Pod Insights StarTalk Podcast Cosmic Queries: The Space Race About this episode What did politics and the Cold War have to do with the space race? On the flip side, how did the Apollo program and landing on the Moon impact us here on Earth? Neil deGrasse Tyson answers fan-submitted questions chosen by co-host Chuck Nice.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.
0:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This is StarTalk and I'm your host, your personal astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. I work at the American Museum of Natural History, right here in New York City, where I also serve as Director of the Hayden Planetarium. And for this episode of StarTalk, we're doing what we call Cosmic Queries, where questions come to me from our social media. And, but I don't read them, I don't even, I don't even know what they are until I walk in and sit down at this microphone and I get help. Today, from Chuck Nice.
0:53 Chuck Nice? Hey Neil, what's happening?
0:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Chuck.
0:55 Chuck Nice? Ah, good to be here, man.
0:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, welcome back.
0:57 Chuck Nice? Thank you, thank you, sir. Always good to be here.
0:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, you, you, you're gonna read, what are these questions? What's today's topic?
1:02 Chuck Nice? Well, today's topic is the space race.
1:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, I, I think I know a little bit about that. A little bit about that.
1:11 Chuck Nice? I hope so.
1:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I got this, okay?
1:12 Chuck Nice? I hope so.
1:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But actually, just so you know, this may sound like a cheap plug, but it's just, so I wrote a book called Space Chronicles.
1:19 Chuck Nice? Right.
1:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Facing the Ultimate Frontier. Came out two years ago. Do you know why I write books?
1:24 Chuck Nice? Uh, because you can.
1:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
1:26 Chuck Nice? I'm gonna tell you why I don't write books.
1:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because you can't?
1:31 Chuck Nice? There, you have it. And I know my limitations.
1:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, I write books so that I never have to talk about that subject again.
1:38 Chuck Nice? Really?
1:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I compile it all in there and someone said, "Tell me about that." I just hand them the book.
1:41 Chuck Nice? And here's a book.
1:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, and I, and I walk away.
1:43 Chuck Nice? Oh my god.
1:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, so I, you, now you're just, you're resurrecting this in me when I'm trying to think about other stuff, but fine.
1:49 Chuck Nice? Sorry, I'm sorry to do that. Oh my god, I can't believe you just said that, that you write a book so you don't have, you remind me, this is the household I grew up in. This is what, so I would ask my mother or my father, "What does this mean?" And they would say, "Go look it up."
2:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Whoa, whoa.
2:05 Chuck Nice? And I'm like, "Yeah, that's what you're for."
2:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, what may have looked like evil parents at the day turned it, turned you into an independent researcher.
2:14 Chuck Nice? Actually, yeah, I, you know, I'm kind of, I'm, and now it's funny because I do the same thing to my children. They're like, you know, my son, he'll say, "Dad, do you know what?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I do know. Do you?" We'll find out and come back.
2:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So that works whether or not you actually know it.
2:29 Chuck Nice? Exactly. There you go. Oh, see. All right, let's jump into our Cosmic Queries and of course, we always start off with a Patreon Patron question, and if you support us on Patreon, uh, we will give your questions priority here at Cosmic Queries. Okay, Patreon.
2:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
2:46 Chuck Nice? Where we basically buy your loyalty.
2:53 Chuck Nice? Okay, here we go. Matthew Massanon from Calgary, Alberta. Says, "In your opinion, Dr. Tyson, what was the most significant thing that the Apollo program achieved with the exception of landing on the moon?" Wow, that's a, that's a good question when you think about it, because everybody, you say Apollo program, it's moon landing, bang, that's the end of it, that's it. But he's saying, "Give me something that is just as significant that we don't think about."
3:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Tang.
3:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, um,
3:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? beginning in 1970? A little earlier, but in 1970 was the first Earth Day. Uh, nationally, and then it became a rapid international hit, if you will.
3:46 Chuck Nice? Yeah, because Earth Day is global now.
3:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's global now, and it's a significant global celebration.
3:51 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
3:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Of our home planet. And around that same time, so nineteen, whatever, what else happened? 1971, 2, and 3, we would see the passing of the Comprehensive Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act. Uh, in 1970, NOAA was founded, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to monitor our climate and our oceans and our weather. And not only that, the Environmental Protection Agency was founded in 1970. By the time 1973 came around, leaded gas would be banned, DDT would be banned, the catalytic converter would be introduced.
4:25 Chuck Nice? That's right.
4:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All of this happened during the years we were going to the moon. At a time when we had a whole lot of other stuff distracting us, like a cold war with the Soviet Union and a hot war in Southeast Asia and campus unrest from anti-war protests and the civil rights movement and assassinations, 1968, we'd see two assassinations on domestic soil. And so, so, why am I saying all this? Because while we had all these other potential distractions, we nonetheless paused to reflect on our relationship to our home planet. So I submit to you that though we went to the moon
5:07 Chuck Nice? Right.
5:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? to explore the moon, upon getting there and looking back, in fact, we would discover Earth for the first time.
5:16 Chuck Nice? Wow. So it's like, I've been to paradise, but I've never been to me.
5:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes, it's exactly that.
5:27 Chuck Nice? Yeah, exactly, right.
5:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, can you put a dollar figure
5:32 Chuck Nice? Right.
5:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? on the fact that seeing Earth in the sky from the moon was like a firmware update in our sense of awareness
5:45 Chuck Nice? And who we are.
5:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? of the importance of Earth and our relationship to it.
5:49 Chuck Nice? Right. Okay, that's, that's actually, uh, that's a bit more existential than I was expecting for an answer.
5:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
5:55 Chuck Nice? I have to say that's a damn good answer because it's more of, um, the, the, it's more of a, a collective conscious enlightenment.
6:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes. And I don't think anyone started the program with that expectation.
6:12 Chuck Nice? Right.
6:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But that is clearly a consequence of it.
6:15 Chuck Nice? Right.
6:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And so, um, and remember that TV commercial with the Native American standing on this, on the, and there was a tear in his eye?
6:24 Chuck Nice? Single tear.
6:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The single tear, and people throwing garbage out the window. That didn't happen until this period, until we were going to the moon. We, we were total garbage out the window people for long before that, right?
6:36 Chuck Nice? I never got that about us. I mean, seriously. Garbage out the window, uh, pretty much all through human history.
6:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All through human history, and in fact, that was great for anthropologists. They can find stuff along the Roman Via.
6:48 Chuck Nice? Right.
6:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You know, that people, "Oh, a McDonald's cup."
6:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? "Boy, McDonald's would have been around."
6:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, but you, you, it was, we didn't start thinking of it as a, as a, as a cultural, environmental problem until that, that period.
7:05 Chuck Nice? Wow, okay. Wow, that's, hey, hey, Matthew, I, uh, you know, I hope you're satisfied with that answer, because it was a, a completely, uh, curve, complete curveball with that answer.
7:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And then there's Tang.
7:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That and Tang a close second.
7:20 Chuck Nice? Very close second. There you go. All right. Okay, here we go, our next question.
7:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Uh-oh.
7:30 Chuck Nice? Abhijit Manet.
7:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Mm-hmm.
7:32 Chuck Nice? Let's hope. I'm sorry, Abhijit, I'm sorry. Uh, from Facebook wants to know this. "The space race was, in a way, an extension of the Cold War arms race, but also the resolve of President John F. Kennedy, who pledged that we'd get there in 10 years. Do you know anyone today in the political sphere who could do the same? What kind of politician would be ideal in this regard? We go to the moon because we choose to. It's that and the other thing we do because..." No, never mind, forget it.
8:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Chuck, that was your worst impression ever.
8:08 Chuck Nice? It really is.
8:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Normally, you're good.
8:11 Chuck Nice? I know, but you know what? I'm not even doing Kennedy. I'm actually doing Mayor Quimby. From The Simpsons, you know? Vote Quimby.
8:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I mean, you, you imitate a tie fighter from Star Wars.
8:23 Chuck Nice? Right.
8:26 Chuck Nice? Even though you...
8:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I thought Kennedy would be easy after, after that.
8:30 Chuck Nice? Yeah, yes.
8:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, um, so here's, there's an assumption built into that question that the political will and charisma, perhaps, of Kennedy was a significant force operating.
8:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In how and why we got to the moon. And this is commonly thought, but I I'm contrarian in that regard.
8:50 Chuck Nice? Well, good.
8:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right? No doubt Kennedy had charisma, no doubt. Uh, he had a sort of way with rallying people behind an idea, no doubt about that. But I submit that if we were not at war, all of that would have just been empty rhetoric and nobody would have signed the check. Congress, because Congress is not as swayed by speeches as the public is.
9:13 Chuck Nice? Absolutely.
9:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Alright, and so it's Congress who writes the check.
9:16 Chuck Nice? That's right.
9:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? At the end of the day. So, consider nineteen eighty-nine. The twentieth, July twentieth, the twentieth anniversary of the moon landing. Who is the then sitting president?
9:28 Chuck Nice? Uh, I don't know.
9:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Herbert Walker, George Herbert Walker Bush.
9:31 Chuck Nice? George Herbert Walker Bush.
9:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Goes to the steps of the Air and Space Museum, delivers a speech not fundamentally different from Kennedy's speech. We're Americans, we're explorers, Columbus set sail, this is our time, we will put men on Mars. And have a space station, we'll have us build a space station and we will, this, he was trying to give a Kennedy speech.
9:55 Chuck Nice? Right.
9:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, fell flat on his face. Now, why? People said, well, because he's not Kennedy. I beg to differ.
10:04 Chuck Nice? Okay.
10:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Not that he isn't not Kennedy.
10:06 Chuck Nice? Right.
10:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That sentence makes sense?
10:07 Chuck Nice? That's correct, because he isn't not Kennedy, no, he, well, he isn't Kennedy.
10:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It didn't work not because he isn't Kennedy.
10:15 Chuck Nice? Right.
10:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I claim it didn't work because, do you remember what happened in nineteen eighty-nine?
10:22 Chuck Nice? Uh, I don't know.
10:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Peace broke out.
10:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Peace broke out in Europe.
10:28 Chuck Nice? That's a terrible thing.
10:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That is the collapse of the Soviet Empire.
10:30 Chuck Nice? That's right.
10:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That is the, the tear, tear down the wall, the wall came down in nineteen eighty-nine. All of a sudden, our motivation for our military might, the very thing that drove who and what we were. As the carriers of freedom and the American way, in, in the face of evil communists, it all evaporated. That year, and he's trying to give a speech to get people to go to Mars. In the absence of a mortal enemy.
11:02 Chuck Nice? Right. So we would have either needed Martians. Uh.
11:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That'd be the best.
11:09 Chuck Nice? That would have been the best.
11:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The best.
11:10 Chuck Nice? Right. We we either needed Martians.
11:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Evil Martians.
11:12 Chuck Nice? Evil Martians.
11:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Not E T like E T.
11:14 Chuck Nice? Exactly. Yeah. We're not. Yeah.
11:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Wouldn't it be cool if E T came out guns drawn?
11:19 Chuck Nice? Awesome.
11:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And he shot Elliot or whatever the hell that.
11:21 Chuck Nice? That's the way it ends. You know what I mean? E T go home. Hmm. Yeah. But first.
11:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We must test our ray guns on you.
11:34 Chuck Nice? Exactly. So, yeah. So really, the competition, no competition.
11:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, it's not only competition because you can do that, yes, and still succeed. But the greatest competition our species knows is the threat of death. From someone who might outcompete you in a way that would kill you. So I claim that the biggest reason that failed was not because Bush lacked the charisma of Kennedy. What he happened is he lacked the Cold War.
12:02 Chuck Nice? Right.
12:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And by the way, he proposed, you know what it was? You know what it was? He said, this will be a what 25 year? I forgot the exact time interval, 25 year plan. And, uh, and it would be, you know, 25, 30 year plan and it'll cost a trillion dollars.
12:18 Chuck Nice? Whoa.
12:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so people freaked.
12:21 Chuck Nice? Right. And that was the end of that right there.
12:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, or or half a trillion dollars, half a trillion, half a trillion dollars.
12:25 Chuck Nice? Okay.
12:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Is that? Oh, that's better.
12:27 Chuck Nice? No, listen, half a trillion. I'm like, all right, okay, we can work with that.
12:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But here's the thing, if you took NASA's budget at the time.
12:34 Chuck Nice? Hmm.
12:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Which is between 15 and 20 billion dollars in today's annual budget. And then you multiply that over 30 years.
12:42 Chuck Nice? Right.
12:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You get half a trillion dollars.
12:43 Chuck Nice? A trillion dollars.
12:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So we already are allocating half a trillion dollars to NASA over that same amount of time.
12:49 Chuck Nice? Right.
12:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So to say that's D O A because it's too much money, that's a false argument.
12:55 Chuck Nice? Right.
12:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? NASA was all right. You might have to retool NASA with its budget.
12:58 Chuck Nice? Hmm.
12:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But it was a false argument to think it's too much money. That's all. So, so, so I'm unconvinced by people saying that George Herbert Walker Bush
13:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? was absent the charisma of Kennedy. So, so.
13:12 Chuck Nice? I mean.
13:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I don't. So I don't think it has anything to do with politicians.
13:15 Chuck Nice? Right.
13:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It has to do with whether we think we're gonna die.
13:17 Chuck Nice? Okay, there you and there you have it. Uh, by the way, just to let you know, you are gonna die.
13:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, sorry.
13:24 Chuck Nice? So we should, uh, we should do it irrespective. Uh, I think that if we really wanna go to Mars.
13:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Die by unnatural causes.
13:32 Chuck Nice? There you go. We, but if we really wanna go to Mars, we should, um, we, scientists should get together. And, um, in a, in a, in a, uh, this, in a somewhat conspiratorial way, uh, tell the world that there's oil on Mars.
13:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, but then we'd be, we'd be lying.
13:54 Chuck Nice? Yeah, but we go to Mars.
13:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Do you know why there's oil?
13:56 Chuck Nice? Or that there's terrorists on Mars.
13:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You know why there's oil, uh, on Earth? Cause we have life on Earth, right? And so maybe, okay, maybe there was a period, there's an episode of Mars where there was life.
14:06 Chuck Nice? Right.
14:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All that life sunk down and then it made oil. So that'd be cool.
14:09 Chuck Nice? That would be cool.
14:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Go to Mars and get oil.
14:10 Chuck Nice? And we'd be there next week.
14:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But what I, but what I joke about is we should go to China and go, psst, go tell the leaders of China, psst, can you leak a memo? Don't, don't be true. It didn't have to be true. Just leak a memo saying you wanna put military bases on Mars.
14:23 Chuck Nice? Boom, that's it. Yeah, we're done.
14:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? There you go.
14:25 Chuck Nice? We're on Mars.
14:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We're on Mars. In ten months.
14:26 Chuck Nice? Ten months.
14:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? One month to fund, design, build the spacecraft, nine months to get there.
14:31 Chuck Nice? We go to Mars, not because it is easy, but because it is hard and the Chinese. So, once again, awful, awful impersonation. All right, let's move on. Well, that's, uh, that's pretty cool. I, I'm, I, I agree with what you're saying. It's not about, I think people put too much emphasis on the importance of the presidency and they're unaware of how much power the president really has. Our whole system of-
14:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Has or does not have, right.
14:57 Chuck Nice? Our whole system of government is designed to keep power out of the hands of the president.
15:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Precisely. So the president doesn't run away like a dictator.
15:04 Chuck Nice? Right.
15:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right, right.
15:05 Chuck Nice? So, you know, people often overestimate what the president can and cannot do.
15:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Exactly.
15:10 Chuck Nice? You know? All right, cool. Let's move on to-
15:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Time for a couple more questions.
15:14 Chuck Nice? Okay.
15:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In this segment, go on.
15:15 Chuck Nice? In this segment, here we go. Isaac J. Kim of Facebook, thank you, Isaac.
15:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Isaac has a pronounceable name for you?
15:20 Chuck Nice? Yes, thank you, Isaac, from NYC. This is what, uh, Isaac says.
15:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Hometown, boy.
15:25 Chuck Nice? That's right. What kind of computing power did Mission Control and the Shuttle have during the Apollo era?
15:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah. I can only tell you what I've read about that, cause I didn't, like, calculate this myself. But there've been, there've been comments that the computing power, I don't believe this, but it was fun to, to read it and say it. The computing power of a singing greeting card?
15:48 Chuck Nice? No.
15:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I heard that, cuz there's a chip in there.
15:53 Chuck Nice? It's hilarious.
15:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Open it up, happy birthday to you.
15:57 Chuck Nice? That's.
15:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Happy birthday to you. So, so I, I, it may, it had to have been a little more than that. And I don't, I don't know the answer for sure. Um, cuz again, I don't know these questions, but I could have researched it, of course, before.
16:10 Chuck Nice? Well, you don't get the questions.
16:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I don't get the questions, yeah. But, uh, what is no doubt, no doubt, anything we're carrying in our hip pocket is greater than anything that was going on when we went to the moon.
16:20 Chuck Nice? Wait a minute. Now, okay, I do believe that because of the microprocessors that we use in order to, to, to, to run our phones.
16:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? By the way, but by the way.
16:30 Chuck Nice? Right.
16:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? By the way, the miniaturization of electronics.
16:33 Chuck Nice? Right.
16:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Is entirely driven in its initial stages by NASA.
16:38 Chuck Nice? Okay.
16:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We had electronics filling, you know, so, so our parents, our grandparents.
16:43 Chuck Nice? Yes.
16:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Had radios the size of furniture in their living room.
16:47 Chuck Nice? Correct. Where they would gather around and listen to radio shows.
16:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Listen to radio shows and was any of them saying, gee, I wanna carry this on my hip. It's just a non thought.
16:56 Chuck Nice? Right, exactly.
16:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Doesn't mean they might not welcome it, but no one's even thinking that way.
16:59 Chuck Nice? Oh, my God, you're right.
17:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? NASA is saying, we need this technology and we need to launch it and it costs $10,000 a pound.
17:06 Chuck Nice? Right.
17:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? To put anything in orbit.
17:08 Chuck Nice? So, we gotta shrink this stuff.
17:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Shrink this down.
17:10 Chuck Nice? We gotta shrink it down.
17:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Take this to the lab and shrink it down.
17:12 Chuck Nice? Right.
17:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Now, okay, so this, this miniaturization drives, uh, a whole frontier that then be, then becomes commercial commodities.
17:22 Chuck Nice? Absolutely. I just had, uh, it's fascinating what you just said, be, uh, about grandparents and radio.
17:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Mm-hmm.
17:29 Chuck Nice? Sitting around the radio, listening to their programming.
17:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
17:31 Chuck Nice? When I was a kid, we sat around the television. I never once thought, I wanna carry that television on my hip.
17:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Never.
17:38 Chuck Nice? And guess what? I do. My phone is a frickin' television. I can watch the internet or any TV show I want on demand on my phone. I am carrying a TV on my hip.
17:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Exactly.
17:51 Chuck Nice? Amazing.
17:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yep.
17:53 Chuck Nice? That is so cool.
17:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And, and if you don't think about it, it's just, TV is the thing you do when you get home and you turn it on.
17:58 Chuck Nice? Right.
17:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right, right.
17:58 Chuck Nice? Yeah, but no longer. So, yeah. Oh, man, that's super cool. So, uh, so basically.
18:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I would say, yeah. So, do you remember in the movie Apollo 13, where they're trying to save the guys' lives and they said, here is the only thing they have available. And they dump out this bag onto the table. Okay, engineers save their lives.
18:13 Chuck Nice? Right.
18:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And they said, okay, but wait a minute. Uh, they said, oh, we need this. The slide rule. Now we're do- now we got it, okay? Now we can do this.
18:24 Chuck Nice? Slide rule to the rescue!
18:27 Chuck Nice? Anybody got an abacus? We gotta save a life over it.
18:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, uh, so anyhow, yeah, yeah, so you would, they would blow it away.
18:35 Chuck Nice? Right.
18:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Uh, so, uh, back then, computers were used for timing things and simple, simple, and simple calculations, and the rest was very mechanical.
18:42 Chuck Nice? Okay.
18:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But that, that back when, there was the right stuff.
18:45 Chuck Nice? Right.
18:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah. Now the right stuff is all on the computer. We got a break. When we come back, we'll have more cosmic queries from you on the past, present, and future of space exploration.
19:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We're back on StarTalk, and I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astro physicist. With me, my co-host Chuck Nice.
19:13 Chuck Nice? That's right.
19:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Doing cosmic queries?
19:14 Chuck Nice? Yes, we are, sir.
19:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Space exploration?
19:16 Chuck Nice? That's right, the space.
19:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All from, uh, Facebook and Twitter and the fanbase of StarTalk.
19:21 Chuck Nice? Everywhere they are, we went and asked, and they asked back.
19:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And they're coming back, that's good. And I, I haven't seen these questions before, so I'll be candid of my ignorance if I don't. But I did publish a book on this subject, so.
19:33 Chuck Nice? Okay, so, yes, so, yes, but we'll forgive your ignorance.
19:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I do have some thoughts on this matter. Uh, so, yeah, so, go on.
19:42 Chuck Nice? All right, let's jump into this.
19:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And by the way, in the first segment, you asked me very clean, intelligent questions. There were no crazy questions out there?
19:48 Chuck Nice? Oh, don't worry.
19:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, okay, I'm just wondering.
19:49 Chuck Nice? We got some crazy, uh, questions here.
19:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right, go on.
19:53 Chuck Nice? Uh, okay, since you said that, I'mma get right to it.
19:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I didn't mean this minute, but fine.
19:58 Chuck Nice? You know what? I'm glad you brought it up, because it's staring me right in the face, and I actually wasn't gonna ask you this, so. Uh, Sean Thomas from Facebook says this. "Have you ever punched someone in the face like Buzz Aldrin did? If yes, why did you do that? If no, who would you like to?"
20:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so.
20:16 Chuck Nice? I added the last part.
20:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. So, uh, what's the person's name again?
20:20 Chuck Nice? Sean, Sean Thomas.
20:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Sean is, is remembering an incident where, cause, uh, because Buzz Aldrin, the, the second man to walk on the moon. By the way, he landed on the moon in the same instant that Neil Armstrong did.
20:33 Chuck Nice? Yes.
20:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? During the same damn spacecraft.
20:35 Chuck Nice? And then they played rock, paper, scissors.
20:38 Chuck Nice? And, um, some other guy actually won.
20:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, you know, I always call it scissor, paper, stone.
20:46 Chuck Nice? Get out of here.
20:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Rock, paper, scissors.
20:48 Chuck Nice? Rock, paper, scissors. Scissor, paper, stone. You truly are a geek.
20:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, no, that's how I used to.
20:52 Chuck Nice? Who's, who's ever heard of scissor, paper, stone?
20:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I know, that's how I'd learned it, but rock, paper, scissors. Fine, fine.
20:57 Chuck Nice? Rock, paper, scissors.
20:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Fine. Uh, so.
21:00 Chuck Nice? I'm gonna start calling it scissor, paper, stone now, just to get a reaction from people.
21:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What, scissor, paper, silicon dioxide?
21:08 Chuck Nice? Scissor, papris, silicon dioxide.
21:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Papris, right. Uh, so, now what the, what was the question?
21:15 Chuck Nice? Okay, have you ever seen somebody punch?
21:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, right, well, have I ever?
21:17 Chuck Nice? Have you ever punched anybody in the face?
21:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Buzz Aldrin would constantly be accosted by people saying, "We didn't go to the moon," and can he prove it? Will he swear on a bible that he went to the moon?
21:27 Chuck Nice? Because nobody ever lies with their hand on the bible. We know that from every single court case in history.
21:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right.
21:34 Chuck Nice? Once you put your hand on that bible, "Oh, you got me. I murdered her." Let's ask OJ. That's what he did. They put his hand on the bible. Gosh, darn it. Now, I gotta tell you.
21:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? He had the glove on, so he wasn't, he wasn't touching the bible, actually.
21:46 Chuck Nice? Nice, nice with the glove. Nice, like, like.
21:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, and, and apparently, there's a YouTube video that shows him punching a guy. Now Buzz was badass in his day. He, do you know who's a pole vaulter?
21:58 Chuck Nice? I did not know that.
21:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, yeah, if you're a pole vaulter, you've got muscles in all the right places.
22:02 Chuck Nice? Let me tell you, yes, you do.
22:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And so, so Buzz, like, eighty nine, we had him on Star, on StarTalk.
22:09 Chuck Nice? Yeah, yeah, I've, I've actually met him through you.
22:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, yes.
22:13 Chuck Nice? And by the way, still a surly, like, guy who, and I shouldn't say surly, still a, um, vibrant guy. Vibrant guy.
22:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? He's got energy for life and for thinking.
22:24 Chuck Nice? Exactly.
22:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And so, he, so, there's this video of him punching a guy out. Now, I didn't really believe the video, and then I asked him, and he denied it. That didn't mean he didn't feel like doing it at times.
22:36 Chuck Nice? Right.
22:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, let's assume this is what he feels like doing, whether or not he did do it.
22:39 Chuck Nice? Right.
22:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, the really question is, do I ever feel like punching someone in the face for not believing that we went, landed on the moon? And I don't feel compelled to harm people.
22:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In their ignorance.
22:52 Chuck Nice? Oh, that's very kind of you.
22:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, no, I, and I don't mean ignorance in a bad way, there's just.
22:56 Chuck Nice? I know exactly what you mean, you're saying, and that's very compassionate of you. You're saying that you look at a person and you will, uh, sympathize. Because they're in their ignorance.
23:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes, I'm an educator.
23:11 Chuck Nice? Educator, so you wanna help that person, you see a person in need when you see an ignorant person.
23:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes.
23:17 Chuck Nice? I see a dumbass.
23:20 Chuck Nice? Now there's the difference between me.
23:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I see someone, there was, there's a gap in their education, and people think that education is just what you know.
23:30 Chuck Nice? Right.
23:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, no, no, no, yeah, that's an aspect of it, but for me, the most important element of education is what is your capacity to think?
23:38 Chuck Nice? Awesome.
23:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And so what leaves you in denial? That we went to the moon?
23:44 Chuck Nice? Right.
23:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Why you, what's the resistance here? And, and.
23:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Look, look at everything else you do embrace, they're probably using a cellphone, a smartphone that's communicating with satellites.
23:56 Chuck Nice? We can put a satellite up there.
23:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Cellphone, so I don't understand why this is such a stretch.
24:01 Chuck Nice? Right.
24:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? To imagine, and, and, and, and why would we not go to the moon nine times? Okay?
24:09 Chuck Nice? Well, there you have it, right.
24:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Then stop not going to the moon.
24:13 Chuck Nice? Exactly, because if it were a fraud that we perpetuated, wouldn't we still be perpetuating that fraud, but just a little further out?
24:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? A little further out, I mean, why not? And then, so, so someone did the, did the analysis, what would it take to fake the moon landing?
24:29 Chuck Nice? Okay.
24:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so you'd have to fake all of the buildings where you're, where you're constructing the spaceships.
24:35 Chuck Nice? NASA?
24:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The spacecraft.
24:36 Chuck Nice? Right, oh, okay.
24:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The Saturn V.
24:37 Chuck Nice? Saturn V.
24:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And you'd have to, you would, you would have to fake all the engineering drawings, the warehouses of engineering drawings.
24:44 Chuck Nice? Right.
24:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And you'd have to fake the, the, you know, the docking and all this communication, and, and by the time you figure out what it takes to fake it. It's way easier just to go.
24:55 Chuck Nice? Certainly is, when you put it that way.
24:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's way, just go to the moon.
24:59 Chuck Nice? You know what, and that's very much. It's funny because people who think like that, I call that the criminal mentality. Or I call it the genius criminal mentality.
25:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, nemesis mentality.
25:10 Chuck Nice? The nemesis mentality. If you took half the energy that you put into doing what you are doing that is wrong, into doing something constructive, you would be very successful. You wouldn't be sitting in prison right now. You'd be running, you'd be CEO of whatever company.
25:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Whatever, you'd be Tony Stark.
25:31 Chuck Nice? Right, you'd be Tony Stark because like, some of these guys, they're, they come up with genius ways to do the wrong thing. But because they have this criminal mentality, it screws them.
25:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? There's a synapse firing in the wrong.
25:43 Chuck Nice? The wrong, right.
25:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It went the wrong fork in the synapse.
25:45 Chuck Nice? Exactly, yeah, you know, and you're right, it's like when you think about everything. First of all, the other thing too is, when you see these rockets take off, where are they going?
25:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I know, you can calculate how much fuel is in a Saturn V rocket in all three stages. And I assure you, they were not going to the piggly wiggly down the street. This is enough fuel to get them to the moon and back. You, it's not intro calculus, a little later you can learn what's called the rocket equation.
26:11 Chuck Nice? Okay.
26:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And you can derive it and know what it is. And the rocket equation prescribes how much fuel you need, that's how much fuel was in the Saturn V rocket.
26:19 Chuck Nice? That's it.
26:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, but I have, I take a slightly other view of this. I think, wow, they are so impressed with modern technology that they're in denial of it.
26:30 Chuck Nice? Wow.
26:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's how far we've come.
26:32 Chuck Nice? See, you really are a compass, you truly are like, and I tell you, it's funny because you know, you know, people ask me all the time about you, you know, but they're like, what's Neil really like? And I tell them, Neil is exactly like what you see. And he truly is, when people call him the world's foremost science educator, that is like his singular focus in life, like, you know, people who have a singular focus like yours, at, at every turn I see you take the time to.
27:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Lex Luthor, Lex Luthor has a singular focus.
27:03 Chuck Nice? Singular focus, right.
27:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's what like, I'm like that.
27:06 Chuck Nice? That's what, that's like you are, except instead of like ruling the world, you, it's to educate the world.
27:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right, you know, I just want people to be empowered and then I go home, I'll go back to the, to the beach. And I'll stand and call me if you need me.
27:18 Chuck Nice? Right.
27:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But, once you're empowered, you don't have to keep coming back to me.
27:21 Chuck Nice? Right.
27:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Think for your own damn self.
27:26 Chuck Nice? That makes perfect sense. I mean, I don't get it. Uh, I think it's people, uh, people are in denial of that, that, that kind of thing because they just want a government conspiracy.
27:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They love them some governments.
27:39 Chuck Nice? Love government.
27:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And anyone who's worked for the government said, we are incapable of a conspiracy.
27:45 Chuck Nice? Funny.
27:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, we, we are not organized enough to conspire anything.
27:50 Chuck Nice? That is funny.
27:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's never government workers saying, we're, we're, we're.
27:55 Chuck Nice? That's hilarious.
27:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Find someone who's worked their life in the government and ask them if they could ever possibly pull off a conspiracy. If they can ever possibly hide aliens. Cause you're gonna have the, you're gonna.
28:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You're gonna have the office assistant at the front desk. What the hell is that you just brought?
28:12 Chuck Nice? Right, exactly. Did you just bring an alien in here? No, you saw nothing.
28:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, I'm gonna call Betty.
28:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? There's no, you can't keep that shit a secret?
28:22 Chuck Nice? Oh, that's hilarious. Okay. Hey, there you go, um, Sean Thomas.
28:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We ate up half the damn segment on that question.
28:29 Chuck Nice? But it was funny. It was good. It was good to know. It was good to know. So there you have it, Sean. Uh, Neil doesn't want to punch people in the face. He just wants to educate them. So his punch in the face is knowledge. Look at that. I just punched you in the face with knowledge.
28:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We slap you with knowledge.
28:43 Chuck Nice? We slap you with knowledge. Take that. Learn that. Take that.
28:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Also, this reminds me of one of, uh, Arthur C. Clarke's edicts, which is, any sufficiently advanced technology.
29:00 Chuck Nice? Right.
29:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Is indistinguishable from magic.
29:03 Chuck Nice? Ooh, you know, that, uh, absolutely.
29:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So you think, if, if, if, so going to the moon, that's advanced for you?
29:09 Chuck Nice? Exactly.
29:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Is magic or, or a conspiracy?
29:11 Chuck Nice? Right. Like if you took like an Oculus back to just, let's say nineteen twenty-five.
29:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Mm-hmm.
29:19 Chuck Nice? Okay, where there weren't significant.
29:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oculus, was that a leader of Rome? I am Oculus.
29:25 Chuck Nice? Me and Oculus.
29:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Meet my cousin Calculus. He's, he's good at math.
29:32 Chuck Nice? Oculus and calculus. What say you? What say you, Oculus? Um?
29:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I like that you're being ancient Roman with a British accent.
29:43 Chuck Nice? Well, aren't all ancient Romans, don't they all have a British accent?
29:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Every single ancient Roman is a British.
29:49 Chuck Nice? Every ancient Roman says, "Father, tell me, Father.
29:54 Chuck Nice? Why do you not love me?"
29:58 Chuck Nice? No, the Oculus is that, uh...
29:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Of course, yeah.
30:00 Chuck Nice? You know what I'm saying?
30:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The VR, the virtual reality.
30:02 Chuck Nice? That's what I was trying to say. Virtual reality. If you took that back to 1925, which is at a time where there were significant advancements in technology.
30:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In everything, yeah.
30:10 Chuck Nice? Everything. I mean, you know, at that point Einstein had already had the theory of relativity. It was already established at that point. If you put an Oculus on somebody back then, they would believe that you were a god.
30:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, their head would explode.
30:24 Chuck Nice? Their head would explode. Like, you could put an Oculus on them and say like, "By the way, I'm from another planet," and they would believe whatever you say after that.
30:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And then they'll say, "How can we make this do sa- have sex?"
30:37 Chuck Nice? That's always.
30:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Always. Every new technology.
30:40 Chuck Nice? Every new technology.
30:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's how, that's how that goes.
30:41 Chuck Nice? By the way, they've already figured that out. They just have a new... Okay, I don't even...
30:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It even happened with cars.
30:46 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
30:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? How do we have sex in a car? You know? A whole generation of people born having been conceived in the backseat of cars.
30:52 Chuck Nice? Absolutely. That's why my middle name is Mercury.
30:56 Chuck Nice? Chuck Mercury Ford Lincoln. Nice.
31:06 Chuck Nice? All right, here we go. Here's the next one from...
31:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So I should watch out for that. Anybody named Bonneville?
31:12 Chuck Nice? Right, exactly. Uh, this is my daughter Bonneville. Uh, that's my son Chevy. Uh, and, uh, that's my other son Pickup.
31:24 Chuck Nice? All right, here we go. This is Hobatronic. Hobatronic from Instagram wants to know this, Neil. Uh, do you think the amount of money or time spent going to the moon, uh, multiple times could have been better spent focusing on other space-related research exploration projects? Could we be on Mars by now if we had not gone back to the moon several more times? Could we have a small-scale orbital colony somewhere? A zero, a zero-g manufacturing plant? I mean, are there other things? He goes on, other things that we could have done?
32:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Most of the money to get to the moon was to get there the first time.
32:03 Chuck Nice? Okay.
32:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, after that, it's sort of incremental cost. It's not, so, so you had to build the infrastructure to make the Saturn V rockets, to get the engineers and the scientists.
32:13 Chuck Nice? So it's like scaling up for anything.
32:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Scale, for anything.
32:15 Chuck Nice? Scaling up for anything.
32:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's not even unique, right? A- as pharma companies will tell you.
32:19 Chuck Nice? Exactly.
32:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The very first pill is a billion dollars. The next one costs 10 cents.
32:22 Chuck Nice? Right. Right, like, uh, yeah.
32:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? A hundred million, whatever, it's expensive. The second one costs 10 cents to make.
32:29 Chuck Nice? Exactly, right.
32:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, so that's the, uh, so really, it's, that's not the right way to, to think about that problem. The right way to think about it is, or I, I don't want to force this question to be a different question.
32:44 Chuck Nice? No, go ahead. Make it a different question, cause I, you just answered that. The, the, the answer is this, when you scale up, that's it.
32:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Let me morph the question to be slightly different.
32:51 Chuck Nice? Okay.
32:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So suppose the Apollo mission was not, let's go to the moon, but let's explore space.
32:59 Chuck Nice? Right.
33:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Then we would, then you would have resources, not only going to the moon.
33:05 Chuck Nice? Right.
33:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But exploring an asteroid, a comet, Mars, and you'd be building the capacity to go to space. And then your destination would be what you would choose after you have that capacity. In the same way, we built the interstate system of the United States.
33:22 Chuck Nice? Right.
33:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We didn't say, here's a road from New York to LA, that's the only place you're gonna go and that's it.
33:26 Chuck Nice? Right.
33:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right? If I want to be creative and I have an idea, I want to do something in Utah, or Wyoming, or, or, or Illinois.
33:33 Chuck Nice? Right.
33:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Don't force me to go one place and no place else. So, so I think it would have been a little better. Had there been a broader, uh, now others, the rebuttal to that is you have to focus. You need the singular mission, otherwise it'll never get done.
33:47 Chuck Nice? Right.
33:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And I, I, I get that, but if you want to sustain it forever, you want to turn a space program into a space industry.
33:55 Chuck Nice? Right.
33:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You want to turn it into just a thing. You want to turn the, the sky into your backyard. Then you want to build the capacity to go anywhere you want.
34:03 Chuck Nice? A continuing mission.
34:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Continuing mission.
34:06 Chuck Nice? Mm-hmm.
34:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? These are the.
34:08 Chuck Nice? That's right. That's correct. That's right.
34:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, once you have a, so I think some of that money might have been better suited to set up a way to maintain that mission for space at all. And so I agree that, I, I agree with the sentiment of that question, but I just re, re, re.
34:25 Chuck Nice? Okay, but now let me just ask you just a quick follow-up because we're running out of time in the segment, but just as a quick follow-up. Do you think the commercialization of space and the commodification of space will allow us to get to where you are talking about right now?
34:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The commercialization and commodification.
34:40 Chuck Nice? The commercialization and commodification of space. Uh, which is what's happening.
34:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What that will do is drop the price of going to space to the point where other creative things you can think of doing in space become real. All right. So that, that's the fascinating thing when things get cheaper.
35:00 Chuck Nice? Right.
35:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Whole ideas pop up you would have never thought possible. Okay. So, so if going to space is cheap, uh, I can't even imagine what more we can think of doing in space, but it is surely there because it happens every other time anything gets cheap.
35:15 Chuck Nice? Okay.
35:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, so yes, that'll happen. The frontier of space is a different thing. I don't see, I don't see.
35:21 Chuck Nice? Okay, there's no money in that.
35:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? There's no money in that. Yeah, there's no business model to do that first.
35:25 Chuck Nice? Do that. Okay.
35:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right. But once we, once that routine is set up, oh yeah.
35:28 Chuck Nice? Okay.
35:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh yeah.
35:29 Chuck Nice? All right.
35:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We got a break. When we come back, we will continue with Chuck Nice reading the cosmic queries on the frontier of space exploration.
35:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We're back on StarTalk. I got Chuck nicely.
35:48 Chuck Nice? Yes, you do, sir.
35:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This is Cosmic Queries edition.
35:50 Chuck Nice? That's correct.
35:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This is a fan favorite, Cosmic Queries.
35:52 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
35:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? People love this.
35:53 Chuck Nice? You know why? Because this is the thing that we do on StarTalk that belongs solely to the fans.
35:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, I agree.
35:59 Chuck Nice? It really is.
35:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Maybe that's it.
36:00 Chuck Nice? Yeah, it's their show. It's really, you know, we're just here as a conduit to carry out their whims.
36:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So I shouldn't tell them that I really don't like doing Cosmic Queries? Because I'd rather just sit there and let someone else do the talking. You're making me talk. You're making me work hard. So, uh, all right, before we go to Chuck.
36:23 Chuck Nice? Yes.
36:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Um, uh, so you still doing stand-up?
36:27 Chuck Nice? All the time. Uh, pretty much every, you know, so here's the thing. I don't travel as much to on the road, which I get a lot of requests, but, uh, two reasons. One, I have a small child.
36:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, yeah.
36:38 Chuck Nice? And so I'd like to be home and be.
36:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? More than one child.
36:41 Chuck Nice? I have.
36:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? One of them is small.
36:41 Chuck Nice? One of them is very small.
36:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
36:43 Chuck Nice? Because I'm an idiot. And, uh, we just had a new baby two years ago.
36:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
36:48 Chuck Nice? Uh, did I say new baby? Like, there's such a thing as an old baby?
36:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We had an old baby.
36:52 Chuck Nice? Had an old baby.
36:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Five years ago.
36:53 Chuck Nice? Yeah, I gave birth to Benjamin Button.
36:56 Chuck Nice? Anyway, uh, and the, uh, uh, but I always do stand up in New York City and surrounding area pretty much every weekend.
37:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I love your work and just, and that's why we have you here.
37:06 Chuck Nice? Thanks, man. I always love being here.
37:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We affirm that. All right. So what do you got?
37:09 Chuck Nice? Okay, let's get back into, uh, our queries.
37:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Mm-hmm.
37:13 Chuck Nice? Aiden Astronomy from Instagram says.
37:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Astronomy is in his handle.
37:17 Chuck Nice? Yes, it is.
37:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I love that.
37:18 Chuck Nice? You like that?
37:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? People loving the universe and they can't help not tell people.
37:21 Chuck Nice? They gotta let people know. So he says, "What was it like for the command module pilots when they went around the backside of the moon? And why did the Soviet N-1 moon rockets all blow up?" So, uh, and instead of what was it like, let me just say, on the backside of the moon, what are you experiencing on the backside of the moon that you're not experiencing on the front side of the moon?
37:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So first, first, as you may remember, the Apollo missions all sent three.
37:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Astronauts to the moon.
37:53 Chuck Nice? Mm hmm.
37:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Two of them deployed down to the surface.
37:55 Chuck Nice? Right.
37:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? One did not.
37:57 Chuck Nice? Right.
37:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Stayed in orbit around the moon, eating their lunch, waiting for them finished driving the golf cart.
38:02 Chuck Nice? Better known as the Uber driver of Apollo.
38:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so I I I'm wondering if I would have just snuck in and and crammed three people into the lander. And and you know, I I don't know, you're gonna go travel that far and just not.
38:18 Chuck Nice? And have to sit in there, hey, man, wait in the car, we'll be right out.
38:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We're we're we're gonna walk around on the moon.
38:23 Chuck Nice? Walk around on the moon, do me a favor, can you just keep the car running?
38:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Keep the car running.
38:27 Chuck Nice? The car running, buddy, we're just gonna take a little stroll on the moon now.
38:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? On the moon.
38:30 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
38:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So here's the thing, when you go to the backside of the moon, you are one moon diameter away from the other two astronauts.
38:39 Chuck Nice? Okay.
38:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
38:40 Chuck Nice? Okay.
38:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That is the record for the loneliest person ever.
38:46 Chuck Nice? Oh, that's so cool because you're farther out than.
38:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You're farther away.
38:49 Chuck Nice? And you're by yourself.
38:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The next closest person.
38:52 Chuck Nice? Right.
38:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In that moment.
38:53 Chuck Nice? Is one moon diameter away.
38:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And that is farther than any other solo person has been.
38:59 Chuck Nice? Wow.
38:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes.
39:00 Chuck Nice? Right.
39:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, so that's just one little fact, that is the loneliest place we have ever found ourselves.
39:05 Chuck Nice? Oh.
39:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
39:06 Chuck Nice? That's a pretty cool little.
39:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Now, what makes it.
39:08 Chuck Nice? Toy.
39:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What makes it extra lonely is when you're behind the moon.
39:11 Chuck Nice? Right.
39:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Then the moon is between you and Earth.
39:14 Chuck Nice? Right.
39:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And the radio signals don't penetrate through the moon.
39:17 Chuck Nice? So you're.
39:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You're also radio silent.
39:19 Chuck Nice? Oh, my God, you're alone and alone.
39:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes, you're double alone.
39:24 Chuck Nice? You're double alone.
39:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You're alone squared.
39:26 Chuck Nice? Right, you can't communicate with anybody either.
39:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Correct, this is why in the future, when we're thinking of moon colonies and you want to inhabit the far side of the moon. The far side never faces Earth.
39:38 Chuck Nice? Okay.
39:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The moon is, it's rotation is what's called tightly locked.
39:41 Chuck Nice? Right.
39:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Where it's actually rotating, but at the exact rate that it takes to go around the Earth.
39:47 Chuck Nice? Right.
39:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So it's always turning its one face towards you, no matter where it is.
39:51 Chuck Nice? Ah.
39:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's called, it happens, it's a very natural thing in the universe.
39:54 Chuck Nice? Right.
39:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Don't think too much about it.
39:55 Chuck Nice? Okay, now I'm thinking about it, let me tell you something, as I'm thinking.
39:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, my gosh, what a coincidence, is that just for us? I'd do that, just chill.
40:02 Chuck Nice? Okay.
40:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Like, it's a, it's a natural thing.
40:04 Chuck Nice? Okay.
40:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, so, I, so.
40:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? When we're thinking about moon colonies, if you're gonna pitch tent on the far side of the moon, you're gonna still want communication channels opened up.
40:14 Chuck Nice? Right.
40:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So there's a whole separate conversation about radio transmitter repeaters that are on the edge of the moon.
40:21 Chuck Nice? Mm-hmm.
40:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Where signals can come from the backside and then work their way back over to the front side and then make it way back to the earth.
40:27 Chuck Nice? So you send the signal to the booster, the booster sends it over.
40:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Exactly, exactly. And so it's a repeater, whatever, whatever is the mechanism.
40:33 Chuck Nice? Right.
40:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, uh, so.
40:35 Chuck Nice? Can you hear me now? I'm sorry. Let me move over here. Sorry, I'm on the backside of the moon. Let me just move over. Uh, can you hear me now? How's that? Ah, Jesus, I'm roaming. I can't believe this. I'm roaming, dude. I'm sorry, I'm on the moon. I can't talk, man. This is costing me a fortune. Okay, sorry.
40:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Can I give a, like, a weirdly perverse version of that?
40:56 Chuck Nice? Go ahead.
40:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right. So I was on a, on a, on a, on a presidential commission.
41:00 Chuck Nice? Okay.
41:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? To study the, the, the, the climate of aerospace around the world relative to here on Earth.
41:07 Chuck Nice? Uh-huh.
41:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? A climate, I mean, the, the business climate.
41:09 Chuck Nice? Right.
41:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And so in one of our trips, uh, we go to China. And China has these, have, they've got plans to go to space. All right. This is before they launched their first Taikonaut.
41:22 Chuck Nice? Okay.
41:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. Which is what they call.
41:24 Chuck Nice? Their astronauts are Taikonauts.
41:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Their Taikonauts. And so, so there's this, this underbelly of advanced technology that we're reading about and hearing about. And I always wondered, you know, is it real? Is it there? So I'm on the Great Wall of China.
41:39 Chuck Nice? Sweet.
41:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And it, there it is, just like the photos, going to the horizon into the mist.
41:45 Chuck Nice? Right.
41:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right. You can't, there's no end in either direction you look. I do not see any technology at all. In any, there are no antennas, there's no, nothing made of metal. There is just the wall.
42:00 Chuck Nice? Wow.
42:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And I said, let me try something. I pull out my cellphone.
42:04 Chuck Nice? Okay.
42:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It was a flip phone at the time. I call my.
42:08 Chuck Nice? Star-Tec.
42:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I, I call my, it was, in fact, the Motorola Star-Tec. And I call my, cause it's, it's the word Star. Yeah, thank you.
42:14 Chuck Nice? How did?
42:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Come on. I call my mother in Westchester, New York. She said, "Oh, hi, hi Neil, are you home already?" That's how good the connection was.
42:25 Chuck Nice? Nice.
42:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It was, it was crystal clear connection.
42:29 Chuck Nice? You certainly didn't have sprint.
42:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It was one of the best connections I've ever had in a cellphone ever, from the Great Wall of China with no visible cellphone towers. And I, and at that time, you would walk past a tree in the United States, and so I'm sorry, I lost my signal.
42:44 Chuck Nice? Exactly.
42:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Let me get out in the open here, away from the blades of grass, whatever. So, so that's how I knew China was gonna make whatever they want to happen, happen.
42:53 Chuck Nice? Wow, that's pretty wild.
42:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In that moment.
42:56 Chuck Nice? That, right, that's, that's actually a very good story and really telling, because it makes sense.
43:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right.
43:01 Chuck Nice? Like, you don't see anything and...
43:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's there. Now, why did I even say that? I was somehow related to this question.
43:07 Chuck Nice? Well, no, we were, we were talking about, you know, just, just the dark side and the, the actual repeater and all that kinda stuff.
43:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, no, but the guy with, with, well, the, the, the command module pilot, there was a question. What was the question?
43:19 Chuck Nice? Oh, no, it's just like, uh, you, no, um, I'm sorry, now I lost.
43:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? See, I don't think I answered the question, I'm sorry. Alright, so what is it?
43:27 Chuck Nice? Oh, oh God, Jesus Christ, where...
43:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You just, you just mentioned God and Jesus in the same sentence. You must be in a really bad situation, okay?
43:38 Chuck Nice? Oh, God. No, you did answer the question perfectly.
43:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What was the question?
43:42 Chuck Nice? I wanted to know what it was like for that pilot.
43:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, the pilot, yeah, that's what it was like.
43:45 Chuck Nice? And that's exactly what it was like.
43:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Eating, eating a sandwich, waiting, just...
43:49 Chuck Nice? And by the way, I'm gonna say that is the lonely existence ever. Not just because of where he is, and not just because of his isolation, but because of the context of that isolation.
44:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes.
44:04 Chuck Nice? You are alone, and your friends are walking on the moon.
44:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's, it's triple, it's like, I'm alone, I can't communicate with anybody, and I'm, I'm keeping the car warm, and they're on the moon. Yes, getting all the glory.
44:17 Chuck Nice? Alright.
44:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Uh, Chuck, we, uh, time for Cosmic Queries.
44:20 Chuck Nice? Lightning round!
44:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Alright, let's do it.
44:22 Chuck Nice? Let's do it, here we go.
44:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I'm gonna give soundbite answers.
44:24 Chuck Nice? Soundbite answers, okay, here we go. Um...
44:29 Chuck Nice? Uh, this is-
44:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? If I'm giving soundbite answers, you have to read the questions a little faster.
44:33 Chuck Nice? Chris McManara, 97 from Instagram. What is the biggest thing the moon taught us about Earth?
44:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? For me, I have my personal list of that, alright? I think going to the moon and getting direct measurements of its mineral content and soil content. For me, the coolest thing was discovering that the moon is the product of a collision between a Mars-sized protoplanet. Side-swiping Earth's crust in the early solar system, having that material that had been sideswiped gather into another cosmic body that orbits Earth that we now call the moon. The moon, for its size, should have much, much more iron in it.
45:17 Chuck Nice? Right.
45:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But it doesn't. The iron has already been sifted out. Well, how do you make that happen? Well, on Earth, the iron all went to the core. Most of the iron went to the core. So, the crust has hardly any iron in it. If you're gonna make a new cosmic object out of the crust, you're gonna have hardly any iron in your substance. So, the moon has suspiciously low iron, and it is completely consistent with this scenario.
45:39 Chuck Nice? Nice!
45:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And people ask me, if I wanted to go back in time and see something happen, I'd wanna see the collision of that Mars-sized protoplanet with Earth and watch the moon get formed. We think it would have formed within a few months.
45:51 Chuck Nice? That quickly?
45:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes, that quickly.
45:53 Chuck Nice? Wow.
45:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That quickly. That would've been a badass collision.
45:55 Chuck Nice? Yeah, that's a nice collision.
45:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You got it. Okay, quick, go.
45:57 Chuck Nice? Alright.
45:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Go.
45:58 Chuck Nice? There we go.
45:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That was too long. I gotta answer faster.
45:59 Chuck Nice? Alright, here we go. At Seabass621 wants to know this.
46:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Fisherman there.
46:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Just loves him to eat some sea bass, alright?
46:09 Chuck Nice? Who do you think won? Won the space race?
46:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, so I call it a tie.
46:16 Chuck Nice? Really?
46:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Between the United States and Russia.
46:18 Chuck Nice? Okay.
46:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, you know why?
46:19 Chuck Nice? Why?
46:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because they were the first to put anything in space, A. They were the first to put a living creature in space. They were the first to put a human in space. They were the first to put a- A woman in space, they were the first to put a black person in space. They were the first to have a space station. They invented the rocket equation that enabled all this to happen in the first place. And we went to the moon first.
46:40 Chuck Nice? There you go. So.
46:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so to me, I'm saying, you know, we didn't do any of that other stuff first and we got to them and said, we win. So I'm saying, give the people some credit here, please. Thank you. Next.
46:52 Chuck Nice? Oh, that was a great answer, man. All right. Since the moon is loaded, I'm sorry.
46:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? By the way, their black person was a Cuban.
46:57 Chuck Nice? Oh, really? Okay. So Brentral, uh, at Brentral wants to know this, since the moon is loaded with helium three, which is useful for alternative energy, how do you think laws will form in retaliation to mining the moon? Assuming that we're gonna mine the moon.
47:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Nice. So helium, helium three is a version of helium, missing one proton. Helium usually has two protons, two neutrons. That would be helium four. Take away a neutron, you get helium three. That's what it's called, okay? Helium three is one of the things that is emanated from the sun in the solar wind. And it comes through space, it gets lodged in the surface of the moon and it sits there. And there are whole books given unto mining, quite simply scooping up the topsoil of the moon, collecting this helium three and using it for nuclear fusion reactors. So there's a whole plan that people have for this. And there's been some rebuttals, is will it really recoup the cost, whatever? So, uh, but helium three, yeah, we need laws going into the future.
47:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Who owns the moon? Who owns asteroids? Who owns the mining rights? Do they have to be shared? Who paid for it? This, there are some laws related to this, but for me, it's still undiscovered territory. And this is why the, the future in space is not just about astronauts, scientists and engineers. There's the rest of what life is. Lawyers, the artists, the politics. All of this has to come together if we're gonna turn what is sitting there above our head that we call space, into our backyard.
48:26 Chuck Nice? Wow. There you have it.
48:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Chuck.
48:28 Chuck Nice? Yes, man.
48:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We gotta call it a wrap right there. All right. You've been, you have been, you've been listening to and possibly even watching StarTalk. I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, Chuck Nice.
48:42 Chuck Nice? Yes, sir.
48:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Dude.
48:43 Chuck Nice? Thank you, brother. Always good.
48:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Thanks for coming through, helping me get through this. House McQuarrie, and as always, I bid you. Take me up.
48:58 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
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