become the first-ever spacecraft to set
foot or really set landing pad on Mars
the Viking one and two Landers had one
final task they had to get baked no I’m
not referring to some type of a final
going-away party with Cheech and Chong
for these billion-dollar machines rather
I mean that scientists wearing sterile
garb like this literally put these
machines into an oven and baked them for
nearly 60 hours straight why NASA wanted
to ensure that there were no earthly
microbes clinging to these cosmic
tourists before blasting them off into
space and eventually to the Red Planet
in doing so NASA complied with that law
you all are so familiar with right the
1967 UN Outer Space Treaty yes there
really is a United Nations Space Treaty
and no it is not a treaty between us and
the aliens some secret treaty rather it
is a treaty among spacefaring nations
including the United States requiring us
to avoid harmful contamination of
celestial bodies even today any
scientist doing critical work around any
of our interplanetary emissaries that
might be going anywhere potentially
hospitable to life in our solar system
have to dress in these kinds of extreme
sterile garb now of course we don’t have
one of those machines with us right now
and I don’t even work at NASA anyway so
I don’t need to be wearing any of this
but suffice it to say that there are a
number of sensitive instruments that we
would love to send in outer space and to
other places in our solar system that we
just can’t send because quite frankly
they are too sensitive to withstand the
extreme sterilization that we require
before sending them so think about it
like this in Star Trek they have the
prime directive right that prevents
Captain Kirk and crew from harming local
inhabitants as they travel the cosmos
well nASA has its own verse
of that with its office of planetary
protection and NASA has its own Captain
Kirk
a remarkable scientist named Cassie
Conley doctors dr. Conley’s office is
tasked with preventing NASA from doing
to Martians
essentially what European explorers did
to Native Americans with smallpox or for
that matter what invasive species like
kudzu are doing right now in your
backyard
now of course such precautions are
important for the integrity of our
scientific research we don’t want to
discover life on Mars only to find out
that actually our machines accidentally
brought it there with them at the same
time though we also don’t want to not
discover life on Mars because we
accidentally wiped it out before we
could even find it and that is what is
so interesting it’s impressive the
extent to which humanity is going to
prevent harming potential aliens we
might encounter out there keep in mind
we don’t wear these garb these type of
extreme protective garb in order to
protect ourselves around these machines
we wear them to protect anyone
our Landers and our Rovers might
encounter out there from us yet this
also raises quite an uncomfortable
question because if we are so concerned
about protecting living beings who we
don’t even know exist on other planets
what about the living beings with whom
we share our own planet right here if we
do find life on Mars it’s possible we
may not share any DNA with them if they
even have DNA at all yet right here on
earth we abuse animals to whom we know
we are genetically related that is to
say we know we have common ancestors
with them in other words we don’t always
act as our brother’s keeper or our
sisters keeper our cousin’s keeper as
the case may be after all we know for
certain that these genetic relatives of
ours who we call animals as if we
weren’t also animals ourselves can feel
pain yet we routinely cause them to
suffer in ways that ignore
been their most vital interests just
think about it we allow circuses to beat
elephants and tigers into submission to
force them to perform tricks for our
amusement we allow cosmetics companies
to torment rabbits and other animals
simply for our vanity products we also
allow the fur industry to slaughter
wildlife wholesale as if we needed their
coats more than they do
but perhaps nowhere is our disregard for
life on earth as stark as it is in our
food industry in fact I would go so far
as to say if aliens ever do come and
visit us here on earth they’re probably
not going to be that impressed by how we
treated the animals who we raised for
food let’s just conduct one thought
experiment so by show of hands who here
has a male dog at home okay in the front
what’s your name and Tony what’s your
dog’s name all right so let’s just
imagine a scenario where Tony brings her
dog Duke to the veterinarian and Tony
says hey doc I’m really concerned about
pet overpopulation would you please
neuter Duke the veterinarian says sure
no problem Tony and he pulls out a
scalpel and just goes to town on Duke
cutting his testicles out without any
pain relief whatsoever what do you think
would happen
he gets sued might have his license
taken might even get charged with
criminal animal cruelty
now let’s consider an alternative
thought experiment imagine that Tony
doesn’t take Duke the dog but takes Duke
the pig and instead of to a veterinarian
she takes him to an untrained farmhand
who has no animal care experience
whatsoever and he does the same exact
thing cuts Dukes testicles out without
pain relief what do you think then would
happen
to Duke the pig nothing because such
behavior is standard operating practice
in the meat industry in America farm
animals have so little legal protection
that the meat industry can get away with
doing to pigs and calves
would get them put in prison if the
victims were dogs and cats it’s so bad
to the point where now cutting animals
generals off with no pain relief as a
matter of routine practice subjected to
millions of animals every single year in
our country alone in other words if as
technologically superior alien
civilization does ever come visit us
here we better hope that they treat us
with a little bit more compassion than
we treat the other animals on our planet
I’d like to think that they would have
some type of a malice toward none and
charity toward all credo of Abraham
Lincoln but if aliens sci-fi flicks have
anything to tell us well we better hope
that they don’t find us if the cruelty
of these agribusiness is inflict on
animals weren’t enough the problem of
farming these animals is also causing
massive problems for wildlife here on
earth – at the same time as we are
admirably seeking to avoid causing
extinctions on Mars we seem to have a
much more difficult time doing anything
about the extinctions that we are
causing right here on earth as we speak
our planet is undergoing its sixth mass
extinction event though unlike the last
major extinction which took out the
dinosaurs this time around the culprit
is not an asteroid from the heavens it’s
us Homo sapiens right here on earth and
our desire to eat such a meat heavy diet
is a leading driver in so much of this
species to climb in fact the World
Wildlife Fund reports that the majority
the majority of global biodiversity loss
can be traced to our desire to eat so
much meat perhaps it’s unsurprising then
that Bill Nye the Science Guy the CEO of
the Planetary Institute says that even
if for environmental reasons alone
Humanity is going to have to shift
toward a more plant-based diet perhaps
the easiest thing for each of us to do
right now to reduce the amount of harm
that we are causing here on earth is
simply to do as Bill Nye suggests and
just eat less meat and enjoy more
plant-based meals
already bills buddy Neil deGrasse Tyson
is doing exactly that the famed
astrophysicist says that he eats meat
now only once or twice per week but just
as NASA sets an example with its do no
harm policy on Mars the agency may have
helped lead to a technological
advancement here on earth that would
allow us to start doing a lot less harm
here as well you see right around the
turn of the century NASA began funding
research into growing real meat outside
of animals no we’re not talking here
about alternatives to meat we are
talking about real meat simply grown
with vastly fewer resources that are
needed to raise entire animals simply to
slaughter them it’s called clean meat in
part because like clean energy it’s so
much cleaner for the planet and NASA’s
interest in growing this real meat from
animal cells as opposed to animal
slaughter was spawned when the agency
recognized that if humans ever do start
traveling the cosmos they’re not going
to be carrying Noah’s Ark until rather
if they want meat they’re going to have
to grow it and NASA certainly did not
invent the idea after all if as any
self-respecting sci-fi geek like myself
knows queen’ meat is how they ate meat
on Star Trek because animal agribusiness
is such a leading cause of climate
change air water and soil pollution land
and water use and more NASA’s research
to divorce meat production from
livestock raising may enable us to start
more closely aligning our own actions
here on earth with the admirable
principles the agency uses to guide its
exploration of space already there are
clean meat startups racing to
commercialize their products and having
eaten many of them myself I can tell you
I think a lot of Earthlings are gonna be
pretty psyched to eat it too and as one
NASA Martian researcher Brian Anton’s
observes queen’ meat is likely to be a
hit here on earth long before humans
ever start colonizing this
or system we humans are amazing animals
our co-inhabitants by how little we do
to prevent even the most heinous abuse
of our own planetary brethren perhaps
who has put best by famed astronomer
Carl Sagan and his wife and Riaan when
they co-wrote in their book shadows of
Forgotten ancestors humans who enslave
castrate experiment on and fillet other
animals have had an understandable
penchant for pretending animals do not
feel pain a sharp distinction between
humans and animals is essential if we’re
to bend them to our will make them work
for us wear them eat them without any
disquieting tinges of guilt or regret it
is unseemly of us who often behave so
unfeelingly toward other animals to
contend that only humans can suffer the
behavior of other animals renders such
pretensions specious they are just too
much like us so far we’ve not found life
anywhere else and if we do I pray that
we will treat them with respect but
there is one place in our solar system
where we know that life does exist right
here on earth as our Rovers roll around
Martian soil with little chance of
harming anyone who they might encounter
up there perhaps the rest of us can take
a lesson from Cassie Conley and the
folks at NASA if they go to such extreme
lengths to prevent harming aliens or
even alien microbes they might encounter
elsewhere in our solar system
perhaps the rest of us can try to adopt
a similar mindset and try to do as
little harm as possible to our fellow
animals here at home
as well thank you [Applause]