Super Critical Podcast - Overthinking Nuclear Pop Culture

In this episode, we had a lot of time on our hand after being marooned on another planet, so we watched the 2015 science fiction/comedy The Martian. How dangerous are plutonium fueled Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators? Does cosmic radiation doom Matt Damon life on Mars? Why does every Mars movie need an impossible sandstorm? Tim and special guest host Gabe answer these questions and more. We also hear from Chris Marisola who breaks down the maritime/space law in the movie for us. This is the fourth in our Mini-Nuke episode series, where we find movies that do not have enough nuclear nonsense for a full-sized episode but nonetheless demand over thinking. Before we fulfill our Iron Man fantasies, we recommend checking out: - Timothy Jorgensen, Strange Glow: The Story of Radiation (Princeton Press, 2016) -the documentary “To Mars by A-Bomb: The Secret History of Project Orion,” BBC, 2003, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYoLcJuBtOw -George Dyson, Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship (He