Andy Weir: Project Hail Mary (#147)

Andy Weir built a two-decade career as a software engineer
until the success of his first published novel, The
Martian, allowed him to live out his dream of writing
full-time. He is a lifelong space nerd and a devoted hobbyist of
such subjects as relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the
history of manned spaceflight. Thanks to our sponsors!
https://magbreakthrough.com/impossible
http://betterhelp.com/impossible About Project Hail Mary A lone
astronaut must save the earth from disaster in this incredible new
science-based thriller from the #1 New York
Times bestselling author of The Martian. Ryland Grace is
the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission–and if he
fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.Except that right
now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let
alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he
knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s
just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home,
with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his
memories fuzzily returning, he realizes that an impossible task now
confronts him. Alone on this tiny ship that’s been cobbled together
by every government and space agency on the planet and hurled into
the depths of space, it’s up to him to conquer an extinction-level
threat to our species. And thanks to an unexpected ally, he just
might have a chance. Part scientific mystery, part dazzling
interstellar journey, Project Hail Mary is a tale of
discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The
Martian–while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.
Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeating And
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win a FREE copy of my book (and more)
http://briankeating.com/mailing_list.php Chapters 00:10:43 Did
building things come naturally to you as reflected in the ingenuity
of your characters? 12:00:00 How do you balance realism and
scientific fact with a fictional narrative? 00:16:08 Could you
really mobilize resources at a planetary scale? 00:19:00 Do you
think it's realistic to turn an amateur avocation into a career?
00:20:48 Is there too much UFOlogy? What's your stance on SETI and
UFOs? 00:25:24 Do you think we've been going about SETI the wrong
way? 00:28:52 Do you think we really could communicate with an
alien civilization? 00:31:46 Rapid-fire questions! 00:46:45 Would
you ever want to teach? 00:48:00 What could UCSD have done better
during your tenure here? 00:55:00 What science fiction novel would
you make into a movie if you could? 00:55:35 Final Thrilling Three
Questions: Ethical will, billion-year monument, advice to your
younger self. Watch my most popular videos Sir Roger Penrose, Nobel
Prize winner:
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Tarter https://youtu.be/O9K9OBd3vHk?sub_confirmation=1 Sara Seager
Venus LIfe: https://youtu.be/QPsEDoOTU6k?sub_confirmation=1 Noam
Chomsky: https://youtu.be/Iaz6JIxDh6Y?sub_confirmation=1 Sabine
Hossenfelder: https://youtu.be/V6dMM2-X6nk?sub_confirmation=1 Sarah
Scoles: https://youtu.be/apVKobWigMw Stephen Wolfram:
https://youtu.be/nSAemRxzmXM Find me on Twitter at
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