Daniel and Jorge Explain the UniverseDaniel and Jorge talk about the science of the alt-history science fiction show "For All Mankind".
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Hey, Daniel, are you excited about going to space?
You know, I think that there are plenty of people who are more excited about taking that journey than I am.
So you're going to let them go first, and then you're.
Going I'm going to wait until they build comfortable suburbs on the Moon before I go there.
So you're going to buy a vacation home on the Moon.
You know, house prices in southern California are getting pretty steep. I have no idea where my kids are going to move.
Oh what did they move to the Moon? Would you go visit them?
I might wait until they have grandkids. That's cold, man, not as cold as the far side of the Moon.
I am horehandmade cartoonist and the creator of PhD comics.
Hi.
I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor at UC Irvine, and I love living in southern California.
I do too. It's the best, but would also be pretty sunny on the Moon. Right, the Moon gets a lot of sun.
The Moon is either too hot or too cold. It's kind of like Chicago.
I see, you're like the Goldie Bears of astronauts.
You like it just right? Yeah, exactly. There's that one spot on the rim where it just stays the right temperature. But it's some pretty thin real estate on the Moon.
Now, if your grand kids are born in the Moon, Daniel, would that technically make them aliens?
Extraterrestrials for sure. I don't know about aliens.
He teas right, that's the same thing as an alien, So.
Maybe I would finally get to meet aliens.
Yeah, if you go, but only if you go there.
All right, I'll commit to going. If my kids have their own kids on the Moon, I'm in.
What if they they're born on the moon and their.
Moon, Well, I'll just bring some moon pie, so I'm sure we'll get along.
Welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of iHeartRadio.
Where we share our over the moon enthusiasm for understanding the universe, for digging in deep to all of those tough questions about how everything works, to wondering about what's out there deep in space that might be holding answers to the next generation of questions that scientists are asking. We don't shy away from asking any of those questions and trying to explain all of the answers to you.
Yeah, because it is a pretty big universe with a lot of space for us to explore and go visit and maybe even live out there among the stars. As we continue our journey of humanity, of exploration and learning, about how the universe works.
Do you feel like colonization of space is inevitable.
I don't know if inevitable, but it definitely sounds interesting and fun and cool and dangerous for the first people who do it.
Yeah, it's going to be one of those things that starts out really dangerous and take some brave souls to lay the groundwork. But after a while people will be like falling asleep on their commuter shuttles to the moon.
Yeah, definitely. Or the elevator. Can we build an elevator to the moon?
I think we have a lot of nanotechnology puzzles between us and a space l evator to build that table that's tall enough that it won't snap, because when the space elevator crashes to the surface, you've got a bad day. Yeah.
I think that's the plot of the New Foundation TV series. And speaking of TV series, it's interesting to think about what science fiction and TV writers can come up with because it does give us ideas about how we can go and explore space and what would happen if we do.
Because it's not just academics and physicists who are wondering how the world works and coming up with ideas for how we might explore it, what we might find. There are folks like you out there thinking about the universe, and also people out there are writing stories, people developing alternative universes in which we do explore space or go further or discover aliens or discover we are the aliens. And on the podcast, we are big fans of science fiction, of course, and so we love talking about the science of some of these alternate universes and hearing about the process of creating them.
Maul, sound like maybe TV shows and science fiction are kind of simulations of the universe, like where you can run experiments.
Yeah, they're sort of thought experiments written large, right, thought experiments turned into TV shows.
Yeah, So to on the podcast, we'll be tackling the science fiction universe for all mankind. Now, Daniel, this is a TV show on Apple TV, I think, right.
Yeah, it's on Apple TV. They've just finished their third season and they're in the process of making season four, and it's a really fun show for those of us who are enthusiastic about exploration of space, not just by robots but by people.
But wait, I thought you're not excited about exploring space or you're just excited for other people to explore space.
Thing. I'm excited for people to explore space. I don't want to be on those trips myself.
But then you won't get to experience the best part of it. It's like you're you're going to be living vicariously for the rest of your life.
That's okay. I enjoy reading science fiction and I also enjoy reading science fact. Both of them are fun for me, and I think other people have a better temperament for being test astronauts.
Yeah. So this is kind of part of our series of episodes where we talk about the television series or films that have to do with science fiction, and we even get to talk to some of the writers behind some of these pieces of work.
Yeah, and on today's episodes you'll hear my interview with one of the writers for All mankind Sabrina Almeida, who has a really interesting life story about how she got to be a science fiction author.
Yeah.
We'll get to that interview later in the show. But I guess first let's talk about the show itself. This is, as we said on Apple TV, and it's by the creator of Battlestar Galactica, Right, Ronald Moore.
Yeah, another really fun show that I enjoyed. Also co created by ben Na Divvy and Matt Wolpert. This show for all mankind is really exciting because it explores like an alternative history and imagines the universe very similar hours. But what if one important event was different, but such an important event that it changed to the course of history completely in a really fascinating way.
Yeah, that's a pretty interesting idea that I think I've seen in several shows. Right, he's a nurse show out there where like the Nazis win the Second World War.
Yeah, that's the Philip K. Dick show called The Man of the High Castle. That's really fun. Not a whole lot of science fiction in it, but it's definitely an interesting alt history, like what would our world be like if a few battles had gone differently?
Now, Ronald Moore, he's a creator of this show, and he's known for Battlestar Galaka, but also he used to write on Star.
Trek right, Oh is that right? I don't know his history.
Yeah, I think he used to work maybe Ian with Jene Rowdenberry. I forget, maybe on the Next Generation episodes. He's an old hatted sci Fi TV. This is what I'm.
Saying, Well, this show is really fun because the central event that pivots history in the show is the space race. We all know that in our universe, Americans landed on the Moon first. Neil Armstrong was the first human to step on the moon. But in this alternative universe of for all mankind, it was the Soviet Union that landed on the Moon first.
Interesting, that's right. This is back in the sixties, right, the big space race. Everyone was trying to get to the Moon first, and the US did it first. I guess in reality how far back or how far behind were the were Russians, because I know they put a man on the moon, a dog like right on the moon, Sputnik. They seem to be ahead for a while, but then the US kind of blew past them with the APOLO program.
Yeah, that's exactly right. The USSR really started off the space race very dramatically, Sputnick and the first astronaut orbiting the Earth, and that really inspired the US to pour a huge amount of money and energy into the space race, culminating with them landing on the Moon first. And that lasted a little while and ended up in the Shuttle program. But the USS are sort of faded in the space race, and as a response, in our universe at least the US did as well, and now we don't spend nearly as much time or energy on space as we did back in the sixties when we had like a vibrant rival. So one of the key concepts of this show is that the US basically never takes their foot off the pedal. They just keep pouring time and energy and money into the space race, and so it flourishes for much longer than it did in our universe.
So in this history, the uss are landed on the Moon first, so they beat the US, and what kind of repercussions does that have on the history and politics of the US.
So it's a lot of panic in the upper echelons of the politics of the United States. And in just the same way that like Sputnik and ury Gagerian inspired the US to pour a lot of time and energy and money into it, the Russians landing on the Moon first meant that the Americans accelerated their program. They put even more time and energy and money into it. And then by the time the Americans get to the Moon, the Russians are already like building a moon base, and so it just sort of never slows down. They keep sort of like hopping over each other making these advancements.
Wow, so there are moon bases on this show.
Yeah, their moon bases. And in the recent season they even go to Mars.
Oh that's exciting. Well, we'll get to later seasons later. But there's also kind of a fundamental twist about the show, including sort of a twist on its title.
Yeah, they call it for all mankind. But there's also a very important twist in politics which is inspired by the Russians not just putting the first person on the moon, but then landing a woman on the moon. And in the show, female astronauts at NASA are not taken very seriously. It's all dominated by men. But when the USSR puts a woman on the moon, that inspires the equal rights movement in the United States, and so in the show, for example, the Equal Rights Amendment, which in our universe didn't pass, does pass in the show, and so you see a lot of women advancing to very high levels of government and of NASA and playing important roles and being astronauts. Again inspired by the achievements of our adversary, sort of like making the point that progress is sometimes best achieved in competition.
Interesting. So the Russians, they were the first to put a woman on the moon, and that inspired the US. Also, I guess what's the press sure there? I guess because if you can get both sexes on the moon, then you can have a colony. There is that the idea? Is that what made the US so worried?
In the show, it's sort of just embarrassed the US. It's spotlighted the fact that the US was not taking their female astronauts seriously. And also, I think inspired activists in the US to push for gender equality. When you see that something is possible, you have role models, you have something to shoot for, is something to point to. I think it makes your activism more powerful.
Right, because I think that maybe the main character, the central protagonist of the show is a woman, right, a woman astronaut. I'll confased, I know nothing of the show. I haven't seen it. I'm just going from what I see of trailers and billboards. It usually features a woman in a space it.
Yeah, there is certainly an astronaut who plays an important role, and there's another woman who becomes the administrator of NASA and then eventually they have a woman president on the show things that we have not yet achieved in our own universe.
Yeah, it's pretty sad. And the show is it takes place across multiple decades, right, Like, it doesn't just start off in the sixties with the space rate. It actually kind of moves a decade with each season.
That's exactly right. So they're showing like the ripple effects downstream of all these changes of history, And it's fascinating because they're having to imagine another universe with all the downstream effects of all of this research, some of which like boosts computer technology, but maybe they haven't made other discoveries that we have made. So it's a really fun just like window into an alternative view of what our lives might be.
Like Now, do they take this butterfly ripple effect to the extreme? Like do there close change or do people in the eighties alternate universe still dress like they do in the eighties? People in the nineties alternate universe still dressed like people in our nineties universe? Do they still have hammer pants?
Is that nothing can stop mc hammer? I mean he's just a force in the multiverse, so there's nothing you can do. They do take it seriously that they don't focus as much on fashion. They think about like technology, you know, consumer technology. For example, they have like electric cars in their universe much earlier than we do. They have people communicating on video screens, but they don't have like small devices as fast as we do. So it's interesting because in some areas they are more advanced, in other areas they are less advanced.
M It's kind of like I guess the Star Wars universe where they have warp drives, but they have like terrible computer graphics under computer interface.
Minimalist computer graphics. You don't need any more than that, man, just like the old computer games were just as good as today's computer games. You don't need fancy graphics.
That's right. You don't need millions of pixels, You need like five to have fun.
Right, Maybe you want to aim the desk star. All you need is that one color screen, you know, glowing green.
Now, because I guess you know, the idea is that in our real history, the space race really kind of boosted science and technology in the US and around the world, where if you put more emphasis on the space race. Who knows how that could have affected technology we have today.
Yeah, anytime you invest in basic research, you see the downstream effects technologically and economically. A lot of the advancements we have in computer technology and miniaturization, we're motivated by a desire to go to space and also of course weapons research to shrink stuff and put it on warheads. So anytime you're pouring money into basic research and these kind of new technologies, you're going to discover stuff and that's going to lead to new technologies, and that's going to change the way everybody lives.
Yeah, Like, for example, Velcrow I hear really got a boost from the space program. Like, you know, you maybe wouldn't have all the velcro we have today if it wasn't for the polar program, right, because they needed a way to stick things to the wall in zero gravity.
Hmm.
Also astronaut ice cream, right, we wouldn't have that if we didn't have astronauts. Important culinary advancements.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So season one takes place in the sixties or seventies.
Season one takes place in the seventies, just after the Russians have landed on the Moon, and then there's a jump in the end, and season two is in the eighty Season three is in the nineteen nineties, and we've heard recently this season four is going to be in the two thousands.
Interesting. I wonder if they'll still have, you know, historical events like September eleventh. Maybe.
Yeah, it's really fun. They do use characters from our history. You know, Reagan and Clinton are there, though Clinton loses the ninety two election to a Republican woman, for example, And so you get these fun little nuggets of familiar history that have been changed in interesting ways.
Well, there's a lot of science and I guess imaginary science here to unpack about this show, to maybe stimulate some interesting discussions about space and space tourism and space technology. So let's get into that. But first, let's take a quick break.
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All right, we're talking about the science fiction universe for All Mankind, which is a television show and Apple TV. Daniel, do you subscribe to Apple TV? Are they paying you to Doris's show?
They're paying me in apples? Yes, No, I'm a subscriber to Apple TV. I like a lot of the stuff on there.
I like that show Severance. Have you seen that one?
Severance? Yes? Absolutely, I love that show. Great speculative fiction, really high concept and very well delivered.
Also, what's the show about the video game company Mythic Quest.
Mythic Quest.
That's a pretty good one that one.
I think is mocking video game companies, but.
It does have one of the characters is a science fiction writer. Though you might be interested in that.
They make so much fun of him. Oh, that is not.
Fair that he's one of the main path as characters. There. We are talking about the show for All Mankind, which is science fiction by the creator of Battlestar Galactica, and that was another fun show right.
That was another fun show, really cool clever ideas. I like shows that have an interesting new concept, take you to some new world and really explore how it works. One of the things I really liked about for All Mankind is that it really does show you the scientific challenges of this. Doesn't just like dot dot dot their way to the Moon and YadA YadA YadA their way to Mars. It really explores like what would it take? What would be hard about it?
Are you saying? They have a lot of these discussions on screen, Like on the show they're talking about standing in front of a blackboard or whiteboard and working out equations.
They're not doing math on screen as much as the whole structure of the show is about the struggle against nature to get to the Moon. It's a huge endeavor. It's like climbing Mount Everest. When you do that, you have to plan, you need your resources, you need to overcome obstacles, and so the whole show is about how to overcome the obstacles to get to the Moon, and to build a base there and to run it and to staff it, and what happens when things go wrong. So there's a lot of really interesting science puzzles there and how to make money on the Moon, and lots of fun questions that they explore.
Maybe they should call the show Against All Gravity instead, because I guess it is really hard to get to the Moon, right. First of all, it just takes an enormous amount of energy to leave the Earth, right, because you have to accelerate up to ridiculous speed.
Right, You do need a lot of energy to leave their Earth, especially if you're going to carry a lot of stuff up there. You want to build a moon base, you want to transport supplies, It does take a lot of energy to just lift that stuff off the surface of the Earth. So one strategy that they explore is to try to build a moon base and then try to find materials on the Moon that you can use to sustain your moon base so you don't need to be ship everything from Earth all the time.
Yeah, you said that. The big part of the plot is them trying to figure out how to build moon bases, because I guess having a moon base gives you a strategic position, you know, if you're the US against the USSR, right, Like, just having a base there maybe gives you, who knows, some sort of strategic advantage.
I'm not an expert on space warfare strategy, but I think the idea is that having a base out there does give you a strategic advantage for later, for example, exploring the Solar System. It's much easier to launch from the Moon than it is to launch from Earth. So if you can build industry on the Moon, for example, then you can fabricate satellites and ships and all sorts of stuff to explore the rest of the Solar System. And there is unfortunately a militarization of the Moon bases that happen, and even some shooting.
Now.
I guess it must be kind of a hard sell though, because like in our real history, you said, we kind of dropped the idea of going to the Moon and establishing a base there, right, because I guess it's just really hard.
It is really hard and really expensive to live on the Moon. And I think that one of the points of the show is that the motivation in our universe to do that, a lot of it really did come from politics, come from like national pride, like we're racing against the Russians. Does it really make scientific sense to build laboratories on the Moon. Do we really need those resources. I think in some sense it really was just motivated by a desire to beat the Russians more than the actual scientific goals themselves.
It's more about ego maybe than any practical desire. But as you said, it is important for exploration. And maybe now that people are thinking about like mining the asteroids fields or you know, privatizing Mars, then now it becomes maybe an advantage to have a base on the mood And.
If you do think about the deep future of humanity, it seems like almost inevitable that we will have to get off this planet if we don't want to be vulnerable to commets and asteroids that might obliterate us and destroy our civilization. And the Moon is sort of an easy stepping stone. It's pretty close, it's fairly hospit compared to other places. There are some useful resources up there. You can still get stuff from Earth if you need it. It's not nearly as far away, for example, as Mars or the asteroid belt, so it is a useful sort of like testing ground for figuring out how to build a colony.
Yeah, it's got all the cheese you need. I mean, what else do you need? No, I'm just kidding, but I guess maybe step us through. What are some of the hard things about building a base on the moon and living there.
One of the hardest things about building a base on the Moon is finding water. Like people need water, plants need water to grow. If you're not going to be constantly shipping water from Earth, then you have to find a source of it on the Moon. And this plays a big role in the plot. They're like digging around on the Moon to try to find water.
Deposits, because there is water in the moon technically, right.
There is water on the moon. Yeah, So the Moon is covered mostly by this stuff called regolith, which is like the shattered surface of the Moon blown up again and then falling down as dust and then shattered again, And it seems kind of dry if you're up there, just like kicking it and there's dust, us there is water in there, like there is some water mixed in with the regolith. It is possible to filter the water out of the surface of the Moon and to get some, but it takes a lot, Like it's pretty dry stuff. It's about as wet as like concrete.
So if you're thirsty on the Moon, you literally have to suck concrete. But is it in the form of ice or is it like would you see a drip or pool in any way, or is it just kind of like crystals.
No, it's all crystals, and there's just not a whole lot of it on average. If you, for example, processed like six tons of surface material on the Moon, you'd get about three kilograms of water, which is about one human's daily dose of water. So that's six tons of material in order to get one person's supply of water for one day. There are some spots in the Moon that we think have more water deposits, like near the poles where it's always dark. Are these like tall mountains with crevasses in them where we think like comets may have smashed in and left the ice millions of years ago and it might still be there. So we think there might be like deposits of frozen water on the Moon that you can access that are a little richer than just filtering it out of this regolith.
Do they think there's water under the surface, like I know on Mars they think there are maybe underground oceans.
There's no evidence for vast underground deposits of water on the Moon. It is either filtering it out of the regolith or finding it on the surface from these cometary deposits sort of near the poles where you have these places called craters of eternal darkness.
All right, so then the Moon is byow bringing your own water obviously, but then there's other difficulties, right, It's not easy to like grow plants there.
Yeah, plants need nutrients from the soil, and the stuff up there is pretty tough. You know. They have grown plants on the moon. The Chinese did it last year. They brought some seeds up and they grew them up there on the moon, which is.
Cool on the moon. Wait, what did they like they have a base there or just on their little land or they did.
It just on their little They did some experiments. Whoa, Yeah, it's pretty cool, and they grew technically, but they didn't like grow very well. They didn't exactly flourish. The plants that grew in the moon sort of look like plants that are stressed out all the time. It's not like a happy place for plants to grow. So it'd be pretty challenging to have like a farm on the moon.
Yeah, I guess I would be pretty stressed out if I were in a tiny capsule in the middle of space there. But I guess thankfully it didn't grow on the Moon. It grew on like a pod on a little spaceship. Is it possible to grow things like on the lunar soil?
One challenge there is the Moon has almost no carbon on its surface, and carbon is important. You and I need carbon, Plants need carbon. All of life is based on carbon. We call it organic chemistry when there is carbon in the molecule, and the Moon has almost no carbon. Actually, interestingly, some of the richest sources of carbon on the Moon are with the Apollo astronauts left. You know, they're quote unquote waste.
You mean they're poop, Yes, exactly, that's one of the biggest sources. Like how much do they poop?
Just a normal amount? But there really just is not very much carbon on the Moon.
I guess that's one way to get carbon up there. But I guess you also need air to grow plants, right, do you have to bring your own air as well?
You need to bring your own air, and you need carbon. You need oxygen in order to make the atmosphere that plants need. You need nitrogen. So a lot of these things you just can't find on the Moon. So a moon based really pretty tough. On top of that, the Moon has really really terrible weather, Like not only is it really really hot in the sun and really really cold in the darkness, but also there's a huge amount of radiation, Like you'll get cancer really quick on the Moon if you don't have a lot of shielding.
Right, it's sort of like being out there in orbit where you don't have the atmosphere that we have here on Earth to absorb a lot of that radiation from space.
Yeah, and the Moon has this really interesting geological history where we think that there was a lot of lava flow a while ago before it cooled, and so there are these huge lava tubes where lava once flowed through and left these like just tunnels underground. They estimate to have billions of cubic meters of space And those are awesome because they're underground, so they're shielded. Right, if you're in one of these lava tubes, you are shielded from the radiation of space.
You're saying that these could be potential places to live.
In mm hmmm. Yeah, So if you're imagining living on the Moon and having like the best view of Earth. Ever, it's more likely you live on the Moon underground in the darkness.
Hmmm, well that might appeal to some people.
People who are already living in basement apartments. They're like, what do I have?
Exactly, it's not much of an upgrade or downgrade for them, but.
They talk about this a lot of the show, and they take it really seriously. You know, the astronauts think about radiation. There's one important scene where there's a solar storm and the astronauts have to scramble to get into a lava tube to protect themselves. Has long ranging impacts on one of the astronauts. It's really quite interesting. But also in the show, they don't just have NASA and the USSR. They also have private industries up there playing a role in the space race.
Interesting like the space Axes or the jeff Bezos of the world are getting on the action here on the Moon.
They are exactly. And there's a company in this show called Helios, which is probably a stand in for, you know, some combination of SpaceX and Blue Origin. And they have a really cool idea for these companies, which is that they're not just doing space tourism and not just launching satellites, et cetera, et cetera. They're actually getting into business on the Moon. And in the show they make billions and billions of dollars on fusion using fuel that they find on the Moon.
Interesting, you mean they're not just making money by opening a water stand or selling carbon. What do they fuse and what are they finding on the moon and that they're fusing.
So on the moon in real life, like in our universe, there's this isotope of helium called helium three. It's two protons and one neutron. Usually helium is like helium four two protons and two neutrons. By helium three, it's something which we have almost none of on Earth, and there is some of it on the Moon, and scientists like again in our universe this is not science fiction, think that it is a really good source of fuel for fusion.
No, this is on the Moon like mixed in with the soil. Or is it floating as an atmosphere of the moon. Does the moon have an atmosphere?
The Moon has almost no atmosphere. Actually, it has an exosphere. It has like a very loose collection of particles that sort of like float around it and get diffused. We have an episode about the atmosphere of the Moon came out recently, but the helium three is deposited on the surface of the Moon. Actually, the helium three is like produced by the Sun. It's in the solar wind. It goes everywhere in the Solar system. It just lands on the surface of the Moon because the Moon has no atmosphere to like deflect it or break it up. So it's sort of like deposited on the surface of the Moon by the Sun.
And so it's in crystal form or what Because I normally think of helium as gas.
Right now, this would be in crystal form, but it's really tiny amounts, so it might even just be like individual particles. We're talking super duper rare, like four to ten parts per billion on the surface. So if you pick up like a billion kilograms of surface, it'll have like four to ten kilograms of helium three.
So in the show, there's maybe a private company that wants to go to the Moon and mine this helium three to make fusion. But why is this good for fusion? Why not just use the hydrogen on Earth?
So you could just use hydrogen on Earth helium three is thought to be better for fusion because it doesn't release any neutrons like normally when you do fusion, you fuse hydrogen together particular isotopes tritium and deuterium that have extra neutrons because those are easier to fuse, and then you get energy, but you also get neutrons out. Those neutrons fly out and they will irradiate your reactor. So you run a fusion reactor for a few years, eventually it becomes radioactive itself, and so that's bad. So helium three doesn't release any extra neutrons because it has fewer neutron It just releases energy in terms of like photons, so it's safer. It's a nice alternative to hydrogen burning cool.
So this show is not just about engineering and math, it's also about business.
It's also about business. Though I do have to say that helium three fusion is a cool idea, I'm not really sure it's a great business idea. I mean, we haven't even figured out how to do hydrogen fusion, and helium fusion is harder and there's not like this a lot of it on the moon. So to make this business work, you have to figure out hydrogen fusion, then healium fusion, and also figure out a way to mind this very rare source of fuel on the surface of the Moon.
So I guess you're saying it's kind of a stretch that there would be a company that thinks this is a good business idea.
Nobody here on Earth is investing in it right now. For example, if it was such a great idea and there was billions of dollars, Elon Musk would be working on it.
Or it could be a great opportunity. It could beat Elon Musk to it.
That's right, listeners, send us here billions. No, please, don't.
All right, Well, another interesting business that you can have in space is space tourism, and so let's get into that and also Daniel's interview with one of the writers of the show, Sabrina Almeta. But first, let's take another quick break.
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R are we're talking about the science fiction universes for all Mankind. The TV show and you said they're busy is trying to get to the Moon to build bases there, and it's part of it also to build you know, theme parks and hotels there.
They do actually build a hotel in space, a giant rotating wheel in space, a space hotel that opens up in the beginning of season three.
Wait, not on the moon, just in space.
Not on the Moon.
Yeah, in space, like a giant rotating wheel and rotating so that you can get like gravity from the rotation from the centrifugal effects.
Right, because I guess that's cheaper to film, because I imagine if you're a base or whole episode on the Moon, you have to show people kind of floating around some right, because there's less gravity on the Moon.
That's true. Season two has a lot of action on the Moon. People running on the surface, people chasing each other. There's a whole lot of Moon related action in season two. It was a lot of fun.
And they float and they sort of.
Float, you know, when you run on the moon. You don't exactly float. You also don't run normally. Do these sort of like floating leaps from step to step?
Right, because I saw that movie with Brad Pitt at Astra and they have some action scenes on the Moon surface that are pretty excigning in low gravity, but then they show you inside the Moon base. It's like regular gravity. That doesn't make sense.
I don't know how they do that. I fell asleep halfway through that movie. You was so boring.
All right, So there's a tourism and there's also something interesting about the show is how they do technology, like spaceship technology.
Yeah. Season three is like a race to Mars, and they try all sorts of different strategies, Like one group is launching from the surface of the Moon, another group is launching from Earth, and yet another one is building a ship in orbit and then taking it to Mars from there, not starting from the Moon or from Earth. And so it's sort of a fun way for them to tell us, to teach us about the challenges of each of these approaches.
And I guess how realistic is it.
I think it's pretty realistic. You know, they really think about the challenges in each case. How much more rocket fuel you need to launch from Earth. The benefits of launching from the Moon, but also the disadvantages. Right, the Moon has certain resources on it silica and aluminium, magnesium, but it doesn't have, for example, what you need to manufacture rocket fuel, right, that's water. To make rocket fuel, you need to take H two oh and separate it and then use that hydrogen to make like methane or something like that. And the Moon just doesn't have carbon or hydrogen in vast amounts that you need to make that fuel.
Wait, wait, wait, what to make rocket fuel? You make it out of water.
There's lots of different ways to synthesize fuel. One good way is to start from water. Yeah, and when they actually do get to Mars, that's what they start doing. And they find a water deposit and then they take the water and they split it into H two and O two O two for breathing of course, and the hydrogen they can then combine with carbon to make like methane, which is a good rocket fuel, so you don't have to ship it all from Earth.
Interesting, I Alos said rocket fuel was made from fossil fuels, But we can make it out of nothing. Why don't we use rocket fuel in our cars.
Then I think it's pretty expensive stuff. But yeah, you could synthesize all of these compounds. Is just cheaper to dig it up from underground where it's been synthesizing itself for millions of.
Years, right, Right, But we're going to run out of fossil fuels at some point. I guess maybe it's not cost efficient to make rocket fuel out of water, right, Like maybe you have to put in more energy then you get out of it. But you can still make some to use for rockets.
Yeah, you need another source of power, probably solar power or something, in order to break the water into H two and O two. It's more about making the fuel, which is like a compact energy battery. It's like a chemical battery. Basically, you're storing energy in this form so that you can use it to launch. We do have some propulsion technology like ion drives, which can just be electric powered, but they don't typically have the thrust to launch you from a surface. They can like gently push you in space, but they can't typically launch you from the gravity well of a planet.
And so that's how they plant a good Mars using nuclear power.
So they have a few different approaches but yeah, they have nuclear powered spaceships here which have like ion drives, so they take the energy generated by the nuclear power plant and they turn that into ions which they shoot out the back of the ship. We have a whole episode about navigating around the Solar System and how all these drives work, if you want to dig into that a little bit. But it's really fun to watch them all racing to Mars and the choices they have to make, like you take an orbit around Mars first before you try to land, or you just try to land first. It's really interesting and very exciting.
Do they make it or is it? Is that a spoiler?
That's a big spoiler, man.
All right, Well, you had a chance to talk to one of the writers of the show, Sabrina Almeida. Has she been with the show from the beginning?
She hasn't. They brought her on after season two, so she's been writing in this most recent season. She's part of the writer's room, but she also has her name on one of the specific episodes, and when I talked to her, they were in the middle of working on season four.
Mm. And she's interesting because she has a background in aerospace engineering. She's an actual like almost astronaut.
Yeah, she has her credentials from MIT, and then she crossed over and decided she wanted to be a creative type. So that must be a familiar story to you. She started as an engineer and ended up as a creative type. She took a detour into making commercials for banks along the way. You'll hear her whole story when I ask her about it in the interview.
Maybe she can aspire to one day host her own podcast. I mean, that must be the pinnacle of any creative's career. All right, well, here is Daniel's interview for All Mankind Writers Sabrina Almeida.
Okay, so then it's my great pleasure to welcome to the program Sabrina Almeida. Thank you very much for joining us and talking to us about your exciting work on for All Mankind.
It's my pleasure to be here. Thanks for showing the interest and inviting.
So first, let's get to know you a little bit. Tell us a little bit about your background, how you got into science fiction writing and getting to work on this exciting television project.
I always wrote a lot on the side. I always thought I'd be following the path of math and science. I came to the US from Brazil and didn't know any English, so the only area that I could continue in school and keep up was math. So I was a huge like math doork. And then I became the science stork and I go to the physics has fun events in high school for fun. I went to MIT to pursue aerospace engineering, did a few years of studying in it, and during that time I got to do a lot of cool things. I got to help with some research on satellite anomaly data. I got to work summers at JPL do internships, and that progressed into designing command sequences for the Cassini spacecraft and I got a hand in changing some of the flight rules. But all this time I was also taking classes classes like French film classics and Hong Kong cinema and sof ie such as say by the time. By the time I graduated, not with an engineering degree, I applied to film school and got TOC and that's where I honed down that love was really in the writing portion. From there, I started a family unintentionally with my on again, off again boyfriend, and upon graduating, I you know, I try to stay in the industry. But I was just helping maybe mix people's films, doing second camera and credited on reality projects on weekends. And that became a gig of doing corporate videos for banks, which is the reason I went to film school. But that was, you know, a much steadier gig, and it took I did that. I was just doing that for years and years, and it took my brother getting diagnosed with brain cancer, a terminal prognosis, and that's when I realized, oh my god, life is so short, I'm wasting mine. And then I finally started writing every day, and it took took some years for me to get wrapped and break into the industry.
Wow, well, congratulations, that's quite a story. I love hearing when people's hobbies become their passions, become their life's work, and then they to actually do it for their day job. It's so inspirational. So for all of our science fiction writer guests, we ask them three questions to help us orient where they are in the sort of science fiction universe. So here's a question about Star Trek philosophy. Do you think that the transporters in Star Trek kill you and clone you or actually transport your atoms somewhere else.
Oh wow, that's such a great question. I think I wouldn't use the word kill, but I don't think they're physically moving your atom. So yes, I think you're being reformulated. When you want to talk about consciousness or soul or what happens as the matter is being used for other things in one end and reformulated on the other end. I don't know that i'd say you're killed, but I think you're reformulated.
Okay, So would you be willing to step into a transporter be torn apart and three D printed on the other side, if there's.
Enough data, if enough people before me did, if the rate of lack of success is low enough. Yeah, and depends where I want to.
Go, all right. Second question is what technology that you see in science fiction would you most like to see become reality.
I think anything that lets us if we could travel faster than lights. I think because part of me is inclined to solve earth bound problems, but we don't need to do that. If we can travel faster than light, then I definitely think there are other worlds that we could live in, inhabitate if we not. If when you know we finished just one off. Well, it's us or the sun.
So then what is your personal answer to the Fermi paradox? If the universe and the galaxy are old and there are rocky planets everywhere, why haven't aliens made themselves known so far?
Well? I think there are a few possibilities. One is they have, we just aren't able to receive the information, right, They've done it in a way that we don't perceive it, and they're like, why aren't they answering? That's one version of it, and one is Ridgi just not that interesting, right, obser Then it's like I don't know, like why haven't we tried to communicate with Bacterier, Like we're just worth the time? And then another one is just simply houspread out. I don't know, you could, you know? Basically, we just haven't. If you think about the vastness of the unvestment, it's just there's just nobody from nearby. I don't presume we're the most intelligent lighte form. I don't presume. I'm more likely to assume that we're the lower of them.
All right, So then about for all mankind? I love the show because it puts us in this alternative reality where the space race is again an important part of our national identity and governments are spending loads of money to make breakthrough in space technology. So what's exciting to you about these themes in this world? Why is it fun to write in that universe?
I really like the idea of coming together for something bigger than yourself. But it's also something epic, right, So there's the glo glory of the achievement for the individual players involved. There's ego and striving, and these are all people on top of their game to be able to be involved in these endeavors. So there's what the individual ego wants. But you can't make things of that magnitude happen unless you collaborate. So you take all these A lot of these people are Taipei, are really competitive or really into the thing they're into, but then they have to compromise or work together to communally make something happen. And then I just think the stakes are huge, and I love when you put huge stories to stakes. So those are some of what I like, you know, And it's just it's just such a shame the amount of funding and the lack of priority of how we view space exploration, it's a travesty.
Well, I'm inspired by what you say about people coming together to solve a problem. But in the show there's also a competitive aspect, right, there's national pride and there's national security, and here in our universe, science often appeals to national pride. Like in my field particle physics, we say we have to discover the Higgs boson before the Europeans, though they certainly beat us to it. Sometimes though, it leads to disasters like projects getting canceled halfway through. What do you think the role is for nationalism in science? Are the characters in the show just like exploiting that to get their science done or do you think it's sincere on their part? And how do you think we should handle it in our world?
I am not a nationalist personally, I'm a humanist. So I think the way we do things in the name of nationalism and the way we treat borders, you know, one hundred one thousand years from now, it will be viewed a lot differently, much like a post slavery society. They're still slavery in the world, but in much minute amounts. A post slavery society use slavery. I was like, oh my god, that's horrible. I can't believe they did that. I think hopefully in like a few hundred years, nationalism will be viewed the same way. Maybe because I'm an immigrant, I'm not a very nationalist kind of person. However, I think our characters, for some of them, it's very it's very sincere, for example, for Ed Baldwin, But for other characters like Margot Madison, it is about the science. It's not about the science for the glory of the United States. And I think we hit upon that in some of the way that she's collaborating with SERGEI thinking while we're helping advance science, you know, she's not thinking, oh, let me betray my country. So it's really about what can I do to further to science. And if a way to drum up funding is to point out the rivalry, great, But for her, I think it's science first.
So speaking of science first, many the plot lines revolve around scientific obstacles. You know, they have to solve some specific technical problem, and you guys aren't just like fuzzing over the details and you know, dot dot dot, they make it over there. So tell us a little bit about the writing process. Do you guys come up with story arcs and then figure out the science to make it work, or do you start with the sciencience and the challenge is presented by it and then think about how your characters will navigate it. What's the writing process like?
So the first several weeks, it depends how many weeks, but each season is a little different. But we'll spend time in the beginning of the season during something we call blue skying, where no idea is the wrong idea, and we'll talk about possible arcs for the characters and directions we want to go. And during that time it's not about the science. However, if we hit like big areas we think we might want to go into, we have a researcher, we have technical advisor, and we'll, you know, we'll just make sure that we're vaguely in a space that's okay, and then we'll figure out the details closer to breaking down that episode. If we think there's going to be a landslide or a marsquake, we just want to know if we can be in that, you know, if we can be in that without figuring out the details until we get to the episode, so big moves we run by early, but then the details they happen more when we are into that specific episode.
And you have a real scientific background, as we just heard about, So I imagine that in the writer's room you might be like pushing for the story to be as accurate as possible. Is there a whole spectrum of voices there where people are like, oh, don't worry so much about the science, and other people like gritting their teeth if the details aren't right, How do you guys resolve that kind of stuff?
Everybody cares to some extent about the science, and we understand that that's what this is one of the things that makes us show special. The amount of worry that each particular writer has varies. You know. Some people are like, whatever, I'm sure we'll figure it out, and other people are like, I don't know if it can you know, I don't know if I could do that. So it definitely does vary, and you know, like occasionally how people talk to each other about it. Occasionally, like somebody will draw on a post it and put them from their zoom screen to try to like convey or explain something. But again, when it really becomes an issue our showrunners are not relying on the writers. We had two people that were very pivotal to us getting the science right and in the room every day. We had Erica Hatfah with us. She was our researcher and she's a former scientist with a PhD. And she would look up information at the moment live as we were talking and pitching and working, and also send us great information at the end of every day, and every few weeks every few months, we'd have former astronaut Gareth Reisman come in and either talk to us about the directions we were going with story or actually review every single episode and changes get made also based on his expert.
Well, I'm just glad to hear that science plays such a big role and you can definitely see it in the show. How the science like changes the path of the story. And it's often a story about conflict between people, but often it's a story about conflict between you know, people and nature. I also want to ask you about the sort of all history aspect of it from a gender point of view. There's a moment of show when the US star surprised everybody by putting a woman on the moon, which sort of like supercharges equal rights in the US. How does it feel to you to write about a world where women play a more prominent role in science and in politics. Do you see this as a way to shine a light on continuing gender issues in science and like in your industry here?
Yeah, No, I think it's absolutely fantastic that we have female characters that are playing more than the love interests of another character and are doing more than just motivating male characters storylines. I joined in season three, so that's one of the main reasons I wanted to join. I was like, oh wow, Like, I love how the show treats women, and it's a very grounded show. So as soon as we say, okay, the Ego Rights Amendment past, we're saying that means a lot of things are different. So it's not weird if we have so many women. It's realistic to have so many women in such prominent roads because how they Ego Rights Amendment pass? Probably, you know, I want to spit things up. So I think it's still grounded because it's based on a different history. I mean, women are in a bunch of prominent positions in science and politics, just at lower numbers than they are in our show.
So one of my favorite episodes of the show is one that you specifically have your name on as the writer. I know there's a whole process there with the writer's room, but I wanted to hear more about writing this episode. It's episode three h five when they arrive on Mars and there's an attempt to land but they can't make it because of bad visibility, and somebody else lands and they have this exciting scene about racing to be the first person to step onto the oil of Mars. Can you tell us about what it was like to write that episode. What were the challenges for you as a writer balancing the science and the drama.
One of the challenges was how do we make timing realistic. We were talking about you know, you're approaching Mars, and then you do a burn to get into an orbit around Mars, and then you do ad orbit burn, and then you do a landing burn, and just figuring out the timing of when you're making the decisions. You know, if you make the decision to go around once more and somebody does it, there's a big gap there until you come back around again. And we wanted to keep that excitement of not knowing who's going to make it so exactly when to pull the plug on the decision making. Also when do you find out what and how? At one point we had talked about breaking a communication antenna. At one point we had parachutes. I know, for the size of Journal one with real day technology, it wouldn't have parachutes, but just to give us something dramatic that can go wrong. So those talks of like did we break something? Do they have to change something mid landing? But there was enough tension just between who's going to land first that we didn't feel like we had to break something in the process of something does break after they land, but we didn't have to break something in the process of the landing. Also, originally it was written as a vertical landing for so Journal one, but that would have presented some challenges for production for actually shooting it, so we changed the landing. But it was like.
That, but it got changed very cool. So I also pulled some of our listeners for questions to ask you. Here's a couple from them. First question was do they have the whole four season story arc plotted out or is this sort of organic that it develops from season to season.
So much before I ever joined the show, there was a plan, and there was a plan for more than the four seasons that have been announced. So you know, when writers pitch and sell a show, they have a vision not just for the first season, but for the entirety of the show. So there was definitely a vision for the whole show in terms of how much we are adhering to that, it's changing as you actually hit a season. You still keep the north star of where you hope the show ends eventually someday, but how you're getting their changes as you're learning and discovering about your characters awesome.
And then the last question from listeners was folks wanted to understand better how it was possible for the Russians the Americans to not notice North Korea launching and landing on Mars. How do you guys figure that out from a story point of view?
So our idea was that it was supposed to be an unmanned probe, a very large unmanned probe that crashed. So the surprise is that it's not that they have that launch. They knew some there was launched from North Korea to Mars. The surprise is that Oh my god, this wasn't unmanned. So they saw it when I left Ears, they knew, you know, it was just one of the failed North Korean launches to Mars. Nobody thought it was manned. North Korea didn't make a big deal of it because it wasn't successful.
All right, excellent, Well, thanks very much for answering all of my questions, and the listeners can follow your work on this show. Do you have other projects that you'd like to tell us about that we might be able to check out your writing and other venues, novels or television or other shows.
I got to work on the first season of Seal Team that's currently on Paramount Plus, that was originally on CBS, and I had the pleasure of working on the first room that got together for andor on Disney Plus, as happens very often in TV. Later they brought in another crew and ultimately became Tony Gilroy's Room.
Interesting.
And I got to work on Section thirty one that so hasn't made it to air, which is a Star Trek show, and hopefully that will make it to air someday. But again, different crews have been brought in the development process of that one, and now I have the pleasure of being on from on the side. I'm working on a future right now, early days. We'll see if when it makes it up to the world. And as always, I also develop plents, but again we'll see if when it makes it into the world.
So well, congrats and all of your success, and we're inspired by the gambles that you've taken, and good luck with all those projects.
All right, pretty interesting. She seems to be really curious about this idea of space exploration.
Yeah, you can hear in her voice she's enthusiastic about this alternative universe. I think a lot of us who saw the space race early on and the excitement of that are kind of disappointed in how that played out, that we don't have more energy and more estment and more research into space technology. So it's fun to imagine that universe where the politics sort of forced it to happen, sort of made the country continue to invest in this way, and what was possible. You know, in that alternative universe, they're already on the surface of the Mars in the nineties.
Oh, you just spoiled the show, Daniel. You weren't gonna get that spoil every you just did.
I mean, they're tempting at least to land on Mars in the nineties.
But maybe I wonder if the problem is that a lot of people think, like, hey, space expression sounds great, but I don't want to do it.
That's certainly my scenario. But I don't think we're lacking for astronauts. It's a lot of people on that list who want to go out into space. I think the bigger challenges people are wondering about what our priorities should be. Should we spend money on space or should we try to solve problems down here on Earth. And one way to think about it is whether or not it really is a choice between those two things, whether or not it's possible to do.
Both, right, Like, maybe you can cure cancer and just watch space exploration on TV on a show like we're all mindsiding no, it's not what I mean. Or may you can cure cancer in space? Right?
There you go, that's what I'm talking about. Maybe we should host a podcast in space.
Well, technically we are in space, Daniel. I don't know if you've heard, but the Earth is in space.
So then I've gone to space already. You're saying we're all aliens.
Yeah, well no, he's still on Earth, so you're not an alien. But yeah, technically all humankind are astronauts. We're all hurling through the galaxy and through the cosmos and this little spaceship caled Earth.
I'm so proud of our bravery as we sit on our couches.
Yeah, I'm not sure. It took a lot of bravery just to get out of the womb and walk around and look for snacks. Voluntary or not, we are astronaut. All right, Well, check out the show for All Mankind laying now streaming on Apple TV.
Three seasons are out and they're working on season four.
All right, check it out and dream of going to space or dream of other people going to space, whichever is easier. Thanks for joining us, See you next time.
Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. When you pop a piece of cheese into your mouth, you're probably not thinking about the environmental impact, but the people in the dairy industry are. That's why they're working hard every day to find new ways to reduce waste, conserve natural resources, and drive down greenhouse gas emissions. House US dairy tackling greenhouse gases. Many farms use anaerobic digestors to turn the methane from manure into renewable energy that can power farms, towns, and electric cars. Visit you as dairy dot COM's Last Sustainability to learn more.
We're just days away from our twenty twenty four iHeartRadio Music Festival, precedent by Capital On.
The biggest headliners in live music will be taking over to Mobile Arena, Las Vegas.
Loss sub special surprises at moments you are not gone to want to miss. Stream only on Hulu the iHeartRadio Music Festival.
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Hi.
I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I mean neuroscientists at Stanford and I've spent my career exploring the three pound universe. In our heads join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life, because the more we know about what's running under the hood, that or we can steer our lives. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
