A Tribute to Neil Armstrong – StarTalk Radio Cosmic Queries

Our first Cosmic Queries episode: Neil deGrasse Tyson answers questions from fans and offers personal reflections in a “Tribute to Neil Armstrong.”

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. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and this is StarTalk.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 0:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Junie, I miss you when we don't have you.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  I know, I miss being here.

• 0:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're trying, it's a tribute to Apollo, and we're part of the Q&A section.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  Yes, this is the Q&A, did you know him?

• 0:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, I did know Neil Armstrong. In fact, we first met when I was 14 years old.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 0:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I was on board the SS Canberra, a huge ship.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  Did you stow away? Or was it a formal?

• 0:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I fit into a footlocker, yeah.

• 0:53Speaker 01

  And they're like, who's this kid?

• 0:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was 14 and I traveled alone, I think I was the youngest unaccompanied person on this ship of 2,000 people. They took off all the shuffleboards and all the deck entertainment, and it was converted into a floating science laboratory. And in June of 1973, that's how old I was. This ship sailed from Manhattan to the coast of northwest Africa to view a total solar eclipse of the sun.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what, of course, a solar eclipse has to be of the sun.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  I would hope, yes.

• 1:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A total solar eclipse, one of the longest of the century, and Neil Armstrong was one of the invited educational staff.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  Who else was on the, so who was on the ship?

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Isaac Asimov was there, and some other people you might not have heard of but have extreme expertise in things you want to know about. There were climate scientists.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  Henry Winkler.

• 1:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's expertise there I don't haven't learned of yet.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Possibly.

• 1:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was the Fonz on in 1973? It must have been, yeah.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Happy Days?

• 2:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, isn't that Happy Days was like harking back to the 50s probably in the 70s.

• 2:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There was. So I met him there and he was a quiet man then, he was a quiet man his whole life.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was with his kids, who are sort of my age, and that's when we first met. Not that he would remember me after that, for decades of course, I was just someone else who went to shake his hand. But later on, when I got more active in sort of the civics of science and space exploration, I appeared on committees for NASA and he was on several of these committees, so we got to know each other much better.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  And so then you'd, so, and then you started spending time together?

• 2:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, well not, we were not beer drinking buddies, but, but, no.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Wine, but maybe wine drinking buddies? And the occasional salmon?

• 2:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we were, no, so we knew each other, we would correspond, we would talk about the past, present and future of NASA. And like I said, he remained a very private person.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Over all that time. And one of my favorite statements made about him was from one of his fellow Apollo astronauts from the film In the Shadow of the Moon, I think it was called, where the whole documentary was just interviews with the moonwalkers, with those who went to the moon, that's it. There was no narrator, there was no fancy reenacted footage, it was just them talking. And one of them said, you know, the fact that Neil was sort of, was not a big media celebrity, meant that each one of us in the world could take a little bit of ownership of the first steps on the moon. Because let's say he came off the moon and started singing and dancing and saying, I'm Neil Armstrong and you're not, and I landed on the moon and you didn't, all of a sudden...

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Like a jerk would. Like a space jerk.

• 3:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If that's what he started doing, then you're not part of that.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, but instead he let it be the sort of whole community of everybody.

• 3:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He let it be the whole community and he receded and it became a gift to us all. And so, this was true then and now, that like I said, he was, he's been...

• 4:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's been in the backdrop. He hasn't been inactive. In fact, he was professor at University of Cincinnati, professor of engineering. And so it's not like he disappeared. He still ran his life. But he served his country, landed on the moon, walked on the moon, and went back to becoming a private citizen.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's how that played. So Eugene, you've got questions for me.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  I do.

• 4:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Combed from the internet.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  The internet.

• 4:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Invented by Neil Armstrong.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  He has so many secret inventions.

• 4:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So these came over Google Plus and Twitter.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Twitter, Google Plus, Facebook.

• 4:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Our Facebook page.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  One from Friendster is just a request, dating, no. Here's, these are two questions from Google.

• 4:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now that you mention it, if we're low on cash, we could start like a Star Date dating service.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Star Talk Dating.

• 4:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Geeks finding geeks.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  This is perfect. Star Date.

• 5:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Star Date.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  And then some redone Star Trek thing. All right. Well, now that we have that business in place.

• 5:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What do you have?

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Okay, this is from Aaron W.

• 5:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Came over by what means?

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Came by Google Plus, whatever that is.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  No, I'm sure it'll survive, just like Google Wave did. Okay, enough about that. Aaron W. writes, "I'm curious about the tech side of space. What kind of computers ran the Apollo 11 mission and others like it? Speed, storage capacity, etc.?". And then she also adds, "What are astronauts using now 50 years later? I'll extend the question to mission control as well."

• 5:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, wow. Okay. No, I'm not that fluent in hardware to give a precise answer to that question without looking it up. But what I can tell you is, without hesitation, that the computing power of a singing birthday card rivals that of what was used to launch the Saturn V rocket.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Really?

• 5:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's no...

• 5:57Speaker 01

  So it's like way less than a PC Junior?

• 6:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and actually, I shouldn't say a greeting card. Probably closer to...

• 6:03Speaker 01

  A solar calculator.

• 6:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some fraction of your cellphone is far beyond anything.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  My cellphone is probably way more advanced.

• 6:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it is. But what I'm saying, I'm trying to give a sense of, it's stuff you carry around on your hip.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is completely... Uh, it's vastly greater than anything we went to the moon on.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so back then, that was a time when things were simpler. By the way.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Simple things are not only, are not necessarily worse.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, sometimes they're better because there are fewer parts to fail.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When the shuttle was announced, I remembered this distinctly and they said, "This is the most advanced and complex machine ever to be launched into space."

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  NASA spoke boastfully of this and I said to myself, "That does not feel right."

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  That's not what makes something good. Then it has more things to break.

• 6:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know about this. And when you look at risk assessment, you look at the likelihood of a part failing by how many launches or over how much time. And every part that you add to the structure of that vessel, you have to consider the likelihood of all of these, uh, causing a failure. So in other words, if you have a hundred light bulbs and they, they blow out once a month, let's say, and you have a hundred of them, then they're going out six or seven times a month. I mean, you're changing light bulbs all the time.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  Ideally, spaceships would just be eight-track cassettes. They should have very few parts and fly perfectly.

• 7:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, there'll be much more on StarTalk Radio. We are in the StarTalk Q and A. Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 8:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back in our celebration of Apollo. The death of Neil Armstrong. That's something to celebrate, his life, I think. You know, I committed myself recently, I said to myself, if anyone dies in their 80s, I'm not going to mourn their death, I'm going to celebrate their life. Because if you live into the 80s, you're doing good.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  You did a great job.

• 8:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You did good.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  I mean, that would extend that to sort of 60s and up.

• 8:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  60s, you could reach them down in there.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  I'm just saying, I like the idea that if someone was 79 and you're like, I'm not going to celebrate this. I would just, I think it's fine to celebrate.

• 8:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  Any length of time, just trying to look at it positively.

• 8:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Look at it, look at it.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  As opposed to just being like, 79, too bad, wasted life.

• 9:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we left off in the previous segment about a discussion of what the computing power was available to Apollo astronauts versus today.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  And here's a question actually from Robert Scott Herrick, which follows up on that. He writes, "I'd like to expand on Aaron W.'s question. 50 years later, what would we do differently when going back to the moon? What technological advancements would help in a new endeavor to land on the moon?"

• 9:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me slip an interesting story in there. When the Hubble was first designed and it was built and it got ready to be launched on the shuttle, it had a very early chip running its onboard computer. And then there was the Challenger disaster. So there was Hubble, delayed in its launch, sitting mothballed in a warehouse. And, you know, many years later, the thing finally launches. Meanwhile, were several generations of chip more advanced than what the Hubble was launched in. So it was kind of uncomfortable to know that you spent all this money on this spacecraft that was up there that did not have nearly the computing power that you were enjoying here on Earth. And when they serviced the Hubble...

• 10:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To fix the problem, they ripped out all the old boards and put in and updated the circuit, the new ones. And so it's something that when you have a long horizon of launch and design and functioning, you want to be able to factor in the ability to update your electronics. Otherwise, your-

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Will chips increase in speed, what, every one and a half weeks?

• 10:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  Is it a month and a half?

• 10:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Moore's Law says it doubles in speed and power every 18 months.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've held close to that for the-

• 10:43Speaker 01

  I can't wait till whatever the singularity happens. Just 30 years away till we're all rock robots.

• 10:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll do a show on that, and we'll invite you back.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Ah, good.

• 10:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, so now when we go, the computing is just everywhere. I mean, we have computers in your refrigerators now, and everything you interact with practically has a computer. So space would be no different from this. It would have to be temperature-tested and shock-tested and all the rest of it.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Would it be risky, though, to make everything like that going into space? Would there be fallbacks where you wouldn't?

• 11:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For everything important, they always build in redundancies.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Right. And do they ever build in any sort of analog, I mean, or-

• 11:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You mean an abacus?

• 11:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, would you have an abacus along with a solar calculator, just in case you really needed to do quick math?

• 11:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, because no one can do math in their head anymore at all.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  What if you had to, you got to the moon, and then all of a sudden you had to do your taxes, and then you were like, "Oh, my God, I have none of the tools because all the electricity is dead."

• 11:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I think, you know, they don't have to pay taxes while they're in space. I'm sure of it, and if not, we'll start a movement to make that happen.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  That's literally, I think, the plot of the movie with Bruce Willis, whatever it was called, Asteroid or something. Anyway-

• 11:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So getting back to Neil Armstrong, so when he died, August 25th,

• 12:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As you may know, the family asked of the world to consider that evermore to be "Wink at the Moon" night around the world. And so that's the day he died, and I looked up and I winked at the moon that night. And, by the way, the moon is also up in the daytime.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  And there was also a blue moon?

• 12:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, there was. In fact, on the day of the blue moon, there was a private family ceremony honoring him, and I was invited to that. I felt very honored. There was at least 10-

• 12:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Astronauts from the Apollo era.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 12:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so they were all in their, you know, upper seventies, low eighties, you know, none of them are spring chickens.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 12:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, it's the closing of an era. I mean, it's quite, I was very moved by the thought that here is a time when we garnered all of our resources, our emotional, political, cultural resources to, to explore and walk on the moon. And now the few among us who had that privilege are dying away. And it's, it's as though a chapter in our life that we were all so proud of is fading. It wouldn't be fading if we kept going. Sure, they would die, but more would be born and more would be do, would be doing it.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? And so it changed the nature of that event for me. So I was sadder than I thought I wanted to be.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  Right. It's the end of.

• 13:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right. The death of Neil Armstrong should just be, oh, the early guys are dying. But what they started still.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  Exists.

• 13:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exists with, it still exists.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  How did the astronauts that were still there sort of feel about it? I mean, were they?

• 13:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, they're, they're, they're, they're grownups, you know, I mean, they're old and they're, they're, their mortality has descended on them as well. So, I mean, it was very respectful. And then there was a, um, some reminiscences from his kids and from his, uh, old friend of his from.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, from many years back. And so, uh, and I, I met the rest of the family that I had not met previously. And for me, what always makes me misty eyed was at the end, you know, he served in the Navy. And of course there was a Navy color guard there that walked in with the flag. And at the end they walk out and we exit from the tent. It was in a, in a country club setting. Big open field golf course, open field. And sure enough, in comes the missing man formation, the four jets that fly directly overhead. And one of them pulls away right when they fly over your, your gathering. And, and it leaves the formation and the formation continues. And it's, I, I get, I get teary every time I see it. So it was, it was a beautiful ceremony.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  Beautiful ceremony.

• 14:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Beautiful ceremony.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  And sort of, did they talk about at all NASA now and in the future?

• 14:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, cuz it's not.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  It was just more of a memorial.

• 14:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It wasn't about that.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  It's a celebration.

• 14:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I mean, it could have devolved into that, but it was not. It was about.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  It was about Neil Armstrong.

• 14:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The man, and, and yes, we know him for walking on the moon, but there's the rest of his life.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, he loved golf, he was a family man, and he, you know, he had kids, and so it's the rest of his life fleshed out, and that was the value of that.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That event. So you got more questions on this?

• 15:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, lots of questions.

• 15:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go for it.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Um.

• 15:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where did these come from?

• 15:14Speaker 01

  This is from Facebook, which is a social networking.

• 15:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Facebook page, just find us, we're StarTalk Radio.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On Facebook, just find us, easy, and like us when you get there.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  This is from Al.

• 15:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh. Just Al?

• 15:25Speaker 01

  Well, maybe it's Al Basiri.

• 15:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, thank you.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  But now I don't know if I pronounced it correctly or not.

• 15:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I will take it. All right, go on, what does he say?

• 15:33Speaker 01

  Uh, I had heard that when Apollo 11 was launched, it was done so, it was done so with less technology than what we have today in our cell phones. Everyone's like, everyone thinks their cellphone is a spaceship, basically. Uh, had the motivation been from science itself and not the Cold War, how much further do you think we could have been today in comparison to the Mars Curiosity rover?

• 15:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, don't get me started. Ooh, that's a whole thing. Oh, my gosh. Okay, if the motivation had been science only and not the Cold War, we would have never gotten to the moon in the first place.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Right, so it's a sort of, but.

• 16:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's, it's a sort of funny question where it's like, say at the time, science was very important.

• 16:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's not the answer Al is expecting, but it is the truth. We've gotta eat it. It's to dislodge a hundred and ten, a hundred billion dollars in today's dollars, back then. To go to the moon could have only happened in a military atmosphere. Science has never been the driver of major costly projects in the history of human conduct.

• 16:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is net science, discovery, exploration has never been that. There's always been a driver behind it all.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that driver has been war. It has been economics. It has been hegemony. Love that word?

• 16:52Speaker 01

  That's great. Yeah, no. I bet you would pass your SATs even today.

• 16:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This morning. It's now unfortunately, it's never science has piggybacked these activities. And exploration has piggybacked them, but it's never led it. So we would have never even gone to the moon.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  If someone could fake an alien signal that seemed like it was a threat, but coming here in like, say 15 years, would that be the best way to really get us motivated?

• 17:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it would be if the alien said, get the hell off of earth because we're going to nuke it.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Here's 15 years. You have 15 years to leave earth. And we would finally have the defenses.

• 17:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We would terraform Mars, terraform Venus. We'd set up colonies on the moon and we'd be scattered into the solar system.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  We would terraform Florida.

• 17:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We would, we would sell seats to watch earth get destroyed and it would totally rock.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  I will work on sending a false signal threatening the earth then.

• 17:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you, Eugene, on that.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  You're welcome, earth. I am a savior.

• 17:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got about 30 seconds before our, our break. Eugene, did you have any quick questions about the Apollo era or Neil Armstrong or?

• 17:59Speaker 01

  I pro- I, I have, I have so many, but they, but they're so similar to the ones that are being.

• 18:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's, that's lame, Eugene. Oh, yeah, I had them, but they're the same as what we're getting off the internet. All right, we'll go back to the ones on the internet.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  I'll think of a good question.

• 18:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, Eugene.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Did they eat ice cream? Just kidding, don't answer that.

• 18:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but they did have tang. This is StarTalk Radio. We'll be right back.

• 18:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we are in the Cosmic Queries, the after-hours part.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of StarTalk Radio. StarTalk After Hours.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cosmic Queries. You got another one for me Eugene?

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Uh, well actually, let's take a call.

• 18:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the lines.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's take a call from the line. Michelle Obama, go.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  Hi, my name is Jake and I'm in Portland, Oregon. I've always wondered, what does it sound like to astronauts up on the moon? I know there's not much atmosphere up there and sound travels through atmosphere, but what sorts of sounds are coming from their suits? And could you hear anything with limited atmosphere? Thank you.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Let me just answer that. It sounds, if I understand correctly, like Jethro Tull. Specifically, the album "Think It's a Break." Forty-five minutes of orchestral pop.

• 19:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would have picked "Dark Side of the Moon."

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you're picking album tracks.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  That sounds...

• 19:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eugene.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Well, and I think we now know why I picked Jethro Tull. To not pick "Dark Side of the Moon." It does not sound like Pink Floyd in people's suits.

• 19:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that was a great...

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Sounds like Sid Barrett.

• 19:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was a great question. So, what happens is the suits themselves are pressurized. So, they're breathing air in their suits. And there is no air on the moon.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, in other words, they can't talk to each other, obviously, but they do via radio communication. So, there's a little voice microphone. And it transmits to the other astronauts on the moon. So, that's how they communicate with each other. It is electronically, not acoustically, in that sense. So, what they would hear is this.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  That's all they would hear?

• 20:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, they'd hear their own breathing through...

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Unless they started talking to themselves. Then they'd hear their own voice.

• 20:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's correct.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  But but otherwise, they would hear breathing.

• 20:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they did.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  And whatever. So if they were to sing whatever song they sang, they would hear.

• 20:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. And so that's not as interesting an answer as what the caller might have.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  He had hoped that there was just tons of rattling and I think it would be terrifying if you were in a suit and there was breathing and then all of a sudden you started hearing the suit make weird clanking noises.

• 20:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that big backpack that they wore.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Also is there, it maintains body temperature because they're exposed to the sun and without coolant, they would basically overheat. And so, so.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  Oh, how hot is it?

• 20:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, well, so temperature is a is a funny thing and it depends on what the medium is that's doing the absorbing of the sun.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 21:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What color that thing is. So if you have a white sheet of paper, it won't absorb much sun and it won't get that hot. A black piece of paper will absorb the sun and it will get hot. It will go to several hundred degrees.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 21:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's correct.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  So so if you had a black piece of paper on the moon, it would set light on fire?

• 21:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, that's not hot enough to ignite.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Oh, it won't reach four, whatever, fifty one?

• 21:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Four fifty one.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Just a guess. I wish there was a book about it.

• 21:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fahrenheit four fifty one.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  So it'd just get very hot, but you could cook an egg on it, on a black piece of paper?

• 21:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, you could poach an egg, yeah, because.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, you could poach it.

• 21:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you're not gonna fry it. You'll poach it. And so you.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  I can't wait to go to the moon and poach eggs on black pieces of paper.

• 21:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cook eggs on them.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  But on white paper, it would get not nearly as good.

• 21:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right, because it reflects the energy from the sun rather than absorbing it. We don't have these issues as badly on Earth. Because the air around us is generally what we consider to be the thing that has the temperature.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're not saying, what is the temperature of the couch or of the car, of the metal in the car? You say, what is the air temperature?

• 22:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that kind of homogenizes.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  So the moon having no air means just the object itself is what has the temperature?

• 22:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The object itself has the temperature and that temperature is not shared with other objects unless they're in physical contact. So that's the thermodynamics of the moon. Thermodynamics one oh one. And in terms of the sounds, yeah, the you hear anything, any sound that you're making, they would surely hear the vibrations from their.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Backpack.

• 22:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From their backpack. That's correct.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  So so the the backpack mostly cools, uh, the the suit because through the window you get hot, the window meaning the helmet.

• 22:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, the suits are white, so they're reflecting as much solar energy as possible, but you want to maintain a livable body temperature within the suit. And so.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  Yes. You don't want to send people all the way to the moon only to cook them or, sorry, poach them.

• 22:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Poach them.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  In their suits.

• 22:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what else you get for me?

• 22:52Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 22:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In this, the Cosmic Queries.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of StarTalk.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  Uh, this is from Twitter, from Mike Kunha.

• 23:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  Uh, at StarTalk Radio. What have we learned regarding space engineering since Neil Armstrong was up there?

• 23:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Space engineering, we learned how to build in zero G.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 23:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It was not obvious that that was something you could do. And zero G, can you make structures that are useful? Can you put telescopes there? Can you... What about this sort of orbit around the Earth? Is that a useful place to do any business?

• 23:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And literal and figurative business. And historically, if you ever looked at sci-fi, they would always go to a surface and that's where they would pitch tent. That's where they would do their thing. And I would say, beginning with the film 2001, they showed a space station being an actual place.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Right, to build stuff.

• 23:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To build stuff, to do things.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  Star Trek also, when did they... Because isn't... In the first Star Trek, don't they build things in space?

• 23:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, yeah. So, in space, you can build things so large that they would not otherwise be stable in a gravitational...

• 24:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Under one G.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the Hubble telescope, for example, is unstable, structurally unstable, at one G. It can only exist in zero G. And the space station itself is the size of a football field. You can't bring that thing down to Earth and make a tourist attraction out of it. It wouldn't hold itself up.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, engineering is...

• 24:19Speaker 01

  One G, how much you... Like, what's the G here?

• 24:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll get back to that when we come back.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk Radio, we'll see you after the break.

• 24:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk Radio, we are back to StarTalk After Hours. StarTalk, the cosmic queries part of the broadcast. And just before break, we left off, Eugene, talking about the fact that we learned how to do extraordinary engineering feats in space. And I don't think we advanced a space frontier since Apollo, because we haven't gone beyond the moon. We haven't even gone beyond low Earth orbit. But in low Earth orbit, we've done heroic things. Created the space station, which itself is the size of a football field. Extraordinary structures that we learned we can not only build in space, but maintain, gain access to, and...

• 25:22Speaker 01

  And they wouldn't, and you couldn't build it here on Earth. They're structurally unsound on Earth.

• 25:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Unbuildable on Earth, because every part of it is weightless. So there are no load-bearing elements to it. Whereas on Earth, the bigger you build something, the more load-bearing, the lower segments need to be, and the materials have to be, have a strength commensurate with those needs.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  So you could make a space station out of foil. I mean, you wouldn't want to, but you could.

• 25:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Aluminum foil.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Aluminum foil space station, that's a fun project. Wait, so you said that it couldn't survive in 1G. How many Gs are on Earth?

• 25:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so by definition, Earth is 1G. The Earth's surface is 1G. And so if you were in an environment that was 1 and 1/2G, if you stood on a bathroom scale, you'd weigh 1 and 1/2 times your current weight.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So when they talk about pilots pulling 3Gs or this sort of thing, or 2Gs, you put a bathroom scale under their butt, you would weigh them, they would weigh 3 times their normal body weight.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Because they're going so fast.

• 26:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it's not speed, it's acceleration.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  They're going so heavy.

• 26:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's going so, it's acceleration, and there are 2 ways to accelerate. One is to just go faster and faster and faster, and that way you'd feel pressure against the back of your seat. Another one is to change direction that you're moving in. And then you feel, that's that quote "force" that you feel against the wall, the door of your car, when you make a sharp turn. So those are forces changing your velocity, one changing your speed, the other changing your direction. And so, so yeah, in a pilot pulling a 3G turn, they're changing their direction and they feel the G-force is there.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 27:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  I have a question here from Facebook, from John Hart. And the question is, wasn't Neil Armstrong the second man on the moon after the cameraman? That's the question.

• 27:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. Next question.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  That's it? Yes?

• 27:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. Busted. There it is. What he's referring to, you know, there are all these documentaries that recreate the ascent of Mount Everest and the descent to the Marianas Trench. And there's always a camera at the point where the person who is the first to reach that point reaches. And so.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  You're like, how'd the camera get there?

• 27:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a hilarious thing and I always, in fact, joke about that when they have to redo documentaries. But, no, so the, the, the lamb had cameras positioned out on its, on its legs. And so they could watch things happen as they came down the ladder.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  Right. That's, that's the other very reasonable version. Though I do like the idea that there's some cameraman who isn't allowed to say that he was the first man on the moon.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  He was more of a videographer than an astronaut that traveled to space.

• 28:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, what else you got?

• 28:06Speaker 01

  I got Gregory Langhauser from Facebook. If we wanted to return to the moon on a manned mission, assuming we have the money, how long would we need to build the ships, train the astronauts, grand crew and go? Also, moon base or Mars base? Which is cooler? Let's ask the first part.

• 28:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you know, who knows today? Because back in the, in the day, in the golden age of Apollo.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  When we were trying to do that.

• 28:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  NASA was lean and mean and it was completely conceived and designed to accomplish that one feat. To put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth. And so now NASA has way more in its portfolio. I mean, it's got missions to the planets and it's got the shuttle. Well, not anymore the shuttle, but it's trying to redesign a vehicle that'll get us back. And, and we've got the space station. So it, it doesn't always follow that if it took 10 years to do it in the 60s, it would take less time to do it 40 years later. So I couldn't tell you how long this would take. My sense of it is at least 10 years, fewer than 20 years.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Really? Wait, if we want to, if.

• 29:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If we said today, we are going to go to the moon as soon as we can.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, 10 years.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  Really? You don't think we could go in like five or six?

• 29:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  Okay. Well, then I won't try.

• 29:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. I'm just not.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  I just, but meaning if we had the research, if we'd like genuinely dedicated resources and...

• 29:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If we felt threatened, we could do it in quickly. If we felt, if our, if our national security depended on it.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, yeah, so two questions. One is, do you think 10 years reasonably? And then if our national security depended on it, how fast?

• 29:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, five years.

• 29:41Speaker 01

  Five years, okay.

• 29:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or less, or less.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  Well, there you go. So that's the, I, uh, yeah. I mean, that's my question. My question is how fast is if we were in danger.

• 29:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, if China said they want to put military bases on Mars.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We would be in Mars in 10 months. One month to fund, design, build, and test the vehicle.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And nine months to get there.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's exactly how that would be.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 30:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta run?

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Okay, I'll see you around.

• 30:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got another segment coming?

• 30:09Speaker 01

  Yes, no, no, I'm not leaving.

• 30:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't leave.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Just testing you.

• 30:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll, we'll be right back with StarTalk after hours.

• 30:24Speaker 03

  Unlocking the secrets of your world and everything orbiting around it. This is StarTalk.

• 30:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back in this special StarTalk radio program. We were commemorating Apollo.

• 30:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Apollo and Neil Armstrong.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  And, uh, should we take some calls?

• 30:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Let's take another call.

• 30:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, let's take another call.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  All right.

• 30:48Speaker 04

  Hi, this is Sally calling from New York. Um, who do you think the successor to Neil Armstrong is? And where will they be exploring? What great feat will be accomplished that will galvanize us the same way that his walking on the moon did? Thank you.

• 31:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent, Sally. Thanks for that call.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I was asked a similar question to this in the Twitterverse.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Uh-huh.

• 31:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and you know what I said?

• 31:19Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 31:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I said, the person, the first person...

• 31:22Speaker 01

  The son.

• 31:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The first person who walks on Mars.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is a middle schooler today in China.

• 31:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got in big trouble. Oh, that's not patriotic. Oh, my gosh, that's un-American. That's how could you possibly do just when we're trying to drum up our our support for

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Well, one better way to drum up support than than to be like unless we act fast, it'll be a middle schooler in China.

• 31:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just trying to be factual.

• 31:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you look at trend lines, look at what China's investing in their in their space exploration programs and the track that they find themselves on.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  Are they spending much more than us?

• 32:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're they have a much greater cultural, financial, and political commitment to that exercise than we do.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  If we could only also enslave half our citizens.

• 32:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Every.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  Imagine the advances we could make.

• 32:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Every year NASA goes hat in hand to Congress.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if that were not what was necessary NASA we'd be, you know, the whole solar system would be our backyard by now, but that's just not the case. So I was just trying to be truthful about it. In fact, there is it has been said accurately that in the 1960s there were two spacefaring countries.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 32:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And in this, the 21st century, the second decade of the 21st century, there are two spacefaring countries, but one of them is not the United States. Right now, we have no capacity to send a human being into space.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, we have a we we could probably do it. We just can't bring them back and they wouldn't be in a shuttle.

• 32:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  They would have to be thrown at almost unimaginable speeds just towards the moon.

• 32:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They wouldn't be in one piece either.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  They would be ejected out of a flying.

• 33:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, of course, we've sent robots everywhere and we've got robots headed even to Pluto and one that's exiting the solar system as we speak, the Voyager 1 spacecraft.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Launched in the 1970s. So it's not though it's not as though we have not been to space. But if you're thinking about the the crude space vehicles, that's the the the gender neutral way to say it, a crude spacecraft rather than manned, then. It's not clear who the next person will be and from my read of the way things are going, it could just as easily be someone from China.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Taking a first step on Mars.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  Well, this leads me to a question from Facebook from Lara Venner. What do you think needs to happen to motivate Americans to get excited about the space program the way they did during the Apollo missions?

• 33:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you know, that's a great question.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Because I will say that, you know, you talk about how the Cold War is very motivating, but also people were genuinely excited and, you know, about...

• 33:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, are they excited enough to write a hundred billion dollar check unless they feel threatened? The answer is no. The history of this exercise is no, no. Just look at all the expensive things people have done throughout human culture, right? We've waged war, there was the...

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Ice swans made of ice.

• 34:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's costly but not really expensive. It's not a major redirection of the GDP of a nation.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But look at it, the Great Wall of China, the cathedrals of Europe, you can make a list of these that are really expensive.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  They all involve sort of feudal or slightly enslavy political systems.

• 34:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But they involve the praise of deity, the praise of royalty, they involve the promise of economic return, that's the Columbus voyages, the Magellan voyages, Lewis and Clark, they involve war, or what we'd otherwise call defense. And so, these are the motivators. I am not so, I will not be naive and say, "We should go to Mars and send people there because it is in our DNA."

• 34:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is, we are Americans.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  We should go because there is a money god on Mars. And once we can just get the money god, we'll be perfect.

• 35:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I think we can go to Mars if we convince people that the act of going to Mars stimulates the STEM field, science, technology, engineering, and math. Makes people want to become engineers and scientists, makes people want to do the kinds of things that invent the economies of tomorrow. And so, in fact, it becomes an economic plan because of how the cultural mission spills into the rest of society and culture. And then we invent the tomorrow that we always thought should have been here by now, back in the 1960s.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Right. So, basically, it's...

• 35:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I want flying cars, that's what this comes down to.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  And flying skateboards.

• 35:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hoverboards, we have a term for it.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  A phone that's also a camera.

• 35:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta take a break here, but when StarTalk returns, Eugene and I will enter into a rapid round of cosmic queries. These are questions sent in by our fans from across all our social media on topics about anything and everything.

• 36:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. Here's more of this week's episode.

• 36:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're going to pack in as many answers as I can.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  I mean, this is literally from Denmark. Why would you even bother? Merlin, this is what Merlin asked.

• 36:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Merlin from Denmark.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  I know.

• 36:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, cool. Let's do it.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  I recently found an article describing a relatively recently found quasar cluster, which apparently is too big to exist in the universe, according to our current state of understanding. I am wondering now, of course, how an object could be even be too large for the entire universe and also what that exactly means for our understanding of the cosmos.

• 37:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, so that's a great question. So I think there's a mix up of information there. So if there's an object, you have like galaxies out there, right? And then you have like pairs of galaxies and they know about each other because they orbit one another. They can have clusters of galaxies and they orbit like a bee's in a hive wood. And so, so you can see that galaxies can know about the existence of other galaxies that are nearby and they create what we call a cluster. Now, if you have a cluster of quasars

• 37:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  and they know about each other, but they're too far away from one another for the age of the universe to have allowed them to know about one another at the time they were created, that's a problem.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's definitely a problem.

• 37:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, in other words, it's a coherent structure.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 37:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is larger than the universe at the time would have allowed to have existed.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  Right, but now it's fine.

• 37:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, well, now it would have been fine, but back, we're talking about quasars in the early universe.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 38:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The early universe, back then, the universe was smaller.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  It was the size of like a pan, a size of a Marshall's.

• 38:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pick a time and any, pick a time and we can find a time in the universe where, pick a size.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a time in the universe when it was that size.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Marshall's.

• 38:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A Marshall's, yes. A marble, yes. An atom, yes. A football stadium, yes.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  I see.

• 38:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so it's, so it's a challenge when you have this. It's, you know, the universe brims with mysteries. We don't have a, we don't have an answer to it.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Is that the name of, of your band? Um, all right, here's a question from, uh, Nick. Uh, uh, Christoph Wetterich, a theoretical physicist at the University of Heldeberg in Germany.

• 38:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If he's a theoretical physicist, he should have no questions for me whatsoever.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Well, it's too late. This guy's quoting him. It's too late for me.

• 38:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, he's quoting the other guy?

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, sorry. Nick. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, Nick is like, expanding universe, and then he, and then this is the message. Christoph, a theoretical physicist at the University of Heldeberg in Germany, has recently.

• 39:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be Heidelberg.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm just testing you.

• 39:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Uh, has recently proposed an idea that the universe isn't expanding, but instead gaining mass. If the entire universe is gaining mass at the same proportions, it makes his theory impossible to test, though it remains mathematically possible. Nature News ran the article with a couple of opinions. Cosmologist Hongong Sheng Zhao, who thought it should be entertained and nice.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  Ashfordi, an astrophysicist in Canada who preferred the standard Occam razor approach. Have you read this paper? Whether you have or have not, what are your thoughts on or initial reaction to it?

• 39:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me read all these names that I have tried to do justice to.

• 39:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you didn't, you didn't even get the city right, so.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, hey, I, yeah, but that's because I was terrified that I was gonna say Hong Kong, Zhengzhou incorrectly.

• 40:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what we have going on here is a new idea that someone puts forth that could explain what we already know to be true, but in a new and novel way, right? There's a time honored history of this going on in, in the sciences. In fact, Copernicus, who put the sun back in the middle of the known universe, turning our, our geocentric world into a heliocentric world. His book called The Revolution of Us, that book, which is one of the most coveted books in the history of publishing that goes for millions of dollars at auction. If you want to pick up one from the original first.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  I would love to. Maybe I'll start a Kickstarter to buy it.

• 40:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The original first edition. That idea was so heretical. To put the sun in the middle and not the earth. It is clear and obvious from any read of the Bible that earth is in the middle of all motion and everything goes around the earth. That's how any movement is described and earth is stationary. To sort of say something that's not that is heretical and at the time punishable by, by.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  Or by.

• 41:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Trial and, and the inquisition. So at the beginning of it, there's a disclaimer and the disclaimer not written by Copernicus. It says, this is probably not true, but it makes the math a little easier. So for that reason alone, it's worth publishing so that the mathematicians can calculate where the planets are in the night sky.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  That's a good, great way around it.

• 41:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the point is, if you have a new idea.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It could be completely radical from what was prevailing at the time, and it could be right, it could be wrong. You don't, you, first you want to make sure it doesn't predict something that you already know is not true. And you want it to predict something that you haven't discovered yet. And that'll give you, that'll give you confidence that it's a real idea. And it's not just exactly mapping onto what you already know is true. If that's all it is, it's not useful. It's just somebody else's other idea. And you don't want to turn it into a, a, a rigid.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Just a big idea party.

• 42:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A, a rigid Kipling just so story. It was how the leopard got the spots. It got before this way, and here's how the elephant got its trunk. You could just come up with another explanation.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That doesn't make it right.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  It's just another explanation.

• 42:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, and it's got to survive the testing.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  You're not a fan of multiple origin stories?

• 42:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you want to make a prediction that we can test it, and if the prediction fails, then we discard the idea. So I haven't, I don't know the idea well enough to know how, what kind of predictions it makes. If it makes no predictions, it's not useful to anyone.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not anyone scientifically.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  Sounds like you're not a huge fan of theoretical physicists?

• 42:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, that's why.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  Oh, they're fine. On a scale of one to 10, where would you put them?

• 42:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  God, they're 11.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  That's a very.

• 42:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, they're good, we need, we.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Disingenuous 11.

• 43:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My wife is a mathematical physicist.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 43:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Got to say nice things.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  Okay, right, I don't want to ruin your marriage.

• 43:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Um.

• 43:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What else you got?

• 43:09Speaker 01

  Okay, uh, Gareth asks, I've read some theories that HARP can be used to manipulate the weather. Is this possible?

• 43:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, HARP is, uh, uh, high altitude.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Radio, pension.

• 43:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I always forget, I always forget the acronym.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, there are people who are sure that the government is stockpiling aliens and controlling everything about anything we would ever think about. And they clearly have never worked for the government because the level of incompetence in the government.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  Inefficiency.

• 43:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And inefficiency.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Knows no bounds.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, for starters.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  It's true that you could manipulate the weather like they did during the Olympics in China. Like, it's not that you can't manipulate the weather, it's that whether you would really have any serious control.

• 43:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, weather happens in many places, so it's, it, it comes about from the heat balance, from the energy coming from the sun. What it reflects off of, what it gets absorbed by, what the upcurrents do, what the downdrafts do. What the rotation of the earth is doing, all of this factors in. And so I have not been convinced by any of the reports to suggest that experiments in the upper atmosphere. Uh, physics experiments are having any effect on our weather whatsoever.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And and it would be and it would be tragic if we wanted to say, oh, that's why it's getting hotter. In the world, okay, because there's some experiment happening. It would, that would be tragic because we would be missing the nine hundred pound gorilla in the room.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  Right. And then, but can you?

• 44:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The, the, the carbon dioxide gorilla, yes.

• 44:40Speaker 01

  Yes, the nine hundred pound carbon dioxide gorilla. All right, uh, here's another question.

• 44:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, I don't think gorillas can weigh nine hundred pounds.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  Is that true?

• 44:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I don't. The biggest one I've seen, so not nine hundred pounds, five hundred pounds, yeah, not nine hundred, so nine hundred pound.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Like a pumpkin, I bet there's like a pumpkin that someone has made with a gorilla, like a five hundred gorilla, holding a four hundred pound pumpkin.

• 45:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would work, yes.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  That would be in the room, which would also should attract attention. Um, here's the question, though, I don't know who it's from.

• 45:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  Is it possible to somehow direct pollution through our atmosphere and dispose of it in space? All without harming our atmosphere. Love your show, by the way.

• 45:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you. Uh, depends on what kind of pollution you're talking about. The, the.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Dust.

• 45:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what you're saying is rather than pollute your rivers or your oceans, you want to pollute the space environment.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  Well, since it wouldn't be, since, well, throw it into space, throw it in.

• 45:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you would, well, you'd wanna actually get rid of it. I, you drop it into a black hole, drop it down into the sun.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'd wanna actually remove the thing entirely.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  But what was, would it matter to throw it into space? Like, would that be bad to someone?

• 45:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have to calculate the energy it takes to throw it into space versus the energy it takes to completely break it down.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  On earth.

• 45:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On earth into some non-pollutant.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 45:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ingredient.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  You don't want to send a whole thing of like sporks into space because that's the way to dispose of it.

• 45:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I don't know that sporks are destructible at all, uh, but so you'd wanna not just scatter it into space. Space, we might wanna travel that one day. So.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, but we wouldn't put so much pollution into space that we'd be like, oh, we can't get to Mars.

• 46:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think they said that when they had built smokestacks. Oh, it's just a little bit of dirty air. Look how big the atmosphere is. Don't worry about it. Yeah.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  All right, all right. I won't, I won't throw my trash into space.

• 46:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's have some foresight here.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Okay. Are there any plasma rockets that are close to being ready to go to Mars? What is the timeframe? How do they work?

• 46:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  He's like, "Is it true? Tell me how to build one."

• 46:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's my lightning round question. Yes, we do have plasma rockets. They're ion drives. And they are not good for sort of launching things. They're good for slowly changing the direction. And they're good for very long trips. Or if you're gonna send cargo to Mars and you don't, you can take, you know, years to get it there. You know, high shelf life product, go ahead. But if you're gonna move people, the ion drive is not a good option for people at this point.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  Would you ever use an ion?

• 46:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It takes too slow to move you.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  Would you, oh, okay. You would use it on Earth? No.

• 47:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no. Next. Good.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  Great. Uh, if we could manage to build a spaceship that could accelerate at a constant 1G, could we leverage time dilation to reach the nearest galaxy within the lifetime of a human on the spaceship?

• 47:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, the nearest galaxy, no. But you can definitely, uh, if you could accelerate at 1G, and that way you can walk around in the spaceship as though you're on Earth, because you'd have a 1G acceleration, that would be cool. No bone marrow, no, no bone mass loss or anything, all these problems you hear about of being in 0G. Uh, we can go ahead and do that. Uh, go to the nearest stars and come back. And yes, time dilation, you'll eventually reach near the speed of light. Time dilation will allow you to not age very much. But people on Earth will continue to age, and when you come back, everyone will have forgotten about you. There you have it. We gotta go.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  We gotta go.

• 47:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eugene!

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Bye!

• 47:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks again for being StarTalk.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cosmic Queries Edition.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  All right.

• 47:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Grab bag. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. As always, I bid you farewell, which means I say to you, "To keep looking."