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Guy on the right looks incredibly aerodynamic, have you ever tried putting a scale model of him in the wind tunnel to see how it does?

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What are your thoughts on Congress' push to investigate UAP sightings?

Have you seen a UAP?

Thoughts on said UAPs disabling our nuclear missiles? Senator Harry Reid confirmed this to be true. What do you think it means?

Has anyone ever asked/told you to not say a word about UAPs?

Thoughts on edgar mitchell's story in which he says he saw and filmed a UAP during a trip to the moon?

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Hi You lived my dream! Are their crimes and disputes amongst the nomads? How do they handle it? What is their justice / legal system?

Do OE devices work in similar ways to semiconductors (i.e. do they rely on pn junction etc)?

How is it suspected this happens, and passes quality control in the manufacturing processes? Hard to understand why companies would put this on shelves :(

Hey Garrett! I was curious: what made you want to become an astronaut, and—-knows by that it’s different for everyone— what was the process like to get there?

What are the main stumbling blocks of OE technologies? (Cost, technical limitations?) And can you give examples of the materials used in organic electronics (i.e. in more specifics?)

A bit of a melancholic one: I often think about movies and how they portray interstellar travel. You also often hear about some amazing mathematician proving the possibility of warp drive at an unfortunate cost. Do you think we will forever be limited by the laws of physics and never be able to travel to distant galaxies? It makes me sad for some reason, how about you?

Love it. Thanks for answering!

I hope you feel like we've honored Andy! We really tried to approach her story with the care and respect it deserves. I hated seeing the way she was victim-blamed at the time.

I have a pretty full slate of projects that for the most part involve some element of crime, whether it be murder or scams, cults, financial fraud, etc. That said, I am really passionate about going anywhere that my investigative skills may be able to be additive — so I'm open to seeing where that takes me!

Thanks for the AMA.

I just wanna know that if we were to colonize planets in systems further away, what method of interstellar travel you think is closer to reality for future humans considering the resources consumed, safety and availability? Is light speed still the unbreakable wall? Are we somehow making headway towards either Cryosleep or Wormhole travel?

From Garrett Reisman:

I think that Chris did a great job outlining the exciting things coming next in human spaceflight and I agree with him that the first orbital flight of Starship will be a huge milestone and a real game changer - if it works!

As far as space tourism goes - it's definitely here and here to stay. I know it can be frustrating for space fans out there in that the price is still so very high and unfortunately space tourists will continue to be billionaires or representatives of nations (or contest winners) for the near future. But remember, this was the case for commercial airlines at first too. In the early days of passenger air travel it was only millionaires and movie stars who got to fly. Even as recently as the 1960's air travel was for the elite 'jet set' and priced out of the reach of ordinary citizens. But today we have Spirit Airlines, Jet Blue and Southwest (well, most of the time) and air travel is affordable for most Americans.

This will be the case in space eventually too. The sooner the better!

From Garrett Reisman:

Hi Jude! The Shuttle was a bit bumpy during the first stage. During my first launch on Endeavour, I was seated on the middeck so I didn't have much to do during ascent. I did have a kneeboard though and I took a writing sample during the first stage and my handwriting was even worse than usual! It was much more legible during the 2nd stage. But I would say that the vibration wasn't really that bad even during the first stage. It was comparable to flying an airplane in light to moderate turbulence or being on a typical motion-simulator ride. Nothing too crazy.

As for SLS, I have no personal experience on that thing. :) Nor have I seen any analysis of the random vibe environment. But I don't think that the extra segment would make it worse, it would just make the SRB portion of the ascent last longer. Plus the additional mass of the SLS compared to the Shuttle would likely give you more inertia to reduce the amplitude of the vibration, so I think the ride would probably be quite nice. But again, I'm just speculating here!

From Garrett Reisman:

Well, I haven't asked him lately, but I hope he's not disillusioned at all. Making human life multiplanetary is the whole reason SpaceX exists and it's what motivates everyone working there on a daily basis. Nobody, especially Elon, thinks this will be easy but it's a noble goal! (As for me personally, I'm not going until there is decent pizza up there.)

From Garrett Reisman:

The biggest challenge is dealing with the radiation. We've gotten pretty good at spending up to a year in space on the ISS, but we fly under the Earth's magnetosphere and are still mostly protected from the nasty radiation outside of low earth orbit - solar particle events (SPEs) and Galactic Cosmic Radiation (GCRs). When we go back to the Moon or on to Mars we will not have that protection. A 2.5 year round-trip journey to Mars would result in a radiation dose equivalent of 1 Sievert which is 10 times as much as you would take on the ISS for 6 months and would be at about the NASA career limit for most astronauts.

The thing is, we know very well what kind of radiation is up there - how much flux density and particle energies to expect, but we have little knowledge of exactly what that type of radiation does to human tissue. So we are still learning, and there is a lot of uncertainty about how dangerous this will be for our Mars colonists.

From Christian Davenport:

As I stated above, Mars is a HUGE challenge. And Elon has acknowledged that. It's going to be extremely dangerous. As someone once told me, say you get to Mars and the mission went perfectly. You survive the entry, descent and landing and touch down softly and everything went exactly according to plan. Even then you'd be in almost constant state of emergency given how dangerous the place is. That said, people died crossing the oceans for the first time. There is a certain amount of sacrifice that goes into exploration. But in the long run, it'd be worth it to have humans on Mars. Imagines the discoveries they'd make! And as Garrett noted above, it does have a reasonable gravity and resources that could sustain a colony. Elon does enjoy a challenge and SpaceX has pulled off feats no one thought was possible.

Hi, and thank you! Well, to the best of my knowledge there are technical committees attempting to set standards for sustainability in the field of OE. These will need to comply with the current legislation on chemical substances, of course. But, you’re right, the field is extremely diversified and complex. And, also, this aspect didn’t draw much attention up to very recent times. Just like ‘ok, now let’s think about achieving the most efficient devices, it doesn’t matter how, then we’ll see’. This delay will be an issue. Fabrication plants are hard-pressed, for example, due to the regulatory requirements which ban the use of hazardous solvents. So, to make OE viable, the paradigm shift urges, also in terms of regulations and standards. Though I think the whole process will take a lot of time … substitutions of materials are not easy to identify, for example. They need to maintain performance, otherwise one will have a final product that is environmentally sustainable but not economically and socially sustainable. I also think, btw, that setting standards requiring LESS hazardous materials, and LESS energy than those for the state of the art devices would already be a good start.

How disillusioned is Elon about living on mars?

From Garrett Reisman:

My experience was quite different from Mr. Shatner's and different from most astronauts, for that matter. I did not find the view of the Earth out the window to be in any way depressing. The Earth was beautiful - especially the Eastern part of Africa and all of Australia, both of which had magnificent red and brown hues that looked more like Mars to me than Earth.

But I did not really experience the 'overview effect' often described by astronauts as the realization that we are all one humanity sharing the same home and breathing the same atmosphere. That all the things that divide us: nationality, religion, race, gender, politics, etc. are so much less important than these things that we all have in common.

These observations are all true of course, but perhaps I wasn't suddenly struck by them because I knew this before I went to space. The fact that we are all created equal should be self-evident. You shouldn't have to strap yourself into a rocket to understand this.

From Christian Davenport:

I touched on the future of space in a previous post, but for space tourism, there's been ups and downs. Virgin Galactic flew its flight with Richard Branson ... and hasn't flown since. It's been refurbishing its vehicles and says it'll start commercial operations in the second quarter of this year. We'll see. Blue Origin had flown a series of flights and then had an engine failure and has been grounded while they investigate. They hope to resume flying this year. SpaceX has the Polaris program, funded by Jared Isaacman, which is really interesting. After flying the first all private-citizen crew for the Inspiration4 flight, he's set to do another mission this year that would feature a space walk. That's a big deal and requires a lot of training and is in preparation for the next flight, which could boost the orbit of the Hubble telescope, allowing it to remain in operation for years to come. I got a first-hand look at how the crew is preparing by flying in a fighter jet with Jared. It was pretty awesome. (And, no, I didn't throw up.) You can read about that here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/02/astronaut-training-fighter-jets/

In addition to the Polaris program, SpaceX is flying private astronauts for a company called Axiom Space, and expects another of those flights, to the ISS, this year as well.

From Garrett Reisman:

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the little podcast that I did with Mike Massimino. We would definitely like to add a second season but we are on hiatus right now as we search for a sponsor so that we no longer have to fund the podcast ourselves. Hopefully we will be back at it again soon!

What are the obstacles standing in the way of humans living on Mars? Which do you see as the most difficult ones to overcome and why?