Mark Shelhamer

Astronauts will face years of physical and psychological stress, dangerous radiation, isolation, and a planet where rescue is just not an option.

My guest this morning is Mark Shelhamer, former chief scientist of NASA's human research program, and the principal investigator of the Johns Hopkins Human Spaceflight Lab.

Mark is joining today to explore a fundamental question: Are we ready for Mars? Which happens to be the title of his new book, published by Johns Hopkins Press.

Mark Shelhamer, welcome to Cool Science Radio.

Thank you, and really happy to be here and talk about this topic.

Well, I believe that people who, just laypeople who have a curiosity about space or science in general, you know, we hear about the various missions to Mars and, and we know that we're getting a lot of data from Mars already.

Right.

So a few days later they brought him back.

Thank you very much for tuning in, and, uh, another great discussion coming up, uh, with, uh, our guest, who I will introduce more formally in a minute, Dr.

Mark Shelhamer.

He was a guest on the Space Show a couple of years ago.

This is his second appearance.

So we'll see what the latest is for Shepard, uh, actually the one remaining Space Cynic out of the four of us.

Uh, but today, uh, Dr.

Mark Shelhamer is with us.

He has a, a new book out about Are We Ready, which is about going to Mars and, um, it's more about are we ready from the human side more than the rocket and technology side.

And he joins us now.

Mark Shelhamer, welcome to Blue Dot.

Thank you.

It's glad to be here.

You can make a donation at our website, mynspr.org. And now let's get back to the show.

Let's return now to our look at how difficult spaceflight is on the human body and how much more those difficulties would be exacerbated by a long-term mission into deep space to the planet Mars.

Our guest is Mark Shelhamer, a pioneering human spaceflight researcher and the author of the new book, Are We Ready for Mars? Well, let's talk about the effects of spaceflight on the human body for a bit because it's one of the most interesting parts of your book.

And Talk about the effects of where we are adapted to gravity.