X-Prize (Part 1)

The X-Prize is motivating engineers, scientists and private industry to “Make the impossible possible.” Get an insider’s look when Neil deGrasse Tyson interviews founder Peter Diamandis. Read more and listen to the full episode at: http://www.startalkradio.net/show/x-prize-part-1

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?

  Welcome to StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm an astrophysicist and director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium, right here in New York City. And I've got with me co-host Chuck Nice.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  Hey Neil.

• 0:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, welcome back.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  Hey man, thanks for having me.

• 0:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Always good to have you as my co-host.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  Always good to be here.

• 0:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, today we'll be talking about my interview with the space entrepreneur. Isn't it cool that that pair of words even exists in our culture?

• 0:46Speaker 01

  A space entrepreneur. I'm just hoping that you have a side business.

• 0:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you can pay your rent.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  So you can pay your mortgage. Because space entrepreneur doesn't actually conjure up visions of cha-ching.

• 1:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we got, it's my interview with space entrepreneur Peter Diamandis. We had him on StarTalk before when he discussed his asteroid mining company.

• 1:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Planetary Resources. That's as visionary as you can get.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  And that really is.

• 1:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But again, he ain't paying his mortgage next month.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Not off of that. And you know, the funny thing is though, I remember that show because we did that show together. And you asked him something that, you said, do you think that this is where the first trillionaire?

• 1:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Will come from? And just the concept alone.

• 1:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The first trillionaire.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  The first trillionaire.

• 1:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But not next month. He's homeless until then.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in this, in this episode, we're going to focus on his more famous endeavor, the X Prize. And in this first clip, we talk about when he and I first met.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He actually tracked me down. I had just started at the Hayden Planetarium. And I was really deep into sort of transforming the planetarium into its present day state. And he shows up. Let's check it out.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  I was looking for people who had wanted to go to Jupiter Saturn Pluto back in the 1950s.

• 2:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I had just assumed the title of director. I didn't even know we had such names. I had to call the librarian.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  I think it came out with a box of like letters.

• 2:27Speaker 02

  Had dust on it. We're 50 years old.

• 2:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just impressed that you knew that. How did you even know that?

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Well, I'm a science fiction reader and at the back of some of these paperbacks was a one-page form that you could fill out in the 1950s that said, "If you're interested in traveling to the planets, fill out this form and submit it to the Hayden Planetarium and when this capability comes online, Pan Am or someone will fulfill it." And I said, "Wow, there's a great marketplace for space tourism."

• 2:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I think we did find the box, but then what'd you do with it?

• 2:58Speaker 02

  Realized it was useless.

• 3:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, plus they're all dead.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Very depressing.

• 3:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but it told me that you were really thinking about the future in an important, not just in the, "I'm in the lab, what should the future be?" But you were thinking about it in a marketing sense, right?

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I wanted to go to space since I was born in the 60s and...

• 3:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Early 60s.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  I was born early 60s. I became conscious, if you would, during the Apollo era and during Star Trek. And at some point gave up on NASA being the mechanism I was going to get into space. And as a result, I was like, "Okay, so how am I going to do it?"

• 3:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, NASA wasn't going fast enough for you?

• 3:33Speaker 02

  You know, the probabilities of being selected as an astronaut, I have a better chance of being an NBA All-Star at 5'5" than I do an astronaut.

• 3:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have to jump really high. Maybe you'd have a chance, yeah. Okay, so you didn't want to just watch it happen. You wanted to participate.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  I wanted to go. I wanted to take other people with me. It's my mission in life to open up the solar system. I don't know why I have that mission, and it's a pretentious mission, but it's what drives me.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  How many people among us talk like that? You know, I have to say this. It's rather visionary, but at the same time, is it really practical? Is it really practical? Do people really want to go to space?

• 4:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go on, squash the man's dreams. Go on. Is this what you tell your children?

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Daddy, I want to grow up and I want to be...

• 4:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Son, you'll never be, daughter, you'll never.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  No, I kinda do. I'm like, you know what? You need to lower your expectations. You need to bring it down a notch. You know, we don't dream like that in this house.

• 4:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if it wasn't clear from that interview, Hayden Planetarium did have this little promotional stunt. Where you would write in your name and we, we would collect this pile of names. And the first mission to the moon, this back in the 50s, so we hadn't been anywhere yet, right? Sputnik had barely been launched. So he wanted to use these names to, as to contact these people and say, do you want to be the first to go? You, you applied. Here we are. And, and as they come to the door, answering the door with a cane and an artificial hip and they can't hear. Cause those folks are surely 80, 80 years old by now.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 5:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, so, but somebody was thinking about it and that's what really impressed me. And if, I didn't know if you caught it, but he's actually five, five.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Yes, I heard it.

• 5:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he's, that, that's.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  He's got a better chance of being in the NBA than being an astronaut. Is there a height restriction on?

• 5:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you can't be too tall.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 5:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause it'll fit in the capsule.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  Right. I was gonna say like, he, he's, he should be better at being an astronaut for being small.

• 5:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, but I mean, I don't, he might've had some other reasons, just the, the statistics, the pure statistics of being selected, you know, one out of however many. Uh, but he might've been an astronaut. A lot of people became astronauts and never thought they'd ever get selected. So he might've been short sighted on that. On that end, but it's always good to have somebody who, who's thinking about the future on, on that level. And, uh, he wants to open up the solar system and have it become our backyard. I mean, how could, how could you fault that for a vision?

• 6:00Speaker 01

  I, I, I like the vision, simply because.

• 6:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the Jetsons.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  It is. It is. That and, and houses that go above the clouds depending on the weather conditions.

• 6:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, where did you look? Where'd you pick this up?

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Did you never see that in the Jetson?

• 6:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, in the Jetson.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, they actually raised it like so. Okay. So you have, uh, it's a cloudy day.

• 6:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  You raise the level of the building, so it goes above the clouds.

• 6:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you have sunlight. It just doesn't rain on your house.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Never goes, never rains on your house.

• 6:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It seems to me, if you have the power to levitate your building, that you have the power to change the cloud.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  You also have, uh, flying cars that fold up into briefcases too.

• 6:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I forgot about that.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I mean.

• 6:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I forgot all about that.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Right, yeah. And you walk your dog on a treadmill at thirty thousand feet in the air, so. Basically, the Jetsons, it's never gonna happen, is what we're saying.

• 6:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, okay, so maybe some aspects of it, like push button. Uh, what got, what gets me in the Jetsons was that they, the maid.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Rosie.

• 7:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was a robot.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Rosie the robot.

• 7:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, the maid was female, but it was a robot.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why would it have to have any gender at all?

• 7:07Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 7:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, that's crazy.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  That was very racist, I mean, sexist. That was very sexist of the Jetson. The only thing she needed was a Mexican accent. And that would have made it, you know.

• 7:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just complete.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Exactly. Rosie, yes. You don't mean a jazz, huh? I'm sorry. That's so wrong. So freaking wrong.

• 7:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would have just completed the whole stereotype.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, you might as well go full blow. If you're gonna do it, go full boat.

• 7:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And plus, the maid, all she did was push buttons, if I remember correctly.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  That's true, the house was self-maintaining.

• 7:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, but did she carry a, a dust brush or something? Like, for what?

• 7:41Speaker 01

  I don't know, you know, because that, that, that made, that made her useful, the fact that she actually, you know, actually got to sweep something up.

• 7:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here we are trying to invent a future that'll never come. You're listening to StarTalk Radio. When we come back, more of my interview with Peter Diamandis, ex Prize founder.

• 8:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. Neil deGrasse Tyson, my co-host today is Chuck Nice.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  Hey, hey.

• 8:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tweeting at NiceChuck.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Chuck Nice Comic.

• 8:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck Nice Comic.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It wasn't always that.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  You're right, it used to be NiceChuckNice.

• 8:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  And then people were like, that's not true.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  So I went.

• 8:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People called you out.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  Right. I went, okay, let's just go with Chuck Nice comic.

• 8:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So today we're featuring my interview with the founder of the X Prize, Pierre Diamandis. If you know what the X Prize is, you're totally on it, but not everybody knows. I don't think everybody knows what the X Prize is.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  And for those who don't know, what is the X Prize?

• 8:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, in my.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  I'm just saying, because I totally know.

• 8:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are lying, man.

• 9:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in this, so Pierre Diamandis, he founded the X Prize and, and, and I caught up with him. We were at a, we happened to be at a conference together and said, I gotta like get an interview with this guy because he's a busy guy. And so we interviewed him like in the hotel. And I caught up with him and we, so let's pick up on that interview where he talks about what inspired him to develop the X Prize.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  I had just read a book called The Spirit of St. Louis, a friend of mine gave me to help motivate me to finish my pilot's license.

• 9:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spirit of the Airplane, St. Louis.

• 9:35Speaker 02

  Spirit of the Airplane, St. Louis, yeah, written by Charles Lindbergh and it was his autobiography. And I had no idea that Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic to win a $25,000 prize. I thought he woke up one day in New York and decided to fly east and ended up in Le Berget, but that's not the case. It was a $25,000 prize by a hotelier, Raymond Ortega, that really motivated nine different teams to spend $400,000 to try and win this $25,000 prize. And I said, wow, that's incredible. If I can tap into that kind of energy.

• 10:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a 16 to one ratio.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I thought it was an extraordinary value proposition.

• 10:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, he's not even responsible if people crash in the Atlantic.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  Well, he wasn't responsible. In fact, four of the nine teams perished. The most likely teams to win didn't make it and Lindbergh was by far the most unlikely person. He was called the flying fool. He had been flying for two years. No one would sell him an airplane or an engine. He ended up going to a small airmail company in San Diego, Ryan Aircraft, that sold him an airplane. They literally sign a one-page contract and he builds the airplane in 60 days. Right? You can't even get a contract negotiation in 60 days at this point, let alone build an airplane.

• 10:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Too many lawyers.

• 10:45Speaker 02

  I tell you.

• 10:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Shakespeare knew, too many lawyers.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  I fully agree with that one. So Lindbergh makes this trip and I'm saying, my God, that's an extraordinary way for me to stimulate spaceflight, only create a prize for people to fly into space. And I came up with the idea of the X Prize, and I think you know Neil, that the X stood for a variable to be replaced by the name of the person that put up the money.

• 11:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't know that.

• 11:08Speaker 02

  I didn't know who was gonna fund it, so it was the X Prize as in.

• 11:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The unknown.

• 11:14Speaker 02

  Yes, the unknown. And X was, you know, room number 10 for 10 million, X for experimental, it worked really well. So I'm now looking for people who might wanna back this idea of traveling to space, and I come across this little Hayden Planetarium page in the back of a paperback, and I reach out to you.

• 11:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There he is.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What he's saying is, if you can put up prize money, and everybody wants to win the prize money, the sum of all the money they all invest vastly exceeds what you actually have to pay out in prize money.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what you're doing, it's a lever, it's a leveraging factor on R and D money.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  That's actually brilliant.

• 11:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's brilliant.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's, it's kind of like, uh, like a Kickstarter campaign.

• 12:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  It really is like, uh, the early version of Kickstarter. You get everybody to put their money in, but the difference is, they're chasing after your money.

• 12:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chasing after your money, exactly. And in some cases, you get, you get people who put in more of their own money than the prize money just to get the attention.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 12:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For having won.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  And we call those people stupid.

• 12:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  But, but, it's still, it's still very brilliant.

• 12:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you know that Charles Lindbergh did this for the cash?

• 12:28Speaker 02

  No, I did not.

• 12:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's not remembered that way. It was the hero Lindbergh, and heroes don't do anything for money.

• 12:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 12:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They do it for a principle and mission.

• 12:36Speaker 02

  That is why I'm an Amelia Earhart fan, you know, as opposed to a Lindbergh fan.

• 12:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't, I didn't know. You, you, you chose sides here.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  I do, because she was an aviator that.

• 12:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Aviatrix.

• 12:47Speaker 02

  Oh, oh, sorry. Aviatrix.

• 12:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what they're called.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  (laughing).

• 12:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dominator, dominatrix, aviator.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  Aviatrix? Is that for real?

• 12:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You didn't know this?

• 12:57Speaker 02

  I thought you just made that up.

• 12:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I did not.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  Really?

• 12:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  I learn something every day I'm with you.

• 13:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what life should be about.

• 13:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If, if, if, life is about anything. It's about learning something.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Learning something every day.

• 13:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She uses an AVA tricks.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  AVA tricks, fantastic. But you know what, uh, the thing is.

• 13:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I thought you would have known from Surely You Knew Dominatrix. That's why I thought you would have.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  You are assuming facts that are not in evidence, sir. However, you are correct.

• 13:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so I didn't know you, I might be Amelia Earhart fan too.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  I'm a big Amelia Earhart.

• 13:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I enjoyed the movie with her as well.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Exactly. But now Charles Lindbergh, who would have thought? Because you know, he is seen as such a hero.

• 13:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  For completing the first transatlantic flight.

• 13:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Alone.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Alone. The first singular transatlantic flight. But he, who knew he was just a greedy bastard?

• 13:50Speaker 01

  You know, hero.

• 13:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's just greedy. So, a couple of problems flying across the Atlantic solo.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 13:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, notice how long this flight took. Thirty-three hours.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And thirty minutes from takeoff to landing. All right?

• 14:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  So bathroom. First thing I'm thinking.

• 14:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  First thing.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Bathroom. How do I do it?

• 14:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  How do I go?

• 14:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You could probably pee anywhere. No one's gonna, you know.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  They did not have Pampers back then. Or Depends. They did not. So you're talking about cloth diaper. That is very.

• 14:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know if he wore a diaper. But he's also got, he's got to stay awake. And the spirit of St. Louis, the plane, the name of the plane, which is hanging for all to see. Guess where?

• 14:36Speaker 01

  Smithsonian.

• 14:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Smithsonian.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  Smithsonian.

• 14:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Smithsonian.

• 14:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Smithsonian.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Smithsonian.

• 14:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Museum in Washington DC.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 14:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, it's something with the Wright flyer with it, the Wright brothers had flown and all the other things. Of course it is. So. Uh, that had to be special modifications to make it that far. You needed a bigger fuel tank.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Of course, well.

• 15:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It needed to be more fuel efficient. So if you have a bigger fuel tank, your plane does not have as much lift because your plane is heavier. So you gotta make your wings bigger.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 15:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. So these are modifications to what would otherwise be stock airplanes.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That you have to put into play. And so it just so happens, I recently learned that his airplane needed constant steering because it was not otherwise an entirely stable machine. So, so that's one thing to keep you awake.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  So not only was he greedy, he was stupid.

• 15:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Because you, he, I mean, seriously, there, here's a guy who modifies a plane that you have to stay awake for thirty-three hours in order to pilot.

• 15:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, that's correct. That's correct. Had he, had he, had he dozed off?

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Had he dozed off, he'd have gone down.

• 15:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That, now, it's possible to stay awake for thirty-three hours. I mean, you know, you pull it on, you know, we've all pulled all-nighters, like

• 15:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  in college perhaps.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And

• 15:55Speaker 01

  I used to hang out with David Blaine all the time. So, I mean, that's a whole weekend, just never going to sleep.

• 16:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, the morning comes, you see the sunrise, waffles, it's a new day.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're good for another twelve hours.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Easily, right? So it's not an impossible thing to imagine. But there's another challenge here, all right? So the, the engine, if you run it that long back then.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Seize up.

• 16:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would seize up.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  Seize up.

• 16:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would seize up.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and would need to be lubricated. And this engine apparently had a way to self-lubricate during this period.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Sweet.

• 16:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know. So this was almost like some advanced design in, in, uh, in NASCAR.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now I don't have, I don't have to fill up as much as you. So that's one less pit stop.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so now I, so little advantage that his competitors didn't have, all right? A self-lubricating engine, holy cow. And you always know that the lubrication matters because anytime someone is flying by in a movie and they shoot at the airplane.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, the first thing that

• 16:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's, it's typically, it's not the gas tank.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because then the whole thing would just explode.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  See the oil.

• 16:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The oil is coming out.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  It's always, it's always leaking oil.

• 17:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Always the oil.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. And then the oil goes away, it seizes up and there, and there you have it. So this, it had four hundred and fifty gallons of fuel. So give the man props for, for, uh, literally and figuratively, props.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For making this trip.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 17:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In spite of him having done it for money. That, that's all I'm saying. And this thing about unstable airplanes, do you realize we've, we've gone full cycle? Why? So airplanes were not particularly stable, so you'd always have to be, you know, very dexterous to pilot it. Right. Then we figured out how to make stable airplanes. Right. But it turns out that stable airplanes are not always the most fuel efficient. Okay. And so we now make airplanes that are the most fuel efficient only when controlled by computer. Gotcha. And so it's just, it's a fascinating fact. There's some airplanes that require computers to keep them stable. And yet they're the best designed planes out there. And so, yeah, there you have it. You hope the computer doesn't mess up and the pilot's, oh my gosh,

• 18:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta actually steer this thing.

• 18:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. When we come back, more of my interview with X Prize founder, Peter Diamandis. You're listening to StarTalk.

• 18:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chuck Nice. Yes. Always good to have you. Always good to be here. Listening to my interview with the founder of the X Prize, Peter Diamandis, coming off a segment on Lindbergh's, The Spirit of St. Louis. Yeah. You know, every pound matters when you're airborne or if you're flying in space because the fuel is trying to keep this mass going. Right. So in his airplane, he had to take out all the dead weight that was there. I mean, he was a slender guy, fine, and but he even got rid of his radio. Radio was back then were heavy. Oh yeah, that's right. And wasn't, and it turns out back then, 1927, the radio wasn't very useful. It wasn't reliable. And who's he gonna talk to in the middle of the Atlantic anyway? Well, yeah, that's the thing, you know? Anybody listen? No.

• 19:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea. Yeah, that's not happening. It was not happening. Right, right. So, um, so I, what I wondered was, who puts up the prize money for the X Prize? Okay. All right. It's one thing to say, win this prize, you invest your own damn money. Right. And that way we get the sum of all of this R and D money. Somebody's gotta put up the money. And so I talked with Peter Diamandis about how he got the money, who would win that eventual prize. Let's find out what he says.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  The original X Prize was funded by the Ansari family and Anusha and Hamid Ansari, both born in Tehran. She was born in the early 60s, inspired by Apollo and Star Trek as well, but she's living in this country that has no hope of a space program. And she moves over to the US when she is in high school, becomes a serial entrepreneur, builds a number of hundred million dollar and billion dollar companies. And I read about her, bring her this opportunity. Now, I have to understand, this is five years after I've announced the X Prize onstage with no money, no teams. A little bit of hood spot, it's the Greek word for, you know, duds.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  Greek spoke Yiddish.

• 20:27Speaker 02

  And she says yes on the spot after 150 CEOs have turned me down. I mean, Richard Branson's turned me down twice. Fred Smith from FedEx has turned me down.

• 20:35Speaker 03

  These are people for whom 10 million dollars is lunch money.

• 20:37Speaker 02

  It is, but...

• 20:38Speaker 03

  That means they really don't believe you.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  Perhaps that was definitely the case, but their answers were, why isn't NASA doing this? Can anyone really pull it off? And isn't someone gonna die?

• 20:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, so they don't really believe in you.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  And they're scared about the risk. But my point to them was, listen, you only pay after someone does it. Don't believe me. But risk aversion is killing us in this country. You know, anything big and bold and, you know, important.

• 21:01Speaker 03

  Audacious.

• 21:02Speaker 02

  Audacious really takes risk. And if you're not willing to take that risk, you're stuck.

• 21:06Speaker 03

  Alright, so she comes through, forks up 10 million. The first X Prize is what?

• 21:11Speaker 02

  The first X Prize is 10 million dollars for the team who can build a privately funded spaceship. You had to demonstrate 90% of your funding or more was from private sources. We didn't want the government of China coming in to win this. Not that we've not built a great space program. We just wanted people who were gonna worry about every penny they spent. So 10 million dollars goes to the team who can build a private spaceship that can carry three adults.

• 21:31Speaker 03

  So it's the proverbial people working in their garage. Philosophically, that's what you're after.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  I wanted people reinventing how we do this because it was extraordinarily expensive, right? The cost of going into space on the shuttle had reached a billion dollars plus a flight. And the number of flights we're doing in a year, in a great year was five or six, and an off year was two or three.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  And that works out to like 100 million dollars a day in orbit.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's an extraordinary amount of money.

• 21:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 21:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so a couple of amazing things in that clip. First, Anusha Ansari.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 22:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Comes here just from another country, from Iran, and just starts raking in the dough by creating entrepreneurial companies.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  That's what makes America great.

• 22:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  America, what a country.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  What a country.

• 22:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like, damn.

• 22:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's A. B, so it's interesting that Peter Diamandis was turned down by all these marquee billionaires.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's up with that?

• 22:34Speaker 01

  And it's funny because what you said is true. It's like it's $10 million is lunch money to these guys. It's not a big deal.

• 22:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  You know, but I think that.

• 22:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, you know what's been making the rounds lately? I demonstrate how rich Bill Gates is. I did that in a lecture and someone like put it up on YouTube.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  On YouTube? And what, what, how, how did you demonstrate?

• 22:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do I demonstrate that?

• 22:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do I do? Should I just make you watch it or should I, you want me to tell you?

• 22:56Speaker 01

  I want to, I want to know. I mean, I watch it anyway.

• 22:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How rich, a rich person is. So what I said was, okay, I, I own a home, right? I have a job, right? So there's a certain sort of valuation of my life.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 23:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Made, established by that. And I asked myself, what is the lowest denomination coin in the street that I would bend down and pick up?

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Uh, is there anything lower than a penny? Because that would be my answer.

• 23:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I, I, I make it on my, I'm not picking up pennies. I, I'm done with pennies.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 23:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nickel is nice and big and, but no, I'm done with nickels. A dime, if I'm in a hurry, no.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if I'm just strolling or if I'm sitting in a park bench, I'll bend down, pick up the dime.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  If you're already in the sitting position.

• 23:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 23:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I'm a, if it's a quarter, I'm picking it up every time.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's good for laundry, parking meters.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus it's a quarter.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  It's a quarter.

• 23:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I figured my, my boundary between picking something up and not is between 10 cents and 25 cents.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 23:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So then I said, given Bill Gates' wealth at $50 billion.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How much money would correspond to the amount of money I would leave in the street to him?

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Forty-five thousand dollars.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  So he would not, he-

• 24:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's too, too busy to bend over, pick up forty-five thousand dollars.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  So he's gotta be sitting on a park bench to pick up forty-five thousand dollars.

• 24:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe he'll bend over, lean over and pick it up.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 24:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 24:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe. Let's hear it for America.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  That's awesome.

• 24:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can just become a billionaire.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  That is awesome.

• 24:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it takes a few, a few real visionaries, even among them, to fund the X Prize. When we come back, more of my interview with Peter Diamandis.

• 24:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk Radio. Chuck nice.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Always good to have you. Good to be here. I got all distracted by saying how rich Bill Gates was, but the Ansari Prize and the woman who funded it.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, she actually became the fourth space tourist. You plunk down twenty million and you get a seat on the Russian Soyuz and you get to go to the space station.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Not bad.

• 25:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not in the American sector. This is like, the space station is like its own little world up there, you know?

• 25:14Speaker 01

  So we're segregated even in space?

• 25:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  God, what is wrong with us? Even in space, we segregate ourselves. God.

• 25:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in this next clip, we speak about who owns the airspace above your head.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 25:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the conditions set for who would actually win the Ansari X Prize. Let's check out.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  A country owns its airspace. Now, the United States can prevent a foreign airliner from flying through our airspace, but you don't own space over your head, which means that a foreign government can fly a satellite over our head. So Sputnik was able to fly over multiple countries, as was our first satellites here in the United States.

• 25:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Without any assumption of military retaliation.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  And without having to look for approvals from all the countries that you're flying over. And so there was no official definition. The US looked at fifty miles, other people looked at a hundred miles, we picked a hundred kilometers, knowing full well, most Americans wouldn't have a difference between a hundred kilometers, a hundred miles, anyway. It was a low enough altitude that allowed the current state of the art to work. You know, composite materials versus exotic materials for the re-entry speeds coming from a hundred kilometers. So we announce this competition. We end up having ultimately So you build a ship that'll go to that altitude and then come back? In order to win the prize, you have to build a private spaceship that can carry three adults to 100 kilometers altitude, land safely, and within two weeks, make the

• 26:41Speaker 02

  same trip again to show reusability because ultimately that's the name of the game. If it's reusable and low cost, that means we can open up a spaceflight industry. Of course reusable is supposed to mean low cost. It is. It's supposed to correlate. It hasn't in the past. Mm-hmm. It has not with the shuttle program in the past. But in this case, it was because the fact that you're using the same vehicle in a very short period of time means you really can't spend that much time or that much money between re-flights. So those were the rules. We announced that it's fully funded with the backing of Anusha and Hamid Ansari and Anusha's brother-in-law Amir. There were three of them passionate about space. And 26 teams from seven countries are rushing into the competition. All kinds of different

• 27:23Speaker 02

  approaches. The beautiful thing about a competition like this is ultimately the sort of Darwinian diversity of approaches. Because you just set up the goal, not the pathway. Exactly. People find their own pathway. And we say, I don't care how you do this. Just as long as you do it privately, you win. And I don't care where you went to school, what you've ever done before, where you're from. Fly. Do it twice in two weeks, you get the money. And amazingly, these 26 different teams are trying every possible combination. We have vertical takeoff, horizontal takeoff, teams taking off out of the water, out of land, teams that were using a helicopter for a stage, a balloon for a stage. One team was being towed behind an airplane. One team

• 28:05Speaker 02

  was sitting on top of an airplane with a rocket. Another team had a rocket suspended below an airplane. We had liquid engines, hybrid engines, solid rocket engines, literally every possible combination. I'm ready for you to list flubber as a...

• 28:21Speaker 02

  That was not one of them.

• 28:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Flubber, for those who don't remember, was a magic ingredient in a Disney movie. It had anti-gravity.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  Properties.

• 28:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Properties, yeah. So this is human ingenuity doing the Darwinian spread of possibility.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  Absolutely, and these are individuals as driven as I am about opening up space. And it wasn't for the money they're doing this. This was the excuse, right? This is something they dreamed about doing since their childhood. And when they would go and speak to their friends or to an investor and say, "I want to build a private spaceship," people would look at them crazy, say, "You want to do what?" But when this competition ultimately got announced, it was $10 million, it was backed by some incredible people. I mean, you were a supporter back then.

• 29:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I said positive things about it.

• 29:01Speaker 02

  Meaning you said positive things about it. We had 20 astronauts who were with us on stage. I had Dan Goldin, the head of NASA, I had Patty Smith, the deputy at the FAA. The Lindbergh family were supportive. So I collected a number of people whose reputation was far better known than mine at the time, who said positive things about it and credentialed this. In fact, my goal was always to announce this bold, crazy idea above the line of super credibility, so that people would say, "Wow, that's great, how can I participate?" And so, once this got announced, the people who were crazy now had a rational excuse to go raise money and try and make their dreams come true, and it worked.

• 29:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's in a garage. That's what...

• 29:42Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 29:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the Wright Brothers all over again, but in the era of space.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  That's actually a cool thing.

• 29:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You gotta hand it to them.

• 29:49Speaker 02

  And frightening at the same.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  "I'm gonna build a spaceship in my garage."

• 29:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, okay, had you been around in 1902, you would've said you're gonna build an airplane, an aeroplane, in your garage? You probably would've had the... So you're just a Luddite, just admit it.

• 30:09Speaker 02

  Okay, you know, I resemble those remarks.

• 30:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, more StarTalk and my interview with ex-PRIZE founder Peter Diamandis.

• 30:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson. You can find StarTalk on the web at StarTalkRadio.net. And I've got Chuck Nice here.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 30:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good to be here tweeting at ChuckNiceComic.

• 30:48Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 30:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll find you. My interview with Peter Diamandis, founder of the X Prize. It worked. People did what they wanted to do.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  It's a brilliant idea, I have to say.

• 30:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Brilliant idea. Let's find out how much everybody spent collectively to try to win the X Prize.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, ultimately, we had 26 teams from seven countries who spent $100 million to try and win the $10 million.

• 31:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In aggregate.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  In aggregate. And that's typically the ratio of a great incentive prize. 10 to 40-fold the prize money spent in aggregate by the teams to try and win the competition. So, October 4th, 2004, in the Mojave Desert, just about sunrise.

• 31:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  October 4th. You did it on October 4th.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  Well, listen, I have to say.

• 31:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have to do it on October 4th.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  And as you know, Neil, there are two important space dates that the space community sort of celebrates. It's April 12th, which of course is the first human in space, Gagarin and October 4th, Sputnik. But I had nothing to do with October 4th being chosen. That was all Burt Rutan.

• 31:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  So, Burt Rutan is the legend of aviation, the man who built the Voyager aircraft, who's built more.

• 31:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Voyager aircraft, that's the one that went around the world.

• 31:56Speaker 02

  Went around the world.

• 31:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On one.

• 31:58Speaker 02

  On one tank of fuel.

• 31:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One tank of fuel.

• 32:00Speaker 02

  One takeoff, one landing.

• 32:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was it the Gossamer Albatross?

• 32:03Speaker 02

  The Gossamer Albatross was the human-powered vehicle.

• 32:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. I'm confusing those two. But this one, his is in the Smithsonian.

• 32:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Voyager aircraft was very long-winged. It was.

• 32:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The wings had wheels at their tips, if I remember correctly.

• 32:17Speaker 02

  Because they were filled with fuel and gravity pulled them down and until lift carried them up into the air. It was flown by Burt Rutan's brother, Dick Rutan, and Jeana Yeager. The two of them flew around the world.

• 32:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeager related to?

• 32:30Speaker 02

  Chuck Yeager.

• 32:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck Yeager, who broke the sound barrier, right?

• 32:33Speaker 02

  No, no, not related. So, Burt Rutan was backed by Paul Allen.

• 32:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of Microsoft fame.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  Of Microsoft. Fame and who spent twenty six million dollars of funding Burt to build Spaceship One that ultimately won the ten million dollars.

• 32:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a little weird. So explain that one to me.

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Well, twenty six million dollars was how much it cost. And at the end of the day, Paul was brilliant because he made back that twenty six million plus the ten million to freight part of the cost. But he ended up licensing the design to Richard Branson, who used the design of the winning vehicle Spaceship One to build Virgin Galactic, which now sells tickets for two hundred K a pop to go into space. He also was able to donate the spaceship to the Smithsonian and got a tax write off, got movie rights, got TV rights. He did great. He made his money back and then some, which I'm very happy for because I want to encourage other people to back these kinds of crazy teams in space.

• 33:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're saying it's still possible for a company to spend more in R and D than they will actually win in the prize. Because perhaps for some of them, it's there's the prestige of having won it.

• 33:38Speaker 02

  There's also the back end of the business. So when we designed the Ansari X prize, it was very much with the idea that the winning team would go into business, offering seats to space. That was the purpose, you know, to create this prize and have it be won and have it just be a, with all due respect to museums and museum piece, wasn't the idea. I wanted to kick off an industry.

• 34:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, he sure as hell did. Yeah. You ever Google private enterprise space? Just Google that. You get an entire list of all the companies that are currently involved in doing space without NASA. We're doing space in a way that NASA might one day need them and pay them for that service. Correct. Yeah, there's a new space race and it's private enterprise. Private enterprise and you all heard of Virgin Galactic with Richard Branson and Elon Musk is SpaceX. He's been, there's a recent cover of The New Yorker. Did you catch it? No, I didn't. It's got the space station up there.

• 34:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's got a, a delivery messenger on a bicycle going towards the space station with a little satchel of goods.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, so delivering cargo to space is no longer, doesn't have the romance it once did, but it's a need and it's, you can create an economic model and so people are doing it. That's, that's what it is. And there are even some aerospace giants involved in it, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, but the real story here is the fact that small entrepreneurs have decided that they're not going to wait around for governments to lead their way.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they're going to try to get into space and create a business model because of it. And I still think we're not there yet, but they're doing it and I'm, I'm not going to stand in their way, unlike you.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  No, I, I can't wait for it to happen. I just can't wait until we're all waiting in a line, having to take off our shoes and go through the TSA so that we can go to space. That's going to be great. I mean, no, seriously, that's where, that's really, uh,

• 35:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'd be the TSSA, Transportation Safety and Space.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  And Space Agency, yes. Yeah. So, you know, I, I think it'll happen, but the fact is that when, when are they going to be able to bring it down to a, a level?

• 35:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With a portable.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  It's always, it's always going to be for rich people.

• 35:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  That's really the deal.

• 35:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Cause a seat on Virgin Lac is $200,000.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 35:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you know, you know who's going to go up in that? Uh, is, uh, what's her name with the meat on her body?

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Lady Gaga.

• 36:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lady Gaga.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She bought a seat.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Oh, she really did?

• 36:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. She's going to, she's going to sing a song from space.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Okay. See, now already I hate spacecraft.

• 36:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Now I hate it.

• 36:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What do you have against Lady Gaga?

• 36:12Speaker 01

  I, well, meat. I'm a vegetarian. That's what I have. No, I just can't stand it.

• 36:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're jealous of her Twitter followers.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  You know, I gotta be admit, I am. But the truth is though, why is it that, that, well, you know what? I guess in a way it's a good thing. Anything that actually promotes it.

• 36:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That makes it pop culture.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  That makes it pop culture, then it's a good thing.

• 36:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got you to agree. That's my whole point of this whole episode.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Uh, you know what? You win. I'm, I'm beating down.

• 36:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been listening to StarTalk Radio. Thanks for joining us in this hour. I want to thank Peter Diamandis for being my guest and I've got here Chuck Nice. As always, good to have you in studio.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 36:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, bidding you as always to keep looking up.