Cosmic Queries – World Space Week

To celebrate World Space Week, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Matt Kirshen and astrophysicist Charles Liu, PhD, answer fan-submitted questions on a variety of celestial topics including parallel universes, solar energy, speed of light travel, Mars, and more! NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons and All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/show/cosmic-queries-world-space-week/ Thanks to this week’s Patrons for supporting us: David Vives, Kelly Holman, and Nick Bryant. Photo Credit: NASA/Tony Gray and Kevin O’Connell.

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and beaming out across all of space and time, this is StarTalk, where science and pop culture collide.

• 0:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and this is a Cosmic Queries edition, where we are celebrating Space Week. That would be the first week of October that happens to contain my birthday, I'm just saying.

• 0:42Charles Liu?

  Woo! Oh, yeah.

• 0:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who's making those whooping noises? I've got my co-host for this, Matt Kirshen. Matt, welcome back.

• 0:49Matt Kirshen?

  Thank you, Neil.

• 0:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent.

• 0:51Matt Kirshen?

  What came first, by the way, Space Week or your birthday? Did it become Space Week because it was the Neil deGrasse Tyson birthday?

• 0:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My birthday precedes the official celebration of Space Week.

• 1:01Matt Kirshen?

  There we go.

• 1:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So maybe.

• 1:03Matt Kirshen?

  Maybe that was the designation?

• 1:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe. We got a lot of fun questions coming up.

• 1:09Matt Kirshen?

  We show them.

• 1:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I got backup here. In fact, I'm his backup. If he's on a show with me, I'm his backup. The one, the only, the geek-in-chief, Charles Lu.

• 1:17Charles Liu?

  I am so happy to be here, Neil. Thank you.

• 1:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Friend and colleague, you're a professor at City University of New York at Staten Island.

• 1:24Charles Liu?

  Correct.

• 1:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so you just had a book come out.

• 1:26Charles Liu?

  Yes, thank you. Yeah. It's called 32nd Universe. It's published by Ivy Press in the UK.

• 1:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is it because there are 31 other universes and we're in the 32nd one? Is that what that means?

• 1:35Charles Liu?

  I asked the very same question. The parsing is 30 hyphen second.

• 1:40Matt Kirshen?

  Is it every decision that's made, the universe splits in two?

• 1:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He made 31 decisions that nobody wanted, right?

• 1:47Matt Kirshen?

  Well, it's only, to make 32 decisions, that's only, what, is it like five?

• 1:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Five doublings?

• 1:52Matt Kirshen?

  Yeah.

• 1:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 1:53Charles Liu?

  That's right. No, yes, it is about cosmology, and I have two terrific co-authors, who are also astronomy and physics professors. And we talk--

• 2:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The authors are?

• 2:05Charles Liu?

  Karen Masters at Haverford University, or Haverford College, and Seville Salur at Rutgers University.

• 2:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, cool.

• 2:12Charles Liu?

  And we talk about cosmology, including the idea in quantum mechanics that you create many worlds with a hypothesis--

• 2:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With every split--

• 2:20Charles Liu?

  With every decision you make, you create a new timeline.

• 2:23Matt Kirshen?

  Which I believe was-- Originally formulated by the father of the lead singer of one of my favorite bands.

• 2:29Charles Liu?

  Oh.

• 2:31Matt Kirshen?

  Uh, I believe it was Hugh Everett, the physicist, who came up with that.

• 2:36Charles Liu?

  Hugh does get credit for that.

• 2:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay, alright.

• 2:38Matt Kirshen?

  Whose son created the band Eels.

• 2:40Charles Liu?

  No kidding. Another connection between science and music.

• 2:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it, you got it. And Matt, you're of course the host of Probably Science.

• 2:49Matt Kirshen?

  That's it.

• 2:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I said I would never invite you back until it became Definitely Science. You're still not there.

• 2:54Matt Kirshen?

  The one episode that you were kind enough to come on, that was the definite episode. And then everything else were just flailing.

• 3:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You hosted me on your show, very, very interesting.

• 3:02Matt Kirshen?

  You were very kind to come by that, yeah.

• 3:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we've got questions from our fanbase, as we usually solicit for cosmic queries. And this is just, I guess, general, I haven't seen them, general questions about space. You're gonna handpick them.

• 3:13Matt Kirshen?

  I am.

• 3:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're gonna throw down a gauntlet.

• 3:16Charles Liu?

  Ooh.

• 3:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Charles, I'll sit here and eat my lunch.

• 3:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why I bring them on, so I don't have to work that day.

• 3:23Charles Liu?

  Okay, so I'll just...

• 3:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have very strongly overlapping Venn diagrams in our expertise. But he takes it another dimension beyond that.

• 3:31Charles Liu?

  I'm sweating now, Neil, I don't know.

• 3:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we're good.

• 3:33Charles Liu?

  I don't know, we'll see how it goes.

• 3:34Matt Kirshen?

  Well, you know, I'm gonna start off with this one, because this ties into what we were just talking about. This is from DQFam, uh, who says...

• 3:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What platform?

• 3:43Matt Kirshen?

  On Twitter. This is DQ, at Flatnaut on Twitter. I think that's actually relevant to this question, because DQFam, aka Flatnaut, says, "Is there a parallel universe where I, as an astrophysicist on the flat Earth, combat the disinformation agenda of the Round Earth Society?"

• 4:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa!

• 4:04Charles Liu?

  Oh, oh, way to start us off with an easy one.

• 4:09Charles Liu?

  Well, the short answer is no, because...

• 4:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next question.

• 4:12Charles Liu?

  You're wrong. But I think we can take this in a direction where we imagine that it actually is in a flat universe, a two-dimensional universe, where somebody says, "No, actually, the universe is three-dimensional." Right? Now, remember the beautiful book Flatland?

• 4:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By Evan Abbot, yeah.

• 4:30Charles Liu?

  From decades ago.

• 4:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A century ago, yeah.

• 4:33Charles Liu?

  It's been a century.

• 4:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, it was turn of the century book, yeah, yeah.

• 4:36Charles Liu?

  Yeah, but...

• 4:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Turn of the previous century.

• 4:39Charles Liu?

  Right, fair enough. How can we prove that the universe is two-dimensional, if indeed it is two-dimensional, where someone is claiming that there's a third dimension? Right? I would... Approach it this way.

• 4:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you're talking about the whole universe. The dude just talking about Earth.

• 4:55Charles Liu?

  Right, so.

• 4:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I guess if the universe is two dimensions, Earth has to be a flat disk.

• 4:59Charles Liu?

  Correct.

• 5:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, gotcha, gotcha, fine, fine.

• 5:01Charles Liu?

  So, in that sense, right, then some, some non-scientific individual comes along and says, "The universe is a three-dimensional structure, and the Earth is actually a three-dimensional structure. How would you counter that?" Right? And so that makes it a more interesting question. And I would say, one of the first things you would try to do is to see if you can prove that the two-dimensional universe cannot project into the third. In other words, you cannot find a way to extend the universe in an orthogonal direction to both. Yeah, perpen- excuse me. Yes, you can't extend something perpendicular to both length and width. Now, can you do that in any?

• 5:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, what you're saying is, in our current universe, we have a height, width, depth.

• 5:49Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 5:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're saying that the version of that question to us would be, "Find another place to stick out a line that's at right angles to those three other right angles." And we don't know how to do that.

• 6:01Charles Liu?

  Right, and so that would be the way that as someone in a true two-dimensional universe, just trying to say that there is no third dimension.

• 6:08Matt Kirshen?

  Are there, am I right in thinking there are some theories of physics that involve higher spatial dimensions in our universe?

• 6:15Charles Liu?

  Oh, completely, but those dimensions are not visible to us.

• 6:19Matt Kirshen?

  Okay.

• 6:20Charles Liu?

  And one of the well-known formulations of this is something called a compactified dimension.

• 6:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But Charles, you're okay with this? There are these extra dimensions, you just can't see them. You're okay with this?

• 6:29Charles Liu?

  I'm not okay with it, yet.

• 6:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 6:31Charles Liu?

  But they haven't been disproven, right? Here's the idea of the compactified dimension. If our length was actually, you zoom in further and further and further, and you find out that our length is actually has length, width, and height. But it's so small compared to even atoms or subatomic particles, that that width and height is not detectable in our universe.

• 6:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's tantamount to just being a one-dimensional string.

• 6:56Charles Liu?

  It's as if it were one-dimensional, for all intents and purposes.

• 6:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that where they use the word "compactified"? It's contained tightly within the other dimensions.

• 7:04Charles Liu?

  You can imagine, for example, looking at the Alaska Pipeline. If you're standing right next to the Alaska Pipeline, it is obviously Both with length and width, additionally, it has height. So it's a three-dimensional object. You step a little further away, it just becomes like a long strip. So you think it has height and length, but you can't see the depth anymore. And then if you fly away, say to Canada, and you're looking at the Alaska Pipeline from a distance, it only looks like a line. By that same token, we could compactify dimensions into our linear dimensions.

• 7:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how you get the higher dimensions, even though you can't experience them.

• 7:36Charles Liu?

  Right. And somehow, if you think that those compactified dimensions can affect our universe in ways we can't measure, then you can, say, set up a universe with multiple dimensions.

• 7:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what you're saying is we're too big?

• 7:49Charles Liu?

  We are. Isn't that cool?

• 7:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 7:52Charles Liu?

  Yeah. In the universe for which we are very, very tiny, we are still way too big to see hypothesized compactified dimensions.

• 7:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we're too small to see that Earth is a sphere?

• 8:03Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 8:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We just walk in a straight line, and it's a straight line to you.

• 8:09Charles Liu?

  Yep.

• 8:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if you back out, you're walking on the surface of a sphere, and you don't even know it.

• 8:13Charles Liu?

  Fantastic, that's right. And so that's how you would try to address two-dimensional, three-dimensional, more-dimensional type of things.

• 8:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love the question.

• 8:19Charles Liu?

  Yeah, very clever.

• 8:20Matt Kirshen?

  I love the question, and I love that answer.

• 8:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 8:23Matt Kirshen?

  So, this is more of a practical question from Seemusstar on Instagram. Will we focus more on habitable planets or ore-rich planets in the future? That's ore, O-R-E.

• 8:37Charles Liu?

  Oh, okay, okay. Ore-rich planets.

• 8:39Matt Kirshen?

  Yes.

• 8:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or ore.

• 8:41Matt Kirshen?

  Or ore-rich planets.

• 8:42Charles Liu?

  Because I would focus on rich planets, if it's just ore-rich. Because then I could, like, you know, do business with them. But ore-rich planets, I think, are not as interesting as habitable planets. And the reason is, to go to another planet that is trillions of miles away to get a little bit of ore and then bring it back to Earth is really impractical. You can't hardly imagine a substance currently known to science for which that would be profitable or economically feasible, right? You have, of course, the science fiction world, where you imagine something called, oh, I don't know, unobtanium.

• 9:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sure.

• 9:21Charles Liu?

  Yeah, which could not be obtained here on Earth, and therefore you must go far away to get it. But that seems extremely unlikely to me. So I would much rather find the blue-skinned creatures than the unobtanium.

• 9:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so I think there will be, I agree with you scientifically.

• 9:40Charles Liu?

  Okay.

• 9:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But as like a practical guy, as a realist.

• 9:44Charles Liu?

  Okay.

• 9:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think the drive to obtain resources and possibly unobtainium will be greater than the drive to find other life.

• 9:54Charles Liu?

  Oh.

• 9:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the more busy we are in space, the less will be the need to bring the resources back to Earth compared with bringing the resources to other onsite locations.

• 10:04Charles Liu?

  Oh.

• 10:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that has value.

• 10:06Charles Liu?

  You're thinking much further in the future than I am.

• 10:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 10:08Charles Liu?

  Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, because I can certainly see.

• 10:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you don't, there are many planets, asteroids do have this.

• 10:13Charles Liu?

  Now, that's the thing that I wanted to point out.

• 10:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'd still claim the first trillionaire, the first trillionaire will be the person who exploits the natural resources of asteroids.

• 10:22Matt Kirshen?

  Well, there is a connected question here from SaiGaiKai on Twitter.

• 10:27Charles Liu?

  Okay.

• 10:28Matt Kirshen?

  What are the most common precious metals and useful elements found in asteroids? Could we mine asteroids to build components for starships in space shipyards?

• 10:38Charles Liu?

  Um, I would say the rare earths are more important for asteroid mining.

• 10:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, well, I think all of them, I mean, you know.

• 10:45Charles Liu?

  Microchips and things like that.

• 10:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, the rare earths, by the way, the rare earths are not particularly rare. They're just mostly in China. So access to them is not as free and smooth as we might want for the future of our technology. And as Charles noted, the rare earth elements are fundamental to what is our electronic components, to making them work and do their thing. So, so yeah, I, I, I think it's the first trillionaire. And they're all there on the asteroids.

• 11:17Charles Liu?

  They are there, yeah. The challenge is to get them back to Earth. You gotta get there, fine, but then you have to mine them and you gotta bring them back. And mining is actually pretty complicated. There's a lot of engineering.

• 11:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Build the ship in space, dude, don't bring it back to Earth. It's a waste of a whole journey. Build your, that's what the question is, right?

• 11:35Charles Liu?

  Then how do you get the people from Earth to the spaceship? You still need another spaceship, don't you?

• 11:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Robots do it. Robots build a spaceship and then you go up when it's time to go.

• 11:45Charles Liu?

  Why not? Sure.

• 11:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's an app for that.

• 11:48Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 11:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your spaceship is ready, sir.

• 11:50Charles Liu?

  You are definitely looking much further along the time horizon than I am.

• 11:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 11:54Charles Liu?

  And I think that's a fair statement. I will agree with you if we're talking centuries, not decades.

• 11:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Money drives things more than curiosity, unfortunately. The ideal part is to combine the curiosity with the money.

• 12:05Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 12:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then it happens like that. Yeah.

• 12:09Matt Kirshen?

  Here is a Twitter question from George Xenofontos. This is more of an Earth-based question. Why haven't there been a greater number of advancements on solar energy? Given that it's literally a constant free source of energy?

• 12:23Charles Liu?

  Okay.

• 12:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Charles.

• 12:24Charles Liu?

  I have been on my soapbox on this with my astronomy students ever since I started teaching. Okay, solar energy is so plentiful and it's so free. You make the calculation, in fact.

• 12:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What does "so free" mean?

• 12:38Charles Liu?

  Okay, that's my point.

• 12:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Free is free.

• 12:40Charles Liu?

  That's my point. It means that I don't need to pay for the energy to arrive to my house.

• 12:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Free.

• 12:48Charles Liu?

  Okay, that's the free. The rest of it is the thing that costs money, right? Think about this. The amount of energy that the sun sends onto the surface of the Earth is what we call a unit of insulation, right? Insolation with an "O" as opposed to insulation.

• 13:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a real word?

• 13:08Charles Liu?

  Yeah, insulation. There are scientists use it. That's why we don't know it really.

• 13:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Insolation.

• 13:13Charles Liu?

  Insolation, yes.

• 13:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's just the amount of sunlight.

• 13:15Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 13:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So "sol" is Latin for sun. Right. Yeah.

• 13:18Charles Liu?

  It's the amount of sunlight that hits the Earth, well, any planet, but in this case, the insulation onto Earth is at a rate of 1,400 watts per square meter.

• 13:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 13:31Charles Liu?

  Okay, what does that mean? Our typical LED light bulb is now 14 watts.

• 13:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At most.

• 13:37Charles Liu?

  Yeah, right. So on every, just on the table in front of us, just on any...

• 13:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Coffee table.

• 13:43Charles Liu?

  Yeah, coffee table on any surface, you are getting enough light energy, if it were properly converted, to be able to illuminate 100 light bulbs' worth of light.

• 13:58Charles Liu?

  Just continuously forever. A hundred light bulbs. A hundred light bulbs. Most houses don't have a hundred light bulbs. That's right. So you can literally light every house in the world on this free energy if we just figured out a way to exploit it. And I believe sadly that the main reason we have not done so is because people find it more profitable to exploit energy sources that are much older in their origins. Our ability. Just say it, oil. Just say it. Say it. Oil. All other resources. Yeah, I don't want to, I don't want to diss older sources of energy because as much

• 14:43Charles Liu?

  trouble as they have caused us in, on environmental levels, they have also advanced civilization. Yeah, they have advanced us so much in so many ways in the past couple of centuries. Gold coil. Gold coil. Yeah. Oil, coal, natural gas, these fossil fuels have really spurred our human ability to be where we are today. But it is time to switch over. And as with anything in society, switching over from something old to something new takes time. There is resistance. The resistance should move away at this point. There is no more reason for us not to switch except for trying to preserve the prosperity

• 15:26Charles Liu?

  and the interests of those who have become wealthy from the old technology.

• 15:30Matt Kirshen?

  I've seen technologies like, I don't, I don't know how far along it is, but I know they've trialed things like road surfaces that have solar cells built into them.

• 15:39Charles Liu?

  That's right. You could put solar cells on buildings. You could, not just on the roofs, but there are windows now where people can put a film on them. And if you want shade in your room, you just turn the film over and then all that sunlight instead of going into your room gets absorbed by this film, which can then be converted into electricity. As long as we are willing to take a, a short-term hit on profits, we will have a long-term benefit by using more solar energy. Maybe it won't happen until we figure out how to make it instantly profitable. Who would have thought?

• 16:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That after millennia of riding horses, within a dozen, fifteen years, we switched over to cars.

• 16:24Charles Liu?

  It was amazing.

• 16:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At some point, somebody said, "This car is more economical than my horse."

• 16:29Matt Kirshen?

  Right.

• 16:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Than feeding my horse and the care and feeding of a huge animal. And so, at some point, that happened, because nobody had to have special programs to get you to buy a car.

• 16:38Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 16:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, everybody bought cars.

• 16:40Charles Liu?

  Is there a tipping point?

• 16:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the point, that's the point, there you go.

• 16:43Charles Liu?

  I don't, I don't see an obvious one.

• 16:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Neither do I.

• 16:46Charles Liu?

  Unfortunately.

• 16:47Matt Kirshen?

  How does it work, also, the resource, well, we were just talking about mining for rare metals and elements in the universe. Uh, the resources needed currently to make solar cells, do we have enough of those?

• 17:00Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 17:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know, Charles, do we? Yeah, we do.

• 17:01Charles Liu?

  The vast majority of what we need is just really good silicon. And so, that's sand.

• 17:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:08Charles Liu?

  Uh, we can basically take sand from pretty much anywhere and turn them into solar cells.

• 17:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Silicon dioxide.

• 17:13Charles Liu?

  Yeah, yeah, SiO2. It is not hard.

• 17:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 17:16Charles Liu?

  It's just, at the moment, it costs money. And people would rather not spend that money. Um, I, I, I myself, you know, am guilty of saying, "Gee, I should really put solar panels on my roof."

• 17:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you just go home and eat a cheeseburger and watch TV.

• 17:29Charles Liu?

  Yes. Because it is much less expensive for me as a consumer

• 17:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 17:34Charles Liu?

  to heat my home with natural gas right now, or to light my home with, with coal power.

• 17:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  First adopters tend to be rich. And they'll do it so they have bragging rights that they're, they're more green than you are.

• 17:44Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 17:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that helps to change the, the infrastructure, uh, when they have it.

• 17:48Charles Liu?

  The good news is that prices for solar electricity generating things are going down rapidly.

• 17:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I will add, before we take a quick break, that solar power is also hydroelectric. Because, how do you think the water gets up to the lake before it comes through the turbines?

• 18:08Charles Liu?

  Evaporation.

• 18:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It evaporates it off the ocean, goes a cloud, the cloud moves over land, it rains, so that's technically solar power. And so is wind energy. It's all from the sun.

• 18:17Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 18:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The unequal heating of the earth's surface creates, uh, air currents that drive. So, the sun manifested more than just whether you need a solar panel. I've got to take a quick break, and when we come back, more of our Cosmic Queries Space Week Edition.

• 18:41Speaker 03

  Bringing space and science down to earth. You're listening to StarTalk.

• 19:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk, Cosmic Queries, Space Week Edition. Charles Lu, friend and colleague.

• 19:05Charles Liu?

  Thank you.

• 19:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's my expertise here, and I'm just gonna color comment when he... If I think he misses something, which he hardly ever does.

• 19:11Charles Liu?

  Oh.

• 19:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm in there, but generally, I'm not saying a thing. Mac, Gershon, welcome back.

• 19:18Matt Kirshen?

  Thank you so much.

• 19:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, take us there. You got questions?

• 19:20Matt Kirshen?

  All right, I do.

• 19:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Call from our fanbase. I love this fanbase.

• 19:23Matt Kirshen?

  This one is from...

• 19:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're snarky, and they're funny, and they're...

• 19:27Charles Liu?

  Smart.

• 19:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and smart.

• 19:28Charles Liu?

  Really, really good questions.

• 19:29Matt Kirshen?

  This one's from Kyle Yokum, who has helpfully given a pronunciation guide.

• 19:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's in case we have Chuck Nice, because Chuck can't pronounce anything.

• 19:38Matt Kirshen?

  Carlos from Tennessee, and asks, "How would we identify something as truly being of another universe, rather than just a newly discovered part of our own?"

• 19:48Charles Liu?

  Oh, wow.

• 19:49Matt Kirshen?

  And I think I know the answer to that, and it's antennae.

• 19:53Charles Liu?

  Yeah, just tell the Andorians that. Yeah, they'd be very irritated. No, they're from our universe, too, but...

• 20:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a good one, Charles.

• 20:01Charles Liu?

  I would have to think to chemistry.

• 20:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 20:05Charles Liu?

  If an object is made of something that is an element of something we have never seen before, something that wouldn't fit on our periodic table for any reason, that would have to come from a place where the laws of physics are different, and thus, a different universe.

• 20:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I agree entirely. Our periodic table of elements is full. We're incrementing at the top end in our labs, but there are no more slots at all. Okay? And if they come up with something that is a base element...

• 20:35Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 20:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then it's gonna be an element configured in some way that our elements are not configured.

• 20:40Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 20:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we say, "Yep, this is a weird bird right here."

• 20:45Charles Liu?

  It's similar, in a sense, that an expanded version of how we know that there is material in our solar system that came from outside our solar system, like before the sun was born. There are grains that contain carbon, nano-diamonds, basically.

• 21:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It doesn't have to be before our sun was born. It doesn't have to be. It could just be visiting.

• 21:05Charles Liu?

  Yeah, it could just be visit like floating into our solar system. But we know if it's from outside our solar system, if we compare their isotopic ratios or their structures and we see that there's nothing that matches that age or that

• 21:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mixture.

• 21:20Charles Liu?

  That is actually of our solar system.

• 21:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we have ways to do this, so, but that's fine, but then you say, how did it get here?

• 21:28Charles Liu?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What portal through the spacetime continuum connected two different universes with two different laws of physics? That's what the, that's what the real issue will be.

• 21:37Matt Kirshen?

  Well, I was gonna do a different question, but since you've talked about portals through the spacetime continuum, I'm going.

• 21:42Charles Liu?

  You went there, Neil.

• 21:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I went there. I went there first.

• 21:45Matt Kirshen?

  Yeah, I'm gonna go with, uh, Tony in the 845 on Twitter, who asked, even if we somehow discovered the tech to travel at or faster than light, would the passengers of the vehicles survive?

• 22:01Charles Liu?

  Oh, well, you know how the Flash does it, right?

• 22:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doesn't he have atmospheric separators in front of him?

• 22:08Charles Liu?

  The Flash can go up to the speed of light, superhero, fake science, all that, right?

• 22:13Matt Kirshen?

  But if he's giving someone a piggyback?

• 22:15Charles Liu?

  Yeah, that person is toast.

• 22:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 22:18Charles Liu?

  The, what's?

• 22:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Note to self, when offered a piggyback ride by the Flash.

• 22:23Matt Kirshen?

  What are we doing? Are we just doing like a donkey ride around the living room or are we going at that speed?

• 22:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm taking the bus.

• 22:28Charles Liu?

  Well, yeah, so the, the issue here is that if we take something up to the speed of light and it can survive going the speed of light, then it has to be able to protect whatever's inside it to be able also to match the speed of light. So, um, remember that as you get closer and closer to the speed of light, and once you reach the speed of light, you cannot have mass anymore. You are energy by definition. So the way to get up to the limit is to have a really good, strong shielding of whatever's there, but then getting past it will require.

• 23:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Shielding from what?

• 23:06Charles Liu?

  Um, interstellar particles, for example.

• 23:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, stuff that could slam into you.

• 23:09Charles Liu?

  Yeah, stuff that hits you.

• 23:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If something hits you at the speed of light, that would hurt.

• 23:12Charles Liu?

  Yeah, a lot.

• 23:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay.

• 23:14Matt Kirshen?

  Unless it's light.

• 23:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Unless it's light, that just feels good, right?

• 23:17Charles Liu?

  Yeah, right.

• 23:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be funny, you wanna be.

• 23:20Charles Liu?

  Ouch, ouch.

• 23:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what the sunscreen is for.

• 23:25Charles Liu?

  That's what it is.

• 23:25Matt Kirshen?

  It's literally history.

• 23:26Charles Liu?

  Yes, that's right.

• 23:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, a force field.

• 23:28Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 23:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 23:29Charles Liu?

  You would have to find a way for this vehicle itself to survive. And by extension, whatever's inside the vehicle would survive as well. Anything piggyback, though, probably would be burnt to a crisp.

• 23:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I want to make something clear, that speed does not kill. It's acceleration that kills.

• 23:47Charles Liu?

  Hmm, right.

• 23:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so you can be cruising at 99.99% the speed of light. No one will know and no one will care. But if you abruptly come to zero, or if you abruptly speed up to that, then you're a pile of goo at the back of the spaceship.

• 24:01Matt Kirshen?

  So if you could be magicked into the middle of something that was already moving at the speed of light, or at 99% of the speed of light.

• 24:07Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 24:08Matt Kirshen?

  Well, the problem is that...

• 24:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or you can accelerate there slowly.

• 24:11Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 24:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can do that. In fact, they have spaceships, we've, I mean, people, engineers, have conceived of spaceships that accelerate at 1G, 1 Earth gravity. And then it just feels like you're just sitting here like we're having this conversation. But we're going faster and faster and faster. And do you remember how quickly you get to the speed of light, near the speed? It's pretty, like, 6 months or something.

• 24:29Charles Liu?

  It's not that bad.

• 24:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not that bad.

• 24:31Charles Liu?

  Within a year.

• 24:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Within a year.

• 24:32Matt Kirshen?

  But then doesn't...

• 24:33Charles Liu?

  Then you have to slow down. It also takes...

• 24:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you just turn the ship around and slow down in that direction, and so you're still...

• 24:39Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 24:39Matt Kirshen?

  But doesn't your mass then increase as...

• 24:42Charles Liu?

  Your mass increases relative to other things around you.

• 24:47Matt Kirshen?

  Okay, so within the spaceship that's also moving at that speed?

• 24:50Charles Liu?

  Right, right. So you and I would maintain our relative masses. But you and I would not retain our relative masses compared to, you know, Zorkon, who's out, you know, next to the ship.

• 25:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Be nice to him, he weighs like 108 pounds. Be nice to the guy. He's trying to gain some mass here, alright.

• 25:06Matt Kirshen?

  Yeah, how much faster do I have to run than Zorkon?

• 25:10Matt Kirshen?

  Look, beach ready.

• 25:11Charles Liu?

  There you go.

• 25:12Matt Kirshen?

  Summer's coming up. While we're talking about summer and atmosphere and such like, @timesnatural on Instagram asked, "If Mars were to be terraformed, thus given an Earth-like atmosphere, how would it be possible to keep the atmosphere from being blown away by solar winds, considering Mars does not have the magnetic protection that we do?"

• 25:32Charles Liu?

  That's right.

• 25:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a good question, dude!

• 25:34Charles Liu?

  That's an excellent question. Um, I think... The first question, which is even more important, is Mars doesn't have the gravity to hold on to our atmosphere. If we tried to put as much atmosphere on Earth, the tops of it would continuously be going away before we could develop enough pressure on the surface to get to, say, Earth's atmospheric pressure. So the answer is it just has to be constantly being generated. Okay.

• 26:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But Charles, there's clearly evidence of it once having had running water on its surface.

• 26:08Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 26:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there had to be enough air pressure to prevent the water from just evaporating. And that had to have been sustained for some fair amount of time, because some of the rivers are meandering.

• 26:18Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 26:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's a slow thing. You don't just get that for free.

• 26:21Charles Liu?

  We're talking about millions of years, right? Maybe even up to a billion years.

• 26:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 26:27Charles Liu?

  When Mars, like any other planet in our solar system, was forming, the core was slowly aggregating its metals from the surface, right? It's a differentiation process where, just in the same way that pulp in orange juice sinks to the bottom, so too is the metals.

• 26:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, does pulp sink to the bottom?

• 26:44Charles Liu?

  Eventually.

• 26:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My pulp floats.

• 26:46Charles Liu?

  Oh, give it time.

• 26:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay.

• 26:49Charles Liu?

  Yeah, give it time.

• 26:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got floaty pulp.

• 26:52Charles Liu?

  Wow. I want to drink your orange juice. Okay.

• 26:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But no, I know what you're saying. First of all, these oranges will actually separate.

• 27:00Charles Liu?

  That's right. The separation of the orange juice is an analogy to the separation of, like, a metal core and a rocky mantle, and then a rocky crust on the outside, right?

• 27:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We think of rocks as heavy, but they're light compared to metal.

• 27:11Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 27:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they float.

• 27:13Charles Liu?

  Right. So when the metal sinks, heat is dissipated outward, gently but with vigor, into the surroundings, the crust and eventually the atmosphere. In that process, you can get a lot of outgassing from underneath the surface out onto the surface, which means that you can, for many millions of years, possibly-

• 27:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  While that's happening.

• 27:35Charles Liu?

  While it's happening, sustain the atmosphere that will create meandering rivers that you described. So I believe that it'll have to be-

• 27:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It doesn't take a million years to meander a river.

• 27:44Charles Liu?

  But it may take that much time to say evolve a proto-virus.

• 27:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, sure, sure.

• 27:50Charles Liu?

  So, the answer is the same answer that no, we cannot prevent it from going away, either because of magnetic fields not being there, nor by not enough gravity. Instead, we just have to keep generating more and more atmosphere at the surface, so that we can maintain equilibrium even as the outer layers are going away.

• 28:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to be clear, the magnetic field shields us from particles from the sun that would otherwise basically pick off the faster moving atoms.

• 28:20Matt Kirshen?

  Right, so would there be other problems as well being on Mars then without that shielding?

• 28:24Charles Liu?

  Oh, yes, oh, yes.

• 28:25Matt Kirshen?

  Just with the solar winds hitting you and...

• 28:26Charles Liu?

  Right, when you have energetic charged particles.

• 28:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not just magnetic field, it's also, isn't it also the ozone? Because UV from the sun

• 28:35Charles Liu?

  Ultraviolet light.

• 28:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  will break apart the water molecule and make it H2O. And the H is hydrogen, the lightest element, and it moves very fast in any thermal environment. You lose that, and so leave, stranding the oxygen behind. So you systematically, molecule by molecule, take out your water.

• 28:52Charles Liu?

  That's right.

• 28:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's not, had nothing to do with the magnetic field.

• 28:54Charles Liu?

  Yeah, there's all kinds of problems when you don't have a protection against ionizing radiation of any kind, whether they be light, like gamma rays and X-rays, or whether they be charged particles.

• 29:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's just go, let's just go out and say, if you can terraform Mars, you can put up a shield. Just think about it.

• 29:13Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 29:13Matt Kirshen?

  Or just a big magnet. How big a magnet?

• 29:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you, one of those little cartoon magnets.

• 29:17Charles Liu?

  There you go.

• 29:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With the zaggy lines on it.

• 29:21Charles Liu?

  I would love to have that.

• 29:22Matt Kirshen?

  No, it's true. Everyone has their own magnet that they will walk around with like an umbrella.

• 29:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Their own magnet? On, on it like a miner's helmet, they got their own magnet. That, yeah, the engineers will find a solution to that, Charles.

• 29:33Matt Kirshen?

  No one can stand too close to a fridge.

• 29:35Charles Liu?

  I think terra, yeah, I think the, the terraforming reality is that you are gonna have to live in domes in a place like Mars. You, you, you can't just leave it open.

• 29:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be funny if they had a magnet on the helmet. Get too close to your refrigerator, you just get stuck. Mommy! It's like the modern version of getting your tongue stuck on a frozen pipe.

• 29:55Charles Liu?

  Yeah, that would be funny.

• 29:56Matt Kirshen?

  Uh, which I think as a scientist, you know, if that happens, the best thing to do is just keep pulling. Just keep.

• 30:01Charles Liu?

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:02Matt Kirshen?

  Lean back as hard as.

• 30:05Matt Kirshen?

  And eventually it'll snap and then roll up.

• 30:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then roll up. It'll roll up. Yes.

• 30:09Matt Kirshen?

  And that's how it works. We heard it here from two scientists. Uh, while we've got scientists here as well, One Hive Gazette on Patreon.

• 30:17Charles Liu?

  Ooh.

• 30:18Matt Kirshen?

  Asks, "I've heard there are benefits to putting a space telescope on the far side of the moon. I think because Earth's radio emissions won't cause interference there. Do you think there will eventually be a telescope station there? What exactly would be the benefits?" And that's also, uh, there's a name at the end of that as well. That's Patrick Follis.

• 30:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, right.

• 30:35Matt Kirshen?

  From Mill Creek.

• 30:36Charles Liu?

  Well, Patrick, yes, there should be a telescope there. And there are many benefits.

• 30:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I attended an entire conference on this in Arizona a few years ago. Yeah, astronomy from the far side of the moon. And it was, it was a delight just to see, because we're nowhere near getting there.

• 30:52Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 30:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But to see these early ideas of why it's useful. Yeah, we are a radio noisy place. And radio telescopes need this, this radio silence. It's, it's, it's basically not, well, it's noise in the traditional sense. It's, it's electromagnetic noise. Noise, signals that you don't want to be there because you're trying to detect something that's dimmer than it all, than.

• 31:13Matt Kirshen?

  And, and would it all be blocked out by being on the other side of the moon?

• 31:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Essentially, yeah, it doesn't, it would have to penetrate through the moon.

• 31:19Matt Kirshen?

  Right. So there aren't like waves that can go around or?

• 31:21Charles Liu?

  There is some diffraction.

• 31:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A little bit, but on the edges. But if you're smack dab on the other side of the moon, Earth is dead to you.

• 31:27Charles Liu?

  You should be able to avoid it. So for example, spacecraft now which have landed on the far side of the moon. Uh, can communicate with Earth because there is a satellite in orbit around the moon.

• 31:40Matt Kirshen?

  Oh, so that sort of bounces it off?

• 31:41Charles Liu?

  That's bounces it off, right.

• 31:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. So any civilization back, any, any colony would have to have, uh, some kind of way to bounce off of the side of the moon to come straight back to us. Either by permanent stations like, like, um, towers that can talk to each other. By the way.

• 31:59Matt Kirshen?

  It's like those sort of look behind glasses that spies have that they get from the back of magazines.

• 32:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What ever happened to those?

• 32:04Charles Liu?

  Oh, Spider-Man still uses them.

• 32:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 32:06Charles Liu?

  According to.

• 32:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doesn't use Spidey sense? He's gotta use Google glasses to see behind him?

• 32:11Charles Liu?

  According to. Information from decades ago, which may have been, you know, outpaced by 21st century technology. Spider-Man's mask doesn't actually have eye holes. And he actually sees through mirrors that's off to the side.

• 32:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really? I didn't know that.

• 32:28Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 32:28Matt Kirshen?

  I do also like to think that all spies still buy their stuff from the back of joke magazines.

• 32:32Charles Liu?

  Absolutely.

• 32:34Matt Kirshen?

  So they get invisible ink.

• 32:35Charles Liu?

  That's how I got my Charles Atlas, you know, body in seven days.

• 32:39Matt Kirshen?

  And it is remarkable.

• 32:40Charles Liu?

  Okay.

• 32:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the x-ray specs. You want to see the bones?

• 32:44Matt Kirshen?

  Right.

• 32:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People's bones, yeah.

• 32:46Matt Kirshen?

  Which would also enable you to see through the moon to Earth. So you wouldn't have any of that problem.

• 32:50Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 32:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so it's a great idea, especially for radio telescopes.

• 32:53Charles Liu?

  But it is, yeah, and radio telescopes especially are big. And that's one of the reasons why you can't just send them out into space far enough away from Earth to not be affected by the radio.

• 33:05Matt Kirshen?

  Oh, because that was going to be my next question, is why you can't just sort of put it on a moon lander and then drive it across to the far side.

• 33:10Charles Liu?

  I mean, radio telescopes are big, right?

• 33:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, radio telescopes are big. They're big because radio waves are big. And to get a lot of radio waves, to focus them, you need a bigger dish than you'd otherwise think you'd need. So, yeah, and since the far side also gets sunlight, it's not the dark side of the moon. So it's not like you're in eternal darkness, which might be an astronomer's dream state. But a day on the moon lasts a month.

• 33:35Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 33:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A month. So all sides get sunlight.

• 33:38Charles Liu?

  And radio-

• 33:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fifteen days of darkness, fifteen days of sunlight.

• 33:41Charles Liu?

  And radio astronomers can actually work in the daytime, although-

• 33:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is one of the coolest things ever.

• 33:46Charles Liu?

  Which is really, really cool, although the sun is a big source of radio noise. So there are a lot of trade-offs back and forth, but it's a really cool-

• 33:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a zone around the sun you want to keep clear of it because it'll be too noisy for you. It'll be worse than Earth.

• 33:58Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 33:58Matt Kirshen?

  Where would the best place to be a telescope?

• 34:01Charles Liu?

  On the moon?

• 34:02Matt Kirshen?

  Oh, yeah, or anywhere. If you could put a telescope anywhere in the universe, where would you put it?

• 34:08Matt Kirshen?

  And that question comes from Matt Kirshen in...

• 34:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you could do that, why do you need a telescope? Just go to the place you're looking at with the telescope.

• 34:13Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 34:13Matt Kirshen?

  Alright, well that's a fair point.

• 34:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right.

• 34:15Matt Kirshen?

  Just go there with a notepad.

• 34:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, if you're looking at a telescope between galaxies, where it's dark and there's no thing, then just go to where you're looking.

• 34:22Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 34:23Matt Kirshen?

  Don't you sometimes want the sort of, the wider view?

• 34:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The comfort of just sitting back and being able to re-point?

• 34:29Charles Liu?

  Right. No, I would be, I would be more excited about getting a big telescope than putting the telescope in any given location. If we can get a telescope that's the size of the solar system, or the size of the Milky Way galaxy. Now, we can put that anywhere that it doesn't get broken, and I'm totally cool with that.

• 34:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. You can make much bigger structures in space, bigger than Earth itself.

• 34:51Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 34:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you got the baddest-ass telescope there ever was.

• 34:53Matt Kirshen?

  So that would be another use for, once you get the technology, to start building stuff with robots?

• 34:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ah, yes, yes. Exactly.

• 34:59Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 34:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 35:00Charles Liu?

  Well, it's the first thing we build with a robot in space using asteroids, a telescope?

• 35:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would.

• 35:06Charles Liu?

  Yeah!

• 35:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But there's probably not, there's probably not an economic driver for that.

• 35:09Charles Liu?

  Probably not.

• 35:10Matt Kirshen?

  This, uh, this question comes from Moz Amu on Instagram, who says, "How would you 'market', that's in quotes, "space exploration to someone with an extremely utilitarian view? I'm definitely not the one who needs convincing, but that type of criticism is abundant nowadays. And then also, lots of love from your fans in Dubai."

• 35:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dubai? Very interesting, cool. Well, the answer to that is, we don't have time.

• 35:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're gonna take a break, and when we come back, we're gonna find out how to, how to convert the non-believers in space exploration when StarTalk returns.

• 36:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk. Tyson here, Charles Liu there.

• 36:14Charles Liu?

  Hello.

• 36:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Matt Kirshen there. And we are commemorating Space Week. And just to remind people, in case you didn't know, the first week of October happened to have been the week that Sputnik was launched. October 4th, 1957 by the Russians. The Soviet Union, our sworn enemy, the godless communists, and we lost our shit. Okay, over here. It would take us a year, but a year later, in the first week of October, we would found NASA. NASA would be, uh, become an agency a year later. So those two events, both happening in October, as well as many other space missions

• 36:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  that have occurred in October, have made a perfectly good argument to call this Space Week.

• 37:04Charles Liu?

  Yeah, I think it's great.

• 37:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, we are Cosmic Queries. So, keep going, Matt.

• 37:08Matt Kirshen?

  So, this is the question from just before the break, is how would you market space exploration?

• 37:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To non-believers.

• 37:13Matt Kirshen?

  To someone with an extremely utilitarian view.

• 37:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Charles, what would you do?

• 37:17Charles Liu?

  Well.

• 37:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're an educator, scientist, space enthusiast. What would you do?

• 37:20Charles Liu?

  Right. Well, I have to use many different strategies with my students. I often teach introductory astronomy classes where most of the students are not going to become scientists.

• 37:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 37:29Charles Liu?

  Right. So how do you convince them that it's a good idea to go out into space? I think there's a very good... And you have to use many different strategies. One strategy being, in the utilitarian side, is to convince people that profit can be made, right? The same way that people came to North America from Europe.

• 37:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The New World.

• 37:50Charles Liu?

  Yeah, back in the 1600s, was precisely people convincing others that if you send me to America, I can make money for you and send back stuff for you, whether it's gold, uh, whether it's beaver pelts, uh, whether it's agricultural goods, things like that.

• 38:06Matt Kirshen?

  I can name places after you.

• 38:07Charles Liu?

  For example, yes. So...

• 38:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They weren't very creative. They all begin with the word "new." New Haven, New York, New, you know, everything is new.

• 38:16Charles Liu?

  New England.

• 38:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  New England.

• 38:17Charles Liu?

  It's just the whole place. So, that profit is a utilitarian thing you can do, right? Another thing is to...

• 38:25Charles Liu?

  Appeal to their sense of grandeur, grandiosity, vanity, if you will, depending ego, yeah. And say, if you go out there, you could be the person that everyone will remember for all of human history. Right? A lot of times people will ask me that and, and younger kids, for example, ask me some scientific question, which we don't know the answer to, uh, when, and there are many of those, right? I will say something along the lines of, you know what? Nobody knows yet. Maybe someday you will be the person that discovers that. And then we will all remember you and your scientific discovery. Right?

• 39:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have a better answer.

• 39:00Charles Liu?

  Ooh.

• 39:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's what you do. You go to that person who's the non, okay, go to that person. And in the dark of night, sneak into their place.

• 39:10Charles Liu?

  Oh yeah, that's real socially acceptable.

• 39:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You do this with a search warrant.

• 39:16Charles Liu?

  Okay, okay, okay.

• 39:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then you remove everything in their home that was inspired to develop because of space technologies.

• 39:24Charles Liu?

  Oh.

• 39:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So first you take away the smartphone, then you take away all integrated circuits and all of this. Take away their Uber account, take away their health, their Lasik surgery.

• 39:37Charles Liu?

  Their non-stick pens.

• 39:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The, all of this.

• 39:40Charles Liu?

  Their pens that write upside down.

• 39:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then you take away, and then they wake up and they say, what the hell happened? And they take, take away, uh, uh, weather, um, what's the weather channel?

• 39:52Charles Liu?

  Weather forecasting.

• 39:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Take away all the weather forecasting, take away it all. And then just leave them there bare assed in their home. So then they'll learn quickly what role space has played in our lives.

• 40:02Charles Liu?

  Uh, you really can say that space technology, basic science, those kinds of things that do not change the price of bread today can and have changed the course of civilization tomorrow. And we want to be part of that.

• 40:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stop there. Don't add words to that. That was perfect.

• 40:20Charles Liu?

  Okay.

• 40:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just the way it came out of your mouth.

• 40:22Charles Liu?

  All right.

• 40:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 40:22Charles Liu?

  Printed on a t-shirt.

• 40:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You gotta know when to stop the beautiful quote.

• 40:26Charles Liu?

  It won't change the price of bread today, but it could change the course of civilization tomorrow. Yes.

• 40:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, Matt, next question.

• 40:35Matt Kirshen?

  Well, I'm gonna combine these two questions because they are...

• 40:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that allowed? Is that allowed, judges? We wanna hear who said them.

• 40:42Matt Kirshen?

  I absolutely will. I'll credit both these people, but it's a continuation of what we were talking about. But Jared Decker asks, "In the future, will it be government, the private sector, or a combination of the both that will continue humanity's journey through space?"

• 40:56Charles Liu?

  Okay.

• 40:57Matt Kirshen?

  And then Paul Pundir on Twitter asks, "As Neil Tyson, @neiltysen stated in his book, "Military and science flourish together. There are chances that the next scientific breakthrough happened, but is classified by the government. Thoughts?"

• 41:18Charles Liu?

  Oh. Well, that's already happened. It's very true that...

• 41:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Trust me, not authorized to go there.

• 41:24Charles Liu?

  Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. You're right. Sorry. Okay.

• 41:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, just kidding. I'm just kidding.

• 41:28Charles Liu?

  No, it could never happen. No, no, no. It would never happen. No.

• 41:33Matt Kirshen?

  We are fine. Knowledge is ours. We are happy.

• 41:36Charles Liu?

  No. Neil did, Neil has written very eloquently about this particular topic, and so I'm gonna defer to you in your conversation about the military aspect of things. But, but I will say, from my purely civilian point of view, to me, the reason the military and the government and industry all work together to move us forward in technology development and innovation is simply because you need a lot of resources in any society to do those kinds of things. Innovation is almost never just one guy in his basement, right? That's just not how we're gonna move civilization forward.

• 42:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that's how you get a movie made after you, if you're the one person burning the midnight oil.

• 42:15Charles Liu?

  That's right.

• 42:16Matt Kirshen?

  He's done it.

• 42:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If it's 10 people taking five years in a lab funded by five different sources, nobody makes a movie about it.

• 42:22Charles Liu?

  I think that's right. And, and our reality is, as, again, as Neil has written, is that many, many, many hands are necessary, and much, much, much money is needed to make those really fundamental explorations. What do you think, Neil?

• 42:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you know, um, Christian Huygens?

• 42:43Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 42:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's a Dutch polymath, really, at the end of this 17th century.

• 42:48Charles Liu?

  He's credited with the rings of Saturn, identifying them.

• 42:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For understanding the rings of Saturn.

• 42:52Charles Liu?

  Understanding that they are rings.

• 42:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 42:53Charles Liu?

  He did a wave theory of light.

• 42:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 42:56Charles Liu?

  And he actually has a spacecraft, the Huygens Probe, named after him, the one that landed on Saturn's moon Titan.

• 43:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Detached from...

• 43:03Charles Liu?

  Yeah, from... Beautiful.

• 43:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From Cassini.

• 43:05Charles Liu?

  Showed those amazing pictures that showed that on Titan, there are mountains and rivers and lakes, just like we see on Earth, but they're made of very different substances.

• 43:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're made of methane. So, Huygens, in one of his books, hypothesizes that God put evil people on Earth so that good people would have to innovate and wage war against them by inventing new tools and technology.

• 43:39Charles Liu?

  Wow.

• 43:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And this is the source of civilization, because we have bad people on Earth. And this was part of God's plan. He writes this.

• 43:47Charles Liu?

  Wow, almost like...

• 43:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is how, this is how connected and convinced he is that innovation and war go hand in hand.

• 43:54Charles Liu?

  Amazing. Um, if you're, if you're just using military resources and then turning them to purely, uh, discovery purposes,

• 44:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exorcism discovery, yeah.

• 44:06Charles Liu?

  Then that, that's a different dynamic than what you're describing in terms of like the actual desire to wage war. That's an excellent point.

• 44:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so, and to the answer, I think, like Charles, it'll be a combination. Government will do some things first, because there's not a profit motive yet, until the, the trade winds are mapped and the hostiles and the friendlies are established, then private enterprise can come in. I say this often, that the first Europeans to the New World were not the Dutch East India Trading Company. It was governments who took that first investment. For hegemonistic regions and economic reasons and then, I mean, well, long-term economic reasons.

• 44:42Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 44:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then, then, once you know and it's mapped, this is how much it costs, this is how long it took, this is what you can bring back, now I can make a business model, I can sell tickets, and now we can, we have the Dutch East India Trading Company.

• 44:54Charles Liu?

  Right, right, that's a good point.

• 44:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta go into lightning round.

• 44:57Charles Liu?

  Uh-oh.

• 44:57Matt Kirshen?

  Alright.

• 44:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lightning round reminder, lightning round is sambite answers.

• 45:02Charles Liu?

  Okay.

• 45:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, we'll see how good you've come, you've come a long way, Charles.

• 45:05Charles Liu?

  Oh, I don't know, I don't know.

• 45:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's see, Matt, go.

• 45:07Matt Kirshen?

  Alright, Corey Moon on Twitter, no relation to our moon, says, "Has a nuclear bomb ever been tested in space? If so, what happened?"

• 45:17Charles Liu?

  Not to my knowledge, but if it does happen, then the radiation just goes a long, long way.

• 45:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, half of why one would use a nuclear weapon is for the blast wave that does m- most of the immediate damage. Well, there's three ways atomic weapons work. One is the, the blast of light energy that will vaporize things on, on, on the spot. The next is the blast wave that any typical bomb would have. The third is the radiation sickness that would then kill living things. In space, if there is no air, then the blast wave does not exist. And half of why you would ever use the bomb is nullified, so...

• 45:58Charles Liu?

  But you do get the radiation.

• 45:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You do get the radiation, and you get the light energy.

• 46:01Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 46:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On top of that.

• 46:02Charles Liu?

  Which is also electromagnetic radiation.

• 46:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I, I don't know if we've ever exploded a bomb in space.

• 46:07Matt Kirshen?

  Alright. Thomas Kastner on Twitter says, "Star Trek included many aliens and creatures that naturally existed in space outside of planetary atmospheres. Is that possible?"

• 46:20Charles Liu?

  Anything is possible. Can it be done with the DNA structure that we're used to? Probably not.

• 46:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I agree, and, think about it. Imagine you, you drive your energy and your sustenance from, inside yourself, from stores, storage that you've, uh, established. So you can go outside of your spaceship and you don't have to breathe the air because you have some source of, of air or whatever is your need for staying alive. Inside you, but that only lasts a certain amount of time. Is that any different from an egg laid by a chicken? The egg cannot survive in our atmosphere and it stays in there until all the egg resources turn into a chicken that can. So, an egg is like a spacesuit for an embryo, an eggshell.

• 47:09Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 47:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you with me on that?

• 47:11Charles Liu?

  I'm with you on it. Let me just give one more 10-second quick answer to this question, right? An astrobiologist once challenged me to tell her why a star is not alive. And if I was unable to do that, which I wasn't, right? Then maybe all the stars out in the universe are a form of life, not DNA, but just as alive as we are.

• 47:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, stars can reproduce themselves. They're born, live out their lives, and die. And they have a metabolism.

• 47:40Charles Liu?

  Yeah.

• 47:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It satisfies almost every definition of life a biologist would hold for us.

• 47:45Charles Liu?

  All right.

• 47:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stars are alive!

• 47:48Charles Liu?

  Alive!

• 47:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But do they have agency?

• 47:51Charles Liu?

  Oh, no, no, no. And when does a star become alive?

• 47:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Next, go.

• 47:58Charles Liu?

  All right, Christopher Johnson.

• 47:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think I'll only have one more, go.

• 48:00Charles Liu?

  All right, Christopher Johnson on Instagram asks, "There soon to be an explosion of CubeSats around Earth." Oh, no. "How do you see our near-future shaping out with space becoming more accessible commercially and to the public?" Oh, no.

• 48:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Charles, go.

• 48:14Charles Liu?

  This is not a lightning round answer, but the bottom line is that it's very exciting to have all these satellites up there, but it's also very dangerous, both for science and for human beings over time. We have to be very wise about how we send those things up there. It has to be very carefully controlled, otherwise we're gonna really regret having all those things up there. Can you even keep track of where they are? You can, but again, it requires a lot of advanced planning. You can't just say, have a company and go, "Send it up, 1,000 satellites, woo-hoo!" That's gonna cause us all problems.

• 48:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I would say, the reason why we haven't been visited by aliens, because they see all this crap orbiting Earth. "I'm not coming near that place." That's my soundbite.

• 48:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Charles, thanks for coming on.

• 48:53Charles Liu?

  It was my pleasure. I had a great time. Thank you, man. I really, really like coming on.

• 48:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Regular. We got a little The Flash in there and Spider-Man.

• 49:03Charles Liu?

  Always a little superhero action when I'm on. Love that stuff.

• 49:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Matt, always great to have you.

• 49:08Matt Kirshen?

  It's always a pleasure to be here as well. Thank you.

• 49:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Probably science. Thanks for staying. You just came over on a red eye, so thanks for doing the show.

• 49:14Matt Kirshen?

  Thank you. I'm propped up by coffee right now. The museum's finest coffee. It keeps me going.

• 49:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent. This has been StarTalk. Some of you might have seen it. Most will have listened to this episode of Cosmic Queries celebrating Space Week. I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and we've done this show from my office at the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. As always, I bid you to keep looking up.