Can We Really Live on Mars?

KQED's Forum

KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 29 August 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Mars is inhospitable to human life with its cosmic radiation, atmosphere of carbon dioxide and nights as cold as 200 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. But as Space X founder Elon Musk pledges to colonize Mars, and as NASA renews its push for interplanetary travel, a husband and wife duo has explored whether people really can live in space. What would it require to have babies on another planet? To grow food? To prevent conflicts in space from sparking geopolitical chaos on Earth? We’ll talk about it all with Kelly and Zach Weinersmith, co-authors of “A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?” Guests: Kelly Weinersmith, scientist and adjunct faculty member in the biosciences department, Rice University; co-author, "A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?" Zach Weinersmith, cartoonist of the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal; co-author, "A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Support for KQED podcasts comes from Star One Credit Union. Give your savings account the love it deserves.
0:07.9	When you keep your money with Star 1, you keep more of your money. Star 1 credit union in your best interest.
0:14.6	Here's the truth about AI. AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into. ServiceNow puts AI to work for people
0:22.4	across your business, removing friction and frustration for your employees, supercharging
0:28.0	productivity for your developers, providing intelligent tools for your service agents to make
0:32.8	customers happier. All built into a single platform you can use right now. That's why the world works with
0:39.6	ServiceNow. Visit ServiceNow.com slash UK slash AI for people. From KQBD in San Francisco, I'm Mina Kim.
1:05.8	Coming up on Forum, with the successful test of SpaceX's Starship this week,
1:10.7	the giant rocket that Elon Musk says
1:12.7	will one day take lots of people to Mars at once, we explore the question, can we really live on
1:18.7	Mars? A planet so inhospitable to human life with its cosmic radiation, atmosphere of carbon
1:24.9	dioxide, and nights as cold as 200 degrees below zero.
1:29.3	Husband and wife duo Zach and Kelly Weiner-Smith set out to explore what it would really take to grow food, have babies, and make sure conflicts in space don't spark geopolitical chaos on Earth.
1:41.3	They join us for a reality check right after this news.
1:48.0	Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. The dream of space colonization appears to have captured
1:54.0	not just a certain billionaire entrepreneur, but also NASA. Its interim administrator,
1:59.2	Sean Duffy, told Fox News last week he's going to build a U.S. base on the moon.
2:04.7	There was a time where people would say that if you control the sea, you control the world.
2:09.9	I think in the future, he who controls space controls the world.
2:13.8	On Monday, SpaceX fans had reason to celebrate. After a successful test of Starship, the rocket Elon Musk says will one day be used to take lots of people to Mars.
2:24.5	I'm confident that the SpaceX team, which is incredibly talented, will achieve these goals, and we will be landing ships on Mars in the future and building life on Mars.
2:35.6	But what would it really take to build life on Mars?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from KQED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of KQED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.