Loving your child's mind: Space exploration but little Socratic

On a different galaxy, farther away from the other one.

And so are they— is most— does most of the action take place on a spaceship, or, um, are they on planets?

They go into planets. And yeah.

And do you like the— what do you like best about it?

Um, That it's about space, that's all.

Do you think that you would like to go into outer space?

Oh yeah, and also the boy and the robot, those are my best characters.

A boy and his robot?

No, if I could choose who to be, I would choose the boy and robot because they, they're good partners.

Got it. Um, would you like to go into space?

Yeah.

The moon, Mars, or way beyond?

Way beyond.

You're not afraid of being alone or being lost out there?

No.

So, um, would you want to come back to Earth at some point?

No.

Wow, you'd want to be one of those people that goes out and just Leaves for outer space forever and ever and ever?

Yeah.

Even if you never got to a planet, what if you were on Earth? Do you think you could actually live on a spaceship for the rest of your life?

Yeah.

How big? Could you live on a little one or would it have to be a really big one?

Big one.

A big one, okay. Um, well, Alana's running late. So you would like to be in a space, if it's big enough, say big as, uh, a football field?

No, bigger.

It has to be bigger? Um, you know how tiny most spacecraft are right now?

Yeah, except they could get bigger.

They could get bigger?

Yeah.

Okay, and what about gravity? Um, one challenge with space is, um, unless they simulate gravity, there's no gravity. So do you think that you could live a long time without gravity?

But there is gravity, except it's very little.

Right, right, but that's what I mean. And suppose you're in a spaceship and, um, you were not— you could not count on standing on the ground and you were floating all the time. Do you think that you could live the rest of your life just floating around in a spaceship?

Yeah, except I'd have to stick to a very important exercise regime.

I actually had heard about that. Tell me about the exercise regime you would need.

You have to do pull-ups and everything. I don't know how you do it, and for 2 hours every day.

And my understanding is that the reason is if you do not have gravity or you have only minuscule tiny bits of gravity, your muscles don't get the workout they need for you to be healthy. Is that your understanding?

Yeah.

Um, and I think even bones, I think your bones get weak over time. Do you, do you know if that's the case? What about the thought of only being with a tiny bit of people? So if you, if you go on a small spaceship, you know, 5 people, 10 people, you think you could live with 5 or 10 people for the rest of your life?

Yes, they have to be in a different family.

Why? If it was your family, they drive you crazy?

No, because the, the main reason why I want to go to space is to expand our human population into other planets. So there has to be half boys, half girls for them to mate.

Got it.

And then they do this stuff and then everything is fine.

You've really thought this through.

So it's gonna be a bad idea. No, it is not, because half the population would be left if they each get one baby each.

So you want, you want human beings to colonize the rest of the universe, is that right? And should we, should we only go and inhabit Earth-like planets, or would you be okay inhabiting non-Earth-like planets?

I'd be okay doing non-Earth-like because They said something as super off, which is better for life than Earth.

So, what if we had to wear spacesuits all the time? Would you want to live on a planet where you had to wear a spacesuit all the time?

Maybe. Because they've already made domes that they're going to put on Mars to make you breathe. And then they're going to throw a giant asteroid onto the surface of Mars, creating some gas, making an atmosphere. Or they're just going to pump oxygen around the Mars atmosphere.

So good morning, Alana. Welcome. How are you?

I'm good. How are you?

I'm well. Sankara was saying he was binge-watching the new Lost in Space. Have you seen it at all?

No, I haven't.

OK. I haven't either. I saw the old— yeah, it's afternoon for Sankara. I saw the old Lost in Space. But, um, and from there I was asking him if he wanted to live in space, and he actually wants to live in space. He wants to go on a rocket. He's said he would spend the rest of his life, um, going out and exploring space. Would you want to leave and leave Earth and go into space?

Um, not like outer, outer space. I'd probably want to stay here, but I would go to Mars and a few other planets, so So you'd stay within the solar system? Yeah.

Go, Sankara!

At some point, we'll have to evacuate our solar system because our sun will explode. That's true, but not right now.

Yeah, that's like billions of years away, so that's a long way.

Except it's gonna grow bigger, and in about a million years, it's gonna get so big, um, um, the water on Earth would evaporate, and then life besides the simplest forms would survive.

So how long do you expect you to live, Sankara?

I want to have an aging pill.

So you think even if it's millions and millions of years in the future, you're going to be here, and that's why you need to plan on, uh, going into outer space?

Yeah.

Okay.

And also Um, with what we're doing to the planet, there's a high chance that we'll have to evacuate in the next 100 years.

Okay, um, I don't think that's the case, but, uh, you know, I could see if some people might say that.

Um, because of all the pollution, unless you don't want to see blue skies every day and, and, and snow, then you need to stay here. If you want to see those, then you have to move to Alpha Centauri and places like that.

Well—

I mean, I mean, the planet next to Alpha Centauri, not sure of the name.

Got it. So, I wanna check in with Alana. So, why would you want to explore this Solar System? Would you wanna do that because then you could come back? You, you wanna come back to Earth?

Yeah, I would do that because I could come back to Earth. Because I'd also just, if my chances, if the chances were really high that I would die in outer space, I'd probably just stay on Earth. But if I went out to explore space, yeah, I would just stay in the solar system because of that.

So already, like, and I think another year or two, there are going to be tourists that are going in orbit. So just like people go on planes to go to Hawaii for tourism, there are going to be, you know, spaceships that go into near-Earth orbit for tourism.

Okay, I want to go on there because that's cool.

Okay, go Sankara!

So basically, my mom was trying to stop me from saying "so basically" all the time, except I always say "so basically" because it's so basic. Because it's just a habit I have. So basically, basically, anyway, in 2050 they are planning, I know this, to send the first interstellar mission out of the solar system And that will take 20 years. And also, with the technology we have today, it will take like 100,000 years. So you have to sit there bored. Yeah.

So—

That's what I'm talking about.

No, you're clearly fascinated with this. I want to go back to the— With going back to Earth, so do you think most people would prefer Earth or most people would prefer space? Go, Sankara.

I think they would prefer Earth, but then if they go to space, then they could go into a super-Earth planet, like, like the planet orbiting the Trinary System, which is a place with 3 suns. Which means you have three shadows. Binary system, Alpha Centauri and Proxima Centauri system, and I'm going to the place which is habitable for humans.

So, Ilana, what do you think? Do you think most humans would want to be on Earth or to go out in space?

I think most people would stay on Earth, and that's not my opinion. I'd go out. If it wasn't too dangerous, but I think that people might not want to go out most, most of the time because, um, they probably know the dangers of it and they don't really want to risk it.

How about, say, if suppose it was pretty safe, would you go out for 2 years?

Yeah, I'd go out.

So even though you'd miss your family and everything for 2 years, you could do it, or 3 years even?

I could try.

How about 5 years or 10 years?

Maybe not that long because I won't— I don't really want to stay in space for like 5 years, but I'd stay for like 2 years or something like that.

So it sounds like you're interested in the adventure, but you don't want to be away from Earth for too long.

Yeah.

Okay. Um, and Sankara, it sounds like you— would you say interest in adventure is part of why you would want to go to space?

Yeah.

Okay.

And also I want to study dark matter and dark energy. We barely know anything about those two.

So suppose you could study them perfectly well either from Earth or from the Moon. Would you be happy studying them from Earth or the Moon?

No.

Okay. Well, sorry we got you a little bit late, Ilana, but I have to hop off on another call. So we only got a little bit into space, but space is definitely cool. So I will say it was wonderful to talk to you as usual, and we will talk next week. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.