go. Yeah, channel some of that power.

• 13:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Rocket fuel. So what's interesting, getting back to Newton's laws. What's interesting here is that there, you can use Newton's laws to simulate gravity. And so, for example, there's all this talk about how do you survive zero G and you lose your bone mass? Have you lost bone mass while you were in orbit? Were you in orbit long enough?

• 14:17Mike Massimino?

  It wasn't long enough and we exercised. And they've gotten pretty good about stopping that problem through sheer exercise.

• 14:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 14:24Mike Massimino?

  So, yeah, it's not as much as an issue as it was.

• 14:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, when you're just sitting there doing nothing.

• 14:28Mike Massimino?

  Right, right. They've gotten pretty good at the counter, counter effects of it.

• 14:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, because for example, you can simulate gravity by just rotating, you get a big rotating ring, just like in two thousand and one. A rotating spaceship. And you'd walk around on the outer perimeter of it. And it's the centrifugal force. Uh, enables you to.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  Would actually pin you to the side.

• 14:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Basically pin you to the outer rim of the, of the rotating wheel. You get the right speed of the wheel. And you can actually create any kind of gravity you want, earth gravity, mars gravity, moon gravity. Stop the spinning, you get zero gravity, so it's a, it's like a gravity machine in a sense. And so, uh, my hope is that when we go into deep space missions, that this would be one way you would do that.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, another way, this is hardly talked about, is you don't just coast to Mars. Right now, when we say it takes nine months, six to nine months, it's because you're coasting. Right? You get enough speed to escape. Earth's gravitational embrace. And then you cross over between your earth's pull and mars's pull. And you just cross it over and then mars pulls you in. So the whole route, you're coasting. But in, if instead you brought enough fuel or you had filling stations along the way. You just accelerate the whole way towards mars. While you're accelerating, you just simulated gravity. If the ship is.

• 15:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what an acceleration is. You accelerate at one G, the side of the craft that's behind you, that's the, that's the side you're walking on.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But now you gotta slow down. So midway, you turn the craft around and then you decelerate at one G. But now you're standing on the other side of the ship. And so you basically simulate your gravity the whole way while you get there fast. And that by then, you get there in a few weeks.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  That is great idea. That's awesome. We, I want to know where does farting fit in there?

• 16:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'd have a, a window going out to space, right? And then you would, you know, uh, cause that would help a little bit, you know, I don't know by how much.

• 16:29Mike Massimino?

  You can't get carried away, it could jeopardize the mission though. That I've experienced, they could blow the whole thing. You don't want to take that risk.

• 16:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, the point is, methane is an active ingredient in effluence. And as Mary Roach had commented correctly, it's not that it smells, but that it's flammable, and you don't want flammable gases. Methane is the gas in your gas, do you have a gas stove, Chuck?

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Uh, yes, I do have a gas stove.

• 16:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's methane, very likely.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  That is, that is a methane gas. Most likely, yeah.

• 16:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what started the whole thing with like lighting flatulence, you know, which guys do around a campfire.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  I believe that started with the caveman. If I'm not mistaken.

• 17:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not the cave woman, the caveman.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  The caveman.

• 17:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Trog.

• 17:10Mike Massimino?

  Now, I know why we don't have open flame in space.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  I don't understand, if you harness the power of your own fluids, in terms of recycling and using them for drink, then why can't you harness the power of your own flatulence by using that as for something?

• 17:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, in agriculture schools, they do, when they have these barns where the cows are.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They capture the methane from the cow flatulence, and they use that to heat the barn in the winter. Go up to Cornell Ag School, for example, and all the ag schools do this. So, they do recycle it, but I don't know if you, but you'd still want flame to be the source of your heat, right?

• 17:52Speaker 01

  No.

• 17:53Mike Massimino?

  Uh, yeah, and you know, plus, you need to have, you need a good circulation, you don't want it to be uncomfortable, and you know, there's the human element to it, too. It might not be very pleasant.

• 18:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Except to the person who did it.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Because it's always good to you.

• 18:09Mike Massimino?

  Either that, or always have, always have the O2 mask ready to go. Emergency O2 is needed, not for smoke, but for gas, human gas.

• 18:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been listening to StarTalk Radio. You can find us on the web, startalkradio.net. We're also in the Twitterverse, guess what, at StarTalk Radio. When we come back, more on packing for Mars, in fact, I have a wonder about sex in space. Stay tuned.

• 18:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back with StarTalk Radio. The subject of today's program. What would it be like to send a human mission to Mars? What are the challenges? What are the joys? And the only way I can do that is to bring in an actual astronaut. Mike Massimino. Mike, welcome.

• 18:59Mike Massimino?

  It's a pleasure to be here, Neil.

• 19:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Great to have you.

• 19:02Mike Massimino?

  Great to be here.

• 19:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I couldn't do this without Chuck Nice, because like, he's thought deeply about Mars missions, haven't you?

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Yes, all of my thoughts are very, very deep. Those still waters, God, I can't tell you.

• 19:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we came off of a segment reflecting on what role flatulence plays in space. First, that there's a lot of methane. By the way, you know where the methane comes from?

• 19:26Speaker 01

  No.

• 19:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's because, deep in your lower intestine, you have anaerobic microbes munching down on your foodstuffs. Because these are microbes that thrive in the absence of oxygen. Anaerobics. The opposite of aerobics. Remember, what they used, today they call cardio, they used to call aerobics? It's because you would, your body would exercise in a way where you would replenish your oxygen. And you can sustain that, and then you'd be in training, alright? Anything that's sort of a low enough level and long, you do that aerobically. And so, when you're anaerobic, you have different byproducts. And the microbes in your lower intestine, one of the byproducts is methane.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 20:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in fact, we found methane emanating from cliff faces of Mars in recent Mars studies.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  Really?

• 20:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, makes you wonder, are there, like, Mars flatulence, essentially?

• 20:18Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, yeah. Mars is farting.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  That's what got rid of the Martians. They literally farted themselves into extinction.

• 20:26Mike Massimino?

  It was not an asteroid.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 20:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the thing is, you can get methane from natural causes, from, you know, geologic causes, but another one is through the action of anaerobic life. And so, it made for a very intriguing next set of questions about how we're going to look for life on Mars, and where we're going to try to find it.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 20:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, methane is not stable. It wants to combine with other, so if you see it anywhere, it was freshly made, because it will rapidly combine with other molecules to make other compounds. So... So methane is unstable. I mean, if you saw it, it was made yesterday.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 21:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, or, or, or in the very recent past. Just little bits of information we invoke.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  I know. I just made some right now.

• 21:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You made what?

• 21:13Speaker 01

  Sorry about that.

• 21:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's also, uh, hydrogen sulfide is a, is another active ingredient in a lot of that. It gives the rotten egg smell.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 21:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, that's, we could do a whole chemistry show on that. But let's switch topics.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, we're still on Mars, but we, talk about sex in space. It's another one that the press hardly ever mentions. Sex is a, is a fundamental part of human biology, right? I mean, who, in, in, in a long journey, depending on your libido.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  And what'd you say? This would be a three-year journey?

• 21:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A three-year tour. Three years. Yeah. It's like, what is, what are your libidic tolerances? I think is what this comes down to. And picking up on my interview with Mary Roach, she did a lot of homework on sex in space. And let's find out where she, where she lands.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:02Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, can't wait.

• 22:04Mary Roach?

  Looking towards a two to three-year mission, you're gonna have to send men, women. There's gotta be some sort of sexual interaction, I would think.

• 22:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Aren't there some people that hardly ever think about sex? So maybe one of the criteria, because sex really complicates the social situation, doesn't it?

• 22:18Mary Roach?

  Yeah, Mike Collins, Apollo astronaut, jokingly said, "The best crew would be a bunch of eunuchs."

• 22:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 22:23Mary Roach?

  But yes, that would solve.

• 22:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because that creates a social dynamic that is unstable in most situations.

• 22:29Mary Roach?

  Right. I asked some cosmonauts about this. Cosmonauts are fairly forthcoming on things. Particularly after a shot of whiskey.

• 22:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it'd be vodka.

• 22:36Mary Roach?

  It was whiskey.

• 22:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 22:38Mary Roach?

  It was whiskey. These two guys had been, Alexander Levakin and Yuri Romanenko, they'd been up on Mir for six months together. And I said, "Wow."

• 22:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mir, the Russian space station, the predated the International Space Station.

• 22:47Mary Roach?

  Exactly. And I said, "How did you handle libido? This is an issue." And he said, "Yes." Mary, people ask me this all the time. They're saying, Sasha, his nickname was Sasha. Sasha, how are you making sex in space? And he goes, "Of course, by hand." So there's that option. He says, there's always a chance. It happens in your sleep.

• 23:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People go, people go years without sex, actually, right on Earth.

• 23:08Mary Roach?

  Yeah, yeah. I think the concern is that, just the soap opera, you know, the

• 23:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The drama.

• 23:13Mary Roach?

  Drama of people falling in love and being jealous and all of that. Is that going to interfere with the mission? I think people could behave themselves for two and a half, three years. I really do. I mean, they just

• 23:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what you need

• 23:23Mary Roach?

  Astronauts are really motivated people.

• 23:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You need a libido check. It's gotta be it. They give you an eye test. They give you all these tests to make sure you're physically

• 23:30Mary Roach?

  Measured testosterone.

• 23:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They give you a libido test. If you're above some threshold, you ain't going to Mars. You're gonna mess up the whole operation.

• 23:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Mike, so your, your two week missions, they don't give you libido tests, I don't think.

• 23:44Mike Massimino?

  No, not that I know of. There was some secret thing that I, that I don't know about, but no, I don't

• 23:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nighttime experiment.

• 23:51Mike Massimino?

  I don't remember anything about that, no.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  But yeah, I, I just realized, not only could I not go to Mars, I can't even make it down to the Lower East Side. I am screwed.

• 24:05Mike Massimino?

  I don't know Chuck, up until now, I thought you'd be the perfect astronaut. Now I have my doubts.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  No, I have, I have too much handmade sex for me.

• 24:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Too much. So I mean, it's an issue, right? I mean, it's, it's, it's at some point, cause it's not just the sex. It's like I was trying to make the point in the clip. There's the dynamics of that changes. Depending on, unless it's just sort of orgy time where the dynamics is not an issue.

• 24:27Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 24:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's probably love and hate and, and it's part of what it is to be human. We don't want to deny that, right?

• 24:34Speaker 01

  Let me just say, I just threw my hat back into the ring. Once I heard orgy time.

• 24:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by the way, it's not just sex. If you're gonna send colonies and they're gonna sort of have next generations, you gotta have fertile people going. They gotta be able to make babies, you know? When we come back, more on packing for Mars and what it takes. This is StarTalk Radio.

• 25:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, with comedian Chuck Nice in studio.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Reflecting his deep comedic thoughts on the astronautical, astronomical, cosmological, astronautical... I said that already.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sorry. Reflections of Mike Massimino, NASA astronaut. Mike, great to have you back.

• 25:32Mike Massimino?

  Oh, I'm overjoyed. This is a lot of fun.

• 25:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We came out of that last segment just talking about sex and space, and Mike, you've only been up for a couple of weeks, so you can go a couple of weeks, I presume.

• 25:42Mike Massimino?

  I can report, yes. That experiment has been... Check off that experiment.

• 25:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The data are in. We have empirical evidence.

• 25:50Mike Massimino?

  Yep. That I can confirm.

• 25:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but someone says, "All right, let's now go for three years." That's a whole other thing.

• 25:56Mike Massimino?

  I haven't tested that one yet.

• 25:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, because if you go into space for the long term, there's not only presumably what is the urge to have sex, if it's really long term and you want to sort of create colonies in destinations, be they Mars or anywhere else, the sex would not only be recreational, it would have to be procreational. How's that for a pair of...

• 26:16Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 26:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  SAT words there?

• 26:19Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 26:19Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, sounds like a bumper sticker.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you've got to populate the colony.

• 26:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've got to populate the colony. And in my interview with Mary Roach, who wrote the book Packing for Mars, she did some homework on that subject, too. Let's find out what she says.

• 26:37Mary Roach?

  NASA has never sent married couples up before. The idea being if there were an accident, you'd lose the whole family, or, you know, they might play favorites.

• 26:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this harps back to the military days where you wouldn't send siblings on the same ship.

• 26:48Mary Roach?

  Exactly.

• 26:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What do you think of the idea of sending a couple who actually wants to have kids, and then they procreate en route and give birth on Mars, and it'll be the first child born on another planet?

• 26:57Mary Roach?

  It's the ultimate reality television. Everyone would be watching. You could fund the entire trip.

• 27:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just on the fees to watch that happen?

• 27:05Mary Roach?

  Yes. Yes. Subscriber fees, advertising, there you go.

• 27:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'd be the most famous baby ever born.

• 27:08Mary Roach?

  It would be the...

• 27:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  After Jesus.

• 27:10Mary Roach?

  It would be like, what was it, The Truman Show?

• 27:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Truman Show, exactly.

• 27:13Mary Roach?

  It would be huge. Everyone would be watching. Plus, if the whole point of space exploration is one day to colonize other universes, planets, whatever, you do want to get at that question. Can you even conceive in zero gravity? Nobody has tested that. Nobody even knows.

• 27:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm betting you can, but yeah.

• 27:28Mary Roach?

  And what about the embryo development?

• 27:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know why? Because I think you can conceive in any body orientation on Earth.

• 27:34Mary Roach?

  Have you tried them all?

• 27:38Mary Roach?

  Where do you get this information?

• 27:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have 12 kids, and one was at each geometric angle. No, I think the muscle contractions all work to get sperm to egg.

• 27:46Mary Roach?

  The up-suck theory.

• 27:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 27:48Mary Roach?

  I have a chapter in Bonk on up-suck.

• 27:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Up-suck.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 27:54Mike Massimino?

  It's a theory for everything, apparently.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Yes, there is.

• 27:57Mike Massimino?

  Somebody's out there doing the research.

• 27:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She's, she wrote a whole other book called Bonk on all the research that went into, that people did on sex over the centuries. And so, in fact, you'd have to wait till another episode of StarTalk Radio to hear that interview.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 28:11Mike Massimino?

  Oh, geez.

• 28:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sorry. So, here's the thing. We'd have to, like, sort of make babies in other colonies.

• 28:18Mary Roach?

  Yeah.

• 28:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's a, that's an interesting sort of future of what that, that, that might bring.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  I just love the concept of space Jesus. The most famous kid in the world.

• 28:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, did I get that wrong?

• 28:32Speaker 01

  No.

• 28:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A baby born on Mars.

• 28:34Mike Massimino?

  A baby born on Mars.

• 28:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next most famous birth since Jesus.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Since Jesus. No, I thought it was perfect.

• 28:38Mike Massimino?

  You got Jay-Z and Beyonce's kid.

• 28:41Mike Massimino?

  I don't know how that would all, I don't know how that would all.

• 28:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, it'd be a close third to their kid.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  There you go. Blue Ivy or Ivy Blue, whatever.

• 28:48Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 28:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What would be weird, though, is that the child is, is, is raised in a slightly lower gravity. Something we'll get, we'll spend more time on in the next segment. Then what does it mean to be raised in a lower gravity?

• 28:58Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 28:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then can you ever come back to Earth?

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Can you overcome that to become a successful person? Pull yourself up. Pull yourself up by your own gravity.

• 29:07Mike Massimino?

  Yeah. It would make a good college entrance essay, though.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Exactly, right.

• 29:10Mike Massimino?

  You know what, you know, what, what, what problems have you had?

• 29:13Speaker 01

  I was born in a low-gravity environment.

• 29:15Mike Massimino?

  Yes. I was the only kid on my block.

• 29:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because what happens is, if you go on a really long voyage, you not only need that generation, you need generations that follow. Right. So there'll be whole generations that never saw the surface of a planet. Awesome.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  That'd be kinda cool, actually.

• 29:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Would you want to be one of those?

• 29:32Speaker 01

  I wouldn't mind. I wouldn't mind. I could say goodbye to Earth forever. I wouldn't have no problem.

• 29:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See ya, suckers!

• 29:38Mike Massimino?

  Chuck's sending in his application again. I think we lost him a little while ago, and now he's back in. Alright, let's go.

• 29:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he's back. So, so let me, let me ask you, Mike. If you, you got a family, right?

• 29:50Mike Massimino?

  I do, yes.

• 29:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How many kids you have?

• 29:52Mike Massimino?

  I have two.

• 29:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two kids. Would you bring the whole kit and the caboodle with you?

• 29:54Mike Massimino?

  I would. They wouldn't want to come with me, though. They would say, "Sure, we'll go. Can we leave him at home?" One of the advantages of me being an astronaut is they get rid of me. But I would love to have them. In fact, that's one of the things you, when you're in space, you, you don't have all your friends with you and your family, and that's probably the only bad thing about being in space. You can't share it with everybody else.

• 30:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's a tender moment.

• 30:14Mike Massimino?

  It is a little tender. But the truth of it is, my family wouldn't want to go with me, probably.

• 30:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back to StarTalk Radio, more on packing for Mars, and what it takes, and what it involves, and whether we can actually specie- humans into another division of the, of the tree of life. Nice. When we come back to StarTalk Radio.

• 30:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back to StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, in studio comedian Chuck Nice and astronaut Mike Massimino. We're talking about going to Mars. Yeah.

• 30:53Mike Massimino?

  Going to Mars.

• 30:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't think we left any subject untouched in these.

• 30:57Mike Massimino?

  I, I bet you could think of a couple more, but I think we've done enough.

• 31:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, let me just, let me just make sure we know. Mike, you tweet on, on your astronaut exploits.

• 31:08Mike Massimino?

  I do, yes.

• 31:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's @astro mike with an underscore. I hate underscores, by the way, but it's just, it's a pet peeve of mine.

• 31:13Mike Massimino?

  Can I change my name now?

• 31:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Astro underscore Mike, Astro Mike, Chuck, you're Chuck Nice Comic?

• 31:20Speaker 01

  At Chuck Nice Comic.

• 31:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I want to, and you gotta see this guy perform, he's awesome, and you get his schedule on his website.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Chuck Nice dot com.

• 31:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck Nice dot com. So, we've been talking about colonies, you know, the, the early settlers that came from Europe to the New World, they were making babies where they landed, right? Right, certainly were. Uh, so, if you're gonna go on long voyages to Mars or beyond, why not make some babies?

• 31:44Speaker 01

  Take your whole family with you.

• 31:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, now, here's the challenge, as you may know, but let's, let's back up from it, have a quick lesson here, lesson plan if I may?

• 31:52Mike Massimino?

  Oh, I love this, I did too, this is great.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  It's one of my favorite parts.

• 31:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so, so watch, the longer a species is stranded away from all other forms of life, the greater is the potential for it to get really weird, because it takes on surviving biological forms and properties unique to that environment, if that environment has particular stresses that other environments don't. What that tells you is, if you had to look around the world and say, where are the weirdest animals, where would you find them?

• 32:24Speaker 01

  People who marry their first cousins.

• 32:28Mike Massimino?

  I'm glad you didn't say where, we might offend people, yes, yeah, but we can imagine where that might be.

• 32:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, what's the most isolated place where you find animals in the world?

• 32:39Speaker 01

  I would say Antarctica.

• 32:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but they're, they're frozen to death there.

• 32:44Mike Massimino?

  That was a nice try.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  That was a nice try.

• 32:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anybody else?

• 32:48Mike Massimino?

  Uh, Madagascar.

• 32:51Speaker 01

  Yes, but those are animals who talk.

• 32:55Mike Massimino?

  So, that's pretty weird in my book, Chuck.

• 32:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the most, we got a nice isolator, it's, it's Australia, and that's where we have, and the weirdest stuff is, you got the flightless birds and, and pouched, you know, marsupials, weird variants on what you find elsewhere in the world.

• 33:11Speaker 01

  Because the entire continent is an island.

• 33:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The entire continent is an island, that's right.

• 33:14Mike Massimino?

  I think we just failed the test though, Chuck. You gave us the quiz and we blew it.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  Our answer was Chris Rock.

• 33:20Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, we didn't.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  As a zebra.

• 33:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You get, you get a C minus on that one. So, think about it, if you go to another, if you create a colony on Mars, and that colony does not crossbreed with anyone on Earth for A thousand generations, then you have, there's the, the risk, or perhaps maybe that's what you want, of they becoming another kind of species. And with different properties that enable their survival in that location. That would just be kinda interesting.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  That would be, especially when they return to Earth to conquer us all. Because you know that's what's gonna happen.

• 33:54Mike Massimino?

  That'd be bad. Don't give them return directions. Yeah, just send them out there and tell them to send video.

• 34:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's interesting is you look at the TV show, uh, Star Trek. What's interesting there is there must have been some cross galactic human breeding going on because Kirk, he's always getting some tail wherever he goes. And they look, they might be blue or green, but there's some female looking aliens.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  They are. And you know what's weird about that?

• 34:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 34:25Speaker 01

  They're always hot. Even, even though they're aliens, like she might be green or might have antenna, but she's always hot. You're looking at it like, yeah, I'd do it. I'd do it.

• 34:36Mike Massimino?

  I think Chuck sent it in his application again. The astronaut application from Chuck is coming. He's ready to go again.

• 34:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's his third iteration.

• 34:43Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 34:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, because it, think about, yeah, it is odd that Kirk is not, uh, uh, fully in love with aliens that don't have an obvious gender revealed in their appearance.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Right. Right. It's not a sleestack.

• 34:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what was the, the, the, the, the Horta? Do you remember the Horta? That was the silicon based life that was basically a rock.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, yeah, yeah, did you, yeah.

• 35:07Mike Massimino?

  Now that you've explained it, yeah.

• 35:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's very cool.

• 35:09Mike Massimino?

  Pretty freaky.

• 35:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, you mean you saw the episode but didn't understand what was going on in it?

• 35:12Mike Massimino?

  No, I remember a rock moving around.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  Yes. That's exactly what it was.

• 35:17Mike Massimino?

  I just remember that.

• 35:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, that was.

• 35:20Mike Massimino?

  That was the show.

• 35:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was a life form and apparently that was female and Kirk did not have the hots for the rock. So, so, but what it tells us is in that future, there's enough of sort of the human lineage. So that even though it's possible, by the way, the very next species that comes, that, that spawns from us, we can still. Our organs will still work together.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, whether or not you have viable offspring. So it's, it's if you have too many of those in a row, the distance can become so great, the biological distance.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can be some so great, so great that you can no longer.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  What's wrong with this chick? All of her parts are in the wrong places. I don't know what to do.

• 36:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Guys, we actually have to wrap this up.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  No.

• 36:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, man. Man, we could do this for five hours. But you know, I need a tweet of the week to round this out. I, you know, I don't know. I don't, how creative do I feel? You know, here's what you do. Next Mars mission. Bring all the food that has space names to it. That's just, that would just be cool. Like Milky Way bar.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 36:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So here we go. So, so here. Uh, tasty cosmos. Milky Way bars, moon pies, eclipse gum, orbit gum, sunkist, celestial seasonings, Mars bar. Food you might take on your journey. But I'm curious why there's no food yet named Uranus.

• 36:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Star Talk Radio. Thanks, Chuck.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  My pleasure.

• 36:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks, Mike.

• 36:46Mike Massimino?

  Thanks for having me.

• 36:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been listening to Star Talk Radio, brought to you in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. Until next time.