Packing for Mars (Part 1)

What are the practical considerations for a NASA mission to Mars? Find out when Neil interviews NASA astronaut Mike Massimino and “Packing for Mars” author Mary Roach.

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?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where I also serve as Director of the Hayden Planetarium. This week, my co-host is comedian Chuck Nice. Chuck! Hey Neil! You've been away too long! I know man, I've missed you! Oh my gosh! I haven't seen you in a while! I love you man! I love you too man!

• 0:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now we gotta break out some beer.

• 0:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Normally that comes at the end of the beer conversation. Oh, there you go. There you go. Great to have you back. You were like the ideal person for this subject. Oh fantastic! Because this topic is, we're calling it "Packing for Mars", Sending Humans to the Red Planet. Nice! And, not that you're necessarily an expert on Mars, but- Or packing. Just saying. Just saying, right. You never know what you need to pack to go to Mars. That's right. But, there was just so many weird and odd things that an astronaut had to go through. I just figured you'd be the right person to offer critical commentary- Awesome. On the running of this. I couldn't do this without, we needed an astronaut in studio, just to offer commentary. And, we brought the one, the only, the hometown kid, Mike Massimino. Yeah!

• 1:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Live NASA astronaut. Mike, welcome back to StarTalk!

• 1:36Mike Massimino?

  It's a pleasure to be here Neil, thanks for having me.

• 1:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is this like your 3rd or 4th appearance?

• 1:40Mike Massimino?

  Uh, I guess.

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll have to like put you on payroll after this.

• 1:45Mike Massimino?

  Nah, that's alright. Then you might expect a little more from me. I don't wanna set the bar too high.

• 1:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go, there you go. You're a veteran of 2 space shuttle missions. STS 109, that was on Columbia by the way-

• 1:55Mike Massimino?

  It was.

• 1:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which we lost a few missions later. And STS 125 Atlantis, both serviced the Hubble Telescope. My man! Where would we be without the Hubble Telescope? Well, we would still be here, but we would be poorer for it.

• 2:08Mike Massimino?

  That's right. Yep, it would make a big difference in our lives, in everyone's lives.

• 2:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'd be psychically poorer.

• 2:14Mike Massimino?

  Absolutely.

• 2:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For that, right. And so- So let me just find out, oh, I just realized, you were like the first astronaut to tweet from space, is that, is that right?

• 2:24Mike Massimino?

  That's right, yeah, I was the, the first guy and uh.

• 2:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you had like a zillion Twitter followers, like overnight for that.

• 2:29Mike Massimino?

  Not quite a zillion, but over a million.

• 2:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the same thing.

• 2:34Mike Massimino?

  We got a lot.

• 2:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Zillion, a million, that's the same thing.

• 2:36Mike Massimino?

  When you're dealing in astronomy, zillions, billions, trillions, it's all, you know, it gets mixed up in there.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, all I want to ask you is, who is your carrier? Because I can't get service in my apartment and you're tweeting from space, that is awesome.

• 2:51Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 2:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, can I have to ask, you know, Neil Armstrong, it was one small step for mankind. What was your first tweet?

• 2:57Mike Massimino?

  Oh, I, actually, they made fun of my first true tweet on a Saturday Night Live.

• 3:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, really?

• 3:03Mike Massimino?

  Yeah. And that's the one, one of the, one of the few things that got my kids excited was that they mentioned it and what I tweeted was, uh, a launch was awesome, I'm feeling great, the adventure has begun, but what they said on Saturday Night Live was, you know, that I, they mispronounced my name, but that was okay, but they said, you know, I, I said, uh, launch was awesome, so I said, in forty years, we've gone from one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind, to launch was awesome, if I ever found aliens, I would treat, I would, I would tweet, geez, guys, look, aliens. So really, I guess it wasn't as momentous as I thought it would be.

• 3:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was not as deep as it might have been.

• 3:35Mike Massimino?

  Right, but you know me well enough, so for me, that is actually pretty deep.

• 3:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that was pretty deep for, for Mike.

• 3:40Mike Massimino?

  Launch was awesome, that's about as much as you're gonna get.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 3:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Mike, would you go to Mars?

• 3:44Mike Massimino?

  I would, yeah, sure.

• 3:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you're an astronaut, you've, you've been to, only been to low Earth orbit.

• 3:49Mike Massimino?

  Right.

• 3:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Couple hundred miles up, right, three, Hubble is about three hundred miles up.

• 3:52Mike Massimino?

  About, uh, three fifty, uh, three fifty statute, three hundred nautical, yeah.

• 3:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have statute issues.

• 3:58Mike Massimino?

  Well, we, statute gives you, you know, it's a smaller, it's a smaller measurement, so you can, it can means, it's more impressive. When you use, you know, it's really three hundred and fifty, so I just, you know.

• 4:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's more miles.

• 4:09Mike Massimino?

  I fell into a bad habit there. Yeah, it's more impressive, three hundred and fifty versus three hundred.

• 4:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So statute miles is what the rest of us use.

• 4:15Mike Massimino?

  That's right, like when you're driving a car and, you know, it says, how far you gotta get to the next town.

• 4:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's two hundred and twenty statute miles from New York to Washington.

• 4:23Mike Massimino?

  There you go, see, it's more impressive if you say, well, it's like two fifty.

• 4:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, okay.

• 4:27Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, so that's, yeah.

• 4:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so would you go to Mars?

• 4:30Mike Massimino?

  I would, yeah, I think that would, I think most astronauts would answer that question, yes.

• 4:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, those who wouldn't would say no?

• 4:36Mike Massimino?

  I don't think any, I, I, I think it would be a wonderful experience. I think it'd be worth the time and training to put into it and the sacrifice that would be involved.

• 4:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It will take us almost a year to get there.

• 4:45Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 4:46Mike Massimino?

  It's a, it is a long time, uh, but I think the reward of getting there and the significance of it and being able to be a part of that would be, it would be worth the sacrifice.

• 4:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know what we did, uh, for StarTalk, I interviewed, uh, Mary Roach, who's a, a sort of journalist, author, writes about really cool, weird stuff.

• 5:03Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 5:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And one of her books is actually called Packing for Mars.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 5:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so let's go to my first clip, just find out what her, her, what her studies have shown her about.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  Item one?

• 5:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Packing for Mars.

• 5:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've written a bunch of books on such a wide range of subjects, and one of them is about Mars, for goodness sake. You want to be the first in line to go?

• 5:24Mary Roach?

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

• 5:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, the title, Packing for Mars.

• 5:27Mary Roach?

  I will happily go to the moon, two and a half years in a small space with people that I didn't choose. I mean, I'm a, I'm just an irritable person, I just.

• 5:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause moon is only a few days away and Mars is years.

• 5:37Mary Roach?

  You could do the moon in a week, week and a half, but Mars, you kidding me? No, would you go?

• 5:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is there no one that you know that you're friendly enough to spend that much time with?

• 5:45Mary Roach?

  Yeah, you can't get out. I mean, you're stuck for, no, no, you go. I want that warp speed thing.

• 5:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe you need seedy people to go to Mars, cause we're accustomed to being very close to one another, living in small spaces.

• 5:57Mary Roach?

  Well, the Japanese are, speaking very, very generally, good astronauts for a number of reasons, small payload, used to tiny spaces, not much privacy.

• 6:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:05Mary Roach?

  And also, again, obviously speaking in generalities here, raised to be not confrontational and aggressive, but polite and respectful. So, all of those things make them.

• 6:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ideal candidates for this.

• 6:16Mary Roach?

  Yeah.

• 6:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mike, so Mike, are you not confront, your, your name is Mike Massimino?

• 6:22Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 6:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're from, wait, where you, you're from New York?

• 6:25Mike Massimino?

  I'm from New York.

• 6:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  Oh my god. According to her, you are the worst candidate for an astronaut.

• 6:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause you're big, you're six-four, what, what, you're like heavy, you're from New York.

• 6:35Mike Massimino?

  I'm, I'm keeping her away from any decision process involved with flight assignments. I'm glad she's not the chief of the office.

• 6:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're like the opposite.

• 6:43Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 6:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The chief of the astronaut office.

• 6:44Mike Massimino?

  No, I'm a big goon and I, and I need a lot of food and, and, and large clothing. It went and worked. I'm the complete opposite of what she described. I was not polite, loud, annoying. Oh my gosh. That'd have to be a solo flight.

• 6:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 6:58Mike Massimino?

  The only reason they'd send me is to get rid of me, apparently.

• 7:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 7:02Mike Massimino?

  Let's get rid of that guy for a couple of years.

• 7:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So here's the problem. You get to Mars and there's like, there's no air. There's, you know, it's freezing. You have radiation from the sun. You'd have to live in like pressurized habitats. I mean, it's different from just the cushy space shuttle that you went up and back in.

• 7:20Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, it's, it's, she's perfectly right though, uh, on a, on a lot of, I mean, everything she said, of course, but, uh, but particularly the psychological aspect of having to go for that long a period of time. Getting along with people, uh, is the, uh, you know, the emotional support would need to be a big part of that mission.

• 7:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For you.

• 7:38Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 7:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For me, yes.

• 7:40Mike Massimino?

  More, more important for my crewmates.

• 7:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So do you need, I wonder if you need, uh, like in the old days, the kings had court gestures. Do we need like to bring, to send Chuck along? So he could like entertain people the whole way?

• 7:51Mike Massimino?

  Absolutely.

• 7:52Speaker 02

  Now, the only problem is I would just be saying, are we there yet? The entire trip.

• 7:57Mike Massimino?

  But having a guy like Chuck or you would be a good idea. Having guys that are fun is, is really important on that type of mission.

• 8:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta wrap up the first segment. When we come back, more on packing for Mars. You're listening to StarTalk Radio.

• 8:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back to StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your host. And with me in studio is comedian Chuck Nice. Yes, very nice. And on this show where we talk about packing for Mars, what it takes to go and the challenges therein. Had to do that with an astronaut and we went to our favorite man about town, Mike Massimino. A New Yorker. Live astronaut. I mean, you're an active astronaut right now.

• 8:40Mike Massimino?

  I still am in the office.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:42Mike Massimino?

  I'm still there.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  But he's, but he's, he's, he's very surly. He's nothing like those Japanese astronauts.

• 8:48Mike Massimino?

  No, those are the people you want to hang around with.

• 8:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As we learned, if we're going to have a long mission, you need people who know how to get along.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And are not confrontational. And the New Yorkers apparently don't fit that.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  Uh huh. New Yorkers and black men.

• 9:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is how it is.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  Aside from me and Neil. We're delightful.

• 9:06Mike Massimino?

  You guys would be great on that. I think the three of us would be great on that mission.

• 9:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'd be cool.

• 9:09Mike Massimino?

  I don't know if Mary Roach would agree, but I think we'd have a good time.

• 9:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mary Roach, yeah, we're checking because she wrote the book, Packing from Mars, and did all the homework on what that might take. So there are a lot of challenges. One of them is radiation. Because as you know, Earth has a magnetic field. And that magnetic field deflects highly, highly energetic charged particles from the sun. Because the sun is a turbulent place.

• 9:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 9:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very, you know, it burps up plasma every now and then. Plasma is just what it's made of, so I'm not saying anything deep there.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  Right.

• 9:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The sun is plasma. It burps. Plasma comes out.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  You know, my kid used to do that.

• 9:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was it glowing?

• 9:50Speaker 02

  I would pat him on the back and he would burp up plasma all over me.

• 9:54Mike Massimino?

  He got over that.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, he did.

• 9:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 9:56Speaker 02

  Now he does it on purpose.

• 9:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so, so, uh, so plasma is, is, is charged. It's a gas, but a lot of the molecules, atoms or molecules have been ionized. So there are electrons freely floating within the gas. And so the thing can respond to magnetic fields.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 10:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so here's this blob of this plasma pie coming from the sun to Earth. It sees our magnetic field and deflects to our poles.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 10:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And those particles, upon streaming down to Earth, collide with our atmosphere and they render it a glow and it makes the aurora, the northern lights. Is that cool?

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Wow. Oh, that was awesome.

• 10:34Speaker 02

  You know what? I gotta tell you, Neil, I was sitting here like, where the hell is he going? But now I actually just learned something.

• 10:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's, that's what StarTalk is about, Chuck.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  That's the only reason I'm here.

• 10:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In fact, we did a whole show on the sun. And we talked about, they're called coronal mass ejections, in case you were wondering.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay.

• 10:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, I was gonna say, Chuck, do you ever have coronal mass ejections?

• 10:56Speaker 02

  You know what?

• 11:01Speaker 02

  I was about to make a nocturnal reference. And I caught myself.

• 11:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was gonna say, is he gonna go there or not? So, uh, so here's the problem. If you go outside of this protective magnetosphere, not from X-Men magnet- magnetosphere, uh, then you are susceptible to this high-energy radiation. And so, so Mike, you've been within the blanket, the protective blanket. Take you outside of it, there, there are issues not yet resolved. And it's just a big challenge. And we don't know if we can protect you, and if we, if we can't, you might, you know, you might get sterile.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  What?

• 11:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 11:38Speaker 02

  That's crazy.

• 11:39Mike Massimino?

  No one told me that.

• 11:43Mike Massimino?

  I must've missed that part of the briefing.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  Oh, that's awesome.

• 11:46Mike Massimino?

  Let me write this down. I gotta tell my friends.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  You just single-handedly ended the space program.

• 11:53Mike Massimino?

  Forget that.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  Have you finished having children? We just, no reason, no reason.

• 12:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So here's what happens. It's not just whether the sun burps up plasma. It has to be a plasma pie headed our way.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 12:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause it, it can send in other directions, but we don't care.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  Right.

• 12:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It just has to head, be headed our way. And so what you'd have to do is you'd have to take this mission during a time when the sun is quiet. Sun has an 11-year cycle where it peaks in these emissions and then it, it, it's, it's quiet. And it's 11-year cycle. So you have to plan these missions accordingly, or shield the craft. And, uh, one way is, uh, water will actually is a good absorber of this.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 12:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so there's a thought, maybe you'd have a shell of water around your craft, and then you'd just sort of drink that and recycle it. And so it, it's an unsolved problem, but it's not unsolvable, for sure. You just get some clever engineers. You're an engineer, right? By training?

• 12:43Mike Massimino?

  I am, yes. But you left off clever.

• 12:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So, so you got that. Now, because all the astronauts are together, um, there's not much privacy, right? I mean...

• 12:56Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, there, you need to respect each other's privacy. Yeah.

• 13:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, how do you do that if you're crammed in a love seat together? Like, how?

• 13:04Mike Massimino?

  Uh, you, you just, you know, you try to get along, uh, on the shuttle, it was fairly small compared to the space station, uh, especially, but, uh, you know, when you need to use the restroom or

• 13:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The restroom, yes. Uh, you gotta go to potty.

• 13:17Mike Massimino?

  There are, there are privacy, uh, curtains and, uh, you just try to have, uh, respect for each other, so, uh, so no one gets embarrassed.

• 13:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, well, actually, we have a whole, we're gonna devote a whole segment to going to potty. Uh, so, but I'm worried about cabin fever. You, you're there and cooped up in a small space for a long time.

• 13:32Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, and it's, you know, that's a big issue even, uh, on the space station missions, and we've learned a lot from our, from our presence on the space station for almost 12 years now, where we've continually had people up there. And one of the issues of, as you've already mentioned, a couple like, like the radiation and what we can do to shield people from that and understanding that, but also a lot of it is the psychological, the cabin fever and, uh, one of the things is trying to remain in contact with the earth, you know, keep, uh, they have a phone they can use onboard that they can call from at certain parts of the day where they get coverage.

• 14:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is it red?

• 14:05Mike Massimino?

  It is, no, it's not, because, because then it would only go to the president.

• 14:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 14:09Mike Massimino?

  So all red phones only go to the president, so.

• 14:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But here's like, cause one, one of the goals is to make a habitat on Mars, and so that way you create a little bit of earth on Mars.

• 14:17Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, you wanna try to recreate home, bring things you like, uh, and try to make you feel comfortable, or else you, it, you, it can really be a, a problem.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  You go, so, so do you ever have the urge to just break through one of the, uh, living areas with an axe and go, "Here's Johnny"?

• 14:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like, no.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Like, that kinda cabin fever?

• 14:33Mike Massimino?

  No, you know, that's why we don't have any axes on the, uh, we have different, we don't, we have different ways of suppress fire, not that an axe would help.

• 14:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mary Roach had something to say about, uh, about what it is to live in, the psychology of different habitats, of living in a Mars habitat, let's check out what she says.

• 14:48Mary Roach?

  They do analog studies, and that means they pick a place like Antarctica where people are confined and isolated. In Antarctica, you're not in a box, but you might as well, because if you wander off, you die, you freeze. So they're stuck on their base together.

• 15:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can imagine how that goes. I've heard that joke before. Yeah, I've heard that story.

• 15:07Mary Roach?

  Yeah, yeah, after about six weeks, you get this irrational antagonism sets in, where the very things you loved about your Crewmate initially begin to just drive you crazy like the way they take off their boot and drop it. Of course, in space, your boot would be floating. The way you take off your boot.

• 15:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The way you un-un-unzip your boot.

• 15:23Mary Roach?

  Yeah, you un-Velcro your pen or whatever. These little things start to really bug you and you get very frustrated.

• 15:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, that's the same thing with married people. People who've been married forty years.

• 15:31Mary Roach?

  Marriage is a good space analog.

• 15:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You see, so married couples are space analog.

• 15:35Mary Roach?

  I just made that up.

• 15:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's brilliant.

• 15:36Mary Roach?

  But what happens is generally you get frustrated and then that kind of turns to anger. And in space, you've got three things you could do with anger. You could take it out on your crewmates. Bad idea. Because you depend on them for your survival. So, okay, or you can take it out on mission control. And you see this in the mission transcript.

• 15:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or you could take it out on your ship, but that would be devastating.

• 15:53Mary Roach?

  That would be bad with taking axe. Now, you don't want to do that. But you can see in the mission transcripts, like Gemini seven, Jim Lovell was taking it out on the nutritionist, the guy who invented the food. He's like, memo to Dr. Chance, chicken ale king, cereal number six, five, four, cannot even squeeze food through neck. And then like two minutes later, further memo to Dr. Chance, chicken ale king, all over window at this time. I think you can do better at three hundred dollars a meal. I mean, just really taking it out.

• 16:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Crappy.

• 16:18Mary Roach?

  Poor Dr. Chance, yeah.

• 16:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Gemini, how long was Gemini? A couple of weeks.

• 16:21Mary Roach?

  Gemini seven was the longest, two weeks.

• 16:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Couple of weeks.

• 16:24Mary Roach?

  Try six months, try two years.

• 16:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Years.

• 16:26Mary Roach?

  Three years, I know. The third thing, you turn it inward, you get depression. And depression actually has been a problem with some of those mirror and ISS.

• 16:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what is the profile of the person who would be less susceptible to these weaknesses?

• 16:38Mary Roach?

  You know what you want, and I don't know how you find these people, but Commander Whitson from the ISS, this is a woman.

• 16:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  International Space Station.

• 16:44Mary Roach?

  Yes, International Space Station. I was watching NASA TV and somebody radios to her and says, Commander Whitson, those photos you took this morning, we can't find them. Okay, if it were me, I'd go, what do you mean? You can't find them. I spent the whole morning. I don't have time. I got a lot to do. But she goes, that's not a problem. We'll do them again. Like, just unperturbable. You cannot make this woman angry. That's what you need. You need to find those people who are un-flappable. Just nothing bothers them.

• 17:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think I'm pretty un-flappable. But actually, I'm not the judge of that. You need others to make that decision.

• 17:15Mary Roach?

  You're too tall. You're too big, sir. You're not gonna get chosen.

• 17:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My producers are shaking their head now, pointing at me, saying, no.

• 17:22Mary Roach?

  Saying, flappable, flappable.

• 17:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You liar.

• 17:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so Mike, do you get along with your fellow astronauts?

• 17:36Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 17:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He hesitated there, didn't he?

• 17:39Mike Massimino?

  No, no, absolutely. And I think-

• 17:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the party line. Yes, I get along with fellow astronauts.

• 17:45Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, as long as you don't talk to them, I get along fine. Don't get their opinion about me. But what she said, one of the things she said I thought was very interesting was the personality type. And we're actually going through an astronaut selection now. We just started. And people all the time ask me, what does it take to be an astronaut? And it's not always the smartest person, obviously.

• 18:03Mike Massimino?

  But it is very important to be able to get along with people, particularly now with these long-duration missions. It's, you need to be able to live with someone for a long time who is unflappable, easy to get along with. And those are the things that are hard to quantify in people.

• 18:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, more on packing for Mars, and I want to talk a little bit more about the stress that you might experience getting the job done, or the stress about doing nothing. This is StarTalk Radio.

• 18:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are listening to StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. With me in studio, Chuck Nice. Chuck, you're hilarious onstage, and I don't want to be the only one to know that. So, for others to find you, it's just chucknice.com.

• 18:49Speaker 02

  chucknice.com, hilarious onstage, as opposed to what I am on the show.

• 18:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't mean it that way. I promise. And in studio, active NASA astronaut, Mike Massimino. We're talking about going to Mars. And Mike, and what challenges that involves just to like not get into a fight with your fellow astronauts. And what are some frustrating things that you've experienced? And you were in space, what's the longest period you were in space?

• 19:20Mike Massimino?

  Two weeks.

• 19:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two weeks. That's with the same set of people?

• 19:22Mike Massimino?

  Right.

• 19:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And at a point, you're saying, you know, I heard that joke before. You got another one? Is it like two, an old married couple?

• 19:28Mike Massimino?

  You know, during our missions, we're not as long as some of these, well, particularly something like going to Mars. But spaceflight, I think, brings out the best in you, particularly when the chips are down and you need to get your job done and everyone cooperates.

• 19:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait. Mike, that sounds like NASA boilerplate.

• 19:43Mike Massimino?

  I'm trying to set you up.

• 19:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are the right stuff.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Exactly. I can see Mike walking in slow motion now.

• 19:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Coming out of the hangar, here he goes.

• 19:54Mike Massimino?

  Alright, okay, you busted me. But, uh, there are times, particularly in training, because you spend a lot of time training together. There's a couple of years of training before you go, and it's kind of like a family. So just like, you might get annoyed at a family member, you still love them, but you might get annoyed and have little disagreements. That happens a lot. Usually by the time the mission shows up and you've got the objectives to fulfill, that's, that takes, that sounds like a right stuff thing. But yeah, there are times where, you know, you might have little annoyances. Why is this guy leaving this around? How come I just got coffee in my eye because this guy was, you know, didn't close his little, uh, straw on his drink bag? And now I got hot coffee in my eye. Why do I see this piece of underwear again in front of me?

• 20:33Mike Massimino?

  Uh, whose aspirin just went down my nostril? You know, stuff like that. So you're, it, it, little things like that can kind of get to you after a while.

• 20:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, uh, these are zero G challenges.

• 20:42Mike Massimino?

  These are zero G challenges and it, you know, and that's, that's what happens.

• 20:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, because I don't think, that's a sense that's never been uttered in the history of the world. Your aspirin floated up my nostril.

• 20:50Mike Massimino?

  Well, I've got, I've got an unusually large nose. This is radio, so I don't know how you portray that on radio. But I've got a really, which again, makes me, according to the Japanese theory, I'm not a very good candidate. Cause my nose probably weighs more than most Japanese people. So I'm a little sensitive to the floating objects that could, I could inhale. That's just unique to me.

• 21:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't even know how to follow, where we go after that.

• 21:16Mike Massimino?

  I'm not sure how we got there.

• 21:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so what you're saying is, you see, because two weeks is very different from Mars, because Mars, it's almost a year to get there.

• 21:24Mike Massimino?

  Right.

• 21:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the full mission is, is what? It's like, it's, it's ye- two years. It's almost two years. Because, what, because you have to wait there for Earth and Mars to realign in their orbits, so you can get the minimum energy transfer back. So you talk about at least two years, it's three years more likely.

• 21:43Mike Massimino?

  You, you're gonna have conflict. And one of the things we do at, at, uh, at NASA is that we do train in stressful environments. We go on national outdoor leadership training. We go, uh, backpacking. Uh, I went, I'm on with my crew, my most recent crew. We went kayaking in an extreme environment where you're dependent on each other.

• 22:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your tax money at work.

• 22:03Mike Massimino?

  There we go.

• 22:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sending astronauts on vacation.

• 22:06Mike Massimino?

  You do things that you do things, this is all training, but you you try to get into an extreme environment on on Earth, uh, where you start to recognize when people get irritable and you start noticing that usually there's a reason why your crewmate is cranky.

• 22:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 22:19Mike Massimino?

  And it's sometimes has to do with dehydration, sometimes they're thinking about something at home that's bothering them.

• 22:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe you're missing comfort food.

• 22:26Mike Massimino?

  Comfort food, it could be a lot of things. So you recognize that in your crewmates and you learn to deal with it. So it's really part of your training.

• 22:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In my interview with Mary Roach, who wrote the book Packing for Mars, we talk about food and what role that plays in the health and stability of the astronauts. Let's check it out.

• 22:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've visited the Johnson Lab where they make the food.

• 22:47Mary Roach?

  Yeah.

• 22:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I tasted like eight-year-old pork chop.

• 22:49Mary Roach?

  Yeah, me too. I tasted seven-year lifespan hashed browns.

• 22:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hashed browns?

• 22:53Mary Roach?

  Yeah, hashed browns.

• 22:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay.

• 22:56Mary Roach?

  But better than the early, the the stuff that's really interesting is from the Gemini and Apollo era when they were really concerned with making the food low residue so that the astronaut could avoid using the bathroom system, which at that time was a bag.

• 23:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 23:10Mary Roach?

  Terribly.

• 23:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I always wondered what food it would be that would accomplish that.

• 23:13Mary Roach?

  It's low fiber, highly processed.

• 23:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you absorb everything out of it?

• 23:17Mary Roach?

  You absorb everything out of it, yeah. And and they would be really dense little egg bites.

• 23:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I'm thinking whatever the food tastes like on Earth, if you've been away from Earth for a year, any food's gotta taste good. You know, like you're camping, a can of beans is like, wow, this is amazing baked beans.

• 23:31Mary Roach?

  Yeah.

• 23:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you're in the middle of nowhere and there's no other food.

• 23:34Mary Roach?

  One of the things people could say, oh, I could never be an astronaut because you don't have any comforts of home, you don't have good espresso, you don't have this, you don't have that. But I think it's like backpacking. It's worth all the inconvenience, sleeping in an uncomfortable situation, eating horrible food. That's all worth it because you get to this amazing place. Same with space.

• 23:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gotcha.

• 23:50Mary Roach?

  So these astronauts, they don't care. They're not complaining about that stuff.

• 23:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they know it's basically temporary, however long temporary means.

• 23:55Mary Roach?

  Look out the window, look what you're seeing, how amazing. So who cares that the food is absolutely horrible? And nowadays, it's not as horrible.

• 24:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We actually did a whole StarTalk on space food.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  Space food.

• 24:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can find that in our archives on StarTalkRadio.net. So Mike, what's your favorite food that you had in space?

• 24:12Mike Massimino?

  Well, first off, I'm glad she's not the cook.

• 24:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 24:15Mike Massimino?

  Because, no, the food actually is pretty good in space and it's easy to cook. You just add water, you put it in the oven, and I don't know what it's gonna be like going to Mars, but on the space station, on the shuttle, it was excellent food.

• 24:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what single food was really good?

• 24:26Mike Massimino?

  My favorite was the lasagna.

• 24:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mmm. Was it like the way mom had made it?

• 24:30Mike Massimino?

  Not quite, but again, it was easier to cook.

• 24:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 24:33Mike Massimino?

  You just threw it in the oven, it came bagged, and it was right... But it was delicious. We had lasagna, ravioli. You can tell my Italian's coming out here. And one of the great things...

• 24:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait. You're like the guy who never, you know, still lives in your parents' basement.

• 24:44Mike Massimino?

  That's it, exactly. That's my comfort food. I feel, on Sundays, I'd have my lasagna. And every other day of the week.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  Well, you know what? It just occurred to me that with the stress and the food, Jamaicans would make great astronauts.

• 24:57Mike Massimino?

  Exactly.

• 24:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. You call them Rostonauts. Just like, "Yeah, man, everything's Irish."

• 25:02Mike Massimino?

  Right, yeah.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  "Okay, now eat that, man. It's delicious."

• 25:05Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 25:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, when we get back, more on packing for Mars on StarTalk Radio.

• 25:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. In studio, comedian Chuck Nice.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  Ace.

• 25:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And astronaut Mike Massimino. Why do we have an astronaut in studio? We're talking about going to Mars and all the challenges that that involves. We came off the segment talking about food, comfort food. What's your favorite? You love the lasagna, but the lasagna's not comfort food.

• 25:39Mike Massimino?

  For an Italian kid, it is.

• 25:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, okay.

• 25:41Mike Massimino?

  Macaroni and cheese.

• 25:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You had mac and cheese.

• 25:44Mike Massimino?

  Shrimp cocktail is a favorite. I don't know if that's comfort food. I really don't know what comfort food is. To me, it's food.

• 25:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Shrimp cocktail, anything. Comfort food for the bushes, yes.

• 25:51Mike Massimino?

  All right, so, yeah. We have hamburgers, uh, comfort food for the...

• 25:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 25:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Depends on how wealthy you are.

• 26:00Mike Massimino?

  You want some good food, don't you? The idea of wanting to look out the window and not worrying about food, that's when you're applying to get on the mission. Yeah, I don't need food, I'll eat granola bars. But after you get assigned, you're gonna want to eat. So the quality of the food is gonna have to be pretty good, I think.

• 26:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Chuck, you said the Jamaicans would, why would they make good astronauts?

• 26:16Speaker 02

  Because, think about it, man. You know, everything that you need to deal with, your stress and food issues are taken care of with one little Rasta puff.

• 26:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how that works.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  If your fellow astronaut is on your, "Hey man, go ahead and smoke these."

• 26:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm guessing there's no smoking in space.

• 26:36Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, there's not just that, but there's a few issues there. I don't know if we want to go there. But that might not be an easy, it might sound like an easy solution, but it might not work as well as you think.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  We, we, we.

• 26:46Mike Massimino?

  Space flight is tough in that way.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  We just put it in a pouch, you add water and put it in the oven. No smoking, no smoking necessary.

• 26:55Mike Massimino?

  No comment.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  That's right, we put them in brownies.

• 26:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what's fun is if you create a Mars settlement, there's food you might bring, but maybe you don't want to bring food. You bring seeds, you bring sort of baby animals, and then you sort of raise livestock on Mars. That way the astronauts wouldn't, they didn't have a real burger. You know, you can have like Kobe beef on Mars, maybe. I interviewed Mary Roach, author of Packing for Mars. Let's see what she says about Mars settlements.

• 27:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think we know enough about space, we don't have to send animals to Mars for us. What a waste of money that would be.

• 27:24Mary Roach?

  No, no, nobody's gonna do that. Unless someone decides, there was this wonderful paper from a 1964 conference on space nutrition and related waste issues. Okay, he was.

• 27:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the title of the conference?

• 27:36Mary Roach?

  That's the title of the conference. If you were to bring livestock to Mars, like if you're gonna bring animals and have ranching going on, what would be the best species to bring in terms of how much it costs to launch them versus how many calories you get? And he did an analysis of.

• 27:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would include taste in there too, somehow quantify taste.

• 27:53Mary Roach?

  I don't think he did because the winner was mice, mouse stew.

• 27:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ew!

• 27:57Mary Roach?

  Yeah.

• 27:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So mice are more efficient.

• 27:59Mary Roach?

  That's what he determined that you should launch mice.

• 28:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know why I can't believe it?

• 28:03Mary Roach?

  Because there's not much meat on a mouse.

• 28:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I'm saying. I once ate a squirrel when I was in Texas. There's barely any meat on a squirrel. You know, there's nothing on a mouse.

• 28:10Mary Roach?

  Well, you gotta take it up with Max Clybrow.

• 28:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Could it be that mice, they have a very short gestation period? So they can multiply their generations very quickly?

• 28:17Mary Roach?

  That could have been it. But just think of the steer. Talk about waste issues.

• 28:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, then it's fertilizer for the plants that you're gonna grow.

• 28:23Mary Roach?

  Or it becomes radiation shielding, because you want your hydrocarbons to see.

• 28:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So manure being radiation shield.

• 28:28Mary Roach?

  NASA has a device down at Ames that can take.

• 28:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ames Research Center in California.

• 28:33Mary Roach?

  Yes. It's kinda like an Easy-Bake Oven, where you would take waste material and could plasticize it in a tile, and you could line the capsule with that. On your way home, you'd use that for radiation.

• 28:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You take animal poop, put it in an Easy-Bake Oven.

• 28:45Mary Roach?

  Or human.

• 28:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, well, humans are animals. And so it hardens.

• 28:48Mary Roach?

  It becomes a tile, like, you know, like the ceiling tiles.

• 28:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so you line your craft with this.

• 28:52Mary Roach?

  It's a good radiation.

• 28:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And doesn't it smell? I mean, you have to coat it.

• 28:56Mary Roach?

  It's sealed in plastic.

• 28:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it is interesting, because if you go to another place, you're thinking you're gonna take food that you would be comfortable with eating, and might wanna sustain. So it'd be like an ark, right? You wouldn't just take a cow. You could take a cow and a bull. No, more likely a cow and bull sperm, right?

• 29:10Mary Roach?

  Right, right.

• 29:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, because bull sperm weighs less than a cow.

• 29:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sorry, I just did the math on that one. That's just how that worked.

• 29:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so Mike, if you could, if you ate mouse stew, would you, if that's all you could eat, would you go to Mars?

• 29:27Mike Massimino?

  Uh, that's what I would say when I, if that was my interview question, if I could go, yes. And then after I got assigned to the mission, I wouldn't be eating any mouse.

• 29:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  Boy, mice cannot catch a break.

• 29:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm telling you.

• 29:38Speaker 02

  God!

• 29:39Mike Massimino?

  No, we're not eating mouse. We're not eating mouse.

• 29:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Telling you. Uh, you know, it's just, it's just interesting using animal waste to line their craft, because there's still this radiation problem unsolved.

• 29:48Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, you know, I, I think it shows the way you have to think out of the box for these, uh, for this type of trip. Uh, and any crazy idea might seem a little bit nutty, you need to, to think about if it's gonna help you. You need to think creatively.

• 29:59Speaker 02

  That's more like thinking out of the butt. Not out of the box.

• 30:03Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  I'm sorry.

• 30:04Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  Come on, hold it together. The crappy shields are cropping out.

• 30:10Speaker 02

  Quick, poop, we're in danger. We need more poop.

• 30:16Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, uh, I don't know. I'm trying to give some credence to it.

• 30:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, it's just, it's odd because it'll all change, you know, it's just what we think of as what will sustain us.

• 30:27Mike Massimino?

  Right.

• 30:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have to be, you know, we say that about other foods in other countries. Oh, it's a delicacy in whatever, and it's, you know.

• 30:34Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, don't fall for that, though.

• 30:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, more on Hacking from Mars. You're listening to StarTalk Radio. This is StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, and studio comedian Chuck Nice.

• 30:54Mike Massimino?

  Yes.

• 30:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tweeting at ChuckNiceComic.

• 30:56Mike Massimino?

  At ChuckNiceComic, that's correct.

• 30:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it. And Mike Massimino, a living, active NASA astronaut, except we've got him here in studio now. You're not in space, not in physical space.

• 31:09Mike Massimino?

  No.

• 31:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're, you're...

• 31:10Mike Massimino?

  But I feel like I'm in orbit with you guys.

• 31:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're, you're, you're, you tweet, you're at...

• 31:15Mike Massimino?

  Yep.

• 31:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Astro underscore Mike.

• 31:18Mike Massimino?

  That's correct.

• 31:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Astro Mike.

• 31:19Mike Massimino?

  Yep.

• 31:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, we'll find you there.

• 31:21Mike Massimino?

  All right.

• 31:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the Twitterverse. We're talking about going to Mars, and we've been slotting in clips of my interview with Mary Roach, who did a lot of research on this stuff I never knew that people thought about, considering what kind of animals you would eat en route that are efficient to deliver you protein, such as mice.

• 31:38Mike Massimino?

  Mice.

• 31:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 31:39Mike Massimino?

  Well, I know, I've never heard of it because they don't want us to know about it.

• 31:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe the food that they say is shrimp, is reconstituted mice.

• 31:47Mike Massimino?

  Now you're blowing my mind.

• 31:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's people! For those of you born after 1970, that was a reference to...

• 31:59Mike Massimino?

  Soylent Green, that's a Soylent Green reference. Google it, kids.

• 32:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, well, you know, what's interesting is, it's a whole other kinds of engineering solutions. I mean, you put it, scientists aren't creative enough to think that way. You need an engineer to say, how do you sustain astronauts? It's, it's the job of engineers to solve these problems, right?

• 32:18Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, and there's a lot of, as you can see, you've got to think about everything. It's a long trip, it's, it's a lot to think about.

• 32:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And one interesting consideration is, if you are slightly chubby, and we put you on a... Diet on, on the way there.

• 32:33Mike Massimino?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then you are actually surviving off of your own stored foodstuffs.

• 32:38Mike Massimino?

  Oh.

• 32:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Think about that.

• 32:39Mike Massimino?

  So you binge before.

• 32:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's.

• 32:41Mike Massimino?

  The pre-flight meal, man, you're gonna go nuts.

• 32:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, it's like running a marathon.

• 32:45Mike Massimino?

  That's it, yeah.

• 32:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You get your carb load on.

• 32:46Mike Massimino?

  Carb load, yeah. That'd be great. No exercise.

• 32:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that'd be just, well, if you carb load, that, the carb load would just be coursing through your blood. That's why you carb load the night before you run. Okay. Because when it's in your blood, the energy's immediately available. If you then don't use it, and don't, and it doesn't otherwise come out of you, then your body Then it turns to fat. Turns to fat, and those are your fat reserves. So you gotta, he knows everything.

• 33:07Mike Massimino?

  He knows everything. It's unbelievable. For the God. Are you making this up? Because Chuck and I, you know, we're, we're falling for it here, man. I just changed my whole menu for lunch.

• 33:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying.

• 33:16Mike Massimino?

  How'd you come up with this stuff?

• 33:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it matters because it, it's cost, it's expensive to, to send any extra pound on a spacecraft anywhere because that's fuel.

• 33:25Mike Massimino?

  Right, yeah.

• 33:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And this, I spoke with Mary Roach, Mary Roach, about limiting the weight on space missions. And let's see how that conversation went.

• 33:33Mary Roach?

  The most extreme approach that I saw was this guy who suggested, and I think he was being serious, that NASA should recruit obese astronauts. And he figured out that for 50 pounds of excess weight, there's like 184,000 calories. Like you would just basically starve the astronaut for the duration of the mission.

• 33:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That crossed my mind as well. So all you'd have to do is give them vitamins.

• 33:53Mary Roach?

  Yeah.

• 33:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that they have their.

• 33:54Mary Roach?

  And they would burn off their fat.

• 33:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Burn off their own fat.

• 33:56Mary Roach?

  Their own fat.

• 33:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they'd get there in peak physical condition.

• 33:59Mary Roach?

  But really, really grumpy.

• 34:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, these are the people who are pushing buttons on the craft. That's interesting. So has NASA considered this?

• 34:07Mary Roach?

  I do not think so.

• 34:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, it's $10,000 a pound, I think, to get something into orbit.

• 34:11Mary Roach?

  It is, that's, that's what I've heard.

• 34:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you got a fat butt, and you try to get that up into orbit. That's, that's an expensive butt.

• 34:16Mary Roach?

  Yeah, it seemed to me that it would be more expensive to launch the fat astronaut, as expensive as it would be to launch all the food. So where was your savings? So it didn't seem to be.

• 34:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, except that it's already part of your body.

• 34:24Mary Roach?

  Right.

• 34:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the waste has already been expended from that. Could just ima, I'm trying to imagine, the picture of the Mercury Seven, all fit Marines, and then the fat, the fat seven going to Mars. Imagine them just sort of coming out of the hangar, you know?

• 34:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, once you've already turned it into your own fat, it's calories for you for later.

• 34:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, see, I got the perfect solution. It's one fat astronaut that can pilot the ship back. And then four other skinny astronauts that he will in turn eat before the return trip.

• 35:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, well, that'll be a research paper to be delivered. Uh, now, here's the problem. The problem is, we have a mindset that we gotta take all the fuel we need with us and all the food we need with us. But all we need is some filling stations, some QuickMarts, all along the route and on Mars. So then you don't have to load up in advance. That's the problem, Mike.

• 35:25Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, we need, we need, uh, we need something out there.

• 35:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Something out there.

• 35:29Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, that would be, yeah, put a little cash out there. That would, you know, a cache of food.

• 35:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 35:33Mike Massimino?

  C-H-E. Yeah, yeah, let's call it. Thanks, thanks. Yeah, something that you can get out there. And the whole, the obese astronaut, I don't, I don't know. I think that would, that would just, that wouldn't work.

• 35:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For the image.

• 35:45Mike Massimino?

  The image, the clothing, what are you gonna do? He's gonna, yeah, this is your tent to wear.

• 35:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 35:51Mike Massimino?

  You know, I mean, clothes cost, you know, big clothes, they're gonna cost a lot to get to orbit. I, you know, I don't, I don't think that's gonna work. Plus, uh, I don't think it'd be good for morale.

• 35:59Speaker 02

  The big and tall astronaut store.

• 36:03Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, I don't.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 36:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, plus, you would need different, uh, changes of clothes as you lose weight along the way.

• 36:09Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, right, it'd be too complicated. I don't think, I just, we're looking for fat astronauts. You know, it just doesn't, I don't see, it goes against everything. The first lady's out doing pushups on, on all the TV shows and now they're like, all right, you wanna be an astronaut, kids, cut all that out. Start playing video games and eating Doritos. Yeah, I mean, it just doesn't, I think it's totally counter to our culture.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  What are you doing? All you do is sit around, play video games and eat chips.

• 36:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wanna be an astronaut.

• 36:36Mike Massimino?

  Right, we've gotta wrap, we've got. Parents are yelling at the kids, stop, you know, stop exercising.

• 36:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Actually, there's plenty more of packing to Mars to come, but we gotta wrap up our first hour. You've been listening to StarTalk Radio. Mike and Chuck, you come back for another hour on this?

• 36:50Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 36:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Definitely. This is StarTalk Radio, funded in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. We'll be back shortly.