Joe: Everyone thinks the next giant leap for mankind is a city on Mars. But what if the biggest obstacle isn't building rockets, but figuring out what to do with poop, preventing space lawyers from starting a war, and stopping astronauts from stabbing each other over board games? Lewis: (Laughs) Okay, that is definitely not the glorious, star-trekking future I was promised by Silicon Valley billionaires. Poop and lawyers? That sounds less like a giant leap and more like a very expensive, very cold plumbing and litigation nightmare. Joe: It’s a nightmare we are rocketing towards with our eyes wide shut, according to our book today. We're diving into A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith. Lewis: I love that subtitle. It has a sense of rising panic. Joe: It absolutely does. And what's fascinating is the authors—one a biologist, the other a famous web cartoonist—didn't start out as skeptics. They began writing a 'how-to' guide for space settlement but got so alarmed by the overlooked dangers that they wrote this award-winning critique instead. They call themselves 'Space Bastards'—pro-space, but anti-nonsense. Lewis: 'Space Bastards.' I love that. It’s the perfect antidote to the blind optimism. So, what are these big, romantic myths they're trying to bust? Where do we even start with the nonsense?

Joe: Well, the best place to start is with the myth that you can just declare your own rules in space. The authors bring up this incredible, almost comical story from 2020. SpaceX, through its Starlink internet service, put a clause in their Terms of Service agreement. Lewis: Wait, the thing nobody ever reads? Joe: The very same. And buried in that legal text was a line declaring that for services on Mars, "no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities." They were essentially trying to use a pop-up agreement to found a new nation. Lewis: That is the most tech-billionaire move I have ever heard. A Terms of Service agreement as a declaration of independence? That can't be legally real, can it? Joe: Of course not. It’s complete fantasy. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which is the bedrock of space law, is very clear that nations are responsible for the activities of their citizens and corporations in space. You can't just opt out. But the story is a perfect example of the book's central point: the public discourse is filled with these powerful, misleading myths promoted by advocates with very deep pockets. Lewis: And I bet another one of those myths is the whole "escape hatch" idea, right? That when Earth gets too messy, the super-rich will just jet off to their Martian penthouses. I remember seeing articles about that. Joe: Exactly. The book skewers a 2015 Newsweek piece that painted this picture of a "Star Wars class war," with the 1% escaping to Mars while the rest of us suffer on a collapsing Earth. The Weinersmiths just point to basic science and ask: why would anyone want to escape to a place that is actively trying to kill you every second of every day? Lewis: Right. It’s not a luxury resort. It’s a frozen, irradiated, airless desert where the soil is toxic. Your Gilded Age bunker in New Zealand with a wine cellar is looking pretty good by comparison. Joe: Infinitely better. Staying alive on Earth, even a troubled Earth, requires, as the book puts it, "fire and a pointy stick." Staying alive on Mars requires "all sorts of high-tech gadgets we can barely manufacture on Earth." The idea of it being a desirable escape is a fantasy built on a complete misunderstanding of how inhospitable space truly is. Lewis: It's interesting, because you hear these grand, poetic justifications for it. I think of someone like Carl Sagan, who the book quotes, talking about how "the open road still softly calls." It frames space exploration as this innate human drive, a fulfillment of our destiny. Joe: And the authors don't necessarily disagree with the romance of exploration. They love space! But they argue we have to be honest about what's driving the current push. Is it that poetic call of the open road, or is it a set of very specific, very expensive, and very high-risk engineering projects being sold to the public with a side of philosophy? The book’s job is to inject a dose of reality into that poetry. Lewis: So the dream is beautiful, but the reality is… complicated. And a lot more about basic survival than grand philosophy. Joe: And that romanticism completely evaporates when you look at the gritty, biological reality of it. It’s not about grand visions; it’s about survival. Which brings us to the most spectacular failure in trying to build a self-contained home—a 'spome,' as the book calls it—right here on Earth: Biosphere 2.

Lewis: Oh, I've heard of Biosphere 2! It was that giant glass dome in the Arizona desert, right? It was supposed to be a prototype for a Mars colony. Joe: Exactly. A 3.14-acre, nearly airtight greenhouse. In 1991, eight people, the "biospherians," were sealed inside for two years. The goal was to create a perfect, closed-loop ecosystem. It had a rainforest, a desert, a tiny ocean with a coral reef, and a farm. It was supposed to be a self-sustaining paradise. Lewis: Supposed to be. I sense a 'but' coming. Joe: A massive 'but.' The project was a scientific and social catastrophe. First, the social dynamics. The crew, chosen by the project's charismatic leader for being 'cool' rather than for psychological compatibility, quickly split into two warring factions that refused to speak to each other. They were literally passing notes. Lewis: So the tech was one thing, but people just couldn't get along? That sounds… depressingly familiar. It’s like the ultimate group project from hell. Joe: It gets worse. The farm failed to produce enough food. The biospherians were constantly hungry, losing on average 16% of their body weight. They were fantasizing about food, hoarding it. Their diet consisted mainly of bananas, sweet potatoes, and beets. One of the crew members, Jane Poynter, wrote that she would have "killed for a pizza." Lewis: Wow. So starvation and social collapse. What about the 'bio' part of the biosphere? The air and water? Joe: That's where the real mystery began. The oxygen levels inside the dome started to plummet, dropping from 21% down to a dangerous 14%, which is the equivalent of being at an altitude of 13,000 feet. No one could figure out why. The crew was getting sluggish, suffering from sleep apnea. It got so bad they had to secretly pump in oxygen from the outside, breaking the entire premise of the closed-loop experiment. Lewis: They cheated! So what was eating the oxygen? Joe: It turned out to be the soil. They had over-fertilized it, causing a population explosion of soil microbes that were consuming oxygen at an incredible rate. It’s a perfect, humbling lesson: even with hundreds of millions of dollars and the best intentions, they couldn't replicate what Earth does for us effortlessly. They created an atmosphere that was failing. Lewis: That is an incredible cautionary tale. It feels like the human element is the variable we never properly account for. The psychology of it all. Joe: Absolutely. And sometimes it's the small things that break you. The book tells another amazing story from the Space Shuttle program, the "Great Taco Sauce Shortage of STS-40." Astronauts' sense of taste is diminished in space, so flavorful things like hot sauce are liquid gold. Lewis: I can see that. A little bit of home. Joe: Well, the crew started putting taco sauce on everything—their eggs, their Rice Krispies, you name it. The commander realized they were going to run out. So he had to secure the remaining supply and ration it out. It became so valuable that taco sauce packets became the unofficial currency on the shuttle. You could pay someone a packet of taco sauce to clean the latrine for you. Lewis: (Laughs) That's amazing. Taco sauce becomes the basis for an entire micro-economy in orbit. It shows how desperate we are for simple, familiar comforts in these extreme environments. Joe: It really does. And it all comes back to what the biospherian Jane Poynter said, a quote the book highlights: "The human species, after all, did not evolve indoors." We're trying to build these perfect, sterile terrariums, but we're bringing our messy, unpredictable, taco-sauce-hoarding humanity with us. Lewis: Okay, so even if we solve the biology and psychology, which seems like a huge 'if,' we still have to deal with each other on a global scale. How do we stop countries from fighting over the best spots on the Moon?

Joe: That is the trillion-dollar question, and the book argues our current legal framework is terrifyingly unprepared to answer it. The foundation of space law is the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which says space is the "province of all mankind" and forbids "national appropriation" by claim of sovereignty. In simple terms: no country can plant a flag and own the Moon. Lewis: That sounds good. A clear rule. So what's the problem? Joe: The problem is that the treaty was written during the Cold War. It's vague. It doesn't say anything about private companies or the exploitation of resources. And that's where the fight is starting. The book points to the most valuable real estate in the solar system: the "Peaks of Eternal Light" on the Moon's poles. Lewis: Peaks of Eternal Light? That sounds like something out of Tolkien. Joe: It's a real thing. These are crater rims that are in near-constant sunlight, which means they are perfect for solar power. They are also right next to permanently shadowed craters that are believed to hold vast reserves of water ice. Water for drinking, air for breathing, hydrogen for rocket fuel. These tiny spots are the key to everything. Lewis: So whoever controls those peaks controls the future of the Moon. Joe: Precisely. And this is where the US-led Artemis Accords come in. They introduce a new concept called "safety zones." The idea is that if you set up a lunar base, you can declare a zone around it to prevent interference from others—say, to stop a rival rover from kicking up dust all over your solar panels. Lewis: Hold on. So a 'safety zone' is just a polite way of saying 'get off my lawn' on the Moon? That sounds like a recipe for conflict. It sounds like a backdoor to claiming territory without calling it a claim. Joe: That's exactly the fear. It's de facto appropriation. The book uses a hilarious hypothetical: what if the authors set up "Shackleweiner Station" on a crater and started turning all the precious water ice into a giant, useless ice sculpture of their faces? They aren't claiming sovereignty, but they've effectively monopolized the resource. The law is silent on that. Lewis: And other countries must be seeing this. Russia and China have pushed back on the Artemis Accords, right? They see it as America trying to write the rules for its own benefit. Joe: They do. It's a clash of philosophies. The failed Moon Agreement of 1979 tried to establish space resources as the "common heritage of mankind," meaning any profits would have to be shared internationally. The US and other major space powers refused to sign it. President Trump even signed an executive order explicitly stating that the US "does not view outer space as a global commons." Lewis: Wow. So it’s basically a cosmic gold rush, and we're heading into it with a 60-year-old treaty and a "finders, keepers" attitude. That seems… unwise. Joe: It's incredibly risky. The Weinersmiths argue that this ambiguity, this rush to exploit before we have clear rules, could lead to a zero-sum scramble for resources. It could turn space from a domain of peaceful cooperation into a new arena for geopolitical conflict.

Lewis: So we're dreaming of the stars, but we haven't figured out our own biology, our own psychology, or our own laws. The book isn't saying 'don't go,' is it? It sounds more like it's saying 'don't go stupid.' Joe: Exactly. That's the heart of it. The Weinersmiths are not anti-space. They're anti-delusion. They argue that the real 'giant leap' for humanity isn't a technological one, it's a leap in maturity. We need to mature enough to handle the immense responsibility of becoming a multi-planetary species. Right now, as the book implies, we're like toddlers with rocket ships. Lewis: That's a terrifyingly accurate image. Joe: It is. And their final plea is for caution. It's a call for more science, especially on the long-term biological and psychological effects of space. And most importantly, it's a demand for robust, enforceable international law before we export our conflicts and create an off-world crisis we can't fix. We need to think it through. Lewis: It really leaves you wondering: is our current rush to space driven by a noble, unifying desire to explore, or is it just an extension of our inability to solve our problems and get along with each other here on Earth? Something to think about. Joe: This is Aibrary, signing off.