A new fictional episode for you! A billionaire planning to nuke Mars send two hapless idiots to confirm that the planet is sterile. What could go wrong? We are also joined by Anuradha Damale to talk about nuclear weapons & space policy.
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Welcome to another episode of the Astroholic explains. We have a new fictional story for you.
This is a work of fiction. While inspired by the real world, every character and event in the story is a product of the author’s imagination and does not represent any real individual, living or dead.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy: Number 2 violates the prime directive.
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NARRATOR
Space. Science-fiction taught us that it is the final frontier. A vast expanse full of possibilities. In reality, it is a never-ending desolate emptitude. Well, that’s not fair. There’s plenty of stuff in space. And you could almost believe that all this stuff was designed with the precise intent of killing humans.
For this reason, space agencies around the world have slowed down the efforts to make the next big leap to Mars, leaving that to private companies. In 2032, Billionaire Jeb Tusk managed to land people on Mars. Wait, let’s hear from him..
[Cheers]
JEB TUSK
Humanity is finally interplanetary! Our crew has reached the Red Planet and their job is simple. Prove without any doubt that Mars is sterile. If there’s no bacteria living there, I’m going to terraform it into a paradise by nuking it and releasing all that sweet carbon dioxide!! [more cheers]
NARRATOR
Let’s stop there for a minute.. Tusk is not one for facts but I want to explain what he plans. He hopes to release carbon dioxide and start a greenhouse effect, warming the planet and making it more tolerable for us. But just so you know, nuking mars would turn the planet from a frigid dry desert to a frigid dry desert that is also radioactive.
TUSK
This mission will be a success. I’ve got my best people on it
NARRATOR
He really really didn’t.
TUSK
You’ll soon be booking tickets to go to Mars
[More cheers]
NARRATOR
You really really won’t. The two-year mission to Mars is fraught with risks and danger that Tusk didn’t bother to address, and the government was just too happy to ignore for the promise of outcompeting other nations. Only a complete idiot would take part in such a terrifying endeavour. Tusk found two. And this is their story.
[Music]
ANDREW
Hey hey space heads! This is Andrew, your favourite Martian. We are on day 30 of our mission and the life sensing probes are all travelling around the planet. They are currently a number of kilometres away from us. We only check their data once a week but so far no life signals. Which is good! If there’s no life, we can terraform this rock!
[Com-link noise]
JOE
Oh no, oh no, oh no. This is bad. Oh no. Andrew come in. We have a problem
ANDREW
This better be important! I’m doing a video for my fans!
NARRATOR
Just so you are all aware. Andrew is a self-important influencer with half the online followers of NASA’s robotic rover Perseverance. Feedback from Mr Tusk PR firm suggests that Perseverance is more relatable, funny, and interesting.
A particularly harsh comment stated that Perseverance’s automatic science updates from Mars show a depth of thought and a humanity that Andrew lacked. That was from Janine, Andrew’s mother. Anyway…
JOE
Repulsed, wretching, ham it up – Something is happening to the waste unit
ANDREW
What’s up with it?
JOE
I can’t say
ANDREW
Ok…Then how do you know something’s happening?
JOE
I can see it happening, I just can’t say what’s happening
ANDREW
Oh! You mean you don’t understand it?
JOE
No, I know what it is!
ANDREW
So you know what it is but you can’t explain it in words? Ohh is this like a riddle, or, like a feeling? What was that word of the day last week? E-e-enema?
JOE
Ennui! And no the waste disposal hasn’t got ennui, I think only people and horses get that. Oh how do I explain it??? [Big breath] The waste disposal is spluttering… spluttering a lot of… I can’t say it
ANDREW
Oh [realization] Shiiiit!
NARRATOR
Shit indeed!
I think it is important, dear listener that you are introduced to a crucial piece of information. Joe can’t say the word shit. He can’t even discuss anything to do with going number 2. But don’t feel sorry for him. He deserves it.
About ten years ago, our astronaut Joe here, was a teenager who hated opinionated women who disagreed with the things he liked. He hated it so much that whenever a woman reviewed a movie differently from him, he would take to livestreaming himself to explain why she was so wrong.
In 2022, influencer Jessica Kennedy posted a 30 second video saying that she enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy 3 but it wasn’t her favourite. Joe took upon himself to broadcast a soliloquy on why she was the worst person on the planet. At about 15 hours into his broadcast, having only consumed hot Cheetos and Mountain Dew, his bowels betrayed him. Still broadcasting from his phone without realising, his explosive diarrhoea, mixed with his cries and complaints about Ms Kennedy, quickly went viral. The memes of Angry Nerd Shits Himself Over Difference Of Opinion took literally years to die out.
He hasn’t been able to say the word poop or crap or any synonym since. But on the plus side he stopped bothering women on the internet. Apparently Tusk admired a man who’d been through some shit in his life, and wanted to award him with a fecal-free trip to Mars. Or so he’d planned.
ANDREW
Ok, no panic. Nothing can survive here, right?
JOE
Nothing. I think. I hope. I don’t know, I’m only in charge of the probes.
ANDREW
The Probes! You genius, Joe! Let me see what the one near the base says…. Oh no! Oh no! It says there’s bacteria growing all over the ground around the waste unit. Shit. The planet’s not sterile!
JOE
What are we going to do?? Tusk will fire us!
ANDREW
Don’t you worry, my friend. I have a brilliant plan. We collect all the contaminated ground. We pack the waste disposal unit. We put all of that on the sample return rocket. We close the base, claim that we had a leak in the main tent and we were worried it might contaminate the environment. We get in our rocket. Launch. We launch the other rocket from orbit, and let it fall back into the atmosphere and everything will burn up. Bam! No evidence.
JOE
Gosh, Andrew this is brilliant!
ANDREW
I know. That’s why people call me a genius all the time!
NARRATOR
Correction: Joe was the first person ever to call him that…
ANDREW
Right. Start digging and packing.
[Noises of spades? Something that feels like they are working]
NARRATOR
One of the most inspiring features about space missions is their precision. NASA’s New Horizons reached Pluto after travelling for 9 years, 5 months, 24 days, 16 hours, 49 minutes, 57 seconds. That was just 72 seconds earlier than it was planned at launch.
Equally, small errors can have bad consequences. Several missions to Mars have failed for this precise reason. The sample return rocket was designed to take about 100 kilograms worth of samples. This was clearly stated in the mission manual. But Andrew was never one for reading instructions.
ANDREW
Ok, all it’s packed. I had to really stuff the rocket. The door barely closed!! I sent the leak alarm, and got the go-ahead to get back into orbit
JOE
I checked the probe. We did a good job at clearing things. It is not registering any thing
ANDREW
Well, let’s get back to space buddy, I can do a video of us leaving Mars, fans will love that.
NARRATOR
We will spare you the inane social media updates, and move you along to the more interesting part of the story.
JOE
Ok, the launch is set up but there’s a weight warning sign. It says the rocket is packing over 1000 kilograms and it’s too much
ANDREW
That’s even better! We don’t even have to cut the engines to let it crash back into Mars. It’ll go up and then back down by itself.
JOE
Oh yeah. That is good.
NARRATOR
Is it though? Really?
ANDREW
Ok, let’s go. Launch.
[Electronic voice]
Sample rocket launch in 10, 9, 8. [fading into the distance]
[electronic sounds]
JOE
Andrew, it’s not looking good. It’s acceleration is not enough to hit escape velocity. I don’t think it’ll make it. It’s also sort of veering.. to the left?
ANDREW
No, no, it’s going to pick up soon! Don’t worry!
[a few moments of silence]
Look, its speed is picking up. Another one of my classic successes!
NARRATOR
In a manner of speaking, this was on par with Andrew’s previous successes. You just need to have a broad definition of success.
In reality, what they couldn’t see was that the hatch door of the sample rocket had burst open and the contaminated soil began raining down an actual shit-storm on the planet below.
ANDREW
We can just relax. Our job here is done!
NARRATOR
As our two brave explorers traveled back to Earth, the Bacteria they help spread quickly took over the planet. An unexpected and unplanned miracle.
The probes deployed by the dynamic duo began to detect life signs and so did the rovers roaming the planet. These detections stopped the plans to nuke Mars.
And so this HG Wells fiction turned to reality. Bacteria really were the enemy that Mars could not stop.
Andrew’s last social media message from the red planet was almost prophetic. It read: Day 29 – evening. Did such a big smelly poo. Sorry, Joe. Sorry Mars! LOL
The machine learning algorithm on board Perseverance wrote this about the first detection of human faecal bacteria on Mars: Many would consider the bacteria’s birthplace distasteful, but as they spread on this once sterile planet, carving new niches for themselves, they have earned their place as a space-faring species just as much as humans.
You can now understand what Janine was talking about.
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This episode starred Sacha Coward as Andrew, Sheldon Goodman as Joe, Chris Carpineti as the Narrator, Trip Galey as Jeb Tusk, and Anne Jones as Janine. It was written by Alfredo Carpineti, and produced and edited by Chris Carpineti.
Chris
Alfredo
Anuradha Damale
Chris
Alfredo
Chris
Alfredo
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Anuradha Damale
Chris
Anuradha Damale
The other side of this is it’s straight up illegal. So if you try to, well, yeah, there’s there’s two things I sort of can think of off the top of my head. The first is something called the Nuclear Weapon Test Ban Treaty. And it means in in the text of the treaty in 1963, it said the purpose of the treaty is that countries involved must prohibit, prevent, and not carry out any nuclear weapon test explosion, or any other nuclear explosion, even in outer space. So carrying out a nuclear weapons explosion in space, on Mars, is against that treaty. Now, there’s an interesting question there because Jeb Tusk does not necessarily represent a country, say for instance, the United States as a country, so he doesn’t represent that country necessarily, it could be argued. However, in some, the reason why the treaties are written that the way they are, is that they allow for interpretive flexibility slightly. Now this is a problem usually because we want things to be outlined pretty strictly. But some could say that in order for JeB Tusk to be able to carry out this test, there would have to be reviews done through national systems that exist before that thing could go out into outer space. And so they are complicit in that test, almost. Now the other Treaty, which which completely shuts this down is called the Outer Space Treaty. So Outer Space Treaty was in 1967. And it reiterates that countries should not be placing anything, any weapons of mass destruction in outer space. So, particularly it says that the moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all straight parties to the treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes. Nuking a planet: I don’t know how you spend that to be peaceful, in my opinion. In my opinion, it really isn’t. Article six of that treaty requires states so governments to authorize and supervise the activities of their citizens. A company arguably is a citizen of that country, so they have to comply with the provisions of that treaty. There’s a whole paper about this in the Columbia space journal, I think it’s called, or something along those lines. And it really details of, you know, all the things that could come could go wrong. And even one step before that, say you, you shoot a nuclear weapon on a rocket into space. What happens if it goes critical? Or what happens if the bomb explodes while it’s still within the Earth’s atmosphere? While it’s just outside of Earth? What is the debris from that… which this happens regularly, debris from spacecraft falls onto Earth, and debris from space falls on earth. And imagine that but nuclear in our seas on our countries, it’s just, it’s not great. It’s not very safe. And furthermore, trying to nuke Mars would, would leave Mars an environment that still has the aftermath of a nuclear weapons explosion for a while. And so if you wanted to send people to Mars or animals to model living things to Mars, you’re putting them at risk of radiation poisoning or putting them at risk of interacting with things that are nuclear on Mars.
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Alfredo
Chris
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Anuradha Damale
Alfredo
Anuradha Damale
Alfredo
Chris
Anuradha Damale
Alfredo
Chris
Anuradha Damale