I Wrote a NEW Sci-Fi with Project Hail Mary Author Andy Weir

That's an interesting angle. I haven't seen  that. I wrote a brand new sci-fi story with. Project Hail Mary author Andy Weir. Andy is one  of the most popular science fiction writers alive. He also wrote The Martian. And what's special  about his work is how real his fake stories. are. He showed me the secret spreadsheets that  he uses to calculate all of the science in his. stories. And the reason that that matters is  that great fiction can help you see the real. world more clearly. Sci-fi is HUGE*, if true.  This show is about real science and technology,

but we've used a little bit of sci-fi to  start to explain complicated things. So, I wanted to learn from Andy. In this conversation,  we go deep inside his fictional worlds to see. exactly how he makes them feel so real, and we  play out our brand new sci-fi story together. in real time. Welcome to HUGE* Conversations.  Fist my bump. Success. Fist my bump. Exactly.

Hello. Hello. Thanks for doing this.  Sure to have you. Nice to meet you. Please. I am a fan. Likewise. Oh, this is  going to be so much fun. I never thought. you'd start out that way. I Well, I saw  I love that video of like just a short. of you with like a lightsaber. It's  like and just the look on your face like. that's cool. just this de like it's like you  were 10 again. It felt like that and you see. it come out and you can't help but make the noise  like you of course immediately you're like it's.

like I can't see well that they had to edit out  when Ewan McGregor when they were filming like. the Phantom Menace they had to edit out because  they found on the things he was making lightsaber. noises during the fight scenes. Oh, this is  going to be so much fun. Thank you so much. for being here to meet you and congratulations on  escaping Alcatraz. Thank you. That was way harder. than I thought it was going to be. Well, I mean,  the prevailing theory is that those guys died, right? Yes. Yes. And now I know why. We were like  hour four in the freezing water and I was like,

so these guys definitely died. These guys  died. Definitely. Definitely. They died. Well, maybe. Who knows? I have so many questions  for you. I feel like I feel like I've been. preparing for this my whole life. Great. Whatever  you want. Let's talk about whatever. So, just whatever your first question is, my answer is  seven. Awesome. I'll make sure what six plus. Um, okay. So, it sounds like maybe you know a little  bit about our show. Yes. Taking a step back, HUGE*.

Conversations is a show about possible futures.  Okay. And often we're interviewing tech CEOs and. scientists and folks like that. You spend all day  every day imagining possible futures and sharing. them with other people. And you have written some  of my favorite books of all time. So, first I just. want to say thank you. I I know I speak for  millions of people when I say how much joy I. have gotten out of the stories that you've written. Nerd.   Exactly on behalf of the millions of nerds around.

the world, thank you for your service. So this is  not a list of PR questions about the Project Hail. Mary movie. We'll get into it in in some ways. Um  but I'm hoping to have a larger conversation about. science and science fiction and we could not be  in a better place to do it. Yeah, exactly. We're. in the American Museum of Natural History. That is  a real meteorite. It is the largest meteorite in. any museum anywhere. Excellent. Why are we here?  Because it's cool. It's cool. It's cool. I just.

thought, what a perfect spot. I love meteorites.  I have a sugar tight at home. Do you really? I. have It's about the size of a walnut. Yeah.  It's perfectly legal. Buy buy a sugar tight. Yeah. It's a It's a It's a Mars meteorite and  it's about It's about the size of a walnut. It cost an absurd amount of money, but I had just  gotten paid a bunch for the Martian. So, I'm like, wants it. And so, I have it on display in my  house. It's like, here, this unremarkable looking. rock is from Mars. It's this was on Mars. That's  so awesome. That's really cool. I have three.

things that I want to do in this conversation.  The first is I want to get into the details of. what you've called your favorite part of the whole  process, which is world building. Yeah. And I want. to do some of that together. I think the best way  to do that is to do it in real time a little bit. So the second category of question I want to ask  you is about a sci-fi story that I am working on. Okay. And then I want to zoom out and I want to  talk about what I love most about your stories. which is the optimism. You don't write dystopias.  You write about good people solving hard problems.

Thank you. And I want to talk about that. Yeah.  I'm an optimist. I'm a bit of a polyiana in real. life. So me too. That's how I am. This is going  to be great. And I think humans are neat. Yeah. I. think we're pretty neat. It's easy to lose sight  of that because you watch the news and you see. all this misery and stuff. But the reason that  you're seeing all this bad stuff on the news is. because bad stuff is newsworthy. Yeah. You don't  report like people doing good stuff because it's. so incredibly common that that's the norm. Like so  somebody slips on a street corner and breaks their. leg and seven total strangers crowd around, bring  him to safety, maybe give them a bottled water,

call an ambulance, ask if they can call any  family, try to stabilize his leg. You know, that happens all the time. It doesn't make  the news because it's expected ordinary normal. human behavior. Yeah. But I think it's beautiful  that the the kind of compassion and empathy and. selflessness that humans have is so ordinary  that it's not newsworthy. That's the feeling. that I want people to have when they watch my  show as well. And that's the feeling that I get. from reading your books. Thank you. I want to  start with Project Hail Mary. Okay. I want to. summarize it really quick. Please interrupt me in  any question, but especially when I'm summarizing.

one of your books to you. Okay. In Project  Hail Mary, our sun begins to dim. Scientists. figure out that there is a space bacteria called  astrophage that is dimming our sun and that not. only our sun is infected but all of the stars in  our near vicinity are infected too except one. And so your main character Dr. Ryland Grace needs  to go on the world's longest space adventure to. discover what's happening with that star to maybe  save Earth. Okay. I want to start by talking about.

these. Yes. Yes. This is um like one of my many  spreadsheets that I used in writing um project. Hail Mary. And this has mostly to do with the  physics of astrophage. At the bottom here, there's a bunch of tabs. And oh yeah, this tab,  Hail Mary, has all the information about the. ship. And this one, Beetle Tau Ceti. Yep. Yep. 40  Eradani. And then there's even one that's called. like wrong math because I had to calculate how  much fuel the Eridians brought along with them.

because they didn't know about relativity. So they  assumed they Eridians have pure Newtonian physics all. the way from Eridani to Tau Ceti. So they their  math was completely wrong. So I had to calculate. all of that to know what we had. You did their  wrong math for them. I did their wrong math and. figured out how much extra fuel they would have as  a result of their wrong math. which is why Rocky. can have some leftover for grace. So this is all  about astrophage. Um this is the temperature that.

astrophage needs to be which is 96.415 degrees uh  Celsius is what it works out to be. This is the. temperature astrophage needs to be to be able  to generate nutrinos which is what it uses to. store energy. So the way it makes nutrinos is it  has a temperature. That heat energy causes some. um hydrogen ions inside the astrophage to be  bouncing around just you know root mean square. calculate their phys their velocity that they  will have at any given temperature and that is. the velocity they need to have to have the kinetic  energy equal to the mass energy of two nutrinos.

Hm. So, um you you you back calculate, okay, if  they're going to be going this fast to have this. much kinetic energy on the collision, then what is  the temperature? If you know the average particle. speed, you can calculate the temperature in Kelvin  and then work it out backwards. And so, that is. the minimum temperature required because if the  particles are hitting each other slower than that, there's not enough kinetic energy to create two  nutrinos. And you have to make two because they. have to be going opposite directions to balance  momentum. And this informs how they build the.

engines and all kinds of other things. All sorts  of stuff. And is it that you came up with an idea. like astrophage and then do all of the math to if  something that could actually you know acts like. this around the sun exists then these are all of  the second order effects that you would see and. that's how you build the story. How do you use  actually use these spreadsheets in the process. of telling the story as you write it? Well, I  mean, so first I need to go I love the research.

and and making this stuff up, but I I go on a deep  dive into the math to find out what is the effect. of all of this. Like what is the effect? It's  like, okay, doing all this math tells me, oh, astrophage is 90 is it 96.415 degrees. Okay,  great. And I know it's how much mass it can. hold before it does that. And as a result of that,  plus its own black body radiation, when it's going. through space, I can calculate how long it takes  before it starves. If it's just out in space, just.

going in a straight line, it'll radiate away heat  and then then it will eventually run out of all. of its. So, you know, like how far the stars could  be between each other that couldn't get infected, right? Got it. Because And I had to account for  the fact that it's moving in its own inertial. reference frame. So, it's only living for like a  few months. Yeah. Away from its star. But it can. go up to like eight light years away because of  special relativity. So that's why the infection. distance is eight lighty years. And so I I didn't  decide that. I derived it. Yeah. That's what I.

think feels so satisfying. So speaking of the  ways that the stars all get infected or don't, one of my favorite moments in an interview that  you've done before is where you played out how. you invented the character and the species rather  of Rocky. This will be a spoiler for the book, but. not a spoiler for the movie because it's in the  trailer. Everybody knows at this point that Rocky. exists. I'm going to call you Rocky. It's now  or never. So, Dr. Ryland Grace gets to the star.

that's uninfected and he sees another spaceship  there. And that spaceship has in it an alien that. becomes the cutest, best friendship of all space  time. It's just the most wonderful thing. And they. have to save both their civilizations. But what  I'm really interested in is how you worked into. what the alien of Rocky would be like. You chose a  real star, a real planet, and then you had a flow. of logical decisions that worked into a whole  rich creation. Could you walk me through that.

flow? Sure. Um, well, first off, I have to give  a disclaimer. Since writing Project Hail Mary, it. has been shown that that planet doesn't actually  exist. But at the time I wrote Project Hail Mary, it was believed that 40 Aerodani AB was a real  exoplanet that had about eight Earth masses and. was orbiting 40 Eridani around uh once every  46 days. And that's all we knew. So I figured. I'm going to start with that and then I get to  do whatever I want beyond that. Anything that we. don't know, I get to define, right? So I said,  "All right, I want life to be on this planet.".

And also um giving a little bit more information  from the book here we later learn that all of the. life in the entire book um earth Erid and Tau Ceti  all of it astrophage everything is a has common. ancestry. Yeah life ev within my fiction life only  evolved once and it only evolved on Adrian planet. Adrien. Primordial astrophage it really just ev  evolved to go back and forth between Tau Ceti.

and Adrian. That's it. It wasn't supposed to be  an interstellar species. But then what happened. was occasionally it would miss and this would  cause a panspermia event because occasionally. it would miss. Most of the time that would die but  sometimes it would end up hitting a planet. Most. of the time it would die but sometimes it was able  to survive long enough to reproduce a little bit. and that's what seeded life on Earth and Erid.  So that's why when they take apart the cells. they find out that astrophage has like ribosomes  and RNA transcription and everything like stuff.

that it is impossible to believe would parallel  evolve. It has to be there. So we are descendants. of life that evolved at Tau Ceti. That's one of the  reasons I chose Tau Ceti. Itwas kind of perfect for it. because first off, Tau Ceti is a solar analog and  so I figured it is more likely that life would be. able to seed in environments similar yeah to where  it started. So I wanted solar analoges across Tau. Ceti. Also Tau Ceti, I forget exactly how old  it is, but it's got a few billion years on us. Like it's much older than the sun. So it had more  time to evolve life. That's why like we got seeded.

with life like when the sun was only like half a  billion years old. It's like how do you explain. that? Well, because Tau Ceti was already like 3 or 4  billion years old. And so that's how we got seeded. with life. So all that having been said, this this  uh Erid, the planet Erid had to have water. Had to. have liquid water because it's all we're all  related. It's all you have to have water for. this to work. I'm like, okay, so this is a planet  that is really close to its star, closer to its.

star than than Mercury is to ours. It's a 46 day  year. I mean, it's it's very close. So I thought, how do you have liquid water on a planet that's  that close to a star? It's going to be really hot. Yeah, pressure. If you have really high pressure,  the boiling point goes up. So the their oceans are. like 200° C. Their their air is also 200°C. And  in fact, they have a fairly constant temperature. on their planet all the time, which is what we see  on Venus, where it doesn't even matter if you're.

on the day side or the night side of Venus. It's  it's always about the same temperature because its. atmosphere is so thick. So now from that I've said  I want liquid water. So that means I have to have. a thick atmosphere. Now what's my next problem? My  next problem is how do you have a thick atmosphere. when you're that close to a star. If you're right  next to a star the solar wind is just going to. just blast your atmosphere off. That's why Mercury  doesn't have an atmosphere at all. Really strong. magnet part of it. Yeah. Two two things can help  you with this one. You may remember that Venus has. a really thick atmosphere and it's close fairly  close right. So the answer is uh two things. One,

your atmosphere can be made out of really heavy  molecules. Earth's atmosphere is mostly just N2, nitrogen. It's not very heavy, right? Venus's  atmosphere is carbon dioxide. It's much heavier. So, the sun can't really knock those out of  Venus's gravity well as easily. So, that's. why Venus gets to keep its atmosphere and Mercury  doesn't. Um, so I said Erid has an atmosphere of. ammonia. We see ammonia all over the place in in  our solar system. Gas giants are made of it. So,

it's plausible to assume, okay, that that  there there's a bunch of ammonia. So, that's. a heavy molecule that's hard to knock out of the  gravity well, and it's also a bigger gravity well, which helps. Uh, the next thing is a strong  ass magnetic field, just like you said. So, I decided that Erid has a liquid, you know,  ferroagnetic core and also rotates really, really fast. The faster you rotate, the stronger  your magnetic field will be. So, it has a magnetic. field that's about 25 times as powerful as  Earth's. And it rotates. I did all the math.

It takes about 6 hours to do one revolution. So  it's whipping around fun stuff that never made it. into the book. Yes, please. Is this creates such  an oblong shape for the planet because of this in. it's below the ro limit. It's not going to rotate  itself apart, but it creates such a deviance. So. the distance from the center of Erid to its equator  is significantly different than the distance from. the center of Erid to its pole. And so much so that  it would be like measurably different gravity. Oh.

wow. So they could have a whole sort of culture  around like where they end up in it's not it's. not by much but it's on the order of centimeters  per second per second. It's like different. It's. like to their ancient world notably different and  that so that's interesting. Yeah. So I I said okay. we got a planet spins really fast got thick ass  atmosphere. It's got a very very strong magnetic. field. Now what evolves there? And I decided,  well, for starters, I mean, maybe the ammonia. would be clear all the way to the surface, but  I decided it wasn't. So, I decided that their.

atmosphere acts kind of like an ocean. There's um  life that absorbs light, you know, sunlight and. reproduces that way up in the upper parts of the  atmosphere, then life below that that eats that, and then life below that that eats that. Kind of  like our oceans. Like sunlight only gets what, 10, 20 meters into the ocean, and that's as far  down as it goes. But there's life in the ocean all. the way down to the floor. So that biosphere can  filter down. Um, and so that's the same thing that. happens in Erid's atmosphere. And then the larger  fauna live on the surface and that's Eridians are.

one of them. So I thought, well, what do you need  to be like to live on the surface of Erid? Okay. Well, it's nice to know that there's liquid water,  but there's no oxygen in the atmosphere. So your. body has to basically be not like not like Earth's  system where you know animals exhale carbon. dioxide then plants consume the carbon dioxide  and give off oxygen and it goes back and forth. That entire system has to be internalized to each  animal. So eridians h are like a biosphere. They.

need energy so they need to eat you know other  animals. They're they're omnivores just like we. are. And so they need to hunt and kill and eat  other animals. I mean like caveman eridians did. that and um so that's how energy enters the system  but as long as you have energy entering the system. they can maintain their biological biosphere. I  said, "No light gets to the surface, so there's. no need for them to evolve vision. Instead, they  evolved echolocation so accurate that they can. get, you know, they can fully understand their  room." And what's funny is people are like, "Wow,

that'd be really, it's hard to imagine having  that level of detail in echolocation." I'm like, "Try lots of animals." Yeah. Try explaining  try explaining how vision works to Eridians. It's like an Eridian's like, "Let me get this  straight." Okay, so electromagnetic radiation, you just kind of bounce it around and you have an  organ that gathers it and then kind of like bends. it and moves it around a bit and then from that  you know your 3D environment. There's a bunch of.

intervening steps here I do not understand. Right.  So this is this is so much fun. I know. Like did. did you know that you were trying to get to some  kind of animal that had a different sort of more. musical way? Like no, it just really was like  the chips. That's where it came from. Yeah. I Oh, that's cool. I said like, well, one thing is  I genuinely wanted an alien species that was. alien. Like I wanted it not to be like a Star Trek  forehead bumps. No dis on Star Trek. Love Star. Trek. Love Star Trek. Love Star Wars. My number  one true love is Doctor Who. So that's those are.

where my loyalties are. Obviously soft sci-fi  doesn't bother me at all, but I wanted my alien. and my hard sci-fi book to be really alien. You  can't I wanted him to be I wanted our environment. to be completely incompatible with theirs. And  because I mean even on Earth, if you exchange the. positions of a shark and a camel, they're both  going to die, right? So it's like why would an. alien be comfortable? So anyway, so I it wasn't  so much that I was going out of my way to make. something specific. It's that I was saying like  there are no rules. I don't have to follow any.

rules for narrative purpose. I am creating a life  form and then that's what he's going to meet. And. so now I have Eridians that I I I went way deep  dive. I mean there's there's the spreadsheets I. have on aridians. I I posted a whole document  online of Eridian biology and how their bodies. work. You've seen it, did you see? Yeah. Broadly  speaking, an Eridian isn't like we are mostly. made of biological material. We're mostly cells.  The only thing that's not like living biological.

tissue on you is your hair, your fingernails,  the irises of your eyes, parts of your teeth, that sort of stuff. But that's about it. But for  an Eridian, it's mostly inorganic material that. was assembled by its worker cells. Yeah. And so an  Eridian is kind of like if a beehive could walk, right? It's like they the little things inside  build it, but they also look a little bit like. crabs. Crabs. Carson. Yeah. Carcinization. I  was curious if you were drawing from Earth's. history of everything kind of evolving into  a crab. Everything eventually becomes a crab.

Yeah. Favorite thing. Yeah. And that's what I  that's what I did. I decided that arbitrarily. that you know in evolution something happened  like a billion years ago and then all of the. species since then are formed by that. It's like  the ideal body type. But also in evolution it's. like okay why why why does DNA spiral this way  instead of that way? Because that's how it started. and now it can't change. Right? So I decided  that for whatever reason Eridian life tends to be.

very pentagonally symmetrical. So everything's in  fives. It's just fives. Why? I don't know. Because. that happened at some point in their evolutionary  tree and then everything is like very pentagonal. Yeah. Okay. So now I've defined how their  bodies work. And I'm like, well, if they're not. exchanging with the outside air, how do they make  noise? Because since they have such incredibly. good hearing, they're hearing they don't have  ears. They have every like hearing is almost like. touch. Every part of their carrapase can hear.  Yeah. Wouldn't it be neat if you clapped and it.

made a light because that's what it is for them.  Yes, it would. Like, oh, it's it's completely. quiet in here. Give me a second. Oh. Oh, okay. I  see. All right. Yeah. Now I get it. It would be. as though we could glow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.  Yeah. And then also this led to all sorts of other. fun things about how their brains work, which is  because they use echolocation, they have a 360°. constant input of their 360° environment.  We have to have parts of our brains dedicated. to remembering what's behind me. Eridians don't  have that because they don't need it. So they.

are constantly getting that input. Yeah. And so if  for some reason they lose that input, they won't. remember the layout of the room. They've never  had any need to memorize their 3D environment like. we do. If you close your eyes, you can probably  still tell me a bunch of stuff about this room. Like maybe not every last little detail, but you  you know there are stairs there. You know there's. a camera there, there, there, a lighting thingy  there, and so on. But an Eridian would be like, uh, I got I got nothing. Yeah. This is one of my  favorite things about science fiction generally,

I think, which is that what as you were describing  the different way in which Eridians work and. you're describing how we work, I'm appreciating  being human in a different way. It allows you to. really appreciate the world that we live in by by  reminding us that it is also strange, reminding. us that it is also cool, like that that the  animals that live in the deep sea are, you know, fundamentally alien too in some in some way that  we, you know, that you can appreciate. Um, and I.

I really love that and I want to play that out  if you're okay with it in a with a new story. I. think one of the best ways to see potentially how  your process works is to offer you new examples. Okay. Oh, wow. I don't get nervous very often. I'm  nervous to tell you about my sci-fi story. Okay, here we go. Ultimately, our goal is to educate  people about science. And we want to share with. people the real science and technology that we're  using to search for aliens right now, right? The. Europa Clipper is on its way. All of the cool  telescopes that are looking for signs of life in.

different atmospheres, right? And so, one of the  ways that we've started to do this is with small. fiction stories. They're sort of intercut into  our videos. We did it with a video about finding. near-Earth asteroids by playing out what if an  asteroid were coming for Earth. And we go through. all the real steps that we might take and we went  to an observatory and looked at the way that they. discovered near-Earth asteroids. It was very fun.  And Mark Robber voiced the fiction sections of. that video. Okay. So, we're doing another version  of that where we're playing out what if we really.

find aliens. What if it works all of this science  that we're doing right now? Sort of like if we. catch the squirrel, what would we do next? Um,  and so I have some parameters here. It's I really. don't want it to be that they're sending us  a message. I want it to be that our ways of. searching work. That feels different to me. I  think one of the struggles is that a lot of the. things that we're doing will just take an enormous  amount of time and I want to sort of speed it up. So one of the things that I'm thinking is that  we will set this um character this scientist in.

a future world where we have already discovered  microbes on maybe Venus or Europa or somewhere. nearby and all of a sudden there's all of this  investment because we think wow if we discovered. life arising in two different places maybe it  really is everywhere. maybe we should really. invest a huge amount of money in finding aliens,  intelligent aliens far away. So that gives me the. excuse to kind of speed up the the technological  process here. I can sort of imagine like if the.

physics say that this telescope is possible,  if someone at NASA says it's a good idea, then we could conceivably make it. I didn't even  bother to explain why people why they sent people. to Mars in the 2030s. I just said they did. Yeah.  Like I didn't work on the funding aspect of it. That's way less fun. So, if I've set up this  premise, I've set up these goals, I want to. pull the string, as you just told me that you did.  What are the questions that you're asking yourself. at this point? Well, okay. So, the the I I would  my first questions would be about the world that.

you've already set up that what your characters  already know. Okay. So, the microbes they found. on say Venus and Europa. Yeah. Were they a  separate genesis? Yes. Okay. In both cases, they. only discovered one. I'm saying Venus. And yes,  we have reason to believe for reasons. Just the. cellular mechanisms are so completely different  to ours. Yes. The Drake equation has changed. dramatically and we now believe that life arises.  The Drake equation approaches one. Yes. Okay. It's.

everywhere. It's everywhere. And so we're super  motivated to go find it. So we have established. that there's microbial life on Venus and it is its  own genesis. We're positive of that. Furthermore, there's no multisellular life or at least none  that we found on Venus. Not that we found. No. our scientist character is um not working in that  particular field. So he's like the guy who is I. in my wildest dreams this is voiced by okay he's  like an expert in um transmission spectroscopy or. something. His thing is like he's like yes I fully  agree that there are microbes on Venus. Microbes.

aren't my thing. I want the intelligent aliens and  now I believe that they really are out there. So. I am just So how do we find intelligent aliens?  Well, and and he's thinking of looking at other. stars or just in our solar system or I think he's  looking at So, I think that we pick a star system. I'm imagining that the planet is a invented one  that we discover because of all this investment in. new telescopes. Okay. Well, then the first thing  that comes to my mind is if we had like all this. awesome technology is look for a planet and it  would be very slight but look for a planet that is.

not emitting as much radiation as it's absorbing.  Huh? Why? Because the radiation it's absorbing is. going into the form of life. Yeah. Because if you  think about earth, a lot of sunlight is coming in. and not bouncing away because plants are absorbing  it and turning it into complex carbohydrates and. that energy is being stored in the form of  chemical bonds but it's happening at a global.

scale and algae forest everything like that. So  if you saw a planet absorbing like it cuz a dead. planet like Mercury will be emitting exactly as  much radiation as it is absorbing from the sun. because it has to otherwise it would be heating  up or cooling down or something. It it has had. a few billion years to reach that stasis point  and that's where it is. So if you see a planet, you know, absorbing more radiation than it's  emitting, then that is probably a planet that.

has not just life, but fairly complex life. Life  like plant life, like multicellular life, not or. either that or a whole lot of algae. Yeah. Right.  But you could see that's my first hint, I think, would be that that's a planet worth checking  out. How much detail is too much detail? Well, that's that's where you're getting into the the  made up. Yeah. Like how how much should I pull a. thread versus like the way I do it is I try to do  one thing and then everything derives from that.

one thing. So if you say, "Oh, they've got really  good, you know, exoplanet like investigation. technology," then you should the the way I would  do it rather is um I would say I would spend a. lot of time defining exactly what that exoplanet  detection technology you have is, what it can and. can't do, and then work from there. And then if  you find out that it's not doing enough for your. plot to happen, then give it a little more gas.  But don't come up with like 12 different things.

come up with one thing that you can amp up. So,  what I'm taking from what you're saying is let's. imagine that the telescopes are really that much  better. Okay. And there are real plans. I was. talking to a bunch of um NASA folks and scientists  that are working on plans to block out the light. of stars that are more sunlike in order to learn  about more Earthlike planets that are near them. So, there's one called Star Shade, for example.  And by doing that, you would be able to see more.

Earthlike planets, but also more planets um on  other orbits that don't perfectly transit. So, um let's imagine just just pulling on this  thread like you said of like saying, "Okay, they have better telescopes. What does that mean?"  That means they can identify more new Earthlike. planets around more sunlike stars. That means  that our character is exploring a lot of them and. um identifies one with not just a bio signature,  but let's give it a techno signature, too. got. lots of CFC's in its atmosphere. It's like you  look for okay there's no there's no natural.

process by which like there's a bunch of carbon  monoxide and CFC's and other stuff like that in. an atmosphere. So that must be like a civilization  generating that as waste. Yeah. And then I think. if you go by NASA has this wonderful scale called  the cold scale that allows you to think about okay. what would the process be to rank different  discoveries? Um, and so you increase, you go. up the levels on this scale if you are, you know,  checking with a secondary piece of evidence. So.

let's imagine our character sends this information  to all the radio telescopes and now they're. looking for radio signals from this planet, right?  And they actually find something. They could be. blasting like a signal meant to be detected by  SETI. That's getting really close to your initial. prohibition, right? That's true. So let's assume  they're not doing SETI. How about something like. this? We have this systemwide array, the S, the S  SWA. Come up with a cool acronym for it. Whatever. the systemwide array and it and we've been  watching lots of planets, let's say, yeah, and.

we've been watching for radio signals. We've been  watching for anything like that. It's just we have. much more advanced one than one planet one time  there's a burst and then nothing and we're like. the hell was that, right? Or or there's just like  a burst of electromagnetic whatever from that and. and it happens over the course of like you know,  minutes and that's it. And then and then they're. like, "What was that?" And then so then you turn  you turn your guns on it and you're really super.

and then then you discover that planet has an  atmosphere and it you know it has a life science. and pollution and all that stuff like that. And  then what happens is they just had themselves a. nuclear war. Oh yeah. You can back into like why  was now there's oh there's radiation. Yeah. Oh, they just failed the cosmic filter, I'm afraid.  Oh, yeah. So, then we get to explain like the. great filter. The great filter. Yeah. One of the  things that a lot of science fiction misses if. they're contacting you is the moment when humanity  has to decide whether or not they say hi back,

right? That feels very rich to me. That feels  like a well, these people just blew themselves up, we think. Yeah. Or maybe they invented some new  form of energy and made a mistake. Or maybe they. did something on purpose and they're fine.  or but there was a sudden massive burst of. electromagnetic radiation that came from not the  star but the planet. Should we say hi? Should we. say hi? Did and yeah. In fact, make it less  obvious. Say like did they just have a global. nuclear war or is that their new technology for  launching spacecraft to their moon or is that like.

a test of their new energy system that's fusion  based that we don't even understand? At what point. do you add a character with specific personality  traits that has to make decisions in this world. that you've built? Well, okay. So, in in a  scenario like this, I would have the discoverer. character. He'd be the guy who'd be like, "There  was like a burst at this planet or something like. that." Like, one thing that annoys me in fiction  is when the main character is like the only person.

who believes something and then goes on to be  vindicated over and over again. The the oh, this. this guy was right all along. That that annoys  me. It could just be the guy who happened to. notice it. Yeah. Like you've got some Tiko Brahe  equivalent dude who's just an amateur who just. happened to be like looking that way that day, you  know, whatever. It could be something as simple as. that. Like he could be just out stargazing. He's  an amateur astronomer. Maybe maybe you make him. more interesting. He's a rich guy. He's actually  built a little a little astronomy dome in his.

home. I I know some people who have done that who  have their own like straight up massive telescope. like that they go from their living room into  their telescope room and stuff like that. and he's. just stargazing and that's what he loves to do. He  likes to take measurements and stuff like that and. he happens to be looking at the moment. He sees  this little visible light and he's like, "That was. odd." And of course he has, you know, he records  everything he sees and he's like, "Let's play that. back." He's like, "Yeah, that was that was over  there." Okay. Were there any satellites in the. area at the time? Were there? Nope. It was from  there. Talks to other amateur astronomers. Anybody.

see that? Any anybody see that over at this star  over here? This little bloop. And people are like, "No, I wasn't looking that way." It's like, "I  don't know. I don't know." He's like, "There. there was a there some something happened there."  And maybe maybe there's some guy in Australia who. says like, "I saw that, too." And then then they  then they they say, "Okay, well, we've got two. independent corroborating sources." Like, so then  the people who run the great systemwide array say. like, "Okay, we've got two corroborating sources  that say they saw an event." Yeah. In in this.

solar system, and they have this new telescope  technology. it's accurate enough to kind of tell. it didn't happen at the star. It happened away  from the star. Not on the star, but next to the. star. And maybe cuz maybe this um planet is a  little further away than 1 AU. Maybe it's like. 5 AU away. Maybe it's bigger. Maybe whatever. It's  a brighter star. It's five whatever. So it's 5 AU. away. And they can tell with their telescopes,  yeah, it didn't happen at the star. It happened.

near the star. So that gets the powers at B to go  like, well, let's look at it with the great array. and Okay. Yeah. Okay. We call it what's your name  again? Steve. Okay. Steve's world is whatever we. look at Steve world and um and yeah, now we're  seeing these evidence in the atmosphere of like, you know, there's like free oxygen and methane  and pollution which implies like intelligent. life and we don't know what that flash was.  And then you can get to your question of like, should we say hi? I think I'm okay with the idea  that they would be signaling somehow. So, what are.

the problems? Well, so what I was saying is you  No, I think you're on to something identifying. it for sure. Well, I think you're on to something  with they aren't trying to contact us. They don't. even know about us. We spotted them first. That's  an interesting angle. Yes, that's what I And so, and and that's I haven't seen that, you know,  outside of like Space Opera. Narrated by There we. go. Uh but I haven't seen that outside of like uh  like space opera or like Star Trek and stuff where.

we are the ones who detect them first. But then  it's like, okay, so there's this planet, Steve's. world. They put the big array to work and they  say like, yeah, it has oxygen. It has methane. And we don't know what that big flash of light is  and there's pollution in the atmosphere. So maybe. they're inventing fusion. Maybe they invented  fusion wrong. Maybe they just didn't like the. mountain range because it was unsycling and wanted  to get rid of it. Maybe it's something completely. different. Maybe this is their reproductive  molting cycle and it happens every 500 years and. we just happen to see it for the first time. Now,  we have no idea. And so then comes the should we.

say hi? We have the technology to say hi. And then  the question would become so inevitably you would. have to have them decide to say hi because it's  boring if they don't. Yeah. And uh no no thanks. No thanks. Actually just cool. Just freaking ghost  them. That's the whole story. That's all the end. We decided no. No, we're good. And we're banning  all radio broadcasts from Earth. We're shutting.

down SETI. We are done with this [ __ ] No. Um,  so they they decide to contact him. And so then. the next fun question is how do you contact  him? Yeah. How do you how do you b You said. like 20 light years away. Okay. How do you send  a signal 20 years? I want it to be something that. could plausibly be within a human lifetime that  like you could in theory expect bump it a little. closer. There's a lot of stars out there. You you  can get, you know, closer than that. And so yeah, that's an interesting question of like how would  you send that? How would you send information? So.

now I'm deep in my spreadsheet. Now you're deep in  your spreadsheet. We have lots of options for you. know what would be realistically powerful enough.  And also I guess what would we say? Well, would. you send are we send are we sending prime numbers  or are we actually trying to communicate? We want. them to know we're here. That's that's step one.  It's hi, right? That's what we're saying. We don't. speak their language. We don't know anything.  Prime numbers is you know the Carl Sagan way. Yeah. Digits of pi. Sure. Well, that then then  you have to wonder if they're what what base.

would you like to do that in? If we received a  signal and it was just a bunch of random numbers, it would take a while before some mathematician  is like, "Oh, that's pi and base 27." Yeah. I. think I think this is what I appreciate so much  in your stories is um you could write a whole set. of chapters on how do you say hi? There's a rich  earnest debate um in in just the the um idea that. okay, we're going to say hi, but there's a bunch  of decisions that have to be made about how you.

would best do that. There's debate, real debate,  and then there's uh actually doing it that is. difficult. How do you do it? Well, I mean, so the  first thing that came to my mind talking about the. ultimate swords to plow shares is set off nukes in  space. They're very bright. Fair enough. And then. some other people might be, should we be worried  about them knowing where we are? Why don't we send. nukes to Mars and set them off there? That way, if  anybody thinks thinks it's that someone would say,

"Yeah, but if they can look at us, they'll  see our cities. They'll see our whatever, they'll be like, "Nice little kid." Yeah. But,  you know, you could you could send nukes far away. from Earth. Not to disguise our identity, but  just because if you're going to set off nukes, you want to be far away. Set them away in a line.  have them so that they go off in sequences and. stuff like that. That's really bright. If you're  giving off like a nuclear explosion in space, the light just goes and goes and goes. That's  where my spreadsheet would come in. I'd be like, what would a you know, you know, a one megat ton  bomb Yeah. being detonated out in space, you know,

like you'd probably want to get further away from  our star, away from the sun so that it's like more. visible against the background. So maybe you I  mean at this point we're like very excited and. willing to spend whatever it takes, right? So  we're sending something out like way out orbit. of Saturn, Neptune, like way the hell out there  so that it's more it has more contrast against. the background of space because if we're really  close to the sun, they might not notice it. So. we'd be sending nukes like way out there and set  to blow up in a in a sequence. And so that'd be a.

whole a whole thing. And then um that's where  my spreadsheet would come out. I'd be like, okay, how much of a light from a one megat ton  nuclear explosion would be visible to somebody. who's however many lighty years away and how would  that compare to, you know, the arc distance from. our star? Would we be able to detect that with  today's technology if somebody did that? And. if it needs to be bigger or farther, that drives  your plot because then we need a bigger we we need.

a bigger boom or maybe nukes are not a good way  to do it. maybe. But but it seems like that's a. good way for us to release an awful lot of light  all at once. Yeah. So, when I'm telling stories, I'm publishing them on YouTube and I'm getting  lots of comments, some incredibly helpful, some. very pedantic. Um, when you were publishing The  Martian, you published first as chapters online, and I have some of them. These are the original  chapters as you published them. And this is my.

published copy of The Martian. And I'm curious, it  seems to me both uh like an enormous privilege to. have the public fact-checking of making things in  public. Um but also, uh difficult to figure out, okay, how do you as an individual creative person  make changes or not make changes based on what. you want to get super close to reality versus  what you're saying like, no, this is driving. the plot. This is deliberately my choice. Tell  me about the difference between this and the.

book that you finally published. I think there's  not much, but it looks like you have like some. sort of secret like DV. I do have a spreadsheet.  One of my favorites is this is a whole published. paper on the differences. By the way, I don't know  if you've ever seen this. I did not see this. Um, one of my favorites is the table that they have  at the back about the difference between the. cursing Oh, cool. They have a whole chart for you  of They had me dial it back a little. Yeah. These. are all the differences between the versions for  how many times you curse. That's awesome. I when.

we made the classroom edition of The Martian, so  it's a we have a classroom friendly edition for, you know, schools and stuff like that. All of the  swear words are replaced with PG alternatives. Oh, fun. Yeah. And so and and because I'm they're not  allowed to change text without me allowing it, right? And so in most cases, you can almost do a  search and replace, but not in all cases. It was. funny because like they they had a copy editor.  They said, "We want you to flag every swear word.

in the in the in this manuscript that is like not  suitable for like classrooms." Like, so basically. anything that you couldn't put in a PG movie,  right? And so she was just went through the whole. thing and she said, "That's the most fun I've  ever had." She said, "That is the most fun I've. ever had." She said, she said, "It's just because  every single one of our notes is like Amazing. Did you enjoy like sometimes I wish I could  publish my videos and then and then have an.

opportunity to get, you know, sometimes they make  good points. Sometimes they they say things that. I wish I included. Like you didn't do that  with your other books. And I'm curious how. I did with the Martian as I did a chapter at  a time. People would um email and say, "Okay, you got this wrong. You got this right." And so  on. Um the biggest one was like I I had um just. spaced and forgotten that air like will completely  mix together like and so like the hydrogen. Yeah.

Yeah. The hydrogen then earlier chapter my  original chapter where he had the hab had a. bunch of like free hydrogen in it and he was like  worried about how to get rid of it and it was all. up at the top of the hab because it's hydrogen and  so he went up and just had small amounts of oxygen. that he'd add to burn it and he was wearing  his stuff like that. But of course that's not. what happens. That happens at the planetary  scale. But inside of something like the HAB, the hydrogen would be evenly distributed  throughout the air. And someone emailed. me that. I'm like, "Oh yeah, so I got to  come up with a different thing." Yeah.

I remember thinking about how you published The  Martian and what I appreciated was obviously. there's so many people that help and support  you now. Obviously, it seems like you're really. close with your team and have that that wonderful  collaboration. It also was inspiring to see that. you didn't need anyone to say yes to you writing  the book. You wrote the book and then you put it.

online. And to some degree, I always felt like um  that was the key to what we're doing too. Like we. just began making videos that we thought were  great on YouTube and and it's sort of gotten it. audience and it's worked from there. Fist bump.  Success. Fist bump. Exactly. Yeah. Thumbs down. We promise this is irrelevant. This matters. This  is a thing. Thumbs up. No, that's thumbs down. We. do the thumbs up. It's close enough. That freaked  me out. I saw somebody on a YouTube uh review of.

Project Hail Mary and the guy's on it going like  and I'm like, "Oh no, he didn't like it." And I'm. like, "Oh, no. I get it." Okay. Yeah. One of the  things that also feels similar is the optimism. that you bring to your stories. Thank you. Can  you tell me about the way that you bring that. into your process? Like for example, I really  love the way that the astronauts in The Martian. all believe in their commander. They're there's  no love triangle. There's no infighting. There's.

no they're not they're just smart people trying  to do a good job. And I think that over and over. again in your books when the villains are hard  problems that you have to solve, it positions. humanity as what we are, which is a a species that  loves to solve hard problems that we're the good. Yeah. And I'm just curious how you you think about  that, how you feel about maybe your position in I. I'll say it for myself, a world of both sci-fi and  science journalism that feels pretty pessimistic.

sometimes, pretty dystopian sometimes. How do  you think of the work that you're making in. that context? Well, I'm not trying to change  society and I'm not trying to change anyone's. opinion of anything. I I firmly consider myself  just an entertainer. I'm just writing stories to. entertain. So, I'm not trying to set your opinion  or change your mind on anything. When you're done. with one of my books, I want you to put it back  on the shelf and say, "That was cool. I enjoyed. reading that. That was nice." That's it. That's  the only effect I want it to have on you. Maybe.

you tell some of your friends to read it, too. You  know, that's it. But in terms of pessimism, I I I. yeah, I don't know. I I I'm not here to solve a  pessimism epidemic. All I can do is just be me. I'm not pessimistic. I think humans are really  awesome. I think technology is really awesome. because technology is then put into the hands of  humans who are awesome. Yeah. You know, people are. afraid of AI, but you know, it's like, you know,  AI is a can do things no human can. I'm like, so can a forklift. You know, it's it if I give  you a hammer, you could build a house or you could.

murder someone. It's not there's nothing about the  hammer that does it. And most people use hammers. to build houses. Yeah. Um so I'm I'm not afraid of  technology uh because I'm not afraid of my fellow. humanity. I'm optimistic that way. Yeah. One of  the effects that that perspective naturally has is. to seed inspiration in other people. Right. I do  think that um you are here to be an entertainer,

but the effect of your entertainment is a lot of  people get really excited about science. Well, if that if if it has that side effect, then I'm  I'm happy. Although people have often said, hey, you're helping get people into science. I'm  like, I don't think I am. I think uh you know, people who are already into science maybe get  encouraged to like pursue it further. You're. not going to make someone who isn't interested in  science be interested in science. That's kind of. like saying like people often ask me like how  do we get more girls into STEM? Like kids like.

how do we get more girls into STEM? I'm like  like figure out which ones are interested in. STEM and then foster it. You're not going to make  anyone get into You're not going to make anyone. take an interest, but they're there. They're  interested. You just got to make it so the other. kids don't beat it out of her before she Yeah.  The fostering I think is Yeah. Like maybe No, you're not um creating something brand new, but  I but the fostering is so important. The the.

um normalizing Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's  another debate that feels very rich, which is the. effects of science fiction on real science. And  people say science fiction is a real meaningful. way to inspire actual creativity. The Martin  Cooper at Motorola said that he was inspired. to build the first ever handheld cell phone from  the Star Trek communicators. And then other people.

will say, "No, come on. Cell phones came about  because of smaller transistors and, you know, technological development and like that was going  to happen." And like it's very nice after the fact. to say that you were inspired by Star Trek, but  that was a cultural ambition and we accomplished. it. How do you think about the because because  you are projecting into the future solutions. that smart people might realistically have. How do  you think about the relationship between science. fiction and science? Well, I don't think science  fiction authors come up with anything that real.

scientists don't already come up with. It's  just we're better at like making books that. get into the public zeitgeist about it. But I mean  obviously the idea of a phone that isn't attached. to the wall is something that people have like  thought about having for a long time and once the. technology came about to have it and like a lot  of people say like oh Arthur C. Clark was the guy. who invented the concept of artificial satellites.  I'm like no he wasn't. I'm sure some other people. thought of that first but he was also a really  talented science fiction author. So, he was the.

one who got to write about it. But, I mean, I I  I I just don't think that science fiction drives. real science very much. I don't think there's  anything I've thought of in any of my stories. that real science-wise that real scientists  haven't already like thought of at great length. I think your science fiction does the fostering  that you talked about in people and I think it. also perhaps drives cultural acceptance of ideas  or cultural excitement around ideas. I do think.

that in some way the popular excitement about  Star Trek communicators, the popular excitement. that we continue to have about self-driving cars  or flying cars, the idea that, you know, we might. get to Mars and and actually accomplish that as a  species is fostered by great stories about it. So, I know that that you feel that you're here as  an entertainer. I feel that you have inspired.

I mean I'm not a scientist so but um I think  you've inspired a lot of people and I think. um I think that function is is really important. I  think that the specific way in which you do it the. way in which you show that you don't have to be  a natural genius to you know love science and be. good at it. It is about hard work and solving the  problem right in front of you. And as they would. say, you know, work the problem. The exercise  that we just went down. Okay. The spreadsheets,

my my pulling on my particular thread. Um the the  story that you told of how you chose Erid and then. went down that rabbit hole. What are some of the  rabbit holes you're going down right now? Well, I can't talk about it that much because that's  the book I'm writing right now. Can you give us. any hints about the book you're writing right now?  Uh, no. I really don't want to. I'm sorry. I don't. want to. Are there scientific concepts or ideas  that are exciting to you? Yeah. What are some I. mean so these are not involved in the book that  I'm writing now. Um so there like so there's two.

things that I think are going to change the world  in the real world um dramatically. One of them is. kind of boring but it's like the self-driving  cars. Okay. I don't think people understand how. much that's going to change the world. Yeah. First  off the idea of owning a car I think will kind of. go away. You'll just be like, you'll be subscribed  to a car service. It'll be like Uber or Lyft or. something like that. They'll be just driverless.  And then cities dedicate something like 10% of.

their total surface area to parking. Yeah. They're  not going to have to do that anymore. The car is. going to drop you off and then go off to pick up  someone else and then it'll go off to recharge. Also, which is great for urban transport. it like  it it becomes economically better to use electric. cars and so they'll just go recharge themselves  and continue. So that's good for the environment, but also cities will now be fully dedicated to  being cities instead of parking lots. Yeah. So. that's amazing. Also, we're going to have about  50,000 people a year not dying from car accidents.

Yeah. Which is kind of nice. Drunk driving will  cease to be a thing. Yeah. It'll cease to be a. problem. Dying in car crashes will be as unusual  as dying in plane crashes. And also, everybody's. effectively gonna get a bigger house because  everybody's going to remodel their garages away. I. mean, it in a hundred years, people will look back  and say, "Isn't it weird that people dedicated. like a quarter of their entire home to a place to  put a car?" Yeah. It's like, "Your car has more.

personal space than your kid does." Like, your kid  has a bedroom. Your car has a big bedroom, right? and for for an object that you're not using 98%  of the time, it's just ridiculous, right? So, I I think that's going to have a tremendous effect  on on society. And and then then we get into the. weird stuff where it's like, okay, there are  entire professions that are revolve around. human drivers, trucking, cabbies, that sort of  thing. Those are going to go away. That's going.

to have an effect, not necessarily a good one.  They won't just vanish from the earth. They'll. have to go find a new profession. Um, and then  there's other things like um, cities like the. city of Los Angeles gets something like a hundred  million dollars a year in parking and traffic. violations. Electric cars aren't going to break  the law. So, a lot of cities are probably going. to oppose the adoption of electric cars because  their revenue relies on a lot of this stuff. So, it's a really interesting dynamic. I was  talking to a a tech leader, I won't say by name.

We were talking about this specific topic and  they said that a politician had asked them, "Okay, you're talking about self-driving cars. I  believe in this future, but what about all of the. organs?" Yeah, another good point. Yeah.  No more organ donations. Answer is like, "Oh my god, I would hope that the organs stay  in their original body." Yeah. Yeah. But that.

that's a weird way of looking at it. You're like  incredibly weird way of looking at it. So yeah, I'm I'm I'm I'm sad to hear about the guy in the  hospital who doesn't get the heart transplant, but the donor didn't die in this. Yeah, that's  just the the whole way that people weird way. of looking at that. Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's  one technology I think is significant. The other. one is protein folding via AI. So, it's really  exciting to see that we are just just using AI.

is just blasting up exactly. We know that how the  proteins fold and stuff like that. But what I'm. more excited about is doing it backwards, saying,  "I want a I want a protein that makes this shape.". Yeah. Tell me the RNA sequence that'll do that.  Yeah. For drug discovery. Yeah. Exactly. Or no, it gets way better than that. Oh, it gets so much  better than It gets so much better than that. No, if you can make a custom shape, yeah, with  a protein, then you start by saying, "Oh,

bad news. You have cancer." So, we got a sample,  right? And we're going to take a look at your. cancer cells, and we're going to figure out what  shape of molecule will kill those cancer cells, but not your healthy ones. And we'll have  computers do that, too. We'll have them try. out things and figure out, okay, that's the shape  we need. Okay. Now, we'll go to the AI and say, what protein do we need to make that shape? Yeah.  And it'll be like here this this this sequence. Okay. Now we're going to crisper splice that  into a bunch of E.coli in a lab and we're going.

to make this this cures your cancer. Yeah. Just  yours. Yeah. But here you go. And I mean like. or or also like viral treatment. It's like okay,  bad news. You've got a virus. Good news. This is. the shape that neutralizes that virus. So we're  going to massproduce a bunch of it and put it in. you. We've like you can literally cure a virus  which we have never done other that we've we've. extincted vi we've rendered viruses as extinct  via vaccination but we've never cured nothing.

other than the human immune system has ever cured  a virus. Yeah, it is really amazing to hear you do. the go down the rabbit hole on the physicality of  an alien species and then go down the rabbit hole. on self-driving cars and protein folding. Just  call me Alice. I like rabbit holes. It feels yeah. it feels like it's um it's a it's a reminder of  where we started which is you know the exploration.

of fictional worlds feels like it tells you so  much about the real world. It feels like you're. doing the same process now that you were doing  about Rocky. And the other thing is like all. these things I've been saying like real scientists  I'm sure have already thought of all of this and. are working on it. So that's pretty cool. Yeah.  If you thought it someone else probably thought. it and they're probably working on it. There are  probably people out there dedic who have dedicated. their lives to these random ass thoughts that  I've just had. It's neat. One of the questions. that I like to end with is if someone were to  watch the videos that I make after I'm gone,

I would hope that they would get the feeling that  what I'm about is trying to get people to feel a. little bit more optimistic, have a little bit more  faith in people trying to solve hard problems, and in turn see the possible futures ahead so that  they can help build them. That's that's what I'm. trying to do here. And I'm curious if someone is  reading your stories, the many, many more stories.

that we're going to be lucky to have. What do  you want people to take away? I just want them. to have a good time. And when they put the book  away, I want them to think that was cool. That's. the same effect that my father's science fiction  collection had on me when I was like 12 years old. reading his like books by Azimov Heinline and  Clark with a with a glossy ad for cigarettes in. the middle because he'd gotten them in the 50s and  60s, right? And and I just that was cool. Next,

you know, that that's all I'm shooting for. That's  all I want. Thank you so much for your time. I. really thanks for having me. It's great. Thanks  for coming. Since that conversation with Andy, I have been writing this sci-fi story and it is  coming soon to our channel. So, if you want to. see it and if you want to just support optimistic  science and tech stories, subscribe. See you soon. Amazing. Thank you. Amaze. Amaze. Amaze.

And I am a fan, by the way, so it's  pretty cool to hang out with you.