Ep 359: Should Humans Settle Mars? with Kelly Weinersmith

Summary – Should Humans Settle Mars? with Kelly Weinersmith

This week’s episode features Kelly Weinersmith, part of the wife-and-husband research team who are authors of A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought this Through? In the episode Doug and Kelly discuss what common misconceptions are about traveling to the moon, Mars, and space settlement in general. Most people’s visions of space are given to us by Hollywood or sci-fi writers, so we have an unrealistic picture of what actual Mars colonization would even look like, let alone function as a species. Kelly explains how she and her husband Zach went into the project with enthusiasm for settling space, but during the project came away with a much more realistic frame of reference for what it would take to get there. Kelly also explains how much we really don’t understand, how little we have researched, and how ambitious getting to space in the next decade would actually be. Explored at the end are the legal norms and international treaties regarding space resources and land, and Kelly reveals her favorite sci-fi series.

Additional Resources

• Buy A City on Mars on Amazon