Maker Mix, with Bill Nye (Part 1) – StarTalk All-Stars

Makers of the world, unite! Bill Nye and Chuck Nice roll up their sleeves to answer Cosmic Queries about the maker movement, including 3d printing of tools, food, human joints and organs; nanotechnology; ISRU and colonizing Mars; STEM vs. STEAM; and more. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Find out more at https://www.startalkradio.net/startalk-all-access/

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

• 0:00Chuck Nice?

  This is StarTalk.

• 0:08Bill Nye?

  Welcome, welcome to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Bill Nye. This special segment of Cosmic Queries, Maker Edition, is brought to you by Google. Be sure to check out their website at MakingScienceWithGoogle.com. Now, I try to pull back, everybody, because I'm not alone here. No, no. I'm with world citizen Chuck. Nice, Chuck. How you doing?

• 0:32Chuck Nice?

  Hey, Bill. How are you?

• 0:33Bill Nye?

  I'm feeling great, because this is a special edition.

• 0:36Chuck Nice?

  Yes, it is a special edition.

• 0:37Bill Nye?

  This is the Maker Edition.

• 0:38Chuck Nice?

  The Maker Edition.

• 0:39Bill Nye?

  So, these are people that make things?

• 0:41Chuck Nice?

  Yes. All of these people are progenitors of some sort, in one way or another.

• 0:48Bill Nye?

  Progenitors?

• 0:48Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 0:49Bill Nye?

  Could be progenitrixes.

• 0:51Chuck Nice?

  Ah, look at you.

• 0:53Bill Nye?

  Progenitrices. So, with all this said, these are people that make stuff. That's what we do in engineering. We use science to build things and solve problems. What is our first query?

• 1:02Chuck Nice?

  Well, let's get into our first query, and it's actually one of our Patreon patrons. This is from Terraco Pottery, a potter, living in St. Joseph, Minnesota. So, he indeed is a maker with a question about making.

• 1:18Bill Nye?

  He makes pottery.

• 1:19Chuck Nice?

  Makes pottery, yes.

• 1:20Bill Nye?

  St. Joe.

• 1:22Chuck Nice?

  In St. Joe, AMI. So, this is what he says.

• 1:25Bill Nye?

  MN, MN.

• 1:25Chuck Nice?

  MN, sorry. Sorry, you're right. Oh, God, what a faux pas. The people at the Mall of America are hating us right now.

• 1:31Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 1:31Chuck Nice?

  Yes. Here's what he says. "What are your thoughts, Bill, on changing the STEM field to STEAM by adding ART into the acronym? Companies like Apple Computers and Tesla Motors advance STEM fields by creating artistically designed products that people resonate with worldwide. Do they provide evidence that ART might play an important role in getting more people excited about scientific progress?"

• 2:00Bill Nye?

  And the short answer is yes.

• 2:02Chuck Nice?

  Uh-huh.

• 2:03Bill Nye?

  So, STEAM is fine. Science, Technology, Engineering, ART, and Math, that's fine. That's great.

• 2:09Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 2:09Bill Nye?

  And by the way, when you make products, you want them to look cool. And I think this is why, just to name names, that's why Google is successful.

• 2:16Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 2:17Bill Nye?

  You click on the Google main page, and there's not anything on it. It's just

• 2:20Chuck Nice?

  Except Google.

• 2:21Bill Nye?

  This beautiful minimalist thing. And that's why Apple products are so popular is they look good.

• 2:26Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 2:26Bill Nye?

  So you certainly want products to look good. If I'm gonna buy pottery, be it in Minnesota or anywhere else.

• 2:32Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:33Bill Nye?

  I want it to look nice.

• 2:34Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I want my pottery, um, phone case for my iPhone.

• 2:40Bill Nye?

  Oh, that would be, that'd be brittle. But who knows where that will lead? The guy with skills to make pottery may be able to make all sorts of things.

• 2:47Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 2:48Bill Nye?

  Because he's, he designs or makes shapes.

• 2:51Chuck Nice?

  So now, uh, when you look at design as an element of engineering, uh, there's in art, they say form follows function.

• 3:00Bill Nye?

  They say that in architecture too.

• 3:02Chuck Nice?

  Yes. So now, does that work when you're engineering? Like, okay, you're building a.

• 3:06Bill Nye?

  Look at an airplane. Aren't they good looking?

• 3:09Chuck Nice?

  Yes, but they weren't always. When you look back at the old Sockwood Camels, the old biplanes, uh.

• 3:16Bill Nye?

  They were kind of at that, in that era, they were the coolest thing going because they flew.

• 3:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:21Bill Nye?

  So.

• 3:22Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 3:24Bill Nye?

  It was pretty cool. Still is pretty cool. So, uh, form, that's one of the things, by the way, not changing the subject from pottery and steam.

• 3:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:32Bill Nye?

  But that's one of the things that's really appealing for me about airplanes is everything on there has to do something. You, there's, it's very hard to add stuff to planes. It doesn't absolutely have to be there because they get too heavy.

• 3:42Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 3:43Bill Nye?

  So, um, my, uh, I'm a big fan of, uh, steam and writ large. I just don't want it to get to the point where all of school becomes an acronym. You know what I mean? But right now, we, I guess there's a conflict between funding science, technology, engineering and math and funding art. You have to fund both.

• 4:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:04Bill Nye?

  So steam it is. Steam on if you will.

• 4:07Chuck Nice?

  Not steampunk, but.

• 4:09Bill Nye?

  Uh, steampunk never appealed to me.

• 4:10Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 4:11Bill Nye?

  No.

• 4:11Chuck Nice?

  Come on.

• 4:12Bill Nye?

  The reason is it's not real.

• 4:14Chuck Nice?

  Oh, well, yeah, I guess you're right. When you, when you look at it from the actual mechanical standpoint, like none of those inventions are.

• 4:22Bill Nye?

  The helium balloons wouldn't really fly.

• 4:24Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 4:25Bill Nye?

  The steam powered, uh, wheelchair wouldn't really run.

• 4:29Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 4:29Bill Nye?

  It, it just, it's so that just always took me out of it a little bit.

• 4:33Chuck Nice?

  Great conventions.

• 4:34Bill Nye?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 4:35Chuck Nice?

  You know, when you see those people at the hotel and they've got their goggles on and their, their little caps and their trench coats and.

• 4:42Bill Nye?

  Are you talking from personal experience here, Chuck?

• 4:45Chuck Nice?

  I'm just saying.

• 4:45Bill Nye?

  No, no, no, you're just saying, and it's not you.

• 4:48Chuck Nice?

  I'm just saying.

• 4:48Bill Nye?

  No, yes.

• 4:49Chuck Nice?

  If you happen to be at the New York Hilton in October and you see a black guy wearing goggles at a steampunk convention, it might be Chuck Nice, maybe.

• 4:56Bill Nye?

  That's all you're saying. That's all you're saying. Let's try another query. Good question, Steeman, Potter in Minnesota.

• 5:03Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's move on to Matt Eli, who comes to us from Facebook and Bay City, Texas. And Matt Eli wants to know this. How are we going to print 3D stuff on Mars out of native material there? Or in the clouds of Venus? Or on the moon? Or in the asteroid belt? So is it necessary to to mine materials from that area or from that place to use as 3D print material?

• 5:39Bill Nye?

  Uh, this is a great question, but we may be mixing. The modern verb everybody loves Chuck is conflating.

• 5:46Chuck Nice?

  Ah, conflating.

• 5:47Bill Nye?

  Or could be, not saying we are, conflating 3D printing in space with in situ resource utilization.

• 5:55Chuck Nice?

  All right, now.

• 5:55Bill Nye?

  ISRU.

• 5:56Chuck Nice?

  Okay, now, now, see, now you got me right there.

• 5:58Bill Nye?

  Well, so the idea is you could.

• 6:00Chuck Nice?

  Say that again, because I can't even, I don't even know what you just said there.

• 6:02Bill Nye?

  So everybody in the Mars community loves this acronym. Four, four, four-letter acronym. ISRU, in situ resource utilization.

• 6:12Chuck Nice?

  In situ resource.

• 6:13Bill Nye?

  In the situation. There you are on the surface of Mars.

• 6:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:17Bill Nye?

  In the situation. Utilizing, which is another word we used to say, using the resources there. So that's a big plan.

• 6:25Chuck Nice?

  I gotta grow some sprouts.

• 6:27Bill Nye?

  Well, to scrape up, that's right. Uh, in the Martian, you can scrape the book or the movie, you scrape up some Martian soil and use chemistry to make rocket fuel out of it. Get the oxygen out of it. Maybe get the iron, recombine them and they burn and off you go. Uh, and on Mars, I think it'd be lower pitch. But anyway, um, it's a great idea, fine idea. Meanwhile. A recent study at NASA indicates that it's probably better to take material to make objects with a 3D printer, which seem to work well enough in zero gravity

• 7:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:04Bill Nye?

  or microgravity. And so, instead of taking surgical scissors, a scalpel, what else do you take? Sponges?

• 7:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:12Bill Nye?

  Sutures, suture needles. You make all that if you need it. You're ready to make it.

• 7:19Chuck Nice?

  So now, at that point, kind of like a little more of a Star Trek like replicator type deal.

• 7:25Bill Nye?

  But 3D printers are virtually replicators, man. It's amazing now, and this is now, it's, what year is this, 2016? We scan objects with hologram style lasers, create a three-dimensional image of it, then use that three-dimensional image to print it, is the verb, but or additively manufacture it. And so, this is an exciting time, but making rocket fuel out of the Martian surface, I'm not sure is quite the same thing as is intended by traditional spaceborne 3D printing. However, can't see why these two things wouldn't merge one day.

• 8:03Chuck Nice?

  Right, so there's, there's not really a need to choose, it's not a selfish choice.

• 8:07Bill Nye?

  It'll happen, it'll be organic, pun intended. It'll be, it'll come from the Martian surface, but you know, getting to the Martian surface is not trivial. Having a colony there is probably a real hassle. But I want to send people there to look for signs of life, and if those people need 3D printing additive manufacture technology to get it done economically, let's go!

• 8:31Chuck Nice?

  So if you were to send, let's say, you know, sending people is a real pain in the butt.

• 8:35Bill Nye?

  It's expensive and never been done.

• 8:38Chuck Nice?

  And, and, and, you know, people are a pain in the butt. I mean, have you met people?

• 8:41Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 8:42Chuck Nice?

  Have you met them?

• 8:43Bill Nye?

  Some of my best friends.

• 8:46Chuck Nice?

  But...

• 8:46Bill Nye?

  Or dogs.

• 8:47Chuck Nice?

  Is, is there still a need if you were to send autonomous machines that can work on their own? And then, would they still be able to utilize the...

• 9:00Bill Nye?

  That's the whole idea. So the Mars 2020 rover, which does not have a name yet, we hope to do this experiment, try to scrape up Martian soil and make it into rocket fuel.

• 9:10Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 9:10Bill Nye?

  Be cool, yeah.

• 9:11Chuck Nice?

  It would be very cool.

• 9:12Bill Nye?

  So they can be done robotically, it is believed. And so, the chemistry and you do simulants... Uh, simulations with simulant soil, I mean to say, and we get that usually in Hawaii. That

• 9:24Chuck Nice?

  Why is, why is there soil there simulant to?

• 9:27Bill Nye?

  The iron bearing red volcanic sand is a lot, apparently, a lot like Mars. You can try this stuff and it seems to work, but to really pull it off and really plan to go to Mars and only get back if you can scrape up Martian soil and make it into rocket fuel. I mean, that's a whole nother.

• 9:43Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you might be planning a one-way trip.

• 9:44Bill Nye?

  You, you might, yeah, it's

• 9:45Chuck Nice?

  Inadvertently.

• 9:46Bill Nye?

  Yes, and you don't want the inadvertent one-way trip. You don't want to, uh, die on impact and you don't want to be stranded. These are two really undesirable outcomes, uh, on Mars. So Chuck, we're on cosmic queries.

• 9:59Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we are.

• 9:59Bill Nye?

  We do our best to answer an inquiry.

• 10:02Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 10:03Bill Nye?

  From our beloved listeners.

• 10:04Chuck Nice?

  People want to know about making things in space on other planets and

• 10:07Bill Nye?

  That's what we do in engineering, Chuck.

• 10:09Chuck Nice?

  Yes, it is.

• 10:10Bill Nye?

  We use science to make things and solve problems. Take it.

• 10:13Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 10:13Bill Nye?

  Query, number one.

• 10:15Chuck Nice?

  Query, number one. Ooh. Michal Wegzren.

• 10:21Bill Nye?

  Oh, yes.

• 10:22Chuck Nice?

  Ah, Michal, I, I, I bet you I got that name right, Michal. Michal Wegzren, Wegzren. All right, that's as good as I can do. Uh, from Facebook. Says, Bill, nanotechnology versus 3D printing. When can we expect 3D printers to be able to print nano elements for future nanotech devices? That's a little meta.

• 10:47Bill Nye?

  It is meta, but it's not that far.

• 10:49Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 10:50Bill Nye?

  Yeah, many nano machines are made with the same technology as 3D printing, where you can move the probe tiny, tiny increments and tiny, tiny increments. And, um, shove molecules around or atoms around, I mean.

• 11:04Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 11:04Bill Nye?

  And so that's actually, uh, almost, spiritually, in the big picture.

• 11:10Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 11:11Bill Nye?

  This tiny process does exist. When are you going to be able to do it and make airplanes out of it or aircraft carriers or something? That's the ways are.

• 11:18Chuck Nice?

  So now, would there ever be this, you know, in every sci-fi movie, this is what you see, you know? The nanobots.

• 11:25Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 11:26Chuck Nice?

  They all come together. And then they create something. So it's it's it's just this never ending process where the the there's the machine that creates the nanobots. Then the nanobots come together to create or build something.

• 11:39Bill Nye?

  Well, they usually, I think they usually make a replica of Chuck Nice.

• 11:43Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 11:43Bill Nye?

  And I and the crew here cannot tell the difference between the real Chuck Nice and the nanobotical Chuck Nice and then.

• 11:51Chuck Nice?

  One of us has a naval bill.

• 11:53Bill Nye?

  And then things go badly. Things generally go badly. Cause the nanobot Chuck is motivated by something bad.

• 12:01Chuck Nice?

  Yes, of course he is.

• 12:02Bill Nye?

  But with that said, the idea of using uh 3D technology to move a probe or a an atom placer or machine. Tiny, tiny increments does exist. That's how uh in a sense, that's how we make some micro circuits.

• 12:19Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 12:19Bill Nye?

  But this is the future where you'd have this machine working really fast on a much larger scale. So stay tuned. And maybe you'll be the mechanical engineer, the electrical engineer that, you know, gets on this and makes it all practical and inexpensive.

• 12:32Chuck Nice?

  Nice. All right, fantastic. So it already exists. Look at that.

• 12:36Bill Nye?

  In a sense.

• 12:37Chuck Nice?

  How?

• 12:37Bill Nye?

  In a sense.

• 12:38Chuck Nice?

  In a sense, it's already there. Science future today.

• 12:42Bill Nye?

  Today. That's why you listen to StarTalk.

• 12:44Chuck Nice?

  That's exactly right.

• 12:45Bill Nye?

  Maker Edition.

• 12:48Chuck Nice?

  Brought to you by Google. Here we go. Uh Gabe Dominguez uh from Facebook. Wants to know this. Um. Instead of sending a rover to a planet. Could we send just a 3D printer? Plus assembly unit? To create multiple rovers? And are there any plans to do something like this? So instead of just one rover, you send kind of a whole manufacturing unit. Then you you got a bunch of rovers that now emanate from this one little manufacturing unit. And they can kind of comb the entire planet for you.

• 13:25Bill Nye?

  So for those who just listening to the podcast, I'm sorry you can't see Chuck's uh arms, gesticulations, showing us how this robotic.

• 13:34Chuck Nice?

  About.

• 13:34Bill Nye?

  Robotic manufacturing on another world. So this gets back to that thing about using the material on, let's say, the Martian surface.

• 13:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 13:42Bill Nye?

  Otherwise, you, I mean, everybody understand.

• 13:44Chuck Nice?

  Wait, let me see if I remember. Wait. Oh, God. In situ.

• 13:50Chuck Nice?

  Resource.

• 13:52Chuck Nice?

  Damn it!

• 13:53Bill Nye?

  No, no, it's not damn it. It's utilization.

• 13:56Chuck Nice?

  Utilization. In situ, in-situation resource utilization.

• 14:01Bill Nye?

  Yes, so the only way you would want to do this, everybody, is if you could manufacture this stuff out of the material that's already there. Here on Earth, we're really good at manufacture, or pretty good at manufacturing things. Sending all the raw materials to Mars would almost certainly not have an advantage. With that said, thinking out loud, as we hear on, as we are here on StarTalk, perhaps the problems associated with folding up the rovers so they fit in the rocket nose cone.

• 14:33Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 14:33Bill Nye?

  Maybe that is a hard problem, and maybe you'd want to send all the piece parts there in more compact fashion, and then have the manufacturing gizmo put the wheels on the car, kind of thing.

• 14:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:47Bill Nye?

  I'm jamming here.

• 14:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:48Bill Nye?

  I'm jamming.

• 14:49Chuck Nice?

  Right, I like it.

• 14:49Bill Nye?

  Because the rovers have to be origamatically folded up.

• 14:54Chuck Nice?

  Origamatically?

• 14:55Bill Nye?

  I think it might be origameically folded up.

• 14:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:58Bill Nye?

  To get in there.

• 14:59Chuck Nice?

  When they get there, they all look like little cranes.

• 15:02Bill Nye?

  Yeah, yeah, that's right, they do, and then they unfold. No, there could be something to that, that's a cool question. But right now, what we want to, it's just all we can do to get government officials to get together to spend one and a half billion over 10 years, which is nothing. I mean, compared to other things we spent money on. And so, uh...

• 15:22Chuck Nice?

  Now, if we were fighting a war on Mars.

• 15:24Bill Nye?

  Oh, geez.

• 15:25Chuck Nice?

  We would have at least 15 trillion to throw at that.

• 15:27Bill Nye?

  Yeah, that's right, yes, about...

• 15:29Chuck Nice?

  Like, what we need are some Martian terrorists.

• 15:31Bill Nye?

  That's right.

• 15:32Chuck Nice?

  That's what we really need.

• 15:33Bill Nye?

  It's about a factor of 10, 10.2.

• 15:36Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 15:37Bill Nye?

  You multiply the NASA budget by 10.2, you start to get to what the military spends.

• 15:45Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 15:46Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 15:46Chuck Nice?

  That's a little sickening.

• 15:47Bill Nye?

  Well, you know, we live on Earth, and so, I said NASA budget, I meant planetary science budget, yeah. There'll be emails, I've just ended my career. Yes, lead on, we have another query.

• 15:59Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we do.

• 16:00Bill Nye?

  About making things on the special edition of StarTalk with me, your host, Bill Nye, and citizen of the world, of the wide world, Chuck Nice. Chuck, take it.

• 16:09Chuck Nice?

  Here we go. Uh, this is from Andy Bracken on Facebook, and Andy says this. "Greetings, Bill, from Columbus, Ohio." How difficult would it be to switch from one material to another, uh, AG going from PVC plastic to steel in the middle of a 3D printing process because those are the components needed to make the item?

• 16:32Bill Nye?

  Well, it's being proposed, Andy. Instead of, you may not feed the plastic through the same head or dispenserizer machine as you do the steel, but you'd have multiple heads. This is all solvable.

• 16:47Chuck Nice?

  Like a, like a soda gun at a bar?

• 16:49Bill Nye?

  Yes, exactly. Not that you would know.

• 16:51Chuck Nice?

  No, cuz you never see those places.

• 16:54Bill Nye?

  No, you've never been to a bar, but, but you've read stories on the electric internet.

• 16:59Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's a fabled tale.

• 17:00Bill Nye?

  Yes, or maybe the occasional movie. So the, uh, that would be the idea. That's not that hard. In the same way, um, there are, uh, 3D printers that use different colored plastic.

• 17:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:14Bill Nye?

  All at once. So you have different heads that feed the plastic.

• 17:16Chuck Nice?

  So those heads would rotate or change?

• 17:18Bill Nye?

  Yes, what I presume is not, not a robot maker guy person, but, uh, with an interest. It seems like a very reasonable thing to do, but there, let me emphasize, there has to be a good reason to do it. You know, these things operate at different temperatures.

• 17:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:34Bill Nye?

  And so, uh, you, you may not, you don't want to melt the first thing with the second thing.

• 17:40Chuck Nice?

  Second thing, right. So now how far are we in terms of our, um, I'll, I'll say molecular manipulation of plastic, uh, to get to the place where you can just make plastic that mimics different types of metals?

• 17:55Bill Nye?

  That's our dream, man. That's what we do all day. You're, you're, I'm sure you're referring to polysulfone.

• 18:00Chuck Nice?

  Yes, of course.

• 18:01Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 18:02Chuck Nice?

  Well, I mean, what else would I have been referring to?

• 18:04Bill Nye?

  No, some plastics are nearly as strong as steel nowadays.

• 18:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:08Bill Nye?

  Especially the ones that you can get glass in, uh, glass fibers or, the other thing we all want to do is orient the fibers.

• 18:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 18:18Bill Nye?

  Follow me?

• 18:19Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I got you what you're saying there.

• 18:20Bill Nye?

  So, uh, you know, uh, plywood has grain that's oriented in 90 degree angles almost always for strength. And so. Ingots that come out of a steel mill or an aluminum mill have a strength that's different in this direction versus that direction.

• 18:37Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 18:38Bill Nye?

  As the way they're extruded or drawn out. And then the same is absolutely true of plastics. So you'd want to be able to exploit that.

• 18:44Chuck Nice?

  That's so funny that you just said that. I used to, uh, work in a position where I had to do some stuff with fabrics and...

• 18:52Bill Nye?

  That is the funniest thing I've ever heard.

• 18:54Chuck Nice?

  (laughing)

• 18:56Bill Nye?

  What sort of fab... Were you doing it on... Were you doing it on the Bible? On the bias? On the Bible? On the bias?

• 19:02Chuck Nice?

  Cutting on the bias.

• 19:03Bill Nye?

  You were cutting on the bias.

• 19:05Chuck Nice?

  Look at you with your fashion, uh, uh, terminology. Knowing your fashion terminology.

• 19:09Bill Nye?

  You were just in my mind's head. We were just at the soda gun at the bar.

• 19:14Chuck Nice?

  And then all of a sudden we're transported.

• 19:16Bill Nye?

  No, no. Well, you may have noticed that there's often fibers in those clear hoses.

• 19:20Chuck Nice?

  Yes, there is.

• 19:21Bill Nye?

  Those fibers are oriented to maximize the strength. And speaking of maximizing the strength, we're maximizing the fun here on StarTalk Radio. We'll be back right after this.

• 19:33Bill Nye?

  Chuck, you know, this is a very exciting time here at StarTalk Radio because this is a maker edition.

• 19:38Chuck Nice?

  Yes, it is.

• 19:38Bill Nye?

  It's right brought to you by Google.

• 19:40Chuck Nice?

  That's correct.

• 19:40Bill Nye?

  Don't forget, making science with google.com.

• 19:43Chuck Nice?

  That's where you go.

• 19:44Bill Nye?

  You can get involved in the whole maker vibe.

• 19:47Chuck Nice?

  (laughing)

• 19:49Bill Nye?

  What's another... We got another query.

• 19:50Chuck Nice?

  Yes, we do have another query. Let's, uh, let's read this one from Tom Ricks from Facebook. Tom Ricks? Tom Ricks from Facebook would like to know this. He says, "Bill Nye the Science Guy."

• 20:02Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 20:03Chuck Nice?

  "How long do you think it will be before we can print a 3D agricultural crop in order to reduce CO2 emissions and water consumption? We have all the ingredients, right?" So he's talking about, forget going to space and printing something, can we print something here and now, namely, food?

• 20:25Bill Nye?

  Yeah, I thought he wanted to print a crop.

• 20:27Chuck Nice?

  He does. He wants to...

• 20:28Bill Nye?

  That's pretty aggressive.

• 20:28Chuck Nice?

  He wants to, uh, "our agricultural crops in order to reduce CO2 emissions and water consumption," which is, which is very important.

• 20:37Bill Nye?

  So, Tom, I've, I think I follow you, but you're, you want, if I understand this, you want to eat a 3D printed plant?

• 20:45Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 20:46Bill Nye?

  So you, I mean, right at our current state of the art, you're going to be eating plastic. Okay.

• 20:51Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that doesn't work.

• 20:52Bill Nye?

  Why would you put the crop out in the sun if it's 3D printed and stuff like that? So, we may have, uh, once again, if I can use the verb, conflated a couple ideas. Very reasonable that you'll be able to 3D print beads that hold water in the soil.

• 21:10Chuck Nice?

  Uh-huh.

• 21:11Bill Nye?

  Right, so that there's less evaporation. That's very reasonable to me, or maybe even a, a mat for planting your crops akin to, uh, mulch? Plastic mulch, do you know what I mean? Are you hip to mulch?

• 21:23Chuck Nice?

  Traps the moisture.

• 21:24Bill Nye?

  Yeah, yeah, and keeps weeds from coming through.

• 21:27Chuck Nice?

  The moisture doesn't evaporate back into the atmosphere.

• 21:29Bill Nye?

  Right, but you don't want to have it too sealed up, then you get fungi of various brands.

• 21:35Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 21:35Bill Nye?

  So, I think I know what you're driving.

• 21:37Chuck Nice?

  I'm talking about the inside of my sneakers.

• 21:39Bill Nye?

  Oh, that's a lot of information, Chuck. So, we, I think I know what you're driving at. We would have custom-made mulch mats to plant our crops in, and they could be 3D printed, the mulch mats.

• 21:50Chuck Nice?

  So, there is an application, uh, you know, his idea may have been slightly askew, but there is an application for 3D printing in agricultural.

• 21:57Bill Nye?

  Oh, man, heavens, yes, just like, suppose you, one of the things you gotta learn, I think, as a farmer, is welding. This is to say, when stuff breaks, those people are continually repairing things.

• 22:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 22:10Bill Nye?

  Discs and harrows and things.

• 22:12Chuck Nice?

  You know what, now, see, what you just said there just, uh, struck in me a little chord because it seems like every movie or television show that you watch, where the people are out on a farm, and they're like, have all these acres around them. Anything that breaks, they immediately start to go in and fix it. The tractor breaks, they fix, you never see them call somebody.

• 22:35Bill Nye?

  Tractor Co.

• 22:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. They fix everything.

• 22:39Bill Nye?

  Farm, farm guy skills, I guess, farm gal skills, and, uh, so it's very reasonable that you would have. 3D printers for farm equipment and and so what I'm imagining in the not too long future Chuck, not that it's all about Bill and his imagination, we're responding to, is it Tom's question?

• 22:54Chuck Nice?

  This is, yes, Tom Ricks.

• 22:56Bill Nye?

  Yes. Uh, that I'm imagining a time when something breaks into your house or your apartment and instead of ordering the spare part and having it shipped to you, you go down to the spiritual equivalent of FedEx Kinko's or Staples.

• 23:12Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:13Bill Nye?

  And at that place, they make you a new part.

• 23:16Chuck Nice?

  Just make-

• 23:17Bill Nye?

  Their big 3D printer, which they have air cooled and is large and very accurate. You don't have to have one at home.

• 23:22Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:23Bill Nye?

  And then in the same way, certain gearheads keep a collection of wrenches around.

• 23:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:29Bill Nye?

  There'll be certain gearhead type people that have a 3D printer at home. I know guys with milling machines and lathes at home. So there'll be that sort of culture. I can understand it, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are big ones someday in the not too distant future for repairing farm equipment. Sure.

• 23:44Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 23:45Bill Nye?

  Bring it on.

• 23:46Chuck Nice?

  But you don't want to eat what it's, what's printed.

• 23:48Bill Nye?

  That's what threw me off a little. Probably not.

• 23:50Chuck Nice?

  The, the application is mo- mostly for assisting in-

• 23:53Bill Nye?

  But I can imagine 3D printing some candy, right?

• 23:58Chuck Nice?

  Yes, because you can melt the sugar.

• 24:01Bill Nye?

  Heck, and then why not-

• 24:02Chuck Nice?

  The same way like glass and you print out some-

• 24:03Bill Nye?

  Some 3D printed seaweed. I mean, I, it seems very re- sea plant, seems very reasonable, but uh, why you would do that rather than growing plants directly, okay, I have to think it through, but that's a cool question, Tom.

• 24:15Chuck Nice?

  So Tom, cool question and the answer is candy. You'll be able to print candy. Mmm, candy.

• 24:24Bill Nye?

  There's a 3D printer handy and it's gonna be dandy. Okay. Wide, citizen of the wide world Chuck, what's our next query?

• 24:32Chuck Nice?

  Here we go. Uh, now, this might be another conflation, however, I know where he is coming from and this is uh, Jason Harvey, uh, coming to us from Twitter and Jason would like to know this. Can we 3D print an animal?

• 24:50Chuck Nice?

  And then, and then it, then he goes a little crazy and then started up with an electric shock. It's alive. It's alive.

• 25:02Bill Nye?

  The citizens, the towns, the villagers.

• 25:07Chuck Nice?

  Why are they out there with pitchforks and?

• 25:10Bill Nye?

  They just don't trust the doc. Oh. Doc Frankenstein. So everybody.

• 25:14Chuck Nice?

  Wanted to pet the rabbit.

• 25:15Bill Nye?

  It's very reasonable to me that, uh, people will be able to 3D print someday DNA. You'd make a synthetic organism.

• 25:23Chuck Nice?

  Holy crap.

• 25:24Bill Nye?

  Whether you'd build a whole woolly mammoth from scratch from a 3D printer, that might be harder.

• 25:28Chuck Nice?

  But that's a little mind blowing what you're saying right there.

• 25:30Bill Nye?

  I'm just saying it because people are talking about it.

• 25:33Chuck Nice?

  So, and you don't mean like a model of the 3D?

• 25:36Bill Nye?

  I'm making a virus from a molecular machine printer, gizmo.

• 25:40Chuck Nice?

  Holy crap.

• 25:41Bill Nye?

  And then making a, a single cell.

• 25:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:44Bill Nye?

  And then fusing it and having it grow into a mammoth or a chuck.

• 25:50Chuck Nice?

  Believe me, you went the mammoth before you went the chuck.

• 25:52Bill Nye?

  No, no, I, I believe you.

• 25:55Bill Nye?

  You didn't lose me. I don't think I'm alone. This is another one of these things where I would like to talk it over with Chuck's wife. I bring it up every show.

• 26:04Chuck Nice?

  Oh, believe me, she is.

• 26:06Bill Nye?

  She would prefer a mammoth.

• 26:07Chuck Nice?

  She would prefer a mammoth over another chuck, that's for sure.

• 26:10Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 26:11Chuck Nice?

  And probably much easier to care for.

• 26:13Bill Nye?

  Yes. Yes. Lower maintenance.

• 26:15Chuck Nice?

  Lower maintenance.

• 26:16Bill Nye?

  More logical.

• 26:17Chuck Nice?

  And probably sheds less than I do.

• 26:20Bill Nye?

  Uh, can't hear you. Lot of information. Uh, a little too much, Chuck. Okay.

• 26:26Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go.

• 26:28Bill Nye?

  Cool question, Jason. All right, lead on.

• 26:30Chuck Nice?

  Very cool question, and I have to tell you that I am just slightly disturbed by the 3D printing of DNA.

• 26:36Bill Nye?

  It's very, it's not crazy. It's reasonable.

• 26:39Chuck Nice?

  Has the ability to proliferate.

• 26:41Bill Nye?

  Well, that's, look at us. We start from a single cell.

• 26:44Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you're right.

• 26:47Bill Nye?

  And don't tell me you haven't held a single cell, an egg. A chicken egg is a single cell.

• 26:52Chuck Nice?

  You know, I never thought of it that way, but you're right.

• 26:54Bill Nye?

  It's a cool thing of, of which to think.

• 26:56Chuck Nice?

  Yes. I don't think we're as delicious in our nascent stages.

• 26:59Bill Nye?

  Can't hear you. Uh, all good. Can't hear you.

• 27:04Bill Nye?

  Try another one, just a couple of minutes left in this segment.

• 27:07Chuck Nice?

  Let's move on. Okay, here we go.

• 27:12Chuck Nice?

  This is from Ian Landy from at Technolandy on Twitter. Any thoughts on if any age is too young to try Makerspaces and 3D printing? I had my kids do hour, an hour of code. I, I don't, I don't, I'm not sure.

• 27:31Bill Nye?

  An hour of code, a code hour.

• 27:33Chuck Nice?

  A code hour. Okay, I don't know what that is.

• 27:35Bill Nye?

  That's fine. I don't see, if a kid is into it, I don't think you can have any trouble. Just how much plastic do you want to waste? Or how embarrassed are you willing to be when the kid makes this fabulous thing that you never thought of? So if your children, if your kids are able to run a 3D printer and write code for an hour, I mean, more power to them. Now, in general, I'm sure Ian's kids are exceptional.

• 28:00Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 28:01Bill Nye?

  Cause all of our StarTalk listeners are way above average.

• 28:05Chuck Nice?

  They're pretty up there, yes. I have to say.

• 28:06Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 28:07Chuck Nice?

  StarTalk, the average StarTalk listener is far above average when...

• 28:11Bill Nye?

  How do you know that? I was trying to make a joke.

• 28:14Chuck Nice?

  No, I'm serious.

• 28:15Bill Nye?

  I was really going for it.

• 28:15Chuck Nice?

  I'm serious.

• 28:16Bill Nye?

  Get over yourselves, talkers.

• 28:18Chuck Nice?

  I talk to them on Twitter all the time. A lot of them have like words like doctor before their name, stuff like that, you know?

• 28:24Bill Nye?

  Alright, well, who knows what controversy I've gotten myself into with these offhand DNA musings.

• 28:31Chuck Nice?

  All I can tell you is this, we live in a country where children are allowed to play with guns legally. So, like they're passing legislation to say that it's okay for children to shoot guns at ranges. So I don't see where 3D print, hey, better yet, why don't you get your kids to 3D print a working firearm?

• 28:48Bill Nye?

  No, that's been done, Chuck. Oh yeah, yeah, that's been done. Oh yeah, that, that program exists online.

• 28:53Chuck Nice?

  Oh, stop it.

• 28:54Bill Nye?

  Yeah, you can download it.

• 28:55Chuck Nice?

  Oh, come on.

• 28:56Bill Nye?

  But you need a printer that works, you know, accurately enough.

• 28:58Chuck Nice?

  Oh, you're killing me.

• 28:59Bill Nye?

  Uh, I hope not. But yeah.

• 29:02Chuck Nice?

  You're killing me with your 3D gun?

• 29:04Bill Nye?

  Yeah, so the...

• 29:04Chuck Nice?

  Are you for real? You can, there are no laws? Wait a minute, Bill, I'm really upset here. There are no laws to stop you from printing a firearm with a 3D printer?

• 29:13Bill Nye?

  As far as I know, not, maybe they're proposed, but even if there were laws, Chuck, this is the electric internet. All the kids are using it. So it could be transmitted around. The thing is, you need the material and you still need bullets and all that stuff, so.

• 29:26Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god.

• 29:27Bill Nye?

  Deep breath.

• 29:27Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so here is Derek Maddox.

• 29:31Bill Nye?

  Derek.

• 29:32Chuck Nice?

  And Derek comes to us from Twitter. Derek says this, "Do you think we'll ever be able to 3D print organs efficiently enough to end the need for donors?" Now, I have actually read, uh...

• 29:47Bill Nye?

  You can read.

• 29:49Chuck Nice?

  I, you know what, believe it or not, it's, it's, and really, okay, somebody read it to me.

• 29:53Bill Nye?

  No, by the way, everybody, for you, if you're out there, Chuck is quite the science geek. He reads quite a bit of this stuff.

• 30:01Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, let's, let's.

• 30:02Bill Nye?

  But you're about to revel-ivate us, uh, give us a revelation of that.

• 30:06Chuck Nice?

  No, I read this great article, I believe it was in Scientific American, and, and it was talking about the actual printing of organs.

• 30:13Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 30:13Chuck Nice?

  And, um, and the way they did it was somehow they infused the DNA from the person that they're, uh, going to implant the organ so that you don't have a rejection.

• 30:23Bill Nye?

  That's right.

• 30:23Chuck Nice?

  Like you would with an.

• 30:24Bill Nye?

  Same DNA.

• 30:24Chuck Nice?

  Is that, so, so.

• 30:25Bill Nye?

  That's the plan. That's my understanding. That's the deal. And then you would grow them from the right number of, so, in the case, the classic is a liver, which apparently is, uh, if you're gonna do this, it's a good place to start.

• 30:38Chuck Nice?

  Liver.

• 30:38Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 30:39Chuck Nice?

  Is, is that because the liver self-generates anyway?

• 30:41Bill Nye?

  I guess, and also the way it is, um, the way its blood vessels run, the way, it's not enerved. It's like that. The way the, um, the blood vessels would somehow self-organize. I'm not an expert on this, and that's when we're gonna get all this mail because I spoke offhandedly. No, but I've heard that that's the one, a good place to start.

• 31:02Chuck Nice?

  Is with the liver.

• 31:02Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 31:03Chuck Nice?

  So the answer, Derek, is yes, and yes, we will be, uh, 3D printing organs and one day efficiently enough where we won't need donors.

• 31:13Bill Nye?

  Yeah, well, the big thing you won't need is, not only that, you won't need, uh, anti-rejection drugs, which you alluded to earlier, which would be huge, be huge.

• 31:20Chuck Nice?

  So now, does that, wow.

• 31:22Bill Nye?

  Does that mean we're living just at the wrong time?

• 31:24Chuck Nice?

  That's what I was about to ask.

• 31:25Bill Nye?

  You missed it by that much.

• 31:27Chuck Nice?

  That I'm getting screwed by the fact that I'm here?

• 31:30Bill Nye?

  But you got three kids.

• 31:31Chuck Nice?

  Y- yeah.

• 31:32Bill Nye?

  So your genes are going into the future.

• 31:34Chuck Nice?

  My genes are going into the future. I'm not worried about my genes. I'm more worried about me.

• 31:37Bill Nye?

  Well.

• 31:38Chuck Nice?

  And, and speaking of liver, hey.

• 31:40Bill Nye?

  You're just saying.

• 31:42Chuck Nice?

  I'm just saying.

• 31:42Bill Nye?

  You work a nightclub. You're just saying. Flows for free for you.

• 31:47Chuck Nice?

  There you go, man.

• 31:49Bill Nye?

  No, I've not, I don't want to change the subject too far, but I've known people that have got in trouble with alcohol because they were comics that got free drinks or, yeah.

• 31:57Chuck Nice?

  Well, you know, you have to, you have to be cognizant. As a matter of fact, I have, I know we're off, a little off topic.

• 32:03Bill Nye?

  Just a little.

• 32:04Chuck Nice?

  Just a little off topic.

• 32:04Bill Nye?

  Us?

• 32:05Chuck Nice?

  You know, but, but I have to say that, uh, one of the things that I had to stop doing, because I work in a club most nights and I drink for free everywhere I go, was I had to make it a rule that when I'm working, I don't drink. Because otherwise, otherwise drinking became part of my job as opposed to the, uh, the social activity that it should be.

• 32:27Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 32:28Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 32:28Bill Nye?

  Well, with all that said, let's get back to the special edition.

• 32:32Chuck Nice?

  That we're all here for.

• 32:33Bill Nye?

  The maker edition.

• 32:34Chuck Nice?

  Brought to you by Google and, and.

• 32:36Bill Nye?

  What's the website?

• 32:37Chuck Nice?

  And make sure you check out making with google.com.

• 32:40Bill Nye?

  So we're making.

• 32:41Chuck Nice?

  Making.

• 32:41Bill Nye?

  This is the maker edition.

• 32:42Chuck Nice?

  That's what it is.

• 32:43Bill Nye?

  Give me another query.

• 32:44Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. A lot of people really are in love with this 3D printing stuff, man.

• 32:49Bill Nye?

  And that's all it's been.

• 32:50Chuck Nice?

  This is Jesse, uh, uh, from Twitter. Um, here's the deal. Hey, Bill, will doctors be able to 3D print medical tools? And specific parts like replacement joints for the body? And I, I guess she's thinking like in the time when we colonized someplace.

• 33:11Bill Nye?

  I gotta say categorically, yes, absolutely yes. I saw a presentation by a NASA engineer about this. And she's got it down. This is what we do. We're gonna make your, your hemostats.

• 33:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:24Bill Nye?

  Little clampy wamps for shutting off blood vessels while you're surgorizing.

• 33:29Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:29Bill Nye?

  We're gonna make, uh, scissors, scalpels, all kinds of clamps and happiness.

• 33:34Chuck Nice?

  You could make a scalpel, uh, out of plastic that.

• 33:38Bill Nye?

  Oh, no, you'd make it out of metal, no, no.

• 33:40Chuck Nice?

  So you, right, like we talked about at another time.

• 33:42Bill Nye?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or maybe just put a metal edge on it, or maybe make it out of some modern plastic that's good enough for a few slices.

• 33:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:50Bill Nye?

  She's wore it out.

• 33:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:51Bill Nye?

  Then you melt it down and make another one.

• 33:52Chuck Nice?

  Another one. Jesse, great question, and the answer is categorically yes. Fantastic. Let us move on.

• 34:05Chuck Nice?

  Pardon me, I'm gonna look for something a little different. Here we go.

• 34:09Bill Nye?

  You're thumbing?

• 34:09Chuck Nice?

  Here we are. Uh, this is Israel, uh, Geron.

• 34:14Bill Nye?

  Israel Geron.

• 34:15Chuck Nice?

  Is- Israel Geron, uh, from Twitter, uh, says, hello from Marana, Arizona. Never heard of it.

• 34:24Bill Nye?

  Well, it's in, Arizona's in the US.

• 34:26Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay, good.

• 34:31Bill Nye?

  All right.

• 34:31Chuck Nice?

  As an educator, what are the benefits of having people flex their brains in creating something rather than purchasing something? So this one-

• 34:40Bill Nye?

  No, there's no benefit at all.

• 34:41Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 34:42Bill Nye?

  I'm kidding, of course. It's rhetorical question city. No, the whole thing we want is hands-on interaction. Yes, make things. Become not just a scientist like what's his name? Neil Tyson.

• 34:56Chuck Nice?

  That Tyson, the brass Tyson guy.

• 34:57Bill Nye?

  Become an engineer, make stuff. Use science to solve problems and make things.

• 35:02Chuck Nice?

  Got you. So, uh, there's your-

• 35:04Bill Nye?

  Chuck, the guy, you got to, to, to this rhetorical question city there.

• 35:09Chuck Nice?

  Well, you know, I, I, I think that is. You're, you're right. That is rhetorical.

• 35:13Bill Nye?

  So I'm gonna follow- Let's follow it up.

• 35:15Chuck Nice?

  I'm not, I'm gonna follow up with this, with, well, so, uh, same, same person says, so we've seen examples of 3D printing of mechanical parts. What are the prospects of 3D printing? Now, listen, chemical compounds. So-

• 35:32Bill Nye?

  Well, this is very reasonable to me.

• 35:34Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 35:34Bill Nye?

  Yeah, I mean, are you hip that when you buy polyethylene for commercial applications, you're gonna make a conveyor belt with pla- plastic rollers or something? Or a slide or?

• 35:45Chuck Nice?

  No, I'm not-

• 35:46Bill Nye?

  You can imagine.

• 35:47Chuck Nice?

  I can imagine that, yeah.

• 35:48Bill Nye?

  Anyway, you specify the plastic by its molecular weight.

• 35:52Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 35:53Bill Nye?

  There's this ultra-high molecular weight, very high molecular weight, and they they can infer how many carbon atoms are strung together in a chain of carbon atoms.

• 36:02Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 36:02Bill Nye?

  For example. So I can imagine a day where you're planting individual atoms onto molecules, and then if it were the kind of molecule you wanted, and you could get it to grow again like a crystal.

• 36:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 36:14Bill Nye?

  You would have all of the molecules you would uh want to interact with. I mean, I can imagine this.

• 36:20Chuck Nice?

  That's cool.

• 36:21Bill Nye?

  Well, it's cool, but I mean, I haven't really done it, Chuck. I'm jamming here.

• 36:24Chuck Nice?

  I mean, just the-

• 36:25Bill Nye?

  Bill and I, the science fiction radio host.

• 36:27Chuck Nice?

  But that is science fiction within the realm of reason.

• 36:31Bill Nye?

  Very reasonable, very reasonable, yeah.

• 36:33Chuck Nice?

  Okay, that's very cool. Look at that. That not two very good questions from Israel. I appreciate them. Let's move on. Uh.

• 36:44Chuck Nice?

  Boy, you guys with these names, I tell you, these names. Sylvan Air. Sylvan Air wants to know this. Is there any food that a 3D printer would be able to make? I'm picturing the precursor to the Star Trek replicator. So now in Star Trek, they, you know, Captain Picard will go here. T, Earl Grey, hot.

• 37:10Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 37:10Chuck Nice?

  Boom.

• 37:11Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 37:11Chuck Nice?

  Would it just appear?

• 37:12Bill Nye?

  Yes, uh, so I want to caution you, Chuck. That show is not real.

• 37:16Chuck Nice?

  Now I don't know what to believe! Damn your bells!

• 37:22Bill Nye?

  So, when you manufacture food, you know, there's a whole thing in the business. They talk about the taste, but they also talk about the mouth feel.

• 37:31Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 37:32Bill Nye?

  And I would not be surprised, and there's a product now called Soylent, which is based on soylent.

• 37:37Chuck Nice?

  Did you say Soylent?

• 37:38Bill Nye?

  Yeah, based on the-

• 37:39Chuck Nice?

  Soylent?

• 37:39Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 37:40Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 37:40Bill Nye?

  Isn't that the product?

• 37:41Chuck Nice?

  I don't know!

• 37:42Bill Nye?

  Yeah, it's the, it's the food of the future. It's a billboard, yeah. Yeah, well, so I could imagine people, well, you eat candy bars.

• 37:49Chuck Nice?

  I do, every once in a while.

• 37:51Bill Nye?

  Yeah, oh, you've seen them.

• 37:52Chuck Nice?

  Three times a year, I'll eat a candy-

• 37:53Bill Nye?

  Yes, uh, maybe you've had some- Uh, peanut brittle.

• 37:58Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I have.

• 37:58Bill Nye?

  Just the brittle part.

• 37:59Chuck Nice?

  The brittle part.

• 38:00Bill Nye?

  You've had caramel.

• 38:01Chuck Nice?

  Yes, without a doubt.

• 38:02Bill Nye?

  Okay, that's just, uh, can you imagine a machine that would make some fantastic, fantastically delicious thing?

• 38:09Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:09Bill Nye?

  That would have a good mouth feel.

• 38:11Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:12Bill Nye?

  And would not be natural, it wouldn't be recognizable from something in nature.

• 38:16Chuck Nice?

  See, no, I cannot imagine that.

• 38:18Bill Nye?

  Would be, you know, Chuck's Food Bar.

• 38:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I don't want-

• 38:21Bill Nye?

  Chuck's Delicious Green Bar.

• 38:24Chuck Nice?

  I don't want anyone eating Chuck's Food Bar.

• 38:27Bill Nye?

  Well, what if it had a lovely woman's name? What if it was Malia's Delicious Food Bar?

• 38:33Chuck Nice?

  All right, I'm interested.

• 38:34Bill Nye?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:34Chuck Nice?

  I'm, I gotta tell you the truth, I'm interested in it.

• 38:36Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 38:37Chuck Nice?

  I don't know what you just did there, Bill.

• 38:38Bill Nye?

  It would be the shape, various shapes are possible.

• 38:40Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 38:41Bill Nye?

  Anyway, so this is quite possible, I can easily imagine printed food. You've been listening to Star Talk, I, I'm Bill Nye, your host, and I'm here with citizen of the world Chuck Nice, we'll be back right after this.

• 38:54Bill Nye?

  Welcome, welcome, welcome to Star Talk Radio Cosmic Queries, this is a special edition Chuck.

• 39:00Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 39:00Bill Nye?

  This is the maker edition, it's brought to you by Google.

• 39:03Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 39:04Bill Nye?

  And if you're listening, and I believe you are, uh, when you get where you have access to the internet, check out their website at makingsciencewithgoogle.com.

• 39:13Chuck Nice?

  Nice, no other way to make science as far as I'm concerned.

• 39:16Bill Nye?

  With Google?

• 39:17Chuck Nice?

  That's the only way to do it.

• 39:18Bill Nye?

  Okay, I'm sure you're right, uh, there are no competitors, it's all good. No, this is Star Talk, and we got queries from you, you have enquired, and by long tradition, our worldwide citizen Chuck Nice.

• 39:31Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 39:31Bill Nye?

  Will read your queries.

• 39:33Chuck Nice?

  I-

• 39:34Bill Nye?

  And he and I will comment insightfully.

• 39:36Chuck Nice?

  Indeed, one of us will, that'll be you.

• 39:39Bill Nye?

  All right, we'll try it.

• 39:40Chuck Nice?

  The other one will just read them.

• 39:42Bill Nye?

  That's you.

• 39:42Chuck Nice?

  That's me, okay, here we go, um, this one coming to us from, um, Necro7 on Twitter.

• 39:49Bill Nye?

  Necro, a little troubling.

• 39:51Chuck Nice?

  Necro7.

• 39:52Bill Nye?

  Little troubling.

• 39:52Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 39:53Bill Nye?

  All right, and it's Necro, what does he or she have to say?

• 39:56Chuck Nice?

  Says, "How would you compare the effects of accessible 3D printing today to the effects of the printing press in the early Renaissance?"

• 40:08Bill Nye?

  Uh, I don't think it'll be quite as influential, the printing press was a big thing.

• 40:13Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 40:13Bill Nye?

  However, 3D printing's absolutely the future, and I talk about this all the time, um- I'm imagining where we're making, you know, maybe I am wrong, as is so often the case. We use the term in mechanical engineering additive manufacture.

• 40:28Chuck Nice?

  Additive manufacture.

• 40:29Bill Nye?

  That's what 3D printing is.

• 40:30Chuck Nice?

  That's 3D what?

• 40:31Bill Nye?

  And but you know, when you think of, you know, this word machining.

• 40:33Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 40:34Bill Nye?

  Where you cut material, yeah, you make a screw, you cut the metal away.

• 40:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:38Bill Nye?

  Or what have you. So this could revolutionize all that we know and love.

• 40:42Chuck Nice?

  So you could possibly at one point envision a world where you just 3D print everything?

• 40:48Bill Nye?

  Everything would be custom made. There wouldn't be anything adjustable. Everything would be made perfectly.

• 40:52Chuck Nice?

  No, when I think about the economic repercussions of such a thing.

• 40:57Bill Nye?

  Belts wouldn't even have more than one hole. The belt would be made and there'd be a single hole for your waist.

• 41:03Chuck Nice?

  Well, that's it. You've sold me.

• 41:04Bill Nye?

  No, but I mean, I can imagine it easily. Yeah. And so you go to the store and there's designers there. I'm thinking about fashion now, fashion. You go to the store and they custom make it for you and they almost sort of do that with Neal's suits.

• 41:19Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 41:20Bill Nye?

  He gets them multi-measured at multi-measure.com and then they fit him better. And so I could easily imagine that the future, everything is customly 3D printed. Yes, you were saying you started to go

• 41:31Chuck Nice?

  Well, no.

• 41:32Bill Nye?

  Wide world on us worldwide.

• 41:33Chuck Nice?

  I'm thinking like, what do you do with all the jobs of people who were making the screw?

• 41:42Bill Nye?

  Everybody's got to make the printers.

• 41:44Chuck Nice?

  So all those people are now just making printers?

• 41:46Bill Nye?

  Well, or they're doing other wonderful, productive, artistic, wonderful, life-enhancing things. Thinking deep thoughts about how to make better printers, how to design new things. Everybody becomes a designer. Everybody's a designer. Everybody custom makes everything. Come on.

• 42:02Chuck Nice?

  It's a scary world.

• 42:03Bill Nye?

  Cheer it up, Chuck.

• 42:07Chuck Nice?

  I'm going to say that, uh, yeah, because where I see this going is

• 42:11Bill Nye?

  Let me just ask you about that sentence. I'm gonna say, uh, yeah.

• 42:15Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 42:16Bill Nye?

  Can you expand on that just ever so?

• 42:18Chuck Nice?

  Right here, just a little bit. 3D printers, making 3D printers, and now we're done. Now, nobody works anymore.

• 42:25Bill Nye?

  Well, but who's shoveling the coal? That is to say, who's making the electricity? Somebody's gonna have to do something.

• 42:31Chuck Nice?

  Somebody's gotta do something.

• 42:31Bill Nye?

  Somewhere.

• 42:32Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 42:32Bill Nye?

  Notice that People are as busy as ever. You know, you say, what did they do in the good old days? They churned milk, they grew crops, they tilled the soil, they got rid of the weeds, what have you. People has not led to a life of leisure.

• 42:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:48Bill Nye?

  You wash the dishes automatically while you're doing a bunch of other stuff now.

• 42:51Chuck Nice?

  Right. Okay.

• 42:53Bill Nye?

  Humans are busy, busy humans.

• 42:56Chuck Nice?

  Okay, alright, I'm gonna go with you.

• 42:58Bill Nye?

  Like bees, only humans.

• 43:00Chuck Nice?

  Alright, let's get to another question. This one from Twitter says, uh...

• 43:04Bill Nye?

  Does it have a name, Twitter?

• 43:06Chuck Nice?

  No, just Twitter. And...

• 43:08Bill Nye?

  Twitter's on Twitter.

• 43:09Chuck Nice?

  Twitter is on Twitter.

• 43:09Bill Nye?

  Somebody secured that name early on, yes, so hello Twitter.

• 43:13Chuck Nice?

  I would love to get that name, that'd be my Twitter handle.

• 43:16Bill Nye?

  No, you wouldn't, it wouldn't say Chuck.

• 43:18Chuck Nice?

  It would say @Twitter though, and everybody would know that that's me.

• 43:21Bill Nye?

  You're the man.

• 43:22Chuck Nice?

  Everybody would have @Twitter, everybody would have that.

• 43:25Bill Nye?

  You'd figure you'd have a lot of followers, and that would lead to a pay raise.

• 43:29Chuck Nice?

  Right. Because that's what you gotta do nowadays to get a pay raise.

• 43:32Bill Nye?

  That's what I'm saying to you, so Twitter has a question.

• 43:34Chuck Nice?

  Twitter wants to know this. How does 3D printed materials, carbon footprint, or other environmental strain metric compare to that of manufactured products? So, uh, is it on equal footing? Is it a less of a carbon footprint?

• 43:51Bill Nye?

  Maybe less footprint. If you could efficiently ship the material to where you need it, and then manufacture in situ, then you wouldn't have all the bulky... Like, for example, I'm looking here in the studio at a stool, or a sofa.

• 44:04Chuck Nice?

  Sofa.

• 44:05Bill Nye?

  The packing for those things is large.

• 44:07Chuck Nice?

  True.

• 44:08Bill Nye?

  If they could be manufactured closer to where they're being used.

• 44:12Chuck Nice?

  No need for it.

• 44:13Bill Nye?

  You'd have probably more efficient shipping of the raw materials.

• 44:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:17Bill Nye?

  You know what I mean, you wouldn't have that volume, just in these couple examples looking around the room here.

• 44:21Chuck Nice?

  So now, do you think that, uh, it might lead to a more disposable world?

• 44:27Bill Nye?

  Or a more recyclable world.

• 44:29Chuck Nice?

  Ooh.

• 44:32Bill Nye?

  The couch is made of magic plastic that you just melt down and make into a new stool, or ottoman, or settee, or headboard.

• 44:40Chuck Nice?

  So the real...

• 44:41Bill Nye?

  Or even dresser drawer.

• 44:46Bill Nye?

  Just doing a furniture thing.

• 44:49Bill Nye?

  So you were saying, or maybe a mattress.

• 44:52Chuck Nice?

  So the idea is you would have to make materials that can be used again and again.

• 44:57Bill Nye?

  Well, I mean, it's certainly reasonable. I mean, the 3D printed plastic that we're using now is melt downable.

• 45:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 45:03Bill Nye?

  If I can coin that adjective.

• 45:06Chuck Nice?

  I love when you get all sciency on me like that. It's

• 45:09Bill Nye?

  It's just, it's nibonic.

• 45:12Bill Nye?

  Melt downable.

• 45:13Chuck Nice?

  Okay, let's move on.

• 45:17Bill Nye?

  Moving on.

• 45:19Chuck Nice?

  Kevin.

• 45:19Bill Nye?

  Cosmic queries maker edition.

• 45:21Chuck Nice?

  Kevin S. from Twitter.

• 45:22Bill Nye?

  Kevin.

• 45:23Chuck Nice?

  Kevin S. wants to know this. What's the strength of 3D printed metal parts cast, forged, or billet of the same material? So if you, if you got it strewn out of this little head.

• 45:37Bill Nye?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 45:38Chuck Nice?

  Can it be as strong?

• 45:40Bill Nye?

  I'm not an expert on that.

• 45:41Chuck Nice?

  Die cast or something that's forged or?

• 45:43Bill Nye?

  I'm not an expert on that, but I will say this. I saw a wrench made and it was a little oversized, I think for stiffness.

• 45:50Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 45:51Bill Nye?

  And sintered parts. These are parts made from powder that are, is fused together, melted essentially. Those aren't as strong, but they have other properties. In the, in the example of sintering, they hold oil for a bearing or whatever. That has an advantage.

• 46:05Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 46:06Bill Nye?

  So I could easily imagine a secondary operation where you roll or press or smash the 3D printed part or additively manufactured part to give it strength. I could easily imagine that. And I guess as a host of StarTalk Radio, I should know more about that and I will make a note to learn that.

• 46:29Chuck Nice?

  All right. Well, there you have it.

• 46:31Bill Nye?

  But as a mechanical engineer, I can imagine the secondary operation of smashing to work harden it, to give it strength.

• 46:37Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 46:38Bill Nye?

  You know how you can't straighten out a paperclip very easily?

• 46:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:41Bill Nye?

  Because after you bend it.

• 46:43Chuck Nice?

  Now you have to.

• 46:44Bill Nye?

  It's called work hardening. You've done work on it and it, it gets stiff. It's the nature of the grains of metal.

• 46:50Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 46:51Bill Nye?

  So very reasonable that you'd have to re-smash, but that could be a lot cheaper than shipping a full-sized wrench to somebody.

• 46:59Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 47:00Bill Nye?

  Trying to get that, trying to get that nut up under the sink, maybe you just make the perfect custom-made wrench just, just right there.

• 47:07Chuck Nice?

  Just right for that.

• 47:07Bill Nye?

  And then you'd melt it back down after you're done.

• 47:10Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 47:11Bill Nye?

  And have all those molecules floating around your house.

• 47:13Chuck Nice?

  I like it. All right, this is Tim, uh, from Twitter.

• 47:17Bill Nye?

  Tim from Twitter.

• 47:18Chuck Nice?

  And he's, he's tweeting to us from at Evil Nut.

• 47:23Bill Nye?

  Uh, can't hear you, can't read you. All right, at Evil Nut.

• 47:26Chuck Nice?

  At Evil Nut wants to know this. Are they testing or printing in zero G? It seems like it would be impossible in zero G.

• 47:36Bill Nye?

  They do it.

• 47:37Chuck Nice?

  Cause it's metal.

• 47:37Bill Nye?

  They did it on the space station.

• 47:39Chuck Nice?

  Cause it's liquid, so.

• 47:40Bill Nye?

  They did it on the space station. And the word liquid, you know, it's, it's a, uh, it's gooey. It's amorphous. It's literally both as the adjective and as the noun, plastic. You know, the earth's crust, I mean, uh, the earth mantle.

• 47:54Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 47:54Bill Nye?

  Said to be plastic.

• 47:56Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 47:57Bill Nye?

  Smush-a-roundable.

• 47:58Chuck Nice?

  So, cause it's, it's.

• 47:59Bill Nye?

  Cause it's hot, hot.

• 48:00Chuck Nice?

  Very hot.

• 48:01Bill Nye?

  So, uh, and yes, they have 3D printed in space. By paying attention to what they're doing, the thing squirts out and the plastic sticks to the plastic.

• 48:10Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 48:11Bill Nye?

  So you can shape parts in space even though with, even though you don't have gravity.

• 48:14Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 48:15Bill Nye?

  In fact, there's probably an argument from 3D Print Co. that says gravity is a real problem. You should do all your manufacturing in space.

• 48:21Chuck Nice?

  Oh, really?

• 48:22Bill Nye?

  Easily imagine somebody coming in here to say that and I, I would not be in a position to disagree, Chuck.

• 48:27Chuck Nice?

  There you have it.

• 48:28Bill Nye?

  The, I'd have to do the opposite of that, I'd have to agree.

• 48:30Chuck Nice?

  So is, um, although Evil Nut, it's counterintuitive, actually zero G is great.

• 48:36Bill Nye?

  Just imagine squirting toothpaste on to, like squirt toothpaste on the wall, now squirt another bead of toothpaste on the toothpaste, it would stick to it, right?

• 48:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 48:44Bill Nye?

  Even though you're upside walled.

• 48:46Chuck Nice?

  Upside down or no matter where you are.

• 48:47Bill Nye?

  That's right, yeah. I mean, you can imagine that it's possible, yeah.

• 48:50Chuck Nice?

  Squeeze it right out of the tube and right onto the toothpaste, uh, onto the toothbrush. Okay, uh, this is a great question, uh.

• 48:57Bill Nye?

  How does it go?

• 48:58Chuck Nice?

  Thomas, Thomas T J L K from Twitter wants to know this. Will people be able to 3D print medicine? So you're talking about manufacturing medicine?

• 49:09Bill Nye?

  Sure.

• 49:11Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 49:11Bill Nye?

  Imagine this, I mean, how hard can this be?

• 49:13Chuck Nice?

  This is awesome.

• 49:14Bill Nye?

  They tell you to take two aspirin.

• 49:16Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 49:16Bill Nye?

  They tell you to take one aspirin.

• 49:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 49:18Bill Nye?

  You just custom print the size of the pill you want.

• 49:21Chuck Nice?

  So you have now.

• 49:22Bill Nye?

  It's your aspirin goo stuff.

• 49:24Chuck Nice?

  So how do you dial up?

• 49:26Bill Nye?

  The physician weighs you. Okay. And then prescribes the right-sized pill. Just for shooting from the hip, without even starting. Okay. Without even trying to make molecules from scratch. Alright, good. Not even doing that. Not even doing that. Just right from the get-go. And furthermore, at home, your bathroom scale is on the internet. It tells pill.com squirt machine how to squirt out the right-sized pill for how much you weigh, and then you're just perfectly healthy. Damn, that's awesome. And imagine it, I mean, it's one thing with aspirin, but imagine, you know, there's so many people with all these other exotic disorders, and they have to constantly manage their their dose, right?

• 50:08Bill Nye?

  I can easily imagine a machine or a couple of machines that could do that.

• 50:14Bill Nye?

  So no more, no more one-size-fits-all prescriptions? Yes, easily imagine. It's custom prescribed for you? Yes. Fantastic. From prescribeco.com, they're at your Rite Aid, your Duane Reade, your CVS. And this is where maybe you don't have the machine at home, but you have a bathroom scale at home. And it transmits your weight to your druggist, who then, when you show up with the prescription, the pills are just the right size. Wow. Whoa, how cool would that be? You've been listening to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Bill Nye, with my co-host, Chuck Nice. Keep looking up.