Hello, SFIA audio listeners.

In this month's Nebula exclusive, big alien theory,

we're asked at the reason alien civilizations might be rare

is because most aliens are huge.

To hear it and every episode early and ad-free,

plus hours of bonus content,

check out go.nebula.tv slash Isaac Arthur,

and use my code, Isaac Arthur.

So, you've committed to terraforming a new world, to creating gardens where once was only a dead planet.

But even with a plan in place, the challenges ahead remain just as daunting.

It is a task of not just a lifetime, but entire generations to come.

A lot of times we talk about traveling to new worlds and transplanting humanity there, we imagine

seeing some domes covering some blasted and desolate terrain in the early days, and then later

seeing forests and gardens all over the planet.

Getting from point A to point B is a big topic, and today is an informal sequel to last

month's episode on early terraforming, though you don't need to have watched that first,

as we'll repeat some of the necessary basics,

though I want to poke deeper into the details today.

Often when we discuss space habitats, we talk about how much easier they are to create

ecosystems in than terraforming a whole planet, but the details tend to be scarce.

There's an old South Park joke that comes to mind in regard to socks and But the details tend to be scarce.

There's an old South Park joke that comes to mind in regard to socks and undergarments

...