First Man – Celebrating Neil Armstrong

Neil deGrasse Tyson, comic co-host Chuck Nice, and Astro Mike Massimino celebrate Neil Armstrong and the impact of his career and the legacy of his first steps on the Moon. Featuring interviews with Neil Armstrong and Apollo Flight Director Gene Kranz. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/first-man-celebrating-neil-armstrong/ Photo Credit: © Tyson Archives.

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.

• 0:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk and I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And today, this is a StarTalk devoted to the first man. Adam? No.

• 0:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was Chuck Nice, my co-host of the first man. Special edition of StarTalk. We're of course talking about Neil Armstrong and his first steps on the moon. And we're not gonna do that unless we bring in an astronaut. Wow. And it cool, I got, on my rolodex, I got some astronauts. Wow. And one of my favorites, actually is my favorite, but I don't want to tell you.

• 0:51Mike Massimino?

  Oh, that's nice.

• 0:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mike Massimino, Mike!

• 0:54Mike Massimino?

  Neil.

• 0:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dude, thanks for coming.

• 0:56Mike Massimino?

  Chuck, thanks for having me, I'm so glad I could join you.

• 0:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This was on short notice, we saw each other just the other night.

• 1:00Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 1:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Both, we saw a preview screening of the film First Man, all about Neil Armstrong. And I realize, it's not about Neil Armstrong, it is Neil Armstrong's view.

• 1:11Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 1:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, it's his point of view of the whole.

• 1:14Mike Massimino?

  It's who he was, yeah.

• 1:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who he was.

• 1:15Mike Massimino?

  They captured his personality, what he was about, the way he approached his work.

• 1:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 1:21Mike Massimino?

  It was, I thought it was fantastic.

• 1:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me finish introducing you, so you're a former NASA astronaut.

• 1:26Mike Massimino?

  Yes.

• 1:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're a mechanical engineer. You're Professor Columbia University. And you're a senior space advisor to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.

• 1:35Mike Massimino?

  Thank you for mentioning all those things.

• 1:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 1:37Mike Massimino?

  Always good to see you guys, especially to talk about my boyhood hero, Neil Armstrong.

• 1:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So did you guys know Neil Armstrong? Can I finish? Oh, you're still on this introduction? Sorry. Holy moly! You're a veteran of two space flights. STS, which is NASA code for Space Transportation System.

• 1:54Mike Massimino?

  Correct.

• 1:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, cool. It actually makes sense.

• 1:57Mike Massimino?

  Does it? I thought you could call it Shuttle.

• 2:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Shuttle. Shuttle mission 109. And in 2002, and 125, that was a good one, in May 2009, the last servicing mission of the Hubble telescope, giving it life into the 2010s.

• 2:11Mike Massimino?

  That's right.

• 2:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you had four spacewalks.

• 2:14Mike Massimino?

  Yep.

• 2:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're the, okay. He's the first man unto himself.

• 2:19Mike Massimino?

  Yes, he is.

• 2:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The first man to.

• 2:21Mike Massimino?

  Tweet from space.

• 2:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 2:23Mike Massimino?

  Nice. Take that Neil Armstrong. Yeah.

• 2:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so Neil Armstrong said, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." What were your first tweet from space?

• 2:32Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, that's the problem. There's now, there's a Neil Armstrong story here. Related to it.

• 2:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, go, go, go.

• 2:39Mike Massimino?

  The very first, Neil Armstrong came to speak to my astronaut class. We were there for a total of four days.

• 2:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're still like an astronaut cadet or something?

• 2:46Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, we were just getting like, he was there for, he happened to be in town for his physical. Our training manager reached out to him.

• 2:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In Houston.

• 2:53Mike Massimino?

  Right, at the Johnson Space Center, all new astronauts. And, and she asked him, Paige Molsby was her name, she asked, she went and gave, got a message over to the clinic, would he come speak to us? And he said he would, but he only wanted to speak to the new astronauts. So he came over and talked to us mainly about, uh, flying in the X-15 and we asked him questions.

• 3:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The X-15, the, the, the test, uh, plane from NASA.

• 3:14Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 3:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Based on a military, uh, I mean, it's a, it's a.

• 3:19Mike Massimino?

  It's a rocket plane.

• 3:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A supersonic, a rocket plane, supersonic rocket plane.

• 3:22Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, and it's, it was one of the more, it's, I don't know, maybe the most successful experimental aircraft ever, ever built. They went like Mach 7, a couple of those guys.

• 3:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Seven times the speed of sound.

• 3:31Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, and a couple of those guys earned their astronaut wings.

• 3:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For having done so.

• 3:35Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, that's how high this airplane could go. It could get you to what, you know, space is an arbitrary boundary. That's another story.

• 3:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 3:41Mike Massimino?

  But, uh, but they were able to earn astronaut wings in that.

• 3:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Earth itself is in space.

• 3:46Mike Massimino?

  Yes, it is, yes, it's, that's another story.

• 3:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, I'm on Earth.

• 3:49Mike Massimino?

  I hate to bring this up because then you'll, we'll have a whole nother show going here.

• 3:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 3:53Mike Massimino?

  About the boundary of space, but, but an amazing aircraft. He talked about that and other things and we got to meet him and talk to him. But the day after, we were at a, um, it was like a luncheon going on because there was a reunion as well as him coming in for his physical. And I ended up next to him on the food line, you know, making a sandwich.

• 4:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn, even Neil Armstrong had to go on the chow line.

• 4:11Mike Massimino?

  Wow.

• 4:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Man, that's cold.

• 4:12Mike Massimino?

  That doesn't even seem right.

• 4:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, that's not, that's wrong.

• 4:14Mike Massimino?

  You know what I mean? It wasn't, it wasn't bad food though, even though it was government food, it wasn't, anyway, so he's next to me, I, you know, I'm, I had, I said to myself, Neil, I, I had to say something to this guy. Because I'm next to him, I don't know how it happened, but serendipitously. And I asked him, "When did you think of that first thing that you said on the moon, the one small step for man?" I go, "Did you know, did your wife tell you? Did you get a publicist? Did, who, how'd you come up with this?" And he turned to me and he says, "Well, Mike." I thought about it only after we landed. Because if we didn't land, I wouldn't have to say anything. It wouldn't make a difference. And so I concentrated only on the landing. Saved his brain energy. Well, but I think what he was, the message he was trying to get to me as a new astronaut, um, or I don't know if he was trying, but the message I took was, you take care of business first and you worry about that other stuff later.

• 4:59Mike Massimino?

  So his, his focus was landing on the moon. So for my tweet, I did the same approach. I said, I'm not gonna worry about this first tweet. We have to, we have to launch into space. We have to get there alive and successfully. I got a, I got a job to do. Big mistake is right. This was a mistake. So I get there and it's, alright, we're alive and it's time to, the computers are up and running on day one. And so I need to come up with something. So what I, what I said, what I tweeted was, launch was awesome. The adventure of a lifetime has begun. I'm feeling great, enjoying the view, something like long, but the first, the first. It was okay, but during the, during the mission, um, I, I, I, you know, I was paying attention to the mission, of course. During the mission, aside, aside bars, I didn't get any email from my kids.

• 5:43Mike Massimino?

  My kids were, they were both teenagers. I love my kids. They were both in high school. But. But they were very happy that I was away from the planet. At that time, and they were ignoring me and I'm writing them, you know. Well, they could, they, they could have taken it personally. Some dads go on a business trip. You left planet earth. They were happy I was away. And they were like, dad, annoying dad can't bother us anymore. And I wasn't getting any. Was dad, is he in New York or is he in space? Which, where did he go? Well, they knew I wasn't there and they were just happy enough, they didn't want to be reminded. So I wasn't getting an email from them. Saturday comes, Saturday comes and Saturday Night Live makes fun of this tweet, Neil. And this was in oh nine, so it's the fortieth anniversary of the, of the, of the, al- almost a, a fortieth anniversary of, of Apollo eleven.

• 6:23Mike Massimino?

  And Seth Meyers on SNL says, we have the first tweet from space, Mike Massimino. Uh, and here it is. Launch was awesome. In forty years, we've gone from one giant leap for mankind to launch was awesome. If we ever find life in the universe, I assume this is how we'll be notified. And it shows my little Twitter thing and it says, geez dudes, aliens. So they made fun of me and my kids finally sent my email on that Monday. They sent me email on that Monday and it was, you know, after the spacewalk, like dad, I thought, thanks for saving the Hubble, you did great. No, it was dad, they made fun of you on Saturday Night Live. All the kids at school loved it. Keep saying stupid stuff.

• 7:05Mike Massimino?

  So I don't think Neil Armstrong ever got a reaction like that from his kids on that, what he's.

• 7:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so that was, that was bad advice for you?

• 7:13Mike Massimino?

  Uh, no, it was still good advice. I still think it's good advice because his advice was you take care of business first. And that's what you concentrate on. And I think that's the way that, the way he was. And I think that's why he was chosen to be the first man.

• 7:26Chuck Nice?

  If only he had followed it up with, and make sure you schedule your tweets.

• 7:30Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Um, and also, uh, this story and others we can find in your book, Spaceman.

• 7:37Mike Massimino?

  Yes.

• 7:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spaceman.

• 7:38Mike Massimino?

  Thank you. Thanks for that.

• 7:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of course.

• 7:39Mike Massimino?

  Thanks.

• 7:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a plug. It's a, yes, it is a plug, but it's a, it's authentically conceived. Uh, you're a great storyteller and I love the book.

• 7:47Mike Massimino?

  Thank you.

• 7:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you didn't fix the cover photo though, because you're sitting there smiling and there's a rocket coming out of your ear that's launched behind you.

• 7:56Mike Massimino?

  I was told the publisher's in charge of the, you can have input for the cover, but they, I was in charge of the words and inside.

• 8:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It looked like you had ear racks with a plane coming out of it.

• 8:03Mike Massimino?

  I've heard, in fact, if you see the, I've heard other comments which we can't mention about what that looks like. So yes, I agree.

• 8:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, so the two of us saw a pre-screening of First Man and uh, everything I know about Neil Armstrong, because I knew him, I mean, I don't claim I knew him well. We weren't beer drinking buddies, but I mean, we were acquaintances, I should say. And everything I knew about him, and I think is true for you, all you about him, all that you knew of him was consistent with how he was portrayed in this film. Would you agree?

• 8:36Mike Massimino?

  Absolutely. Yeah. Everything that I knew about him.

• 8:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So give me your best characterization of him, because some people don't even know that.

• 8:41Mike Massimino?

  I, I, I would, I would say that, um, he loved, he loved flying airplanes. He loved doing his job. He loved being a test pilot.

• 8:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Test pilot, is it fighter pilot?

• 8:51Mike Massimino?

  Pilot first.

• 8:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In Korea.

• 8:53Mike Massimino?

  Yep.

• 8:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then test pilot.

• 8:54Mike Massimino?

  Then a test pilot. He was, he was, I guess, a, a, a very. Thoughtful engineer but loved flying. When he came and spoke to our astronaut class.

• 9:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, he's got that engineer club.

• 9:04Mike Massimino?

  Well, he was a pretty, but he saw, he saw it as an engineering problem, as a challenge. And that's why I think he was not just a great pilot because he loved flying, but also a great test pilot because he enjoyed the engineering behind it. And that's, that was pretty impressive, I thought.

• 9:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I had never thought about that. You could be fly boy, say, "Give me that machine. I'll do what I get." But if you're an engineer, you're thinking about the machine. And the aerodynamics, everything.

• 9:26Mike Massimino?

  If you're really into that, like he was, I think it was, it was this, and not all great engineers, I think, can make great pilots, but he was one of those that could. And I think that's where you have a really special test pilot.

• 9:37Chuck Nice?

  And do they ever make a change to the plane and, or, and he says, "No, that ain't, that ain't gonna work."

• 9:44Mike Massimino?

  I'm sure he chimed in. I would, I would, I would expect that those conversations were made, especially back in those days when they were doing things that were much different than what they had ever done before and how fast they were going, how high they were going, what they were trying to achieve.

• 9:58Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 9:58Mike Massimino?

  When it's test pilot days, there was, I'm sure there was a lot of those conversations.

• 10:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So, I would add to that, that Neil Armstrong was, was not gregarious. He was a very quiet man.

• 10:11Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 10:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did not seek publicity.

• 10:13Mike Massimino?

  Yep.

• 10:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did not, you know, he's not the person who'd say is the life of the party.

• 10:17Mike Massimino?

  Yep.

• 10:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But sometimes the people who are not the life of the party are sitting there doing nothing. He's sitting there in his head figuring stuff out. It's the active restless brain of the engineer.

• 10:26Mike Massimino?

  Yep.

• 10:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, this was surely captured.

• 10:29Mike Massimino?

  That was him. And when I first met him, Neil, you, you described that really well. When he got up there in front of our, we all stood up and gave him a standing ovation. And just about all, I was one of the younger people in that group of new astronauts in 96. So, just about everyone in that room, maybe one or two wouldn't remember, remembered where they were. And he, that, he and that episode of, of what he did, landing on the moon, that whole mission, inspired most of us to become astronauts, I would say. We all remembered it. And

• 10:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're meeting your hero?

• 10:59Mike Massimino?

  We're meeting our hero. And it was just me, it was everybody. And he was, he's the man, right? He was, he was the man. And he gets up there and was, it seemed almost like he was painfully shy. Almost that it was hard for him to talk. And he, he didn't mention the moon at all. He talked about test flying and how important that is, and how you have to be diligent about it and, and how much he loved doing that. And after he was done, when we got the questions and answers, then we started asking what it was like on the moon. But up to that point, he was delivering that message, almost painfully shy. But he was so, he loved so, so much what he did. It felt it was so important that that's what he focused on. He was the right man for the job.

• 11:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you think NASA chose him to be the first on the moon because of all of this? Because he does not seek publicity. Because, because if they got some grandstand in,

• 11:50Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 11:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yo, look at me, I'm on the moon. Here's my book about me being on the moon. Here's my talk show interview. I've got a need for speed.

• 12:00Mike Massimino?

  You mean like if it was one of us? Is that what you're basically saying?

• 12:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 12:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you think they thought that through?

• 12:07Mike Massimino?

  I, I think that, uh,

• 12:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They needed someone humble.

• 12:10Mike Massimino?

  You know, I, I, that, I, I, that seems like a, you know, I, I, I used to think that, maybe at first. But I think lately, in the last few years, I've changed my, my, my thinking of it. Because I think that's almost too much thinking. I think really what they wanted to do, no, really, you know, I think what they were looking for was the guy that would get that.

• 12:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Too much thinking.

• 12:27Mike Massimino?

  No, I, because you start, I, I guess,

• 12:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You overthink it.

• 12:30Mike Massimino?

  You start, you start thinking too many things. I go, this guy has, wearing blue and this guy, you know, you overthink it. I think what they, what they saw was, this is the right man to, to, to land on the moon. Whether or not he was gregarious, whether or not he was shy, whether or not, whatever those personality traits were. He was the right man because he understood what was happening. He was gonna focus on that job a hundred percent.

• 12:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not be distracted and maybe that has partly to do with the fame seeking, but I think really he was chosen not for that, for the personality part of it, but because he was the right man to do that job.

• 13:03Chuck Nice?

  So, did they choose who actually got out of the capsule first?

• 13:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 13:07Chuck Nice?

  I mean, but he was the mission lead as well.

• 13:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The mission commander.

• 13:11Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 13:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was the commander, that's right.

• 13:13Chuck Nice?

  And so, it wasn't because he was commander that he got to go first, they actually made the choice like, you're gonna be the first to step foot on the moon.

• 13:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And your commander.

• 13:22Chuck Nice?

  And your commander. Like, those are two separate things.

• 13:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You think?

• 13:24Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, and like, for example, in the-

• 13:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It could have been like in Star Trek. You go check out the glowing blob first.

• 13:29Mike Massimino?

  Right.

• 13:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Buzz, you check, see that glowing thing? Report back to me.

• 13:34Mike Massimino?

  Right.

• 13:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then I'll step off there.

• 13:36Mike Massimino?

  And that's traditionally-

• 13:37Chuck Nice?

  You're gonna be the Black Ensign from the Enterprise.

• 13:39Mike Massimino?

  But that's the way, that's the way we did it. Now that you're saying it, that's why I spacewalked, apparently. Because that's what we would do in the shuttle program, the commander and the pilot would not go out and spacewalk, the mission specialist would, and the underlying, one of the underlying reasons was-

• 13:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to be clear, mission specialist is someone who has an expertise, usually a scientific and engineering expertise, brought into the service of the mission.

• 14:00Mike Massimino?

  Correct.

• 14:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're not flying a plane.

• 14:02Mike Massimino?

  We're not there for landing. We're not gonna land. I mean, we're part of landing, but we're not actually gonna land.

• 14:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 14:07Mike Massimino?

  Because the idea is, what happens if your commander goes out and doesn't come back? Who's gonna land?

• 14:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. But it's okay if you go out and don't come back. You can still land the bird.

• 14:15Mike Massimino?

  I hate to put it that way, but yes.

• 14:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll put it that way, you don't have to put that, I'll put it that way.

• 14:18Mike Massimino?

  We used to brief our spacewalks, you know, there was a lost crewman, there was a line, everything you would check, like, alright, this is in place, you know, this checked, that checked, that checked, and part of the briefing was, lost crewman. And lost crewman was a procedure we had to go rescue a guy that comes lost, and what we would do, sort of kidding around, was, lost crewman, don't worry about it, we got three more.

• 14:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what we had, because we had four spacewalkers. So that was like the joke, and we'd all laugh, but underlying, like, you're kidding, come get me. But we were gonna do that if we needed.

• 14:46Mike Massimino?

  What were we talking about?

• 14:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, the commander, who went out first.

• 14:49Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, the commander. And traditionally, I think in Gemini, what they did was, is that the commander would not go outside.

• 14:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gemini, two astronaut capsule.

• 14:55Mike Massimino?

  Right, and that's when they first spacewalked. Ed White was the first spacewalker, and Buzz was one of the last spacewalkers in Gemini, but I think it was traditionally, the commander stayed inside, yeah, thank you. But mainly the command, I think traditionally, was the commander stayed inside, and it was the pilot who went out and then came back, because there's only one guy at a time going. So this was a different case where you're gonna have both people going out for the walk.

• 15:18Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 15:18Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 15:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, part of the authenticity of the film was the little details that they didn't have to really care about, but they did. Yes. So there's a moment, I ha- I happen to own an Omega watch that was gifted to me by Stephen Hawking. Wow. And. That's pretty nice. I don't mean to name drop.

• 15:40Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say, I just like the fact that you didn't name drop.

• 15:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 15:44Chuck Nice?

  I've got one too, but I had to buy it myself.

• 15:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 15:46Chuck Nice?

  I have a Stephen Hawking watch too, he just doesn't know I have it.

• 15:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got his watch.

• 15:51Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, he was just walking around just like, anybody seen my watch? Who has seen my watch?

• 15:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So. It was gifted to you by you.

• 16:02Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 16:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, no, I got the Stephen Hawking Award for science communication. And just, so it's only like a year old, but, but this. Cool, man. This introduced me to Omega watches. Omega was the first watch on the moon. Right. They were chosen by NASA after NASA got all the, all the premier, what, the Rolex, uh, Breitling, whatever, whatever, whatever the top watches were of the day. I, I wonder if they threw in the Timex? I don't know, just to, just to get America in there. I bet so they.

• 16:30Chuck Nice?

  I'm sure they did.

• 16:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so they throw it in.

• 16:32Chuck Nice?

  It's probably still on the moon, taking a licking and keeping on ticking.

• 16:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nobody remembers that advertisement. It was a wind-up. Wait, so. In fact, the, yeah, the moon watch was a wind-up. Right. So they put them all in black boxes each and scrambled them and then shake them, baked them, heated them, radiated them, and at the end of the experiments, the Omega still had the correct time. Wow. So Omega is our watch. And so they still milk that today with their advertising. Yeah. But in any event, in this festival that I attended, the Star Mists Festival that Hawking is an organizer of, uh, uh, Omega was one of the sponsors and so this became the watch. Yeah. It's engraved, it's engraved on the back. Yeah. But I saw a, a watch that looked very much like this on Neil Armstrong's hands. Right. In the movie, it's right there. I'm wearing it. You're wearing it. You're wearing that watch.

• 17:19Chuck Nice?

  And did you, and did you get this from, from being an astronaut?

• 17:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, this, okay, so we had, uh, we had Omega watches on the shuttle and the way it was explained to us, like how they won that competition was the crystal.

• 17:28Mike Massimino?

  Apparently that crystal that they had on top was almost impenetrable. And you could do whatever you wanted to it, it wasn't gonna crack. So particles are a problem. So that's why.

• 17:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And with moon gloves, how do you wind a watch?

• 17:38Mike Massimino?

  Well, I think you have to do, wind it ahead of time. Well, we had, we had a different Omega that we had. We had a different, we wind it ahead of time. We had a different Omega for the shuttle. This is the moon version. I had a different one that I had to purchase. Now Omega was willing, I think, to give us these watches for free, but it was a government program and NASA said, "Not so fast." So we had to, we had to buy our watches. But we were able to purchase them from Omega and then fly them. I'm not wearing my shuttle watch. And I'm wearing a moon watch that, yes, I had to go into the Omega store and buy.

• 18:06Chuck Nice?

  Man, that is messed up, man.

• 18:09Mike Massimino?

  No.

• 18:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, you can't, otherwise you can be bought.

• 18:11Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 18:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the right thing.

• 18:12Mike Massimino?

  It's the right thing to do.

• 18:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how you want it to be. You don't want it any other way.

• 18:15Mike Massimino?

  It's the right thing.

• 18:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta take a break.

• 18:16Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 18:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta take a break. Uh, you, you are listening to, possibly even watching, StarTalk. This is our First Man Edition, celebrating the life and the first steps on the moon of Neil Armstrong. We'll be right back.

• 18:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk, First Man Edition. And I've got, uh, First Man, who's the First Man? Neil Armstrong, First Man on the Moon. Got our friend of StarTalk, Mike Massimino. He's been in space twice. Wanted him to repair my Hubble Space Telescope. I love you, man, for that.

• 18:54Mike Massimino?

  Thank you. You're welcome.

• 18:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck Nice, co-host Chuck.

• 19:00Chuck Nice?

  Yes, and I've been in space, I'm still in space. I'm still in space.

• 19:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spaced out and been in space, two different things, Chuck.

• 19:07Chuck Nice?

  Two different things.

• 19:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was asked back in 2009 to host, to emcee the 40th anniversary of the Apollo landing. 1969 plus 40 gets you to 2009. It was in the Air and Space Museum. It was, I'm there and I forgot, Mike, you tell, what I did in front, you told.

• 19:30Mike Massimino?

  You moonwalked.

• 19:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I had, you had every living. Moonwalker in the audience in front of me.

• 19:36Mike Massimino?

  You said some interesting things, I remember. No, you said some, you said something about being the fortieth.

• 19:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The fortieth anniversary, yeah.

• 19:42Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, and you were saying how forty was an interesting number because

• 19:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 19:46Mike Massimino?

  Fifty you might not, you know, and we've lost so many of those guys between then and now. And, uh, and you did the moonwalk, which was great.

• 19:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, I don't dance in public.

• 19:55Chuck Nice?

  Let's go back to the forty, cuz that sounds a little, you know, provocative.

• 19:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, no, so what I, try to remember if this is when I said it, forty is an interesting number because in many stories, they don't track it beyond forty. So forty days and forty nights.

• 20:11Chuck Nice?

  Correct, yeah.

• 20:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not fifty days and fifty nights, forty days and forty nights. Jesus got thirty-nine lashes. Not forty, cuz forty, that's like infinite.

• 20:19Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You gotta bring that in.

• 20:21Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't wanna kill him, you just wanna hurt him.

• 20:24Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's the one lash that would've did it.

• 20:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The one that's worse.

• 20:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, what else? Just the number forty shows up especially biblically.

• 20:33Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 20:34Mike Massimino?

  There you go.

• 20:35Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's a, so when you pass forty, it's like more time than historically people reckoned.

• 20:43Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You sort of, you know, one through forty and then infinity beyond that. And so beyond that, it's like, okay, is it still there for us to remember, or do we have to be reminded of it? Whereas if it's within forty, you can talk about it. People are alive, they were conscious, they were adults, they were, so.

• 20:59Chuck Nice?

  That makes sense. That's two generations, basically, and beyond two generations.

• 21:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're stepping into the next generation.

• 21:04Chuck Nice?

  You're stepping into the next generation, and that makes perfect sense. Okay, go ahead.

• 21:07Mike Massimino?

  I think that set the mood at the time that this was a really special night.

• 21:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks Neil Armstrong. In this event afterwards, uh, Startalk was in our first year. And I said, this is a target of opportunity for me to get a bunch of interviews and we can make a show out of this. So I waited till the event was over and we had a reception and all of this, and I got interviews with various key people in the space program at the time, as well as some old timers like Neil Armstrong. And he never gives interviews.

• 21:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 21:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have you ever seen him interviewed on TV?

• 21:37Chuck Nice?

  No, that's one of the things he's known for, is not, not being a big talker.

• 21:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's why I think he granted me the interview.

• 21:44Chuck Nice?

  Because moonwalked?

• 21:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I first met him when I was fourteen.

• 21:51Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 21:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On board the SS Canberra. En route from New York City to the coast of northwest Africa.

• 21:58Chuck Nice?

  Holy cow.

• 21:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To observe a total solar eclipse, the longest in the century. And he was one of the various sort of important people brought on board.

• 22:08Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of course, they would enjoy the eclipse, but also they were there for the rest of us to interact with. And this is nineteen seventy-three.

• 22:15Chuck Nice?

  And you're fourteen?

• 22:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm fourteen.

• 22:17Chuck Nice?

  Are you by yourself?

• 22:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I'm by myself. I lied.

• 22:19Chuck Nice?

  Did you stole away?

• 22:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What did you do? Yeah, I was gonna say, what were you stole away?

• 22:22Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 22:23Mike Massimino?

  Did your parents know you were going on this thing?

• 22:25Chuck Nice?

  They're like, wait.

• 22:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My parents didn't even let me take the subway back then by myself.

• 22:28Mike Massimino?

  Why does that suitcase have legs? You went on a cruise with Neil Armstrong to see an eclipse when you were fifteen?

• 22:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I brought my telescope with me that I bought from Dog Walk.

• 22:37Chuck Nice?

  I got to go to a ballgame and I was excited.

• 22:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dog walking money. I had my telescope, I had my camera.

• 22:41Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 22:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And...

• 22:42Chuck Nice?

  Awesome.

• 22:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There were fifteen hundred people. They took off all the shuffleboard, the lounge chairs, and it was a forest of tripods on this. The whole ship is a scientific floating vessel.

• 22:52Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 22:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he was there. It's when I met Isaac Asimov and various other sort of heroes, if you're a geek kid.

• 22:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the day.

• 23:00Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 23:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And...

• 23:01Chuck Nice?

  Now, that...

• 23:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, and he was sitting...

• 23:03Chuck Nice?

  You were this...

• 23:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You were...

• 23:04Chuck Nice?

  You were a king geek, okay? You were king of all geeks. Cause you're... Yeah, a geek kid is just like, I can't believe I just got this new trading card. You're like, I'm going to North Africa with Neil Armstrong. Like, get it for the eclipse. You kidding me?

• 23:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Alright.

• 23:23Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 23:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, he's sitting alone at the bar. And this is one year after the last mission to the moon, which is nineteen seventy-two. It's four years after he walked on the moon. And he's alone. I said, you know, Mr. Armstrong, and I had my ship program with his picture and the thing. And I said, would you mind signing? Well, I don't know, could you sign? And so he signs it. And I just said, thank you. When I next saw him, I showed him that, that I was on this vessel.

• 23:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I think he... I don't know, I don't want to project what he might be thinking, but I think he saw that I, I became somebody.

• 24:01Chuck Nice?

  No, there's an instant connection. You come to me all these years later with a sign program from a ship that you stowed away on, so that you could go to North Africa and watch an eclipse. That's pretty cool. I would have rather the story ended with him going, "Pull up a stool, kid."

• 24:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 24:18Chuck Nice?

  You like scotch?

• 24:20Mike Massimino?

  That's what it takes, kids, to get a, to get an interview with Neil Armstrong. You know, you're not just gonna, "Hey, I've got my press credentials here." No, that's not working.

• 24:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, and it wasn't, it was brief, but I have it. And you'll see, he's not a, you know, he's smart and calm and measured, and let's, let's check it out. This is my interview with Neil Armstrong, brief though it was. Neil Armstrong, Commander of Apollo 11. How old were you 40 years ago today?

• 24:50Speaker 03

  Uh, I was 38.93.

• 24:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent. I love it. And of the entire Apollo era, what's your most indelible memory? And it could, it could be your own walk, but if not, I'd just be curious.

• 25:05Speaker 03

  Most indelible memory was approaching the moon and, and flying through the moon's shadow, so that the moon was eclipsing the sun and we could see the corona all around the moon. It was not circular, it was elliptical, which was a big surprise, I didn't understand that. And then we could see the moon, the dark side of the moon, of course, illuminated by earth light, and we could see the craters and the valleys and the plains in a blue, gray, three-dimensional view that was spectacular.

• 25:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Texture, the image had texture.

• 25:42Speaker 03

  And remarkable, but imperceptible to a camera, but the human eye was wonderful.

• 25:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the last question, where do you think, what do you think NASA should do next?

• 25:53Speaker 03

  Uh, I'm supporter of the NASA plan, and, uh, I'm...

• 25:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just needs more money, I suppose, but the, the ideas are there.

• 26:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think the, the approach they're on is, is a good one.

• 26:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that, it's a very, it's a very, that's a very pilot, the approach.

• 26:13Speaker 03

  They're a little, little below glider slope, but you know, they gotta get there.

• 26:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, Neil Armstrong, thanks for those three questions.

• 26:22Mike Massimino?

  Wow.

• 26:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and the guys never interviewed, and I felt like I was even taking too much by asking just those three questions.

• 26:29Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 26:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and I'm, you see, I'm kinda giddy.

• 26:32Mike Massimino?

  He was really into that second, what's the indelible, you could actually, I can almost feel him looking at the moon.

• 26:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Experiencing it.

• 26:41Mike Massimino?

  Yes. It was really, you know, very visceral, his recounting.

• 26:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And consider, that's nothing you're gonna get on this side of the moon.

• 26:48Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 26:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so it had to be the backside, because he studied, he would have studied all the maps and the pictures and everything.

• 26:54Mike Massimino?

  Right.

• 26:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 26:55Mike Massimino?

  And, you know, one of the, one of the things that, that I noticed with the movie, that I like, my, one of my favorite scenes, first man movie, um, was that you were able to see what it looked like, and I think they probably did it pretty accurately. Because the film that we had back then, in 1969, we had some, but especially the approach in the landing, if you remember, like, there were cameras kind of looking out that triangular window, and the dust kicks up, but you really don't get an appreciation for what it was like to see outside. Can you imagine now if we were able to do that with a bunch of GoPros, or whatever they would stick on, high-def cameras, we would see that, that moonscape, and probably even the night passes.

• 27:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There'd be a GoPro every foot.

• 27:31Mike Massimino?

  Probably so, right, you know, and, and it'd be, it's easy, right?

• 27:35Chuck Nice?

  Make the whole ship out of GoPros.

• 27:36Mike Massimino?

  And now, and even in the low light level on the other side, I'm sure they could have found some, you know, they would have been able to do something, and, because just recently, now we can get great, uh, images of the, of the planet at night from, from station, for example.

• 27:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if it wasn't clear, his point, that the eye catches it, but the camera doesn't,

• 27:50Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 27:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  is because the eye, in one glimpse, can get a very high dynamic range of, so the moon can be very dim, but the solar corona can be very bright.

• 27:58Mike Massimino?

  Right.

• 27:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you can see all that at once, where the camera is gonna commit to either the bright corona or the dim thing, but you're not gonna get both. And he's experiencing both.

• 28:06Mike Massimino?

  And that description he gave you, uh, allowed us to picture what it was like. And there's no, uh, there's no real good video of that, but his description of it is, is what we have to go with.

• 28:17Chuck Nice?

  So cool, like, yeah.

• 28:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, but you can feel that this, he'd, he'd rather just not be... Be interviewed, right? It's he just wanna go on his way. Yeah. And. But is that really the best person to have, uh, represent the fact that you have walked on the surface of a celestial body? That's a good question. Uh, you know?

• 28:35Mike Massimino?

  I've heard one of his, I heard Mike Collins at, at Neil's memorial.

• 28:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mike Collins, the third astronaut who didn't get to go down to the moon.

• 28:40Mike Massimino?

  Right, he was, he was, yeah, he orbited, uh, in lunar orbit, uh, in the command module while Neil and, and, uh, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Alden were on the, on the, on the moon. Um, I heard him, uh, speak at the memorial, I don't wanna misquote him, but at, at Neil's mem-, at Neil Armstrong's memorial when he died and, and they had a memorial service for him at the Johnson Space Center. And he talked a little bit about that, about, you know, him being maybe, you know, uh, shy and cerebral or whatever, but he was like, well, who would you, why wouldn't you want that? Why would you, this, this man who was so qualified, who did such a great job, why would you want him to be anything different than who he was?

• 29:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interesting.

• 29:15Mike Massimino?

  And I think that's, I think that that's, he was the right man to land on the moon and I think that was what they were most concerned with because, no kidding, they weren't so sure they were coming back from that mission, they weren't sure, so sure they were gonna be successful. Apollo 12 and 13, 11, 12 and 13 all had the same mission, they all trained for the same mission because they weren't so sure 11 was gonna be successful and then it was, and then 12 had to come up with something quick, which was different than what they did on 11, but they all trained for that same mission because they weren't so sure 11 was gonna be, was gonna be successful.

• 29:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What you're saying is if 11 failed, then 12 would try it. You try it, right. You're next.

• 29:51Mike Massimino?

  Right, and if that didn't work, 13 was gonna try it. And that can be in a different, a few different ways, one, not so that they would get, that they wouldn't come back alive, but they might not get down to the surface and come back, they would have to abort and then come back to earth. So the, it was really important for them to, to try to get the right guy to be the first guy.

• 30:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they.

• 30:08Mike Massimino?

  And that's what they went with, who's the best guy to pull off the landing especially of, of this.

• 30:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's where he had ice in his veins. And, and by the way, there's a, there's a misconception, I think, about the first comments from Houston after he says, Houston tranquility base here, Eagle has landed.

• 30:26Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 30:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? Which means, of course, the first word or the first comments from the moon is Houston. But. There you go.

• 30:34Mike Massimino?

  A plug for, a plug for Houston, Texas, my former home.

• 30:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Planet Houston.

• 30:38Mike Massimino?

  Yep.

• 30:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Houston, tranquility base here.

• 30:40Mike Massimino?

  That's the way we talk.

• 30:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Actually, there were some other contact light and other things.

• 30:44Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, contact, yeah, right.

• 30:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, Houston then says, something like, "Congratulations, you have a bunch of guys down here who were, who about to turn blue."

• 30:52Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, that was Charlie Duke.

• 30:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 30:54Mike Massimino?

  Yep.

• 30:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You think they're saying that because they just landed on the moon. That's not why they're saying it.

• 30:59Chuck Nice?

  They were holding their breath?

• 31:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's not, yes, they were holding their breath, but it's not because they just landed on the moon. That's not why.

• 31:06Chuck Nice?

  Okay, why would, okay, so why were they about to turn, wait, they were Smurfs? No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

• 31:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because Neil was not happy with the original landing spot. And he only has a certain amount of fuel to prevent himself from crashing down onto the moon. This is keeping them buoyant. Nope, too many boulders there. Nope, too many boulders there. And you see, that you see the fuel come down. Wait a minute, and it keeps going, "I think I'll go over there," and my boy is smooth. Let's wait, okay?

• 31:35Mike Massimino?

  Yep.

• 31:35Chuck Nice?

  It's like he's looking for parking in midtown.

• 31:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's looking for parking, he can't park there, he can't, "I can't park there."

• 31:41Chuck Nice?

  Baby, baby, you think I can fit in there?

• 31:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, that's, try, try over there.

• 31:45Mike Massimino?

  But if you don't make it, you gotta go home.

• 31:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait, go ahead. So then, he finally finds a spot, lands, there's like, one or two percent fuel left. That's what they, because if he got, if he went to zero, because if, if, if he lands with fuel in a place that he could crash, because it's not level, that's bad. If he keeps looking, you can't get home. If he keeps looking, and runs out of fuel, they'll crash because he runs out of fuel.

• 32:13Mike Massimino?

  He might have aborted.

• 32:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, they could have still aborted. Yeah, there's a board, you just, you just jettisoned at that point.

• 32:17Mike Massimino?

  I don't think that's what they would have done.

• 32:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Forgot about that.

• 32:19Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 32:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, so...

• 32:21Mike Massimino?

  Which is not a good deal either.

• 32:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he would just, and they, they capture this in the film, in the tension, so that's why everyone at Mission Control was freaking out.

• 32:28Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 32:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because that's, that's, the mission might not complete. Not because, "Oh, we're happy you landed," yes, we're all happy landing on the moon, but we're happy landing on the moon alive.

• 32:36Mike Massimino?

  Yep, yeah, he was down to one, he had a low, low fuel light came on, thirty second fuel, or whatever it was he had.

• 32:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 32:42Mike Massimino?

  And, uh, in the cadence... ...of, uh, which is depicted in the, in the movie, but the cadence of, uh, what, what, you know, the calls he was getting from Buzz, you know, um, so many forward, so many down. And I think he was talking about rates at that point.

• 32:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's right. It's this way and down.

• 32:56Mike Massimino?

  Right. Forward, yeah, five forward to give him an idea of how fast he was moving forward. So, cause he's all out the window, I would think at that point, and, and that's, that's the cadence of him coming down there, and, yeah.

• 33:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, that's fascinating. So, so I gotta agree, if your mission is to succeed, that has higher priority over any social profile the person is gonna have. Or, or, or public relations. Yeah. Did you succeed first and worry about the rest of that later? Right.

• 33:19Mike Massimino?

  And his, his friends, his colleagues have, John Young was still an astronaut when I became an astronaut, and, and later walked on the moon. Alan Bean was his office mate and his colleague as well, another moonwalker, and I've heard him and those other guys say Neil was the right guy for the job. If they had a pick out of who they knew was gonna get that job done, it was Neil Armstrong.

• 33:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, we're gonna take our next break. We're talking about first man, that's the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong, when StarTalk returns.

• 33:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk, First Man Edition. We're celebrating the life of Neil Armstrong and the moon landing and his first steps. Got Mike Massimino, Mike.

• 34:07Mike Massimino?

  Ni- Neil.

• 34:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very good. Uh, you, I'm just still laughing, chuckling at your first tweet.

• 34:13Mike Massimino?

  Oh, boy.

• 34:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What was it? Golly, I'm in space, was that what it was?

• 34:16Mike Massimino?

  Lunch was awesome.

• 34:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lunch was awesome.

• 34:18Mike Massimino?

  Yeah. You're, I should've thought more about it.

• 34:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe they misunderstood and thought you meant lunch was awesome.

• 34:23Mike Massimino?

  No, that was, that was the first day in space, no lunch yet. You're not feeling that great. Lunch was awesome the next day. That's what I wrote about the macaroni and cheese, this first day was lunch.

• 34:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So at NASA, there's a famous colorful character called Gene Kranz, and he's the one who is portrayed famously in the film Apollo 13, saying what?

• 34:42Mike Massimino?

  Failure is not an option.

• 34:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Failure is not an option. I bumped into him. Did he say that in real life? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, that's the legend. Okay, cool. Okay, and I, I bumped into him, uh, with a microphone in tow, first year of StarTalk. I'm getting all the interviews from all these space folks at this celebration of NASA's 40th anniversary for landing on the moon in, in 2009. Uh, let's pick up with my conversation with Gene Kranz.

• 35:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here with Gene Kranz. Failure is not an option, Gene Kranz. That's your middle name now?

• 35:14Speaker 04

  That's been a good game plan for most of my life. I really came into failure as not an option well after I started the business of Stars and Stripes Forever. When I was going through flight training, I had a very bad night. My first night solo, I suffered almost disabling vertigo. And finally got back landed, and the next evening you gotta go out and do it again. And there's a story about you gotta ride the horse that threw you. I was fortunate that as I was sweating it out, chain smoking, lucky strikes, the flight line public address system came alive. Checking it out for the Saturday parade and they played the Stars and Stripes Forever.

• 35:57Speaker 04

  I picked up my parachute, aced that night flight. In fact, I aced the business. As a cadet, graduated, went to fighter weapons school, and from that day on, every day of my professional life, started with the Stars and Stripes Forever.

• 36:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a inspiring...

• 36:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everybody's got something that gets them going. For most people, it's a cup of coffee.

• 36:20Speaker 04

  Neil, I start off with a cup of coffee, too. But the Stars and Stripes, it was interesting. I look for something that that very slowly builds the energy, builds the crescendo, such that when you hit each day's work, you're at the peak performance and you remain there throughout the day. I found out that basically, from my standpoint, psyching yourself up is the key to success. Believing that you can, believing that you will. And then when you fall down, believing that you can pick yourself up and start all over again.

• 36:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm gonna ask you three questions. You ready? How old were you 40 years ago today?

• 37:00Speaker 04

  I was 36 years old.

• 37:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You were a baby!

• 37:04Speaker 04

  I was a baby. My teams in mission control averaged age 26. The majority of those were kids fresh out of college. They had a couple of years training. They grew up in the Gemini program, early Apollo. They lived through the disastrous Apollo 1 fire. And they became tough and competent. And that was the fuel, the energy for the fire that took us to the moon.

• 37:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What is your most indelible memory from the entire Apollo era?

• 37:31Speaker 04

  Neil, I...

• 37:36Speaker 04

  I would say the most indelible thing

• 37:40Speaker 04

  were really many things. They were the personalities of the people. I had young kids that came in fresh out of college who had this dream of space. I had engineers come in who developed the initial trajectory work, John Llewellyn and Carl Huss and Tekwin Roberts, who are absolute pure mathematicians and they reveled, I mean, this world.

• 38:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So most people just-

• 38:05Speaker 04

  With life to them. And, and basically, I was a dumb engineer. I was a, I was, I was a dinosaur. But my business was not to know the work that they did to the level they did it. My job was to be able to ask the right questions and watch the clock. I counted cadence for mission control.

• 38:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So most people who only see the astronauts have no concept of all this that's going on behind the scenes that's making it happen in the first place?

• 38:30Speaker 04

  Well, the, the mission control team has the responsibilities for planning, training, and training and operate. And when we have problems during the course of the mission, we have to come up with solutions that allow you to continue with the plan that you had. And if that is not possible, to come up with another plan that is just about as good.

• 38:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One last question. What's the primary goal you think NASA should have going forward?

• 38:54Speaker 04

  I believe NASA should go back to the moon and then on to Mars. I, I believe that it's very important. You know, to me, the moon is like the, the boundary in the Mississippi River. We've been across there a few times. But really, think about the development that took place out west. Think about Lewis and Clark going out to the Pacific. Think about the business of exploration. And those things that we learned and developed and discovered out there. But most importantly, I think it is a human thing. Exploration is a process that must be in every person's mind. It has to be part of their personality. It has to be the kind of thing that makes them want to get up and go to work each day and discover.

• 39:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, back to the moon, on to Mars, and beyond.

• 39:39Speaker 04

  That's right. Go for it. Go for launch, Neil. Okay?

• 39:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's only one Gene Kranz.

• 39:47Chuck Nice?

  I effing love that guy. I love him.

• 39:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You want that to be the voice in Houston when you were in the universe somewhere.

• 39:56Chuck Nice?

  I want that to be the voice of everything. That guy is amazing.

• 39:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Will we be okay? You will be fine.

• 40:01Chuck Nice?

  I'll tell you what you're gonna be. You're gonna be absolutely terrific. That's what you're gonna be. Neil, I wanna tell ya. I like coffee. I like my coffee as black as space. But I use the stars and stripes as the sugar in my coffee. And I wake up every morning to coffee and stars and stripes. It's tremendous.

• 40:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's America.

• 40:24Chuck Nice?

  That guy is awesome. That dude is awesome.

• 40:30Mike Massimino?

  He's really the guy that you want looking out after your ass.

• 40:34Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 40:34Mike Massimino?

  Right, right, right. I mean, when you're up there in space, you wanna know that the man in charge is gonna make sure you're okay and is gonna consider it most important.

• 40:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He didn't mean God in that case, the man in charge. He meant Gene Kranz.

• 40:47Mike Massimino?

  I meant Gene Kranz. No, the man in charge, what I really mean is the flight director. The flight director is the person who oversees the team that is looking out for you. And that's what I always felt. You have a certain connection with your launch flight director. In this case, I think Gene was the launch flight director for... And Mike Linebeck was the guy that launched us out of KSC. And then our launch flight director on my second mission, Norm Knight. And Tony Sikaci was the guy during the orbit. And there was those... They, I think, followed...

• 41:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We had an orbit guy.

• 41:16Mike Massimino?

  We had an orbit guy. There was an orbit guy for Apollo 11 as well, right?

• 41:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:20Mike Massimino?

  But they all followed, I think, in Gene's steps. And that was what you wanted. You wanted someone that was gonna make sure you were coming back.

• 41:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The right stuff wasn't only the folks who flew, it's the folks on the ground.

• 41:31Mike Massimino?

  Yes, and they take it just as personal when something happens as anyone else involved. Their job is to bring you back more than anything.

• 41:39Chuck Nice?

  Now I know where that sand comes from too.

• 41:40Mike Massimino?

  You want a guy like that.

• 41:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's that?

• 41:42Chuck Nice?

  Now I know where that sand comes from.

• 41:43Mike Massimino?

  What's that?

• 41:44Chuck Nice?

  Failure is not an option. I hear people say that all the time.

• 41:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You didn't know it was him?

• 41:48Chuck Nice?

  Didn't know it was him. I didn't. I thought it was like a movie quote.

• 41:51Mike Massimino?

  That, well...

• 41:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a movie quote because it's quoting him.

• 41:54Mike Massimino?

  It's the title of his book, I think.

• 41:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 41:57Mike Massimino?

  As far as not an option.

• 41:57Chuck Nice?

  Aw, man, that is.

• 41:58Mike Massimino?

  You gotta go get this book.

• 41:59Chuck Nice?

  I ain't, I'm gonna go get him, are you kidding me?

• 42:01Mike Massimino?

  Get it on audiobook.

• 42:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 42:03Mike Massimino?

  I hope he narrates it.

• 42:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck is like, his eyes are popping out of his hand.

• 42:07Chuck Nice?

  I love that guy, like, this dude, he's like seventy-six, right there when you're talking to him. He's, and, and even at seventy-six, and you're talking to this guy, he sounds like a twenty-two-year-old kid.

• 42:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, with excitement, and, right, right, right.

• 42:18Chuck Nice?

  I love that.

• 42:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Mike, did they level with you what your risk of not coming back was? Because they made a point of this in First Man, that these risks are real. And we saw others die, Apollo One, three astronauts died, on Earth.

• 42:33Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 42:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are test pilots who have died. So, th- this is a specter over your choice to participate.

• 42:41Mike Massimino?

  Uh, uh, yeah, I think they tried to be as accurate as they could about it. Yeah, and I remember it more, uh, cause I was, I flew on Columbia as, as the mission right before we lost Columbia. And then I flew, uh, again after, on, on Atlantis, uh, both shuttle flights. And I don't remember if it, what the, there wasn't as much talk beforehand, I guess it wasn't maybe as much on our mind as it was after the accident, we lived through that.

• 43:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  After the Columbia accident.

• 43:07Mike Massimino?

  After the Columbia accident, but the number I remember being told was about one out of seventy-five chance. And they weren't saying, "We want you to know this number," it was more like, "This is our new calculated probabilities."

• 43:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I always thought it was like one in fifty.

• 43:18Mike Massimino?

  Well, I, I think there was one out of seventy-five, and that was total destruction. That's, that's loss of crew and vehicle. That's everyone's dead, and the vehicle can't be used again. There are other odds that, that may be of, of.

• 43:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They folded the odds of reusing the vehicle with the odds of you coming back alive?

• 43:34Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, well, yeah, it's, but it's, it's, but it's tru- I mean, I hate to put it that way, but when we lost, when we lost Columbia, we just didn't lose our seven friends. We also lost the spaceship and what happens to the program, so.

• 43:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, okay.

• 43:44Mike Massimino?

  There's a loss of crew and vehicle. Now, losing, but, but it's not so much about, it really isn't crass, I don't think. Because you can lose the vehicle but save the crew. So if you have an abort with the shuttle, and it ends up in the water, as you abort, hopefully the crew gets out alive. So, it's a combination of loss of crew and vehicle, it was about one out of seventy-five. And as it turned out, we had two accidents at a hundred and thirty-five flights.

• 44:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's one in fifty.

• 44:05Mike Massimino?

  That's probably how they came up with that number, quite honestly, but, uh, it was one out of seventy-five of total loss.

• 44:10Chuck Nice?

  And do you think about it at all, when you're, or are you just too busy doing your appointed duties to even let it cross your mind? I, I, I took a flight. Back to New York from Detroit yesterday morning and the whole time I was like, "God, I just hope these people know what they're doing."

• 44:26Mike Massimino?

  Sometimes you're worried more on a commercial flight than you are doing anything. I believe we had a, yeah, absolutely. I did. I don't know if everyone does, but I knew that that there was a very good chance that something might, it might, you might not be coming back. And I think in some ways, that's a, that's a good thing to know.

• 44:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the movie captured this poignantly with his relationship with his wife and his kids.

• 44:51Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, and I think they also showed the after was successful. How wonderful it was for them to have the accomplishment.

• 44:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That we had succeeded.

• 44:59Mike Massimino?

  That we had succeeded. Alan Bean tells the story that after his, after Apollo 11, after his mission, it wasn't, the whole world, his impression was the whole world. It wasn't like you did it, or the US did it, but we did it.

• 45:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We, the human species did it.

• 45:16Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, that motto, "They came for all humankind." Let's change it a little bit, right? For all humankind. I think that's the way everybody felt. We come in peace for all humankind. Yeah, and that's the way I think people felt about it. It was an accomplishment that for, that humans, that showed what we could do and the whole world was a part of it. And they felt it was an accomplishment for the world.

• 45:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was, had the privilege and honor to be invited to Neil Armstrong's funeral service in Ohio after he died. And the moment was solemn, of course, but it was also celebratory. There were reflections on Neil as a person. And one thing that came across was, yeah, Neil was the right guy for this job. And because if he started grandstanding this achievement, then it would be like he landed on the moon. But in fact, we all landed on the moon.

• 46:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's our collective first step on the moon. Tens of thousands of engineers and scientists and hundreds of millions of taxpayers. We landed on the moon. And what did he do when he was done? He became Citizen Armstrong again. Came a professor. Went back to Ohio where so many astronauts have come. Became a professor and shunned interviews. And I'm reminded it was Roman Emperor Cincinnatus. Cincinnatus, after whom Cincinnati is named, Cincinnati, Ohio.

• 47:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's where he taught. He came to become emperor and when he was done, he went back home and continued as a farmer. Didn't exploit the fact that he ran all of Rome. He didn't grandstand that fact. He was called into service. He gave of himself his time, his energy. Sacrificed whatever was necessary for his home life. When he was done, he went home. That's what Neil Armstrong did. He came home to us all.

• 47:37Chuck Nice?

  It's pretty cool, man. I have to say, I understand it for Neil Armstrong. Cincinnatus got a problem with him.

• 47:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What? What's your problem with Cincinnatus?

• 47:45Chuck Nice?

  I'm just saying, you know, you were ruling all of Rome and then you became a farmer. What's your problem, buddy? You kidding me?

• 47:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Roman Empire?

• 47:52Chuck Nice?

  You were in a Roman Empire at your disposal?

• 47:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a reminder.

• 47:55Chuck Nice?

  And you go back to farming?

• 47:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a reminder that some people want power for power's sake rather than power to lead and guide others in a time of need. That's a cosmic perspective. We gotta end it on that. Mike Massimino.

• 48:09Mike Massimino?

  Thank you.

• 48:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Always. Great to have you, man.

• 48:12Mike Massimino?

  And thanks for doing this for Neil Armstrong. He is, I think the things you said especially at the end there, I think those are the lessons we can learn. For all of us, no matter what your occupation is, how to approach things. And he was my hero as a little boy because he landed on the moon. But getting to know him a little bit as a person and learning more about him, that's when you realize what a true hero he was. So, thanks for doing this and having me a part of it.

• 48:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Chuck, Gene Kranz is his hero now.

• 48:36Chuck Nice?

  I'm just so happy for this show.

• 48:37Mike Massimino?

  Not the Cincinnati guy.

• 48:38Chuck Nice?

  No, Cincinnati's no. Gene Kranz forever. That is all I'm saying.

• 48:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This has been StarTalk.

• 48:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Most of you are listening, some of you are watching. I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. As always, keep looking up.