Cosmic Queries: The Space Race

What did politics and the Cold War have to do with the space race? On the flip side, how did the Apollo program and landing on the Moon impact us here on Earth? Neil deGrasse Tyson answers fan-submitted questions chosen by co-host Chuck Nice.

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 and I'm your host, your personal astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. I work at the American Museum of Natural History, right here in New York City, where I also serve as Director of the Hayden Planetarium. And for this episode of StarTalk, we're doing what we call Cosmic Queries, where questions come to me from our social media. And, but I don't read them, I don't even, I don't even know what they are until I walk in and sit down at this microphone and I get help. Today, from Chuck Nice.

• 0:53Chuck Nice?

  Hey Neil, what's happening?

• 0:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck.

• 0:55Chuck Nice?

  Ah, good to be here, man.

• 0:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, welcome back.

• 0:57Chuck Nice?

  Thank you, thank you, sir. Always good to be here.

• 0:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you, you, you're gonna read, what are these questions? What's today's topic?

• 1:02Chuck Nice?

  Well, today's topic is the space race.

• 1:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I, I think I know a little bit about that. A little bit about that.

• 1:11Chuck Nice?

  I hope so.

• 1:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got this, okay?

• 1:12Chuck Nice?

  I hope so.

• 1:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But actually, just so you know, this may sound like a cheap plug, but it's just, so I wrote a book called Space Chronicles.

• 1:19Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 1:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Facing the Ultimate Frontier. Came out two years ago. Do you know why I write books?

• 1:24Chuck Nice?

  Uh, because you can.

• 1:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 1:26Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna tell you why I don't write books.

• 1:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you can't?

• 1:31Chuck Nice?

  There, you have it. And I know my limitations.

• 1:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I write books so that I never have to talk about that subject again.

• 1:38Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 1:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I compile it all in there and someone said, "Tell me about that." I just hand them the book.

• 1:41Chuck Nice?

  And here's a book.

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and I, and I walk away.

• 1:43Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god.

• 1:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so I, you, now you're just, you're resurrecting this in me when I'm trying to think about other stuff, but fine.

• 1:49Chuck Nice?

  Sorry, I'm sorry to do that. Oh my god, I can't believe you just said that, that you write a book so you don't have, you remind me, this is the household I grew up in. This is what, so I would ask my mother or my father, "What does this mean?" And they would say, "Go look it up."

• 2:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa, whoa.

• 2:05Chuck Nice?

  And I'm like, "Yeah, that's what you're for."

• 2:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, what may have looked like evil parents at the day turned it, turned you into an independent researcher.

• 2:14Chuck Nice?

  Actually, yeah, I, you know, I'm kind of, I'm, and now it's funny because I do the same thing to my children. They're like, you know, my son, he'll say, "Dad, do you know what?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I do know. Do you?" We'll find out and come back.

• 2:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that works whether or not you actually know it.

• 2:29Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. There you go. Oh, see. All right, let's jump into our Cosmic Queries and of course, we always start off with a Patreon Patron question, and if you support us on Patreon, uh, we will give your questions priority here at Cosmic Queries. Okay, Patreon.

• 2:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 2:46Chuck Nice?

  Where we basically buy your loyalty.

• 2:53Chuck Nice?

  Okay, here we go. Matthew Massanon from Calgary, Alberta. Says, "In your opinion, Dr. Tyson, what was the most significant thing that the Apollo program achieved with the exception of landing on the moon?" Wow, that's a, that's a good question when you think about it, because everybody, you say Apollo program, it's moon landing, bang, that's the end of it, that's it. But he's saying, "Give me something that is just as significant that we don't think about."

• 3:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tang.

• 3:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, um,

• 3:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  beginning in 1970? A little earlier, but in 1970 was the first Earth Day. Uh, nationally, and then it became a rapid international hit, if you will.

• 3:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, because Earth Day is global now.

• 3:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's global now, and it's a significant global celebration.

• 3:51Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 3:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of our home planet. And around that same time, so nineteen, whatever, what else happened? 1971, 2, and 3, we would see the passing of the Comprehensive Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act. Uh, in 1970, NOAA was founded, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to monitor our climate and our oceans and our weather. And not only that, the Environmental Protection Agency was founded in 1970. By the time 1973 came around, leaded gas would be banned, DDT would be banned, the catalytic converter would be introduced.

• 4:25Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 4:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All of this happened during the years we were going to the moon. At a time when we had a whole lot of other stuff distracting us, like a cold war with the Soviet Union and a hot war in Southeast Asia and campus unrest from anti-war protests and the civil rights movement and assassinations, 1968, we'd see two assassinations on domestic soil. And so, so, why am I saying all this? Because while we had all these other potential distractions, we nonetheless paused to reflect on our relationship to our home planet. So I submit to you that though we went to the moon

• 5:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  to explore the moon, upon getting there and looking back, in fact, we would discover Earth for the first time.

• 5:16Chuck Nice?

  Wow. So it's like, I've been to paradise, but I've never been to me.

• 5:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, it's exactly that.

• 5:27Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly, right.

• 5:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, can you put a dollar figure

• 5:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 5:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  on the fact that seeing Earth in the sky from the moon was like a firmware update in our sense of awareness

• 5:45Chuck Nice?

  And who we are.

• 5:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  of the importance of Earth and our relationship to it.

• 5:49Chuck Nice?

  Right. Okay, that's, that's actually, uh, that's a bit more existential than I was expecting for an answer.

• 5:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 5:55Chuck Nice?

  I have to say that's a damn good answer because it's more of, um, the, the, it's more of a, a collective conscious enlightenment.

• 6:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. And I don't think anyone started the program with that expectation.

• 6:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that is clearly a consequence of it.

• 6:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, um, and remember that TV commercial with the Native American standing on this, on the, and there was a tear in his eye?

• 6:24Chuck Nice?

  Single tear.

• 6:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The single tear, and people throwing garbage out the window. That didn't happen until this period, until we were going to the moon. We, we were total garbage out the window people for long before that, right?

• 6:36Chuck Nice?

  I never got that about us. I mean, seriously. Garbage out the window, uh, pretty much all through human history.

• 6:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All through human history, and in fact, that was great for anthropologists. They can find stuff along the Roman Via.

• 6:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, that people, "Oh, a McDonald's cup."

• 6:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "Boy, McDonald's would have been around."

• 6:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but you, you, it was, we didn't start thinking of it as a, as a, as a cultural, environmental problem until that, that period.

• 7:05Chuck Nice?

  Wow, okay. Wow, that's, hey, hey, Matthew, I, uh, you know, I hope you're satisfied with that answer, because it was a, a completely, uh, curve, complete curveball with that answer.

• 7:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then there's Tang.

• 7:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That and Tang a close second.

• 7:20Chuck Nice?

  Very close second. There you go. All right. Okay, here we go, our next question.

• 7:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh-oh.

• 7:30Chuck Nice?

  Abhijit Manet.

• 7:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:32Chuck Nice?

  Let's hope. I'm sorry, Abhijit, I'm sorry. Uh, from Facebook wants to know this. "The space race was, in a way, an extension of the Cold War arms race, but also the resolve of President John F. Kennedy, who pledged that we'd get there in 10 years. Do you know anyone today in the political sphere who could do the same? What kind of politician would be ideal in this regard? We go to the moon because we choose to. It's that and the other thing we do because..." No, never mind, forget it.

• 8:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, that was your worst impression ever.

• 8:08Chuck Nice?

  It really is.

• 8:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Normally, you're good.

• 8:11Chuck Nice?

  I know, but you know what? I'm not even doing Kennedy. I'm actually doing Mayor Quimby. From The Simpsons, you know? Vote Quimby.

• 8:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, you, you imitate a tie fighter from Star Wars.

• 8:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 8:26Chuck Nice?

  Even though you...

• 8:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I thought Kennedy would be easy after, after that.

• 8:30Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yes.

• 8:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, um, so here's, there's an assumption built into that question that the political will and charisma, perhaps, of Kennedy was a significant force operating.

• 8:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In how and why we got to the moon. And this is commonly thought, but I I'm contrarian in that regard.

• 8:50Chuck Nice?

  Well, good.

• 8:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? No doubt Kennedy had charisma, no doubt. Uh, he had a sort of way with rallying people behind an idea, no doubt about that. But I submit that if we were not at war, all of that would have just been empty rhetoric and nobody would have signed the check. Congress, because Congress is not as swayed by speeches as the public is.

• 9:13Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 9:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, and so it's Congress who writes the check.

• 9:16Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 9:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the end of the day. So, consider nineteen eighty-nine. The twentieth, July twentieth, the twentieth anniversary of the moon landing. Who is the then sitting president?

• 9:28Chuck Nice?

  Uh, I don't know.

• 9:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Herbert Walker, George Herbert Walker Bush.

• 9:31Chuck Nice?

  George Herbert Walker Bush.

• 9:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Goes to the steps of the Air and Space Museum, delivers a speech not fundamentally different from Kennedy's speech. We're Americans, we're explorers, Columbus set sail, this is our time, we will put men on Mars. And have a space station, we'll have us build a space station and we will, this, he was trying to give a Kennedy speech.

• 9:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, fell flat on his face. Now, why? People said, well, because he's not Kennedy. I beg to differ.

• 10:04Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 10:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not that he isn't not Kennedy.

• 10:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That sentence makes sense?

• 10:07Chuck Nice?

  That's correct, because he isn't not Kennedy, no, he, well, he isn't Kennedy.

• 10:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It didn't work not because he isn't Kennedy.

• 10:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I claim it didn't work because, do you remember what happened in nineteen eighty-nine?

• 10:22Chuck Nice?

  Uh, I don't know.

• 10:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Peace broke out.

• 10:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Peace broke out in Europe.

• 10:28Chuck Nice?

  That's a terrible thing.

• 10:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is the collapse of the Soviet Empire.

• 10:30Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 10:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is the, the tear, tear down the wall, the wall came down in nineteen eighty-nine. All of a sudden, our motivation for our military might, the very thing that drove who and what we were. As the carriers of freedom and the American way, in, in the face of evil communists, it all evaporated. That year, and he's trying to give a speech to get people to go to Mars. In the absence of a mortal enemy.

• 11:02Chuck Nice?

  Right. So we would have either needed Martians. Uh.

• 11:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'd be the best.

• 11:09Chuck Nice?

  That would have been the best.

• 11:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The best.

• 11:10Chuck Nice?

  Right. We we either needed Martians.

• 11:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Evil Martians.

• 11:12Chuck Nice?

  Evil Martians.

• 11:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not E T like E T.

• 11:14Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. Yeah. We're not. Yeah.

• 11:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wouldn't it be cool if E T came out guns drawn?

• 11:19Chuck Nice?

  Awesome.

• 11:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he shot Elliot or whatever the hell that.

• 11:21Chuck Nice?

  That's the way it ends. You know what I mean? E T go home. Hmm. Yeah. But first.

• 11:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We must test our ray guns on you.

• 11:34Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. So, yeah. So really, the competition, no competition.

• 11:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it's not only competition because you can do that, yes, and still succeed. But the greatest competition our species knows is the threat of death. From someone who might outcompete you in a way that would kill you. So I claim that the biggest reason that failed was not because Bush lacked the charisma of Kennedy. What he happened is he lacked the Cold War.

• 12:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by the way, he proposed, you know what it was? You know what it was? He said, this will be a what 25 year? I forgot the exact time interval, 25 year plan. And, uh, and it would be, you know, 25, 30 year plan and it'll cost a trillion dollars.

• 12:18Chuck Nice?

  Whoa.

• 12:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so people freaked.

• 12:21Chuck Nice?

  Right. And that was the end of that right there.

• 12:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, or or half a trillion dollars, half a trillion, half a trillion dollars.

• 12:25Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 12:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that? Oh, that's better.

• 12:27Chuck Nice?

  No, listen, half a trillion. I'm like, all right, okay, we can work with that.

• 12:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But here's the thing, if you took NASA's budget at the time.

• 12:34Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 12:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is between 15 and 20 billion dollars in today's annual budget. And then you multiply that over 30 years.

• 12:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You get half a trillion dollars.

• 12:43Chuck Nice?

  A trillion dollars.

• 12:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we already are allocating half a trillion dollars to NASA over that same amount of time.

• 12:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So to say that's D O A because it's too much money, that's a false argument.

• 12:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  NASA was all right. You might have to retool NASA with its budget.

• 12:58Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 12:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it was a false argument to think it's too much money. That's all. So, so, so I'm unconvinced by people saying that George Herbert Walker Bush

• 13:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  was absent the charisma of Kennedy. So, so.

• 13:12Chuck Nice?

  I mean.

• 13:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't. So I don't think it has anything to do with politicians.

• 13:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It has to do with whether we think we're gonna die.

• 13:17Chuck Nice?

  Okay, there you and there you have it. Uh, by the way, just to let you know, you are gonna die.

• 13:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, sorry.

• 13:24Chuck Nice?

  So we should, uh, we should do it irrespective. Uh, I think that if we really wanna go to Mars.

• 13:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Die by unnatural causes.

• 13:32Chuck Nice?

  There you go. We, but if we really wanna go to Mars, we should, um, we, scientists should get together. And, um, in a, in a, in a, uh, this, in a somewhat conspiratorial way, uh, tell the world that there's oil on Mars.

• 13:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but then we'd be, we'd be lying.

• 13:54Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, but we go to Mars.

• 13:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you know why there's oil?

• 13:56Chuck Nice?

  Or that there's terrorists on Mars.

• 13:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know why there's oil, uh, on Earth? Cause we have life on Earth, right? And so maybe, okay, maybe there was a period, there's an episode of Mars where there was life.

• 14:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All that life sunk down and then it made oil. So that'd be cool.

• 14:09Chuck Nice?

  That would be cool.

• 14:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go to Mars and get oil.

• 14:10Chuck Nice?

  And we'd be there next week.

• 14:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But what I, but what I joke about is we should go to China and go, psst, go tell the leaders of China, psst, can you leak a memo? Don't, don't be true. It didn't have to be true. Just leak a memo saying you wanna put military bases on Mars.

• 14:23Chuck Nice?

  Boom, that's it. Yeah, we're done.

• 14:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go.

• 14:25Chuck Nice?

  We're on Mars.

• 14:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're on Mars. In ten months.

• 14:26Chuck Nice?

  Ten months.

• 14:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One month to fund, design, build the spacecraft, nine months to get there.

• 14:31Chuck Nice?

  We go to Mars, not because it is easy, but because it is hard and the Chinese. So, once again, awful, awful impersonation. All right, let's move on. Well, that's, uh, that's pretty cool. I, I'm, I, I agree with what you're saying. It's not about, I think people put too much emphasis on the importance of the presidency and they're unaware of how much power the president really has. Our whole system of-

• 14:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Has or does not have, right.

• 14:57Chuck Nice?

  Our whole system of government is designed to keep power out of the hands of the president.

• 15:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Precisely. So the president doesn't run away like a dictator.

• 15:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 15:05Chuck Nice?

  So, you know, people often overestimate what the president can and cannot do.

• 15:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 15:10Chuck Nice?

  You know? All right, cool. Let's move on to-

• 15:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Time for a couple more questions.

• 15:14Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 15:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In this segment, go on.

• 15:15Chuck Nice?

  In this segment, here we go. Isaac J. Kim of Facebook, thank you, Isaac.

• 15:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Isaac has a pronounceable name for you?

• 15:20Chuck Nice?

  Yes, thank you, Isaac, from NYC. This is what, uh, Isaac says.

• 15:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hometown, boy.

• 15:25Chuck Nice?

  That's right. What kind of computing power did Mission Control and the Shuttle have during the Apollo era?

• 15:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. I can only tell you what I've read about that, cause I didn't, like, calculate this myself. But there've been, there've been comments that the computing power, I don't believe this, but it was fun to, to read it and say it. The computing power of a singing greeting card?

• 15:48Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 15:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I heard that, cuz there's a chip in there.

• 15:53Chuck Nice?

  It's hilarious.

• 15:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Open it up, happy birthday to you.

• 15:57Chuck Nice?

  That's.

• 15:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Happy birthday to you. So, so I, I, it may, it had to have been a little more than that. And I don't, I don't know the answer for sure. Um, cuz again, I don't know these questions, but I could have researched it, of course, before.

• 16:10Chuck Nice?

  Well, you don't get the questions.

• 16:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't get the questions, yeah. But, uh, what is no doubt, no doubt, anything we're carrying in our hip pocket is greater than anything that was going on when we went to the moon.

• 16:20Chuck Nice?

  Wait a minute. Now, okay, I do believe that because of the microprocessors that we use in order to, to, to, to run our phones.

• 16:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, but by the way.

• 16:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, the miniaturization of electronics.

• 16:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is entirely driven in its initial stages by NASA.

• 16:38Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 16:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We had electronics filling, you know, so, so our parents, our grandparents.

• 16:43Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 16:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Had radios the size of furniture in their living room.

• 16:47Chuck Nice?

  Correct. Where they would gather around and listen to radio shows.

• 16:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Listen to radio shows and was any of them saying, gee, I wanna carry this on my hip. It's just a non thought.

• 16:56Chuck Nice?

  Right, exactly.

• 16:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doesn't mean they might not welcome it, but no one's even thinking that way.

• 16:59Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God, you're right.

• 17:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  NASA is saying, we need this technology and we need to launch it and it costs $10,000 a pound.

• 17:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To put anything in orbit.

• 17:08Chuck Nice?

  So, we gotta shrink this stuff.

• 17:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Shrink this down.

• 17:10Chuck Nice?

  We gotta shrink it down.

• 17:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Take this to the lab and shrink it down.

• 17:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, okay, so this, this miniaturization drives, uh, a whole frontier that then be, then becomes commercial commodities.

• 17:22Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely. I just had, uh, it's fascinating what you just said, be, uh, about grandparents and radio.

• 17:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:29Chuck Nice?

  Sitting around the radio, listening to their programming.

• 17:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 17:31Chuck Nice?

  When I was a kid, we sat around the television. I never once thought, I wanna carry that television on my hip.

• 17:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Never.

• 17:38Chuck Nice?

  And guess what? I do. My phone is a frickin' television. I can watch the internet or any TV show I want on demand on my phone. I am carrying a TV on my hip.

• 17:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 17:51Chuck Nice?

  Amazing.

• 17:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep.

• 17:53Chuck Nice?

  That is so cool.

• 17:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and if you don't think about it, it's just, TV is the thing you do when you get home and you turn it on.

• 17:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 17:58Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, but no longer. So, yeah. Oh, man, that's super cool. So, uh, so basically.

• 18:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would say, yeah. So, do you remember in the movie Apollo 13, where they're trying to save the guys' lives and they said, here is the only thing they have available. And they dump out this bag onto the table. Okay, engineers save their lives.

• 18:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they said, okay, but wait a minute. Uh, they said, oh, we need this. The slide rule. Now we're do- now we got it, okay? Now we can do this.

• 18:24Chuck Nice?

  Slide rule to the rescue!

• 18:27Chuck Nice?

  Anybody got an abacus? We gotta save a life over it.

• 18:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, so anyhow, yeah, yeah, so you would, they would blow it away.

• 18:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, so, uh, back then, computers were used for timing things and simple, simple, and simple calculations, and the rest was very mechanical.

• 18:42Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 18:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that, that back when, there was the right stuff.

• 18:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Now the right stuff is all on the computer. We got a break. When we come back, we'll have more cosmic queries from you on the past, present, and future of space exploration.

• 19:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk, and I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astro physicist. With me, my co-host Chuck Nice.

• 19:13Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 19:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doing cosmic queries?

• 19:14Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we are, sir.

• 19:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Space exploration?

• 19:16Chuck Nice?

  That's right, the space.

• 19:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All from, uh, Facebook and Twitter and the fanbase of StarTalk.

• 19:21Chuck Nice?

  Everywhere they are, we went and asked, and they asked back.

• 19:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they're coming back, that's good. And I, I haven't seen these questions before, so I'll be candid of my ignorance if I don't. But I did publish a book on this subject, so.

• 19:33Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so, yes, so, yes, but we'll forgive your ignorance.

• 19:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I do have some thoughts on this matter. Uh, so, yeah, so, go on.

• 19:42Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's jump into this.

• 19:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by the way, in the first segment, you asked me very clean, intelligent questions. There were no crazy questions out there?

• 19:48Chuck Nice?

  Oh, don't worry.

• 19:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay, I'm just wondering.

• 19:49Chuck Nice?

  We got some crazy, uh, questions here.

• 19:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, go on.

• 19:53Chuck Nice?

  Uh, okay, since you said that, I'mma get right to it.

• 19:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't mean this minute, but fine.

• 19:58Chuck Nice?

  You know what? I'm glad you brought it up, because it's staring me right in the face, and I actually wasn't gonna ask you this, so. Uh, Sean Thomas from Facebook says this. "Have you ever punched someone in the face like Buzz Aldrin did? If yes, why did you do that? If no, who would you like to?"

• 20:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so.

• 20:16Chuck Nice?

  I added the last part.

• 20:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So, uh, what's the person's name again?

• 20:20Chuck Nice?

  Sean, Sean Thomas.

• 20:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sean is, is remembering an incident where, cause, uh, because Buzz Aldrin, the, the second man to walk on the moon. By the way, he landed on the moon in the same instant that Neil Armstrong did.

• 20:33Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 20:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  During the same damn spacecraft.

• 20:35Chuck Nice?

  And then they played rock, paper, scissors.

• 20:38Chuck Nice?

  And, um, some other guy actually won.

• 20:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you know, I always call it scissor, paper, stone.

• 20:46Chuck Nice?

  Get out of here.

• 20:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Rock, paper, scissors.

• 20:48Chuck Nice?

  Rock, paper, scissors. Scissor, paper, stone. You truly are a geek.

• 20:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, that's how I used to.

• 20:52Chuck Nice?

  Who's, who's ever heard of scissor, paper, stone?

• 20:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, that's how I'd learned it, but rock, paper, scissors. Fine, fine.

• 20:57Chuck Nice?

  Rock, paper, scissors.

• 20:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fine. Uh, so.

• 21:00Chuck Nice?

  I'm gonna start calling it scissor, paper, stone now, just to get a reaction from people.

• 21:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, scissor, paper, silicon dioxide?

• 21:08Chuck Nice?

  Scissor, papris, silicon dioxide.

• 21:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Papris, right. Uh, so, now what the, what was the question?

• 21:15Chuck Nice?

  Okay, have you ever seen somebody punch?

• 21:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, right, well, have I ever?

• 21:17Chuck Nice?

  Have you ever punched anybody in the face?

• 21:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Buzz Aldrin would constantly be accosted by people saying, "We didn't go to the moon," and can he prove it? Will he swear on a bible that he went to the moon?

• 21:27Chuck Nice?

  Because nobody ever lies with their hand on the bible. We know that from every single court case in history.

• 21:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 21:34Chuck Nice?

  Once you put your hand on that bible, "Oh, you got me. I murdered her." Let's ask OJ. That's what he did. They put his hand on the bible. Gosh, darn it. Now, I gotta tell you.

• 21:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He had the glove on, so he wasn't, he wasn't touching the bible, actually.

• 21:46Chuck Nice?

  Nice, nice with the glove. Nice, like, like.

• 21:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, and, and apparently, there's a YouTube video that shows him punching a guy. Now Buzz was badass in his day. He, do you know who's a pole vaulter?

• 21:58Chuck Nice?

  I did not know that.

• 21:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, if you're a pole vaulter, you've got muscles in all the right places.

• 22:02Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you, yes, you do.

• 22:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, so Buzz, like, eighty nine, we had him on Star, on StarTalk.

• 22:09Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah, I've, I've actually met him through you.

• 22:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, yes.

• 22:13Chuck Nice?

  And by the way, still a surly, like, guy who, and I shouldn't say surly, still a, um, vibrant guy. Vibrant guy.

• 22:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's got energy for life and for thinking.

• 22:24Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 22:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, he, so, there's this video of him punching a guy out. Now, I didn't really believe the video, and then I asked him, and he denied it. That didn't mean he didn't feel like doing it at times.

• 22:36Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, let's assume this is what he feels like doing, whether or not he did do it.

• 22:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the really question is, do I ever feel like punching someone in the face for not believing that we went, landed on the moon? And I don't feel compelled to harm people.

• 22:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In their ignorance.

• 22:52Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's very kind of you.

• 22:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, I, and I don't mean ignorance in a bad way, there's just.

• 22:56Chuck Nice?

  I know exactly what you mean, you're saying, and that's very compassionate of you. You're saying that you look at a person and you will, uh, sympathize. Because they're in their ignorance.

• 23:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, I'm an educator.

• 23:11Chuck Nice?

  Educator, so you wanna help that person, you see a person in need when you see an ignorant person.

• 23:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 23:17Chuck Nice?

  I see a dumbass.

• 23:20Chuck Nice?

  Now there's the difference between me.

• 23:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I see someone, there was, there's a gap in their education, and people think that education is just what you know.

• 23:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, no, yeah, that's an aspect of it, but for me, the most important element of education is what is your capacity to think?

• 23:38Chuck Nice?

  Awesome.

• 23:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so what leaves you in denial? That we went to the moon?

• 23:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why you, what's the resistance here? And, and.

• 23:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Look, look at everything else you do embrace, they're probably using a cellphone, a smartphone that's communicating with satellites.

• 23:56Chuck Nice?

  We can put a satellite up there.

• 23:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cellphone, so I don't understand why this is such a stretch.

• 24:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To imagine, and, and, and, and why would we not go to the moon nine times? Okay?

• 24:09Chuck Nice?

  Well, there you have it, right.

• 24:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then stop not going to the moon.

• 24:13Chuck Nice?

  Exactly, because if it were a fraud that we perpetuated, wouldn't we still be perpetuating that fraud, but just a little further out?

• 24:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A little further out, I mean, why not? And then, so, so someone did the, did the analysis, what would it take to fake the moon landing?

• 24:29Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 24:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so you'd have to fake all of the buildings where you're, where you're constructing the spaceships.

• 24:35Chuck Nice?

  NASA?

• 24:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The spacecraft.

• 24:36Chuck Nice?

  Right, oh, okay.

• 24:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Saturn V.

• 24:37Chuck Nice?

  Saturn V.

• 24:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you'd have to, you would, you would have to fake all the engineering drawings, the warehouses of engineering drawings.

• 24:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 24:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you'd have to fake the, the, you know, the docking and all this communication, and, and by the time you figure out what it takes to fake it. It's way easier just to go.

• 24:55Chuck Nice?

  Certainly is, when you put it that way.

• 24:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's way, just go to the moon.

• 24:59Chuck Nice?

  You know what, and that's very much. It's funny because people who think like that, I call that the criminal mentality. Or I call it the genius criminal mentality.

• 25:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, nemesis mentality.

• 25:10Chuck Nice?

  The nemesis mentality. If you took half the energy that you put into doing what you are doing that is wrong, into doing something constructive, you would be very successful. You wouldn't be sitting in prison right now. You'd be running, you'd be CEO of whatever company.

• 25:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whatever, you'd be Tony Stark.

• 25:31Chuck Nice?

  Right, you'd be Tony Stark because like, some of these guys, they're, they come up with genius ways to do the wrong thing. But because they have this criminal mentality, it screws them.

• 25:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a synapse firing in the wrong.

• 25:43Chuck Nice?

  The wrong, right.

• 25:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It went the wrong fork in the synapse.

• 25:45Chuck Nice?

  Exactly, yeah, you know, and you're right, it's like when you think about everything. First of all, the other thing too is, when you see these rockets take off, where are they going?

• 25:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, you can calculate how much fuel is in a Saturn V rocket in all three stages. And I assure you, they were not going to the piggly wiggly down the street. This is enough fuel to get them to the moon and back. You, it's not intro calculus, a little later you can learn what's called the rocket equation.

• 26:11Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 26:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you can derive it and know what it is. And the rocket equation prescribes how much fuel you need, that's how much fuel was in the Saturn V rocket.

• 26:19Chuck Nice?

  That's it.

• 26:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, but I have, I take a slightly other view of this. I think, wow, they are so impressed with modern technology that they're in denial of it.

• 26:30Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 26:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how far we've come.

• 26:32Chuck Nice?

  See, you really are a compass, you truly are like, and I tell you, it's funny because you know, you know, people ask me all the time about you, you know, but they're like, what's Neil really like? And I tell them, Neil is exactly like what you see. And he truly is, when people call him the world's foremost science educator, that is like his singular focus in life, like, you know, people who have a singular focus like yours, at, at every turn I see you take the time to.

• 27:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lex Luthor, Lex Luthor has a singular focus.

• 27:03Chuck Nice?

  Singular focus, right.

• 27:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what like, I'm like that.

• 27:06Chuck Nice?

  That's what, that's like you are, except instead of like ruling the world, you, it's to educate the world.

• 27:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, you know, I just want people to be empowered and then I go home, I'll go back to the, to the beach. And I'll stand and call me if you need me.

• 27:18Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, once you're empowered, you don't have to keep coming back to me.

• 27:21Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Think for your own damn self.

• 27:26Chuck Nice?

  That makes perfect sense. I mean, I don't get it. Uh, I think it's people, uh, people are in denial of that, that, that kind of thing because they just want a government conspiracy.

• 27:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They love them some governments.

• 27:39Chuck Nice?

  Love government.

• 27:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And anyone who's worked for the government said, we are incapable of a conspiracy.

• 27:45Chuck Nice?

  Funny.

• 27:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we, we are not organized enough to conspire anything.

• 27:50Chuck Nice?

  That is funny.

• 27:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's never government workers saying, we're, we're, we're.

• 27:55Chuck Nice?

  That's hilarious.

• 27:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Find someone who's worked their life in the government and ask them if they could ever possibly pull off a conspiracy. If they can ever possibly hide aliens. Cause you're gonna have the, you're gonna.

• 28:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're gonna have the office assistant at the front desk. What the hell is that you just brought?

• 28:12Chuck Nice?

  Right, exactly. Did you just bring an alien in here? No, you saw nothing.

• 28:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I'm gonna call Betty.

• 28:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's no, you can't keep that shit a secret?

• 28:22Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's hilarious. Okay. Hey, there you go, um, Sean Thomas.

• 28:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We ate up half the damn segment on that question.

• 28:29Chuck Nice?

  But it was funny. It was good. It was good to know. It was good to know. So there you have it, Sean. Uh, Neil doesn't want to punch people in the face. He just wants to educate them. So his punch in the face is knowledge. Look at that. I just punched you in the face with knowledge.

• 28:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We slap you with knowledge.

• 28:43Chuck Nice?

  We slap you with knowledge. Take that. Learn that. Take that.

• 28:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Also, this reminds me of one of, uh, Arthur C. Clarke's edicts, which is, any sufficiently advanced technology.

• 29:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is indistinguishable from magic.

• 29:03Chuck Nice?

  Ooh, you know, that, uh, absolutely.

• 29:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you think, if, if, if, so going to the moon, that's advanced for you?

• 29:09Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 29:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is magic or, or a conspiracy?

• 29:11Chuck Nice?

  Right. Like if you took like an Oculus back to just, let's say nineteen twenty-five.

• 29:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:19Chuck Nice?

  Okay, where there weren't significant.

• 29:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oculus, was that a leader of Rome? I am Oculus.

• 29:25Chuck Nice?

  Me and Oculus.

• 29:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Meet my cousin Calculus. He's, he's good at math.

• 29:32Chuck Nice?

  Oculus and calculus. What say you? What say you, Oculus? Um?

• 29:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that you're being ancient Roman with a British accent.

• 29:43Chuck Nice?

  Well, aren't all ancient Romans, don't they all have a British accent?

• 29:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Every single ancient Roman is a British.

• 29:49Chuck Nice?

  Every ancient Roman says, "Father, tell me, Father.

• 29:54Chuck Nice?

  Why do you not love me?"

• 29:58Chuck Nice?

  No, the Oculus is that, uh...

• 29:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of course, yeah.

• 30:00Chuck Nice?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 30:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The VR, the virtual reality.

• 30:02Chuck Nice?

  That's what I was trying to say. Virtual reality. If you took that back to 1925, which is at a time where there were significant advancements in technology.

• 30:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In everything, yeah.

• 30:10Chuck Nice?

  Everything. I mean, you know, at that point Einstein had already had the theory of relativity. It was already established at that point. If you put an Oculus on somebody back then, they would believe that you were a god.

• 30:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, their head would explode.

• 30:24Chuck Nice?

  Their head would explode. Like, you could put an Oculus on them and say like, "By the way, I'm from another planet," and they would believe whatever you say after that.

• 30:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then they'll say, "How can we make this do sa- have sex?"

• 30:37Chuck Nice?

  That's always.

• 30:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Always. Every new technology.

• 30:40Chuck Nice?

  Every new technology.

• 30:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how, that's how that goes.

• 30:41Chuck Nice?

  By the way, they've already figured that out. They just have a new... Okay, I don't even...

• 30:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It even happened with cars.

• 30:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 30:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do we have sex in a car? You know? A whole generation of people born having been conceived in the backseat of cars.

• 30:52Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely. That's why my middle name is Mercury.

• 30:56Chuck Nice?

  Chuck Mercury Ford Lincoln. Nice.

• 31:06Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. Here's the next one from...

• 31:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I should watch out for that. Anybody named Bonneville?

• 31:12Chuck Nice?

  Right, exactly. Uh, this is my daughter Bonneville. Uh, that's my son Chevy. Uh, and, uh, that's my other son Pickup.

• 31:24Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. This is Hobatronic. Hobatronic from Instagram wants to know this, Neil. Uh, do you think the amount of money or time spent going to the moon, uh, multiple times could have been better spent focusing on other space-related research exploration projects? Could we be on Mars by now if we had not gone back to the moon several more times? Could we have a small-scale orbital colony somewhere? A zero, a zero-g manufacturing plant? I mean, are there other things? He goes on, other things that we could have done?

• 32:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Most of the money to get to the moon was to get there the first time.

• 32:03Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 32:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, after that, it's sort of incremental cost. It's not, so, so you had to build the infrastructure to make the Saturn V rockets, to get the engineers and the scientists.

• 32:13Chuck Nice?

  So it's like scaling up for anything.

• 32:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Scale, for anything.

• 32:15Chuck Nice?

  Scaling up for anything.

• 32:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not even unique, right? A- as pharma companies will tell you.

• 32:19Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 32:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The very first pill is a billion dollars. The next one costs 10 cents.

• 32:22Chuck Nice?

  Right. Right, like, uh, yeah.

• 32:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A hundred million, whatever, it's expensive. The second one costs 10 cents to make.

• 32:29Chuck Nice?

  Exactly, right.

• 32:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so that's the, uh, so really, it's, that's not the right way to, to think about that problem. The right way to think about it is, or I, I don't want to force this question to be a different question.

• 32:44Chuck Nice?

  No, go ahead. Make it a different question, cause I, you just answered that. The, the, the answer is this, when you scale up, that's it.

• 32:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me morph the question to be slightly different.

• 32:51Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 32:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So suppose the Apollo mission was not, let's go to the moon, but let's explore space.

• 32:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then we would, then you would have resources, not only going to the moon.

• 33:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But exploring an asteroid, a comet, Mars, and you'd be building the capacity to go to space. And then your destination would be what you would choose after you have that capacity. In the same way, we built the interstate system of the United States.

• 33:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We didn't say, here's a road from New York to LA, that's the only place you're gonna go and that's it.

• 33:26Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? If I want to be creative and I have an idea, I want to do something in Utah, or Wyoming, or, or, or Illinois.

• 33:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't force me to go one place and no place else. So, so I think it would have been a little better. Had there been a broader, uh, now others, the rebuttal to that is you have to focus. You need the singular mission, otherwise it'll never get done.

• 33:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I, I, I get that, but if you want to sustain it forever, you want to turn a space program into a space industry.

• 33:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You want to turn it into just a thing. You want to turn the, the sky into your backyard. Then you want to build the capacity to go anywhere you want.

• 34:03Chuck Nice?

  A continuing mission.

• 34:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Continuing mission.

• 34:06Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are the.

• 34:08Chuck Nice?

  That's right. That's correct. That's right.

• 34:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, once you have a, so I think some of that money might have been better suited to set up a way to maintain that mission for space at all. And so I agree that, I, I agree with the sentiment of that question, but I just re, re, re.

• 34:25Chuck Nice?

  Okay, but now let me just ask you just a quick follow-up because we're running out of time in the segment, but just as a quick follow-up. Do you think the commercialization of space and the commodification of space will allow us to get to where you are talking about right now?

• 34:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The commercialization and commodification.

• 34:40Chuck Nice?

  The commercialization and commodification of space. Uh, which is what's happening.

• 34:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What that will do is drop the price of going to space to the point where other creative things you can think of doing in space become real. All right. So that, that's the fascinating thing when things get cheaper.

• 35:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whole ideas pop up you would have never thought possible. Okay. So, so if going to space is cheap, uh, I can't even imagine what more we can think of doing in space, but it is surely there because it happens every other time anything gets cheap.

• 35:15Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 35:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so yes, that'll happen. The frontier of space is a different thing. I don't see, I don't see.

• 35:21Chuck Nice?

  Okay, there's no money in that.

• 35:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's no money in that. Yeah, there's no business model to do that first.

• 35:25Chuck Nice?

  Do that. Okay.

• 35:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. But once we, once that routine is set up, oh yeah.

• 35:28Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 35:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh yeah.

• 35:29Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 35:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got a break. When we come back, we will continue with Chuck Nice reading the cosmic queries on the frontier of space exploration.

• 35:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk. I got Chuck nicely.

• 35:48Chuck Nice?

  Yes, you do, sir.

• 35:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is Cosmic Queries edition.

• 35:50Chuck Nice?

  That's correct.

• 35:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is a fan favorite, Cosmic Queries.

• 35:52Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 35:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People love this.

• 35:53Chuck Nice?

  You know why? Because this is the thing that we do on StarTalk that belongs solely to the fans.

• 35:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 35:59Chuck Nice?

  It really is.

• 35:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe that's it.

• 36:00Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's their show. It's really, you know, we're just here as a conduit to carry out their whims.

• 36:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I shouldn't tell them that I really don't like doing Cosmic Queries? Because I'd rather just sit there and let someone else do the talking. You're making me talk. You're making me work hard. So, uh, all right, before we go to Chuck.

• 36:23Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 36:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, uh, so you still doing stand-up?

• 36:27Chuck Nice?

  All the time. Uh, pretty much every, you know, so here's the thing. I don't travel as much to on the road, which I get a lot of requests, but, uh, two reasons. One, I have a small child.

• 36:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:38Chuck Nice?

  And so I'd like to be home and be.

• 36:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  More than one child.

• 36:41Chuck Nice?

  I have.

• 36:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One of them is small.

• 36:41Chuck Nice?

  One of them is very small.

• 36:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 36:43Chuck Nice?

  Because I'm an idiot. And, uh, we just had a new baby two years ago.

• 36:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 36:48Chuck Nice?

  Uh, did I say new baby? Like, there's such a thing as an old baby?

• 36:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We had an old baby.

• 36:52Chuck Nice?

  Had an old baby.

• 36:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Five years ago.

• 36:53Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I gave birth to Benjamin Button.

• 36:56Chuck Nice?

  Anyway, uh, and the, uh, uh, but I always do stand up in New York City and surrounding area pretty much every weekend.

• 37:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love your work and just, and that's why we have you here.

• 37:06Chuck Nice?

  Thanks, man. I always love being here.

• 37:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We affirm that. All right. So what do you got?

• 37:09Chuck Nice?

  Okay, let's get back into, uh, our queries.

• 37:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:13Chuck Nice?

  Aiden Astronomy from Instagram says.

• 37:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Astronomy is in his handle.

• 37:17Chuck Nice?

  Yes, it is.

• 37:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love that.

• 37:18Chuck Nice?

  You like that?

• 37:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People loving the universe and they can't help not tell people.

• 37:21Chuck Nice?

  They gotta let people know. So he says, "What was it like for the command module pilots when they went around the backside of the moon? And why did the Soviet N-1 moon rockets all blow up?" So, uh, and instead of what was it like, let me just say, on the backside of the moon, what are you experiencing on the backside of the moon that you're not experiencing on the front side of the moon?

• 37:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So first, first, as you may remember, the Apollo missions all sent three.

• 37:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Astronauts to the moon.

• 37:53Chuck Nice?

  Mm hmm.

• 37:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two of them deployed down to the surface.

• 37:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One did not.

• 37:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 37:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stayed in orbit around the moon, eating their lunch, waiting for them finished driving the golf cart.

• 38:02Chuck Nice?

  Better known as the Uber driver of Apollo.

• 38:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so I I I'm wondering if I would have just snuck in and and crammed three people into the lander. And and you know, I I don't know, you're gonna go travel that far and just not.

• 38:18Chuck Nice?

  And have to sit in there, hey, man, wait in the car, we'll be right out.

• 38:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're we're we're gonna walk around on the moon.

• 38:23Chuck Nice?

  Walk around on the moon, do me a favor, can you just keep the car running?

• 38:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Keep the car running.

• 38:27Chuck Nice?

  The car running, buddy, we're just gonna take a little stroll on the moon now.

• 38:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On the moon.

• 38:30Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 38:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So here's the thing, when you go to the backside of the moon, you are one moon diameter away from the other two astronauts.

• 38:39Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 38:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 38:40Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 38:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is the record for the loneliest person ever.

• 38:46Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's so cool because you're farther out than.

• 38:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're farther away.

• 38:49Chuck Nice?

  And you're by yourself.

• 38:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The next closest person.

• 38:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 38:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In that moment.

• 38:53Chuck Nice?

  Is one moon diameter away.

• 38:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that is farther than any other solo person has been.

• 38:59Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 38:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 39:00Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so that's just one little fact, that is the loneliest place we have ever found ourselves.

• 39:05Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 39:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 39:06Chuck Nice?

  That's a pretty cool little.

• 39:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, what makes it.

• 39:08Chuck Nice?

  Toy.

• 39:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What makes it extra lonely is when you're behind the moon.

• 39:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then the moon is between you and Earth.

• 39:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the radio signals don't penetrate through the moon.

• 39:17Chuck Nice?

  So you're.

• 39:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're also radio silent.

• 39:19Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God, you're alone and alone.

• 39:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, you're double alone.

• 39:24Chuck Nice?

  You're double alone.

• 39:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're alone squared.

• 39:26Chuck Nice?

  Right, you can't communicate with anybody either.

• 39:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct, this is why in the future, when we're thinking of moon colonies and you want to inhabit the far side of the moon. The far side never faces Earth.

• 39:38Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 39:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The moon is, it's rotation is what's called tightly locked.

• 39:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where it's actually rotating, but at the exact rate that it takes to go around the Earth.

• 39:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's always turning its one face towards you, no matter where it is.

• 39:51Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 39:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's called, it happens, it's a very natural thing in the universe.

• 39:54Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 39:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't think too much about it.

• 39:55Chuck Nice?

  Okay, now I'm thinking about it, let me tell you something, as I'm thinking.

• 39:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, my gosh, what a coincidence, is that just for us? I'd do that, just chill.

• 40:02Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 40:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like, it's a, it's a natural thing.

• 40:04Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 40:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, I, so.

• 40:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we're thinking about moon colonies, if you're gonna pitch tent on the far side of the moon, you're gonna still want communication channels opened up.

• 40:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's a whole separate conversation about radio transmitter repeaters that are on the edge of the moon.

• 40:21Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where signals can come from the backside and then work their way back over to the front side and then make it way back to the earth.

• 40:27Chuck Nice?

  So you send the signal to the booster, the booster sends it over.

• 40:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, exactly. And so it's a repeater, whatever, whatever is the mechanism.

• 40:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, so.

• 40:35Chuck Nice?

  Can you hear me now? I'm sorry. Let me move over here. Sorry, I'm on the backside of the moon. Let me just move over. Uh, can you hear me now? How's that? Ah, Jesus, I'm roaming. I can't believe this. I'm roaming, dude. I'm sorry, I'm on the moon. I can't talk, man. This is costing me a fortune. Okay, sorry.

• 40:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can I give a, like, a weirdly perverse version of that?

• 40:56Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 40:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. So I was on a, on a, on a, on a presidential commission.

• 41:00Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 41:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To study the, the, the, the climate of aerospace around the world relative to here on Earth.

• 41:07Chuck Nice?

  Uh-huh.

• 41:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A climate, I mean, the, the business climate.

• 41:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so in one of our trips, uh, we go to China. And China has these, have, they've got plans to go to space. All right. This is before they launched their first Taikonaut.

• 41:22Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 41:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Which is what they call.

• 41:24Chuck Nice?

  Their astronauts are Taikonauts.

• 41:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Their Taikonauts. And so, so there's this, this underbelly of advanced technology that we're reading about and hearing about. And I always wondered, you know, is it real? Is it there? So I'm on the Great Wall of China.

• 41:39Chuck Nice?

  Sweet.

• 41:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it, there it is, just like the photos, going to the horizon into the mist.

• 41:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. You can't, there's no end in either direction you look. I do not see any technology at all. In any, there are no antennas, there's no, nothing made of metal. There is just the wall.

• 42:00Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 42:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I said, let me try something. I pull out my cellphone.

• 42:04Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 42:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was a flip phone at the time. I call my.

• 42:08Chuck Nice?

  Star-Tec.

• 42:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I call my, it was, in fact, the Motorola Star-Tec. And I call my, cause it's, it's the word Star. Yeah, thank you.

• 42:14Chuck Nice?

  How did?

• 42:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Come on. I call my mother in Westchester, New York. She said, "Oh, hi, hi Neil, are you home already?" That's how good the connection was.

• 42:25Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 42:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was, it was crystal clear connection.

• 42:29Chuck Nice?

  You certainly didn't have sprint.

• 42:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was one of the best connections I've ever had in a cellphone ever, from the Great Wall of China with no visible cellphone towers. And I, and at that time, you would walk past a tree in the United States, and so I'm sorry, I lost my signal.

• 42:44Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 42:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me get out in the open here, away from the blades of grass, whatever. So, so that's how I knew China was gonna make whatever they want to happen, happen.

• 42:53Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that's pretty wild.

• 42:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In that moment.

• 42:56Chuck Nice?

  That, right, that's, that's actually a very good story and really telling, because it makes sense.

• 43:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 43:01Chuck Nice?

  Like, you don't see anything and...

• 43:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's there. Now, why did I even say that? I was somehow related to this question.

• 43:07Chuck Nice?

  Well, no, we were, we were talking about, you know, just, just the dark side and the, the actual repeater and all that kinda stuff.

• 43:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, but the guy with, with, well, the, the, the command module pilot, there was a question. What was the question?

• 43:19Chuck Nice?

  Oh, no, it's just like, uh, you, no, um, I'm sorry, now I lost.

• 43:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See, I don't think I answered the question, I'm sorry. Alright, so what is it?

• 43:27Chuck Nice?

  Oh, oh God, Jesus Christ, where...

• 43:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just, you just mentioned God and Jesus in the same sentence. You must be in a really bad situation, okay?

• 43:38Chuck Nice?

  Oh, God. No, you did answer the question perfectly.

• 43:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What was the question?

• 43:42Chuck Nice?

  I wanted to know what it was like for that pilot.

• 43:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, the pilot, yeah, that's what it was like.

• 43:45Chuck Nice?

  And that's exactly what it was like.

• 43:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eating, eating a sandwich, waiting, just...

• 43:49Chuck Nice?

  And by the way, I'm gonna say that is the lonely existence ever. Not just because of where he is, and not just because of his isolation, but because of the context of that isolation.

• 44:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 44:04Chuck Nice?

  You are alone, and your friends are walking on the moon.

• 44:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, it's triple, it's like, I'm alone, I can't communicate with anybody, and I'm, I'm keeping the car warm, and they're on the moon. Yes, getting all the glory.

• 44:17Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 44:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, Chuck, we, uh, time for Cosmic Queries.

• 44:20Chuck Nice?

  Lightning round!

• 44:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, let's do it.

• 44:22Chuck Nice?

  Let's do it, here we go.

• 44:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm gonna give soundbite answers.

• 44:24Chuck Nice?

  Soundbite answers, okay, here we go. Um...

• 44:29Chuck Nice?

  Uh, this is-

• 44:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I'm giving soundbite answers, you have to read the questions a little faster.

• 44:33Chuck Nice?

  Chris McManara, 97 from Instagram. What is the biggest thing the moon taught us about Earth?

• 44:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For me, I have my personal list of that, alright? I think going to the moon and getting direct measurements of its mineral content and soil content. For me, the coolest thing was discovering that the moon is the product of a collision between a Mars-sized protoplanet. Side-swiping Earth's crust in the early solar system, having that material that had been sideswiped gather into another cosmic body that orbits Earth that we now call the moon. The moon, for its size, should have much, much more iron in it.

• 45:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it doesn't. The iron has already been sifted out. Well, how do you make that happen? Well, on Earth, the iron all went to the core. Most of the iron went to the core. So, the crust has hardly any iron in it. If you're gonna make a new cosmic object out of the crust, you're gonna have hardly any iron in your substance. So, the moon has suspiciously low iron, and it is completely consistent with this scenario.

• 45:39Chuck Nice?

  Nice!

• 45:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And people ask me, if I wanted to go back in time and see something happen, I'd wanna see the collision of that Mars-sized protoplanet with Earth and watch the moon get formed. We think it would have formed within a few months.

• 45:51Chuck Nice?

  That quickly?

• 45:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, that quickly.

• 45:53Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 45:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That quickly. That would've been a badass collision.

• 45:55Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's a nice collision.

• 45:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it. Okay, quick, go.

• 45:57Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 45:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go.

• 45:58Chuck Nice?

  There we go.

• 45:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was too long. I gotta answer faster.

• 45:59Chuck Nice?

  Alright, here we go. At Seabass621 wants to know this.

• 46:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fisherman there.

• 46:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just loves him to eat some sea bass, alright?

• 46:09Chuck Nice?

  Who do you think won? Won the space race?

• 46:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so I call it a tie.

• 46:16Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 46:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Between the United States and Russia.

• 46:18Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 46:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you know why?

• 46:19Chuck Nice?

  Why?

• 46:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because they were the first to put anything in space, A. They were the first to put a living creature in space. They were the first to put a human in space. They were the first to put a- A woman in space, they were the first to put a black person in space. They were the first to have a space station. They invented the rocket equation that enabled all this to happen in the first place. And we went to the moon first.

• 46:40Chuck Nice?

  There you go. So.

• 46:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so to me, I'm saying, you know, we didn't do any of that other stuff first and we got to them and said, we win. So I'm saying, give the people some credit here, please. Thank you. Next.

• 46:52Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that was a great answer, man. All right. Since the moon is loaded, I'm sorry.

• 46:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, their black person was a Cuban.

• 46:57Chuck Nice?

  Oh, really? Okay. So Brentral, uh, at Brentral wants to know this, since the moon is loaded with helium three, which is useful for alternative energy, how do you think laws will form in retaliation to mining the moon? Assuming that we're gonna mine the moon.

• 47:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice. So helium, helium three is a version of helium, missing one proton. Helium usually has two protons, two neutrons. That would be helium four. Take away a neutron, you get helium three. That's what it's called, okay? Helium three is one of the things that is emanated from the sun in the solar wind. And it comes through space, it gets lodged in the surface of the moon and it sits there. And there are whole books given unto mining, quite simply scooping up the topsoil of the moon, collecting this helium three and using it for nuclear fusion reactors. So there's a whole plan that people have for this. And there's been some rebuttals, is will it really recoup the cost, whatever? So, uh, but helium three, yeah, we need laws going into the future.

• 47:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who owns the moon? Who owns asteroids? Who owns the mining rights? Do they have to be shared? Who paid for it? This, there are some laws related to this, but for me, it's still undiscovered territory. And this is why the, the future in space is not just about astronauts, scientists and engineers. There's the rest of what life is. Lawyers, the artists, the politics. All of this has to come together if we're gonna turn what is sitting there above our head that we call space, into our backyard.

• 48:26Chuck Nice?

  Wow. There you have it.

• 48:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck.

• 48:28Chuck Nice?

  Yes, man.

• 48:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta call it a wrap right there. All right. You've been, you have been, you've been listening to and possibly even watching StarTalk. I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, Chuck Nice.

• 48:42Chuck Nice?

  Yes, sir.

• 48:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dude.

• 48:43Chuck Nice?

  Thank you, brother. Always good.

• 48:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks for coming through, helping me get through this. House McQuarrie, and as always, I bid you. Take me up.

• 48:58Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.