Unobtainium Podcast

Episode Description

In this episode of Unobtainium, hosts Adam and Amy sit down with UCLA Planetary Science Professor Dave Paige to dissect the science behind Ridley Scott's blockbuster film The Martian. From the atmospheric physics of Martian dust storms to the realities of growing potatoes in extraterrestrial soil, Professor Paige breaks down what Hollywood got right, what they exaggerated, and what real NASA missions face when exploring the Red Planet.

Full Summary

Why couldn’t the movie’s massive Martian dust storm really happen? Could you actually grow potatoes in Martian soil? How cold is Mars? Is there liquid water beneath the surface? Could microbial life exist there today? How realistic are NASA and JPL’s response to Mark Watney’s predicament? And what would it actually take to keep human beings alive on a journey to Mars? But the conversation ultimately raises a bigger question: Should humans be going to Mars at all?

Paige makes the case that increasingly capable robots may be able to explore Mars more safely, cheaply and extensively than astronauts—without risking human lives or contaminating a planet that could harbor indigenous life. That leads to the most consequential scientific question of all: Is there life on Mars, and how far should we go to find it?

Along the way, the conversation explores:

Mars Environment & Atmospheric Physics: Mars has an atmospheric pressure less than $1/100^{\text{th}}$ that of Earth, composed primarily of carbon dioxide. While daytime temperatures at equatorial regions can approach room temperature, nighttime temperatures drop far below any location in Antarctica.
The Dust Storm Exaggeration: The film's inciting incident—a severe dust storm that forces mission abort—is pure science fiction. Although wind speeds on Mars can be fast, the atmospheric density is so low that high-speed winds exert only a mild breeze's force, insufficient to knock down an astronaut or damage heavy equipment.
NASA Technical Realism & JPL Representation: The movie accurately depicts the collaborative dynamic of NASA ground control, technical trade-offs, and internal management at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). However, the premise that Mark Watney lost all communication due to a single broken antenna is unrealistic given standard NASA multi-redundant communication systems.
Farming Potatoes in Martian Regolith: Martian soil contains oxidizing perchlorates, but experiments with sterile lunar soil prove plants can grow in extraterrestrial dirt when supplemented with nutrients. Applying raw human waste directly to root vegetables introduces severe pathogen risks; real missions would use waste digesters.
Geology, Water, and Seismic Activity: Mars features massive subsurface ice sheets past $45^\circ$ latitude, ancient riverbeds, dry lake beds, and Olympus Mons—the solar system's largest volcano. Data from the InSight mission confirmed active "Marsquakes," demonstrating the planet remains geologically active.
Robotic Exploration vs. Crewed Missions: While human exploration provides a compelling narrative, human crew vehicles require massive weight, artificial gravity systems, and extensive life support. Autonomous and semi-autonomous robotic rovers offer a far safer, more cost-effective, and scientifically precise method for exploring Mars.

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For Dave Paige

https://www.space.ucla.edu/david-paige

https://www.diviner.ucla.edu/dap

https://www.planetary.org/profiles/david-paige

#TheMartian #Mars #MarsScience #NASA #ScienceFiction #SpaceExploration #Astrobiology #MattDamon #RidleyScott #UnobtainiumPodcast #JPL #DavePaige #Amy Meinzer
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Why does the museum look like a spaceship? What does Luke Skywalker have in common with a scientist? And could an N-1 Starfighter actually fly?
Come inside with us.


What’s really inside George Lucas’s new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art? We got a sneak peek—and it wasn’t quite what we expected.
UNOBTAINIUM hosts planetary scientist Dr. Amy Mainzer and writer/producer Adam Sigel head inside the spectacular new Los Angeles museum expecting plenty of Star Wars. And yes, there are spaceships, droids and enough Death Star vibes to keep two lifelong fans happy. But Star Wars represents only a small part of what Lucas is trying to do here.
The museum is really an exploration of narrative art: the images societies have used to tell stories. These are the stories that people need to come to understand who they are, from ancient cave paintings and mythology to illustration, comics, movie posters and science fiction. That leads Amy and Adam straight to Joseph Campbell, the Hero’s Journey and the Power of Myth—ideas that profoundly influenced George Lucas and the creation of Star Wars.

And then things get very UNOBTAINIUM.

Amy makes a surprising connection between the Hero’s Journey and the scientific process itself: leaving what we know, venturing into the unknown, facing uncertainty, gaining new knowledge and bringing it home.

Along the way, we explore the museum’s spaceship-like architecture, its unusual argument about “high” and “low” art, the science behind Star Wars technology—and an N-1 Starfighter that raises the inevitable question: how much energy would it actually take to make that thing fly?

Come with us for a sneak peek inside the Lucas Museum—and a journey through Star Wars, science, mythology and the stories human beings use to understand the universe and ourselves.

UNOBTAINIUM: Where great movies meet real science.

#LucasMuseum #StarWars #GeorgeLucas #LucasMuseumOfNarrativeArt #ScienceFiction #JosephCampbell #HeroJourney #Science #UnobtainiumPodcast #LosAngeles




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What superhero would Neil deGrasse Tyson be? Where would he go if he could travel through time? And how much bad science will he forgive if a movie tells a great story? And how he grew up an athlete who lived in the geekosphere.

In this special bonus mini-episode of UNOBTAINIUM, planetary scientist Dr. Amy Mainzer and producer Adam Sigel revisit their conversation with Neil deGrasse Tyson for a wide-ranging trip through science, science fiction and geek culture.

Neil reveals why he once imagined himself as “Protector of the Geeks,” explains why the Marvel Universe has a scientific edge over other superhero worlds, and shares his personal rule for giving filmmakers a “hall pass” when the physics isn't quite right.

Along the way, we get Neil’s takes on the scientifically impossible storm that launches The Martian, why we happily accept the flux capacitor in Back to the Future, whether real physics could make time travel possible, why he'd rather visit the future than the past, and which ideas might someday let us cross the enormous distances between the stars.

Plus: faster-than-light travel, cryosleep, alien civilizations, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Comic-Con, superheroes, atomic wedgies, and the Revenge of the Nerds.

If you enjoyed this conversation, check out our full episode with Neil deGrasse Tyson on STAR WARS, the Force, and the science behind a galaxy far, far away.

UNOBTAINIUM explores the real science behind the movies and television we love, with scientists, filmmakers and other extraordinary guests.

Subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of science, movies, television and pop culture.



Follow Unobtainium Podcast!

Website: unobtainiumpodcast.com
Watch full episodes on https://www.youtube.com/@unobtainiumpod

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For Neil deGrasse Tyson:

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Youtube: https://youtube.com/@startalk
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@neildegrassetyson?_r=1&_t=ZT-9736KZJtaIA

#NeildeGrasseTyson #starwars #science #scifi #unobtainiumpodcast #physics #space #force #film #moviescience

#NeilDeGrasseTyson #ScienceFiction #SciFi #Science #Movies #TimeTravel #Superheroes #Marvel #TheMartian #BackToTheFuture #Aliens #UnobtainiumPodcast #physics #moviescience
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Episode Description
Could humans really breathe liquid? Could we actually live hundreds of meters beneath the ocean—and what might be waiting for us in the unexplored deep?
In this episode of UNOBTAINIUM, hosts Amy and Adam “dive” into the science behind James Cameron’s 1989 sci-fi classic THE ABYSS with Dr. Tina Treude, UCLA professor and expert in marine geomicrobiology.
The biggest mystery of all is how much of the deep ocean have we actually explored. Scientists continue to encounter species they’ve never seen before, reminding us that some of the most alien environments we know of are right here on Earth. James Cameron imagined an alien world at the bottom of our own ocean. The remarkable thing is how alien the real one already is.


Hosts Dr. Amy Mainzer and Adam Sigel welcome guest Dr. Tina Treude, a UCLA professor of marine geomicrobiology. They analyze James Cameron's 1989 sci-fi film The Abyss, noting its accurate depiction of deep-sea pressure dynamics.
Gas Solubility & The Bends: Under high pressure, gases like nitrogen dissolve faster into a diver's bloodstream. Rapid ascents cause dissolved nitrogen to form gas bubbles, causing decompression sickness ("the bends"), which can block nervous system connections and prove fatal.
Decompression Protocols: To avoid decompression sickness, technical divers entering high-pressure environments must undergo controlled decompression in chambers—often lasting days or weeks—to allow nitrogen to slowly diffuse out of the body.
2. The Science of Liquid Breathing
The famous scene where a rat breathes oxygenated fluorocarbon fluid reflects real scientific experiments.
Mechanism & Benefits: Breathing oxygenated fluorocarbon emulsion prevents lung collapse at extreme depths because liquids are incompressible under pressure.
The Physical Limitation: While fluorocarbons can deliver adequate oxygen to the lungs, human respiration with liquids is bottlenecked by fluid viscosity and CO2 removal. Moving dense fluid in and out of the lungs requires tremendous physical effort, making long-term human fluid breathing impractical due to CO2 retention.
3. High-Pressure Effects & Saturation Diving
Nitrogen Narcosis: Diverging from decompression sickness, nitrogen narcosis occurs at depths typically below 40 meters (120 feet), where nitrogen exerts an intoxicating, narcotic effect on neural synapses.
Ambient Pressure Habitats: The underwater station depicted in The Abyss operates at ambient sea pressure. Divers can enter and exit through an open moon pool without immediate pressure changes because the internal gas pressure matches the external water pressure.
Submersibles & ROVs: Dr. Treude notes that while human industrial diving peaked around 300 to 500 meters, modern deep-sea research relies heavily on Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) to mitigate safety risks.
4. Marine Biology & Deep-Sea Ecosystems
Oxygen Limits in Deep Waters: Dissolved oxygen levels in seawater are roughly 40 times lower than in air. Marine life compensates with high-surface-area external gills and continuous water flow rather than internal lungs.
Bioluminescence: Deep-ocean organisms generate light through enzymatic reactions or bacterial endosymbiosis for communication, hunting (e.g., anglerfish lures), and camouflage.
Chemosynthesis & Extremophiles: Geothermal heat at hydrothermal vents can support unique microbial life, highlighting ecosystems that thrive entirely independent of surface sunlight.


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For Dr. Tina Treude
https://faculty.epss.ucla.edu/~ttreude/
https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/person/tina-treude/

#TheAbyssMovie #JamesCameron #DeepSea #OceanScience #Liquid Breathing #ScienceFiction #MarineBiology #Nitrogen Narcosis #UnobtainiumPodcast #DeepSeaExploration #TinaTreude #AmyMainzer #MovieBreakdown #SciFiMovies



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What does it take to build a robot that can explore another world—and maybe even help us find extraterrestrial life?

In this special bonus mini-episode of UNOBTAINIUM, roboticist Dr. Hiro Ono takes us from the surface of Mars to the hidden ocean of Enceladus, Saturn’s icy moon.

Hiro, who joined us for our episode on BLADE RUNNER and the future of robotics, worked on the Mars Perseverance rover, helping develop autonomous vision systems that allow a robot millions of miles from Earth to understand its surroundings and navigate the Martian landscape. With signals between Earth and Mars taking minutes to arrive, a rover can't simply wait for a human to tell it what to do—it needs some ability to perceive, decide and act for itself. Then we travel much farther out.

Hiro explains the thinking behind EELS (Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor), a snake-like robot designed to tackle one of the wildest challenges in planetary exploration: navigating the cracks in the icy crust of Enceladus, where scientists believe a vast liquid-water ocean lies beneath the surface. Could an adaptable robot someday follow those pathways beneath the ice—and search an alien ocean for signs of life? It’s a fascinating look at AI, machine vision, autonomous robots, Mars exploration, astrobiology, Enceladus and the engineering we may need to explore some of the most promising places for life beyond Earth.

And if you enjoy Hiro here, check out our full BLADE RUNNER episode, where we explore how close today's robots and artificial intelligence are getting to the science fiction imagined on screen.

Subscribe to UNOBTAINIUM for more conversations about the surprising science behind the movies and TV we love.

Follow Unobtainium Podcast!

Website: unobtainiumpodcast.com


Stay connected:
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For Dr. Hiro Ono:
https://hiroono.com/en/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hiroono/

#Unobtainium #SpaceExploration #Robotics #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #Mars #Perseverance #Enceladus #Astrobiology #NASA #SpaceRobotics #BladeRunner #SearchForLife

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