The Daily Folgen

That people will travel to Mars, and soon, is a widely accepted conviction within NASA. Rachel McCauley, until recently the acting deputy director of NASA’s Mars campaign, had, as of July, a punch list of 800 problems that must be solved before the first human mission launches. Many of these concern the mechanical difficulties of transporting people to a planet that is never closer than 33.9 million miles away; keeping them alive on poisonous soil in unbreathable air, bombarded by solar radiation and galactic cosmic rays, without access to immediate communication; and returning them safely to Earth, more than a year and half later. But McCauley does not doubt that NASA will overcome these challenges. What NASA does not yet know — what nobody can know — is whether humanity can overcome the psychological torment of Martian life.A mission known as CHAPEA, an experiment in which four ordinary people would enact, as closely as possible, the lives of Martian colonists for 378 days, sets out to answer that question. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

President Biden used his State of the Union address last night to push for re-election and to go on the attack against Donald J. Trump, his likely adversary in November.Jim Tankersley, who covers economic policy at the White House for The Times, discusses the speech’s big moments.Guest: Jim Tankersley, who covers economic policy at the White House for The New York Times.Background reading: Biden made it clear that he saw the election as an existential struggle between democracy and extremism.Read five takeaways from the address.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.  Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

When Google released Gemini, a new chatbot powered by artificial intelligence, it quickly faced a backlash — and unleashed a fierce debate about whether A.I. should be guided by social values, and if so, whose values they should be.Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The Times and co-host of the podcast “Hard Fork,” explains.Guest: Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times and co-host of the podcast “Hard Fork.”Background reading: Hard Fork: Gemini’s culture wars, and more.From Opinion: Should we fear the woke A.I.?For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.  Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.