Space Spin-Offs

Space is now big business. Technology originally developed for the space program sometimes ends up in products for use on Earth, often in surprising ways. The 40,000 certified “Space Products” range from mattresses to medical devices, and have turned space into a multi-billion-dollar industry. Inspired by our excursions into the Final Frontier, entrepreneurs and inventors are turning stardust into gold.

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

• 0:20Speaker 00

  Our universe is filled with secrets and mysteries, leaving us with many questions to be answered.

• 0:33Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we find ourselves searching for those answers as the very fabric of space, science, and society are converging.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  Here, for the first time, these worlds collide. As we give you the knowledge that breaks the barrier between what is science and what is merely pop culture. This, this is StarTalk. Now, here's your hosts, astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Lynn Koplitz. StarTalk.

• 1:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, Lynn. How you doing, Lynn?

• 1:14Speaker 02

  Hello. I'm good. How are you, Neil?

• 1:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent. You know, we're gonna talk about today.

• 1:19Speaker 02

  I do, but I think there's some clarifying that we're gonna have to do.

• 1:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's that?

• 1:23Speaker 02

  Well, go ahead and tell everyone what the show is.

• 1:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You said, "Before I do," you're gonna clarify something.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  No, no, no. No, I want you to tell first.

• 1:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, fine. This is StarTalk, and as you already know, we find topics drawn from the cosmos and are exploration there, uh, and talk about it.

• 1:39Speaker 02

  Which means it's space topics, but we bring them down to Earth.

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bring it down to Earth.

• 1:43Speaker 02

  That's what that means.

• 1:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right on down to Earth. And for today's show, I wanna focus on space spinoffs. There's all this investment we've made as a nation, the world has made, in exploring space, not only robotically, but with people, and how do you, like, make spacecraft fly and dock and move to other planets?

• 1:58Speaker 02

  But I don't think we should call this show "Space Spinoffs." That's what I wanted to say.

• 2:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spinoffs.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  Because spinoff sounds like TV. When I first saw that, I thought, because it's like Happy Days, the spinoff was Laverne and Shirley.

• 2:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lynn, words can have more than... Meaning in this world.

• 2:11Speaker 02

  Well, thanks, Neil. And I love it when you give me that Lynn, you're an idiot face. That is my favorite look. The eye roll, Lynn's an idiot face. Um, I know you don't think I'm an idiot.

• 2:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're not talking about like spinoffs from Star Trek.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  No, we're talking about things that derive from space products, right?

• 2:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Product spinoffs, that's right.

• 2:27Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I don't know if you had TV on the brain, but the show is about space.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  I do. I just watched Real Housewives of New Jersey and I'm obsessed again.

• 2:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we've got to be, you know, we always begin with my, my friend, uh, Bill Nye, you know, Bill, he's my guy, you know? I mean, he's.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  He's hilarious.

• 2:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's, let's see in his manic minute, what he's got to tell us on this product.

• 2:49Speaker 03

  Hey, hey, Bill Nye, the Science Guy here. This week on StarTalk, the talkers are discussing the technology that came to be because we have a civilian space program. The spinoffs. The idea of promoting spinoffs is leftover from the Cold War, the race to the moon. Even then, there was a great deal of controversy about the cost of the program. So NASA got in the habit of reminding us about their better batteries, geochemical assay techniques, knee braces and blankets as they were spun off. But if a society wants these sorts of things, it doesn't seem like it would need to build rockets and telescopes. Since ancient times, new technology doesn't come from high dollar civilians, it comes from what the military is working on. That's where we get stuff like telescopes, radar and boxed meals that heat themselves.

• 3:34Speaker 03

  Instead of fretting over the frequency of fines back on earth, I hope StarTalk listeners will focus on the future. The space that's yet to be explored and fathomed. This is Bill Nye, the Science Guy saying spin on, but look ahead.

• 3:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There he goes.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  Hey, he didn't do Bill Nye, gotta fly.

• 3:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, well, because he, he, Bill does more than fly when he's, he's got the power.

• 3:55Speaker 02

  He's very, he sounds very laid back. Is Bill single?

• 3:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, he's single.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  Really?

• 4:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, he is.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  How old is he?

• 4:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know, low 50s, something like that.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  Oh, because I need a smart guy who can fix stuff in my life.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Don't you think we'd be good together? Fix this up, make it happen, Neil.

• 4:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you know, I.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  We'd be like Pinky and the Brain.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  We could rule the world, me and Bill Nye.

• 4:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you saying you've dated incompetent, uh?

• 4:22Speaker 02

  Oh, I've dated from the sublime to the ridiculous. I date people for, you know, for a lot less than Bill Nye.

• 4:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Bill, you know, he, at some point, he told me this once, that he was once voted as the most likely person they would want to have on a desert island to enable them to escape, like the professor from Gilligan's Island.

• 4:38Speaker 02

  Really? So he's like MacGyver-esque?

• 4:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, except MacGyver plus, like, he knows science, rather than just-

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Oh, I have dated so many useless creeps, this is perfect. Somebody who could get me off an island, that right there already just catapulted him to the top.

• 4:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so Bill is much more valuable to others than just what you can do with duct tape.

• 4:57Speaker 02

  Yes, and tell him that I can see past the, um, gay house music Ivan put, our producer put behind him when he introduces him, because I love that Ivan, did you hear what Ivan put behind him, it's like?

• 5:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ivan, our producer is-

• 5:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, Ivan, our producer, put this weird gay house music behind Bill Nye, which I have no idea why.

• 5:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I'll look into it, I'll see, I don't know what he's up to.

• 5:18Speaker 02

  All right, we should get back to the show, sorry.

• 5:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He lives in LA. So, yeah, so, so space, uh, space spinoffs, they're all around us, and often people don't think about it, they don't recognize it, because it's just a fundamental part of their life. And if it's just a fundamental part of your life, you don't stop to think where it came from.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  I definitely don't. I, I really don't. I mean, I'm embarrassed how much I don't, because the more we've talked about this in the last couple of days, the more I feel like I really should have known some of this.

• 5:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, yeah, well, it's, it's a lot of stuff, and in fact, we've got some people that help us remind us of it.

• 5:47Speaker 02

  Good people.

• 5:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I once served on the board of the Space Foundation, they're based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, obviously, and there's the CEO of the Space Foundation, his name is Elliot Pullum. Elliot, he came through town recently, and I, I got to interview him yet, uh, got to interview him, and he, what the Space Foundation does is they like, they care about space no matter how it happens. So, not only NASA space-

• 6:07Speaker 02

  What does that mean?

• 6:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  NASA space, government space, uh-

• 6:12Speaker 02

  I'm a little hungover, Neil, could you please explain? Neil says stuff to me and he forgets, it's like, for me, it's like morning.

• 6:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fine, okay, I forgot the hungover factor, so-

• 6:22Speaker 02

  I'm a comedian, I'm up till four in the morning.

• 6:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That means you're working, that's good.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right.

• 6:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, what he's got is that the Space Foundation, among their many duties, is if you have a product that you're making money off of, that came from, came from technologies and innovations that was used for space exploration, you can get them to certify it, and you'll be on their list of certified space products.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Wait a second, now, do they have anything to do with NASA?

• 6:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, yeah, well, a lot of the certified products first came from NASA, but they themselves are not NASA.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  What, so they're like the American Dental Association?

• 6:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Miracle Dent?

• 6:57Speaker 02

  The American Dental Association, American Dental Association. You know how like when they, if, the American Dental Association isn't on toothpaste, then that means there's not fluoride in it?

• 7:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I guess so, I mean, yeah, they're certified, so they stamped the product and

• 7:09Speaker 02

  But that means it definitely has to do with space.

• 7:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, it means that whatever makes that product work had its origins in innovations in space.

• 7:17Speaker 02

  Now, can anything, can anyone get something certified? Because I have an idea, based on the Mars rover.

• 7:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  For like a lawnmower kind of thing, but it's like a surveillance rover, that can survey, like, because I'm from the south, so we have, my parents have lots of property, so like you could, it could survey your property.

• 7:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I'm listening, and for what? Wait, they survey it, or?

• 7:37Speaker 02

  Like a watchdog, like you would have, you would send the, I would call it watchdog, and it would go back on the property.

• 7:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Watchdog rover.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  Watchdog rover, and it would also come back and tell you if there were like gopher holes, or problems, and bring you little samples of plants that were getting sick.

• 7:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I see.

• 7:52Speaker 02

  Ain't that cool?

• 7:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so...

• 7:54Speaker 02

  Nobody steal it, this is...

• 7:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, okay, well, okay, it's one thing to have an idea, because you looked at a Mars rover, and you said, "I can put a rover in my backyard," but it has to actually...

• 8:03Speaker 02

  Okay, well, I didn't just have to put it in my backyard, I think there was a little more think tank getting involved there.

• 8:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, fine, your think tank, but you have to actually use the technologies that are there. So if you went to the rover and said, "Hey, I like your, your, your wheels that can go up over rocks without flipping over, I like your sensors, I like your camera, your stereos- stereoscopic camera," and you tap those technologies for your rover, yes, it gets certified space

• 8:22Speaker 02

  So, how do I find out exactly what was on the rover? I'd have to go to like, can I get that off of like a website?

• 8:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't see why not, you just look at the plans for the rover, and you look at all the technologies that went into it, oh yeah.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  Oh, that's, so then, what's the next step, when you want to find something?

• 8:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Unless, unless someone else invented it, and they got the patent for it. So you have to watch out.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  You go look for the patent.

• 8:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, just look for the patent.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  Like, well, now, now it's over. I can't do it now. There's someone right now typing it in like, "I'm gonna do it!" Um, but here's my, but let me ask you this.

• 8:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  What, let's say I go on right now when I leave here and no one else has invented it and I get the idea.

• 8:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The idea's not good enough.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  I go right to Elliot?

• 8:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You gotta go, no, you create the product to make money off it and say, "I've made a commercial product from space."

• 9:01Speaker 02

  Oh, great. Oh, so now I'm like Carrot Top. I actually have to go make this stuff?

• 9:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so go marry Bill Nye and you make it together.

• 9:07Speaker 02

  Oh! Now you're thinking.

• 9:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let, uh, let's hear what, uh, let's hear what Ellie Pollam has to say. CEO of the Space Foundation.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  And if anyone else wants to call and tell us what they would invent, they should call in.

• 9:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, 'cause I liked your idea. It's very cool.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  I want people out there to call us and tell us what you would invent.

• 9:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've got 'em. You are the guys who certify space products. Just what's that about? And is this, is the Tempur-Pedic one of those products that you certified? Because the, the guy on the commercials always said, "We're NASA product." And I'm wondering, like, who the hell did that? Is that, that, that must be the Space Foundation.

• 9:42Speaker 04

  That would be us. They are certified by the, uh, Space Foundation. It's a, uh, program that grew out of a program that we have called the Space Technology Hall of Fame, which you're very familiar with, where we induct and enshrine technologies that came from space and became products here on Earth. And, uh, as a further adjunct of that, we have a program where we certify products and, and establish that these products did indeed come from the space program. Uh, and these products, uh, you find them all around you, uh, in your everyday life. And, uh, the companies that come to us for certification feel that, uh, being recognized as coming from space, uh, gives them a competitive advantage in the marketplace. And that's, uh, how that came to be.

• 10:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So is this like Tang? You know, we all hear about space spinoffs. And is Tang one of these products?

• 10:22Speaker 04

  No, that's, uh, that's, uh, yeah, that's the urban legend of, uh, of space spinoffs. Tang and Velcro really, uh, not, not really what we want to talk about. We, we really talk about products and, and innovations that come from space that, that are real, that help us in our daily lives. They can range from something as, uh, consumer-oriented as a mattress, Tempur-Pedic, or, uh, something as life-saving and critical as the Debakey heart pump, which is a, a, a life-saving device, which is, uh, used, uh, for patients that have heart problems, uh, which is based on the designs of the Space Shuttle main engine turbo pump and saves about 30,000 lives a year.

• 11:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There, there it is. Space saving lives, doing interesting things. And if you have an idea for what you might want to make from space-derived products, give it a call at 1-877-5-Star-Talk. We're also tweetable at

• 11:14Speaker 02

  Tweet us.

• 11:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tweet tweet, uh, Star Talk Radio, all one word. All one word. So Lynn, did you drink Tang when you were a kid?

• 11:21Speaker 02

  I did. And la la la la la la la. I don't, I don't believe that. I'm not going for it. It is the drink of astronauts. I don't care what Elliot Palom says. I heard that in third grade and I'm sticking, do it, everything. I also heard that if you say Bloody Mary in the mirror three times, she comes to life and kills you. And I don't say that.

• 11:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you learned that in third grade as well?

• 11:38Speaker 02

  Yep. So it's the drink of astronauts. I have Tang in my house right now for that reason.

• 11:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He did not deny that it was the drink of astronauts. He just said it wasn't invented for NASA.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  La la la la la la la.

• 11:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  La la la la la la la. It was. But the Tempur-Pedic thing I find really interesting.

• 11:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have a Tempur-Pedic bed.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  Of course you do. They're a thousand dollars.

• 11:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, they're, they're very highly priced.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  I have the my, the Miracle Foam that goes on top of the bed. That's like a hundred dollars. It's just part of the Tempur-Pedic. Cause I couldn't afford the whole thing. Uh, seriously, I really do. And that part is nice. And then someday I'll be able to afford like 15 more of them. Um, but here's what I want to know, and I love the commercial, the Tempur-Pedic commercial where the glass of wine, is that true?

• 12:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. You can put a glass of wine on one side of the bed and jump up and down on the other and nothing happens to it.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  You got bigger problems than a bad back, my friend. If you got a glass of wine on the bed next to you and you're worried about it falling over. Much bigger problems, you big alcoholic. Um, but what I like about that too is that, you know, your husband can take care of business while you get some sleep. You don't even know what's going on over there.

• 12:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't even know what that means.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  You know what it means. Okay. So here, let's play this game, Neil.

• 12:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, what's that?

• 12:44Speaker 02

  Um, I want to ask, Neil doesn't even know I'm going to do this. I want to ask you

• 12:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 12:49Speaker 02

  Things that I think might've come from space and then you tell me if they did.

• 12:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can't claim complete knowledge here, but try.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  Okay, let's try. Oh, really? You can't? Oh my God.

• 12:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Try, go.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  Okay, um, Capri Sun.

• 13:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't think so.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  That's a drink that came in a pouch?

• 13:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I don't, I don't think so. This is the one you squeeze the pouch and the straw is in it.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, you put the straw in it?

• 13:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  Doesn't that seem like a space drink?

• 13:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It could be. Yeah, it might have. They drink, they do drink drinks out of pouches with straws in them in space.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  So Capri Sun. So that it is.

• 13:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe not the drink itself, but the mechanics of getting the drink out of the pouch.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. What about boxes of wine?

• 13:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, you mean wine in a box you put in the fridge?

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, cuz if you open it up, the, inside the box, there's a pouch.

• 13:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a pouch, and it collapses as you drink the wine. I don't think astronauts drink wine in space. I think this is not.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  I bet they have a box up there just in case, cuz if, if it looks like they're not coming back, let's get drunk and party!

• 13:41Speaker 02

  What about ACE bandages?

• 13:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  ACE, uh.

• 13:43Speaker 02

  The way it like sticks to someone, but the, oh, that's a stupid question, cuz probably Band-Aids aren't a problem in space.

• 13:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, well, I, I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think they invented ACE bandages for space. They've been around. My father had them.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  Sunglasses?

• 13:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He ran track before.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  You think sunglasses came from?

• 13:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are certain kinds of sunglasses that have certain coatings that protect you from ultraviolet light, and...

• 14:00Speaker 02

  Like the stuff that astronauts have on their visor?

• 14:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, exactly. Inspired by that kind of technology, there are sunglasses that do have space-derived technologies that were awarded and are in the Space Technology Hall of Fame.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  Oh, man, if you make sunglasses like that, you should definitely say that, cuz I would buy them if you're like, these can look right at the sun.

• 14:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, no, it's good stuff. And it's not just products. It's also things, as, as you mentioned, the DeBakey heart, heart pump. Things that keep you alive, things that matter to our health and well-being in society.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  That is cool.

• 14:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I asked Elliot about the, I'd heard that Lasik eye surgery, which is so common today, and everybody's got it. And they just sort of take it for granted that it's available, like it dropped out of the sky, but it in fact did.

• 14:40Speaker 02

  Oh, really? It's from space?

• 14:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is from space technology.

• 14:42Speaker 02

  I'm curious about that.

• 14:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's see what Elliot says about Lasik eye surgery.

• 14:46Speaker 04

  Specifically in the case of Lasik, what it is, it's the tracking system that they use so that they can keep track of your eyeball as it's moving during the surgery and, and track the movement of that uh, very precisely with the laser so that they don't make any mistakes. And that came from a docking system that was developed for docking spacecraft, uh, in orbit.

• 15:06Speaker 04

  So much other medical technology comes out of space. The ability to biopsy potentially cancerous materials using a needle instead of a surgical invasive procedure. Procedures like magnetic resonance imaging, which are used to scan your body, which were originally created to discover defects in workmanship and critical rocket motor parts. So it really does run the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous. There are 40,000 or more products out there in the world that came from space.

• 15:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're on StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, with Lynn.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  The buffoon.

• 15:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lynn Coplitz.

• 15:46Speaker 02

  And sidekick.

• 15:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A professional comedian. Our toll-free number is 1-877-5-Star-Talk. If you have something to say or something to think about space-derived products.

• 15:56Speaker 02

  Or if you have a product, you want us to tell you if it's a good idea.

• 15:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You think they're going to care what we think of their product?

• 16:01Speaker 02

  I think they'll care what you think. You're an astrophysicist.

• 16:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  And I'm a straight talker, straight shooter.

• 16:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's been StarTalk. Let's take a break. We'll be right back.

• 16:10Speaker 00

  Whether you're a space cadet or a rocket scientist, we want to hear from you. The phone lines are open. Call now. This is StarTalk.

• 16:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  We want to hear from you.

• 16:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson with my co-host Lynn. Lynn Coplitz.

• 16:34Speaker 02

  Hello. Neil, I'm so going to out you for the other night.

• 16:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 16:39Speaker 02

  I don't care because it's a Sunday and it's fun. We had a, people listening, we had a public relation, you know, just a press event that we went to. And it was towards the end of the party and all of a sudden Neil's got like all these like little press girls sitting around him, all these young, little cute girls. And all of a sudden Neil pulls his laser out, his actual laser, that's not a euphemism. And one of the girls is like, "Did you see Neil's laser?" It was the funniest dang thing. I was telling the story and then all of a sudden Neil's laser's out. "Did you see Neil's laser?" And I'm like, "I've seen Neil's laser."

• 17:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 17:14Speaker 02

  No offense, but once you've seen Neil's laser, you don't really need to see it again.

• 17:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, consider though that the laser, the pocket laser, is standard operations for any astronomer. Because we, it's the, it's the green laser that's much higher power than the red laser you use for PowerPoint presentations. And if you're out under the cosmos, you pull out your laser and point out the night sky.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  I'm sleeping now because I've heard this 30 times, I know!

• 17:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, so the party was on the rooftop of the, of the, of the, of the facility.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  Just tell the truth, it's a science penis.

• 17:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was, no!

• 17:46Speaker 02

  And you pull, when a scientist pulls his laser out, it's like he's pulling out his science penis.

• 17:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's, well-

• 17:51Speaker 02

  Look how big my laser is, it's green, not red.

• 17:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can we get back to Lasik surgery, please? Lasik surgery uses lasers to help align the surgery so that, in the eye that would otherwise be moving.

• 18:02Speaker 02

  I don't think I understood that whole interview, I didn't, maybe I wasn't listening properly because I was thinking about your laser.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  Because I did hear the thing about the side, you know, side effects of all this stuff now freaks me out, and again, this is kind of a hacky premise, but when, like, when you watch the penile implant things and the, the, all those like drugs for-

• 18:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On TV.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  Stuff on TV.

• 18:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 18:22Speaker 02

  And they always say-

• 18:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The prescription thing.

• 18:23Speaker 02

  Side effect, a nine-hour erection and you might have diarrhea, and like, those are kind of big things, but they breeze over it.

• 18:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  And like with Lasik, they're saying like aberrations are a side effect, and you might see halos or triple, and it seems to me like, that's a bad thing for an astronaut to be in space seeing aberrations, like, um, NASA, there's an asteroid right in front of me, oh, oh, wait, apparently there isn't, according to my friend Bob here, that is a Lasik side effect.

• 18:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, in fact, it was not, interesting you mention that, and it was not until just recently where Lasik surgery was allowed for someone who started out with bad vision, but who needed good vision to become an astronaut. There was a longest while where you-

• 19:01Speaker 02

  Really?

• 19:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Had to come in with good vision, uncorrected good vision, and so now they're allowing Lasik surgery as a means of making the grade to become an astronaut. So that's an important, that says that whatever are the side effects, they can't be all that common.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  So they're using a laser in space to burn a hole in something and someone goes, "We could do this with a retina."

• 19:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, they're using the laser to align in docking stations.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  Oh, that's what they were using.

• 19:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, exactly, exactly. As you dock one vehicle to the other, you have to like center it so that the docking collars can match up. And that that alignment process is what is used so that they can cut reliably and repeatably in what they need to do with your with your eyeball.

• 19:39Speaker 02

  Listen, no offense, and believe me, I already have people in my life who've gotten laser success. It's brilliant innovation. It's an awesome thing that we have it. But who allows that to happen first?

• 19:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, yes, well, I

• 19:52Speaker 02

  I want it.

• 19:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I bet it's the person, people have really, really, really bad eyesight. So that even if it kind of messes up a little, they'll be better than whatever they had before. So you start out with people with really bad eyesight. And then the people with good eyesight, or just slightly bad eyesight.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  Right, or people walking in like, hey, take my old dog. Try not my old dog.

• 20:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so here's what's interesting. The laser was not invented for cutting the eye. The laser was invented by physicists back in the nineteen, early in the nineteen fifty's. And the idea had to be put forth, comes out of quantum mechanics, a branch of physics, and

• 20:24Speaker 02

  Great, quantum mechanics, my subject. Let's go.

• 20:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. No, so you've got these, so a laser has to do with like, quantum transitions inside the atom. I mean, it's a brilliant concept turned into an actual device. And early lasers were the sizes of entire rooms. Now I got one in my pocket. You can practically get them at the checkout line at Kmart.

• 20:41Speaker 02

  We know you got a laser in your pocket.

• 20:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sorry to mention that again.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  I got a laser in my pocket. Are you happy to see me now?

• 20:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they also mentioned what I did not know until my conversation with with

• 20:52Speaker 02

  I'm sorry, Neil.

• 20:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Elliot Pullman, that the MRI, the magnetic resonance imaging, had its first applications in space, in space exploration. Because the MRI allows you to look, not only inside the human body, but that was not its first application. The first application was looking inside of like, space parts to make sure that they were structured, that structural integrity, so they wouldn't break.

• 21:13Speaker 02

  You know, that's awesome, but that aggravates the crapola out of me because why then is it that when I get a mammogram, they slam my boobs between two hard things? Why, why aren't they in some soft space gel? And why are we still at the place where like, it seems like with astronauts and all this stuff, like with all the space program stuff, like why is it that when you get a CAT scan, they go like four doors down and talk to you through a microphone because it's so dangerous?

• 21:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it's dangerous if you live with it, but if you're just in there once, it's a low dose and you'll be just fine.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it seems like can't they come up with something that is like less radiation?

• 21:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is less, well, previously they had to cut you open to find out, so this is safer than anything that had previously been put forth. So it's not how dangerous it is, it's how much safer it is than what anything that came before it. So with the MRI, magnetic resonance, which we actually talked about last week briefly on Star Trek. It comes from nuclear magnetic resonance. And this is the nuclei of atoms. You put a very strong magnetic field across it and they align. And they can interfere with light that you pass across it.

• 22:14Speaker 02

  And the CAT scan's the one that's in the big tube that you go into, right?

• 22:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I mean, it depends on what they're looking at for you. I mean CAT scans and MRIs and mammograms and all the rest of these. All use slightly different technologies, but the entire goal is to see what's going on inside of you. That's right. That's right.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  And ultrasound?

• 22:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And ultrasound, that's right. Ultrasound. But that doesn't use light of any kind. It uses vibrations.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  And jelly.

• 22:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And jelly. So we can be reached at StarTalk, StarTalk Radio. In fact, we're online at StarTalkRadio.net. Where we stream this broadcast and you can also reach us by phone, 1-877-5-Star-TALK, or you can tweet us, StarTalk Radio. In fact, we have a tweet, Lynn.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Tweet yourself and tweet us.

• 22:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have a tweet. Let me read this here. What do we have? "Could products be developed on the vomit comet rather than in space?"

• 23:04Speaker 02

  What's a vomit comet?

• 23:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't know about the vomit comet?

• 23:06Speaker 02

  No.

• 23:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everybody knows a vomit comet.

• 23:08Speaker 02

  Thanks, Neil.

• 23:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I'm sorry.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  Well, you know what? I don't. Everybody but me.

• 23:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. In order to train astronauts in actual weightless environments.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, that.

• 23:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People think that NASA has some secret room somewhere where you walk in and they flick a switch and they turn off gravity. No, there is no such thing as no-gravity rooms on Earth. So one way they get around that is they work in... A swimming pool, but that's not a complex enough term to refer to it. So it's called the neutral buoyancy center.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where there's a huge swimming pool and they are, they have space suits on that make them neutrally buoyant, which means they neither float nor sink. And when they're in there.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 23:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they submerge entire satellites and things that they might be repairing. So they, they practice in the neutral buoyancy.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, because they don't need you wasting time out in space.

• 23:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wasting time out in space. So that's one way they do it.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  But that's called the vomit comet?

• 23:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, no, no. So now you want to actually be weightless. You can, have you ever, have you ever?

• 24:02Speaker 02

  Confused.

• 24:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Remember when you were a kid, you'd be in a car.

• 24:05Speaker 02

  Confused.

• 24:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And like they, your, your, your father, whoever's driving, your mother would drive over a slight bump in the road.

• 24:09Speaker 02

  I don't have a father, that's mean.

• 24:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, would drive over a slight bump in the road and you'd feel like your heart would jump up into your throat?

• 24:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, right temporarily there, you were kind of weightless. That feeling is a feeling of weightlessness and your body was reacting to.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  What's a vomit comet?

• 24:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm getting there. So now you have a plane that does what your car did over the bump, except it does it in a trajectory through air. So the plane goes up. And it goes to the top of an arc and then stops the engines and comes down on the other side in a parabolic trajectory. And you are in free fall towards earth and you are weightless inside that volume.

• 24:43Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh, it's so much easier being a comedian.

• 24:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so you're weightless.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  What was the tweet question again? I'm so.

• 24:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, oh, can they do the experiments on a vomit comet rather than go into space to do it? So the problem is that trajectory, you only get about 20 seconds of weightlessness. So your experiment would have to be over and done with within 20 seconds.

• 24:59Speaker 02

  A really quick experiment.

• 25:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, quick experiments.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  Here's your answer, T-tweet.

• 25:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you're in orbit, you get to have continuous experience of weightlessness. And it's all because you're in free fall towards earth. If I, if you were in an elevator shaft and I.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  I couldn't be, I couldn't be experimenting anything because I'd be. Ahhh.

• 25:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you were, if I, if you were in an elevator and I cut the cable, you would fall, the elevator would fall, and everything around you would fall at exactly the same rate to earth. So if, let's say you're holding like a pen in your hand, you could let go of the pen, and it would just stay there right in front of your eyes because all of you are falling at the same rate.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  Galileo gave us that.

• 25:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it was good.

• 25:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're, you're, you're, you're hero.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  I'd get extra credit for that.

• 25:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For centuries.

• 25:36Speaker 02

  Galileo's sexy.

• 25:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ago.

• 25:37Speaker 02

  But, um, no, if you cut the elevator cables, I would be screaming. I wouldn't be able to experiment with anything. I'd be freaked out.

• 25:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, if my elevator cables were cut and I knew I was going to die at the end, I'd at least get some physics experiments in there.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  Of course you would.

• 25:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But why not?

• 25:50Speaker 02

  But that's you.

• 25:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How often do you get?

• 25:54Speaker 02

  I think we need more like, we need more vanity products. Like from space. Well, because I think people come back from space, there's gotta be all sorts of gravity, anti-gravity, I'm no spring chicken. As somebody told me on the street the other day, which was really nice living in New York.

• 26:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was that a compliment?

• 26:12Speaker 02

  No, some homeless guy's like, "You're good-looking and you're no spring chicken." Um, thank you very much, sir. I hope you get out of that box soon. Um, but, so here's my thing is that it seems to me like, there should be someone who's just kinda keeping an eye, uh, when you got back from Jupiter, Judy, I noticed you, your wrinkles looked good.

• 26:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I see, so you want to...

• 26:33Speaker 02

  Like, there might be some space thing that we could get.

• 26:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you spend time being weightless, and so...

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, because Botox and all that, it just seems to me like there ought to be some good new cos- you know, cosmetology thing.

• 26:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The cosmetics industry is huge, I mean, billions and billions a year.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  Coming out of space, because they're using diamonds now to do microdermabrasion, and can't there be some sort of moon rock that can do something?

• 26:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe, I mean, I don't know of any, I don't know of any.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  You think this is stupid?

• 26:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 27:00Speaker 02

  Well, but I bet you think that the saber sound coming off your phone is perfect, that's worth it. That's important.

• 27:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Does anyone here agree with Lynn that we should have like cosmetic products from our space investments?

• 27:11Speaker 02

  Okay, please, no, no, no, no. Do you agree with me that it's more important to use technology to remove wrinkles than make a lightsaber sound on your telephone? Which Neil, by the way, does all the time. Call in, 1-877-5STAR-TALK.

• 27:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, let me get back to my interview with Elliot Poehm, because he tells us more about what's available.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  Because I'm annoying you?

• 27:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's not why I use these segments, just to get away from you.

• 27:37Speaker 02

  I'm gonna get your saber from you.

• 27:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Elliot Poehm, let's see what else he had to tell me about space-derived products.

• 27:43Speaker 04

  We honor the people who have taken space technology and brought it down to earth for practical use for the people on the planet Earth. And so, these are technologies, for example, that may have come from a military space satellite. For example, your car has probably got airbags. Those are deployed by an accelerometer. Accelerometers were developed with space programs.

• 28:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My iPhone has an accelerometer.

• 28:02Speaker 04

  Your iPhone has an accelerometer. Um, there, there is so much that, that we touch in our day-to-day lives. And so this is a way of recognizing the innovators who saw a, an opportunity and a technology that may have been developed for a very different purpose. For example, we recently, we're talking right now with a company that makes, uh, what is called a humanitarian, uh, de-mining device. And you, we, we all know that landmines are, are, are a tragedy.

• 28:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, huge, huge problem.

• 28:29Speaker 04

  Well, what this company has done is it has, has developed a device that decides of a road flare. And it has filled that with space shuttle solid rocket propellant. And when they find a mine, they just lay this device next to the, to the mine, light it, and it burns through the casing of the mine and it consumes the explosive in a harmless manner. And so this is space technology originally developed to propel the space shuttle, just being used in humanitarian de-mining efforts.

• 28:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you have it. I mean, that's, that's.

• 28:58Speaker 02

  So that's where that saber sound thing from your phone comes from?

• 29:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, well, on the iPhone, there's an app called like lightsaber and.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  I know, you've shown it to me.

• 29:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So when you take it, if you tell your iPhone to wave your hand with it, it feels the acceleration of your hand if you, as you wave it back and forth. And then it matches the sound of the lightsaber to that acceleration.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  And that's more important than wrinkles because.

• 29:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's also the mine diffusers, a brilliant application of space shuttle solid rocket propellant.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  No, what, no, what's the mine diffuser thing?

• 29:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you know, the space shuttle, the solid rocket boosters that sit adjacent to the main tank of the space shuttle.

• 29:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are hugely powerful rockets and a highly, uh, a highly effective and high temperature propellant. And they just lay that next to the landmine and it burns through the landmine.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 29:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And totally dis- disarms what's inside of it.

• 29:46Speaker 02

  Have you ever seen one?

• 29:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I haven't, happily. I mean, we live in a place where that's not the problem. But these, these, these accelerometers are not, they're used for not just lightsaber apps on, on an iPhone. Uh, I, it, for, for this current season of Nova Science Now on PBS, um, that I host, one of the segments.

• 30:02Speaker 02

  See how Neil just threw that in there, listeners? Nova Science Now that I host on PBS.

• 30:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tuesday nights. I mean, no, no, uh, seriously, one of the segments I, I hosted was on, uh, I was taken to a diamond. Factory where they manufacture

• 30:16Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 30:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Artificial diamonds of gem quality. The old days of artificial diamonds were like

• 30:22Speaker 02

  I wanna go.

• 30:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're just like diamond powder for make a grit for Sanders and this sort of thing. Well, they are, they found a way to rapidly make diamonds that can go on your finger. That they can become jewelry. And why am I mentioning this? Because they would not tell me where the factory was.

• 30:38Speaker 02

  What do you mean?

• 30:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They put me in a car and they bought

• 30:40Speaker 02

  Why wouldn't they tell you?

• 30:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because if anyone find out who's invested heavily in natural diamonds, this could undermine that business model, that marketplace.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  Where is it?

• 30:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Forty-two mocking bird light. No, I don't know. I, I don't know where it was. I was blindfolded and they even, they knew that my iPhone had an accelerometer on it and they wanted me to completely shut down the iPhone. Because with an accelerometer, you can

• 31:05Speaker 02

  Ah, geniuses, they're so annoying.

• 31:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was ready to slip that one by and they said, no, show us your iPhone and show that you're turning it on.

• 31:13Speaker 02

  See, this is why I'm telling you sometimes you need good old fashioned like M and M's or Reese's Pieces like E T did, just drop.

• 31:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, because I could think of

• 31:22Speaker 02

  Throw them out the window.

• 31:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I could remember maybe what made a left turn and then a right turn, but they actually drew, drove me around in circles for a while to, to alter that. But if I had an accelerometer, it could have tracked the accelerations that the car made.

• 31:33Speaker 02

  If you had Reese's Pieces, I could have done the same thing.

• 31:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't think of Reese's Pieces.

• 31:38Speaker 02

  And they wouldn't have taken that off of you, let me tell you right now.

• 31:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not only on that, it's on at least some computers. Um, Macintosh, they've got an accelerometer on in case it's going to fall off your desk. And it'll feel the acceleration of falling and then it locks the drive. So the drive doesn't get damaged upon impact. So

• 31:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's so stupid. Wait, but oh, oh, it locks it. Okay, so it's okay when it falls.

• 31:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it doesn't stop the fall.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, I, I thought you were saying it says like, about to fall, I'm falling.

• 32:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Out come the airbags.

• 32:06Speaker 02

  I'm falling.

• 32:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So all it does is locks the drive so you keep your data, even if you do damage the case.

• 32:10Speaker 02

  Do airbags happen because of accelerometer?

• 32:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes, yes, yes.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  Oh, that's really cool.

• 32:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As the car, now if you slow down with your brakes, that's not slowing down fast enough to trigger the air. The

• 32:23Speaker 02

  Is that why your seatbelt does that weird thing too? Cause I'm the worst driver and every time I hit like the brake, my seatbelt tightens up and I'm like, what happened?

• 32:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There were old accelerometers that just had a heavy ball that would roll back and forth and rolling forward, it, it, rolling forward, it would lock the seatbelt in place.

• 32:39Speaker 02

  Hey, who are you calling a heavy ball?

• 32:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, what, so what happens is, if you actually collide into something, your deceleration is huge. You're going from like sixty miles an hour down to zero in a fraction of a second. That is a-

• 32:51Speaker 02

  That's why that happened.

• 32:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right. So, the accelerometer triggers an explosion. Ivan's got the sound effects today.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  Ivan's losing his mind. Ivan's trying to earn his keep.

• 33:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, actually, that crash lasted way too long. If the crash lasted that long, you'll probably survive it. Because it took a long time to come to a stop.

• 33:10Speaker 02

  I'm crawling out of the car right now, bloody. Thank you, Ivan.

• 33:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What kills you is-

• 33:14Speaker 02

  Come back to your gay house music.

• 33:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What kills you is the, is the, the very high, high acceleration, hikes, or deceleration. Go from sixty miles an hour to zero in a fraction of a second. That's what kills you, unless the airbag can get to you first. So, the airbag deploys explosively from an accelerometer. And it's all came from space.

• 33:31Speaker 02

  That is so cool. I didn't know that. That's cool.

• 33:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, here's the thing. And here's what I, people need to be reminded of.

• 33:36Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 33:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are people who are only interested in discoveries to help us explore space, because space is cool to them. If you said, "Figure out a way to save your life in a car wreck," they might not have come up with the accelerometer. You need people who are excited about whatever it is they're doing, to have the free rein of creativity, and then you look at how else it applies.

• 33:56Speaker 02

  That's true of any kind of creative process.

• 33:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's true of any type of creative process.

• 33:59Speaker 02

  I mean, if you used to take up an artist, and you tell him, "Do this paint by numbers," he's not going to be as excited as just painting his own thing.

• 34:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, exactly, exactly, exactly. You can't tell him what to invent. He's got, it's got to come out of them, uh, whatever that is.

• 34:11Speaker 02

  Carrie Hoffman, my manager, just so you know.

• 34:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're listening to StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your friendly astrophysicist with Lynn.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  You're not so friendly comedian.

• 34:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're occasionally friendly, Lynn. We need to take a break, but if you're, uh, you want to call and tell us what you think of, uh, space-derived products, 1-877-5-Star-Talk.

• 34:34Speaker 02

  Or if you know the directions to that mine where the diamonds are.

• 34:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give us a call.

• 35:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk.

• 35:08Speaker 02

  That was horrible. Did you see what just happened?

• 35:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, what happened?

• 35:11Speaker 02

  Are we... this is being filmed for our website, too? Because my top was just wide open. I looked down. It was wide... I think it was all that saber and laser talk.

• 35:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know.

• 35:22Speaker 02

  Alright, go to the website if you want to see my boobs.

• 35:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk Radio. If you have a question on products in space...

• 35:31Speaker 02

  I'm an idiot.

• 35:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  ...that come out of space-derived investments, give us a call 1-877-5-Star-Talk. In fact, we've got a caller right now.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  We do?

• 35:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 35:42Speaker 02

  Oh, exciting.

• 35:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think they have a question about spiders in space. Let's find out. Caller, welcome to StarTalk. You're here with Linda Neal.

• 35:48Speaker 02

  Stephanie, right? Stephanie?

• 35:49Speaker 05

  Yes. Hi, yes.

• 35:51Speaker 02

  Hi, Stephanie. You're in Pasadena.

• 35:52Speaker 05

  Yes. Dr. Tyson, I have a question. I remember reading about spiders that NASA took up in space and gave them all kinds of drugs, like aspirin, marijuana, speed, the whole variety of drugs.

• 36:11Speaker 02

  Lucky spiders!

• 36:12Speaker 05

  To see how it affected their spider webs, the pattern. And I was just wondering if anything ever came of that, and also if NASA has ever tested or developed drugs for human use in space.

• 36:28Speaker 02

  I can tell you what happened to the ones who they gave weed to. Those spiders are still building their webs. It took them like, three years to get what the other spiders got done in 10 minutes.

• 36:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, thanks for that question. What I do...

• 36:40Speaker 02

  Thank you, Stephanie.

• 36:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I do remember a lot of talk at the time. It wasn't only spiders that they took up. They brought up ants, and other kind of sort of insects and arachmids.

• 36:50Speaker 02

  What'd they give them?

• 36:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I don't know if they gave the ants, but the ants have very distinct behavior patterns here on Earth, as do spiders. And so what you...

• 36:58Speaker 02

  They have a J O B.

• 36:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, they have a J O B. Like, if you're a sloth, to bring a sloth into space, the sloth would just be sitting there.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  Like, it's still doing nothing. Nothing.

• 37:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you want to bring something that has a very definite behavior pattern, and see how that might be altered.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  It would be interesting to see if you get the sloth to do something.

• 37:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be interesting.

• 37:14Speaker 02

  And that's a drug I could use for many men I've dated.

• 37:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what happens is, if, uh, what we find is that if the, if the insect or the life form is small enough, the smaller you are, the less gravity matters to you.

• 37:27Speaker 02

  Why'd you look at me when you said that?

• 37:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, because you look, you can see ants crawl up the wall and sometimes they can crawl on the ceiling. You see spider webs in every possible orientation, horizontally, vertically, at angles. And so the smaller you are, the less-

• 37:40Speaker 02

  But chimps can do that?

• 37:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, they can hang, but they know they're upside down and they don't like want to live that way. I mean, I'm just saying a spider is happy in almost any orientation. And so the less gravity matters to you, even here on Earth's surface, like, like for example, microbes in pond water, that gravity doesn't matter to them. You bring them into space, it just simply wouldn't-

• 37:59Speaker 02

  But they don't have brains, do they? I mean, does anything matter to a microbe in pond water?

• 38:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I've never asked. I don't know, but they seem to have behavior that's worth studying.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  I see.

• 38:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so I just want to say to the caller, I, I did not follow up on what-

• 38:11Speaker 02

  Stephanie.

• 38:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Became, Stephanie it was, uh, what became of those spiders that were drug induced. I, it seems to me you would drug induce them here on Earth first to see what effect that had and then compare it to space. But keep in mind that these experiments done in space are really, what they're really after is to see what happens to them being weightless. That's the test. Are you weightless? The real space test you might do is if you send them on a voyage to Mars, where it takes almost a year to get there. And then there's like space radiation and other things-

• 38:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That could affect the behavior.

• 38:43Speaker 02

  Now, do people ever volunteer to be space guinea pigs? Like, like, like, like, let's say someone who's like really old and sick and says, like, very cocoonish, like, send me out, radiate me.

• 38:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cocoon like the movie, yeah.

• 38:55Speaker 02

  Cocoon the movie, like, I'll go, I'll go to Mars, I got a year, why not?

• 38:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I knew I was terminally ill, I'd, I'd subject myself to all kinds of-

• 39:01Speaker 02

  I'd go in a minute. I'd be like, yeah, take me to Mars, I have no one left here, I'm bored.

• 39:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Flop me now, yeah, it's completely-

• 39:06Speaker 02

  But do they do that? Do they send-

• 39:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, they, you gotta be healthy, they, it's, right at the moment, you gotta be healthy to go in space.

• 39:11Speaker 02

  But why? That's my point is, why can't you take somebody who's like 80, who, who wants to go and is in a home or something and they've got lots of problems and-

• 39:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it costs 20 million dollars to send someone-

• 39:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you can look, I mean, it costs 20 million to look at the ants too, right?

• 39:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ants don't cost twenty million dollars to put into space. They don't weigh enough to cost that much. But a whole human being costs millions of dollars. You're a payload.

• 39:33Speaker 02

  But it might be worth it if she comes back kicking the jig.

• 39:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, there's the ethics of that. Do you do experiments on a sick person that you would not do on a healthy person? There's a whole ethics to that. Maybe there's a whole future of space ethics.

• 39:44Speaker 02

  I think if they want you to, you do.

• 39:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, space ethics. I wonder if any callers have any opinions about the ethics, the future of space exploration?

• 39:50Speaker 02

  Space ethics.

• 39:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, if you're dying, can you just go up there and have them do whatever kind of experiments they want?

• 39:55Speaker 02

  If, yeah, if you, if it's your wish. I'm not saying you do it against their will. Like, oh, we've got a great idea. Just come here, get in this chair, and we'll be right back. See you in a year.

• 40:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I also interviewed a friend of mine, Lon Levin. He's a space entrepreneur. Some of you may know him, but he's a more behind-the-scenes person than in front. He's the founder and creator of XM Radio.

• 40:16Speaker 02

  Oh, that's who's responsible.

• 40:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Talk about a space-derived product. We wouldn't quite call that a spin-off, per se, but it is an entire industry that was born of space innovations. So let's see what Lon Levin has to say.

• 40:29Speaker 06

  You know, when it comes to space, I mean, there have been plenty of companies that have made money in space, and those are the ones that at least have put up the satellites. They're effectively just high antennas. We're just riffing off Marconi, putting up higher and higher antennas to communicate with the Earth more effectively.

• 40:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I never quite thought of it that way, but that's exactly what it is. Put an antenna a couple hundred miles up, or twenty-three thousand miles up, there you have it.

• 40:51Speaker 06

  And it happens to be in space, and that's what this is about. And that's, and that's, that was the ultimate thinking that went on. Wasn't too much thinking. It was like, how can we get as high as we can to cover as much as we can to be efficient? XM Radio, how can we get a hundred channels in each community efficiently? Well, the way to do it is to put an antenna high enough that covers the entire continent.

• 41:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there he has, so for him, space was just simply the high ground, rather than as some special sort of innovative product. Because we all have listened to radio with transmitters at the tops of mountains and tops of buildings, if you live near big cities. He wanted to send the same transmission to the entire country at the same time. The only way to do that is from a geosynchronous satellite. A satellite who's, oh, do you know about geosync? Can I tell you about geosync?

• 41:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I already know about it.

• 41:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you, oh, okay.

• 41:37Speaker 02

  No, I don't know anything about it. But wait.

• 41:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 41:41Speaker 02

  But it means you have to have a big antenna, right?

• 41:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Big, well, so XM Radio, the principle behind XM Radio is... It is imagining your antenna were so high up.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 41:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That it could see the entire nation rather than just from horizon to horizon. And that's what the XM radio principle is.

• 41:58Speaker 02

  That's why there's like four thousand channels.

• 42:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, no, well, he can put out however many channels he wants, but it's why everyone in the country hears the same XM radio. Station, if they're all listening to like the sixties or the eighties, you're all listening to the same information at the same time.

• 42:10Speaker 02

  That's neat.

• 42:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so that pioneered that concept. And it puts it in a geosynchronous orbit.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  What does that mean?

• 42:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so the shuttle is what we call low earth orbit, LEO, low earth orbit. And it goes up a couple hundred miles, the space station.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  I'm gonna stick that in my facts I didn't need to know bag.

• 42:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One day you're gonna be a millionaire, you're gonna thank me for this.

• 42:28Speaker 02

  You're right, I'm gonna call you.

• 42:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like, nah, I'm not telling you because you were like mean, mean about it when I first told you.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  I'm not mean.

• 42:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, LEO, low earth orbit, and at that height, in order to stay in orbit.

• 42:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have to travel eighteen thousand miles an hour sideways. And it takes about ninety minutes to circle the earth. If you go higher in orbit, it takes you longer to go around the earth. There's a height for which it takes two hours, a height for which it takes eight hours, ten hours, twelve hours, fifteen hours.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  Well, it's the same thing when you're in a plane, the higher up, the farther, like, right?

• 43:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, because.

• 43:02Speaker 02

  I thought that was true, because you go up higher, don't you?

• 43:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Given the distances plane travel, your height above the ground is kinda irrelevant to that. It's insignificant.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  So if I wanted to go in a little puddle jumper to England, I could do that?

• 43:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, no, because the plane doesn't have the fuel to get you there. I'm just saying, you go five miles up, six miles up, and you're going a thousand miles away. So that height is not much of a difference.

• 43:21Speaker 02

  But you could stop to getting fuel.

• 43:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that'd be hard, they used to do that before they had long distance planes.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  Okay, so that was them.

• 43:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, okay. So, all I'm saying is, there's a height with which you can orbit an object where it takes twenty-four hours to go around the earth. But earth rotates once in twenty-four hours.

• 43:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, that I knew.

• 43:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so if you put a satellite at that altitude, both the satellite and the earth will turn, will turn around the earth once every twenty-four hours, making it look like the satellite hovers. And that's called GEO, geosynchronous orbit.

• 43:52Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 43:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you can park a satellite right, right centerline longitude over the United States. And it can, you can beam up from New York and beam it right back down to Los Angeles and everybody can hear the same. Hear the same.

• 44:05Speaker 02

  That's cool.

• 44:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:07Speaker 02

  I like all that beam and stuff.

• 44:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 44:10Speaker 02

  Do they have radio in space?

• 44:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Radio, well.

• 44:13Speaker 02

  And TV, like astronauts watch?

• 44:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Astronauts can put in for what song they want to be awakened by NASA, and NASA pipes up into the audio system.

• 44:21Speaker 02

  They get a wake-up call from NASA?

• 44:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In fact, there's a NASA website that tracks what music is playing on the space station when they go up there.

• 44:27Speaker 02

  That's hilarious. Oh, my gosh, how embarrassing would that be? Like, all of a sudden, you've got Barry Manilow playing in the background.

• 44:34Speaker 02

  Like, "Excuse me, you're supposed to be a cool astronaut, and you're listening to Mandy." That's hysterical.

• 44:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, now, it turns out the space shuttle orbits below the geosynchronous satellites. So if you're broadcasting radio from the geosynchronous satellites and you had a receiver there, you could, in principle, hear the signal while you were flying over the United States. But then you'd rapidly come out, because you're not over the United States for very long.

• 44:55Speaker 02

  That'd be a good application for your thing to know on your computer, where you could find out what the astronauts were listening to.

• 45:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, oh, I mean, Astronaut Music App.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, that could be a whole show, like Big Brother in space. Just tune in and watch what the astronauts are doing.

• 45:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you've got a question about, or a comment about space-derived products, give us a call at 1-877-5STAR-TALK, or tweet us at StarTalkRadio. You can also visit our website at StarTalkRadio.net.

• 45:25Speaker 02

  What songs do you think the astronauts are listening to right now?

• 45:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's find out. In fact, we have a caller right now. Yeah, yeah, let's go now to the lines. Caller, you're on the air with StarTalk with Neil and Lynn.

• 45:36Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 45:37Speaker 07

  Hello.

• 45:38Speaker 02

  What's your name, sir?

• 45:39Speaker 07

  Oh, I'm Eric from Sag Harbor, New York.

• 45:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, hello.

• 45:42Speaker 02

  Hi, Eric. I'm sorry, your name wasn't on our screen. What's your question, Eric?

• 45:46Speaker 07

  Well, it actually was more a comment about, you had been discussing a few moments ago, where you had talked about sending elderly people into space, but, and.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  And terminally ill people.

• 45:58Speaker 07

  Well, but there was, in fact, back, I think in the 80s, a senator from Utah who went on a, it was pretty much an overpriced junket of sorts, but to give him a purpose for being up there, they actually encouraged him in weightlessness to throw up as often as possible.

• 46:14Speaker 02

  To throw up?

• 46:15Speaker 07

  Yeah, his nickname is Jake Garn, and in Dunesberry, they kinda lampooned him, referred to as Barfing Jake Garn.

• 46:22Speaker 02

  That's hilarious, you sure he wasn't just drunk? Let's take the drunk senator, the senator's drunk, we'll just say we made him throw up. Oh wow, that's interesting to know.

• 46:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and by the way, earlier we mentioned the vomit comet, obviously going in and out of weightlessness can upset your stomach, and so...

• 46:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, but he's saying that they did that on purpose.

• 46:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, yeah.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  They induced vomiting.

• 46:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you wouldn't even have to try, for me, you wouldn't even have to try if that happened.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  Did they find out anything from it?

• 46:49Speaker 07

  I'm not privy to the, you know, to whatever Pentagon secrets, you know, were divulged from the experiment, but...

• 46:57Speaker 02

  That sounds like a drunk senator, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but that sounds like a drunk senator to me, that they just created a spin around.

• 47:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be a cover-up that no one would care about. The contents of Jake Garn's Woody Hurl.

• 47:09Speaker 02

  Vomit.

• 47:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, as you know, if you're weightless...

• 47:11Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 47:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you're weightless...

• 47:13Speaker 07

  It was my pleasure.

• 47:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, if you're weightless and you throw up, it just floats in the air, it'd be a very hard cleanup problem, just...

• 47:18Speaker 02

  We're getting gross, we're off task now, thanks Eric for calling.

• 47:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks Eric, thanks. Let's go back to Lon Levin and see what more he says about XM radio, since he invented it and pioneered it, and just see what, he had some thoughts on these matters.

• 47:33Speaker 06

  Why are we going to space? And we can have many reasons for it, but I just have one, and that is, I do think great nations explore. I think that we have a lot of...

• 47:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And plus make money.

• 47:45Speaker 06

  No, that's one of your parts, I don't know if we're gonna make money.

• 47:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lon, you didn't develop XM radio because you wanted to explore, you did that because you saw a business model for it, and that you could make money.

• 47:58Speaker 06

  That's exactly why we did what we did.

• 48:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So don't stand here and tell me that you do it to explore.

• 48:02Speaker 06

  No, but I'm saying, as a nation, as a nation, we, as a nation, the reason why we actually had an XM radio was because, first, we were exploring with government satellites, and then the government handed it off, and then it went to the commercial sector, private sector, and the private sector said, "We have an application here." The same thing will follow, the government will first start exploring, because they're taking risks that private sector will not take, but sooner rather than later, always, the government should hand it off to the private sector, if there's money to be made. And I think we don't know, we just don't know the answer to that question, we need to find that out.

• 48:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you make the money, and then the government taxes you, so the government gets it all back.

• 48:41Speaker 06

  That's how it works, exactly.

• 48:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so Lon knows how big the space industry is. In fact, if you add up all money spent on space, it comes to 200, most recent data, 257 billion dollars a year are related to the space industry.

• 48:56Speaker 02

  But it's worth it because we have lots of things from space.

• 48:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But not yet cosmetics, apparently. So it's apparently not worth it yet for you.

• 49:02Speaker 02

  Nice little date.

• 49:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you've told me. So here, just for comparison, NASA's annual budget is 18 billion a year. So NASA is just the tiny fraction of the total activity going on in space.

• 49:13Speaker 02

  But NASA's looking for specific, like, they're not being general, they're looking for specific.

• 49:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. In fact, NASA's not the only source of space products that are out there. And let's find out what else Lon tells us about other things that drive space spinoff.

• 49:28Speaker 06

  There are many applications that are used, that are, exist today, that are not NASA government oriented. In particular, almost all communication satellites today, of course, are provided on a private enterprise basis. We're seeing things like, well, GPS, that is a government effort, but underneath that, all the technology that's built around it is for the most part private. And I think-

• 49:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You mean all of the applications that we now use? Because the military didn't create a talking map in my car, right?

• 50:00Speaker 06

  Well, the military didn't do it for your car. They probably came up with a way to do it that was far more expensive. But with regard to consumer items, yes, it was companies that said, there is an opportunity here, let's see if we can get the right price point so that people will buy it. And they did it. And right now, one of the fastest growing industries, in fact, and still a bright light in our bad economy, is this space-based navigation systems.

• 50:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Lynn, how many people do you think continue to remind themselves that the GPS they're using in their car comes from space? Do you think they remind-

• 50:31Speaker 02

  I don't think anybody knows that. But, I would never have thought of that until I just heard it.

• 50:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, where'd you think it was coming from?

• 50:37Speaker 02

  You want to know something cool?

• 50:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 50:39Speaker 02

  I have a girlfriend, now that you say it, who does voiceovers for NASA.

• 50:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 50:44Speaker 02

  And she had to go through all the security clearance, because she knows what they hear, like, all the special things that they hear that she has to say.

• 50:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, because the GPS in your car has voices, right?

• 50:54Speaker 02

  Right. It's voices. She has the voices. But she's the one who does them for NASA. So she knows what astronauts hear, like, if something bad were to happen, she knows what they would hear, so you can't-

• 51:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So she needed a security clearance for that?

• 51:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. She needed major security clearance. Can you imagine if my voice was the voice I heard? Watch out, there's an asteroid! Watch out!

• 51:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, did your girlfriend have a nice voice?

• 51:16Speaker 02

  No, she has like a sexy like...

• 51:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, cool. Cool, very distracting perhaps, you're gonna hit an asteroid.

• 51:21Speaker 02

  I want, um...

• 51:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lynn, we're running out of time.

• 51:23Speaker 02

  Okay, I just wanted to say before we go that I, I think this is all wonderful, all the space technology, but I think we should be very careful because it, my nieces don't even know how to use a phone book anymore.

• 51:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa.

• 51:33Speaker 02

  All these applications and things.

• 51:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll find out, you've been listening to StarTalk, funded by the National Science Foundation, Neil deGrasse Tyson, with my favorite co-host in the world...

• 51:45Speaker 02

  Lynn Copeland.

• 51:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Signing off.