Selling Space, with Bill Nye

Bill Nye the Science Guy and comic co-host Iliza Shlesinger answer fan-submitted Cosmic Queries about the politics and privatization of space including renting the International Space Station and ownership of the Moon. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/selling-space-with-bill-nye/ Photo Credit: NASA.

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.

• 0:22Bill Nye?

  Greetings Bill and I here. Welcome to another episode of StarTalk All-Stars. And I am joined today by my co-host, Eliza Schlesinger. Her special, Elder Millennials, is streaming now on Netflix.

• 0:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 0:36Bill Nye?

  Turn it up really loud and your life will be redirected forever and you will be so much happier. And that's good for you. Just like the show. It's really good for you.

• 0:45Speaker 02

  It's really good for you.

• 0:46Bill Nye?

  So Eliza, let's start with a question.

• 0:48Speaker 02

  All right. Speaking of things that are good for you and things that make our viewers happy, we've got our first question from Renee Douglas. She says, "Hey." She wrote it that way. "What's the rule on who owns what as far as asteroids, moons, and other planets go? Is it finders keepers?"

• 1:03Bill Nye?

  Kinda. Right now, this is being discussed, Outer Space Treaties. There's been discussion that no one can own these bodies like no one could own the moon.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:13Bill Nye?

  But, let's face it.

• 1:15Speaker 02

  It's gonna be us.

• 1:17Bill Nye?

  Well, not that so much as...

• 1:18Speaker 02

  It's gonna be China.

• 1:19Bill Nye?

  No, but if you get out there, if you have a spacecraft that can get there and get the ice off an asteroid and use solar energy to make electricity and turn the ice into hydrogen and oxygen, you know, H2O, and then use that for rocket fuel, who's gonna stop you?

• 1:33Speaker 02

  A crashed asteroid or a moving asteroid?

• 1:35Bill Nye?

  That's the trouble, moving. Super moving. When it comes to crashed asteroids, there's a couple of issues.

• 1:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:42Bill Nye?

  For those of you who have not been to Behringer Meteor Crater, Meteor Crater, Arizona, here in the United States, it is amazing. It's like this.

• 1:54Bill Nye?

  It's amazing. So

• 1:56Speaker 02

  What's it like? It's because you're in space, there's no sound?

• 1:59Bill Nye?

  Well, it's just because it's jaw dropping.

• 2:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:02Bill Nye?

  It also could be forehead slapping.

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Like, "I forgot the crater."

• 2:07Bill Nye?

  No, just you look at it and you're amazed. And so the guy Behringer, who first found it, thought, "I got an idea," as you might, "that there must be a big rock at the bottom of this crater."

• 2:19Speaker 02

  That caused the crater.

• 2:20Bill Nye?

  Yeah. And so he started drilling for the rock. But it turns out that the asteroid is made of kind of the same material as the Earth.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  So you couldn't find it.

• 2:33Bill Nye?

  Well, so it shattered. When it hit the Earth, it disintegrated. And so you don't get a lump. You have

• 2:42Speaker 02

  Dust.

• 2:42Bill Nye?

  Dust within dust.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  Particles.

• 2:45Bill Nye?

  Particles that are very, very hard, very tough, like trying to straighten a paperclip. You can never quite get it straight. So the Earth is quite hard and trying to drill in it was hard. And the other thing that makes the crater, we might think it would be this ball going in, but it's a shockwave that disintegrates the Earth's crust, the material that is the Earth. And so it's really hard to recover that material.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I watched Broken Arrow last night and the bomb went off and a shockwave is what disrupted it.

• 3:17Bill Nye?

  Shockwave is trouble, people. And so you're going to catch up to a moving asteroid. And then who's going to stop you?

• 3:25Speaker 02

  The Earth.

• 3:26Bill Nye?

  Treaty schmitty.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  Treaty schmitty. The answer is who's going to own it? Probably Time Warner. Maybe Lockheed Martin, just a giant company, General Electric.

• 3:34Bill Nye?

  What about SpaceX?

• 3:35Speaker 02

  I don't know what that is. Is that who's paying for this?

• 3:38Bill Nye?

  Hold on, aren't you a Los Angelino?

• 3:41Speaker 02

  No. I mean, yeah. What is it?

• 3:43Bill Nye?

  Hold on, hold on.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  Oh, Elon Musk, sorry.

• 3:45Bill Nye?

  Don't you have a sort of a crush on Elon Musk or a thing for him anyway?

• 3:49Speaker 02

  I mean, no, no.

• 3:51Bill Nye?

  Okay.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  But, you know, if he wants to like, come to a party. Or come to a show.

• 3:56Bill Nye?

  He should go to your show.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  I'm at the Comedy Store a lot. You can check me out on Twitter.

• 4:00Bill Nye?

  Yeah. So, you should do that. Check out her show. Anyway.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  I knew what the fire triangle was, by the way, in the last episode.

• 4:07Bill Nye?

  That was cool.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  Sorry, I didn't know Elon Musk and his dalliances.

• 4:10Bill Nye?

  No, but you did. You just, you just, it was a lot to ask. So, what I mean is, a private company may go out to an asteroid someday and get some material from it.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:20Bill Nye?

  But the idea of mining platinum, or whatever your beautiful white gold rings are made of.

• 4:27Speaker 02

  Platinum.

• 4:28Bill Nye?

  It's really difficult to bring that back. There's a lot of platinum on the earth, if you know where to look.

• 4:35Speaker 02

  And I think the question everybody wants to know is, would you rather have it be privatized or run by the government? Long lines at the DMV, folks. I'm just saying, if you want more government.

• 4:45Bill Nye?

  Yeah, but as we say, there is no business for, let's say, exploring Europa, the moon of Jupiter with twice as much seawater as the earth. There's, nobody's selling tickets to go to Europa.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:00Bill Nye?

  So you use the government, the public sector, to do this extraordinary exploration, and then the private sector can, if I may, do what it wants within reasonable regulations. Not everybody's allowed to launch rockets anywhere they want all the time, because what if they land on somebody else?

• 5:16Speaker 02

  You hear that?

• 5:16Bill Nye?

  By accident. That's a drag.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  Well, this is tangentially related to that. Ashley Aaron of Facebook, you know, of the Aarons of Facebook. Ultimately, would people with the ability to reach space, millionaires, corporations, etc., be able to claim uncharted territories as their own? For instance, Amazon claiming part of the moon for commercial travel, or Virgin claiming parts of Mars for colonization, would this be a good or bad thing?

• 5:42Bill Nye?

  So, there's a treaty about the moon.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  What's it called?

• 5:45Bill Nye?

  You can't, nobody, it's called Lunar, or Outer Space Treaty of 1967. You can't own the moon. Sorry about that.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:53Bill Nye?

  But uh.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  What is this, Despicable Me?

• 5:54Bill Nye?

  And so, we also don't, we wanna de-emphasize, we wanna no longer use the expression colonize. Cause colonies have gotten.

• 6:02Speaker 02

  Very white. It's a very white thing to do.

• 6:04Bill Nye?

  It's gotten a bad rap. Yeah. So, we wanna say settle. We wanna settle.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  The same thing.

• 6:08Bill Nye?

  Uh, but, well, so, the trouble with settling on these places is there's nothing to eat or drink and nothing to breathe. That third one.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  It's the last one that really.

• 6:18Bill Nye?

  It's really, you're really gonna notice it.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  No fur trapping's gonna get you through that.

• 6:20Bill Nye?

  And so, speaking of European people and their tradition of wandering around the world and settling.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:27Bill Nye?

  Uh, we all have, many of us in, in western hemisphere, like, we're in the US or Canada, have this, come from the, or South America, we come from this tradition, where people from Europe showed up with superior technology and germs, smallpox, and just started taking over.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:45Bill Nye?

  Well, when you go to Mars, it's, and they, and they lived off the land. They, they showed up, you know, um, my old forty-four.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  God, glory and gold. Yeah.

• 6:55Bill Nye?

  And, but, on Mars, there's nothing, there's no salmon.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  There's nothing there. There's no food.

• 7:00Bill Nye?

  There are no nut trees.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  There's no Starbucks. There's no.

• 7:01Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 7:02Speaker 02

  You can't soil, you can't till the soil, you can't farm.

• 7:05Bill Nye?

  It's really hard. And so.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  It's like Arizona. The whole thing.

• 7:09Bill Nye?

  Well, it's like Antarctica. It's really a good model.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  It's like Antarctica, but red.

• 7:13Bill Nye?

  If you wanna think about it, is, there's no, you gotta bring everything.

• 7:17Speaker 02

  Is it its own country?

• 7:18Bill Nye?

  Antarctica? No, we, there's slices that have been, treaties have been acknowledged.

• 7:23Speaker 02

  But it's just like its own thing. Is there a capital of Antarctica?

• 7:25Bill Nye?

  No, not right now.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  No one, like, people don't know that.

• 7:29Bill Nye?

  It's an opportunity.

• 7:31Speaker 02

  It's an opportunity. It's a gold rush. If you live in LA and you're annoying, please move to Antarctica.

• 7:36Bill Nye?

  But it's, you guys, the word gold rush is quite relevant.

• 7:39Speaker 02

  Is there gold in Antarctica? Just tell me.

• 7:41Bill Nye?

  If there were.

• 7:42Speaker 02

  We'd be there.

• 7:43Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 7:44Bill Nye?

  So, here in California, the name of the National Football League team, if you're listening to this podcast somewhere thirty years from now, we used to play football.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  This is getting to someone in space right now.

• 7:56Bill Nye?

  With helmets. Yes.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  Far away.

• 7:58Bill Nye?

  Uh, with helmets and their brain injuries.

• 8:01Speaker 02

  We used to play football, period. We probably don't play anymore.

• 8:03Bill Nye?

  And kids were now, no, parents let them sign up. But, that aside. The name of the football team is the 49ers, named after the gold rush.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  Of 1849.

• 8:14Bill Nye?

  Yeah. And this tradition is still with us. So California is so out of hand. Do you know the state motto?

• 8:21Speaker 02

  Uh, that's not a parking space?

• 8:25Bill Nye?

  That could be. Of California, that could also be Manhattan.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, no one drives.

• 8:31Bill Nye?

  Uh, the state motto is eureka. I found it.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  Which is what? Who said?

• 8:37Bill Nye?

  Well, I did say it. Eureka. I found it. And so people came from Europe, across North America, shooting everything, eating everything, growing food and farms in the Midwest and uh, got to California and there's nuts on the trees, oranges grow like weeds, salmon come up the river bigger than your arm and there's protein everywhere and it's fabulous. Uh, and then it got so out of hand, the rocks are made of gold. Like, it's just nuts.

• 9:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:08Bill Nye?

  Anyway, the gold thing kinda is done, but the 49ers are still a team.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  We saw it, just like Oklahoma has the Sooners, which is a little derogatory, but it was like a land grab. And Sooners were ones that went to, like, uh, they went before the, before the gun.

• 9:21Bill Nye?

  I've had some great times in Oklahoma, some disclosure.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  I'm just saying that's the name. I'm from Texas, so I can't say I like Oklahoma.

• 9:29Bill Nye?

  No, in fact, I think a lot of what keeps you all going is the knowledge that Oklahomans really are not that great. That's a lot of what keeps a Texan going.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  But then when you meet one, you're like, it's fine.

• 9:41Bill Nye?

  Oh, it's really, it's fine.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  It's the main.

• 9:43Bill Nye?

  Talking about that great experience.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  It's the main export of Texas.

• 9:48Bill Nye?

  Is what?

• 9:48Speaker 02

  Hatred for Oklahoma.

• 9:49Bill Nye?

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  It's our.

• 9:51Bill Nye?

  Understandable. You know, I used to work in an oil patch.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  In an oil patch?

• 9:54Bill Nye?

  In the oil field.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 9:56Bill Nye?

  In Snyder.

• 9:57Speaker 02

  I did know that.

• 9:58Bill Nye?

  Big Spring, Midland, Odessa.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  Oof.

• 10:00Bill Nye?

  Uh, the Texas crossroads, Victoria. But that aside, let's take another question.

• 10:05Speaker 02

  Okay. Um, we already said this one about the millionaire. So moving, uh, and I feel like this is kind of going back into it, but just so we can, people can get their questions answered. Um, how would private companies, everything physics on Instagram says, how would private companies help keep space travel affordable to the common man, assuming interplanetary colonization and travel becomes a common desire?

• 10:27Bill Nye?

  Uh, before the interplanetary travel and settlement, Elon Musk, by way of example, went to what we call the community. And said, "I want to go to Mars. How do I get to Mars?" And scientists and engineers told him, told everybody.

• 10:44Speaker 02

  Get out of our office.

• 10:45Bill Nye?

  Is, "We're going to lower the cost of getting to low Earth orbit." Because everybody thinks that the best way to go to Mars, or any place, another planet, is to get fuel in orbit around the Earth, go up there with your other spacecraft, refuel, and then go the rest of the way.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  But?

• 11:03Bill Nye?

  Well, not but. So that's what SpaceX is working on. Ways to lower the cost of getting to low Earth orbit as a step to go to another planet.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  To bring it to you, the consumer.

• 11:14Bill Nye?

  And I flew the flight simulator of the Spaceship Two, the Virgin Galactic fabulous machine, just a few weeks ago. It's going to be, it's going to be wild. People will be able to go to space for a few minutes and come back, and apparently, everybody who sees the Earth from space is changed forever. The way you feel about our home planet.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  I got goosebumps thinking about that.

• 11:36Bill Nye?

  It is cool.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  Just that perspective.

• 11:38Bill Nye?

  Yeah, that's what everybody talks about.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  All right, well, related to that, Sean underscore Falcon on Instagram says, "Do you feel that SpaceX is working toward the interests of the American people and of this nation compared to NASA?"

• 11:49Bill Nye?

  Hold it. So, everybody, SpaceX sells rockets to NASA. It's not one or the other. Their big business is NASA and the Air Force, the US Air Force.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  Who else is going to buy?

• 12:01Bill Nye?

  Well, once in a while, a company like... The Planetary Society. Comes along.

• 12:07Speaker 02

  With donations from people like you.

• 12:08Bill Nye?

  Yes, thank you. And we are flying a spacecraft. But it's a consortium of us, NASA, the National American Space Administration here in the US, and SpaceX.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  It's a co-hesitant.

• 12:22Bill Nye?

  It's every, it's a, it's business. All the money spent in space is really spent on Earth. So SpaceX sells rockets to NASA. It's all good. It's all good.

• 12:32Speaker 02

  It's all part of a big machine.

• 12:33Bill Nye?

  So it's commerce. It's what we do.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  So piggybacking off of that, Blue Jade 127 of Instagram says, "As space travel increases, how will pilots cope with the growing cloud of space debris from old satellites that remain trapped in Earth's orbit? Also, who will be responsible for the cleanup efforts? The polluters, governments, private enterprises, or volunteers?" Jade Tollis from Ringwood, New Jersey.

• 12:57Bill Nye?

  So it's a great question. Space debris is a big issue. If you can solve this problem, we love you, man. So people have talked about sending up spacecraft to catch debris and burn it up in the atmosphere. Easier said than done. I mean, everything's going in English units, 17,000 miles an hour, you know, 10 kilometers, 12 kilometers a second, seven or eight miles a second. It's very hard to catch these things.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:23Bill Nye?

  But when you run one into the other, all this debris gets spread all over the place. And there've been a couple of major accidents. Air Force booster blew up many years ago, and the Chinese space agency ran things into each other on purpose and created a mess.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  What is their problem?

• 13:40Bill Nye?

  Well, it was just trying to show their capability. And then the US or Navy shot down another Ucar satellite to show how this is how you really do it.

• 13:50Speaker 02

  This sounds like us.

• 13:51Bill Nye?

  It's a complicated issue. So let's have a big net and catch the stuff.

• 13:56Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, a net made of a clay polymer.

• 14:00Bill Nye?

  Yes, the net has to be going really fast. And so we have treaties, in communication industry especially, to de-orbit satellites after they're warred out.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  To bring them back home.

• 14:10Bill Nye?

  You burn them up. You burn them up.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  Burn them up in the atmosphere, and then we inhale whatever's in that atmosphere.

• 14:15Bill Nye?

  So, you know, so keep in mind, the Earth has hit with hundreds, maybe it's 1,000 tons of space dust every day. So a few...

• 14:26Speaker 02

  Is that why I feel nauseous?

• 14:27Bill Nye?

  Yeah, a few kilograms or pounds of spacecraft is kind of in the lost. You don't even notice it.

• 14:33Speaker 02

  Interesting. Burn it up. Burn them up. Justin Stewartson of Facebook says, "How far could we advance our race? Okay, if we bring asteroids full of exotic materials to Earth with space mining?"

• 14:48Bill Nye?

  So, this is a romantic idea, that you'd go catch an asteroid and drag it into Earth orbit and then lower it onto the Earth and get platinum, or whatever the heck you want to make your wedding ring out of.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  I'd be overseeing this project.

• 15:02Bill Nye?

  Well, it would be cool to have a space metal thing. Like, I have a pin made of an asteroid. It's kinda cool, but...

• 15:11Speaker 02

  My heart stops every once in a while, but it's cool.

• 15:13Bill Nye?

  No, no, no. The thing is, asteroids are made of the same stuff as the Earth.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  So, why bother?

• 15:18Bill Nye?

  Well, not that. I mean, it's cool, but it's expensive. The idea is romantic, but it's very difficult. These things are going very fast, they're very far from the Earth, and bringing them back here is rocket science turned up to 11. So, I'm not saying it can't be done, but...

• 15:35Speaker 02

  Why?

• 15:36Bill Nye?

  Well, the big "why" now is, take your rocket to an asteroid, and many asteroids have a lot of ice.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  Where'd they get that ice? Just from being cold?

• 15:46Bill Nye?

  Primordial solar system.

• 15:47Speaker 02

  Well, that's the obvious answer.

• 15:49Bill Nye?

  So, one of the questions is, where did the ice come from in the primordial solar system? What are we doing here?

• 15:56Speaker 02

  Primordial solar system means an old solar system that's...

• 15:58Bill Nye?

  No, it means four and a half billion years ago.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  That's old?

• 16:01Bill Nye?

  Our solar system.

• 16:02Speaker 02

  Because I think of primordial ooze as what, like, lava's crawled out of.

• 16:05Bill Nye?

  Yeah, that's three and a half billion, probably three and a half billion.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  So, recent. So, since MySpace has been around.

• 16:10Bill Nye?

  Yes. God, I had to think that's an older reference, MySpace. Lost on many of the younger listeners.

• 16:18Speaker 02

  Google it.

• 16:19Bill Nye?

  It's just not so easy, but it's a cool idea. So, we'll see. There are companies involved, and what they want to do is go to an asteroid that's got a lot of ice, use the ice for rocket fuel.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  Is that a thing? Like, are we deciding that ice will work as rocket fuel?

• 16:33Bill Nye?

  Well, water works as rocket fuel.

• 16:35Speaker 02

  Oh, well, there's your answer.

• 16:36Bill Nye?

  If you break the water into hydrogen and oxygen, and recombine it really fast in a fire... [mimicking fire]

• 16:44Speaker 02

  In that order.

• 16:44Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 16:45Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 16:45Bill Nye?

  And then you could, it's a lot of energy, but you'd, you'd convert sunlight into electricity, into chemical energy, into rocket fuel.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  So what you're saying is we have all that we need right here, in this room, to make a rocket?

• 16:58Bill Nye?

  Yes, we do. If you had an unlimited supply of energy, yeah.

• 17:02Speaker 02

  Well, I, I don't know. I drink a lot of coffee.

• 17:04Bill Nye?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  Somebody wants, this is kind of a whimsical question. This is from John Tweak.

• 17:08Bill Nye?

  This rocket fuel.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:10Bill Nye?

  Now that I've tried it, I don't think I could live without it.

• 17:12Speaker 02

  Isn't rocket fuel like an energy drink? Or isn't it like Red Bull and gin? It's like, okay. John Tweak of Instagram says, "If you could purchase land," this is to you, obviously not me, because you don't know me. "If you could purchase land on any other world, simply to brag about your real estate," which I don't think you would do, so it's not really for Bill Nye, but if you were a megalomaniac, "simply to brag about your mad scientist."

• 17:37Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 17:38Speaker 02

  "Simply to brag about your real estate, which world would you choose and why?" World meaning planet, I'm assuming.

• 17:42Bill Nye?

  It would probably be Mars. It would probably be Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system. From there, I could see the world. Wahahaha! This is StarTalk All-Stars. We'll be, I'm here with my guest, Eliza Schlesinger. We'll be back right after this.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  World, because world could be, I'm not saying it's a world.

• 18:10Bill Nye?

  Okay, so wait, wait, wait. This is Bill Nye.

• 18:12Speaker 02

  What you're saying.

• 18:13Bill Nye?

  With Eliza Schlesinger. Welcome back to StarTalk All-Stars. We have a little issue that we are discussing. Eliza, your concern?

• 18:21Speaker 02

  My concern was in the last question, he said, "Any other world," and I said, "Well, it's really a planet." World is sort of a fluid concept. Like, my world is this room right now. He meant planet. But you said, "We love world here."

• 18:32Bill Nye?

  I love world.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  And I said, "I'm sorry I showed up in Pasadena at 9:00 a.m. to do your show." I'm sorry.

• 18:38Bill Nye?

  No, you're not.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  No, I get paid to be here.

• 18:40Bill Nye?

  So anyway, but that's not the only reason. We're having fun. So the thing is, uh, world is not bad. One of the striking things that strikes me, I am struck. When I look at a picture from Mars.

• 18:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:52Bill Nye?

  It's a place. I mean, you can walk around if you were dressed properly.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:56Bill Nye?

  And so it's a world.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  It's a world. I'm sorry.

• 18:59Bill Nye?

  It's romantic. The moon is a world-like thing. You know, Buzz Aldrin, the second guy that said magnificent desolation. Meaning it's just, it's amazing because it's a place, but of nothingness. It's amazing. And it's out of our everyday experience. Most of the places.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Like Hollywood.

• 19:18Bill Nye?

  No, no. Here's the difference.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  There's a somethingness.

• 19:21Bill Nye?

  Well, there's a lot of people. On the moon, when he was there, there were very few people, just one other.

• 19:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. All right. It makes a somethingness. Uh, Jay Rice APR on Instagram says, hi Bill. In your opinion, what should take priority budget-wise planetary exploration or extrasolar system exploration? If planetary, where would you head first?

• 19:45Bill Nye?

  So it's a great question. This is what we do at the planetary society. We work very hard to advocate for what we believe are reasonable uses of our resources, our intellect and treasure.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  Reasonable.

• 19:57Bill Nye?

  Our money and thinkfulness.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:00Bill Nye?

  So planetary, I claim planetary science is where you get these extraordinary returns on investment. If we were to discover life on another world like Mars or Europa, moon of Jupiter, twice as much ocean as the earth. It would change the course of human history, which would be cool. Furthermore, you're living at a time where we have telescopes that can observe atmospheres of other planets orbiting other stars. If we were to find evidence of industrial pollution in an atmosphere on a so-called exoplanet. A long way from here planet.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:36Bill Nye?

  It would change the world.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  It would change everything.

• 20:39Bill Nye?

  So what you want to do is evaluate the NASA ESA, European Space Agency budgets. Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA. Evaluate those budgets and allocate your resources appropriately. Here at the planetary side, we want planetary science to be at least over 2 billion a year. 2 billion US.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  Get those Patreon contributions.

• 21:00Bill Nye?

  2.3, 2.5, 2.7.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  I mean, all it costs is like $5 to ask a question here. So you guys gotta pick up the pace.

• 21:07Bill Nye?

  No, it's great. Thank you.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  It's not enough. Trying to get to Mons Europa, whatever.

• 21:14Bill Nye?

  Olympus Mons?

• 21:14Speaker 02

  Olympus Mons.

• 21:16Bill Nye?

  Largest volcano in the solar system.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  And Europa, the one's got all the ocean.

• 21:21Bill Nye?

  So are there Europeanians?

• 21:23Speaker 02

  No, we don't know. Maybe under the surface.

• 21:25Bill Nye?

  Swimming under the ice?

• 21:27Speaker 02

  We don't, we won't know unless you donate.

• 21:29Bill Nye?

  Are there European comedian's?

• 21:31Speaker 02

  Definitely not. There's barely any comedians in this country.

• 21:34Bill Nye?

  Do we have European, maybe they're full of European comedian's talking hilarious European fish person jokes.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  Maybe. Maybe they're the funniest species in the galaxy.

• 21:45Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  We won't know because you're not donating enough.

• 21:49Bill Nye?

  But.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  They hired me to come in and be the hammer and let you guys know. He doesn't want to, but.

• 21:55Bill Nye?

  It's like public broadcasting.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  I'm, I'll play the bad guy.

• 21:58Bill Nye?

  Yeah, we kind of beg for it.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  Um, okay, this question, this is the big one. Here we go. It's time for a cosmic query presented to you by my radar.

• 22:07Bill Nye?

  Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  This one's from Mike B. And Mike wants to know, did I already read this question?

• 22:16Bill Nye?

  See, they sound alike. But go for it. Go for it, Aliza. Go for it.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  This question is from Mike B. And Mike B. Wants to know, uh, whether asteroid mining is really possible or only science fiction? He also wants to know if we are exploring the solar system, will we need to bring our own water? Or will there be enough water out there for us to mine? Don't forget Europa, the moon with a lot of water.

• 22:36Bill Nye?

  And that's right, which is water like on Earth under, under a shell of ice. And the liquid water is maintained by the gravitational action of Europa going around Jupiter. Woo, woo, woo, except it's in space. And so, uh, if there's, some asteroids have a lot of water. So people speculate there's a company, uh, Planetary Resources believes there's enough water, ice on asteroids. You go there and mine it, use electricity to make it into rocket fuel. So that's possible. Uh, but I don't know if it's gonna happen in our lifetime. And then along this line, Mars has water if you can dig down deep enough and somehow harvest it. It's an extraordinary future, Eliza.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:17Bill Nye?

  It's extraordinary.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  Do you think the world, did I say this? The Re- the ReleO3 on Instagram, do you think the world can agree on non-privatization of the moon and similar objects, treating them like national parks, or better yet, international parks? The thought of advertisements on the moon terrifies and disgusts me.

• 23:34Bill Nye?

  I think so. I think we can work that out. This idea, let's just go to the moon, you know, set up a tent, it'd be great. It's not that easy. You need billions of dollars, or euros, or yen, or yuan to try this.

• 23:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:48Bill Nye?

  And then, once you're there, what exactly are you gonna do?

• 23:51Speaker 02

  It's not like going to the beach.

• 23:53Bill Nye?

  It's not like going to the beach.

• 23:54Speaker 02

  Although, what do you do at the beach?

• 23:56Bill Nye?

  Well, I watch the ocean.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I watch the ocean.

• 23:59Bill Nye?

  And I like to jump in the ocean, or walk into the ocean. I like to surf.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  Really? I watch all the garbage come in.

• 24:05Bill Nye?

  And that's fun, too.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  All right, well-

• 24:07Bill Nye?

  But, in other words, it's not so simple. So, yes, I think we can work this out, to your question.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  This is, uh, related to the last couple of questions, because if you're talking about colonizing, you're talking about funding, obviously, politics come into play. Uh, Nataraj of Instagram says, "If we already underfund the space budget in the USA, what are the chances that politics will actually affect the progress of space travel for independent companies?"

• 24:31Bill Nye?

  Well, these are all related, and when you say "underfund," it depends. There's some people who resent the heck out of NASA spending 18 or 19 billion dollars a year. Other people think it should be twice that. And so, this is why we vote, everybody, is to, uh, figure out what's the best thing to do with our resources, our intellect and treasure. And so, when it comes to, is it private, is it public? It's both. When NASA sends a space probe to Ju- to Jupiter, did you see the amazing pictures of the swirling atmosphere of Jupiter? It was all over the news-

• 25:05Speaker 02

  That spot?

• 25:06Bill Nye?

  The spot, and then nearby the spot, the word nearby, a few Earth diameters away, are more swirling, amazing swirlingnesses.

• 25:14Speaker 02

  Jupiter is a gas giant.

• 25:15Bill Nye?

  That's right. And we discover this because we sent spacecraft there and the spacecraft were sent there on rockets and with equipment and materials and technicians and engineers and scientists who are work for private companies.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  This is gonna be, I don't mean to politicize this, but I think this is an interesting question. I'm gonna ask you. You ready?

• 25:38Bill Nye?

  Um, yeah.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  Roger Warren of Facebook says, "How do you feel about this administration?" You have to be more specific. No, "About this administration's gutting of all things climate-related, including low Earth orbit observation."

• 25:49Bill Nye?

  So, I don't think it will last.

• 25:52Speaker 02

  Because the administration is only four years?

• 25:55Bill Nye?

  Uh, well, the administration's only four years. In fact, I've spoken a couple times with Jim Bridenstine, who's the new administrator of NASA's controversial guy, because he was nominally a Trump supporter, but he is a Navy pilot who wanted the job of NASA administrator.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  Turn it around.

• 26:14Bill Nye?

  Well, and he got, well, NASA does pretty well, everybody. Everybody just, "Why don't they go to the moon for free?" And, okay. So, Bridenstine is there. It's just you, you have to have somebody in charge just to sign checks by law. All right, that aside, I think when you, if, if you look at the US Constitution, we are here in the United States.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  That's what we're broadcasting.

• 26:39Bill Nye?

  Yes. The US Constitution was become a model for progressive democracies around the world the last couple centuries. Right there. Section 8, Article 1, Article 1, Section 8, refers to the progress of science and useful arts.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  Useful arts?

• 26:57Bill Nye?

  So, useful arts to me was an 18th century word for engineering.

• 27:01Speaker 02

  Or paintings of Christ. Because that was like all you could paint for a very long time.

• 27:06Bill Nye?

  But, but by, these guys, I know what you mean. The founding fathers were...

• 27:11Speaker 02

  I'm just kidding.

• 27:12Bill Nye?

  I know.

• 27:13Speaker 02

  It's pretty funny.

• 27:14Bill Nye?

  But they were nominally a-religious.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  I know that. Thomas Jefferson, yeah.

• 27:17Bill Nye?

  This whole Unitarian...

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Wasn't into it.

• 27:19Bill Nye?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:20Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 27:21Bill Nye?

  And so, they realized the value, the economic value of investment in science and protecting so-called intellectual property, patents and trademarks. They realized the value of that in the 1700s.

• 27:34Speaker 02

  They knew back then, before they even knew how to cure polio, how come we can't get a grip?

• 27:39Bill Nye?

  That's right.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  They were also geniuses.

• 27:41Bill Nye?

  Well, here's my claim, Eliza, that they were nerds who sat around thinking about how to design a very good government and built in.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:52Bill Nye?

  Just like science.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:54Bill Nye?

  Built in to the US Constitution.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  The provision.

• 27:57Bill Nye?

  Is change.

• 27:58Speaker 02

  Change.

• 27:59Bill Nye?

  Change is built in.

• 28:00Speaker 02

  I don't know if they were nerds, because I've seen paintings of those, and they look pretty in shape.

• 28:07Bill Nye?

  So you're saying nerds are out of shape?

• 28:10Speaker 02

  You can send your hate mail to my Instagram.

• 28:12Bill Nye?

  So, you know, I consider myself.

• 28:16Speaker 02

  Pretty in shape, pretty live.

• 28:18Bill Nye?

  Pretty nerdy.

• 28:19Speaker 02

  You're very nerdy.

• 28:20Bill Nye?

  Yeah, and I'm okay in shape, especially a guy with this many decades. So, you can't stay economically competitive in the world today without science. You will not be able to maintain your economy. So I think this anti-science movement's gonna go away pretty quickly. Furthermore, as the old joke goes, I am not the first guy to bring this to the microphone, "Science advances one funeral at a time."

• 28:50Speaker 02

  It's true, trial and error.

• 28:52Bill Nye?

  Well, not just that. The old ways, the earth is flat.

• 28:57Speaker 02

  Is that old? I feel like a lot of people still think that.

• 28:59Bill Nye?

  Actually, that's comeback, yeah, that's a bad example, good point. That you can't maintain your international commerce presuming the earth is flat.

• 29:07Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:07Bill Nye?

  If you get on a boat, or a ship, and an airplane, and think the world is flat, you will get lost and die.

• 29:12Speaker 02

  Can I say one thing to those Flat Earth people?

• 29:14Bill Nye?

  Please, please.

• 29:15Speaker 02

  If you want to prove to yourself that the earth is not flat, all you have to do is watch a ship disappear over horizon, over horizon. If the earth was flat, you would watch it go on forever. But by virtue of the fact that it disappears, it's not flat.

• 29:29Bill Nye?

  Eliza Schlesinger, ladies and gentlemen.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 29:32Bill Nye?

  That's it.

• 29:32Speaker 02

  Because I was like, oh, it's totally flat. No, I'm just kidding, I never thought that.

• 29:35Bill Nye?

  So you will not be able to compete economically if you don't embrace science. And so people will realize that pretty soon, and the anti-science movement will disappear. Along that line about climate change, not always, but almost all climate change deniers, or contrarians, or extreme skeptics, whatever you want to call themselves, are old.

• 29:55Speaker 02

  Really, interesting.

• 29:55Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  And stupid.

• 29:57Bill Nye?

  Well, very few young people are climate deniers. Once in awhile you meet one. So when these people, the example I think about these days, you know Stoneman Douglas High School, his kids, students, lived through this extraordinary experience. When people of that political motivation come of age and become part of the voting cohort, as it's called, things will change. Three presidential elections, things are gonna get done. The future, everybody, shoot the messenger. But the future is much more likely to be a progressive democracy than a regressive totalitarian thing. Those totalitarian governments are just not gonna stay in business. They're surrounded by the internet.

• 30:41Bill Nye?

  They can't, they can't, it's not gonna last.

• 30:44Speaker 02

  Will not sustain. So then, this is kind of a fun one. You don't have to answer it. Danielle Junius, from, Danielle, sorry, Junius, I made you a girl. Now you're a boy, from Facebook, says, "When do you think President Donald Trump will claim Mars?" Is that a waste of time? Should we ask a real question?

• 30:59Bill Nye?

  Well, what do you think? What do you think?

• 31:01Speaker 02

  He's not, I mean, I claim it right now, like, whatever.

• 31:05Bill Nye?

  Done.

• 31:06Speaker 02

  And now, and who's gonna honor that? No one.

• 31:08Bill Nye?

  They're changing the name from Mars to Slesshin Jersey.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  To Mars-a-Lago.

• 31:11Bill Nye?

  You get it?

• 31:14Speaker 02

  There you go. I don't know which camera I'm supposed to be looking at. Okay, here's a real question. The question for you is, in your opinion, this is from Eric Varga from Facebook. "In your opinion, what is better for the future of space exploration? Countries and their governments working together to explore space, like currently on the ISS, or private companies competing against each other? In other words, competition or cooperation?"

• 31:37Bill Nye?

  So it's both. The answer is it's both. A space agency buys rockets that perform the best for the least amount of money. As the old saying goes, and I think, I think it was Alan Shepard who's credited with this quotation, if I'm getting it wrong, I apologize, he's an astronaut, standing on the moon.

• 31:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:57Bill Nye?

  He said, "You know, it's sobering to realize that we got here on equipment built by the lowest bidder."

• 32:07Bill Nye?

  That's a charming insight.

• 32:08Speaker 02

  That's funny.

• 32:08Bill Nye?

  Yeah, so, so, space agencies buy rockets and spacecraft and support, uh, ground support from private companies. I mean, that's how it works.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  That's how we buy everything.

• 32:23Bill Nye?

  When NASA buys electronics, they're from a company. It's not a bad thing.

• 32:26Speaker 02

  When we buy weapons, it's from a company.

• 32:27Bill Nye?

  That's right.

• 32:28Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 32:29Bill Nye?

  It's a, it's a thing. It's a feature. How else would you do it? And so, uh, it's not one or the other, and just, I'll tell you as the CEO of the Planetary Society, World's largest non-governmental space organization empowering you.

• 32:40Speaker 02

  Can donate.

• 32:41Bill Nye?

  To, uh, to be connected with space. The fundamental thing is, it's not one or the other, it's everybody working together. And, uh, when you use international cooperation, you, in general, raise the cost of the overall project. Let's say, sending spacecraft Huygens into the atmosphere of, uh, Titan, moon of Saturn.

• 33:11Speaker 02

  It's a moon of Saturn.

• 33:12Bill Nye?

  Let's say you work together. You raise the overall cost, but you lower the cost for each space agency. Each space agency has to contribute less, and so that's of great interest. International cooperation, as I like to say.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 33:26Bill Nye?

  Space exploration brings out the best in us, Eliza.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  Well, I think what you're also talking about here, Bill, is basic economics.

• 33:31Bill Nye?

  I am.

• 33:32Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 33:33Bill Nye?

  So, working together, we can do wonderful things.

• 33:36Speaker 02

  Um, a lot of these questions sort of circle around the idea of, is space exploration, is it a good thing? Uh, Brett, Gabe's dad, I guess you're Gabe's dad from Facebook, says, what will be the consequence of privatization of the space station?

• 33:50Bill Nye?

  So, if we could privatize the space station, you know, a space station that would free up, let's say, around $3 billion to do something else. And the private space station owners or leasers, lease-ors would, uh, maybe do extraordinary things.

• 34:06Speaker 02

  Maybe.

• 34:07Bill Nye?

  That aren't being done right now. The big value of the space station that came up early is, is really diplomatic. When you get people from all these different countries working together, it's, uh, extraordinary. So it would be great if we could sell the space station to somebody like you, Gabe's son.

• 34:23Speaker 02

  Gabe's.

• 34:24Bill Nye?

  It would be a fantastic thing and we could change the world. And then we'd, then with that money and refocus of the world's largest space agency, perhaps we could get to Mars in my lifetime and find evidence of life that would change the course of human history.

• 34:39Speaker 02

  Yes. That'd be great. I feel like we're right on the precipice of doing that.

• 34:43Bill Nye?

  Yes.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  So close.

• 34:45Bill Nye?

  What makes you feel that way?

• 34:46Speaker 02

  Just because we talk about it a lot. It's in the ether.

• 34:48Bill Nye?

  There you go.

• 34:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:50Bill Nye?

  Since speaking of, of the ether and radio and electronic internet, you are watching StarTalk All-Stars and we'll be back right after. Greetings, greetings, everyone. Bill Nye here. Welcome back to StarTalk All-Stars. I am joined by my co-host, Eliza Schlesinger.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  Hey guys.

• 35:16Bill Nye?

  We're having the time of our, of our lives here. If it's on or before July 24th, please watch her special, Elder Millennial, and that's you.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  That's me and please rate it five stars, even if you don't watch. Five stars for Christmas.

• 35:28Bill Nye?

  Is that asking so much?

• 35:29Speaker 02

  Is that so hard?

• 35:30Bill Nye?

  Now, hold on a second. You said for Christmas?

• 35:33Speaker 02

  I was just trying to do a pathetic voice.

• 35:34Bill Nye?

  It was, it was pathetic.

• 35:36Speaker 02

  For Christmas, please, five stars.

• 35:37Bill Nye?

  So do you have a Christmas tradition in your family?

• 35:40Speaker 02

  No, because I am fully Jewish.

• 35:42Bill Nye?

  Yeah, that's what I thought. Not that it's a bad thing, it's a thing.

• 35:46Speaker 02

  But, that being said, I love Christmas and I have a Christmas party every year.

• 35:49Bill Nye?

  And so what we do here in the, um, on the, the non-believer community, we have Isaac Newton's birthday, also on the 25th of December. Newtonmas.

• 36:00Speaker 02

  What's that, what's that party like? Just apples being thrown?

• 36:02Bill Nye?

  No, we have a Isaac Newton's birthday tree, we have Isaac Newton's birthday decorations, we have Isaac Newton birthday gift exchange.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  I mean, technically the main decoration would be gravity.

• 36:10Bill Nye?

  Well, it's always there.

• 36:12Speaker 02

  It's always there.

• 36:13Bill Nye?

  Every Christmas I've been to. And so, uh, it's just something to think about. So Isaac Newton was born on the 25th of December as reckoned in Britain.

• 36:21Speaker 02

  Really?

• 36:22Bill Nye?

  Yeah, as reckoned in Britain. So I'm not just jamming here, GF.

• 36:24Speaker 02

  You're not just jamming here. What'd you call me, GF?

• 36:27Bill Nye?

  Girlfriend.

• 36:28Speaker 02

  Oh, GF?

• 36:29Bill Nye?

  Yeah. So.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  Oh, a book of the laws of physics you shouldn't have.

• 36:33Bill Nye?

  And so. Uh, but he was born on the 4th of January, as reckoned in Italy.

• 36:40Speaker 02

  So, no one knows for sure.

• 36:42Bill Nye?

  Well, yeah, we do. So, it's a cool and amazing thing, and I know it's come up on the show in the past, that it wasn't that long ago that people weren't exactly sure exactly how long it took the Earth to go around the Sun.

• 36:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:57Bill Nye?

  We all take it for granted. You go to the office supply store, you buy calendar with puppies, calendar with kittens, puppies and kittens.

• 37:06Speaker 02

  No.

• 37:07Bill Nye?

  Firemen, whatever, with their, that sort of thing.

• 37:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:12Bill Nye?

  That kind of thing. And you all trust everybody.

• 37:16Speaker 02

  Who buys a calendar?

• 37:17Bill Nye?

  But you've seen them.

• 37:19Speaker 02

  I've seen them.

• 37:19Bill Nye?

  Yeah. Uh, anyway.

• 37:21Speaker 02

  I've posed for them.

• 37:24Bill Nye?

  Really?

• 37:25Speaker 02

  No.

• 37:25Bill Nye?

  Comedian calendar?

• 37:26Speaker 02

  It's a lot of, it's 12 months of gross outs with issues.

• 37:31Bill Nye?

  Wow, great. Cause then you feel better about yourself looking at the calendar.

• 37:35Speaker 02

  That's why I do it.

• 37:36Bill Nye?

  It wasn't that long ago that people didn't know how long a year was. And so Pope Gregory XIII commissioned some very skilled astronomers to wreck, to re-reckon the calendar, and they did. And we use it to this day.

• 37:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:51Bill Nye?

  People say, well, Isaac Newton was not born on the 25th of December. That's wrong. It's totally wrong. He's born on 4th of January. Here's my claim. His mother thought it was Christmas Day. And so, you're wrong. No, you're right. It's all human construct anyway. And as far as changing the world, the discoveries of Isaac Newton, which we've all embraced, have changed the course of history. Alright, so you were saying, read a question, Eliza.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  Big question for you. John L. Marie McGee from Facebook says, what are your thoughts on the Space Force?

• 38:23Bill Nye?

  Oh, so it's everybody.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  And what is it?

• 38:25Bill Nye?

  So, it's been proposed by certain congressmen here, member of Congress rather, here in the United States, to add a sixth branch of the US military. So, you'd have the Navy, the Army, or the, let's start with the Army, the Navy and the Marines, the Coast Guard, and the Air Force. He wants to add a sixth one, the Space Force.

• 38:51Bill Nye?

  Now, we're not supposed, as the head of this, CEO of the Planetary Society, it is not recommended that I express my political views in this regard.

• 39:00Speaker 02

  You kinda already did.

• 39:01Bill Nye?

  Well, the thing is...

• 39:02Speaker 02

  The Mars question.

• 39:03Bill Nye?

  Well, the space, if you go to, you don't go to the air museum here in the US. The second most popular museum on earth is not the air museum, nor is it the space museum. It's the air and space museum. And so, what the US Air Force does now is largely space. So, maybe you could think of the US Air Force as the US Air and Space Force.

• 39:25Speaker 02

  Just add it on to the badge.

• 39:27Bill Nye?

  And we'd all move on, maybe. Don't, I mean, I'm not in charge. But what is clear is Russia's having a space force. And so, that's probably what's motivating somebody thinking we need a space force.

• 39:40Speaker 02

  FOMO.

• 39:41Bill Nye?

  But it would be new stationary, new uniforms, a new song, a new everything.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  I think that's the big hiccup, is the new song.

• 39:49Bill Nye?

  And so, BT dubs, from my personal experience, myself personally speaking for myself, Eliza, I worked briefly on what's called the Joint Strike Fighter. This was an airplane, as an engineer. This is an airplane that was gonna be bought by the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marines, and it was gonna do all these great things. And the great things it was gonna do was lower the cost of fighter planes. That was gonna be the great thing it was gonna do.

• 40:16Speaker 02

  What happened?

• 40:17Bill Nye?

  Well, it didn't. I mean, instead of 70%, this is a great noun, 70% commonality.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 40:26Bill Nye?

  The parts would be interchangeable between the Air Force, the Marines, and the Navy.

• 40:30Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 40:31Bill Nye?

  It ended up to be about 30%. In other words, instead of 70% common, it ended up 70% uncommon.

• 40:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:37Bill Nye?

  So, it was, you guys, I'm all for it. But what everybody's trying to do is integrate the services, not add another one. But I want you to be happy, congressmen and senators. If you can show voters and taxpayers that you're saving money and doing a great thing, then knock yourselves out.

• 40:52Speaker 02

  Let's see the Venn diagram. Let's see that commonality.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  Show it.

• 40:56Bill Nye?

  Let's see the Venn diagram.

• 40:57Speaker 02

  Let's see the Venn diagram, because I will believe anything on a Venn diagram.

• 41:00Bill Nye?

  Really?

• 41:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yep.

• 41:03Bill Nye?

  So give me an example.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  Okay, uh, um, uh, reasons I love puppies and reasons I love small dogs and they overlap, um, because they're both dogs.

• 41:15Bill Nye?

  Uh, but so, uh, so you, is the ultimate a small dog puppy? Or is that taking it too far?

• 41:21Speaker 02

  You can't have a small, uh, well, I guess all puppies are small to start. So that's the ultimate, that's the goal.

• 41:28Bill Nye?

  So, I mean, the so-called teacup Yorkie?

• 41:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, what about it? I don't know, it's too small. Maybe I changed my mind, it's too small, it's too fragile.

• 41:36Bill Nye?

  Well, so let me talk briefly as a guy who's written a book about evolution. And I wrote a book because I was concerned about people's literacy with respect to evolution.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  So you wrote a book to taunt them?

• 41:46Bill Nye?

  No, to in, to enable them to understand the most, the fundamental idea in all of biology.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 41:53Bill Nye?

  Or at least discuss it.

• 41:56Bill Nye?

  They're all dogs.

• 41:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:58Bill Nye?

  If you're Blanche.

• 42:00Speaker 02

  You're a dog.

• 42:01Bill Nye?

  Interacts, Blanche is a dog.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  Hold on, I'll get you an example.

• 42:05Bill Nye?

  If Blanche, who is not especially big, and we're talking about science and space exploration.

• 42:11Speaker 02

  But she is dense.

• 42:12Bill Nye?

  Okay, if Blanche were to interact, can I say interact? With a Great Dane?

• 42:18Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:19Bill Nye?

  All you're gonna get is a dog. You're not gonna get some new thing.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  You're still gonna get a dog.

• 42:24Bill Nye?

  It's, all you're gonna get is a dog.

• 42:26Speaker 02

  Fun fact.

• 42:26Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 42:27Speaker 02

  Did you know that a baby horse is not a pony?

• 42:31Bill Nye?

  It's a.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  It's a, a colt?

• 42:34Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  Most people don't know that.

• 42:35Bill Nye?

  Yeah, it's a colt.

• 42:36Speaker 02

  A pony is a pony, it's its own thing.

• 42:38Bill Nye?

  Yeah, it's not the Indianapolis ponies. By way of example.

• 42:43Speaker 02

  It's the Indianapolis colt, so it's baby horses, that's your team.

• 42:45Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  And Colt 45 is a baby beer.

• 42:48Bill Nye?

  Well, the other thing about a colt, I've spent a little bit of time with colts. I have.

• 42:53Speaker 02

  I thought you meant like got brainwashed.

• 42:55Bill Nye?

  No, no, no. They're rambunctious.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  As babies are.

• 42:59Bill Nye?

  Yeah, and so that's not a not a totally unreasonable name for a football team.

• 43:05Speaker 02

  Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Frost Jarvinen on Facebook says, as much as I love NASA, and it's a lot, he wants you to know, it seems as though they're beginning to fall behind private enterprise in terms of pushing the envelope, so to speak. I'd love Bill's thoughts on this, hopefully to ease a bit of my doubts about the challenges NASA might be facing now and in the future.

• 43:31Bill Nye?

  So I think what you're talking about is SpaceX and Blue Origin. So these two crazily rich guys, Elon Musk, who have invented PayPal or was involved very early on in PayPal, and Jeff Bezos, who

• 43:48Speaker 02

  Invented Amazon.

• 43:49Bill Nye?

  Yeah. These guys are so wealthy, how wealthy are they? They're so wealthy, they want to make rocket ships. But bear in mind, NASA buys rockets from these companies. NASA is building an even bigger, bigger rocket because it was believed that there wasn't a business model to make a bigger, big, big rocket called the Space Launch System, the SLS, and whimsical wags, I think is a political term.

• 44:18Speaker 02

  It's not Wives and Girlfriends, like that show.

• 44:21Bill Nye?

  No, no. Unless they all are critical of Congress, then they'd be wagwags.

• 44:26Speaker 02

  I doubt they have opinions.

• 44:27Bill Nye?

  Yeah. Anyway, they called it the Senate Launch System because it seemed like it was a political thing. However, if the Space Launch System can be built successfully, this big rocket, it will lower the cost of going to deep space, and that'll be good.

• 44:43Speaker 02

  And this is the thing you're touching on for all of these, is like the more we funnel our energies into this, and the more there is, then we can trickle down and there's less of a cost.

• 44:51Bill Nye?

  And let me say, it's very cool and showy that SpaceX is landing the rocket boosters and reusing rocket boosters and trying to catch the drogue, the block the wind mobile nose cone on a ship. It's all very cool. But it's not clear that you're not losing money doing that.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Not clear yet.

• 45:14Bill Nye?

  So if they can get up over thirty launches a year, it'll be economical. That's what people speculate. So we'll see. It's competition's good. And just remember, the space agencies buy stuff from contractors. It's not one or the other. It's all at once. All the money spent in space is spent on Earth, as I like to say. Eliza, take it.

• 45:33Speaker 02

  That's where we spend our money.

• 45:34Bill Nye?

  And you should watch her special.

• 45:35Speaker 02

  Because it covers all of these topics.

• 45:37Bill Nye?

  It does. She is the elder millennial.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  Yes, I am. So my question, Matthew McDaniel says, my question is, if Space Force becomes a workable branch of the military, which you prefer it not be a thing.

• 45:47Bill Nye?

  Well, I mean, if somebody can show it's worth it, I'm in.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  If it's worth it. Scientific proof. Could the first step to actual colonization of the moon and possibly, could it be the first step in colonization of the moon and possibly Mars? Or at least manned orbital observation posts?

• 46:01Bill Nye?

  So a couple of things. Uh, no.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  Great. We'll be right back.

• 46:06Bill Nye?

  Because it's military. That's not the military's business. Military doesn't go to establish colonies. In the good old days, you hired like General Custer, George Custer.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  We all know what happened there.

• 46:18Bill Nye?

  Well, here's what happened. Uh, he was defeated because the natives had better weaponry. Strangely enough, they had traded for better guns. But after that happened, that's when the US said, okay, that's it. We're taking over. We're knocking, we're wiping these people out of here. And so there was an example where the US military was involved in colonization.

• 46:42Bill Nye?

  That wasn't good, probably. Historians generally think that was unfair and troubling. So you will not use the US military to establish settlements on other worlds. Uh, the way to think about it is NASA, ESA, European Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency, Australian Space, they look up and out. The military looks down and in.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  Oh, two different jobs.

• 47:09Bill Nye?

  Two different things.

• 47:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, different perspectives. Looks down and in to keep the peace.

• 47:13Bill Nye?

  Well, what we call situational awareness. We used to call spying.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  Oh, I like that term. That's interesting. Situational. So it was situational awareness that helped you find out your boyfriend was cheating on you?

• 47:25Bill Nye?

  Well, that's right. And situational awareness also tells you where the weather is. It's not bad. I was, I went a little, I got a little edgy there.

• 47:31Speaker 02

  I felt it.

• 47:32Bill Nye?

  Yeah.

• 47:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:34Bill Nye?

  I'll pull back.

• 47:35Speaker 02

  Rated R.

• 47:36Bill Nye?

  Thank you for tuning in here to StarTalk All-Stars Edition. I want to thank especially the wonderful insights of my co-host, Eliza.

• 47:42Speaker 02

  Thank you for letting me answer all your questions.

• 47:43Bill Nye?

  It was fun. Her special, Elder Millennials, is streaming now on Netflix.

• 47:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can catch it now, right now. And you should. Click.

• 47:53Bill Nye?

  And turn it up. Thanks for watching, everyone. I'm Bill Nye. We'll see you next time on StarTalk. Keep looking up. (Music)