Daily: WHY MARS MATTERS with The Economist’s science correspondent Alok Jha

The Bunker – News without the nonsense

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News, Government, Politics, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2021

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Perseverance Rover is bringing us stunningly detailed images of Mars, but do we really need to go there? Are we anywhere nearer proof of life on other worlds? And is Elon Musk’s dream of a million-person Mars base by the end of the century feasible – or desirable? Alok Jha, The Economist’s Science Correspondent and host of The Jab podcast talks space-sceptic Ros Taylor through the pros and cons of Martian exploration, and ponders whether interstellar objects are proof of extraterrestrial tech. “If you’re interested in life on earth, you should be interested in life in Mars.” “We’ve never sent an astronaut to Mars, let alone a million people.” “Before COVID, we didn’t think you could develop a vaccine in twelve months. It shows what you can do with willpower and money.” “We’ve never had people sitting in a tin can to Mars for six months before. Would they just destroy one another?” “If there are one million planets in the universe, that’s a lot of opportunities for life to start.” Presented by Ros Taylor. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	My name is Stan. I'm at. Nice to meet you. So you took up photography where? I've always loved
0:05.5	photography but I turn it into earning a living at 60. I enrolled on a day course.
0:11.8	Well college. I loved going to college. It's good you can retry. I'm enrolled on the day course. But college?
0:13.0	I loved going to college.
0:14.0	It's good you can retrain and do something.
0:16.0	Yeah, yeah.
0:17.0	Let's talk about working, learning, saving and making the most of living longer.
0:22.0	Phoenix Group is the UK's largest long-term savings and retirement business.
0:28.0	Search Phoenix Group living longer.
0:30.0	Pets brings so much joy.
0:32.0	From those happy greetings at the door to the warm cuddles on the sofa
0:36.7	so give a little love back with dental life from Purina a range of delicious chues made for dogs and tasty snacks for cats that help clean and support your pets, teeth and gums, essential for their overall well-being and a happy, healthy life. They give you plenty of smiles so
0:55.3	look after theirs with dental life. Pick up dental life in the pet food aisle. Hello and welcome to the bunker I'm Ros Taylor now that we can be pretty sure that there's no life on Mars the billionaire
1:14.6	Elon Musk is planning to build a base there but is SpaceX a vanity project or a great leap forward with me to talk Mars, alien life and space in general is
1:24.6	Alokjar, the science correspondent to the Economist and host of the Jab
1:28.5	podcast at that publication. Alok, welcome to the bunker.
1:32.0	Hello, it's great to be with you.
1:35.0	First off, a question from our producer Yalena, is it true that all the COVID-19 in the world could fit into a Coke can?
1:43.0	That's probably true, but by, it depends how you ask that question if you do, if by you
1:47.6	but you mean you can, if you collected up all of the viruses and put them
1:52.3	together, it's probably true you can put them into a Coke can. of the
1:53.0	probably tree you can put them into a Coke can but the the where that that fact takes you is quite interesting
	...

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