Do You Believe in the Panspermia Hypothesis?

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Do you believe in the panspermia hypothesis? And if you do, does this imply we should actually subsidize sending non-sterilized life forms to Mars? Because there's always some chance that you would create some kind of long-term panspermia scenario on other planets. If it is a value to us to go to Mars, then we should go to Mars. But I don't think we have some strange, manifest destiny, moral imperative to infect the solar system.

Before writing a single word of his new book Artemis, Andy Weir worked out the economics of a lunar colony. Without the economics, how could the story hew to the hard sci-fi style Weir cornered the market on with The Martian? And, more importantly, how else can Tyler find out much a Cantonese meal would run him on the moon?

In addition to these important questions of lunar economics, Andy and Tyler talk about the technophobic trend in science fiction, private space efforts, seasteading, cryptocurrencies, the value of a human life, the outdated Outer Space Treaty, stories based on rebellion vs. cooperation, Heinlein, Asimov, Weir’s favorite episode of Star Trek, and the formula for finding someone else when stranded on a lonely planet.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Recorded November 15th, 2017 Other ways to connect

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