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This is what living on Mars could do to the human body

An image of rocks on Mars. Biologist Kelly Weinersmith and cartoonist Zach Weinersmith spent four years researching what it would look like if humans lived here.
NASA/JPL/Cornell
An image of rocks on Mars. Biologist Kelly Weinersmith and cartoonist Zach Weinersmith spent four years researching what it would look like if humans lived here.

As global warming continues and space technology improves, there is more and more talk about the growing possibility of a sci-fi future in which humans become a multiplanetary species. Specifically, that we could live on Mars.

Biologist Kelly Weinersmith and cartoonist Zach Weinersmith have spent the last four years researching what it would look like if we did this anytime soon. In their book A City On Mars, they get into all sorts of questions: How would we have babies in space? How would we have enough food?

They join host Regina Barber and explain why it might be best to stay on Earth.

Check out Kelly and Zach Weinersmith's book A City On Mars.

Curious about other space news? Email us at shortwave@npr.org and we might cover your topic on a future episode!

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This episode was produced by Jessica Yung and edited by Rebecca Ramirez. The facts were checked by Tyler Jones. The audio engineer was Gilly Moon.

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Jessica Yung
Jessica (she/her) is a producer for the Short Wave. She got her start in radio as a producer at Gimlet's narrative technology podcast Reply All, working on stories about QAnon, video games, cryptic tweets, and more. For the past two years, she has taught podcast production to high schoolers at Harlem Children's Zone, where she guided her students through making personal pieces about topics like jumping the MTA turnstile and complicated relationships with parents. Before she came to radio, she worked in print media, through various jobs at literary magazines and book publishers.
Regina G. Barber
Regina G. Barber is Short Wave's Scientist in Residence. She contributes original reporting on STEM and guest hosts the show.
Rebecca Ramirez (she/her) is the founding producer of NPR's daily science podcast, Short Wave. It's a meditation in how to be a Swiss Army Knife, in that it involves a little of everything — background research, finding and booking sources, interviewing guests, writing, cutting the tape, editing, scoring ... you get the idea.