Book Club Edition: Becoming Martian by Scott Solomon

**Mat Kaplan** (0:04)
Becoming Martian, this time on Planetary Radio, Book Club Edition.
Welcome. I'm Mat Kaplan, Senior Communications Advisor for the Planetary Society, with more of the human adventure across the solar system and beyond. Which will be easier? Terraforming Mars to better support human needs, or changing the humans who live there to be better adapted for life on the red planet? And will those humans change or evolve on their own, just as species have always adapted to new conditions on Earth? This fascinating theme is central to Scott Solomon's book, Becoming Martian, How Living in Space Will Change Our Bodies and Minds. It was our July Selection in the Planetary Society Member Book Club. Now, member or not, you get to enjoy my conversation with Scott. We spoke live in the community not long ago.
Scott, welcome.

**Scott Solomon** (1:14)
Thank you, Matt. Happy to be here.

**Mat Kaplan** (1:15)
We are really, really happy to have you, and it is an honor to talk to you. Not only because of this great book, but because of the other great work that you are doing to help get us ready to perhaps adapt to living on other worlds, which is what the book is all about. Let me read the bio that I pulled together for you. Dr. Scott Solomon is a biologist, professor, and science communicator. He teaches ecology, evolutionary biology, and scientific communication as a teaching professor at Rice University in Houston.
Scott is also a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History and a Sigma Xi distinguished lecturer. He has taught field biology in the savannas of East Africa, in the rainforests and reefs of Belize, and the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. His other book, Future Humans Inside the Science of Our Continuing Evolution, was published in 2016
He also has two courses for everyone in the Great Courses collection of Great Courses. They're called Why Insects Matter and What Darwin Didn't Know, which is really cool. You also host the Wild World Podcast, which explores the natural wonders of our pale blue dot. Here is what our friend Frank White of the Overview Effect says about becoming Martian. Scott Solomon has thought more than most about the topic of space exploration and human evolution. Everyone who is concerned about humanity's future on Earth and beyond will benefit from reading this book.

**Scott Solomon** (3:06)
I was so delighted to get that very nice endorsement from Frank.

**Mat Kaplan** (3:09)
Yeah. He's a good guy.
Let me start with something almost irrelevant, except that you do open and close the book with it. I am so envious of you because you have witnessed not one, but two Starship launches.

**Scott Solomon** (3:26)
Well, I tried to witness two. I actually only successfully was present for one of them. That was the third IFT3. I tried to watch the first one, but had to head back home when they bumped in a couple of days.

**Bruce Betts** (3:39)
I forgot it was scrubbed.

**Mat Kaplan** (3:41)
Yeah, right.

**Scott Solomon** (3:42)
Yeah, that's right.

**Mat Kaplan** (3:43)
But the third one must have been, I mean, obviously it was, you describe it, was just spectacular.

**Scott Solomon** (3:48)
It was, and it was actually the only time I've ever been present at a rocket launch. So seeing the largest rocket that's ever been built fly was something else. And I got to bring my two sons, Nicholas and Thomas, down with me because it happened to fall over spring break. And so they were able to come down with me and be there on the beach, down in East La Blanca at the tip of South Padre, five miles away, and witness it. It was incredible.

**Mat Kaplan** (4:14)
It is wonderful that the great Scott Kelly contributed the forward for the book and shared his experience and thoughts after, you know, living for basically a year in space. He closed with the hope that future Martians will never forget the green hills of Earth, but also his worry that they may never be able to visit the home planet, which is something we'll talk about in more detail a little bit later.
But that's obviously something that is disturbing. I mean, would you agree?

**Scott Solomon** (4:53)
I would, yeah. And I definitely think we will want to spend some time talking about why that might be the case. But, yeah, getting Scott Kelly to contribute the forward was really incredible. I mean, who better to comment on the reality of what it's like to spend a long amount of time in space and also what we know about how space affects the human body and mind. Of course, being the subject or one half of the subjects of the NASA twins study just made him the perfect person. So, yeah, it was really an honor that he offered to do that.