Cosmic Queries: Gravity, the Movie

How scientifically accurate was the movie, Gravity? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice answer your questions with a little help from NASA astronaut Mike Massimino.

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Radio. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. In studio with me Chuck Nice. Hey Neil, what's happening? You're a regular here, thanks for always coming back for us. I love being here. You're my personal astrophysicist. Today's show will focus on the movie Gravity. The movie? Yeah. I've seen it Chuck, have you? I have not. We'll find someone else right now.

• 0:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's surely some people out there who haven't seen it and yes, there'll be spoiler alerts throughout. Okay. But the premise of Gravity is it's basically a survival story with Sandra Bullock as a mission specialist, which means you have some expertise and you're not sort of a red-blooded astronaut. You're brought in for your expertise and then... Or a poser, as we like to call them. A poser and George Clooney who's sort of fly boy astronaut and it's basically only the two of them in space. It's a survival movie for 90 minutes. Stuff is happening every minute, something they've got to survive, figure out, be clever about. Uh huh. Now I gotta tell you right now, if this were a pitch right now, I would say that's the most boring movie I've ever heard of in my life. It is, except there's like stuff flying at you every second, right?

• 1:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now since it's in space, I could, you know, I'm good with the physics, but I've never actually been in space. Okay. So we had to comb the streets and find somebody who has been. Not is a has been, but who has been in space. Mike Massimino, Astro Mike, welcome back to StarTalk. Pleasure Neil, thanks for having me. You're New York City, visiting Columbia, so thanks for making time for us. My pleasure. Excellent, a visiting faculty there. Yes. Excellent. Super cool. So Mike Massimino flew on the shuttle and repaired the Hubble telescope the last time. That's right. All by himself.

• 2:02Mike Massimino?

  All by myself, except for my friends who are with me.

• 2:04Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 2:05Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 2:06Chuck Nice?

  You were the only one who counted. Come on.

• 2:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, this whole show is about the film Gravity and your questions related to it and we solicited them from the internet.

• 2:14Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 2:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, uh, but we also have some call-ins. So, Chuck, you're, you're leading the way here.

• 2:19Chuck Nice?

  So, here we go. Uh, actually, we're gonna kick things off, uh, with a phone call. And Allison, are you there?

• 2:26Speaker 03

  Yes, I am.

• 2:27Chuck Nice?

  Hello, Allison. And where are you calling us from?

• 2:29Speaker 03

  I am calling from Trenton, Michigan, which is just south of Detroit.

• 2:32Chuck Nice?

  Yes, yes. And probably a damn site better than Trenton, New Jersey, which is just south of my house. So, talk to Neil and Mike, Alice.

• 2:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What do you got, Allison?

• 2:43Speaker 03

  Uh, I'm a high school biology teacher.

• 2:45Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  And my students often ask me if movies are scientifically accurate. Of course, teens see a lot of movies and they believe everything that they see. So, Dr. Tyson, when they ask me about the movie Gravity, what should I tell them?

• 3:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh. Well, I got into trouble, uh, three days after I saw the movie, because I tweeted about the movie. And I, and I, it was about a dozen scientific inaccuracies in the film.

• 3:10Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 3:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there were a few more, but I, I parked it at a dozen.

• 3:13Chuck Nice?

  People didn't like you for that.

• 3:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I got in big trouble for that. People go, "I'm not going to movies with you. You can't bring me, me, me, me." But what I didn't do was spend a hundred tweets talking about what they got right. So, I could have done that, but that would have been perhaps a little less interesting. So, I'd like to think that directors and producers who care, they'll get most of the science right.

• 3:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that is enough to ground a movie. And then they might take some liberties, or maybe there's some things they didn't know. But once the movie's grounded, I'm, I'm good with that.

• 3:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it has earned the right to be criticized at that level. What do you think, Mike?

• 3:45Mike Massimino?

  No, I, I agree. They got, the, the accuracy that I saw was in the recreation of what space looks like. The views of the earth, the tools that they had, the tools that we used on Hubble were in that movie. I was wondering where they went, but they were in the movie.

• 3:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They used it for the movie. Plus, plus Sandra Bullock was actually repairing the Hubble.

• 4:01Mike Massimino?

  She was repairing the Hubble.

• 4:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'd expect similar tools for this.

• 4:03Mike Massimino?

  Right. And, but they, but they, they could have made up their own, or they could have left some of ours out, or, or whatever. But they did exactly, they used exactly what we used. So, they, the suits looked good, the- The the feel, the look of space was there. So I think they got they got that right.

• 4:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the mood and the feeling was captured and and for a movie, that's perhaps the most important thing to get right.

• 4:21Mike Massimino?

  So they also show, I'm sorry.

• 4:23Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry, the question would be to you is, did you suffer any type of anxiety while you were watching this movie? As a man who has actually been in space.

• 4:30Mike Massimino?

  Well, I don't.

• 4:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As the dangers, as the dangers befell the astronauts.

• 4:34Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, at first, you know, at first, it was kind of like, OK, we've kind of simulated some of those things. It did show the that space is a dangerous business. And so some of the things that they showed in the movie, we kind of practiced to a point. I mean, a a micrometeorite impact. You've got to come inside really quickly. What do you button up on the telescope? What do you save? Do you try to save this magnificent machine and go inside? Or do you just worry about yourself? Can you do something? Things are the choices.

• 4:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If it's a Hubble telescope, you save the telescope.

• 4:59Mike Massimino?

  You save the telescope. No, seriously.

• 5:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are plenty of other astronauts. There's only one Hubble telescope.

• 5:04Mike Massimino?

  You know what? That was kind of in our checklist, you know, lost crewman. We've got three others. Don't worry about it.

• 5:08Chuck Nice?

  Is there a circle?

• 5:09Mike Massimino?

  That's why we had four spacewalkers.

• 5:11Chuck Nice?

  Is is there a circle next to the multiple choice my ass?

• 5:14Mike Massimino?

  Yes, yes, and there's hand signals too.

• 5:18Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 5:19Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, like, let's, you know, we, because we wouldn't want to say that. We have hand signals for that.

• 5:23Chuck Nice?

  Got you.

• 5:24Mike Massimino?

  So, uh, so those are some of the things that I saw in the movie at first, and then it went crazy.

• 5:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Would, OK, so what's the most egregious thing of all? Just if you had to pick one, what was it?

• 5:32Mike Massimino?

  Uh, the way that they were so, I was jealous, the way they were easily able to go from place to place in space so effortlessly.

• 5:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With their little jetpacks.

• 5:40Mike Massimino?

  With their little jetpack. That was, I think, but but at the same time, Neil, I was glad that they included all that stuff. You know what I mean, Chuck? Because if you want, I'm glad they showed the shuttle, even though we don't fly it any longer.

• 5:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 5:50Mike Massimino?

  I'm glad they included the Hubble.

• 5:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was STS 157 or something.

• 5:53Mike Massimino?

  It was it was up there. Yeah, in fact, I had probably flown again. I might have been in there if it was, you know, if these, but I wouldn't want to be there that day.

• 6:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we entered the shuttles at what what STS number?

• 6:01Mike Massimino?

  Uh, 135 was our last.

• 6:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we were down 20 from that.

• 6:04Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, so they were, yeah, they were continuing a little bit further. They're all in the museums and somehow they got them out for the movie. But that's OK, because it was, that's the only way to include it was to take some license there. And they included the station and other another place, but.

• 6:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Station is the International Space Station.

• 6:19Mike Massimino?

  Space Station, so thanks. And but in order to include all that, you. Had to kind of take a little

• 6:23Chuck Nice?

  Take some liberties.

• 6:24Mike Massimino?

  Take some liberties. So I was actually happier that they did that than they would have sticked. Cause for us on our flight, the way we were going to get rescued if we had a problem was we were going to launch another space shuttle. There was another space shuttle on the launch pad with us, with, for us, with a crew in quarantine that we were very nice to. If we took, if we took damage or we couldn't come home, that's the way we were going to get rescued. We, we couldn't do what they did.

• 6:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, but in gravity, there was no rescue mission for anybody.

• 6:48Mike Massimino?

  There was nothing. Oh yeah, there was, yeah, it was, it was, yeah, they had no, it was, it was really a ba- a really ba- it was like a bad day on steroids.

• 6:55Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 6:56Mike Massimino?

  Wasn't just a bad day.

• 6:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So is it two thumbs up or one and a half thumbs up for the science?

• 7:00Mike Massimino?

  Well, for the science.

• 7:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, just sorry. Space, capturing space.

• 7:03Mike Massimino?

  I give it two thumbs up. Yeah, for, for the capturing space. Yeah, it was, it was cool. I, I liked that part of it.

• 7:09Chuck Nice?

  Well, there you have it, Allison. You can, uh, tell your students that, uh, the movie Gravity is like Cliff Notes for astronauts.

• 7:17Speaker 03

  Excellent. Thank you. They'll be happy to hear that. Maybe they'll be an astronaut someday.

• 7:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, yeah, not a shuttle. They'll be, we'll be sending them to Mars if it comes to that.

• 7:25Speaker 03

  Of course. Yes, absolutely. They'd like that. I think some of them.

• 7:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they might even be the right age. So the first astronaut class drawn from, from K through 12 ranks.

• 7:33Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 7:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, well, thank you for that question.

• 7:36Speaker 03

  Thank you very much for the opportunity.

• 7:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. You're, you're listening to StarTalk Radio. When we come back, more with Astro Mike Massimino and Chuck Nice. In the Cosmic Queries Edition, all about the film Gravity.

• 8:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk Radio. Chuck Nice.

• 8:12Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 8:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been reading questions in this Cosmic Queries Edition.

• 8:14Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I am.

• 8:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Please continue. If you have questions for me or astronaut Mike Massimino here in studio.

• 8:20Chuck Nice?

  Here we go. So this one is from Facebook. It's from Andre Paralat. And, um, th- this is kind of for both of you guys. Uh, isn't it true that when you're in space, you're in free fall? And that's what makes you weightless and it doesn't have anything really to do with gravity per se? So one for you, is that true from a physics standpoint?

• 8:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 8:45Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 8:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. Next question. No, no, so, just, just, now, work.

• 8:49Mike Massimino?

  That was so false.

• 8:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  After I sent my whole list of tweets criticizing the movie Gravity for the scientific inaccuracies, I thought, let me be, put some positive energy in the air. And I spent another dozen tweets describing what free fall is. And so people think you're in space, there's no gravity. Of course, there's gravity in space. That's why the moon is still orbiting us. Exactly. It's Earth's gravity. Exactly, right. And, and, and the astronauts are orbiting between us and the moon. Right. So it's not that there's no gravity, it's that they're actually falling towards Earth. In a thought experiment first performed by Isaac Newton. He imagined a cannon sitting at the top of a mountain and you fire it slowly at first. The cannonball doesn't come out too fast. It arches and then hits the ground. Alright, we got that, we understand it. Fire it a little faster, it goes farther before it hits the ground. Right. Fire it even faster, it goes farther.

• 9:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'll keep going farther and farther. Suppose you came out so fast it went halfway around the wor- the Earth before it hit the ground. Just keep up this thought experiment. Right. Now it's three quarters around the Earth. Now it's completely around the Earth and before it hits the ground. And if you don't duck, it'll hit you in the back of the head. Now, now, duck, it just continues. Right. It's right back to where it started with horizontal speed, just like what came out of the cannon. So he deduced that an orbit is simply a continuously falling object and doesn't hit the ground because the curvature of the planet itself curves away from it. Okay. It's trying to fall to the planet, but the planet is round. Gotcha. And it never actually hits the planet.

• 10:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what an orbit is, you are in free fall. And anytime you're in free fall, you are weightless. And if you're on an elevator and I cut the cable, you're in free fall. If you're standing on a scale, a, a spring scale and it registers your weight, what, you're 170 pounds? And, and- Why, thank you. You noticed.

• 10:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you cut the cable, the elevator falls, the scale falls, you fall. Nothing's squeezing the, the spring, the spring read, the, the scale reads zero. You are weightless. Okay, okay. Mike, what, what do weightless feel like?

• 10:51Mike Massimino?

  Uh, it's, it's, it's pretty fun. I mean, just picture.

• 10:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you barf in your helmet, I have to ask?

• 10:55Mike Massimino?

  Not in my helmet. No, not in my helmet.

• 10:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love the qualifier.

• 11:00Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, so my, my first, yeah, my, my first spaceflight, I made sure there were plenty of, uh, emesis bags, which is slang for vomit bags.

• 11:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, barf bags.

• 11:08Mike Massimino?

  Very, yeah, very, uh, close to me, so.

• 11:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because I think for the rest of us, the closest we get to that sort of zero G feeling is either in an amusement park on some of the rides.

• 11:16Mike Massimino?

  Yes.

• 11:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or if you ever go on, on, in your car and you go sort of over a, a hump.

• 11:21Mike Massimino?

  A little hump in the road.

• 11:23Chuck Nice?

  Like a hill.

• 11:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you, and you're, you're, you feel like your stomach comes up in your throat? That's kind of sort of weightless, right?

• 11:28Mike Massimino?

  It's, it's kind of like that. Sometimes, uh, in a, you know, you can, the emotion of it, and if you're in a pool neutrally buoyant, when we practice our spacewalks, that's what we do. We get in the pool, you can't, you.

• 11:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A neutrally buoyant pool, you mean, you mean a swimming pool?

• 11:39Mike Massimino?

  A swimming pool, thank you.

• 11:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just say, just say what it is.

• 11:41Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, so when you're in a pool, if you're floating, if you're, picture like a scuba diver kind of floating under the water, just floating there, it's kind of like that type of sensation.

• 11:49Chuck Nice?

  At that pla- at that place of just buoyancy.

• 11:51Mike Massimino?

  Right, just when you're just kind of floating.

• 11:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So neutrally buoyant means you're not floating at the top?

• 11:55Chuck Nice?

  Not floating at the top.

• 11:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're just sort of.

• 11:57Mike Massimino?

  Floating somewhere in the, in, yes.

• 11:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the volume of the water.

• 12:00Mike Massimino?

  Correct, yeah.

• 12:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 12:01Mike Massimino?

  So, so that's, but it's, it's fun, you know, getting to float and do that, you, you, you quickly adjust to it after you get over the nausea, which takes usually about a day or so.

• 12:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 12:10Mike Massimino?

  And, uh, it's just wonderful. Just imagine we could float around this room. If you could float around your kitchen and grab this, you know, grab whatever you needed from the cabinets. You can use a lot more of the house that way, too.

• 12:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The three dimensionality of the house.

• 12:19Mike Massimino?

  It'd be really great in New York City with these small apartments that the guys live in here. If I could float around the place and, uh, use the high ceiling.

• 12:26Chuck Nice?

  Have a seat on my wall.

• 12:27Mike Massimino?

  Exactly. Yeah, though, you know, let's sleep on the ceiling. That bedroom's up, feelings on the, bedrooms on a ceiling, kitchen on a floor. So, uh, that would be really handy here in New York City. So that's what it's kind of like in space.

• 12:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so now, if I can describe a quick home experiment.

• 12:40Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 12:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you take a tall cup.

• 12:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fill it with water, puncture two holes in it, vertical holes. So a lower hole, the water starts spewing out, it'll spew out sort of farther away than the higher hole.

• 12:51Chuck Nice?

  Correct.

• 12:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause the pressure's not as great at the upper hole, it isn't. So you'll see these two spout, spouts coming out, right? Hold it up high, hold it up high while the water's spilling out. By the way, it's spilling out because the water has weight and the water wants to get to the ground.

• 13:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you let go of the cup. Both of those spigots cut off instantly.

• 13:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The instant you let go of it, they stop and the water falls. The whole cup and everything falls with it. The water does not even know to exit the cup because it's weightless.

• 13:20Chuck Nice?

  That is fantastic.

• 13:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In free fall.

• 13:21Chuck Nice?

  And if either of my children are listening at home, if you try that damn experiment, I'll kill you. Cause I'm not cleaning that up.

• 13:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, Chuck, you wipe it up before dad gets home. It's okay.

• 13:32Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's move on. That was fascinating. That's awesome. Let's move on to Dustin, uh, Passatore. So, um.

• 13:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, uh, Mike pronounced the name. Uh, I can't see the spelling of it.

• 13:42Chuck Nice?

  Passatore.

• 13:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With P A?

• 13:43Chuck Nice?

  Nope. P E S S A T O R E.

• 13:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's good. That's pretty, Pa- Passatore.

• 13:48Chuck Nice?

  So Dustin Passatore says, um, first of all, are they constantly falling at seventeen thousand five hundred miles per hour? And for Mike, how does that affect the brain's cognitive functions? So does weightlessness have an effect on your brain? Can you go, you know, weightless crazy? And, uh, are they falling at the speed of seventeen thousand five hundred miles per hour?

• 14:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, they're going sideways at seventeen thousand miles per hour. And the fact that they're going that fast sideways allows them to fall down towards the earth at the rate that earth's surface curves away from them. In fact, we think when we watch the shuttle launch, and Mike, you gotta back me up on this. When we watch the shuttle launch, we think, oh, there it is going up into space.

• 14:27Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Most of that energy of all those engines is not to go up. It's only going a couple hundred miles up.

• 14:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hell, that's from New York to Boston.

• 14:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we can drive that. Most of that energy is to give it horizontal speed.

• 14:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's why that you, that puppy does that, that, that half twist.

• 14:43Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The roll. The triple gainer half twist.

• 14:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Double flip. And does a roll, a beautiful balletic roll, and it going sideways away from you. Ain't that right?

• 14:52Mike Massimino?

  That's it. And we also, the, the direction we go in, which is launching to the east, helps a little bit because you're picking up some speed because that's the way the earth is rotating.

• 15:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Earth rotates, so you're being lazy on that.

• 15:02Mike Massimino?

  That's it. We got every, every little bit of speed helps.

• 15:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you launch from Cape Canaveral, so I, my back of the envelope tells me you're probably getting eight or nine hundred miles an hour from the earth. From there.

• 15:11Mike Massimino?

  That's about right. Yeah. Yeah.

• 15:12Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 15:13Mike Massimino?

  Sounds good to me anyway.

• 15:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:16Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah.

• 15:18Chuck Nice?

  Now you know exactly how I feel at most of the stuff he says.

• 15:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Chuck, I hear we have a phoner?

• 15:24Chuck Nice?

  Yes, uh, who do we have on the line? Caller, are you there?

• 15:27Speaker 04

  Uh, yes. My name's Anthony.

• 15:28Chuck Nice?

  Hey Anthony, where are you calling us from?

• 15:30Speaker 04

  I'm calling from Kansas City.

• 15:31Chuck Nice?

  Kansas City. Wait, wait, KC Mo or KC?

• 15:34Speaker 04

  KC Mo.

• 15:34Chuck Nice?

  Alright, alright, so what's your question for Neil or Mike?

• 15:37Speaker 04

  Uh, yes, uh, once again, thank you for taking my phone call and, uh, Dr. Tyson, thank you for being a, uh, uh, an inspiration for a lot of people going into science.

• 15:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you, thank you.

• 15:46Speaker 04

  I have, um, a question about the scene from the movie Gravity. In particular where she uses the fire extinguisher as the maneuvering unit.

• 15:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  An awesome scene, by the way, yeah. Cover your ears Chuck, you don't want to hear this.

• 15:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, like Ed White did in, uh, Gemini 4. Um, is there any accuracy to that? Or is it, um, more of just a Hollywood effect? That she was able to propel herself and hold on to it? And get where she was wanting to go with? I know the nozzle on that is bigger than the one that Ed White and, uh, Michael Collins experimented on.

• 16:21Chuck Nice?

  So here's a question, can you actually use a fire extinguisher as a propulsion device?

• 16:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let me give the physics and then Mike can like tell me how it really goes down in space. We got about 90 seconds in this segment, I'll be, so I'll be quick. So, if, if you, if your physical mass loses mass in any way, so Sandra Bullock plus extinguisher, that's a certain mass content. If the extinguisher sends any part of its mass, because she's holding on to it, in any direction, she must recoil, no matter what. And by the way, this works for burps, it works for any, if you can propel any part of you outside your body, you will go, you will recoil from that, that's Isaac Newton's law of action and reaction.

• 17:04Chuck Nice?

  Well, we all know what part of my body I'm using.

• 17:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I don't know. So, so what it also means is, if she doesn't actually propel it at, through a line that connects to her center of mass, she'll not only recoil, she'll start to rotate. And so you gotta be, you gotta know where to aim that stuff. So Mike, have you, have you played in space this way?

• 17:24Mike Massimino?

  Well, I haven't played in space, but in a simulator, well, yes, yes, we have, but not with a gas can like you're saying. We've done, we practiced that.

• 17:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh.

• 17:31Mike Massimino?

  So, uh, yeah, you're, you're, anything that's gonna move, you described it, anything that's gonna give you a gas going one way, you're gonna react to it. But I, I would, when I saw that scene, I was like, she's using her head now. She's being smart about it. Uh, what we have on our jet pack, we don't have the big jet pack like they showed in the movie, but we have a smaller one. And it just basically just shoots gas out in one direction. You have a controller to try to, to control the direction of that and a hand controller so that it figures out which way to shoot it.

• 17:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 17:57Mike Massimino?

  But that's the way we maneuver.

• 17:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 17:59Mike Massimino?

  Just like that.

• 18:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A diet of beans would have the same effect.

• 18:01Mike Massimino?

  It would, but I wouldn't trust, no matter how many beans, I would rather have a real gas can. I would rather have the fire extinguisher.

• 18:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, more Cosmic Queries with Mike Massimino, all on the movie Gravity.

• 18:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk Radio in studio. Chuck Nice and Astro Mike Massimino.

• 18:37Mike Massimino?

  Here.

• 18:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, you tweeted Chuck Nice Comic?

• 18:40Chuck Nice?

  At Chuck Nice Comic.

• 18:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice and at Astro Mike?

• 18:42Mike Massimino?

  At Astro.

• 18:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that an underscore between the two?

• 18:44Mike Massimino?

  Yep. At Astro underscore Mike.

• 18:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there could be, never be any other Mike astronauts.

• 18:48Mike Massimino?

  No, they're all, they all get, yeah, they'll get pissed off. There's an Iron Mike, the guy now, Mike Hopkins is like Astro Illini.

• 18:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're running out of ideas.

• 18:55Mike Massimino?

  They're running out of.

• 18:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  University of Illinois. So I've got Mike, stay away. It's because you were the first person to tweet from space.

• 19:00Mike Massimino?

  I was.

• 19:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you had first dibs.

• 19:02Mike Massimino?

  That's right. We were very, we were very creative. Use Mike as my.

• 19:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are, this is the Cosmic Queries edition, all about the film Gravity. That's why we have a real astronaut in studio for this.

• 19:11Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 19:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Chuck, well, you know, where we left off, we were talking about how to propel yourself around space.

• 19:16Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we were. We, uh, we, we learned some, but what, the, the second part of the question was, does, uh, weightlessness affect your cognitive capabilities?

• 19:23Mike Massimino?

  Yeah. Well, your brain is trying to figure out what's going on. So one thing I thought was really interesting is that because you're weightless and your vestibular system doesn't know if you're upside down or right side up. Vestibular system. Your inner ear, which gives you a balance. You use a lot of fancy words. That's the first one I use it more than one syllable for Pete's sake. I mean, I need a dictionary to talk to this guy. You know what I mean, Chuck? And I'm, I said, not the vestibule people, it's your inner ear, your balance, your sense of balance doesn't work anymore because that works on gravity. It presumes you're on earth. But you're on earth. So what? Where we evolved, yeah. Right. So your inner ear is saying you're perfectly still. So your eyes now are telling you what position you're in. And what happens is, is when you're upside down.

• 20:06Mike Massimino?

  So picture now, guys, we're in this room, or picture at home, your, your car, wherever, you're now weightless. And now all of a sudden you go upside down. Right. Your brain is telling you that you are still right side up and the scene has moved 180 degrees. It's now flipped. So it's saying the whole room has rotated. Not everywhere. Not you, that the room has rotated. And it really is a little disturbing. That's a cool fact. It is cool, but at first you're like, holy crap, let me get into the right direction, you know? And then after a while, you get used to it. Your brain adjusts to that and you can have a conversation on the ceiling and be very comfortable with it. It usually takes a couple of days. Okay. So it doesn't mess up your intelligence. It just messes up your orientation.

• 20:44Mike Massimino?

  Your brain's trying to figure out what's going on. And then there's some other bodily functions, like the, the distribution, distribution of your, your liquid. I'm trying to use a small word. Fluid. Fluid. Thank you very much. Of your fluids inside of your, it get, kind of pools to the upper extremity. So your head is kind of big in space at first because you're, you're just floating up there. Wasn't that because your body is accustomed to fighting a force of gravity and now there's no force of gravity? It'll just send all the? Right. Everything goes up. Everything goes up. And so what happens is your body thinks, your brain thinks that it has more water than you really have, and you start to pee more in space, more than you really should. So there's a risk of getting dehydrated. So you want to drink water as much as you can, especially when you first get there. But all these things kind of adjust after a couple of days.

• 21:29Mike Massimino?

  Okay. But it doesn't affect your ability to push buttons and decide, make safe decisions? Unless you're nauseous. Which is another problem. And then it doesn't matter what's going on, Neil. Even listening to StarTalk Radio, if you're nauseous, it ain't fun. I feel so, oh, space is fun. Yeah, if you're not nauseous. Once you're nauseous, everything's not, becomes not fun. I don't care what it is.

• 21:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Also, also a point about spewing out gases in one direction or another. I mean, that quip about beans. Of course, that would only work if you had a flap that opened on your spaceship.

• 21:55Mike Massimino?

  Right, you'd have to, yeah, so you'd have to.

• 21:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The gas has to leave your spaceship.

• 21:58Mike Massimino?

  Right.

• 21:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you recoil from that.

• 22:00Mike Massimino?

  Right, you nasty man. That's why it's only been tried inside the spaceship when no one else is looking or with their heads turned. And it has not been done very successfully.

• 22:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wouldn't, I would not.

• 22:09Mike Massimino?

  So I would rather have a real gas can to move myself around as opposed to matter, and I eat a lot. We've had lunch together. But it doesn't matter how much you eat. I still would rather have an actual mechanical device to propel me around.

• 22:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To propel you through space.

• 22:20Mike Massimino?

  Right. I want to take the chance, kids.

• 22:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, so you got questions for us from the, from the net? What do you got?

• 22:25Chuck Nice?

  This one from Nick Hoffman. How did they not tear their suits sliding all over the place? And later proceeded to access other spacecrafts, which should be internally sealed. So a compound question there.

• 22:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that. Yeah, I can't help you there, Mike. So what do you got?

• 22:42Mike Massimino?

  I have the same issue, I guess. If you really think, you want to be very careful when you're in space because you can tear your suit. In fact, my space glove tore on one of my spacewalks.

• 22:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What were you doing with your glove?

• 22:51Mike Massimino?

  I, I was, I was fixing the Hubble Space Telescope.

• 22:55Chuck Nice?

  He was doing a Michael Jackson impression.

• 22:56Mike Massimino?

  I was, yeah. But we, we had some problems with our gloves, right? In the, the area between the thumb and the index finger was kind of a weak point there for a while. And if you had, you had to be really careful. You could wear a hole in there.

• 23:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it was weak because you needed to be flexible?

• 23:09Mike Massimino?

  You needed to be flexible and it's something you're, we're using your hands to work out there and you could wear, it needs to be flexible. So maybe it's not as strong as the other parts of the suit.

• 23:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 23:17Mike Massimino?

  It has, it's a seven-layer suit. So even if you penetrate the first layer, you've got a couple of other layers there.

• 23:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's seven layers for this reason.

• 23:23Mike Massimino?

  For this reason, right? Including a layer of Kevlar. And then at the bottom is the pressure layer.

• 23:27Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 23:28Mike Massimino?

  The, where it's, it's kind of like a rubber.

• 23:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you have Kevlar in there, that means you, you could, you're bulletproof.

• 23:33Mike Massimino?

  Ah, but you can still, in the gloves, we don't have the Kevlar in the gloves. So there are the weak points. And the other parts, like in the arms and the pants, that's where the Kevlar layer is in amongst the seven.

• 23:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if one of the astronauts smuggles a gun through. Through NASA security goes up into

• 23:46Mike Massimino?

  Not that that's ever been done.

• 23:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And shoot you, you have your Kevlar protection.

• 23:50Mike Massimino?

  It's not that, no, I would not, let's not try that. It's not very thick Kevlar. It's really thin.

• 23:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Try that.

• 23:56Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 23:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not.

• 23:57Mike Massimino?

  Very thin.

• 23:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not wrapper grade Kevlar.

• 24:00Mike Massimino?

  Right, right, it's not, yeah.

• 24:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 24:02Mike Massimino?

  Right, I would not want to go into a club with this stuff. I would want a lot more protection.

• 24:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, I'd say that not completely jokingly.

• 24:09Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 24:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If there's debris flying through space, it has energetics of a flying bullet.

• 24:14Mike Massimino?

  Right.

• 24:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This got bullet energy.

• 24:16Mike Massimino?

  So we have, these are thin layers and they have seven layers on top of each other. So that you can withstand some type of impact is the idea and the final layer is the pressure layer. But your gloves are the weakest part. The fire, yeah, the fire inside against you is a, is a pressure, it's a bladder. And once that's penetrated, that's when you get a leak, but you can withstand.

• 24:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pressure leak.

• 24:34Mike Massimino?

  A pressure leak and that's when your oxygen's going to go out and pressure goes away and that's bad.

• 24:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, more questions on the movie Gravity with in-house astronaut Mike Massimino.

• 25:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk Radio Cosmic Queries Edition, all about the movie Gravity. Chuck, you got through half the person's question last night.

• 25:09Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, we got through half of it, but here was the second half, which was, how do you proceed, or how did they proceed to access other spacecraft? Which should be internally sealed, so how do you get in from the outside when it's supposed to be locked?

• 25:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They just turn knobs and open the door.

• 25:23Mike Massimino?

  No, yeah, see the issue there is that the doors we have open to the inside, right? So that when you have pressure inside, it's like an airplane, right? The doors open on the inside, so the pressure kind of keeps it locked.

• 25:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you have more pressure on the inside than the zero pressure outside.

• 25:37Mike Massimino?

  Correct, right, so it keeps it, it keeps it solid. You can open an airlock door from the outside if there's no pressure on the inside of that airlock. You know what I'm saying?

• 25:44Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 25:45Mike Massimino?

  So, but if.

• 25:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause then it would just swing freely.

• 25:47Mike Massimino?

  But if it's a pressurized volume, where if you can go in there without and be able to take your spacesuit off and live, that ain't gonna work.

• 25:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, so we can quantify this, right? So you're not, you're probably not pressurized to, to sea level. What do you pressure, that's fifteen, fifteen pounds per square inch. What do you pressurize to?

• 26:02Mike Massimino?

  Inside your spacesuit?

• 26:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, no, in an arrow.

• 26:05Mike Massimino?

  No, in the air, okay, so, uh, it, it all depends, but, uh, like on the shuttle, we did our spacewalks, we were a little bit less at ten point two.

• 26:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there it is. So he's got ten pounds per square inch, and if your door is, you know, thirty inches by sixty inches.

• 26:18Mike Massimino?

  You gotta get a spacesuit in and out of it.

• 26:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. Let's say thirty inches by sixty inches, so that's how, that's, uh, sort of twenty, that's two thousand, uh, square inches, is that right? Times ten pounds per square inch, that's twenty thousand pounds of force.

• 26:31Mike Massimino?

  And it's probably more, and the space station's even more, cause they're at fourteen point seven, they're one at atmosphere.

• 26:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They are at one atmosphere, so.

• 26:37Mike Massimino?

  So even more on the spacesuit.

• 26:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In other words, the door in every square inch has this press, this air pressure pressing down on it.

• 26:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In fact, in fact, that's why.

• 26:44Chuck Nice?

  And it's pressing on it from the inside out.

• 26:46Mike Massimino?

  Right.

• 26:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 26:47Mike Massimino?

  Right, sealing it, sealing the door, against, in the hole.

• 26:50Chuck Nice?

  So the answer here is, that's bogus.

• 26:54Mike Massimino?

  It's a movie. Yeah, it's a movie.

• 26:56Chuck Nice?

  Here is what I'm getting from your answer.

• 26:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's like knock on the door, open wide, you know, and, but they did show that presumably there was pressure on the inside and the door popped open.

• 27:06Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, I know, yeah.

• 27:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay, okay. Also, just, just, I gotta throw in some physics here if I may. What we just described is why suction cups work, and it got jacked to do with suction. If you press a suction cup down, expelling the air.

• 27:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's, now there's nothing to balance the air pressure around it. The atmosphere is sitting on top of the rubber suction cup. At fourteen point seven pounds, round it to fifteen pounds per square inch. If your suction cup is ten square inches.

• 27:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a hundred and fifty pounds of, of pulling up force it will require to lift the suction cup. You say it was sucking hard? No, the atmosphere is pushing down on that sucker.

• 27:41Chuck Nice?

  So it's all pushing down, no sucking up?

• 27:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No suck.

• 27:46Mike Massimino?

  And we're all under pressure. We're all under pressure. We're all under pressure. Wisdom from Stark Talk.

• 27:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not the questions, it's the pressure. And also, that pressure operates in every direction. So that's why suction cup will work on the ceiling.

• 28:00Chuck Nice?

  Ceiling, okay.

• 28:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, air pressure goes in all directions.

• 28:02Chuck Nice?

  Awesome.

• 28:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When you're at the base of the atmosphere, as we are. Okay, what else you got?

• 28:06Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. Let's move on. This is Jim Lulo. And Jim wants to know, I'm fascinated by his question. When the fire in the ISS was starting, it was in small fireballs that were floating. If heat rises, how does fire act in zero gravity?

• 28:25Mike Massimino?

  Ooh, go for it, Mike. All right, so I saw this and I was wondering about this. We don't really know, we really don't know exactly how that would happen because we don't, we haven't had a real fire where we would, but if you think about it, gravity does help fire rage. You know, if we have an open flame on Earth and it's going to spread, it needs fuel. Most of the stuff that we have in space is fireproof. That was one thing.

• 28:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On purpose.

• 28:50Mike Massimino?

  On purpose, so it doesn't burn. Just about everything we have up there is fireproof. The other thing is with the absence of gravity, I, you know, I've talked about this with my friends. You know, what would it be like? A small localized, we do have fire extinguishers. There's two types on the Russian segment and on the US segment. Uh, two different kinds, but it's mainly for like electrical fires.

• 29:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whose is better? Ours or theirs?

• 29:10Mike Massimino?

  Uh, they're just different. Because it's different like, different electrical components. We expect more of an electrical fire.

• 29:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:16Mike Massimino?

  And it might be an open flame, kind of localized where you would, you would have to use an extinguisher on it. But this raging fire, because there's a lack of fuel and the gravity, the convection that you would get from gravity to move the, to feed the fire is not there. I always thought that we would never get a big raging fire.

• 29:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would just extinguish itself.

• 29:35Mike Massimino?

  It would extinguish itself, right. If you did nothing. I mean, the idea is if you do nothing, it should go out.

• 29:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because a candle on Earth, the heat rises, oxygen comes in to replace the used oxygen in the flame itself. So it's a continuous flow of oxygen.

• 29:49Mike Massimino?

  And it's gravity that feeds it.

• 29:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And gravity, the convection of the lighter gas and the heavier gas comes in. Well, in space, a candle will extinguish itself.

• 29:57Mike Massimino?

  If you do nothing.

• 29:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because there's no fresh oxygen to even know.

• 30:01Chuck Nice?

  Replace, to go, to know where to go.

• 30:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To even know where to get in there.

• 30:04Mike Massimino?

  It doesn't know how to get in there. You would think that a raging fire is impossible, but no one really wants to try.

• 30:10Mike Massimino?

  So I was like, hey, would that really happen? I don't think so, but I don't want to take the chance.

• 30:14Chuck Nice?

  Don't play with matches. So the answer is, fires in space are like our debt ceiling here on Earth. Right? Nobody wants to know what kind of disaster will ensue.

• 30:23Mike Massimino?

  There you go. Stay away from it.

• 30:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, more StarTalk Radio Cosmic Queries edition on the film Gravity.

• 30:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. Welcome back into the final segment of Cosmic Queries, all about the movie Gravity. We are in the lightning round.

• 30:58Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 30:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, you know what that means?

• 31:00Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 31:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've got Astro Mike with me, Astronaut Mike, and we're going to answer questions as quickly as we can, get as many of the questions as possible.

• 31:07Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we are.

• 31:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, and we'll test the bell?

• 31:10Mike Massimino?

  We are good.

• 31:10Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 31:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go for it.

• 31:11Chuck Nice?

  Here we go. Here's the first question from Timothy Tazika. Are all astronauts really that good-looking?

• 31:19Mike Massimino?

  No, better.

• 31:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next.

• 31:21Mike Massimino?

  Is that good?

• 31:26Mike Massimino?

  That's, that's why we're doing a radio show.

• 31:30Mike Massimino?

  We all have faces made for radio.

• 31:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next.

• 31:33Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. All right. This one from Georgia Soonah.

• 31:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, I gotta add there real quick. Because I've been, I've been talking to movie people lately, and everyone is convinced they completely retouched Sandra Bullock's legs and all those legs.

• 31:46Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 31:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's no blemishes, there's no varicose veins. She's 49. There's nothing, it was like, it was like Barbie legs all the way.

• 31:53Mike Massimino?

  They were trying to, they were trying to match real astronauts. That's what, as long as we're on radio, I'm very comfortable saying it. Don't anyone ever watch this.

• 32:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, go.

• 32:02Chuck Nice?

  All right, from Jorge Osuna, um, are they allowed to stay outside until they reach the last 10% of oxygen? The, the, the, the, speaking of astronauts.

• 32:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mike.

• 32:14Mike Massimino?

  No, you want to, it's based on time and you wouldn't want to go with less like an hour left, based on your, how you use.

• 32:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, an hour of reserves.

• 32:21Chuck Nice?

  An hour of reserves, that's the answer, okay. This one from Dario, Horba Tinovic.

• 32:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cool.

• 32:27Chuck Nice?

  Okay, um, if there was really a fat astronaut, how much would their gravity affect the Earth?

• 32:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, quickly, Mike.

• 32:42Mike Massimino?

  Luckily not, luckily not at all.

• 32:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, yeah, not, because it wouldn't affect any more than they were, it would while they're on Earth. But, I can tell you, uh, Mike, what's the cost per pound to put something in orbit? It's like 10,000.

• 32:51Mike Massimino?

  A lot of money.

• 32:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's $10,000 per pound to put something in orbit.

• 32:54Mike Massimino?

  Right.

• 32:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So for every pound of excess fat.

• 32:56Mike Massimino?

  Right.

• 32:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The taxpayer's paying $10,000.

• 32:59Mike Massimino?

  Right, plus being a larger astronaut, it requires more food to feed us and larger clothes.

• 33:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Larger clothes.

• 33:05Mike Massimino?

  I had to use half of Meghan McArthur's clothing locker for my clothes.

• 33:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're, you, you're 6'3"?

• 33:10Mike Massimino?

  I'm 6'3".

• 33:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How much you weigh?

• 33:11Mike Massimino?

  About 200.

• 33:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it, next.

• 33:15Chuck Nice?

  Okay, um, if lost in space.

• 33:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You weigh more than 200, Mike.

• 33:19Mike Massimino?

  I do, it's, but it's.

• 33:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're so lying.

• 33:21Mike Massimino?

  It's the slimming effect of radio.

• 33:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, because I'm 240 and we're like, we're, we're, we got similar growth here.

• 33:30Mike Massimino?

  Yeah.

• 33:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, go.

• 33:30Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 33:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go.

• 33:33Mike Massimino?

  It's a lightning round, I want it to be quick.

• 33:34Chuck Nice?

  I feel like I'm sitting here.

• 33:35Mike Massimino?

  200 is easier than 210.

• 33:36Chuck Nice?

  I feel like I'm sitting here with two models, not, not two scientists. All right, here we go.

• 33:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go.

• 33:41Chuck Nice?

  Um, if lost in space, is there a mythical suicide pill?

• 33:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 33:47Mike Massimino?

  No.

• 33:48Chuck Nice?

  Never.

• 33:49Mike Massimino?

  No, we're not doing any of that.

• 33:50Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 33:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait, wait, the real question is, if there were one, would you take?

• 33:54Chuck Nice?

  And that was about to, would you use it?

• 33:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If there were one, are you allowed to say you have one?

• 33:58Mike Massimino?

  If there were one, they didn't tell me.

• 34:01Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 34:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See, that's.

• 34:01Mike Massimino?

  I don't know.

• 34:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, he has to say that.

• 34:03Chuck Nice?

  All right, so now, wait.

• 34:06Chuck Nice?

  All right, quickly, quickly.

• 34:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, you know, you know, he's got one.

• 34:09Chuck Nice?

  You know he does.

• 34:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He can't.

• 34:10Chuck Nice?

  All right, so let's put it to you this way.

• 34:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 34:12Chuck Nice?

  Okay, would you rather drift into space wantonly until you die or take a suicide pill?

• 34:19Mike Massimino?

  I'd want to get every second out of it as I could.

• 34:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 34:22Mike Massimino?

  I would not.

• 34:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Me too.

• 34:23Mike Massimino?

  I ain't ended it any sooner than than I have to.

• 34:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 34:26Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 34:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next.

• 34:26Mike Massimino?

  Go take your chances.

• 34:27Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 34:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Quick.

• 34:28Chuck Nice?

  Okay, this is pretty much for both of you, but would it be possible to launch a satellite capable of changing orbital altitudes and not be in geosync orbit? Is is that possible?

• 34:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 34:38Chuck Nice?

  So instead of falling around the earth?

• 34:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, if if you bring fuel with you while you're in orbit, you can change orbit, you can change angle, height, altitude, and you can even re-enter. All right, you fire your rockets the other way, you you drop down and you enter the atmosphere and plunk into the Pacific or wherever you might happen. Well, oh, yeah, but you need fuel to do it. Otherwise, you're not. Okay, go.

• 34:58Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. All right.

• 35:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, we're faster than you here.

• 35:01Chuck Nice?

  Can an astronaut? I know, because my questions are all over the place.

• 35:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't even.

• 35:04Mike Massimino?

  Here we go. He's he's enthralled with the answers.

• 35:06Chuck Nice?

  I am too.

• 35:07Mike Massimino?

  He doesn't worry about the next question.

• 35:08Chuck Nice?

  I do, I do get excited. Here we go.

• 35:10Mike Massimino?

  That's what it is.

• 35:10Chuck Nice?

  Can an astronaut overcome, okay, acidosis as Sandra Bullock did? I don't know what acidosis is.

• 35:15Mike Massimino?

  What the heck is that?

• 35:16Chuck Nice?

  What is acidosis? Does anyone know what acidosis is?

• 35:18Mike Massimino?

  Is that like what we call agita?

• 35:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We plead ignorance.

• 35:24Mike Massimino?

  That's a fancy word for gas.

• 35:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If Neil doesn't know the word, you don't have to answer the question.

• 35:32Chuck Nice?

  If Neil doesn't know the word, I'm pretty sure you made it up.

• 35:34Mike Massimino?

  Yeah, I mean, that's, yeah.

• 35:36Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. Um, do astronauts get trained in breathing techniques and is that important?

• 35:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so if you know the oxygen is going low, can you change your breathing habits to prolong it?

• 35:47Mike Massimino?

  You always want to be breathing as lightly as possible. Heavy breathing, a full breath is overrated, but you're not necessarily trained to do that, except you realize it's it's not a good thing to do.

• 35:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if you take a full breath, you are exhaling oxygen, aren't you?

• 35:59Mike Massimino?

  You're ex, yeah, what you're doing is two things. You're taking up more oxygen oxygen, but you're also getting out more CO2.

• 36:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  More CO2.

• 36:05Mike Massimino?

  Which is going to use up your filter, which is a lot of times that's your filter.

• 36:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your CO2 scrubbing filter.

• 36:10Mike Massimino?

  Exactly, you can't replace the scrubber, you can get more oxygen, so.

• 36:15Chuck Nice?

  On Earth, we can only look at the sun for, this is from Meyer Garcia, on Earth, we can only look at the sun for a couple of moments before it hurts. What is it like for someone in an EVA suit drifting in orbit? How long can they stand looking at the sun?

• 36:29Mike Massimino?

  Use your visor. You have a visor to put down because the sun is the brightest thing you can imagine. When you're out on a spacewalk, you use your visor.

• 36:35Chuck Nice?

  So who's behind those foster grants? Astro Mike.

• 36:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This has been StarTalk Radio Cosmic Queries Edition, all about the movie Gravity. Thanks Chuck Nice.

• 36:45Chuck Nice?

  Pleasure.

• 36:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we'll find you on Twitter and Astro Mike, always great to have you on the show. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. That's all the time we've got Chuck. Mike, thanks for being on StarTalk Radio. We've been brought to you in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. As always, I bid you to keep looking up.