10: Life

The Monte Hall Effect

In this episode the guys welcome a very special guest: their long time friend, Naval Aviator and retired NASA astronaut Jeff Ashby and talk about a FMECA gone wrong, the ISS, radios, ground communications, TDRS, schedule, crews, procedure vs cowboyism, creative plumbing solutions, clean vs clutter, the miracle of velcro, Jeff's Sleeping Pod Project, fire in space, oxygen candles, using standard atmosphere, Aliens Gone Bad, depicting zero gee, the Vomit Comet, doing biology in a glovebox, protocols, contaminents, fluffy space dust bunnies, computers, realism vs entertainment, hydrazine, moving the station, control moment gyros, technical advisors, Jim Lovell and Ron Howard, adding drama, inspiring future astronauts, remembering Neil Armstrong, predicting orbital debris problems twenty years ago, New York's scenic and welcoming Southern Tier, vast quantities of horribly cheap and terrible science fiction films, mediocre directors make mediocre movies, Tola's obsession with sailboats, underappreciated Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada, using the ISS, NASA's Office of Planetary Protection (do we or any of our listeners know anyone who ever worked there?!?), six expendable meatbags, astronaut crosstraining, lots of parallels to Alien, Chris Hadfield's biography, we talk again about how velocities work in space, twinkling stars, catching fast things without breaking them, Reanimator, who's the boss?, designing for perfection, the fallacy of the perfect glove, designing around hazards, Chekhov's Mouse, going from monocellular to highly evolved intelligence in hours not years, films winking at their auidiences, flamethrowers in space, venting, whack-a-mole fire extinguishers, ISS not being the Nostromo, keeping people away from poisons, we talk again about how organic stuff works in a vacuum, the buddy system in space, space suit pressure, nitrogen purges, being perilous and terrifying without being toxic, Tim mentions Hadfield's biography again talking about the risking of drowning in microgravity, navigating through the hydrazine thruster system(!), understanding sensors in terms of orders of magnitude, more whack a mole, losing your grasp on reality, sacrificial canibalism, solutions that no longer make a single bit of sense, blocking a scene so you can't figure out what's happening at all, how it's hard to nudge things into the sun, yet another exciting discussion of orbital mechanics in case you haven't had your fill from earlier episodes, getting the clock ticking to amp up the suspense, Tim's totally awesome Student Nitric Oxide Explorer, NORAD, sullying the good name of Goodnight Moon, lying movie trailers and the lying liars who make them, how nobody makes lifeboats that only hold one person, real world ISS lifeboat problems, the least bad answer, Man Out Of Space Easiest (MOOSE!), The Twist!(tm), and the omniscient and emotional intelligent alien.
Final score: Science 68%, Fiction 63%, and Film 70%.
Next up: the boys get political with Bong Joon-ho's 2013 film "Snowpiercer"!

Special Guest: Jeff Ashby.