- [Narrator] We've all
wondered what it'd be like up in space, looking down
at our pale blue dot. But would any of us
have even the first idea how to survive as an astronaut? Jumping forward to the
not-so-distant-future, join me now on an unforgettable adventure that will put everything
you think you know about space to the test. With you in the spaceship captain's seat, it's time for lift of. (dramatic music) - [Announcer] Amazing. - [Narrator] Diverting Doom. As winner of the Earth's
finest space captain award for 2099, you've been assigned to deal with a 10-mile-wide asteroid
that's headed straight for our planet. Alongside your crew, you'll need to choose the best course of action. Do you: A, launch a nuclear
bomb at the asteroid, blowing it to pieces, and
get as far away as possible. B, spray the asteroid
in a nice white paint, so at least it looks
cool if it hits Earth. Or C, attempt to nudge it
off course with your ship. (air whooshing) (clock ticking) Nudging even a small
asteroid with your ship would be a very risky endeavor, even if your ship was
designed for that purpose. But pushing a 10-mile-wide
asteroid off course in this way would require
an extreme amount of energy, not to mention the damage
it'd do to your ship. As for the explosive option, the blast would only make more smaller, but still lethal chunks headed for Earth. After all, even asteroids
of around 35 meters across can pose a threat
to a town or city. The paint job, on the other hand, would trigger something known
as the Yarkovsky effect. By using a bright color
that reflects light, less of the sun's energy would
be absorbed by the asteroid. This energy would instead be reflected in a high enough quantity
to produce a force, and actually change the asteroid's path. This is a real method
that our world's finest scientists have proposed to
deal with rogue asteroids. (air whooshing) Space Pirates! As you venture out further
into the solar system, you're suddenly attacked by space pirates. Before long, they're racing alongside you, less than 100 feet away. They're preparing their
weapons for an attack, so you'll need to act
fast before they blow you to cosmic smithereens. Do you: A, shoot them with the powerful, sideward blaster on the
front end of your ship. B, use your weaker sideward blasters on both the front and rear of your ship. Or C, hit them with your nuclear bomb. (air whooshing) (clock ticking) Firing a nuclear bomb at a target less than 100 feet away is suicide; after all, the explosion
would be unrestricted by the air we have on Earth, sending deadly shrapnel, radiation and heat in all directions. Your front-only blasters,
on the other hand, will generate a significant
amount of unbalanced force on your ship's front end. This will send you
spinning out of control. Shooting the front and rear blasters at the same time means the forces upon your ship are equal. You'll just be pushed
slightly further away while retaining your forward momentum and ensuring an accurate shot. Sayonara, space pirates! (air whooshing) Cut Loose. After your space battle, your ship needs some minor repairs. You head out in your spacesuit and start fixing a damaged oxygen tank on the ship's side. Suddenly, the tank explodes, sending you flying
outward with enough force to sever your support line. While the snap slowed your movement down to a walking pace, it disabled your suit's propulsion system, and now you're slowly
floating away into the abyss. Space suits take 45 minutes to put on, so no one will be able to rescue you for at least that long. How do you get back to the air lock? A, wait for help,
remaining still and calm. B, move your legs and
arms in a swimming motion. Or C, take off your space-suit's shoe and throw it away from you, breaching your-space suit in the process. (air whooshing) (clock ticking) In space, doing nothing for 45 minutes could leave you hundreds, if not thousands of miles away from your ship, bringing your chances
of rescue close to zero. Trying to swim would be useless, as there's no medium to push against in the vacuum of space. You need to throw something
to change your momentum. The shoe from a spacesuit
would be heavy enough to change the direction of
your walking-pace floatation, and a well-aimed throw would have you floating
back to the spaceship. That's not to say it'll be
a pleasant journey though. (air whooshing) Space to Breathe. Although you're floating back to safety, removing your shoe has
breached your spacesuit. With the air rushing almost
instantly out of your suit, do you: A, breathe out as far as you can. B, take a deep breath and hold it. Or C, hold some breath in
your lungs, but not too much. (air whooshing) (clock ticking) While countless space films
would have you believe you'd freeze up or
explode in space's vacuum, this is inaccurate. Depending on whether you were
in shade or direct sunlight, your foot might experience
some freezing or burning, but nothing deadly. The danger is that the vacuum of space will try its best to pull
the air out of your body, by any means. This can rupture your blood vessels or worse if you don't help
the air leave your body as soon as possible. So, your best bet is
unquestionably to force it out before space does the forcing for you. (air whooshing) Pit Stop. After surviving your traumatic
near-death-experience, you continue your exploration mission, ending up near Jupiter. Unfortunately, more serious
issues arise with your ship, and you need to park it up somewhere so you can get out in
your suit and fix it. In your area of the solar system, there are three choices: A, the surface of Jupiter. B, the surface of Jupiter's Moon, Europa. Or C, the surface of a passing asteroid that's traveling at 67,000 miles per hour. (air whooshing) [countdown] Firstly, even if you were
able to make it through the chaotic layers of gas that account for much of Jupiter's bulk, its solid core would be no place to stop. With temperatures as high as
64,000 degrees Fahrenheit, it's not exactly an ideal garage spot. Europa isn't a great spot for a hurried outside repair job either, as its surface is constantly bombarded by lethal radiation emitted by Jupiter. Even your spacesuit couldn't
protect you from that. Which leaves the asteroid. While 67,000 miles per hour may seem fast, it's the same speed Earth
travels relative to the sun. After all, all speed is relative. With a little acceleration, the asteroid would be relatively easy for your ship to land on and would soon be free of the
worst of Jupiter's radiation. (air whooshing) Staying Grounded. You're all parked up on the
two-mile-wide space rock. Pushing off the ship, down
to the asteroid's surface, you're unexpectedly hurled 30 feet forward in the minimal gravity. As you balance yourself, you realize you've picked up
an almost-empty oxygen tank; and it just ran out. You really need to work on
your organization skills. That's if you make it back
to the ship, of course. How do you get back? A, crawl slowly back to the ship, hoping you don't pass
out from lack of oxygen. B, wait for your crew to
suit up and retrieve you. Or C, utilize the low gravity
to jump back to the ship, pushing off the ground
as hard as possible. (air whooshing) (clock ticking) Remember what I mentioned earlier, about it taking 45 minutes
to put a spacesuit on? Well, going without oxygen
for that amount of time, there's almost no chance you'd survive. As for the low-gravity jump, bad idea. The gravity on asteroids can be so weak that moving around without
floating off into space is a real challenge. You've experienced the
lack of gravity already, leaving your ship, so jumping high would likely mean floating away to your slow, lonely death. The only option is to stay low and pull yourself carefully along; the minimal remaining oxygen
in your blood should last, seeing as your life depends on it. (air whooshing) Below the Belt. Back on the ship, with repairs completed, you decide to begin your return to Earth. But disaster strikes again. You realize there's not
enough food to last your crew all the way back to Earth. You only have enough to get to Mars, where luckily, you know
of a few human bases. But getting to Mars means passing through the asteroid belt between
Jupiter and the Red Planet. If you take it slow,
you can be more careful, but it'll mean your journey will include three weeks without food. Which is the best option? A, take it slow, risking fatal starvation for both yourself and your crew. B, select one crew member who will be forced to give up
their food for everyone else. Or C, race as quickly as possible through the asteroid belt,
without risk of starvation. (air whooshing) (clock ticking) Firstly, essentially
sacrificing a crew member is going to turn at least
one of them against you, which could lead to mayhem. That's the last thing you need. Slowness and starvation may seem wise but is in fact unnecessary. The asteroid belt seems daunting, but the actual number
of sizeable asteroids within the unimaginably-huge distances of the area is negligible, and so are your chances of hitting one. NASA sends probes through
there all the time, as collisions are incredibly unlikely. So make haste! (air whooshing) Welcome to Mars. You make it to Mars, but your ship malfunctions during landing and you crash to the ground. You're the only survivor, but you manage to find
your way to a nearby base. The sturdy doors to the
pressurization chamber open, revealing a woman in a dress, who greets you with a smile. Once the doors close, and you're re-pressurized,
you enter the base. Only, something seems
amiss with the people. Eventually, the base's overseer tells you one of the inhabitants has been replaced by an alien impostor. Can you work out who it is? A, a man who insists on
covering his face with bandages, claiming he's been burnt by
exposure on Mars' surface. B, the woman who let you in. Or C, the man with each
eye a different color. (clock ticking) It's possible for a human to
have different colored eyes; just look at the original
Space Oddity himself, David Bowie. The condition is called
Heterochromia iridis. As for the bandaged man, your suspicion as to why he wants to remain
covered is understandable. But all other possibilities are eliminated when you consider that the woman, wearing nothing but a dress, exposed herself to the
raw surface elements of Mars when she let you in. Clearly, she's able to survive on the surface world of Mars, unscathed; and that is something we
humans, sadly cannot do. (air whooshing) Ticket Home. The impostor reveals that
she's actually a Martian, part of an ancient
underground civilization on the Red Planet. While originally sent to the
surface to spy on humans, she's grown fond of them, and wants to help you get home. She says she'll allow you to
use her personal spaceship, if you can solve her one riddle. For this, you'll have
to use all your cunning, and figure the answer out for yourself: "I am found where every end begins, "as well as the end of time and space. "I am essential to creation
and I surround every place. "What am I?" (air whooshing) (clock ticking) I hope you guessed it, or you'll be making Mars your new home. So, what starts every end, comes at the end of time and space, is a part of creation, and surrounds every place? Simple. The letter 'E'. And speaking of that
letter Earth, here we come. (air whooshing) Lonesome Road. Traveling back to Earth
on the Martian's ship, weeks and weeks of loneliness and boredom begin to drive you crazy. One day, you notice there's a cryo-chamber that the Martian has previously used to freeze herself on long journeys. What should you do? A, nothing, wait out the 300-day journey, even if it takes a toll on your sanity. B, program the cryo-chamber for 300 days and climb in to pass the time. Or C, try the cryo-chamber
for a single week, so if anything goes wrong with the ship, you're more likely to
wake in time to fix it. (air whooshing) (clock ticking) As much as cryo-sleep seems appealing, there's one small problem. Humans simply can't be frozen in this way. It's a sci-fi myth, in reality, our cells and
bodies are too delicate to withstand freezing of this kind, even for a week. As she already demonstrated, the Martian is able to withstand
much harsher conditions, so we can't compare our
bodies' capabilities to hers. And so, without another choice, favoring madness over death, we wait. It's going to be a long ride. Did you make it to the end of this crazy, space-bound adventure? And, how many of these space
riddles did you get correct? Let me know in the comments section below and see how you measured
against other space-riddlers. Thanks for watching! (gentle music)
