StarTalk Radio - A Conversation with Andy Weir – Special Bonus Episode

Episode Date: November 30, 2017

Neil deGrasse Tyson welcomes Andy Weir, best-selling author of “The Martian,” to talk about his new book, “Artemis” – a heist/crime novel that happens to be set on the Moon. Neil and Andy ex...plore the unique, science-infused creative process that went into the novel, and much more.Special thanks to Audible for making this bonus episode possible.NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can listen to episodes commercial-free. Find out more at https://www.startalkradio.net/startalk-all-access/ Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Today's bonus episode of StarTalk Radio is presented exclusively by Audible. Audible offers an unmatched selection of audiobooks, original audio shows, news, comedy, and more from the leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters, entertainers, magazines, and newspaper publishers, as well as business information providers. And Audible has the newest book from today's guest, Andy Weir. Listen to Artemis, read by Rosario Dawson, today. And Audible has the newest book from today's guest, Andy Weir. Listen to Artemis, read by Rosario Dawson, today. New subscribers can join Audible for free for 30 days.
Starting point is 00:00:35 Go to audible.com slash startalk to get started. That's audible.com slash startalk for your free 30-day trial. Welcome to Startalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk. Today, in this bonus episode, you'll hear my extended interview with author Andy Weir. Let's get right to it.
Starting point is 00:01:13 So, Andy, you couldn't leave it alone. I just couldn't. You just had to keep doing this. It's a sickness. Putting a dude on Mars was not enough. Insufficient. Insufficient. I'm putting a city on the moon. Having a movie about the book was not enough. Insufficient. Insufficient. I'm putting a city on the moon. Having a movie about the book was not enough.
Starting point is 00:01:28 Yeah, no, I mean, it was a good start. You just had to keep going. Gotta. That's my whole job. Well, that original book was sort of battle-tested because it was written in parcels, if I remember correctly. Yeah. And the internet would react, and you'd react back.
Starting point is 00:01:46 But this one, not so much. No, this was a traditional contract with Random House. And so I didn't get to post it a chapter at a time like I did for The Merchant because when a... So you don't have everyone's buy-in in advance. I don't. I don't, yeah. When a publisher gives you a big pile of money to write a book, they don't
Starting point is 00:02:02 like it when you post it for free. So they prefer that you don't do that. I see. So yeah, I was on my own this time. So did anyone tell you there's no air on the moon? Did they tell you this in advance? It's a really hostile place.
Starting point is 00:02:17 More hostile than Mars? No, it didn't come up. No one told you? I need to make some edits maybe. Is it too late? The book comes out tomorrow as of the time that we're taping this. But yeah, you know, of course, I'm a space dork. Not that I have to tell you that. People wear space dork titles with pride in this office. Yes, absolutely.
Starting point is 00:02:37 This is a space dork safe space. A space dork, a safe space dork space. Yeah. Yeah. And so, of course, the moon's always been as fascinating to me as Mars. So this required an entire other layer of thinking to make existence on the moon real. Well, yeah. I mean, so this time it wasn't just like a flags and footprints mission like the Martian was.
Starting point is 00:03:03 I wanted to make a story about humanity's first non-Earth city. And so the first thing I had to figure out was why would anybody build a city somewhere other than Earth? I needed an economic reason for that to happen. So let's start there. Okay. Why? Tourism.
Starting point is 00:03:19 Tourism. Very good. Okay. I'll go. Yeah. I would say, I did my own personal math on this. I would say five years, maybe 10 years of vacation money to spend on one vacation on the moon. Oh, that's your threshold?
Starting point is 00:03:36 That's my sort of equation there. Well, I did a- If you can't get it that cheap, just forget it. Oh, well, okay then. cheap, just forget it. Oh, well, okay then. Well, I did my own math on what I think the commercial space
Starting point is 00:03:50 industry might get to in terms of efficiency. By when? Well, Artemis takes place in the 2080s. 2080s, okay. That's like almost in reach. Almost in reach. 2080s. Probably I won't see it. But people alive today will. Yeah, some people will. And you might see it if we do a little genetic thing.
Starting point is 00:04:07 Yeah, you know, CRISPR, yeah. Well, here's the aging gene. Let's swap that out. I don't know why we didn't do that earlier. No, it's based on the presumption that the commercial space industry would become as efficient in terms of fuel-to-overhead ratio
Starting point is 00:04:25 as the commercial airline industry. And I wrote a whole article on that, which is actually coming out in Business Insider. Yeah, and I wrote this whole kind of, you know, very amateurish economic analysis, but, you know, I'm not getting investors. I'm just writing fiction, so it just has to make enough sense for that.
Starting point is 00:04:42 What is the cost to send a person to the moon in your 2080 future? Well, if you wanted to to make enough sense for that. What is the cost to send a person to the moon in your 2080 future? Well, if you wanted to go to the moon for two weeks, which includes a week travel time there and a week travel time back. A week? Yep. That's three days. What are you talking about? Well, if you go the Apollo route, but if you use a lunar cycler... Oh, okay.
Starting point is 00:04:57 So this will save energy. A lot. Oh. So your lunar cycler... The Apollo is just, let's go straight there. Let's go straight there. Yeah. But the lunar cycler, I use just, let's go straight there. Let's go straight there. Yeah. Yeah. But the lunar cycler, I use the Apoth Crouch cycler that those guys defined, I want to say, in the 80s. Those guys? Apoth and Crouch.
Starting point is 00:05:15 Okay. Okay. And I was really excited. These weren't just syllables spilling out of your mouth. These aren't just random noises. The names of two people. Yeah. Yeah. They're the names of two people. Yeah, they're the names of two people.
Starting point is 00:05:26 Unfortunately, I've forgotten their first names, so I can't give them fully the credit they deserve. But it's a paper I found that describes a lunar cycler. Anyway, grand total, you would spend about $70,000 in 2015 dollars to be able to go to the moon. So you could easily, if you wanted to, create a lottery that you can send people all the time.
Starting point is 00:05:48 Sure. Or I think a lot of people would get a second mortgage on their home to be able to spend two weeks on the moon. Right. Everyone's home is worth more than $70,000 now. So you could easily pull that out of the value of your house.
Starting point is 00:05:59 Possibly, yeah. Or there could be financing. Not everyone's, but I mean... But it's not... Yeah, it's not like... Most people who own homes, their homes are worth more than $70,000. But it's not like going to France. It's considerably more expensive, you know, something like that.
Starting point is 00:06:13 And these are all in $20, $15, by the way, because that's when I did all the economic stuff. Okay, so that's the money part. All right. And how about the food part? How did you solve that? Well, of course. First, let me say in advance, I was at one of your launches at Comic-Con New York. I saw you eating that.
Starting point is 00:06:34 And they had this green powder that was offered me. And they said, oh, this is what Andy invented for his book. I said, isn't his book fiction? They said, yeah, but this is real. Isn't his book fiction? So it was some kind of powdered algae. And just to show you how much I love you and how much I trust you, I ate it.
Starting point is 00:06:57 Yeah, I saw that. I saw the video. It was real. It was real. I said, all right, Andy, he doesn't want me dead. Right. I don't think yet. The name of the algae is chlorella.
Starting point is 00:07:07 Not to be confused with cholera. You don't want to eat cholera. Chlorella. That sounds like a hair color. Chlorella. Chlorella hair color. Chlorella. It sounds like a brand.
Starting point is 00:07:15 Yes, yes. It's chlorella. And the reason they... Was it actively alive when I ate it? No, it was way dead by the time you ate it. Way dead. Yeah, it was a powder. It was dead. Okay. Yeah, No, it was way dead by the time you ate it. Way dead. Yeah, it was a powder. It was dead.
Starting point is 00:07:25 Okay. Yeah, no, it lives in the ocean. It lives completely surrounded by water. Okay. And the way you guys ate it is actually, I watched you and LeVar Burton eating it. That was awesome. Both of us were on location for this event. You were both like, oh.
Starting point is 00:07:40 Well, yeah, the way people in Artemis eat it is they add a little bit of water, so it's more like an oatmeal. Your people didn't tell me this. Yes, they did not. I looked at it and I said, who eats powder? Yeah. Surely there's some water you would have to add to this. Well, this is how they did it on the moon. So I said, let me play along.
Starting point is 00:07:55 Yes. Well, also they add flavorant. The idea is that, so chlorella algae, algae in general, of course, it reproduces with doubling times. So you can, in a fairly small volume, grow a lot of calories of food as long as you've got the energy. And the energy is not a problem. Artemis has reactors. You're good. Wouldn't all life have doubling times?
Starting point is 00:08:18 That's true. If you have an open ecosystem for it, yeah. Yes, but the doubling time of wheat is a little slower than you'd like, and it takes a lot of surface area and volume to grow. So that's what kind of the poor people eat. The algae. Yeah, the algae. That plus flavorants, like artificial flavors that you import from Earth,
Starting point is 00:08:39 which are fairly cheap because it doesn't weigh a lot to bring a thing of extract up. If you're rich... It's like vanilla extract it doesn't weigh a lot to bring a thing of extract up. If you're rich... It's like vanilla extract at home. Right. It's in your cabinet for years. Yeah. You need like three drops to make a batch of cookies. Right, right, right.
Starting point is 00:08:54 Yeah. But then if you're a little wealthier or if you're poor but want to go out for a good meal, then you eat food that's been imported from Earth. Oh. And that's good old-fashioned food although of course it so this is not going to be fresh this reminds me of the early days when transportation international transportation was expensive because we're old enough to remember a time when if you had something imported you would tell people that this is my imported yes this is imported cheese
Starting point is 00:09:23 Yes, this is imported cheese. This is imported wine. This is rich, real Corinthian leather. Corinthian. So, it was imported. That was a mark of exclusivity. Now so much goods and services, goods are transported across the ocean. It's not a point of pride anymore. It just is.
Starting point is 00:09:43 It just is. And in terms of expense, it's, I mean. In fact, I remember in grocery stores, there'd be the imported section. Oh, yes. Right, right. This is where you get imported goods. And you go there for that.
Starting point is 00:09:55 For the goods. Right, right. Now it's like, what is it? I forget what it is. It's like something like they'll go lobster fishing in the ocean, like off the east coast. They'll go lobster fishing. They'll send the
Starting point is 00:10:12 lobsters to China for processing and then they'll have them sent back because that's cheaper than doing the processing here. It's insane how cheap it is. Yeah, it's just the economics of it determines the pathways of consumption. Okay, it's just the economics of it determines the pathways. Not so much on the moon, though. Of consumption.
Starting point is 00:10:27 Okay, so algae. So it's either algae, which you can grow just by sunlight. Right. Well, they don't use sunlight. They use artificial light. Everything is like super. They have these algae vats that they. But where are they getting energy?
Starting point is 00:10:40 From nuclear reactors, ultimately. Really? The whole city is powered by two nuclear reactors. So this is helium-3. No, not fusion reactors. Helium-3 is in the moon. Okay, well, gold's in the ocean. Go get it.
Starting point is 00:10:51 Okay, there you go. It's 2080. Yeah, that's true. Go figure it out. Go figure it out. Go figure it out. So there, snap. Snap, snap, snap.
Starting point is 00:11:01 Oh, just one snap. Not a Z-snap. Okay. Yeah, snap. Oh, just one snap. Not a Z-snap. Okay. Yeah, no. I didn't want to invent any brand new technology for the story. Everything's based on existing technology. And so the reactors they have are good old-fashioned fission reactors. Okay.
Starting point is 00:11:18 Where are you getting your uranium? You get that from Earth. But once again, not that heavy. They are definitely... For what it does. For what it does. Uranium is actually very heavy. Well, yes. It's quite dense. With all those 92 protons
Starting point is 00:11:31 going on. But it's... Uranium, by the way, named after the planet Uranus. It is. It is. But what's Neptunium named after? And Plutonium. Plutonium also. Plutonium. Plutonium isn't even Hmm. And plutonium. Plutonium also a question.
Starting point is 00:11:46 Plutonium. Plutonium isn't even named after a planet, right? That's right. It got on there on false pretense. Yeah. Don't get me started. So, all right. So, is it just vaca... Does anyone stay there permanently?
Starting point is 00:11:59 Yes. Well, Artemis is internal economy. Artemis is the name of the colony. Yes, the city. The city, okay. Its population? Its population is about 2,000 people, not including tourists. And its main income is tourism.
Starting point is 00:12:13 It's about 40 kilometers from the... And we know that's a thing. That's a thing. Because we have cities that do that today. Yes, absolutely. Like Roswell, New Mexico. Well, that's one option. That's an example.
Starting point is 00:12:23 Or a Caribbean resort town is another example. And I based Artemis' economy kind of the internal workings after like resort towns in the Caribbean. So you've got the really nice affluent areas for the tourists and then the, shall we say, more austere conditions where the... The working class people who sustain the enterprise. Yeah. And those are the people, those are like immigrants.
Starting point is 00:12:44 It's similar to like America in the early 1800s where, hey, if you can get here, you're welcome to make a life here. If you can just, if you can get. So how does a poor person get to the moon if it takes $70,000? Well, that's if you're going to emigrate to the moon. There's a worker immigrant program, I guess. No, there's no, there is not. Guest worker program. No, nothing like that. There's a worker immigrant program, I guess. No, there's no, there is not. Guest worker program. Nope, nothing like that.
Starting point is 00:13:06 There's no policies even. It's just like, it's kind of self-regulated by whether or not people can get there. It's the same as an immigrant's tale, you know, back in the days of like the new world, which is where, okay, I'm a, you know, I'm a welder and I want to go work in Artemis. I want to do that. So your family saves up the money for you to go. Yeah, I'm selling my house. I'm selling welder, and I want to go work in Artemis. I want to do that.
Starting point is 00:13:25 So your family saves up the money for you to go. Yeah, I'm selling my house. I'm selling my shop. And you land with $10 in your pocket. Right. And then you make a living. Yeah, and I'm going to start my shop here. One-way trip makes it a little cheaper.
Starting point is 00:13:39 So how are they breathing? Well, your diaphragm goes down, and it expands your ribcage. No, so the oxygen is actually, there are lots of ways of managing oxygen in an atmosphere. But the way things work out in Artemis is they have a thriving aluminum smelting industry because they're constantly growing and they're constantly making aluminum. And they refine the aluminum from a mineral called anorthite, which is the most common mineral found on the moon. About 85%
Starting point is 00:14:10 of the rocks in the lunar highland are just anorthite. You can just scoop them right up off the ground because there's no pesky dirt in the way. You don't have to mine, you just go get it. And anorthite is made of aluminum, silicon, calcium, and oxygen. And the amount of oxygen, it's an enormous amount of oxygen. It's like Al2 and blah, calcium, and oxygen. And the amount of oxygen, it's an enormous amount of oxygen.
Starting point is 00:14:25 It's like Al2 and blah, blah, blah, 08. So oxygen is a waste product of making, of extracting aluminum from this molecule. Right. From this mineral. From this mineral. And the moon is awesome. It's made of disassembled moon bases. It's just some assembly required.
Starting point is 00:14:43 Okay. It's made of, anorthite bases. It's just some assembly required. Anorthite is aluminum to make your moon base and oxygen to fill it. Nice. And so now we've got oxygen. Okay. And so we have food imported or grown on location with energy from... Cage-free algae. Free-range algae.
Starting point is 00:15:00 Free-range algae. And it's... I think that's just called, you know... Algae. Algae. Yeah. And so you've got food, imported or otherwise. You've got energy.
Starting point is 00:15:14 You've got oxygen. Okay. What is the governance? The governance is practically nil. So in terms of societies, it's very similar to a frontier town in the 1800s kind of thing in the U.S. during the westward expansion. There is like one lawman who works there. His name is Rudy. He's a former member of the RMCP, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Starting point is 00:15:40 Which makes him polite. He's not that polite. He's Canadian. Come on now. He's Canadian. He's got that polite. He's Canadian. Come on now. He's got that inherent. You can't make a mean Canadian. He's got the inherent Canadian-iosity. No one will read the book if you have a mean Canadian.
Starting point is 00:15:52 He has a no BS attitude. Let's say that. But for the most part, it's just social norms or how the rules are enforced. When you have a small society like that, it's a frontier. They don't have the resources to have like a large standing police force or a bunch of rules. As they grow, they would almost certainly develop
Starting point is 00:16:11 that. So in the series, the book in the series Walking Dead, what has sustained it for so long is the thought the author and the producers have put into the interpersonal dynamics that unfold in the presence of this threat.
Starting point is 00:16:29 Of this complete collapse of society. Complete collapse of society. Who's in charge of resources? Who has distribution? Who gets weird? Who gets power hungry? Who gets submissive? And so, do you explore this, this human dynamic?
Starting point is 00:16:46 Somewhat. I mean, basically, you're always going to have greed, right? You're always going to have people trying to work to their best advantage and taking advantage of whatever weaknesses there are in the system. Or of other people. Or of other people. Yeah. And in Artemis, the case is that since it's so unregulated,
Starting point is 00:17:05 something you might even call like a libertarian paradise, it comes with those disadvantages. In other words, so our heroine is hired to do industrial espionage because who's going to stop you? And also organized crime likes to use Artemis as a means of laundering money because Artemis has its own currency called slugs, which stands for soft-landed grams. Soft-landed grams.
Starting point is 00:17:37 Yes. It's a reserve currency in a way. Slug is a great word anyway. Thanks. Yeah. in a way. But slug is a great word anyway. Thanks.
Starting point is 00:17:43 Yeah. And so one slug can be redeemed for one gram of cargo transported from Earth to Artemis. So if you want to get a kilogram over from Earth, that'll cost exactly 1,000 slugs. And so on. But they also end up using that as a currency. And because it's this really completely unregulated, largely untracked currency,
Starting point is 00:18:07 organized crime loves to come in and use it to launder money. So if I build a ship, I basically have manufactured some of your currency. If you can transport goods. Yeah, that's right. Well, yes and no. Actually, that's kind of fair because it increases the value of... You don't want to print money if what it represents has not increased in value. Right.
Starting point is 00:18:31 Well, think of it as being more like if you go back to the days of the gold standard, if you pull some gold out of the ground, you have created money. Way back in the day. Way back in the day. I still have a gold certificate. Oh, do you? Yeah, yeah. Now it says Federal Reserve Note.
Starting point is 00:18:47 Yeah. In that slot it says Silver Certificate, Gold Certificate. I don't know if I can still cash it in, but. I think you can, actually, by law. Oh, yeah? I can just go to Fort Knox and say, give me my. Well, but they'll give you, what is it, a $1 bill? Yeah, it's a $1 bill.
Starting point is 00:19:00 They'll give you $1 of today's money in gold. So there you go. Yeah. There you go. It's like flake. So how fast is this going to become a movie? Well, I'd love it to become a movie right away. But as a writer, I mean, your only job on a film is to cash the check. And I've already done that.
Starting point is 00:19:21 your only job on a film is to cash the check. And I've already done that. However, if your book is so popular, then there's public pressure on how much latitude the filmmakers can take from them. Like in the Harry Potter series. Yes. I'm not J.K. Rowling.
Starting point is 00:19:41 You can't mess with the characters but so much. That's true. Otherwise, people mess with the characters but so much. That's true. Otherwise, people would be all up in your business. They would be all up in the business. But you've got to be, I think you've got to be a bit bigger than I am to have that kind of pull. To have that muscle. To have that muscle. I think you've got to be J.K. Rowling or Stephen King.
Starting point is 00:20:00 I'm quite a few steps below that. Well, Stephen King now co-writes the screenplay. Right. So he's in it. He's in it. He's in it. Did they keep you out of that room, the screenplay room? Well, they haven't even made the screenplay.
Starting point is 00:20:13 Will they keep you out of the screenplay room? I don't know. Did they keep you out of the screenplay room for The Martian? No, actually. They consulted me a lot pretty much every day. Drew Goddard, who wrote the marvelous screenplay for The Martian, was calling me and asking me stuff, usually technical questions. Good, good. Very good.
Starting point is 00:20:30 So, remind me, who produced The Martian? That was 20th Century Fox. It was produced by Simon Kinmer Productions and Scott Free. It's always an alphabet soup of companies, but Fox. And they have now also bought the same group has bought the rights to Artemis. And they have the directing duo of Chris Miller and Phil
Starting point is 00:20:52 Lord lined up to direct. So, the next step is they're going to get a... You couldn't keep Ridley? Oh, Ridley. We're on a first name basis with him now. That's a weird thing about Hollywood, as I'm sure you've noticed, is that everybody just calls everybody by their first name.
Starting point is 00:21:09 Yeah, yeah. And it just seems weird. I mean, Matt Damon. They're like, yeah, yeah, hi, Matt. You know, it's just like... Well, you need the Damon. Yeah. There's no Matt without a Damon.
Starting point is 00:21:18 You need the Matt Damon. I don't know. I don't know. It's weird. But yeah, so we've got Ward and Miller lined up to direct, and they are right now, I think, picking a screenplay writer to do the adaptation. Okay. And again, forgive me for not having read the book before this interview. That's
Starting point is 00:21:33 why my questions are so blank. No, no. But I'm deeply intrigued. That's very hurtful. No, no, no, no, no, no. You have the wrong attitude. It is, I'm the only honest person to tell you that in all of your interviews. Literally no one else. I read your book. I loved it.
Starting point is 00:21:52 So tell me about it. It takes place on the where? The moon? So a day lasts a month on the moon. So how does that work in the bio cycles of people? Well, Artemis doesn't get any natural light onto the inside except for one little part of it called Aldrin Park. Wait, so you're underground?
Starting point is 00:22:11 No, they're in spheres, which they call bubbles, that are, well, one of them is 100 meters across and all the others are 200 meters across in diameter. They're spheres, and they're half underground, half above ground. This is a geometrically literate audience, so when you say it's a sphere 100 meters across, you don't have to say then in diameter. In diameter.
Starting point is 00:22:32 Well, I just need to draw the distinction between radius and diameter. I don't want to be making a false impression. So these are habdoms, basically. Well, they're spheres. You're giving a false impression. We're here. So these are habdoms, basically. Well, they're spheres.
Starting point is 00:22:48 They're not domes. A dome is a hemisphere. All right. I mean, your literate utterance would know this. Literate utterance? Utterance. So tell me about the 1-6 gravity. I'm more of a writer, not a speaker. I got you.
Starting point is 00:23:01 Tell me about the 1-6 gravity. Just to finish up on the previous question, they're made of aluminum. The hulls are six centimeters of aluminum followed by a full meter of crushed lunar rock followed by another six centimeters of aluminum. This protects you from radiation?
Starting point is 00:23:18 There's no sunlight getting to you. Everything's artificial and it's based on Kenya time. It's what they do for their scheduling and time of day. Kenya. Kenya as in Africa. Kenya as in Africa, yes. Kenya is where the Kenya Space Corporation,
Starting point is 00:23:36 which actually owns Artemis, is based. And that's where they do all their launches from. Remind me of the Earth latitude of Kenya? Latitude? Zero. Yeah, so very nice. Yes, that's part of it. Nice pickings there. Kenya had two things to offer the global space community.
Starting point is 00:23:54 My fictional Kenya had two things to offer. Number one, the equator. The real Kenya would do that if it's actually on the equator. Yeah. Wouldn't have to be fictional for that. Wouldn't have to be fictional. But the other thing they did is they set all of their policies to be as friendly as possible for space travel.
Starting point is 00:24:10 They said, we'll give you a launch license. You don't have to follow these stupid rules that the other countries make you follow. We'll make special tax breaks for you. You can go ahead and bust unions. We don't care. I mean, this is not, you know, it's not kindergarten. It's like they did everything they could to draw.
Starting point is 00:24:26 So they earned the privilege. They successfully drew in the global space. Investment. Yeah. Not just investment, but actual, you know, companies relocated there. They may still be owned by Belgium consortiums or whatever else, but it's centered in Kenya. So being on the equator, you get the benefit of the high-speed movement
Starting point is 00:24:47 of the equator in Earth's rotation going into orbit, Earth orbit. So these missions to the moon first go into Earth orbit, and then they leave? Well, you have to first go into LEO, and then you'll have to transfer low Earth orbit.
Starting point is 00:25:01 LEO. I thought we agreed that this audience... I've never heard anyone say LEO before. LEO? Yeah. Really? LEO. Oh, okay. LEO, GEO. Leo. I thought we agreed that this audience... I've never heard anyone say LEO before. LEO? Yeah. Really? Leo. Okay, Leo.
Starting point is 00:25:07 Leo, G-O. Okay. Mio. Leo, G-O, Mio. Yeah. Mm, Mio. Yeah, middle Earth orbit. Oh, okay.
Starting point is 00:25:14 Not the middle of the Earth. Middle Earth orbit? So you're like orbiting Sauron? Right, right, exactly. Okay, good. Exactly. So you go into Leo, and, you'll take a transfer. You need to catch up with the lunar cycler.
Starting point is 00:25:28 There, there you go. Yeah. Um, because lunar cyclers are, uh, the, the, the cycler just goes back and forth between, it's actually way more complicated, but, um, ultimately it comes near earth and near the moon at regular intervals. And you do have to accelerate the people to catch up with the cycler, but at least you don't need to accelerate the cycler anymore. So you can have this big, comfortable, basically space hotel
Starting point is 00:25:53 that only ever needed to be put in that orbit once. And then so you have a nice, luxurious cruise. And once you catch up with it, you're just on a moving vessel. Yep. As it is, yeah. And then you also need to be, you also need to then be decelerated or accelerated, depends on your frame of reference,
Starting point is 00:26:09 to be able to go then land on the moon when the time comes. Tell me about the 1-6th gravity. How's that working for people? It works great. 1-6th gravity, Artemis is all set up for that. First off, it makes construction a lot simpler because you don't need nearly as much load-bearing. You't need nearly as much load-bearing.
Starting point is 00:26:26 You don't need as much load-bearing on the individual floors within the bubbles. The people who live there are very good at moving around in 1.6G. Tourists are generally not as good. Surely you've seen the
Starting point is 00:26:42 videos from the Apollo missions where they're kind of stumbling around. Of course, tourists in Artemis aren't wearing bulky spacesuits, so they have that going for them. Stairs, like stairs, can be about half a meter high because it's that easy to go up a riser. So this sounds like an ideal place to invent new sports. Could be. Space is limited.
Starting point is 00:27:12 But there is... Excuse me. Space is never limited. Space is not limited. Space on your freaking colony is limited. Yes, that's true. I'm sorry. My colony. Space inside of Artemis. Habitable volume is limited. However, there is one of the bubbles. The bubbles are named after the Apollo astronauts.
Starting point is 00:27:29 And Aldrin bubble has the top four floors of it are just called Aldrin Park. And it's all glass on top instead of the other kind of hole that I was describing. And that's all locally sourced glass because one of the other things that anorthite gives you is silicon. And so it gives you a bunch of silicon and a bunch of oxygen. Mix those together, you get glass. SIO2, yeah. Yes.
Starting point is 00:27:50 And so they have that. And so there's a big park there. Theoretically, you could play some games there. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So, all right. Frisbee is a challenge. Why? Well, you've got two things
Starting point is 00:28:01 that are kind of working against you. Well, working for or against. First off, one-sixth gravity. So it's not going to go exactly the way you expect. Right? That would be true for pretty much anything. Pretty much anything. But second off, the air is only 21% of Earth's atmospheric pressure.
Starting point is 00:28:15 Why? Because it's a pure oxygen environment. Okay. All right. So you need just the right amount of oxygen. Just the right amount of oxygen. Because why over-design? Why go out of your way to make it so much harder on the pressure vessels?
Starting point is 00:28:28 All right, so this makes... So I guess you've done the math on this. If it is one-fifth air pressure here, even if it's 100% oxygen, things should not be more flammable. They're the exact same amount of flammability. Because it's the same density of oxygen. Same partial pressure of oxygen at Earth's sea level.
Starting point is 00:28:49 So humans would be perfectly comfortable breathing and stuff like that. However, it does cause a few other little problems. Like? Like water boils at 61 degrees Celsius, which means coffee tastes like crap. Because it can't properly brew or steep. So you need to
Starting point is 00:29:05 boil coffee in a pressure cooker. You could make it in a pressure cooker or you could go cold brew. Right. That's a thing. That's a thing.
Starting point is 00:29:11 People pay top dollar for that on earth. People pay, yeah, but earth people are really stupid. You know this. Okay, so this is a science fiction movie that takes place in the future in space.
Starting point is 00:29:41 All right. And the only thing that every science fiction movie ever produced in the history of the universe has in common with one another, with each other, is that people go into space and then something goes wrong. Okay. Okay.
Starting point is 00:29:57 That's the plot of every single science fiction movie. In space. Something goes wrong. So what goes wrong? Well, this is more of a problem having to do with people in that the heist
Starting point is 00:30:12 that our hero, Jazz, gets hired to do doesn't go right, and she angers some pretty powerful and very dangerous people that she was not aware were associated with the company that she was sabotaging. Okay, so this is a...
Starting point is 00:30:29 It's a crime novel. It is. It absolutely is. It's a heist story. A heist crime novel that happens to be on the moon. Right. I gotcha. Gotcha. So what's the coolest thing to look for in the book? Let me ask that differently.
Starting point is 00:30:45 What's the most inventive thing you came up with for this book? Most inventive thing? Because in The Martian, you know, poop potatoes. That was good. Potatoes? That was good. That was a good one. Okay.
Starting point is 00:30:57 Coming up with that. We're going to get that one. Yeah, that was good. That's not getting cut. Okay. So, boy, well, there is a twist toward the end of the book, which you would know if you'd read it, you know, where some...
Starting point is 00:31:15 I'm sorry, the universe is like a big place, and I, you know, can't read everything at all times. Grant, you know, broadly speaking, Neil, you spend your whole life in a very, very small part of that universe, right? That's true. I mean... But the rest of the universe calls to me. Oh, it doesn't.
Starting point is 00:31:29 And you're a cog in that turning universe. Hey, if you take a cog out of any machine, the machine stops working. I'm just saying. No, you can break some cogs. You can break some cogs. You have redundant cogs. That's good. That's good.
Starting point is 00:31:43 No, there is a thing at the end that I don't want to give too much away on because of spoilers, but there's some, shall we say, unexpected chemistry that happens at the end that causes a real problem. And I'm kind of proud for having come up with that. I'll tell you about it after we're done taping.
Starting point is 00:32:01 Okay. Or maybe I won't. Maybe you should read it. Okay. done taping. Or maybe I won't. Maybe you should read it. So is there dairy or farm animals or this sort of thing? Oh no, there's nothing like that.
Starting point is 00:32:16 So it's a complete plant-based life? Plant-based diet. Well, I mean, if you're talking about locally made stuff, then yeah. Anything that's imported from Earth, well, it would have to be something that can be frozen or freeze-dried or something like that. But for wheat, so what? Yeah. It's a seven-day trip.
Starting point is 00:32:32 So like fresh meat would be challenging, right? But like frozen meat, frozen chicken, you know, eggs can last seven days, sure. Fruits and vegetables? Yeah. You can get those? Yeah, you can get those. And, you know, eggs can last seven days, sure. Fruits and vegetables?
Starting point is 00:32:43 Yeah. You can get those? Yeah, you can get those. And some people would grow them themselves in very small quantities, but not at a scale for everyone to eat. It would be a luxury item. And you can forget about, like, fruit tree fruit, at least not local stuff. Now, for me, the allure of going to the moon would be frolicking on the landscape. Okay.
Starting point is 00:33:02 Well, you get to do that. As part of the experience. Yes, absolutely. So you can go for these excursions. They're EVA masters. Basically, going out onto the surface of the moon is... Let's be clear. EVA is NASA's multisyllable...
Starting point is 00:33:19 Yes. That's spacewalks, basically. Yes. Extra vehicular activity. Moonwalks. Yeah, moonwalks. Moonwalks. Not vehicular activity moonwalks yeah moonwalks moonwalks not the Michael Jackson kind but yeah
Starting point is 00:33:29 and you can you can do this in a similar way that you can go diving when you're on vacation in a nice ocean place where you have an EVA master
Starting point is 00:33:37 who is out there kind of keeping track of you and maybe eight other people and but he or she will be wearing wearing the big complicated
Starting point is 00:33:46 suit with articulated fingers, everything kind of like you imagine an Apollo suit, but a little more advanced. You will be in what they call a hamster ball. It's basically just a big, clear, inflatable, airtight ball
Starting point is 00:34:01 that's strong enough that if you roll it over a rock, it won't pop or anything. And you're inside and you wear a backpack that they call a scurry pack, and it regulates all the air on the inside. And you're limited to about two hours on any given EVA because, I did the math on this, that's about as much heat rejection
Starting point is 00:34:21 that you can handle by having a big block of ice in a backpack. So basically... So you ran the thermodynamics on this? Yeah. Very nice. Thank you. We should remind ourselves of your academic pedigree. I have no degree.
Starting point is 00:34:38 That's my academic pedigree. You are Dr. Tyson. I am high school graduate Andy. So no. Then let us not call it academic, but let's call it academic passions. Ah, yeah. Yes, that would include science and engineering. Oh, yeah, big time.
Starting point is 00:34:56 I love that stuff. There you go. There you go. But I'm what you call a gentleman scientist, not an educated one. gentleman scientist, not an educated one. So, I have told people that the highest compliment I've ever gotten
Starting point is 00:35:09 from anyone at any time was from you. When you said that you were riding the Martian, laying down some science to track and you imagined I was looking over your shoulder. What if Neil deGrasse Tyson reads this?
Starting point is 00:35:25 On the brink of tweeting about some mess up in your book. And you didn't want that. I didn't want that. You didn't want that. So, am I still there? Oh, yeah. Am I still there on your shoulder? Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:35:40 No, no. You're still there. You're still there on my shoulder. In fact, Artemis is even more scientifically accurate than the Martian. The Martian projected forward some technologies like ion propulsion. Sure. And I completely ignored the effects of radiation. I just made this magical HAB material that would stop radiation.
Starting point is 00:36:01 I offered no explanation. In Artemis, I didn't even do that. I said like, all right, you know, Artemis has the, the, the whole thickness to protect people from radiation. When you go out on an EVA, I calculated, uh, let's say you're a tourist and you go out on an EVA and one of those hamster balls, you don't have a bunch of like protection from a traditional EVA suit. How much radiation do you get? Turns out over a two-hour EVA during the lunar daytime, you would get about the same amount of radiation
Starting point is 00:36:29 as getting a set of dental x-rays. So that's fine. That's the measure. But I checked. And the reason I checked is because I knew you'd check. But, you know, I get misunderstood in many of my...
Starting point is 00:36:44 I'm there to just enhance people's appreciation But, you know, I get misunderstood in many of my... I'm there to just enhance people's appreciation of the book or of the movie. Yeah, sure. And I get characterized as a buzzkill. No, that's not... But I'm really just keeping everybody... Keeping them honest. Just keeping it to the song.
Starting point is 00:36:59 See, I guess I'm in some... I don't know if I'm in a minority or whatever. I'm in the opposite camp. I love that. I love what the opposite camp. I love that. I love what other people apparently consider a buzzkill. I'm like, yeah, you tell them, Neil. Because it drives me crazy. What really bugs me in the story isn't so much physics and accuracies.
Starting point is 00:37:22 I can accept a warp drive. I got no problem with that. For suspension of disbelief, no problem. What bothers me is inconsistencies. So if you can go faster than light, I remember there was one episode of Star Trek where they're in the, you know, classic Trek, they're in the Enterprise, right?
Starting point is 00:37:35 It can go warp, I forget what classic Trek Enterprise could go warp. Ten-ish, at least ten. Yeah, nine, something like that. But then at one point they're like, okay, we need to get from Mercury to Earth. And it took them a while. And I'm like, wait a minute.
Starting point is 00:37:49 Okay, no. Mercury is like seven light minutes from Earth and you're going many, many times the speed of light. It's not going to take you a while. So yeah, that one that slipped by. Yeah, that slipped by. There was the other episode where they wanted to magnify the sound of people's heartbeats to find out where the alien was in the spacecraft.
Starting point is 00:38:10 And was it Spock or Kirk said, this device magnifies the sound by one to the twelfth power. One to the twelfth power. Yeah, yeah. Excellent. Yeah, one times one times one times one. All the way to the twelfth power. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:38:21 And then I thought, okay, they just misread it. And then there's a similar error in another episode. Yeah. Where it was like one to the ninth power. So somebody just didn't remember that. Just doesn't get that. Yeah. Well, I remember in a book, now that's not fair bagging on Star Trek books because there's so many.
Starting point is 00:38:35 But I remember one of the Star Trek books, Kirk says, Scotty, I want every ohm of power to the shields. Ohm of power. Yeah. So to which I imagine Scotty saying, well, he wants maximum resistance, so I guess I'll just turn him off. Let me get astronomical on you, see if you thought about it, okay? Moon, of course, looks the way it does
Starting point is 00:38:53 because it doesn't have an atmosphere to protect it from meteoroids. Right. How do you protect yourself from meteoroids, especially during meteor showers? You... Did you think about that? I did.
Starting point is 00:39:05 Okay. And the odds of any object hitting something the size of Artemis are literally astronomically low. Okay, good. And it would have to be going, and even if it did, if you're talking about like a micrometeorite, something like that, even if it did, it would have to be going very, very fast, like maybe 50 kilometers a second kind of thing to make it all the way through
Starting point is 00:39:27 both holes and the sand. Okay. Good answer. Good answer. A couple more. Are there occasions where people get to see total solar eclipses down on Earth? Yes, absolutely. Literally every time there's a total solar eclipse, we'll be during a full Earth.
Starting point is 00:39:44 And so you'd be seeing that. Unfortunately, a solar eclipse from space is lame. Yeah, it's fuzzy. It's just like this little kind of blurry blob. Fuzzy, dark thing. Yeah, it's not as exciting. But do you talk about it in the book? I don't.
Starting point is 00:39:57 Oh, it doesn't come up in the book. That's what I'm getting at. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm getting astronomical on you. No eclipses in the book. No eclipses in the book. You said you're getting astronomical, me. No eclipses in the book. No eclipses in the book. You said you're getting astronomical, not literary. Okay.
Starting point is 00:40:07 So, full Earth on the moon is 60 times brighter than full moon on Earth. Yeah, nice, huh? So, do you have any evening Earthlight walks? The Earthlight mattered for some of the EVAs they took. Oh, good. But once again, it only matters when you're outside because inside you get the light. It's 60 times brighter. 60 times.
Starting point is 00:40:30 That I didn't know. See, there's astronomical stuff. That's astronomical. I'm here. Well, my favorite thing is that earth is in a fixed position in the sky. Yes. Well, there's lunar vibration. So it wobbles, but it's there.
Starting point is 00:40:41 And so one of my characters is a devout Muslim. but it's there. And so one of my characters is a devout Muslim. And so he made like a ramp with a prayer rug on it so that he could pray to Mecca because since earth is in a fixed position, that direction is always correct. He never has to change his direction. He doesn't have to change direction.
Starting point is 00:40:57 Right. Very good. Very good. Yeah. So dude. Dude. Congratulations. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:41:02 Thank you. And so you're on tour now for the book, and there's an audible version of it. Yes. Narrated by? The lovely and talented Rosario Dawson, whom you met. Gosh. Oh, yeah. Just to hear her, because in the exhibit that I attended,
Starting point is 00:41:18 it was an audible exhibit at a setup where you got to hear some of the- The Lunar Museum. Yeah, the Lunar Museum at Comic-Con, New York Comic-Con. I got to hear some of the passages read by her. It's great. She's really fantastic. Oh, man. Oh, yeah. Couldn't ask for a better narrator.
Starting point is 00:41:34 Very good. So, cool. And nowadays, since everyone is stuck in traffic, audible versions of books matter. Yes. Yes, they do. Yes, they do. In my latest book, I decided I would narrate that because it was short enough.
Starting point is 00:41:48 Well, you've also got, and I'm not kissing up here, you've got a great voice. I don't hear my voice. I don't even think about it. You've got a really good voice. But here's how I thought about it, because it's not a long book. So I said, well, how many days stuck in LA traffic would get through this book? And I figured two days. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:42:04 Two days, yeah. So that should be the metric, the new measure of how long a book is. Yeah, commute days. Commute days. So, Andy, congratulations. Thank you very much. Thanks for coming through town.
Starting point is 00:42:15 Thanks for having me. And you're based where again? I am based in California near San Jose. San Jose, okay. Well, thanks for coming to New York, your first time. My first time, my first visit to New York City. Welcome to the universe.
Starting point is 00:42:27 Dude, we'll see you again. Thank you.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.