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Lex Fridman Podcast

#283 – Chris Mason: Space Travel, Colonization, and Long-Term Survival in Space

Lex Fridman Podcast

Lex Fridman

Technology, Society & Culture, Philosophy, Science

4.713.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2022

⏱️ 182 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Chris Mason is a professor of genomics, physiology, and biophysics at Cornell, doing research on the long-term effects of space on the human body. He is the author of The Next 500 Years: Engineering Life to Reach New Worlds. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Chris’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/mason_lab
Chris’s Website: http://masonlab.net/
Chris’s Company: https://onegevity.com/
The Next 500 Years (book): https://amzn.to/3k9ab4S
Reasons and Persons (book): https://amzn.to/3Lrm6a5

PODCAST INFO:
Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast
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Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8
RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/
YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman
YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips

SUPPORT & CONNECT:
– Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast
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– LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman
– Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman
– Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman

OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(0:00) – Introduction
(7:43) – Human extinction awareness
(16:29) – Heat death of the universe
(22:05) – Alone in the universe
(25:41) – Aliens
(33:50) – Entropy goggles
(48:04) – Genetics
(56:14) – Scott Kelly
(1:02:12) – Adapting to space
(1:12:13) – Sex in space
(1:14:46) – Colonizing planets
(1:21:25) – Culture on Mars
(1:25:51) – Commercial space flights
(1:33:09) – Podcast in space
(1:40:43) – Axiom Space
(1:42:59) – Designing space experiments
(1:49:49) – Robots in space
(1:52:30) – Space exploration
(1:56:28) – War in space
(2:00:05) – Launch toward the Second Sun
(2:06:14) – Chlorohumans
(2:11:50) – Extreme microbiome project
(2:18:17) – Space travel breakthroughs
(2:30:15) – Clones
(2:36:08) – AI age prediction
(2:41:38) – Advice for young people
(2:47:56) – Dark times
(2:52:19) – Mortality
(2:56:37) – Visiting ISS and deep space
(2:57:46) – Meaning of life

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

The following is a conversation with Chris Mason, Professor Genomics, Physiology, and

0:04.8

Biophysics at Cornell.

0:06.8

He and colleagues do some of their research out in space, experiments on space missions

0:12.0

that seek to discern the molecular basis of changes in the human body during long-term

0:16.9

human space travel.

0:18.9

On this topic, he also wrote an epic book titled The Next 500 Years Engineering Life to

0:25.5

reach New Worlds that boldly looks at what it takes to calm our space far beyond our planet

0:31.2

and even journey out towards livable worlds beyond our solar system.

0:37.3

And now a quick few second mention of his sponsor.

0:39.9

Check them out in the description as the best way to support this podcast.

0:43.8

We got better help from mental health, grammily for writing, magic spoon for cereal, blink

0:49.7

his for books, and a sleep for her naps, choose wisely my friends, and now onto the full

0:55.6

uttered.

0:56.6

As always, no ads in the middle.

0:58.1

I try to make these interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors.

1:02.1

I enjoy their stuff, maybe you will too.

1:06.1

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp, spelled H-E-L-P-H-H-H-BetterHelp helps you figure

1:12.0

out what you need and match it with a licensed professional therapist in under 48 hours.

1:17.2

I recently had a conversation with Carl Diceroth, really a psychiatrist.

1:22.9

He at least in part reinvigorated my curiosity, maybe passionate about psychiatry, about

1:31.1

talk therapy, about exploring the human mind to conversation, especially when that human

1:38.5

mind has fallen off the beaten path.

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