A Conversation with Andy Weir – Special Bonus Episode

Neil deGrasse Tyson welcomes Andy Weir, best-selling author of “The Martian,” to talk about his new book, “Artemis” – a heist/crime novel that happens to be set on the Moon. Neil and Andy explore the unique, science-infused creative process that went into the novel, and much more. Special thanks to Audible for making this bonus episode possible. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can listen to episodes commercial-free. Find out more at https://www.startalkradio.net/startalk-all-access/

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Today's bonus episode of StarTalk Radio is presented exclusively by Audible. Audible offers an unmatched selection of audiobooks, original audio shows, news, comedy, and more from the leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters, entertainers, magazines, and newspaper publishers, as well as business information providers. And Audible has the newest book from today's guest, Andy Weir. Listen to Artemis, read by Rosario Dawson, today. New subscribers can join Audible for free for 30 days. Go to audible.com/startalk to get started. That's audible.com/startalk for your free 30-day trial.

• 0:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 1:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. Today, in this bonus episode, you'll hear my extended interview with author Andy Weir. Let's get right to it. So Andy, you couldn't leave it alone.

• 1:13Speaker 02

  I just couldn't.

• 1:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just had to keep doing this.

• 1:16Speaker 02

  Just kept, it's a sickness.

• 1:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Putting a dude on Mars was not enough.

• 1:21Speaker 02

  Insufficient. I'm putting a city on the moon.

• 1:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Having a movie about the book was not enough.

• 1:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I mean, it was a good start.

• 1:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just had to keep going.

• 1:33Speaker 02

  Got to. That's my whole job.

• 1:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that original book was sort of battle-tested because it was written in parcels, if I remember correctly.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, and the internet would react, and you'd react back. So, but this one, not so much.

• 1:48Speaker 02

  No, this is a, this was a traditional contract with Random House. And so, I didn't get to post it, a chapter at a time like I did for The Merchant, because when a-

• 1:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you don't have everyone's buy-in in advance?

• 1:57Speaker 02

  I don't. I don't, yeah. When a publisher gives you a big pile of money to write a book, they don't like it when you post it for free. So, so they prefer that you don't do that.

• 2:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I see.

• 2:07Speaker 02

  So, yeah, I was on my own this time.

• 2:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, did anyone tell you, like, there's no air on the moon? Did they tell you this in advance?

• 2:15Speaker 02

  Uh, well, you know-

• 2:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a really hostile place, did that? More hostile than Mars?

• 2:18Speaker 02

  No, it didn't, uh, didn't come up.

• 2:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no one told you?

• 2:21Speaker 02

  I should probably, I need to make some edits, maybe? Is it too late? The book comes out tomorrow, as of the time that we're, uh, taping this, but, uh-

• 2:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh-huh.

• 2:28Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, you know, of course, I'm a space dork, uh, not that I have to tell you that, and, uh-

• 2:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People wear space dork titles with pride in this office.

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Yes, absolutely.

• 2:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is a space dork safe space.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  A space dork, a safe space dork space, uh, yeah.

• 2:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, and, uh, so, of course, the moon's always been as fascinating to me as Mars.

• 2:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm. So this required an entire other layer of thinking to make existence on the moon real?

• 2:58Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, I mean, so, this time it wasn't just like a Flags and Footprints mission like the Martian was. I wanted to make, um, a story about humanity's first non-Earth city. And so, the first thing I had to figure out was, why would anybody build a city somewhere other than Earth? I needed an economic reason for that to happen.

• 3:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let's start there.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 3:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why?

• 3:19Speaker 02

  Tourism.

• 3:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tourism, very good.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 3:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very good. I'll go!

• 3:22Speaker 02

  But it's, uh, yeah-

• 3:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would save, I, I did my own personal math on this. I would save five years, maybe ten years of vacation money, to spend on one vacation on the moon.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  Oh, is that, that's your, that's your threshold?

• 3:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's my sort of equation there.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  Well, um, I did a-

• 3:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you can't get it that cheap, just forget it.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  Oh, well, okay then. Well, um, I did, uh, I did my own math, um, on, um, on what I think the, the commercial space industry might get to in terms of efficiency.

• 3:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By when?

• 3:53Speaker 02

  Uh, well, uh, Artemis takes place in the 2080s.

• 3:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  2080s, okay. That's like, almost in reach.

• 3:59Speaker 02

  Almost in reach.

• 4:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  2080s.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Probably, I won't see it.

• 4:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But people alive today will.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, some people will.

• 4:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you might see it if we do a little, you know, genetic thing.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, CRISPR, yeah.

• 4:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Well, here's the aging gene. Swap that out.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  I don't know why we didn't do that earlier. No, it's based on the presumption that the commercial space industry would become as efficient in terms of fuel to overhead ratio as the commercial airline industry. And I wrote a whole article on that, which is actually coming out in Business Insider. Yeah, and I wrote this whole kind of, you know, very amateurish economic analysis, but, you know, I'm not getting investors, I'm just writing fiction, so it just has to make enough sense for that.

• 4:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What is the cost to send a person to the moon in your 2080?

• 4:46Speaker 02

  Uh, well, if you wanted to go to the moon for two weeks, which includes a week travel time there and a week travel time back.

• 4:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Week?

• 4:52Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 4:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's three days. What are you talking about?

• 4:54Speaker 02

  Well, if you go the Apollo route, but if you use a lunar cycler.

• 4:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay, so this will save energy?

• 4:59Speaker 02

  A lot, yeah.

• 5:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  So your lunar cycler is much better.

• 5:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Apollo is just, let's go straight there.

• 5:03Speaker 02

  Let's go straight there.

• 5:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, but the lunar cycler, I use the up, huff, crouch, uh, cycler that those guys defined, I want to say in the eighties.

• 5:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Those guys?

• 5:13Speaker 02

  Up, huff, and crouch.

• 5:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 5:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 5:18Speaker 02

  And I was really excited.

• 5:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These weren't just syllables spilling out of your mouth?

• 5:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, these aren't just random noises.

• 5:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The names of two people.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, they're the names of two people. Unfortunately, I've forgotten their first names, so I can't give them fully the credit they deserve. But, um, uh, it's a paper I found that describes a lunar cycler. Anyway, uh, grand total, you would spend about $70,000 in $2015 to be able to go to the moon.

• 5:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you could easily, if you wanted to, create a lottery that you can send people all the time?

• 5:48Speaker 02

  Sure. Or, um, I think a lot of people would get a second mortgage on their home to be able to spend two weeks on the moon.

• 5:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, everyone's home is worth more than $70,000 now, so you could easily pull that out of the value of your house.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Possibly, yeah. Or there could be financing, I don't know.

• 6:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not everyone, but I mean...

• 6:03Speaker 02

  But it's not, yeah, it's not like...

• 6:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Most people who own homes, their homes are worth more than $70,000.

• 6:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, but it's not like, it's not like going to France. It's considerably more expensive, you know, something like that. And these are all in $2015, by the way, because that's when I did all the economic stuff.

• 6:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Okay, so that's the money part.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, and how about the, the food part? How did you solve that?

• 6:25Speaker 02

  Well, um, of course...

• 6:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  First, let me say in advance... I was at one of your launches. At Comic Con New York. And they had this green powder. That was offered me. They said, oh, this is what Andy invented for his book. I said, isn't his book fiction? They said, yeah, but this is real. Isn't his book fiction? So it was some kind of powdered algae. And just to show you how much I love you and how much I trust you, I ate it.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I saw that. I saw the video.

• 6:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was real. It was real. I said, all right, Andy, he doesn't want me dead. I don't think, yet.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  It's, uh, it's, the name of the algae is chlorella. Uh, not to be confused with cholera. You don't wanna, you don't wanna eat cholera.

• 7:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chlorella, that sounds like a hair color. Claro hair color.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  Chlorella. It sounds like a brand.

• 7:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yes.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  Um, it's chlorella, uh, and the reason they.

• 7:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was it actively alive when I ate it?

• 7:21Speaker 02

  No, it was way dead by that time.

• 7:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Way dead.

• 7:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was a powder. It was dead.

• 7:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, it's not, it, it, it lives in, it lives in the ocean. It lives in, completely surrounded by water.

• 7:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 7:31Speaker 02

  And the way you guys ate it is actually, I watched, I watched you and LeVar Burton eating it. That was awesome.

• 7:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Both of us were on location.

• 7:38Speaker 02

  You're both like, oh. Um, well, yeah, uh, the way people in Artemis eat it is they add a little bit of water. So it's more like an oatmeal.

• 7:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your people didn't tell me this.

• 7:46Speaker 02

  Yes, they did not.

• 7:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I looked at it and I said, who eats powder?

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Surely there's some water you would have to add to this. Well, this is how they did it on the moon. So I said, all right, let me play along.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  Yes. Well, also they add flavorant. The idea is that, so, uh, chlorella algae, algae in general, of course, it reproduces by, with doubling times. So you can, in a fairly small volume, grow a lot of calories of food, as long as you've got the energy. And the energy's not a problem. Artemis has reactors. You're good. But, um.

• 8:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wouldn't all life have doubling times?

• 8:18Speaker 02

  Uh, that's true. That's true.

• 8:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you have an open ecosystem for it, yeah.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  Yes, but the doubling time of wheat is a little slower than you'd like. Uh, is, and, uh, it takes a lot of like surface area and volume to grow. Um, so that's what kind of the poor people eat. That plus.

• 8:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The algae.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, the algae. That plus flavorants, like artificial flavors that you import from Earth, which are fairly cheap because that it doesn't weigh a lot to bring like a, a thing of extract up. Um, if you're rich.

• 8:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like vanilla extract in at home.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's in your cabinet for years.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  You need like three drops to make a batch of cookies.

• 8:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, but then, uh, if you're a little wealthier, or if you're poor, but wanna go out for a good meal, then you eat food that's been imported from Earth.

• 9:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  And that's good old fashioned food, although of course it's not gonna be fresh.

• 9:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This reminds me of, uh, the early days when transportation, international transportation was expensive. Because, uh, we're old enough to remember a time when if you had something imported, you would tell people that.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  This is my imported.

• 9:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, this is imported cheese. This is imported wine.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  This is rich, real Corinthian leather.

• 9:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Corinthia. So, so it was imported. That was a, a mark of, uh, exclusivity. Now so much goods and services, goods are transported across the ocean.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 9:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, it's not a, it's not a, a point of pride anymore. It just is.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  It just is. And, uh, in terms of expense, it's, I mean.

• 9:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, in fact, I remember in grocery stores, there'd be the imported section.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 9:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. This is where you get imported goods. You go there for that.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  For the goods.

• 9:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, yeah.

• 9:57Speaker 02

  Now it's like, what is it? Um, I forget, I forget what it is. It's like something like, uh,

• 10:03Speaker 02

  they, they'll, they'll go lobster fishing in the ocean, like, uh, uh, off the east coast. They'll go lobster fishing. They'll send the lobsters to China for processing and then they'll have them sent back. Because that's cheaper than doing the processing here. It's insane how cheap it is.

• 10:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's just the economics of it.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Determines the, the pathways.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  Not so much on the moon.

• 10:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of consumption. Okay, so algae, so it's either algae, which you can grow just by sunlight.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  Right, well, they, they don't use sunlight. They use artificial light. Everything is like super, they, they have these algae vats that they.

• 10:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But where are they getting energy?

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Uh, from nuclear reactors ultimately. The whole city is powered by two nuclear reactors.

• 10:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this is helium three.

• 10:45Speaker 02

  Uh, no, not fusion reactors.

• 10:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Three's on the, in the moon.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  Okay, well, gold's in the ocean. Go get it.

• 10:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. This is, all right, my, it's 2080.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true.

• 10:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go figure it out.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  Go figure it out. Go figure it out.

• 10:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there, snap.

• 11:00Speaker 02

  Snap, snap, snap. Oh, just one snap. Not a Z snap. Not, okay. Um, yeah, no, uh, I didn't, uh, want to invent any brand new technology for the story. Everything's based on existing technology. And so the reactors they have are good old fashioned, uh, fission reactors.

• 11:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Where are you getting your uranium?

• 11:19Speaker 02

  Uh, you get that from Earth. But once again, not that, not that heavy. It's, they are.

• 11:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For what they, for what it does. Uranium is actually very heavy.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  Well, yes, it's quite dense.

• 11:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  With all those 92 protons going on. But, um, but it's, uh, but for.

• 11:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uranium, by the way, named after the planet Uranus.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  It is, it is. Uh, but what's Neptunium named after?

• 11:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm. And plutonium.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  Plutonium also.

• 11:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plutonium.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  Plutonium isn't even named after a planet, right?

• 11:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right. It got honored on false pretense.

• 11:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't get me started.

• 11:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, all right, so is it just vaca- who's, does anyone stay there permanently?

• 11:59Speaker 02

  Yes. Uh, well, Artemis's internal economy.

• 12:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Artemis is the name of the colony.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, uh, yes, the city.

• 12:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The city, okay.

• 12:06Speaker 02

  Um, it's.

• 12:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Population?

• 12:07Speaker 02

  Its population is about 2,000 people, not including tourists. And its main income is tourism. It's about 40 kilometers from.

• 12:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we know that that's a thing.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  That's a thing.

• 12:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cities that do that today.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  Yes, absolutely. And I.

• 12:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Roswell, New Mexico.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  Well, that's one option. Or a Caribbean resort town is another example. And I based Artemis's economy, kind of, uh, the internal workings after like resort towns in the Caribbean. So you've got the really nice affluent areas for the tourists. And then the, shall we say, more austere conditions where the.

• 12:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The working class people who sustain the, the enterprise.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. And those are the people, those are like immigrants. It's, it's similar to like America in the early 1800s where, hey, if you can, if you can get here, you can, you're welcome. Yeah, you, you're welcome to make a life here. If you can just, if you can get.

• 12:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So how does a poor person get to the moon if it takes $70,000?

• 12:57Speaker 02

  Well, that's, uh, if you're going to immigrate to the moon.

• 13:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  immigrant program, I guess.

• 13:02Speaker 02

  No, there's no, there is not.

• 13:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Guest worker program.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  No, nothing like that. There's no, there's no policies even. It's just like. It's kind of self-regulated by whether or not people can get there. Um, it's the same as an immigrant's tale, you know, back in the days of like the new world, which is where, okay, I'm a, you know, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a welder and I want to go work in Artemis.

• 13:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So your family saves up the money for you to go?

• 13:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm selling my house, I'm selling my shop.

• 13:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you land with $10 in your pocket?

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you make?

• 13:32Speaker 02

  And then I'm gonna, yeah, and I'm gonna start my shop here. One-way trip makes it a little cheaper, you know?

• 13:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, how are they breathing?

• 13:42Speaker 02

  Uh, well, you know, you, your, your diaphragm goes down and it expands your rib cage. No, uh, so the oxygen is actually, it, there are lots of ways of managing oxygen in an atmosphere, but the way things work out in Artemis is they have a thriving aluminum smelting industry because they're constantly growing and they're constantly making aluminum. And they refine the aluminum from a mineral called anorthite, which is the most common mineral found on the moon. About 85% of the rocks in the lunar highland are just anorthite. You can just scoop them right up off the ground because there's no pesky dirt in the way. You don't have to mine, you just go get it. And anorthite is made of aluminum, silicon, calcium, and oxygen. And the amount of, it's an enormous amount of oxygen.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  It's like AL2 and then blah, blah, blah, O8.

• 14:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's, oxygen is a waste product of making?

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of, of extracting aluminum from this molecule?

• 14:35Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From this mineral?

• 14:36Speaker 02

  From this mineral. And the moon is awesome. It's made of, it's made of disassembled moon bases. It's just some assembly required.

• 14:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 14:43Speaker 02

  It's, it's made of, anorthite is aluminum to make your moon base and oxygen to fill it.

• 14:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice, and so now we got oxygen.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and so we have food imported or?

• 14:54Speaker 02

  Imported or locally grown.

• 14:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On location with energy.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  Locally sourced.

• 14:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, energy from?

• 14:58Speaker 02

  Cage-free algae.

• 15:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Free range algae.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Free range algae.

• 15:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's?

• 15:03Speaker 02

  I think that's just called, you know?

• 15:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Algae.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  Algae.

• 15:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so you've got you've got food, imported or otherwise, you've got energy, you've got oxygen.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 15:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, what is the governance?

• 15:19Speaker 02

  Uh, the governance is practically nil. So it, um, in terms of societies, it's very similar to a frontier town in the eighteen hundreds kind of thing in in the US during the westward expansion. Um, there is like one lawman who works there. His name is Rudy. He's a former member of the RMCP, uh, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. But now

• 15:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which makes him polite.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  Eh, he's not that polite.

• 15:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's Canadian, come on now.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  He's got that inherent

• 15:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't make a mean Canadian.

• 15:47Speaker 02

  He's got the inherent Canadian-osity.

• 15:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No one will read the book if you have a mean Canadian.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  He has a no BS attitude, let's say that.

• 15:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 15:54Speaker 02

  Um, and but for the most part, it's just, um, social norms or how the rules are enforced. When you have a small society like that, that's a frontier. They don't have the resources to have like a large standing police force or a bunch of rules. Um, as they grow, they would almost certainly develop that.

• 16:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in the series, the book in the series Walking Dead.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 16:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What has sustained it for so long is the thought the author and the producers have put into the interpersonal dynamics

• 16:25Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 16:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  that unfold in the presence of this threat.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  Of this complete collapse of society.

• 16:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Complete collapse of society. Who's in charge of resources, who has distribution, who gets weird?

• 16:37Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 16:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who gets power hungry, who gets submissive? And so, uh, uh, do you explore this? This human dynamic?

• 16:46Speaker 02

  Somewhat. I mean, basically, you're always gonna have greed, right? You're always gonna have, um, people trying to work to their best advantage and and taking advantage of whatever weaknesses there are in the system. And Artemis

• 17:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or of other people.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  Or of other people.

• 17:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  And in Artemis, the case is that since it's so unregulated, a, you know, something you might even call like a libertarian paradise, it comes with those disadvantages. In other words, there's the, so our, our, our heroine is hired to do industrial espionage because who's gonna stop you? And, um, also, uh, organized crime likes to use Artemis as a means of laundering money. Because Artemis has its own currency called slugs, uh, which stands for soft landed grams. Um, and, and it's this-

• 17:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Soft landed grams.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  Yes. Uh, it's, it's a reserve currency in a way.

• 17:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it's a great slug is a great word anyway.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  Thanks. Yeah. Um, and, um, so one slug can be redeemed for one gram of cargo transported from Earth to Artemis.

• 17:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:52Speaker 02

  So, if you wanna, if you wanna get a kilogram over from Earth, that'll cost exactly 1,000 slugs.

• 17:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  And so on. And so, but they also end up using that as a currency. And because it's this really completely unregulated, largely untracked currency, organized crime loves to come in and use it to launder money.

• 18:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so if I build a ship, I basically have manufactured some of your currency?

• 18:16Speaker 02

  Uh, if you, if you, if you can transport goods-

• 18:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  Well, yes and no.

• 18:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's, and that's, actually, that's kinda fair because it increases the value of, you don't wanna print money if what it represents has not increased in value.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  Right. Well, think of it as being more like, if you might, i-if you go back to, uh, the days of the gold standard, if you pull some gold out of the ground-

• 18:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Way back.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  You have created money.

• 18:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the day.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  Way back in the day.

• 18:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I still have a gold certificate.

• 18:44Speaker 02

  Oh, dude?

• 18:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. It's what it said. Now it says Federal Reserve note.

• 18:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In that slot, it said silver certificate, gold certificate.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know if I can still cash it in, but-

• 18:52Speaker 02

  Uh, I think you can, actually, by law.

• 18:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah? I can just go to Fort Knox and say, "Give me my..."

• 18:56Speaker 02

  Well, but they'll give you, what, what is it, a $1 bill?

• 18:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's a $1 bill.

• 19:00Speaker 02

  They'll give you $1 today's money in gold, so-

• 19:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 19:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  There you go. It's like, fleek.

• 19:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, so, so, uh, so how fast is this gonna become a movie?

• 19:14Speaker 02

  Uh, well, I'd love it to become a movie right away.

• 19:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  But, uh, I, as a writer, I mean, your only job on a film is to cash the check.

• 19:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  And, um, I've already done that, so-

• 19:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  However, however.

• 19:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If your book is so popular.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 19:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then there's public pressure on how much latitude the filmmakers can take from them.

• 19:37Speaker 02

  Some.

• 19:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like in the Harry Potter series.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  Yes, uh, I'm not J.K. Rowling.

• 19:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't, you can't mess with the characters but so much.

• 19:44Speaker 02

  Eee, that's true.

• 19:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Otherwise, people be all up in your business.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  They would be all up in the business, but you've gotta be, I, I, I think you've gotta be a bit bigger than I am to, to have that.

• 19:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To have those, that muscle.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  To have that muscle. I think you gotta be J.K. Rowling or Stephen King. Uh, I'm, I'm, I'm quite a few steps.

• 20:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Stephen King now co-writes the.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, right.

• 20:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The screenplay.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he's in it.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  He's in it, he's in it.

• 20:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did they, did they, uh, uh, keep you out of that room? The screenplay room?

• 20:11Speaker 02

  Well, there's still, they haven't even, uh, made the screenplay.

• 20:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Will they keep you out of the screenplay room?

• 20:15Speaker 02

  Uh, I don't know.

• 20:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did they keep you out of the screenplay room for The Martian?

• 20:18Speaker 02

  No, actually. They, uh, they consulted me a lot pretty much every day. Drew Goddard, who wrote the marvelous screenplay, uh, for The Martian, was calling me and asking me stuff, usually technical questions.

• 20:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good, good. Very good. So, uh, remind me, who, who produced The Martian?

• 20:33Speaker 02

  Uh, that was Twentieth Century Fox. It was produced by Simon Kinver Productions and Scott Free. And it, it's always an alphabet soup of, of companies, but Fox, right? And they have now also bought the, the same group has bought, uh, the rights to Artemis.

• 20:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  And they have, uh, the directing duo of, uh, Chris Miller and Phil Lord lined up to direct. So, the next step is they're gonna get a.

• 20:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like you couldn't keep.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  Couldn't keep Ridley?

• 20:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Couldn't keep Ridley.

• 21:00Speaker 02

  Couldn't keep Ridley? I don't know.

• 21:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, Ridley. We're on a first-name basis with him now.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  That's a weird thing about Hollywood, as I'm sure you've noticed, is that everybody's just talks, calls everybody by their first name.

• 21:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  And it just seems weird. I, I mean, Matt Damon, they're like, "Yeah, yeah, hi, Matt." You know, it's just like.

• 21:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you need the Damon.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's no Matt without a Damon. You need the Matt Damon.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  I don't know, I don't know. It's weird. But, uh, but yeah, uh, so we've got Lord and Miller lined up to direct and, uh, they are right now, I think, uh, picking a screenplay writer to do the adaptation.

• 21:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. And again, forgive me for not having read the book before this interview.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 21:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why my question is so.

• 21:34Speaker 02

  No, I, I see how it is.

• 21:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  No, no, that's, that's.

• 21:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I'm, I'm deeply intrigued.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  That's not, that's not, that's very hurtful, Neil.

• 21:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It, no, no, no, no, no, no. You have the wrong attitude. It is, I'm the only honest person.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  You're the only honest person.

• 21:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To tell you that in all of your interviews, you say?

• 21:48Speaker 02

  Literally no one else. Like, "I read your book, I loved it. So tell me about it. It takes place on the, where? The moon?"

• 21:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So a day lasts a month on the moon.

• 22:00Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 22:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So how does that work in the in the biocycles of people?

• 22:03Speaker 02

  Well, Artemis doesn't get any natural light onto the inside, except for one little part of it called Aldrin Park. It actually has.

• 22:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so you're underground?

• 22:11Speaker 02

  Uh, no, they're in spheres, uh, which they call bubbles that are, um, well, one of them's 100 meters across and all the others are 200 meters across in diameter. They're spheres and they're half underground, half above ground.

• 22:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is a geometrically literate audience, so when you say it's a sphere 100 meters across.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't have to say then in diameter.

• 22:31Speaker 02

  In diameter. Well, I just wanted to, I just need to draw the distinction between radius and diameter. You know, I just, I don't want to be making, I don't want to be.

• 22:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got you, we're here.

• 22:40Speaker 02

  A false impression.

• 22:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're, so, so, so these are hab domes, basically.

• 22:45Speaker 02

  They're, they're, well, they're, they're, they're spheres. They're not domes, you know, a dome is a hemisphere.

• 22:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  I, I mean, your, your, your, your literate utterance would, would know this.

• 22:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Literate odd.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Oderance.

• 22:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So tell me about the one sixth.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  I'm more of a writer, not a speaker. Yeah, well, just.

• 23:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tell me about the one sixth gravity.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Just to, to finish up, um, on the previous question, they're made of aluminum. They have, uh, the holes are six centimeters of aluminum, followed by a full meter of crushed lunar rock, followed by another six centimeters of aluminum.

• 23:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so this protects you from radiation?

• 23:17Speaker 02

  Radiation. Yeah, so there's no sunlight getting to you. Everything's artificial and it's based on Kenya time, uh, is what they do for the, uh, their scheduling and time of day.

• 23:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kenya.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  Kenya, well, Kenya.

• 23:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As in Africa.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  Kenya as in Africa, yes. Uh, Kenya is where the Kenya Space Corporation, which actually owns Artemis, is based, and that's where they do all their launches from.

• 23:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, remind me of the, the Earth latitude of Kenya?

• 23:43Speaker 02

  Uh, latitude? Zero.

• 23:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so very nice.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  Yes, that's, that's part of, they.

• 23:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice pickings there.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  Kenya, Kenya had two things to offer the, uh, the global space community when, my fictional Kenya had two things to offer. Number one, the equator.

• 23:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The real Kenya would do that if it's actually on the equator.

• 24:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wouldn't have to be fictional for that.

• 24:01Speaker 02

  Wouldn't have to be fictional, but the other thing they did is they set all of their policies to be as friendly as possible for space travel. They said, we'll give you a launch license, you don't follow these stupid rules that the other countries make you follow, we'll make special tax breaks for you, you don't, you can go ahead and bust unions, we don't care. I mean, this is not, this is not, you know, it's not kindergarten. It's like they did everything they could to draw.

• 24:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They earned the privilege.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  They, they, they successfully drew in the global space.

• 24:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Investment.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, not just investment, but actual, you know, companies relocate there. They may be still be owned by Belgium consortiums or whatever else, but it's centered in Kenya.

• 24:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So being on the equator, you get the benefit of the high-speed movement of the equator in Earth's rotation going into orbit, Earth orbit. So these missions to the moon first go into Earth orbit and then they leave?

• 24:55Speaker 02

  Well, you have to first go into LEO and then you'll have to transfer.

• 24:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Low Earth orbit. Leo.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  I thought we agreed that this.

• 25:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'd never heard anyone say LEO before.

• 25:05Speaker 02

  LEO?

• 25:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  Really?

• 25:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Leo.

• 25:07Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 25:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Leo, Geo.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 25:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mio.

• 25:09Speaker 02

  Leo, Geo, Mio.

• 25:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  Hmm, Mio.

• 25:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, middle Earth orbit.

• 25:13Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 25:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not the middle of the Earth.

• 25:15Speaker 02

  Middle Earth orbit, so you're like orbiting Sauron?

• 25:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, exactly.

• 25:19Speaker 02

  Okay, good enough. Um, so, um, you go into Leo and then you, you'll take a transfer, you need to catch up with the lunar cycler.

• 25:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There, there you go.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, because lunar cyclers are, uh, the, the cycler just goes back and forth between, it's actually way more complicated, but ultimately it comes near Earth and near the moon at regular intervals and you do have to accelerate the people to catch up with the cycler, but you, at least you don't need to accelerate the cycler anymore. So you can have this big, comfortable, basically, space hotel that only ever needed to be put in that orbit once. And then, so you have a nice luxurious cruise.

• 25:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And once you catch up with it, you're just on a moving vessel.

• 26:02Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 26:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As it is, yeah.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  And then you also need to be, you also need to then be decelerated or accelerated, depends on your frame of reference, to be able to go then land on the moon when the time comes.

• 26:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So tell me about the 1/6 gravity, how's that working for people?

• 26:16Speaker 02

  Uh, works great. 1/6 gravity, Artemis is all set up for that. First off, it makes construction a lot simpler, because you don't need nearly as much load bearing, you don't, you don't need as much load bearing on the individual floors within the, within the bubbles. The people who live there are very good at moving around in 1/6G. Tourists are generally not as good. Surely you've seen the, the videos from, from the Apollo missions where they're kind of stumbling around. Of course, tourists in Artemis aren't wearing bulky space suits, so they have that going for them. Stairs, like stairs can be about half a meter high, because it's that easy to go up a riser.

• 27:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, uh, this sounds like an ideal place to invent new sports.

• 27:08Speaker 02

  Could be, could be. Space is limited, but there is, uh...

• 27:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excuse me, space is never limited.

• 27:14Speaker 02

  Space is not limited.

• 27:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Space on your frickin' colonies.

• 27:17Speaker 02

  Yes, that's true. I'm sorry. My colony.

• 27:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  Space inside of Artemis.

• 27:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 27:23Speaker 02

  Habitable volume is limited. However, there is one of the bubbles, the bubbles are named after the Apollo astronauts, and Aldrin Bubble has the top four floors of it are just called Aldrin Park. And the, it's all glass on top instead of the other, instead of the other kind of hole that I was describing. And that's all locally sourced glass, because one of the other things that anorthite gives you is silicon. And so it gives you a bunch of silicon and a bunch of oxygen. Mix those together, you get glass.

• 27:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 27:50Speaker 02

  Yes. And so they have that, and so there's a big park there. Theoretically, you could play some games there.

• 27:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So...

• 27:57Speaker 02

  Frisbee's, Frisbee's a challenge.

• 27:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why?

• 28:00Speaker 02

  Uh, well, you've got two things that are kind of working against you, well, working for or against. First off, 1/6 gravity, so it's not gonna go exactly the way you expect, right?

• 28:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'd be true for any, pretty much anything.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  Pretty much anything. But second off, the air is only 21% of Earth's atmospheric pressure.

• 28:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why?

• 28:16Speaker 02

  Because it's a pure oxygen environment.

• 28:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, alright, so you need just the right amount of oxygen.

• 28:20Speaker 02

  Just the right amount of oxygen, because why, why over-design? Why, why go out of your way to make... To make it so much harder on the pressure vessels.

• 28:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, this makes... so I guess you've done the math on this. If it is 1/5 air pressure here, even if it's 100% oxygen, things should not be more flammable.

• 28:41Speaker 02

  They're the exact same amount of flammable.

• 28:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it's the same density of oxygen.

• 28:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Same partial pressure of oxygen at Earth sea level. So, humans would be perfectly comfortable breathing and stuff like that. However, it does cause a few other little problems.

• 28:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like?

• 28:56Speaker 02

  Uh, like water boils at 61 degrees Celsius, which means coffee tastes like crap.

• 29:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mmm.

• 29:01Speaker 02

  Because it can't properly brew or steep.

• 29:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you need to boil coffee in a pressure cooker?

• 29:07Speaker 02

  You could make it in a pressure cooker, or you could go cold brew.

• 29:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, that's a thing.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  That's a thing.

• 29:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People pay top dollar for that on Earth.

• 29:12Speaker 02

  People pay... yeah, but Earth people are really stupid, and you know this.

• 29:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so this is a science fiction movie that takes place in the future, in space. Alright, and the only thing that every science fiction movie ever produced in the history of the universe has in common with one another, with each other, is that people go into space and then something goes wrong.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 29:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. That's, that's the plot of every single science fiction movie.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  Okay, fair enough.

• 30:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In space.

• 30:02Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 30:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Something goes wrong.

• 30:04Speaker 02

  Something goes wrong.

• 30:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what goes wrong?

• 30:05Speaker 02

  Uh, well, this is more of a problem having to do with people in that the heist that our hero Jazz gets hired to do doesn't go right, and she angers some, some pretty powerful and very dangerous people that she was not aware were associated with the company that she was sabotaging.

• 30:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so this is a, this is a, this is a...

• 30:30Speaker 02

  It's a crime novel.

• 30:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Crime...

• 30:32Speaker 02

  It is, it absolutely is. It's a heist story.

• 30:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A heist crime novel that happens to be on the moon.

• 30:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 30:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got you, got you. So what's the coolest thing to look for in the book? No, I may ask that differently. What's the most inventive thing you came up with for this book?

• 30:48Speaker 02

  Most inventive?

• 30:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because in The Martian, you know, poop potatoes, that was good.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  Potatoes?

• 30:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was good. That was a good one.

• 30:57Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 30:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Coming up with that.

• 30:58Speaker 02

  You're gonna get, we're gonna get that one.

• 30:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, that was good.

• 31:00Speaker 02

  That's not getting cut? Okay, um, so, uh, boy, well, there is a twist at, uh, toward the end of the book, which you would know if you'd read it, you know, um, where, uh, so...

• 31:14Speaker 02

  Some, uh...

• 31:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm sorry, the universe is like a big place and I, you know, can't read everything at all times.

• 31:19Speaker 02

  Grant, you know, broadly speaking, Neil, you spend your whole life in a very, very small part of that universe, right?

• 31:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's true.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  I mean...

• 31:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But the rest of the universe calls to me.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  Oh, does it?

• 31:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're, you're a cog in that turning universe.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  Hey, if you take a cog out of any machine, the machine stops working. I'm just saying.

• 31:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, you can break it some cogs.

• 31:37Speaker 02

  You can break some cogs, you have redundant cogs. That's good, that's good. Um, no, there is a, there, there is a thing at the end that I don't want to give, uh, too much away on because of spoilers, but there's some, shall we say, unexpected chemistry that happens at the end that causes a real problem. And I'm kind of proud for having, uh, come up with that. I'll tell you about it after we, uh, after, after we're done taping.

• 32:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  Or maybe I won't, maybe, maybe, maybe you should read it.

• 32:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, is there, is there dairy or farm animals or this sort of thing?

• 32:14Speaker 02

  Oh, no, there's nothing like that. I mean...

• 32:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's a complete plant-based life?

• 32:18Speaker 02

  Uh, well...

• 32:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plant-based diet?

• 32:19Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, if you're talking about locally made stuff, then yeah. Anything that's imported from Earth, uh, well, it would have to be something that can be frozen or freeze-dried or something like that. It's a seven-day trip.

• 32:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 32:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's a seven-day trip. So like, fresh meat would be challenging, right? But... Like frozen meat, frozen chicken, you know, eggs can last seven days, sure.

• 32:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fruits and vegetables?

• 32:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can get those?

• 32:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can get those. And some people would grow them themselves in very small quantities, but not at a scale for everyone to eat. It would be a luxury item. And you can forget about like, uh, fruit tree fruit, at least not local stuff.

• 32:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, for me, the allure of going to the moon would be frolicking on the landscape.

• 33:01Speaker 02

  Okay, well, you get to do that.

• 33:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As, as an excursion.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  Yes, absolutely. So, um, you can go, uh, for these excursions, they're EVA masters. Basically, um, going out onto the surface of the moon is-

• 33:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to be clear, EVA?

• 33:16Speaker 02

  Uh.

• 33:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is NASA's multi-syllable-

• 33:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 33:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh. That's, uh, spacewalks, basically. Extra vehicular activity.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  Moonwalks.

• 33:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, moonwalks.

• 33:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, moonwalks, not the Michael Jackson kind, but yeah. Um, and you can, you can do this, uh, in a similar way that you can go diving when you're on vacation in a nice ocean place where you have an EVA master who's out there kind of keeping track of you and maybe eight other people. And, but he or she will be wearing like the big complicated suit with articulated finger, everything kind of like you imagine Apollo, an Apollo suit, but a little more advanced. You will be in what they call a hamster ball. It's basically just a big, clear, inflatable, uh, you know, airtight ball that's strong enough that if you roll it over a rock, it won't pop or anything. And you're inside and you wear a backpack that they call a scurry pack and it, uh, regulates

• 34:11Speaker 02

  all the air on the inside. And you're limited to about two hours on any given EVA because, I did the math on this, that's about as much heat rejection that you can handle by having a big block of ice in a backpack. So, basically-

• 34:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you, you ran the thermodynamics on this?

• 34:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very nice.

• 34:30Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 34:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we, we must, we should remind ourselves of your academic pedigree.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  I have no degree. That's my academic pedigree. You are Dr. Tyson, I am high school graduate Andy.

• 34:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, no, so, then let us not call it academic, but let's call it, um, uh, let's call it academic passions.

• 34:52Speaker 02

  Ah, yeah.

• 34:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, that would include, um, science and engineering.

• 34:55Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, big time. I love that stuff.

• 34:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go. There you go.

• 34:58Speaker 02

  But I'm a, I'm what you call a gentleman scientist, not an educated one.

• 35:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I have told people that the highest compliment I've ever gotten from anyone at any time was from you. When you said that you were writing The Martian, putting down, you know, laying down some science to track, and you imagined I was looking over your shoulder.

• 35:23Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. What if Maldegrass Tyson reads it?

• 35:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On the brink of tweeting about some mess up in your book. And you didn't want that.

• 35:31Speaker 02

  I didn't want that.

• 35:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You didn't want that. So, is that, am I still there?

• 35:37Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Am I still there on your shoulder?

• 35:39Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. No, no, you're still there. You're still there on my shoulder. In fact, Artemis is even more scientifically accurate than The Martian. The Martian projected forward some technologies like ion propulsion, and I completely ignored the effects of radiation. I just made this magical hab material that would stop radiation. I offered no explanation. In Artemis, I didn't even do that. I said like, alright, you know, Artemis has the whole thickness to protect people from radiation. When you go out on an EVA, I calculated, let's say you're a tourist and you go out on an EVA in one of those hamster balls, you don't have a bunch of like, protection from a traditional EVA suit. How much radiation do you get?

• 36:24Speaker 02

  Turns out, over a two-hour EVA during the lunar daytime, you would get about the same amount of radiation as getting a set of dental x-rays. So, that's fine.

• 36:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the measure.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  But I checked. And the reason I checked is because I knew you'd check.

• 36:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, you know, I get misunderstood in many of my... I'm there to just enhance people's appreciation of the book, or of the movie. And I get characterized as a buzzkill.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  No.

• 36:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I'm really just keeping everybody...

• 36:56Speaker 02

  Keeping them honest.

• 36:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just keeping it...

• 36:58Speaker 02

  And I'm not... See, I guess I'm in some, I don't know if I'm in a minority or whatever, I'm in the opposite camp. I love... I love that. I love what other people apparently consider a buzzkill. I'm like, yeah, you tell them, Neil. Because it drives me crazy. Like, what really bugs me in a story isn't so much physics inaccuracies. I can accept a warp drive. You know, I got no problem with that. You know, for suspension of disbelief, no problem. What bothers me is inconsistencies. So if you can go faster than light, I remember there was one episode of Star Trek where they're in the, you know, classic Trek, they're in the Enterprise, right? It can go warp, I forget what classic Trek Enterprise could go warp.

• 37:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ten-ish, at least ten.

• 37:39Speaker 02

  Nine, something like that. But then, at one point, they're like, okay, we need to get from Mercury to Earth. And it like, took them a while. And I'm like, wait a minute. Okay, no. Mercury is like, seven light minutes from Earth, and you're going many, many times the speed of light. It's not gonna take you a while.

• 37:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, that one, that slipped by.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There was the other episode where they wanted to magnify the sound of people's heartbeats to find out where the alien was in the spacecraft. And was it Spock or Kirk? Said, "This device magnifies the sound by one to the 12th power."

• 38:16Speaker 02

  One to the 12th power?

• 38:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 38:18Speaker 02

  Excellent.

• 38:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, one times one times one times one.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  All the way to 12. Yeah.

• 38:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then I thought, okay, they just misread it. And then, there's a similar error in another episode.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where it was like, one to the ninth power. So somebody just didn't remember.

• 38:30Speaker 02

  Just doesn't get that. Yeah. Well, I remember in a book, now that's not fair bagging on Star Trek books, because there's so many, but I remember one of the Star Trek books, Kirk says, "Scotty, I want every om of power to the shields."

• 38:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Om of power, ooh.

• 38:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, so to which I imagine Scotty saying, "Well, he wants maximum resistance, so I guess I'll just turn him off."

• 38:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me get astronomical on you, see if you thought about it, okay? Moon, of course, looks the way it does because it doesn't have an atmosphere to protect it from meteoroids.

• 38:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 38:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do you protect yourself from meteoroids, especially during meteor showers?

• 39:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you think about that?

• 39:04Speaker 02

  I did.

• 39:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 39:05Speaker 02

  And the odds of any, uh, object hitting something the size of Artemis are literally astronomically low.

• 39:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, good.

• 39:12Speaker 02

  And it would have to be going, and even if it did, if you're talking about like a micrometeorite, something like that, uh, even if it did, it would have to be going very, very fast, like, uh, maybe fifty, you know, kilometers a second kind of thing to make it all the way through both holes and the sand.

• 39:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, good answer, good answer. Couple more. Uh, are there occasions where people get to see total solar eclipses down on Earth?

• 39:35Speaker 02

  Uh, yes, absolutely. Uh, literally every time there's a total solar eclipse will be during a full Earth.

• 39:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:43Speaker 02

  Um, and so you, you'd be, you'd be seeing that. Unfortunately, a solar eclipse from space is lame.

• 39:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, it's fuzzy.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  It's just like this little kind of blurry blob. Yeah, it's like, it's not as exciting. Uh, I don't.

• 39:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what, that's what I'm...

• 39:57Speaker 02

  Oh, it doesn't come up in the book?

• 39:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I'm getting at.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm sorry, sorry.

• 40:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm getting astronomical on you.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  No eclipses in the book.

• 40:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No eclipses in the book.

• 40:03Speaker 02

  You said you're getting astronomical, not literary.

• 40:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 40:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh,

• 40:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  full Earth.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On the moon is sixty times brighter than full moon on Earth.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, nice, huh?

• 40:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, did you have any like evening, uh, earthlight walks?

• 40:21Speaker 02

  Uh, the earthlight mattered for, uh, some of the EVAs they took.

• 40:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, good, good.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  But, uh, once again, it only matters when you're outside because inside you get a little light.

• 40:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's sixty times brighter.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  Sixty times. I, I, that I didn't know.

• 40:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See, there's astronomical stuff.

• 40:32Speaker 02

  That's astronomical.

• 40:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm here.

• 40:34Speaker 02

  Well, my favorite thing is that Earth is in a fixed position in the sky.

• 40:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 40:37Speaker 02

  If you, well, there's lunar migrations, so it wobbles, but it's there. And so one of my characters is a devout Muslim. And so he made like a ramp with a prayer rug on it so that he could pray to Mecca because it, since Earth is in a fixed position, that direction is always correct.

• 40:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He never has to change his direction.

• 40:55Speaker 02

  He doesn't have to change direction.

• 40:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, very good. Very good.

• 40:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So dude.

• 41:00Speaker 02

  Dude.

• 41:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Congratulations.

• 41:02Speaker 02

  Thank you, thank you.

• 41:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, uh, so you're on tour now for the book and it's, there's an audible version of it.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 41:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Narrated by?

• 41:09Speaker 02

  The, the lovely and talented Rosario Dawson, whom you met.

• 41:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gosh. Oh yeah, just to hear her read, because in the exhibit that I attended, uh, it was that audible exhibit at, uh, a setup where you got to hear some of the...

• 41:24Speaker 02

  The Lunar Museum.

• 41:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, the Lunar Museum at Comic Con, New York Comic Con. I got to hear some of the passages.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, read by her. It's great.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  She's really fantastic.

• 41:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh man. Oh yeah.

• 41:33Speaker 02

  Couldn't, couldn't ask for a better narrator.

• 41:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very good. Uh, so, uh, cool. And nowadays, since everyone is stuck in traffic, audible versions of books matter.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  Yes. Yes, they do. Yes, they do.

• 41:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, in my latest book, I decided I would narrate that because it was like short enough.

• 41:48Speaker 02

  Well, you've also got, I mean, and I'm not kissing up here, you've got a great voice.

• 41:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't hear my voice. I don't even think about it.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  You've got a really good voice.

• 41:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But here's how I thought about it, because it's not a long book. But so when I said, well, how many days stuck in LA traffic would get through this book? I figured two days.

• 42:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that should be the metric, the new measure of how long a book is.

• 42:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, commute days.

• 42:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Commute, commute days. So, so Andy, congratulations.

• 42:13Speaker 02

  Thank you very much.

• 42:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks for coming through town.

• 42:15Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me.

• 42:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're based where again?

• 42:17Speaker 02

  I am based in California, near San Jose.

• 42:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  San Jose. Okay. Well, thanks for coming, uh, uh, to New York, your first time.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  My first time, my first visit to New York City.

• 42:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to the universe, dude. We'll see you again.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  Thank you.