A Conversation with Whoopi Goldberg

Whoopi Goldberg talks about her love of science, and how it eventually led to her role as Guinan on "Star Trek, The Next Generation".

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson and this week's episode is a conversation with the one, the only Whoopi Goldberg. With me in studio is my friend and longtime colleague Charles Liu. Charles, welcome back to StarTalk Radio.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  Such a pleasure to be here. I'm so psyched for today's conversation. I have seen Whoopi Goldberg's every Star Trek episode in The Next Generation.

• 0:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some people don't know that she actually had a recurring role in Star Trek. We'll get to that in a minute, but let's remind ourselves what Whoopi Goldberg's portfolio is. First, she appears on The View for ABC and in that she's won Emmys for doing that. And she was not, she was in that, she won the Academy Award for Ghost as, what was her name?

• 1:05Speaker 01

  That medium person.

• 1:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She won the Academy Award for Ghost and she's won a Grammy Award for a comedy album. She's two Golden Globes for The Color Purple and for Ghost. And the list goes on and on and on. She's highly decorated and she's a household name. And we have her for different reasons though. Not simply that she is known for acting in her comedy, but that science has played a fundamental role in the shaping of her career. And I don't, you knew this, I guess.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  I did.

• 1:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you're a big Star Trek fan.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely.

• 1:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And let's find out, let's go get a little bit of her background going here. And we're going to pick up my interview with Whoopi Goldberg obtained just a few months ago and find out just what, how she was born and how she thinks about life.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  I grew up on 26th Street and 10th Avenue.

• 1:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In Manhattan?

• 1:53Speaker 02

  Manhattan, yeah. This was someplace I came.

• 1:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The American Museum of Natural History was in here.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, remember, you know, in those days, you could get for a quarter, you could get on the bus.

• 2:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  And come all the way up and everything was free.

• 2:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, so you had early scientific baptisms, if you will. You, you were exposed to museums. And how'd you do in your science class, in your math class?

• 2:11Speaker 02

  Well, math classes were bad for me, because I'm also dyslexic and numbers are horrifying to me. They are the scariest things in the world.

• 2:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  Which, in a way, is why I'm happy that there's an iPhone, but unhappy, because I used to have to force myself. I can't do sequence. Number sequencing is very difficult. But the iPhone, I can just look on the phone and get the phone number.

• 2:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just right. Get the picture of the person.

• 2:37Speaker 02

  It's really good.

• 2:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you could work at a McDonald's where you just push the button that has the picture of the french fries on it?

• 2:41Speaker 02

  Maybe. I'm not even sure about that, you know? But if you tell me things, I retain it very well.

• 2:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 2:49Speaker 02

  I can remember things, but...

• 2:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so you have to shape your life around these facts, obviously.

• 2:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, so coming here...

• 2:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything's visual.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  It was visual, so it was the perfect place for me. And the planetarium, for me, was always, you know, literally growing up, going from, you know, the voice of the adult.

• 3:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, the voice.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  To, like, the hippies talking about, like, the landscape of the sky and the light and the stars.

• 3:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the laser show came.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  And the laser show. Oh, my God, did I love the laser show.

• 3:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The laser shows went out when you could buy lasers at the checkout line at Kmart.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then it's no longer a cool thing, yeah.

• 3:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, but, man, they were spectacular, because it was all about, how did we get here?

• 3:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoopi Goldberg, she was in my office for that interview, and it's fun having her back at the Hayden Planetarium. You know, she was, uh, she narrated the...

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, and she did a great job, too.

• 3:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, the show, it's, it's, it's stars. It's all about stars and stars of the cosmic variety.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Make sure when you visit, you're not looking for, like, the, the, the pop list of who won Academy Awards.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  Well, actually, why not, right? We should all stop being surprised that artists, you know, performing artists are inspired by science and love science.

• 3:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That works. That works, that works for me. So, so it's interesting how she, she had problems... With numerical sequences and that would not bode well for doing well in math. But nonetheless, she retained an interest all along.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 4:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think that's an important state to be in because it gives us confidence that even if you're not good at math, you can at least embrace or appreciate what math or science can do for you.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  No question about it.

• 4:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or do for society.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Uh huh. Now, we're scientists and we love good movies and good music, so it makes perfect sense that actors and musicians love science too. Whether or not they can do it, they can still love it and it can affect them very, very positively.

• 4:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in fact, she counts herself among the ranks of geeks.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Awesome.

• 4:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And let's find out a little more.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  My sister.

• 4:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's find a little more about how she includes herself in that exclusive community. Check it out.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  I'm a bit of a science geek.

• 4:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's good.

• 4:46Speaker 02

  Well, I think it's good, but you know.

• 4:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know it's good.

• 4:49Speaker 02

  Well, of course, because you're.

• 4:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's my thing.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  You're a doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, right? But there are just things that interest me, like how did we get here? And that's why I was so happy to come and do the voiceover.

• 5:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, let me tell our listeners that Whoopi is the voice for our current running space show on Starz. And so, thank you for doing that. And you brought a voice, a familiar, comfortable voice to a subject that I think people need to be familiar and comfortable with.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  Well, yes, because science is always sort of touted as something we won't understand, we won't get. Normal people whose brains are not, well, the size of yours.

• 5:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think it's because the people who had previously been tasked to tell people about science weren't thinking about how to make it fun and interesting. I worry that it's just, that's just the consequence of failed education.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  Well, not just that, but it is also was thought of as being something that was an elite thing, that we mere mortals were not nearly smart enough to understand. And here you come. Not only are you not just a mere mortal, but you're a big old black man. Which is very-

• 5:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Last I checked, yes.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  Yes. Do your listeners know this? Have they seen your picture? Because if you don't know, shocker. Listen, when he walked in while I was listening to the recording, I thought my head was gonna explode. Because I'd never met, and I've met a lot of people, I've never met a black physicist or anyone who knew about the larger sciences as I think of them.

• 6:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, there are few of us, not many, but there's a few.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  But, believe me, when I was a kid, there were none.

• 6:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There were none, sure.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  That I was aware of. And so suddenly, like golf in a weird way, and like the presidency, these things now have become possible.

• 6:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know what we call that in mathematics?

• 6:35Speaker 02

  What?

• 6:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In existence-

• 6:36Speaker 02

  You know I didn't know what we called it. Mathematics.

• 6:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In mathematics, you call something like that an existence proof, where you don't necessarily know the details yet of how it happened, but it did happen.

• 6:47Speaker 02

  But it did happen.

• 6:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so therefore, it is possible.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  I like that. And that's how I sort of feel about you and about all of the things over here, because now I feel like I'd ask you questions. The thing for me is that you talk to me like a normal person.

• 7:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Thank you. I mean, I-

• 7:03Speaker 02

  It's important, Neil.

• 7:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  It's very important because people don't wanna feel like-

• 7:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're being lectured to, or-

• 7:09Speaker 02

  That they're too dumb to get it.

• 7:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:11Speaker 02

  You know, and you couldn't say anything to your science teacher. You know, you can say, "Listen, man, could you sort of explain this so that I could understand what you're talking about?" You actually explained why Pluto was gone.

• 7:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you finally get over that?

• 7:25Speaker 02

  No, I never got over that.

• 7:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but you understood it.

• 7:27Speaker 02

  I understood it, but you know, it's the same with purgatory. How the hell can you just get rid of purgatory? But clearly, people can get rid of planets and purgatory and any old damn thing they want to.

• 7:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know what else we lost?

• 7:38Speaker 02

  What?

• 7:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The brontosaurus. It doesn't exist anymore.

• 7:40Speaker 02

  Who decided that the brontosaurus didn't exist?

• 7:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As I understand it, the original brontosaurus had the wrong head attached to the body. The creature that we assembled and called a brontosaurus was parts of two different species of dinosaur.

• 7:52Speaker 02

  You mean to tell me-

• 7:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, I do.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  That we made up a name for something because we didn't know what it was? We saw that's gonna be a brontosaurus.

• 8:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, because we had the wrong pieces and you think it's an actual, you know, you do the best you can at any given time.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no, no.

• 8:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the head went to another creature.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  So nobody knew that the head was wrong?

• 8:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not at the time, then it got named. And so you put the head where it belongs and the body where it belongs.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  So they just made it up?

• 8:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now you have two separate, so the apatosaurus, I think, is one of the...

• 8:17Speaker 02

  How do I know that that's real?

• 8:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well...

• 8:19Speaker 02

  Can I believe in anything now, Neil? Can I believe in anything? No brontosaurus, I like brontosaurus. Charles Brontosaurus. That's how I responded to the brontosaurus.

• 8:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And plus Dino on the Flintstones was a baby brontosaurus.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  I think that they're just trying to make it so we don't want to know more about the brontosaurus, because I believe that there's one around somewhere.

• 8:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  An actual brontosaurus?

• 8:40Speaker 02

  Yes, I believe, listen, I saw Jurassic Park, I believe that stuff.

• 8:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you know what we should do? We should say, okay, rather than admit the mistake, let's just make one.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  Yes!

• 8:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Somebody's gonna do it, somebody...

• 8:50Speaker 02

  Listen, they made dolly, they can make a damn brontosaurus.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  I am, I am going to change my name now to Charles Brontosaurus.

• 8:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To Charles Liu, trying to create a new image for himself.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 9:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Charles, you were with me back when we reassigned Pluto's status as a dwarf planet at the planetarium.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Totally the right thing to do.

• 9:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, uh, Charles worked with us at the American Museum of Natural History as we built the new Rose Center for Earth and Space. Now you're on the faculty at, uh, City University.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 9:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, uh, and Staten Island, and excellent work you do there. And so I think some people get uncomfortable if they have a lifetime of exposure to one knowledge base or one fact, and then it gets, it changes.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 9:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you have any insight into that, do you think?

• 9:33Speaker 01

  Well, well, let me, let me mention, yeah, Whoopi talks about the expectation from others that she couldn't understand science because of who she is. I mean, that's an expectation people thought about for a long time. Well, now, I'm an Asian guy, so you might think, oh, yeah, I'm a scientist, big deal. But the reality is that when Star Trek came out back in the 60s, what were Asian guys on TV? They weren't the scientists, they were the cook.

• 9:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, they knew Kung Fu.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  That's right, they were the, they were the guy who ran the laundromat in San Francisco Old Town, right?

• 10:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who could Kung Fu you.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  That could Kung Fu you, yeah. So... I can't Kung-Fu you, I'm sorry. I can, you know, solve third order differential equations, but it's a generational thing that keeps changing and we all always have to adapt. Psychologists talk about something called cognitive dissonance and whether it's Pluto or whether it's the role of people in society and what they can and can't do, it's always changing and we should always be ready for that change.

• 10:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the people who are not, maybe what we have to train people in school is, you're saying just be ready for it, but maybe that's a missing part of our educational portfolio. Because we're handed things that we say, "This is the knowledge passed on from the ancients," when in fact, it's something that's in motion at all times.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 10:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Something that's not really conveyed by the educational system.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  Haven't you been quoted, Neil, as having said, "We spend the first few years of our lives learning how to stand up and walk around and talk, and then we spend the next few years in school being told to sit down and shut up?"

• 10:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I said it a little more efficiently than that. The first year of our life being taught to walk and talk, and the rest of our lives being taught to shut up and sit down.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 11:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  I think that component, just as you're describing.

• 11:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not conducive for learning something new.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  New that you had already learned. And so, later on in the show, we're going to talk much more with Whoopi Goldberg about her life on Star Trek and all of the rest of what happened.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Cannot wait.

• 11:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And all that represented. So, Charles, let me get back to you just for a minute. This shifting of expectations, as you go from one generation to the next, is a remarkable fact that we kind of live with, right? What it really represents is the shifting of stereotypes.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  I can't agree with you more.

• 11:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and so, in your life, I mean, you came a little later than all this.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 11:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you have the stereotype where you're supposed to really do well in school.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 11:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No one is handing you their shirts to be dry clean in the street.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  That's right. Although I can do the laundry, you know, I do a good job separating whites from pinks.

• 11:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So is it really true that an A- is an Asian F?

• 11:55Speaker 01

  Well, I was, yes.

• 12:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a matter of what are the consequences when you come home with your A minus.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  Right. Well, you gotta follow your heart, no matter what. It's a fascinating irony that my kids and the kids of those generation coming after us are facing that other expectation. They gotta break out, and they should. Everyone should follow their heart.

• 12:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The point is, no one should ever have any expectations for any... allow people to be what they want to be.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  I could not agree with you more. Life is about exceeding, defying expectation.

• 12:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And of course, this Asian F concept has nothing to do with the students, but the pressures that the parents put upon them.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  No question. Absolutely true.

• 12:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so that's where the problems come about.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  That's right. That's right.

• 12:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, when we come back, more of my interview with Whoopi Goldberg. This is StarTalk Radio.

• 13:02Speaker 03

  We are Borg. Aren't you gonna tell me you have to assimilate me? You wish to be assimilated? No, but that's what you things do, isn't it? Resistance is futile. Resistance is futile?

• 13:19Speaker 03

  It isn't.

• 13:22Speaker 03

  My people resisted when the Borg came to assimilate us.

• 13:28Speaker 03

  Some of us survived. Resistance is not futile? No, but thanks to you, there are very few of us left.

• 13:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was the voice, of course, of Whoopi Goldberg playing Gynan.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 13:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In Star Trek: The Next Generation.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  The episode "I Borg."

• 13:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excuse me.

• 13:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Actually, I should know that you know that because that's why I have you on this show.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  I have seen every episode of Star Trek on which Whoopi Goldberg has appeared.

• 14:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, and plus you have Star Trek blood running through you, and so that's part of why we've got you on here. More on Star Trek and Whoopi Goldberg in a minute. We have... This is a conversation with Whoopi Goldberg, and she was in my office for a couple of hours. We were just whooping and hollering it up, and I wanted to get to the bottom of how Whoopi Goldberg, dreadlocked-haired Whoopi Goldberg, could end up on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  I would very much like to know that.

• 14:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wanted to know that backstory, so let's check it out.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  My friend LeVar Burton came to see me one day. We were sitting.

• 14:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he was already a cast member?

• 14:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, I said, "What are you doing, LeVar?"

• 14:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jordy, was he Jordy, right?

• 14:35Speaker 02

  Jordy. He said, "Oh, I'm doing the new Star Trek." I said, "The what?" Because, you know.

• 14:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Star Trek had been dead for 20 years.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, and he said, "The new Star Trek." I said, "Dude, you have to tell them I want to be on it."

• 14:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why?

• 14:46Speaker 02

  Because of Lieutenant Uhura.

• 14:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uhura.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Now, when you watch Star Trek.

• 14:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The original.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  The original. What most people don't know, because they're not kind of geeky like I am, is that before Uhura, there are no black people in the future in any sci-fi.

• 15:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At all.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  At all.

• 15:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I heard a comedian, if not you, forgive me for not remembering, who said this. They were worried about the future because nobody included us in that.

• 15:12Speaker 02

  Before Lieutenant Uhura, that's absolutely true.

• 15:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's hard to put your brain back in that mind state at the time because you just look at it, "Oh, just a good actress doing her thing."

• 15:21Speaker 02

  And now you look at it and you say, "Well, of course there are black people in the future." But when, what is 62 that this?

• 15:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it was 66.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  66.

• 15:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 15:29Speaker 02

  Think of all of the science fiction movies that predate Star Trek.

• 15:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, tons, there are tons, especially the era of the 50s.

• 15:35Speaker 02

  There are not one black person anywhere. And I thought.

• 15:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you saw that and you?

• 15:40Speaker 02

  Well, I saw, as a kid, I saw Lieutenant Uhura. I just assumed I was going to be in the future.

• 15:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  It wasn't until I got older that I recognized that before Star Trek, there was none. So I wanted to be part of that legacy.

• 15:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It had been in you for that long.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And when there's no show, there's no reason to keep thinking about it. Somebody says, "The show's reborn."

• 16:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is.

• 16:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, they had the same doubts. So for a year, I didn't hear from anybody because he told them.

• 16:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They can't have taken you seriously. They thought you were just messing with him.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  They thought I was fooling around. And so I saw him like a year later and said, "You know, they never called." He said, "They didn't believe me." I said, "Call the office right now."

• 16:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, who walks off the Academy Award stage and said, "Put me in a TV show?"

• 16:20Speaker 02

  Well, you know, everybody started on TV. You know, you look at Robert Redford, you look at a lot of those actors. They started on Twilight Zone.

• 16:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, with good roles, good well-written roles.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  Fantastic roles. So television has always been a great place to be, but I was always a character actor. I wasn't thinking of myself as a star because as a character actor, I could do anything.

• 16:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  You know, as a star, you're limited.

• 16:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, because there's only one star, but there's 100 different characters doing their thing.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  That's right. There's lots to be done. So I made an appointment with Gene Roddenberry. He said, "Why do you want to be on the show?" And I explained to him just as I explained to you. About week and a half, two weeks later, I get a call and says, well, Gina's written you a part and the character's name is Guinan, after Texas Guinan, who always greeted her patrons with the words, hello suckers. You know. She was a great bar owner, I think the early part of the 1900s.

• 17:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bartenders are, generally, they hear everyone's stories, so they have a certain wisdom. And I think, if I remember your part, this is what you were.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, and well, she was very old, very old. We're not, we're not really sure what her origins are, except that she and Q have a very rough relationship. And Q is one of those, you know, omnipresent, god figures. And so one thinks that I could have smote him if I wanted to.

• 17:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love that word.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  I, no one uses it. Never hear of being.

• 17:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good one syllable words are hard to come by.

• 17:52Speaker 02

  You know.

• 17:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I will smoke you.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, you know, I think smiting is a lost art.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  Oh, great.

• 18:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A little more of my interview with Whoopi Goldberg in my office at the Hayden Planetarium. And so she was, so there's a little bit of that history. So LeVar Burton was the, was the transfer point for her. That I didn't know before that had happened.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  It's really some fascinating stuff of the history of Star Trek. It's neat that she wanted to be part of it.

• 18:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, so the fact that she did not see black people in the future visions of the world, you growing up Asian, Asians, like, as we discussed earlier, were, they clean your shirt.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  The first Asian person I saw on television was the guy in the Calgon laundry detergent commercial, remember that one?

• 18:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, you're going way back on that one.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  What's your secret for keeping your whites so white? Shh, ancient Chinese secret.

• 18:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nonetheless, it's still a cleaning. You're still the shirt cleaner in that one.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  That's right, that's right. No, but she's definitely not that in this environment. And, you know, Star Trek is a tremendous show for many, many reasons. So, but, so look.

• 18:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So tell me more about her character.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Okay, you have, I have to give you a warning, because if I start lapsing too deeply into Roddenberry geekdom, you have to smite me.

• 18:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I will smite.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  And pull me back into reality, okay?

• 19:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what, what, what conjugation of smite is smote?

• 19:03Speaker 01

  Uh, there is no smote, there's only smitten.

• 19:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I so like smote.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  I, well, okay, it is now smote.

• 19:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  My middle name is now smote, my name is now Charles Smote Brontosaurus. Okay, but here's the deal, beginning of the second season, she shows up, there was not a bar in Star Trek before then, but she shows up and she becomes a deep listener, she's a person that is very old, we don't know her history.

• 19:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do you distinguish someone who's a deep listener from someone who's just ignoring you?

• 19:30Speaker 01

  The reason is she's a race of listeners.

• 19:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Her entire species were listeners. And she shows up, for example, in a time travel episode called Time's Arrow, where ancient San Francisco, well, not ancient for us, but ancient for the Star Trek people, right? And meets up with Picard at that time, and then also-

• 19:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jean-Luc Picard.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  Jean-Luc Picard. Another very famous, memorable thing she does is in an episode called Yesterday's Enterprise, she introduces the gruff Klingon security officer Worf to a tremendously delicious warrior's drink called prune juice.

• 20:10Speaker 02

  I didn't get to go through a lot of the doors, you know, because I was always in my bar, but periodically I could go through the door, and what would happen is I would go through and go, "Shh."

• 20:22Speaker 02

  So I'd have to do it again, because the sound man could hear me, making the sound of the doors opening.

• 20:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Whoopi, on the show, you're given a script, and in the making of the show, did you get the sense that it was about the drama, and the performance, and the acting, or was there a greater science message to be conveyed?

• 20:40Speaker 02

  I don't know, I never got that deep. It just all seemed right. I mean, I don't know whether they were accurate with what they were saying, because of course, none of us have ever been on a starship.

• 20:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 20:52Speaker 02

  Except probably you.

• 20:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm not authorized.

• 20:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I don't know. So I couldn't tell you if we were scientifically correct. But I do know that when anyone had to do this jargon, people would be cussing under their breath, because it's hard to get all of this stuff. I never had to do it, so I'm very happy.

• 21:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was just some other...

• 21:12Speaker 02

  It's a new language.

• 21:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Another language from another planet, and it's just, it's just syllables on a page.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  Yes, really. Except that, you know, the people who speak Romulan?

• 21:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  They're not kidding.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  They actually speak Romulan. And they can find, you know, Romulans in LA meet up with Romulans from New York and they have a conversation.

• 21:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're an actor just trying to pronounce the syllables.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're just trying to do the show. But, you know, folks are living this lifestyle.

• 21:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's, it's the fact that they were living it is what created the buoyancy to, to have the resurrected shows to begin with.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  Well, because people love the idea of a society of people from different races and different styles and different...

• 21:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm glad, but I can say it's not everybody loves that idea. Not in today's world.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  Well, you know, well, people will get over it. Well, they have to, because it's not like any of the races are disappearing.

• 22:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right. We're all here and everybody's getting more mixed.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, and, pretty much, you can hardly tell who's who.

• 22:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the original Star Trek, the stories were about us. It wasn't about aliens.

• 22:15Speaker 02

  No, but, see, people often don't recognize themselves. And the only way to get people to recognize themselves is to make them alien. So you have people who are blue, you have people who are silver. As it turns out, people are much more comfortable with blue and silver people than they ever are with black people, which I find extraordinary. But that's just me.

• 22:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Blue and silver.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Oh, the blue people were called Andorians, by the way.

• 22:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They had a name. Charles, you're out of control. So, yeah, it's a vision for the future that Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, not only in the guise of the original series, but continuing on through Next Generation, managed to create this way that people could think that we could interact.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I really think that that was the most attractive aspect for Trekkies who like to live this thing. They like the idea that there's a utopia in the future, that there's good stuff we're looking for. That's why they wrap themselves in that.

• 23:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, it's not completely without bad forces, of course, but there's good triumphing over bad forces, and the good are people who are not just one monolithic set of folk. I mean, it's people banding together to defeat the bad.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Right, and that's such a nice thing for people, geeks like me, to feel. There is hope for the future. That's what science fiction brings.

• 23:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, but if only geeks ever felt that, that's not good enough.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  I'm afraid so.

• 23:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's gotta cross over at some point, and I think Whoopi Goldberg would have then represented an important crossover character.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 23:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because many of the other characters had been lifetime associated with those roles, and she hadn't been.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 23:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so she would have her following follow her to that program.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  You did exactly, you say it exactly correctly.

• 23:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, well, thanks for that insight. We've gotta take a quick break, but more StarTalk when we return.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  What I don't understand is, why did he come back? I don't know. Why is he still here? He's stuck, that's what it is. He's in between worlds. You know, it happens sometimes that the spirit gets yanked out so quick that the essence still feels like it has work to do on here. Would you stop rambling? I don't think I'm rambling, I'm just answering a question. He's got an attitude now. I don't have an attitude. Yes, you do have an attitude. We had a little discussion. If you didn't have an attitude, you would not have raised your voice to me, now would you?

• 24:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was Whoopi Goldberg in, of course, the movie Ghost, which had everyone believing that, sure, all their dead ancestors and relatives are... Floating around them.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  Well, the irony, of course, is that, you know, she has the medium. She readily admits that she's a fraud, except for now. You have to believe me now because I was lying my whole life about ghosts and now suddenly I'm telling the truth.

• 25:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's an interesting bit of skepticism that was not often discussed about that movie. She's a self-admitted fraud until that moment. That's right, until Patrick Swayze convinces her that, for that moment, yep, she's real. Well, interesting, in my interview with Whoopi Goldberg, in my, in my office at the Hayden Planetarium, it's fun having her there and just, just hanging out.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Must have been awesome.

• 25:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just, just, just hanging out. It's where I learned that she has some skepticism, speaking of skepticism, about the moon landings.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  No.

• 25:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I said, "No, let it not be true." And, and the audacity to admit that in front of me in my office at the Hayden Planetarium, which some people think of as the center of the universe. And so, let's find out.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  It's not?

• 25:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and I don't remember how I react. I gotta hear the clip to remind myself what, how I actually reacted to that comment. Let's find out.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  You know, I have questions about that.

• 26:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What? You don't think we went to the moon?

• 26:02Speaker 02

  Well, I, I'm sure we did.

• 26:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  I'm sure we did.

• 26:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here, I'll give you some evidence. See, see the rocket here in my office?

• 26:07Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 26:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, it's a scale model of the Saturn V rocket.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  That's probably the size that went.

• 26:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They got special, special.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  I'm kidding. I don't actually believe we didn't go, okay? Because I know the emails will come.

• 26:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so this is the Hollywood model that they use to launch it. So, anyway, so the astronauts in the upper little segment of that little cone shape right there.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  Right.

• 26:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The three astronauts, practically every, the rest of this is fuel. There's fuel in there needed to launch the rest of the fuel that you haven't burned yet.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 26:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? All right. You can calculate how much fuel that is. It is enough fuel to get you to the moon and back. And so, to see this thing launch, where do you think it's going? Like, to the Piggly Wiggly?

• 26:46Speaker 02

  Well, here's the question.

• 26:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 26:49Speaker 02

  We've been everywhere else two, three times. Why haven't we been to the moon more often?

• 26:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, well, no, we went to the moon many times, six times in a row.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 26:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then we stopped.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  Why? What happened up there?

• 27:03Speaker 02

  They saw some.

• 27:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm not authorized to do that.

• 27:05Speaker 02

  I'm sure you're not, but you know they saw some and said, you know, we're not coming back. Because every time we shoot something up, you know, they, I love when they land when the, you know, the camera thing or the rover lands and then you don't hear from it.

• 27:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For there's a period where, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 27:20Speaker 02

  And suddenly, oh, we found it. No.

• 27:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You think it found some stuff, it had to bury the bodies.

• 27:25Speaker 02

  Everyone that's living up there said, you know what, we do not want these people up here. Don't want them up here. We cannot let them see what's really going on. So they take it and they make, you know, they shoot new stuff.

• 27:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fix it up.

• 27:37Speaker 02

  And then they put it back out and then we get what we think are really amazing pictures. What we don't know is what's in the core.

• 27:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so if you're the number one skeptic, what we should do is send you next time. You come back and talk about it.

• 27:46Speaker 02

  Well, you know what?

• 27:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'll solve that, right?

• 27:48Speaker 02

  I would have loved to have gone to the moon. I would have loved to have been an astronaut when I was younger. I think that would have been really exciting before the things that freak me out set in. It would have been really nice. I would have loved to have been an explorer.

• 28:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're a fan of the space program?

• 28:04Speaker 02

  Well, I am. I am, but I get very mad when they cut education.

• 28:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  And put all of the money into the space program.

• 28:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you want to balance it out in a way that doesn't, yeah, yeah.

• 28:17Speaker 02

  Because I want to go to space. I want to know what's up there. I'm not sure if they want us up there, if they're, you know, because you know, they're looking down going, what the hell?

• 28:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, we've been given our return address in some signals that we've been sending.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  We keep saying, here we are, here we are.

• 28:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You think that's a bad idea?

• 28:31Speaker 02

  Well, I'm not sure because we don't know what's up there.

• 28:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Star Trek has imagined what some of those encounters might be like.

• 28:37Speaker 02

  Yes, and I hope we were right.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Okay, that explains a lot.

• 28:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what I'd like hearing in this conversation with Whoopi Goldberg, she wasn't simply the actress in Star Trek: The Next Generation. She's thought a lot about our presence in space.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 28:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And NASA and budgets.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  And so have you, right? Neil, aren't you writing something about that? I mean, you could probably explain to me exactly why we did not go back to the moon as many times as we could have.

• 29:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, I can't. Yeah, I'm trying to. It's more catharsis. Yes, I'm writing.

• 29:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Every thought I've ever had about the past, present, and future of our place in space. Is assembled into a book and but it's not out it's not a few more months a few more months but yeah and now I don't have to talk about it or think about it now that's in the form of a book I just say go read the book but yeah but what I like about this interview is that it's it reminds me that if you are a deep thinking person whether or not you have the answers you at least have the thoughts and you have the questions that you can ask and that's an important place that I think not enough people have reached.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Right, questions are much more important than answers when it comes to studying the unknown.

• 29:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Always the case and in fact so she as a very visible citizen if she ever mentions NASA at all that's NASA being mentioned out of a new mouth a new face it with an audience that's different from who typically would listen to NASA stories.

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Extremely important.

• 29:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so in fact I thought I'm let me just continue that conversation with Whoopi Goldberg and just ask what she thought about whether we should send people to Mars because some people feel differently about that they say well we have all these problems on Earth why should we either go to Mars to explore or go to Mars and make problems there.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  Oh, come on.

• 30:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's find out how that went. I think we gotta send people to Mars.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  I think we have to really sort of make being an astronaut something someone really wants to dedicate their life to you know that the exploration of other places is still a grand and wonderful thing.

• 30:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not enough people know that.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  Well, because we live in such a now time and a me time you know that going to other planets and exploring was about what if we have to evacuate ourselves from our planet are there other places to go that can sustain life and.

• 30:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No one's even thinking that way.

• 30:54Speaker 02

  No.

• 30:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I can tell you this of all the statues that are in the world they tend to go to military people and to explorers explorers seem to be a fundamental part of what it is to be human.

• 31:04Speaker 02

  Well, Jacques Cousteau was a part of our daily lives as a kid we don't have that connection now.

• 31:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no we don't.

• 31:11Speaker 02

  You know, we don't have that connection to what it is we're trying to do and I don't know if it's because there's nobody to beat getting there.

• 31:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 31:20Speaker 02

  You know, that that that it was mirrored in competition. But the curiosity, there should be here one day.

• 31:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'd want this to happen by virtue of curiosity, not because we're in some war race.

• 31:32Speaker 02

  Yes, but it starts with little kids. If I say to you, what do you think Mars would look like? And have kids design what they think Mars would look like. And then say, okay, here's everybody's idea of what it would be. You know, and I know the technology will catch up. But so you could turn a thing and suddenly you're in somebody's idea of what the planet is.

• 31:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you know what I also think of? If we actually have a funded Mars mission and you know you want to land on Mars in, let's say, 2035, those astronauts are now in elementary school. So you can actually select your astronaut class out of elementary school and you can track them. They'd be in teen beat magazines and you'd be finding how are their grades doing? Are they staying healthy?

• 32:17Speaker 02

  Well, I think that would be great.

• 32:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'd be like the original Mercury Seven. Everyone would be into their lives because they're about to be our emissaries to another planet.

• 32:25Speaker 02

  I think that would be wonderful. But I think that you have to make space for kids who may not be able to do it technically with numbers and things. Because kids like me, or like the kid I was, would have loved to be able to sit with this idea that I could go to another planet. And didn't have to be the rocket scientist, but that what I had to offer was equally important. You know, because that's important for kids to know that maybe you're not the greatest numbers person. Maybe you don't know a lot, but there are things that you do know that we need. So you're welcome also. All are welcome. When I was a kid, I believed all are welcome to go into space.

• 33:10Speaker 02

  It is for everyone. And it didn't matter what color you were. As a kid, this is what I thought. Now, I also believed that I could be in the Ice Capades. Because there didn't seem to be this idea of, well, you can't do that. And consequently, with all of the things that I am not able to do, there are thousands of things I am able to do. I put on a little weight, so I don't think going on a space mission is going to work now. But still.

• 33:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's $10,000 a pound to get into orbit.

• 33:41Speaker 02

  We're out. If it's 10 grand a pound, we are definitely out. Because, you know, there's a lot back there going on that can't happen.

• 33:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, go to a weight loss regimen if you're gonna put yourself into space.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  But you know, the thing that she mentions, "Oh, I wish everybody could go into space." I think, this is just me, you have to fill me in on the details of this, I think it'll be easier for kids now, eventually, to be in space than it'll be for kids now to be in the ice capades. What do you think? Is the science there?

• 34:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's an interesting thought. I like that idea. But not easy, it won't be easier, it'll be...

• 34:20Speaker 01

  Technologically more feasible?

• 34:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  More feasible than skating on ice.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, well...

• 34:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I think, if I were a kid, I'd rather dream of something bigger than the ice capades. So, I'm with it all the way. And I like the idea of identifying astronaut class that's in the modern day middle school. And in the 20 years when the launch vehicles are ready, then we've already got them, they're ready to go. And everyone would have been tracking them the whole way.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  Well, what's the technology that's gonna allow us to go up to space 20 years from now for cheaper than 10,000 bucks a pound?

• 34:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have no idea. And so, this is the challenge of the future engineers, of what we have to solve. And by the way, space is still difficult. NASA doesn't have a shuttle going into orbit anymore. We're hitching a ride on Russian vehicles. There's been a recent failure of one of the, a Russian launch of a mission to Mars. This was an experiment to go...

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Although Mars Curiosity Rover was successful.

• 35:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, it was. I caught you on CNN getting interviewed about that. Good work there, Charles.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 35:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've gotta take a quick break, but more StarTalk with me to turn.

• 35:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Radio. Welcome back. On this edition of StarTalk Radio, it's a conversation with Whoopi Goldberg. And in my office, we were just chilling and whooping and hollering and just having a good time. But the core of that conversation was the role that science played in her life's trajectory, and which brought her through a major role in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Guinan the bartender. Guinan the bartender. And she, it's not only that role, she thinks about the future. She thinks about science fiction. She thinks about NASA. And I had to ask her what, how she's an avid reader. And so when you read, the world comes into new kinds of perspectives for you because you get to see how everyone has imagined it. So true.

• 36:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, let's find out how she just thinks about storytelling now and for what the future can bring.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  I love science fiction because to me, it's the predictions of the future.

• 36:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  I always worry because I love the movie Soylent Green.

• 36:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's the one where it's people?

• 36:43Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 36:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spoiler alert.

• 36:45Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. And Edward G. Robinson.

• 36:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  I just love it. It's one of my favorites.

• 36:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So many of those futures were apocalyptic. They were not utopian. Soylent Green, they were like melting down people and making green patties out of it to feed other people.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's creepy.

• 37:00Speaker 02

  It is creepy, but stranger things have happened. And science fiction movies have sort of told us what's going on.

• 37:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what it's about. It's about going to, maybe if they make it creepy enough, you're alerted to avoid it.

• 37:12Speaker 02

  Well, you would think so, but it doesn't always happen. I mean, look at computers. You look at the computers in 1930's sci-fi or 20's sci-fi, you know, and you think, oh, really? That's never gonna happen. You'd watch the movie, and then next thing you know, you're walking around with an iPad.

• 37:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. They would have resurrected the witch burning laws if that came out even 10 years ago.

• 37:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Think about it.

• 37:32Speaker 02

  Well, they tried to mess them up, you know, because now everybody's trying to catch up.

• 37:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  The curse that everybody says, "May you live in interesting times," you know, that's an old, supposedly an old Chinese curse. But the truth of the matter is, we do live in interesting times, and interesting times have happened all the time.

• 37:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. We live in an era of interesting times. That's what it is.

• 37:50Speaker 02

  Yes. And an accelerated era, because I think we're seeing in children, and also in Adults and acceleration of evolution. Because little kids are born now, it seems. With an ability to connect to the computer.

• 38:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  They know things. To me, it is a prelude to our lives.

• 38:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A window to what can be.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  What can be and no longer do people go, oh, come on, that's never gonna happen.

• 38:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, they don't say that anymore.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  No, because we know.

• 38:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We know it.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  It is all possible.

• 38:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Isn't that interesting?

• 38:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because in the pre-moon launch era, people said, oh, the moon and that. Once we started going to the moon, everything became possible in our minds.

• 38:31Speaker 02

  Yes. I'm still waiting for my jetpack, so man.

• 38:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the flying car.

• 38:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, no, the flying car I didn't like.

• 38:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You didn't like that, why not?

• 38:38Speaker 02

  I liked, because I wanted to control aware of all that. I wanted to just be me moving through space and landing somewhere. I want the jetpack.

• 38:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You want the jetpack.

• 38:47Speaker 02

  Yes, but I don't want it to be fueled by hydrogen.

• 38:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now you're getting picky, come on.

• 38:53Speaker 02

  Well, I feel that, you know, there should be some new discovery.

• 38:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some new source of energy.

• 38:59Speaker 02

  Some source of energy.

• 39:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't have to slap a nuclear device on your back.

• 39:02Speaker 02

  Because what happens if you, you know, have a rough landing? Kaboom, there you're gone.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  There are jetpacks now, by the way.

• 39:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we're the bubble cars, come on. I'm not, you're the flying cars, all right?

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Well, there was a jetpack that went 150 miles an hour just a few months ago, I think.

• 39:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was someone attached to the jetpack?

• 39:18Speaker 01

  One guy flying it, yeah, yeah. And actually still in control, which is pretty impressive.

• 39:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the control part that's what matters here. Because nothing, we can always get rockets going wherever the rocket wants to go. So Star Trek was, as we said earlier, and as she reaffirms, Star Trek was an optimistic vision of the future, but not all science fiction visions are optimistic. Some are dystopic, right? In fact, most of the ones that do really.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Brave new world, for example.

• 39:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Most of the ones that become science fiction films that do really well showed so really bad. Science gone bad.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And do you have any thoughts on that?

• 39:51Speaker 01

  Well, you know, the people who study literature, they say, why do we have tragedies as well as comedies? The tragedies are warnings to us. They are a way for to remind us what not. To want to have happen. So it's totally okay to have these tragic dystopic visions of the future so that we can know to avoid them. We ask ourselves, what can we do to change that? And then you have an optimistic vision, like, say, Star Trek, where we say, oh, wow, we have solved the problems of disease, hunger, poverty. And that's because we all decided to work together as opposed to hate each other. We decided to band together, pool our resources, and treat each other nicely as opposed to the other way around.

• 40:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So are you implying that the dystopic science visions of the future are not intended to be real, they're intended to be lessons to avoid?

• 40:40Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 40:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I never thought of it that way.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Same is true.

• 40:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I kept saying, you know, my science is not going to destroy the world the way you keep trying to get me to get us to think the dinosaurs are not going to take over the town, that, you know, there is no Godzilla, and I keep, and so I'm overreacting to this, you're saying?

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Well, that could be, right? When we all talk about scientists as being human beings who have responsibility, nuclear weapons, genetic engineering.

• 41:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Every frontier of every science, be it geology, we had the core, where, you know, the geologists were messing with the earth. There were genetics gone bad, physics gone bad, the universe turned bad, they'd taken, you know, the astrophysicists get blamed for the asteroid.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's all our fault.

• 41:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's all.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  Well, the reality is there. By seeing what could happen, we are reminded that we should prevent it. But then we can also reach for those things that we do want to have.

• 41:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you know what's interesting? We have yet to have a movie that showed a financial collapse. And that's why we didn't avoid it.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh, that's it. That's the answer.

• 41:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That should have been what it was.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  Then we can certainly fund new missions to Mars, no question.

• 41:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's, would you say that the whole message of Star Trek has been positive? I mean, there's some bad things in Star Trek, too. The Borg is not, they're not pleasant to be around.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  No, but we're saying that the universe can be a difficult and challenging place, and possibly evil can exist, but human beings can become better. You know, it's that whole idea.

• 42:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by the way, that's a theme deep within Whoopi Goldberg's tone and her manner. She's very hopeful.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Everything that she says.

• 42:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  Just tremendously impressive, and I really, really enjoyed listening to her talk today.

• 42:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So is there a, um, is there emergent science fiction that you think is supplanting what the role Star Trek played in the past generations?

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Always. There's always stuff coming along. Any individual stories, you never know whether they'll have lasting power, but often we look to the past to see what's going on in the future. You can talk about Harry Potter, which is a very optimistic place, right? Although there is evil in the world, Harry does in fact marshal the forces of good and save the world as well.

• 42:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  And it could just be the next great movie, the next great book will give us that same new vision of the future is going on. How about Wally? How about that sweet, cute little robot?

• 42:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wally.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  That's a beautiful story that came out.

• 42:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's science fiction.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  And it's science fiction, and it showed how machines and people actually interact nicely together instead of unnicely.

• 42:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Playing nicely in the sandbox.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 43:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, let me think about how to wrap up this show. A beautiful interview with Whoopi Goldberg, and what we're going to try to do, there's much more of that interview, of course. We're going to try to find a way to post the rest of that online.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  I would love to hear more of that.

• 43:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that a person can totally get into that. We've got to wrap the show, but I want to thank my guests, and as always, I bid you to keep looking up.