This is a headgum podcast. I don't know what to think I don't know what to say

and that's all right that's okay

I don't know anything.

Hello and welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Conover. Thank you so much for joining me on the show once again.

You know, these days it seems like everybody wants to go to

Mars. Every president going back at least to George H. W. Bush has made some sort of

statement in favor of exploring Mars and getting good old American space boots on that Martian ground.

Elon Musk has been more than vocal about wanting to settle Mars for years now in order to save humanity,

which seems pretty bleak if that's what we're resorting to, but whatever.

Putting aside narratives of nationalist glory and the savior fantasy of one of the worst and

stupidest people on the planet, I have a very important question when it comes to human settlement on Mars or any other planet

really.

Why?

Like, seriously, why?

Because it would be cool? I mean, it would certainly satisfy my childhood science fiction fantasies, but what substantive purpose would it actually serve? And the issue of why only gets bigger when you weigh it against what I imagine to be the immense

and incredible resources and effort required to make it happen. And I don't say that

just to poo-poo it. I just wonder is space colonization a good or realistic idea.

I mean when you think about what it would actually take to actually do it, is it something

we actually want to do? We need to ask this question.

Well, our guest today have spent years researching the answer and writing a fascinating,

entertaining, and funny book exploring just that question.

But before we get to it, I just want to remind you that if you want to support this show, you can do so on Patreon.

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