Episode 5: Tortilla!

April 18, 2018·32 min·3 clips

NASA's 2020 rover will carry a microphone to record sound on Mars for the first time, but the habitat crew already battles constant noise.

The episode opens with a reflection on Mars having no recorded sound, then pivots to the noise of crew doctor Shay playing her didgeridoo in the dome. The narrator uses this as a launching point for the broader theme: wherever humans go, they bring their quirks, instruments, and annoying habits. The dome amplifies every sound — Cyprian's stomping, Andrzej's loud announcements, the treadmill's drone — and there is no physical escape. Crew member Andrzej makes breakfast burritos every Sunday accompanied by shouts of 'Tortilla!' which charmed the crew early on but by month six has become deeply grating. Researcher Steve Kozlowski explains the six-month conflict threshold: people create a psychological buffer that absorbs unpleasantness for a while, but eventually it breaks down, and the confined space starts to feel like the entire world. The crew then begins to focus their frustrations on a specific target: Shay. Tristan and Carmel can barely bring themselves to say nice things about her on the record and hint at a much harsher private assessment. Shay is portrayed as controlling: she judges the crew's junk food choices, claims skills she doesn't have, and recorded a song with Anjay excluding others. The narrator listens to Shay's recording about Cheetos and describes cringing at her tone. Meanwhile, the narrator introduces Shay's husband Ben, who describes their terrifyingly cute, decade-long relationship of almost no conflict. Shay manages their long-distance connection with daily emails and a robotic cat litter box sent from the dome. But while Shay is preoccupied with crises at home — a friend with cancer, her grandmother's death, and her stroke-impaired father getting into a hospital altercation — the other four crew members (Cyprian, Christiana, Carmel, Tristan) bond deeply. Christiana says if she could go back and start over, she would recommend replacing at least one crew member. The episode closes by noting that NASA has long chosen astronauts for individual excellence, but a Mars mission requires engineering a group into a family — something no one yet knows how to do.

As heard by us

Mars stays quiet, while the dome's noise gives the episode its edge.

The episode treats Mars as a problem of silence. NASA has tried to catch it before, and here the hope hangs on a tiny microphone on the 2020 rover hearing dust, machinery, or something stranger.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want Mars silence colliding with human mess.

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