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 add-free, plus hours of bonus content,

check out go.nebola.tv slash Isaac Arthur and use my code, Isaac Arthur.

Meteor showers are one of the most majestic sites in space, which is good since regular

showers are nowhere to be seen.

And that's as good as the jokes will get, because as we'll see today, keeping clean in space

is no laughing matter.

Music Today, keeping clean in space is no laughing matter.

Space is beautiful, vast, majestic, and starkly clean, but the inside of spaceships and

space stations are none of these

things. A crew member on board a freighter from the volatile refineries and depots around

Jupiter and Saturn can be forgiven for getting a bit jaded about living conditions.

It's true that it's better than the old early days when everything was in microgravity,

their freighter has a habitation ring for sleeping

and some of their work. Unfortunately, a lot of that ship is not under spin and not getting

cleaned regularly and needs a good scrubbing, and frankly so does the air, even in the habitation

ring. Everything feels dirty all of the time, And for a ship carrying 5 million tons of water,

ammonia, and methane, you would think they could spare some more of that for the showers and

cleaning. The water anyway, methane seems disturbingly abundant throughout the ship,

even though all the systems claim there's no leak. And your crewmates smell all of the time, especially that new guy, Johnson.

It's amazing he doesn't gag every time he puts his spacesuit on to go EVA, though honestly,

...