SciShow Tangents - Experiments in Space

Episode Date: March 17, 2020

Space… it’s big, it’s confusing, and there isn’t any gravity! That’s why we have a dedicated team of people up in the International Space Station running all kinds of experiments to try and figure out just what the heck is even going on up there. You truly have no idea how much of us ordering Popeye’s I had to cut out of this. This was definitely our longest recording session ever and I was livid!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Stefan: @itsmestefanchin Ceri: @ceriley Sam: @slamschultz Hank: @hankgreenIf you want to learn more about any of our main topics, check out these links:[Truth or Fail]Chicken Fathttps://www.nasa.gov/topics/aeronautics/features/aafex_biofuels.htmlBone losshttps://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=187Perfumehttps://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/9-12/features/spacescents_feature.htmlhttps://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff2002/ch_1.html[Fact Off]Wake Shield Facilityhttps://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19920014405https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/pg46s95.htmlhttps://uwaterloo.ca/molecular-beam-epitaxy/about/what-epitaxyhttps://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/03jan_bioniceyeshttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0042207X01003839https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S009457650000148XImage: https://archive.org/details/STS069-724-095 Mouse sperm experimenthttps://www.pnas.org/content/114/23/5988http://iss.jaxa.jp/en/kiboexp/theme/second/pmlatter/spacepup/ [Ask the Science Couch]Human pregnancyhttps://emergency.cdc.gov/radiation/pdf/prenatal.pdfhttps://www.livescience.com/33047-space-sex-pregnancy.htmlhttps://www.thoughtco.com/can-women-get-pregnant-in-space-3072590NASA sperm studyhttps://futurism.com/sperm-space-nasaSpace childbirth startuphttps://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/space-childbirth-babies/579064/Other animal developmenthttps://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/what-space-jellyfish-tell-us-about-interplanetary-travel/https://www.popsci.com/article/technology/space-born-jellyfish-hate-life-earth/https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wnjkkw/making-babies-in-space-may-be-a-terrible-idea[Butt One More Thing]Flatworms in spacehttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/reg2.79

Hey everybody, this is Sam. A lot has changed since we recorded this episode of SciShow Tangents just a couple weeks ago. The spread of coronavirus is affecting everyone, and I speak for all of us at SciShow Tangents when I say we hope you and your loved ones are safe. We feel lucky that you choose to spend time with us every week, and we hope the podcast can take you off on a tangent and be a reminder of fun and silly things during a stressful time. If you're looking for more information on COVID-19, our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash scishow, has a few videos explaining the disease and the pandemic.

Thank you for being part of our socially distant community because we're all fighting this together. Take care of yourselves. Now, on with the show. Hello and welcome to SciShow Tangent, the lightly competitive knowledge showcase starring some of the geniuses that make the YouTube series SciShow happen. This week, as always, I'm joined by Stefan. Hello. What's your tagline? Fucked up from the neck up.

What? Expecting that. I say it because I'm wearing a, I mean, I think it's fair to say a snazzy shirt. Yeah. But I haven't shaven in days. I haven't had a haircut in months. I'm just, it just a mess up there.

We're also joined by Sam Schultz. Sam, what's your most boomer quality? I must have one, but I feel like I'm pretty much young at heart. I do like mowing the lawn. Oh yeah, that's pretty boomer. I live on a second floor, so I have some

AstroTurf on my back porch. I do like to go out and sweep it. That's nice. So maybe that yard carriage. That's pretty boomer. Yeah, I like that a lot. What's your tagline? Down with homework.

And Sari Riley is also here. What's your tagline? Rumbly tumbly. Ooh. And my name is Hank Green, and my tagline is the floppiest flippers. Ew. Every week here on SciShow Tangents, we get together to try to one-up, amaze, and delight each other with science facts. We're playing for glory, but we're also keeping score and awarding Sam bucks from week to week.

We do everything we can to stay on topic, but sometimes we go on tangents. And if the rest of the crew deems that tangent unworthy, you will be docked a Sam buck. And I need every Sam buck I can get because I wasn't here for two episodes. You're down in the mud with me. Down in the mud with Sam. Luckily, I get to drag myself out one point at a time, starting with the science poem

to discuss our topic of the day. The science poem this week is from me. Light a fire on the ground, we know what it'll do. Or how a mouse will procreate or how a human poos. We know the ins and outs of life upon the planet's face, but there's always more to know. Just ask, but what's it like in

space? A sphere that spins in gravity spins different in free fall, and facets of microscopy just aren't the same at all. We have to know where fire will go or how a crystal grows, and the effect upon the body, well well there's so much more to know it's good that we have orbiting a handy iss because when you ask if something's different there the answer's always yes space experiments is our topic of the day sari what's a space well it is any science that you do outside of the Earth's atmosphere. Yeah, I guess. It doesn't have to be in free fall, I suppose.

No. Yeah. If you like shoot something up past the atmosphere and it's like in low Earth orbit, a satellite would probably be a space experiment. It doesn't even have to be in orbit. Oh. You can just get it up there. And in free fall and in orbit mean the exact same thing, basically. Yes. Yeah. I mean, not exactly because you can be in free fall, but not in orbit. You can just get it up there. Does in free fall and in orbit mean the exact same thing, basically? Yes. Yeah, I mean, not exactly

because you can be in free fall but not in orbit. If you are in free fall and not in orbit, you will run into the planet. Or you're on a roller coaster for a second. I guess you don't have to run into a planet. You will just have to be caught. You will soon be caught by something.

Or you will run into the planet. I didn't go in this direction, but I was wondering whether New Horizons counts as a space experiment. Yeah. What is New Horizons? A probe that we send out to study other planets and things. Yeah, sure. I looked up the etymology of space. The first use was maybe Paradise Lost, English poet John Milton's thing, to refer to anything beyond the Earth.

And so it's still kind of a vague word as far as is it the emptiness between planets? Is an experiment on Mars a space experiment? As long as it's not Earth, is everything space? Yeah. I would like to think that it's everything between planets. So, like, if it's a Mars rover, it's a Mars rover. But if it's in space, it's, like, in the void. Right. So, even if it's orbiting Mars, that's a space experiment. Yes.

Okay. I think so. Or is that just a Mars experiment? Yeah. Or is it an Earth experiment? Or, yeah, it feels kind of Mars-y to me. Well, I mean, here's the difference. When we're doing experiments on the ISS, we're doing them on space.

Yeah. Like, we're thinking about, like, what's life like in space with, like, more electromagnetic radiation and you're, you know, you don't have gravity. So, that's space. Right. Whereas if you've got a probe that's, like, circling the Earth and it's, like, taking pictures of Earth. Yeah. But that's just a camera. That's just an Earth experiment, but a better angle. But in space. It's an Earth experiment in space, from space. We should have called this episode Experiments on Space, but my topic wouldn't fit anymore.

Well, yeah, I mean, we're doing experiments on space, but we're also doing experiments on things that are in space. That's mostly what we're doing is like, what's this thing like when it's in space? And pretty much all the ISS is doing is experiments in space. Yeah, that's mostly what it does. And like being like in space. Yes. A lot of what the ISS does is like stay up. So just maintenance and keeping everything good, making sure there's plenty of food for the astronauts

and air and water and not falling down. I thought you were referring to it as a symbol of our human economy. That too. It does also do that. It does also put a bunch of humans together in one place and it says, we are not from any country, but we are humans, which is not something we get

in many ways these days. The area code for the phone number on the ISS is apparently Houston, though. So it's like a little bit American in that respect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's the thing where there's some argument over what Catholic bishop oversees the

moon. Because the idea is that until you set up a bishopric or whatever in the new place, the bishop from the place where the journey began is the bishop of the new land. So basically, it's the bishop of Orlando is the bishop of the moon. So if a Catholic person died on the moon, that too would go take care of that? Yeah.

If you're raised on the moon and you need some Catholic administration done I think mostly it's administrative what the bishops do rather than

because the local preacher would but I guess you don't have one right so maybe you have to go all the way up the chain to the bishop

yep put him in a rocket just put a call to her yeah yeah I mean, doing a confessional over I guess there's probably a secure line you could get on. What are we talking about?

That seems like a tangent. That was definitely me. How are you feeling about it? I learned something. That was a very fun fact. We're going to move on. It is time for Truth or Fail. One of our panelists has prepared three science facts for education and enjoyment. But only one of those facts is true.

The other ones are big, fat, stinking lies. And we have to guess which one is the true one. And if we get it wrong, then Sam gets a Sam Buck because Sam is doing Truth or Fail. In the grim darkness of the far future, space is full of brands. Space flight, advertising, publicity stunts, an outlet wall on the moon, it will all come to pass in the future.

But for now, a few brands have already gotten their foot in the door by funding space experiments. Which of these are a real brand-funded experiment in space? Number one, KFC-funded research into using chicken fat as an eco-friendly rocket fuel component. Number two, Nike-branded shoes with sensors designed to monitor astronauts' feet while exercising to help fight bone loss. Okay. Or number three, a study funded by a perfume company to see if flowers smell different in space. KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken different in space. KFC. Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Is it just KFC? I think officially it's just KFC, but you can call it Kentucky Fried Chicken. Okay, so just for clarity, for the people at home who may not be aware, in America we have a thing called Kentucky Fried Chicken. Other countries, too. It's very popular in China. Oh, never mind, then. I just assumed by the Kentucky in it that it would be.

I think that's why they call it KFC. People are like, I don't want to know about this. They don't care where it's from. So there's KFC sponsored chicken fat rocket fuel. Rocket fuel? Rocket fuel. Nike sponsored shoes that have sensors in them to help protect against bone density loss. Or a study funded by a perfume company to see if flowers will smell different in space?

What perfume company, Sam? A perfume company. Unspecified. Unspecified perfume company. Okay. Would they smell different? This is the thing. Like, as my poem says, nothing is the same in space.

Everything is different. And I think I have heard something about things smelling different in space. I could see this being a lie, though, if it's an unnamed perfume company of just like some perfume company didn't want to see a flower smell different. They just like sent up nice smelling things to the space station. It's like, oh, you're stinky up there. Here's like nice smells. Yeah, that seems like more of a brand deal than like, I want to know what flowers smell like. But you never know.

Maybe they just want to help science happen. Yeah. And I know that Nike has those things that they put in the shoes for a while. Do you guys remember this? They have things that they put in the shoes? They hook up to an app or something. Yeah. Yeah.

Like go in your shoe and it will be under the sole and it would be basically like a Fitbit but in your shoe and I think that they sort of got replaced by Fitbits. Oh. I was going to say it sounds better

to have the Fitbit in the shoe. But you're not always wearing the shoe whereas the Fitbit's always on you and it tells you what time it is.

That seems very reasonable to me especially because it's like if we could be the shoe on the mission to Mars that'd be pretty cool. Oh heck. I mean yeah

Nike's definitely got to get that one. You're not going to let Under Armour be the freaking sportswear brand of the Mars mission. It's got to be Nike. Just do it.

A little swoosh on the astronaut boot. Swoosh on the boots. I'm feeling perfume. Really? Yeah, I know. I think it's wild because it's,

but like, I don't know. I'm not going to rationalize it too much because I don't want to sway you to my side and have you guys get my points because of my wisdom.

We didn't talk about the chicken fat. It didn't have to say, it doesn't have to work necessarily. They could just fund it and like slap KFC on the side of Rocket. I think that's because

I'm hungry for lunch and now I want fried chicken, but I'm going to go with that one. Oh. Do they, does KFC have Uber Eats? I'm just wondering if we should get an order

for everybody because that would sound good. By the time we finish, it'll be here. Yeah, that sounds good. You Do they does KFC have Uber Eats? I'm just wondering if we should get an order for everybody because it'll sound good. By the time we finish it'll be here. Yeah that sounds good. We can't order KFC in the middle of our podcast. This is a minus one tangent.

I think this is all this whole episode. Who gets the minus one tangent for the KFC? Well Hank for suggesting that we should order and then pulling out

his phone. Just saying if it's available. I am also leaning towards the KFC one. It does sound sort of plausible to me only because fats have a lot of calories compared to like protein and carbs. And so I could see them processing it in some way that maybe it could be used as a fuel. We definitely have turned fat into fuel, you know, biodiesel. We can't get KFC, but they got Popeyes. Do you want Popeyes? I would eat it. I'm hungry. I'm getting some Popeyes for me and Sari. Do you want some, Sam?

I mean, if you're getting Popeyes, I'm not going to say no. All right, we ordered Popeyes. What's the answer? Because it's been 100 years, please remind me what you all picked. I picked KFC fat. KFC fat.

And I picked the perfume. The correct answer is the perfume. What? So can I tell you why I thought it was perfume that I didn't tell everybody? Yeah.

Because I don't think that NASA likes it when there's too much closeness between the thing and the brand. So if they were like actually saying like, does this perfume smell super good? Then I'd be like, no. But if it's like, we just want to know how people smell in space. And then the perfume company can put out a press release that's like, we funded this scent study. Whereas these other ones seem too close.

Okay. And NASA wouldn't like it. That was my mistake. Couldn't trick Hank. So in 1998, International Fragrance and Flavors, that's the name

of the company. Nice. Boring. I like it. Yeah, it's kind of old-fashioned-y, huh? Very 50s name. That's a great

conglomerate name, yeah. Yeah, it's a fragrance conglomerate and they worked with NASA's Commercial of old-fashioned, huh? Very 50s name. That's a great conglomerate name, yeah. Yeah, it's a fragrance conglomerate, and they worked with NASA's Commercial Space Product Development Program, which is a whole wing of NASA devoted to that product development in space. They sent a rosebud to the ISS in a plant growth chamber, and when it bloomed, they took samples of its scent compounds, and they reported that the smell had changed

from a very green, fresh, rosy smell to a more floral rose aroma. Yeah, I can definitely know that. That's very different from one another, I'm sure. Rose was in both of them. One was more green, though. They both smelled like rose. Who smelled it? Just the astronauts? it just the astronauts

no the astronauts collected samples and then they brought it back to oh to like the experts who smell for a living I think or something

like that and then the experts who smell for a living were like ah different notes of green they think this happens because in the rose

the compounds were mixing in different ways because it was just in no gravity so things were just mixing together differently, I guess, or sitting in one part of the flower longer than they would have

or less time than they would have. The fragrance was deemed to be more pleasing than the regular boring old earth rose fragrance. And they started to mass produce. The company started to mass produce and sell the space rose smell. And there's at least one product that uses it that I could find a Japanese perfume called Zin, which is described as floral, woody, and spiritual incense.

It smells like the inside of your soul. Yeah, and you can buy that if you want to smell like a space rose. But they don't even advertise it as space smell? They do not seem to, no. Okay. You'd think they would, but they don't. The chicken fat thing was not funded by KFC and not a rocket fuel, but in 2011, NASA

tested a jet fuel made of chicken and beef fat to see if it was more environmentally friendly than traditional fuel, and it was by quite a bit. They ran this jet airliner idling, and it produced 90% less black carbon. When they did the takeoff routine, it produced 60%

less black carbon. That seems cool. I couldn't find where they were getting all this chicken fat. From around. Maybe KFC. Yeah, I mean, probably the place where the chickens get turned into food. Into food, yeah, maybe. KFC did fund some stuff in the 90s about egg development in space.

And the little box that the eggs went up in had a Colonel Sanders picture on it. And then bone loss is not funded by any brand, but there's a special pair of pants and shoes that astronauts wear to determine if they're basically getting enough exercise of their legs. So there's different exercise machines they can use up there to try to keep their bone density up because it's a big thing in space

that your extremities bone density will go down because you're not using them enough and so this one experiment was in 2002 through 2006 and it was called the foot ground reaction forces during space flight or as nasa shortens it to foot which is not how those things work but that's what they call it and this particular one determined that it was not even close. They were not getting even close to the right amount of exercise. So then they went back

to the drawing board and made up harder exercises for them to do in space. So hard to be an astronaut. It's one thing to like exercise and know you're not

really doing enough. It's another to have like hundreds of people examining how much you're exercising and then telling you you're not doing enough.

Yeah. And that your bones are now bent. Right, soft and spongy. I think if all I had to do was science and exercise, though. That would be okay? That would be okay. I think I would exercise more if I didn't have to deal with, like, all the other things that come with living on Earth. Right, laundry.

Cooking. I bet they have to do laundry in space, though. No, they, like, eject it out. They just, like, don't wash their clothes. They just put it into a pot and send it back down to Earth? I think so. Or, like, get it destroyed. So they just incinerate it right there in space?

Not in space, but, like, in something that will get destroyed in the atmosphere. Oh. Instead of, like, getting it safely back. So they just go up with, like, enough shirts and pants and stuff to last them for as long as they need? I didn't look into this enough, but. That's kind of what I do when I go on trips to Europe. I just take what I need and then buy new stuff

as it goes along. Oh, really? Yeah, I bring all my old underwear and I buy new, nice European underwear. Do you leave the old underwear? Yeah, I mean, I don't leave it for someone to find. Yeah, I leave it in the trash. Hank's really into geocaching with his own underwear alright

we're gonna take a short break and then it'll be time for the fact off welcome back everybody Welcome back, everybody. Sandbuck totals. Sarah's got nothing. Stefan's got nothing. I've got one, though I should have two.

No. But I wanted Popeye's. Oh, yeah. And Sam's got two as well. All right. Everything is as it should be. Now it's time for the fact-off. Two panelists have brought science facts and presented the others

in an attempt to blow our minds. And we each have a Sam Buck Tour Award to the fact that we like the most. And to determine who's going to go first, I'm going to ask you these questions. What year did dogs Belka and Strelka go into space with several of their rodent pals to become the first creatures born on Earth to go into orbit and return back to Earth alive. 1953. 1953. That's way earlier

than I would have thought. 1962. The correct answer is 1960. Well done, Sari. Are they shooting things into space in 1953? Sputnik was 57. It all happened in the 60s in my head, no matter when it actually happened.

A lot of it happened in the 60s. I was a little too early. It moved really fast from the first thing to being on the moon was 12 years. And then we were like, let's never do that again. We're good. So I guess that means that, Sari, if you want to go first, you can. Or you can make Stefan do it. I will go first because last time I made Stefan go first, he won.

And then I won. So you know the thing that happens when you're driving behind a semi-truck to save fuel? It's called tailgating or drafting because the truck pushes air particles out of the way to reduce the air resistance of your car as you're driving forward. Scientists in the 90s during a few space shuttle missions wanted to do this experiment in space to see if they could create an ultra vacuum in low earth orbit that's 1,000 to 10,000 times better than the best vacuum chambers on earth. So the tool, the device they used to do this is called the Wake Shield Facility, which is basically a four meter in diameter disc that they launched with a robotic arm. They like

let it go behind the shuttle and it would hover around 75 kilometers behind the shuttle. And I think it just followed in the shuttle's wake. was described as a free-flying platform and i couldn't find anything to say that it had its own fuel or anything on it so basically the shield would fly in the wake of the shuttle and then in the wake of the shield it would push away any other like lingering particles that could be in space and the vacuum the ultra vacuum was created behind this disc. And it worked. And the reason for all this trouble is they wanted to test creating thin film materials with a process called epitaxy, which is basically depositing really thin layers of a substrate. And so I think on the back of this disc, they had a substrate that they wanted

like thin oxidized layers of crystal or something to to build up on to research things like really really fine semiconductor layers photo cells which are sensors that detect light that can be really thin and even research into bionic eyes because they wanted to grow very very thin ceramic films to act as replacement retinas because silicon, which is, I don't know, they were trying it out, reacted really badly with eye tissue. And so then ceramic was seen as more biocompatible. And so they wanted to grow these like ultra, ultra thin films that you could only do in an ultra vacuum. The last news that I heard about the bionic eyes, because that was the coolest part, was in 2002.

So I don't know if anyone's still doing it or if it just like, because the films worked, like they learned about vacuums here. And this experiment worked two of the three times that they put it into space. But as far as I could tell, they were just like, seeing what could be done in an ultra vacuum. Right. We did it. Yeah. We did it.

Huh. When you started that, I was like, oh, they're going to launch two rockets and have one follow the other so that it uses less gas, get a little bit better mileage. I don't know. That seems iffy. Yeah, no. They just wanted to see what happens if you create an ultra vacuum.

And then deposit crystal and stuff on a surface very, very, very thin. So we have talked about things that are like one micron thin. Is a micron the smallest thing you can do? Oh, there's smaller things. Or is there just some things that you can only spread extremely thin in a super vacuum like that?

I think it's like it spreads smoother in an ultra vacuum because in air there's a bunch of other particles and even in like a good vacuum but not a great vacuum there's the chance of something disrupting like a single layer of atoms being layered on top to form a perfect crystalline structure and so it like just prevents contamination that there would be any other atom just happening to float around and get incorporated in the crystal structure. Is that like more of a vacuum than space space? Yeah, because there's still

some stuff in space is to push whatever stuff might come across the path of this awake shield facility. Push it out of the way to make even more of a vacuum. Right, and it's moving too fast for stuff to rush in there. I feel like we should say that in

real life on Earth, when you're driving, you shouldn't tailgate trucks to try to get better mileage. That's a super not safe thing to do. Stefan knows. No, I never tailed them that closely because I was aware. Yeah, that's probably a good safety metric.

I dabbled in hypermiling for a while. It's also good to not drag yourself behind a space shuttle. So, Stefan, can you follow that? We'll see. So, there's an experiment that was done by JAXA and the University of Yamanashi as a first step in figuring out how viable it is to store sperm long-term in space. The idea is that in the future, the far future, there will be colonies or just long-term missions,

like multi-generation missions perhaps, where we need some kind of assisted reproductive technology in space, both for humans to maintain genetic diversity, but also for livestock and things. And also they presented the idea

which I had never thought of, of just storing genetic material off-world in case of an emergency down here. Like if something bad happens. A seed vault. But like human seed. On the moon or something.

But the problem is that if cosmic radiation causes a lot of damage to stored sperm, it could affect the future generations that are produced with it. So they collected sperm from 12 mice, separated them into two sets of vials, and one was sent to the ISS and one was kept on Earth.

They called that the ground control sperm. And in both sets, the sperm were freeze-dried and went through the same temperature changes at the same times for the same durations. And one of the things they pointed out is that in other studies on reproduction in space, the genetic material is not frozen, and so it's actively metabolizing,

which means that DNA repair is happening. And so you might not see exactly how much damage is taking place because the cells are actively repairing themselves. But if you're storing sperm long-term, they are going to be frozen. And so after you thaw them out, they have to be able to repair any accumulated damage. And so that's kind of what they're testing here. The freeze-drying part of this is also super weird to me

because freeze-drying sperm kills them. But if I understood this whole thing correctly, once you can still rehydrate them and inject them into fresh oocytes, and then the fresh alive cells will repair the DNA of the sperm and then get fertilized. The oocytes will repair the sperm DNA?

I think that is what it is saying happens. So they left these vials in a freezer on the ISS for nine months and then brought them back and did a bunch of testing. And there was no difference in the appearance of the sperm, but the space sperm did have slightly more damage. But when they injected all the spermies into the oocytes, both groups... Don't say that.

Can I continue? You can say spermies. the oocytes both groups I don't say that can I continue you can say spermies if you say eggies you can only say spermies if you say eggies otherwise it's the patriarchy yeah and you lose a hang a sandbag

oh god when they injected all the spermies into the little eggies both groups the space sperm and the ground controlled sperm went on to produce

little mice pups at basically the same rate how long were the spermies up there? nine months if we're going to do a seed vault we need longer than that

that's why I was saying it's like kind of a first step experiment because like when we do artificial insemination on earth

those things have been in storage for like over a decade sometimes and so like we need to be able to test very long-term storage bury them in the moon yeah yeah bury it and shielded then that would be okay that was the that was kind of the thing is they were like yeah you could we could make like an ice shield or you could stick these in a lava lava tube on the moon or something and that would help protect it but But so far, based on these results, it seems like it is possible

to recover from whatever damage is happening in nine months of being freeze-dried in space. All right. So, do we go with Sari's wake shield facility to create a super vacuum in space

or Stefan's holding on to freeze-dried sperm for nine months in the ISS to see if mouse pups can happen from space sperm. Sam, are you ready to go? I'm ready. Three, two, one, Sari. Ooh. Interesting. What's the difference?

I like Sari's because I like the idea that space is not enough of a vacuum. And we had to be like, let's spend a lot of money to make space extra vacuum-y. I like Stefan's because he said spermies. I was pretending. All right, everybody, it's time for Ask the Science Couch. We've got a listener question for our couch of finely honed scientific minds.

This one is from at Scared scared hippie and at clubja. What could happen if someone got pregnant in space? It seems bad. It does. It seems like it's one of the most delicate moments of human life.

And as stated twice already in this episode, everything is different in space. Is anybody interested in actually learning more about human baby, like, embryonic development and, like, birth in space? So, NASA is, and also a startup in the Netherlands. So, not KFC. I'm not excited about that. Not KFC, not Nike. So to follow up to Stefan's study, so they did the mouse sperm in 2017.

Is that what you said? In 2018, apparently NASA sent a bunch of human and bull sperm to the ISS. It's called Mission Micro 11. They wanted to test whether if they're sent to space and back to see if the mobility of the sperm changes. And I don't think they're actually using eggs, which makes it like ethically more sound. But they're just seeing like, does it wiggle enough? Right. And in what way?

So is that the main concern? Why there hasn't been a lot of like putting male and female mice in the same cage and seeing what happens? Because they're just like sort of ethically concerned about the results of that. You know, partially because it's iffy. If we don't have a reason why we're doing this, then it seems like a lot to put a potential baby mouse through. And secondarily, like might just be bad PR. Yeah, I think it's like we don't know what the radiation will do, even though that's

like an interesting question from a biological standpoint and better to experiment with mice or like a test organism. Also, just like logistically having sex in space seems difficult. And like, I feel like. I don't buy this. I feel like for animals. An animal wouldn't even probably want to try. Yeah. Because they'd be in such a different, like I've read about ants and stuff in space,

and they don't even try to do anything it seems like. Oh, man. Yeah, I guess I could see that. I don't know. But my understanding of biology is basically that like if you can, then you will. Unless maybe you're floating in the void of space. But if there's a stressor that is big enough that makes you sort of think, that's not a thing to do. I do not buy that no one has had sex in space.

I've got the tapes. There's a company that doesn't want to make people have sex in space. They want to send a pregnant woman up to space with a medical team to deliver a child they i don't know they just like want to see what happens if a baby is born in space like at the moment of birth it doesn't seem very useful for like a long-term study because then there's no development happening no i hate that i've been there for a birth and you want gravity you want gravity so bad you want gravity. You want gravity so bad. You want to keep all that things going in a direction. Yeah. So it's like all the question of

fluids. Gravity is not helping get the baby out. But then also you can answer questions like if a baby is born in space, if your first breaths are like oxygen in a spaceship instead of like earth air. I don't know how the composition is different.

Is that different? It can be, yeah. It usually isn't now. We now, I think, just use the same nitrogen-oxygen mix that we use on Earth. The big question is like how do you make it back to Earth with a baby also? Yeah, I hate this on multiple levels. This is a bad idea. I don't see learning anything just from the having

other babies. It just seems like it's going to make things harder and more dangerous. And that's it. You don't really learn anything. So the question is, what would happen if you got pregnant in space, right? So simply put, what could happen? We don't know. Bad? Probably more challenges

than there are on Earth in all steps of the process. And slightly more, like a higher probability of having a health problem. You have to put a lot of tarps up on the International Space Station. Yeah, I think suction tubes is definitely the thing to do. Yeah. Ultra vacuum. I had that thought when I was reading about my thing because the livestock in space seems terrible.

Like you've got like chicken feathers all over the place. Oh, yeah. Tube them up. Gravity is so helpful. You never really think about how necessary it is. Sometimes it's really annoying when you fall and you're like, ow. But the rest of the time, gravity is great. Yeah, it's like I'm glad my poop fell in the toilet.

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But one more thing. Flatworms, which are known to regenerate, got their heads and tails cut off and then sent to the ISS for five weeks. And because they don't have an anus, I'm counting the tail as the butt. And one of those that got sent to the space station and came back grew a head instead of a butt. So it had two heads. And when they cut off its two heads, it grew two more heads. Usually, very rare event. But then,

because of space radiation, this lost its butt forever. What? Lost its butt forever. So sad. What a sad tale. That's it. Is the Popeyes here yet?

It is.