Project Hail Mary with Andy Weir

What if a microscopic alien lifeform was slowly eating our sun? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice sit down with Andy Weir, the bestselling author of Project Hail Mary, for a deep dive into designing aliens, science fiction, and science behind the book (and the movie.)

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Andy Weir in the house.

• 0:01Chuck Nice?

  Yes, he is.

• 0:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Author of the novel Project Hail Mary.

• 0:04Chuck Nice?

  That's correct.

• 0:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're gonna talk to him, but there's gonna be spoilers.

• 0:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, lots of spoilers, but you know why? Cause you didn't read the damn book.

• 0:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right.

• 0:11Chuck Nice?

  That's the problem.

• 0:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Coming up on StarTalk.

• 0:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And right next to me, I got Lord Chuck Nice.

• 0:40Chuck Nice?

  What's up, Neil?

• 0:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How you feeling?

• 0:41Chuck Nice?

  Man, I'm feeling great.

• 0:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 0:43Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 0:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You look good.

• 0:44Chuck Nice?

  Well, thank you, sir.

• 0:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, looking healthy.

• 0:46Chuck Nice?

  Well, that may not be the case, but you know, it's good to look that way.

• 0:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Look, whether or not you actually are.

• 0:53Chuck Nice?

  Who cares if I'm actually healthy or not? As long as I look good.

• 0:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got a good show today.

• 0:59Chuck Nice?

  Certainly.

• 1:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh my God, we have a repeat guest.

• 1:01Chuck Nice?

  That's correct, many times.

• 1:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Many times. I looked at the numbers.

• 1:04Chuck Nice?

  Multiple appearances.

• 1:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hasn't boy been on this show that many times?

• 1:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 1:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I said, no, yeah. We have the one, the only Andy Weir. Andy.

• 1:13Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 1:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk.

• 1:15Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me again.

• 1:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is your sixth time.

• 1:17Speaker 02

  You think you guys would learn by now?

• 1:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You think? You keep writing books and we keep bringing you back.

• 1:22Speaker 02

  I like it.

• 1:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You were birthed into this world as a, was it a software engineer?

• 1:28Speaker 02

  Well, it took me a while between birth and becoming a software engineer, but yes.

• 1:32Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say that is, that was one seriously developmental wound.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. There wasn't a lot of software engineering in 1972. I mean, there was some though, I mean, Apollo program.

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A turned sci-fi novelist.

• 1:44Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 1:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Extraordinaire man from The Martian, a bestselling book.

• 1:51Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 1:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which became a best.

• 1:53Chuck Nice?

  A very popular movie.

• 1:55Speaker 02

  A hit.

• 1:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A hit movie.

• 1:56Speaker 02

  Movie.

• 1:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Movie with all kinds of marquee actors in it.

• 1:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jessica Chastain and.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Matt Damon.

• 2:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Matt Damon.

• 2:03Chuck Nice?

  Who was Mark Watley.

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Watney.

• 2:05Chuck Nice?

  Was it Watney?

• 2:06Speaker 02

  It is Watney.

• 2:07Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay. Says the guy who wrote it. Whatever.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  At the time, I lived in Boston when I first started writing it and I lived alone because I was a loser. And I was like, at the time, I was really into Red Sox games and they had a sideline reporter named Heidi Watney.

• 2:24Chuck Nice?

  Oh, really?

• 2:25Speaker 02

  And so that I'm like, I like that name. I like that name. I'm taking it.

• 2:28Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  So Heidi Watney, if you're out there, Mark's named after you.

• 2:33Chuck Nice?

  Actually, Heidi, no, no, no, no, he's not because we don't want to owe you any money.

• 2:39Chuck Nice?

  Andy doesn't know what he's saying. He's been drinking since noon.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  StarTalk personally takes responsibility for any monetary compensation.

• 2:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go. So what year did The Martian come out?

• 2:52Speaker 02

  Uh, well, it took me years to write the book. I started writing it in 2009, finished around 2012. The book came out, I think, 2013 or 14. Yeah.

• 3:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so the movie comes out in 2015. 2015, the movie. So that's a quick turnaround between.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  Yes, it was very fast.

• 3:09Chuck Nice?

  So how's that happen? Was the book that popular that it was like a meteoric rise through the rankings? Let's make a movie.

• 3:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I see what you did in Meteoric.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  Meteorites usually go down, not up.

• 3:22Chuck Nice?

  Well, that's not true. They also just go around.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  No, that's asteroid.

• 3:26Chuck Nice?

  You're right. Correct. The moment they break the atmosphere, right.

• 3:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A meteor is doomed.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  See, because inaccurate fun is not fun. You understand. So anyway.

• 3:37Chuck Nice?

  You have been hanging out with the wrong people.

• 3:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So The Martian, you also bagged a marquee director for that.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ridley Scott.

• 3:47Chuck Nice?

  Ridley Scott, yeah.

• 3:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he did Blade Runner. I think the guy's pedigued in this space. No. Yes. That's Alien One, not Alien Two, because that was.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  That was James Cameron.

• 3:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  James Cameron.

• 3:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Congratulations on that.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Thank you. Thank you.

• 4:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Yeah. And so then that was followed by Artemis.

• 4:06Speaker 02

  Artemis, which is the only one of my books not to be made into a movie. So.

• 4:10Chuck Nice?

  Yes, but it will be.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  Mark my words, I will make it happen.

• 4:13Chuck Nice?

  It is now a space program, though.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Yes, that's true. That's true.

• 4:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What more do you want?

• 4:18Speaker 02

  I want a movie.

• 4:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good answer.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 4:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so how many total books do you have?

• 4:24Speaker 02

  Just three.

• 4:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, yeah, so that sentence, "It's the only one of my books not to be made into a movie." You only wrote three damn books, dude.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Plural is, the plural is correct in this case. I have had books made into movies.

• 4:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  True. So, we brought you here because of your latest project.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  I see what you did there.

• 4:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See what I did there? Project Hail Mary. Yeah. Another bestselling book, it's still on the shelves, I see it wherever I go. And that's now a film, starring Ken.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 4:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, I didn't even realize that, yes.

• 4:58Speaker 02

  Also known as Ryan Gosling.

• 5:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, is that his name? He was such a good Ken, I can't shake, hard for me to shake that. We're not worried about spoilers in this, because the book predates the movie.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 5:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, the storyline is out there.

• 5:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not some secret.

• 5:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 5:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, spare the viewer, listener, the ending.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  The finale, yeah.

• 5:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The finale.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 5:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, catch us up on just the most important plot development of that story. You know, for the people who don't read.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  Well, the idea is that an alien microbe, that they later name astrophage.

• 5:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Astro was star.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Phase is.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Eat.

• 5:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so it eats stars.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  Well, that's what they named it.

• 5:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what they named it, okay.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  It's more like.

• 5:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They.

• 5:39Speaker 02

  They.

• 5:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not like he had anything to do with it.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  No, I.

• 5:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The captors just went on their own, and named it, okay.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they called it astrophage. What it does is it lives on the surface of the sun, and it absorbs energy and turns it into mass. It uses that mass to create light as propulsion, so that it can migrate to a nearby planet with carbon dioxide, so that it can get the heavier elements it needs to reproduce. And then that, and its sister cell, or sorry, the two daughter cells, return back to the star, and the cycle continues.

• 6:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 6:12Speaker 02

  And so, and it spores out away from stars to go infect other stars. It's just basically like mold or algae.

• 6:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  Problem is, that there's, it grows exponentially, and there's now so much astrophage on our sun, that it's gonna dim it. And it is dimming it already, and it'll dim it to the. Point where Earth is no longer

• 6:32Chuck Nice?

  Irritable.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  No longer habitable, right, by anything. And so, um, but they noticed all of the stars in our local cluster have the same problem. They've all dimmed and except Tau Ceti. So they're like, why didn't Tau Ceti have any dimming? So they're like, we're going to make an interstellar spacecraft to find out how. And you know, it's like, how do we make an interstellar spacecraft with modern day technology? You use astrophase as the fuel.

• 6:55Chuck Nice?

  Of course.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  Because it does mass conversion propulsion.

• 6:58Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:58Speaker 02

  And that is the, the principal, uh, conflict of the story. Now, do you want me to talk more about it?

• 7:06Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Let me just say, were you high when you thought of this?

• 7:10Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 7:12Chuck Nice?

  Like.

• 7:14Chuck Nice?

  Because.

• 7:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  First just rolled off his tongue.

• 7:16Chuck Nice?

  I mean, yeah, you see how, I mean, and by the way, it's actually, it's completely feasible. It's circular and feasible all at once. Like, I mean, that's pretty.

• 7:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He said like, yeah, of course, this is how that would have gone down.

• 7:28Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 7:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:29Speaker 02

  Very cool.

• 7:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So Andy, what we love and deeply respect about you is how much attention you give to the scientific detail infused within your storytelling. Cause I, most stories don't get that level.

• 7:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of attention.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  I always imagine you looking over my shoulder, Neil.

• 7:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I have that quote.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have the exact quote. I would quote it now. Here it is.

• 7:49Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 7:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 7:51Speaker 02

  10 years ago or so.

• 7:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  10 years ago. Here it was.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 7:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And this is my second highest compliment I've ever gotten.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  All right.

• 7:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Whenever I was tempted to use hand wavy physics or take a shortcut and not be accurate. I honestly thought to myself, what if Neil deGrasse Tyson reads this?

• 8:13Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 8:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Man. Cause he'd know I'd be tweeting about it.

• 8:17Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 8:17Speaker 02

  Looking over, I imagine you looking over my shoulder while I'm typing.

• 8:21Chuck Nice?

  That's, uh, yeah. That would creep me out.

• 8:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's not what he means by that. Oh, okay.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  Don't worry, man. He doesn't have to be like be over your shoulder. He's got cameras in your house.

• 8:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  True that. So the Astrophase, we spent a little bit of time on your last visit, talking about that fascinating organism. And in this one, it's one of the few sci fi films where there's more than one kind of alien in it. And so let's spend some time on the other alien, who the lead character befriends. And this this other alien, it's kind of looks like a pile of rocks.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But but it moves like a crab.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  A little bit.

• 9:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So what's your thinking behind that life form?

• 9:08Speaker 02

  Well, I started off with the exoplanet that he's from, which was at the time believed to be a real exoplanet and has since been proven to be nothing more than like solar flare activity from forty Aradani, which is a bummer. But within the context of when I wrote it, I started with what was known about that exoplanet.

• 9:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For those who were never amateur astronomers.

• 9:26Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 9:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Because they're the ones who know the sky.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  They know everything.

• 9:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They know everything about the night sky. Okay. The way we label stars and constellations that are sort of visible easily, we sequence them by Greek letter, and it's followed by the genitive form of the constellation name. So the brightest star in the constellation, Cetus.

• 9:49Speaker 02

  Which means the whale.

• 9:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cetus is the whale.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 9:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The brightest will be Alpha Ceti.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 9:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. The second brightest would be?

• 9:57Speaker 02

  Beta Ceti.

• 9:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Beta Ceti, third. Whatever comes after that.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  Gamma Ceti?

• 10:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gamma Ceti? Okay. So move on your way down. So Tau Ceti is not one of the brighter stars in the constellation Cetus.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 10:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. And the genitive name for Cetus would be Ceti. Then there are certain people who catalog stars going much deeper than naked eye and binoculars. And then they just they just number the stars. And it's it's not as romantic, but it's very precise in cataloging.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 10:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So what star system is this?

• 10:26Speaker 02

  Um, well, this would be in forty Aradani.

• 10:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Aradani. So that would be Aradonis.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Aradonis.

• 10:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is the river.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  The river. Okay.

• 10:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's a non living thing in the sky.

• 10:34Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 10:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's several, actually, but this is a river. And I've always disappointed with the river.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 10:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because I think it's just leftover stars that didn't fit into other galaxies.

• 10:44Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it's just kind of there, you know. Let me grab a couple of these stars, a couple of those. And now call me something. Eridani. So, so this other life form, which is rock.

• 10:58Speaker 02

  Rocky.

• 10:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Rocky like.

• 10:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, Iridian is what they is what. What he would be known as.

• 11:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because he's called Eridian.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  Iridian species, yeah. Um, yeah, so forty Eridani, uh, had, it was believed at the time, an exoplanet. Um, around forty Eridani A. If you'd like to describe the details of the trinary star system, you can now, or we can just skip over it.

• 11:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Skip over it.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  Skip over it, okay. So forty Eridani A is the primary star. And forty Eridani A B is the planet closest to that star. And that was an exoplanet that was eight Earth masses, took about forty six Earth days to orbit the star. Very, very close to the star. Turns out, doesn't exist at all. It was a mistake made and our more accurately, our more accurate, uh, methods of exoplanet detection have disproven it, but.

• 11:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But so he's not describing the plot of the film.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  Right. He's just saying the actual science behind.

• 11:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which misled him initially.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  Yes, to believing that it was there. Anyway, so, starting from that planet, I said, well, it's going to be really hot because it's very close to its star. It's closer to its star than Mercury is. Wow. And then I said, but, um, because all life in the story was caused by a panspermia event that radiated out from Tau Ceti, including all life on Earth, including all life on Erid, which is the nickname of the planet. Um, everything has to be water based. So how do we have liquid water on a planet that's really, really hot? And the answer is have a really, really high atmospheric pressure. Right. Because water won't boil and, you know, so like their oceans are over two hundred degrees Celsius.

• 12:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Water boils at one hundred degrees Celsius at.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  Sea level.

• 12:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Atmospheric pressure.

• 12:29Speaker 02

  Right. At, at our atmospheric pressure, yeah. Increases, so they have twenty nine atmospheres at their surface. And so water, even two hundred degrees Celsius water won't boil.

• 12:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait a minute, so you backed into these alien properties.

• 12:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From what would have to be the properties of a planet that we would later show doesn't exist.

• 12:48Speaker 02

  Yes, that's right. Unfortunate. Anyway, I mean, if I was gonna make up a fake planet, if it was gonna be an imaginary planet in the first place, I didn't have to constrain myself. Anyway.

• 12:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, constraints is the soul of creativity to all engineers.

• 13:02Speaker 02

  Yes. So anyway, I decided it would have to have a thick atmosphere. How do you have a thick atmosphere when you're that close to the sun? A star is like sand blasting your atmosphere off. So you got two things you can do. You can do what Venus does, or you can do what Earth does. You can do what Venus does, which is have really heavy molecules that are hard to knock out of the planet's gravity well. Venus has carbon dioxide. I decided forty Aridani has ammonia. There's ammonia everywhere in our system, so why not? And then the other thing you can do is have a really powerful magnetic field, like Earth does. So I decided forty Aridani, I've decided Arid, rather, has a tremendous magnetic field. The way you get a magnetic field is, Neil, spin, baby spin, as a mambo king.

• 13:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you need a conducting core.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, you need like a mold iron core with convection, but then also spin to make a dynamo. So their magnetic field is about 25 times as powerful as ours, and they rotate once every six hours. So that planet spins like crazy. But with those two things combined.

• 13:59Chuck Nice?

  Rocky's dizzy.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  Maybe. With those two things combined, I figured that's enough to protect the atmosphere. So now finally, I have liquid water on this exoplanet.

• 14:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was a long way to go.

• 14:08Speaker 02

  That was a long way to go.

• 14:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get that puppy some liquid water.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  And then with those constraints, I'm like, well, I'm not sure light would make it to the surface through that thickened atmosphere. Ammonia has a color at large scales. So I decided that no light gets to the surface. And so the biosphere works kind of like an ocean. There's photophilic life up top that absorbs the sunlight and reproduces that way. And then beneath that, there's life that eats it. Beneath that, there's life that eats it, just like our ocean.

• 14:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like our ocean.

• 14:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then so the apex predators are things that are the Iridians, which are the intelligent species. They live on the surface. There's no light down there. There's no reason for them to evolve eyes.

• 14:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of course.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  And they do everything through echolocation, et cetera, et cetera. So bit by bit, I put it together. There's also no free oxygen in the air. So they have to have an enclosed body that deals with the carbon dioxide, oxygen, back and forth reactions. So they have different kinds of cells within their body. Everything's fine as long as they keep adding energy to the system. So they need to eat food. That's found on the ground. That's why they're obligate predators. So all this

• 15:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's kind of like some of the animals that live near volcanic vents here on Earth.

• 15:13Speaker 02

  Well, they're, they're, for their biosphere, they're not really extremophiles. This is the normal thing for them. But they are obligate carnivores. And so if you imagine things that live on the seafloor, like crabs, or things like that, so far down that the light isn't even reaching them, but there's still plenty to eat.

• 15:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 15:45Speaker 03

  This is Ken the Nerd Neck Zabera from Michigan, and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk Radio with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 16:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It looks like a pile of rocks, an animated pile of rocks, but the appendages move in a crab-like way.

• 16:11Speaker 02

  Well, he has, he has five legs or arms, they can use them interchangeably, that each end in three claws. And so it's pentagonally symmetrical, you might say. And he doesn't actually move specifically like a crab. He walks on those legs, but he can walk on, he can walk on three of them while holding stuff with two of them, or he can walk on two of them even if he needs to.

• 16:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I learned in the, in the Wiki fan page of your book.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  Oh, excellent. An undeniable source of absolute truth.

• 16:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. And I hadn't thought about it. And I read this before I, I saw a preview of your film. The creature does not have a front or a back.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  Right. Because it has, so the way it does a techalocation is it has, I call them oracles, but they're basically like all over his body are, just like we have nerve endings for touch. He has nerve endings for sound. And so his body, his brain untangles all that information. He knows his body shape. And yeah, he knows his body shape and his position, like an Iridian might reach out his arm to get a better view of something. He's like, wait, let me hear this a little better. Yeah.

• 17:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like this. That's the way of doing that.

• 17:26Speaker 02

  And also, wouldn't it be neat if you could just go like this, and the room gets brighter for a second? You could be like. You know, because that's how that works. Because of that, they have a constant input of their 3D environment. Constantly going on in all directions.

• 17:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There has to be some sound somewhere for that to be the case.

• 17:45Speaker 02

  That's true, but there's always ambient sound. There's wind or whatever, and if they don't have any, they can make some, right? But so they have this constant input of their 3D environment. So they don't have the part of their brain that we have that maintains cognition of what's around us. So you're looking at me, but you know what's behind you. In your brain, you don't have to think about it. Your brain's just keeping track of that. You know there's a bookshelf there. In a way, you can see it in your mind. You know where it is.

• 18:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if I turn around, it's not there, I'll notice it's not there.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  You'll notice it's not there. They don't have that part of a brain. They don't have to track that because they constantly have 360 degree input. It's like if you had eyes all the way around your head.

• 18:24Chuck Nice?

  That's pretty brilliant.

• 18:24Speaker 02

  Now, if they suddenly can't hear anything, they will lose all of that information. If you close your eyes, you still know pretty much everything that's going on. You know, but in addition to that, you just close your eyes. You know where everything is in the room. I mean, not precisely, and you probably bump into stuff. But you know there's a table there, a microphone here, a chair here, bookshelves, Neil's desk.

• 18:45Chuck Nice?

  Why wouldn't they be able to do the same thing we do? Because when we close our eyes, we have lost the input. But what we're doing is recreating it in our mind.

• 18:55Speaker 02

  Your mind has a whole system of maintaining a 3D model of your environment because you can't look at it all the time.

• 19:03Chuck Nice?

  I understand what you're saying. Because our minds are acclimated to always tracking what's around us. And persisting. If we didn't have that, when that would be taken away, we'd be lost immediately. Because they don't need to do that.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  Basically, they don't have object permanence.

• 19:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, this is a famous test with infants. It's a famous test. The object's still there when it goes behind the wall. And until a certain age, it goes behind the wall, and then they just look somewhere else. It's gone. And then after a certain age, they'll look and they'll anticipate it coming out the other side.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  That's why peek-a-boo is so effective with infants. You vanish from reality.

• 19:40Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say, I still like it.

• 19:43Speaker 02

  Still working on object permanence.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  Well, they do have object permanence. Iridians, if something leaves their sensory input, they do. But they don't have that spatial map in their head.

• 19:52Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 19:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Richard Dawkins thinks that bats that use echolocation, being mammals, that means they're structurally similar to us in important ways. He thinks they might use echolocation and map colors onto it.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 20:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He thinks they might be able to, because they have the capacity to think of color. Why not add color to echolocated objects? I mean, why not?

• 20:14Chuck Nice?

  Why not? Yeah. I mean, you know, the only way we'll know is to ask a bat.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  Ask a bat, right. What color is this wood? One thing I saw interesting lately is they took a, they took a thing, you know, how your, your, the, the cones in your eye are, react to different wavelengths. So there's red, green and blue cones, and there's overlap and stuff like that. Well, there are some, there, there, there are some activations that never happen. Because like, any wavelength that's this, you know, any wavelength in this range will activate your greens a little bit and your blues a little bit. And it's something like that. And so what they did for the hell of it, I think, was they took somebody, they took tests, human test subjects and shined lasers into their eyes to just activate the blue cones.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  And so now their brain is getting a signal that has just blue cone activation and no green cone activation. And that makes a new color because they have never experienced that in their life. And they kind of, they have a hard time describing it. They say, it's like this really, really brilliant blight, bright blue, which should surprise no one. But it's interesting. Imagine being able to go in and have somebody shoot a laser in your eye and see a color you have never seen. Nor will you ever see again, because it can only be done by specifically activating those. We are way off topic.

• 21:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I love me some color. Through your pen, through your mind, the main character names this life form Rocky.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  Rocky, cuz he looks like a rock.

• 21:46Chuck Nice?

  Looks like a bunch of rocks.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  Very imagined.

• 21:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Then, it took me a half second, I wanna alert people of this so that they don't lose this half second. Everyone on Rocky's planet is facing the same fate as people from Earth.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 22:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they both notice this one star that is not dimming.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  Aha.

• 22:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they gotta find out what's going on there and not over here.

• 22:10Speaker 02

  Gotcha.

• 22:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they both arrive at the same star for the same purpose with the same mission.

• 22:16Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 22:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what an alignment that is.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  It is. It's like Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks at the Empire State Building.

• 22:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He asks Rocky, is there someone back at home?

• 22:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  And Rocky goes, Adrian. Well?

• 22:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you can't understand him.

• 22:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, uh, uh, okay, uh, I'll call you Rocky and I'll call your mate Adrian.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  Adrian.

• 22:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Adrian. But you gotta, that's, that's very, that's, that's, that's very pop culture.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  Very pop culture.

• 22:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Retro, decade, decades.

• 22:51Chuck Nice?

  I'm from Philly, it's totally fine, we love it.

• 22:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's fifty years ago.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Decades.

• 22:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes!

• 22:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, so am I. I am also from Philly years ago, so.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  As for Philly, here's the thing, I wanted to do this as part of the publicity, but I came up with the idea too late. Everyone agrees it would've been a great idea.

• 23:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We didn't say what's going on, in case you don't know. Rocky the Movie with Sylvester Stallone.

• 23:14Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 23:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he's from Philadelphia.

• 23:16Chuck Nice?

  Correct.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  And his wife's name is Adrian.

• 23:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  His wife's name is Adrian. We all know that cuz there's a big scene where it's, Adrian! Adrian!

• 23:24Speaker 02

  But I wanted, from the marketing, I wanted them to either CG render or have the puppeteers do it, to show Rocky from Project Hail Mary running up the steps.

• 23:32Chuck Nice?

  Of the RV museum in Philadelphia.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, the RV museum in Philadelphia. Put his little.

• 23:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Put his appendages up, you know?

• 23:38Speaker 02

  And everything like that.

• 23:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why not?

• 23:40Speaker 02

  Because I came up with it, it would've been, it would've taken too long and cost too much at the point that I came up with it.

• 23:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it would've been stupid, okay?

• 23:50Speaker 02

  What are you talking about?

• 23:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the first thing people do when they go to Philly, is run up those damn stairs. So I'm like, how are you getting Rocky to Philly?

• 23:57Speaker 02

  How you get what?

• 23:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Through astrophase propulsion!

• 24:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stupid.

• 24:01Chuck Nice?

  Come on, man!

• 24:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Duh!

• 24:04Speaker 02

  They did, they did, they did little things where they, you know, CGI put like Rocky on the red carpet for the London premiere and he's like signing autographs.

• 24:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 24:12Chuck Nice?

  That's cool.

• 24:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got it. So, one thing that I didn't quite follow precisely, how, by what means and mechanism was the lead character, of course, played by?

• 24:25Speaker 02

  Ken.

• 24:29Chuck Nice?

  You know what? I can't think of his name now.

• 24:30Speaker 02

  Ryan Gosling.

• 24:31Chuck Nice?

  You guys keep calling him Ken!

• 24:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By Ryan Gosling. Thank you. So, he sets up his computer to, there's initially a shared vocabulary. They start with science and symbols and things. And then, that rapidly becomes full-on exchange of translated knowledge. So, I didn't quite follow how that got so effective so quickly.

• 24:54Speaker 02

  Well, it's just, he had his computer, like, be able to analyze the waveforms. And so, Rocky would say a word.

• 25:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Acoustic waveforms, yeah.

• 25:03Speaker 02

  The acoustic waveforms that Rocky's making. And it would say a word, and then, then he'd put that in his program and say this, and this is the word, like, hello. And then, when the computer heard something close enough to that, it would then have a synthesizer voice say hello, to be Rocky's voice. So, and Rocky is not speaking full, you know, poetic, very high-end. He's talking like, real simple words for dumb human, you know?

• 25:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  He's speaking sort of a pidgin, you know, Iridian English hybrid thing to try to keep the words simple and keep the sentence structure simple, so that they can each talk to each other.

• 25:42Chuck Nice?

  Oh, cool.

• 25:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But there had to be some starter exchange of vocabulary.

• 25:46Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. And they started with, I think, the number one. Yeah, this, this, this, this is my number one.

• 25:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  One. So, what do you say for one? Okay, cool. Two?

• 25:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  You know?

• 25:58Chuck Nice?

  Okay. That's cool.

• 25:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That works. So, I-

• 26:00Speaker 02

  Oh, by the way, since you're talking about Rocky and Adrian, I'm surprised, did you notice that the name of the ship is the Hail Mary, and it's full of?

• 26:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It better be Grace, but-

• 26:09Speaker 02

  Grace?

• 26:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Wow.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  The main character's name is Dr. Ryland Grace.

• 26:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ah.

• 26:14Speaker 02

  The Hail Mary is full of Grace. I could not resist it.

• 26:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  I am weak. I'm weak, Neil.

• 26:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But is the Lord with thee?

• 26:22Speaker 02

  Uh, well, the writer would be the Lord, right? In this case?

• 26:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. I guess so.

• 26:28Chuck Nice?

  Hilarious.

• 26:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I guess so. But are you blessed art thou?

• 26:35Chuck Nice?

  I don't wanna know anything about the fruit of your womb.

• 26:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know.

• 26:37Chuck Nice?

  That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying.

• 26:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're blessed art thou among women.

• 26:42Chuck Nice?

  Let me ask you this, though, because you seem to have this theme of alone in space.

• 26:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 26:49Chuck Nice?

  What is it that fascinates you about alone in the cosmos?

• 26:56Speaker 02

  Well, to be fair, Ryland is not alone, right? He's got his, he's got his brother from Iraqi mother with him, right?

• 27:02Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  But failing that, it's just a, it's just a very convenient method of storytelling. You have your, your hero is like completely isolated. When they're out in space, it's like, even if all of humanity wanted to help him, which was the case in The Martian, there's very little they can do.

• 27:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the lead character in this story is, he's kind of a reluctant hero.

• 27:26Speaker 02

  To say the least.

• 27:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's kind of a selfish coward.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  I wouldn't say selfish.

• 27:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He doesn't wanna save the world. He doesn't want, and yet he's cast into this spot kind of against his will, reminding me of the great Shakespearean line.

• 27:42Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 27:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some people are born great. Some people achieve greatness. Other people have greatness thrust upon them.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  He had it thrust into him. It was not a good experience. He had greatness just absolutely injected into him.

• 27:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Injected in. He was a reluctant participant in this mission.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But everyone knew they needed him, so they just drugged him and put him on.

• 28:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a pretty big spoiler, by the way, for the movie. So you might wanna make an extra warning.

• 28:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  And, and the book also, but yes, he was there against his will. And I wanted to make a likable protagonist. And it's, I think we can all feel, like we've all felt at times that we are like unqualified, unwilling and scared. I don't know, maybe not you. You just radiate confidence to the rest of us morals.

• 28:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that's not interesting to a viewer. You want the person to overcome these weaknesses.

• 28:38Speaker 02

  Which he does.

• 28:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then triumph.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 28:41Speaker 02

  Which he does.

• 28:41Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Okay, alright, this, I mean, that, that always redeems a, a character too. And he could start off scared cowardly, but then overcomes that to do heroic feats.

• 28:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:53Chuck Nice?

  You know, especially if they're selfless heroic feats.

• 28:56Speaker 02

  Right, I mean, the first time he was willing to really risk his, really risk his neck was because of the friendship he had made with Rocky.

• 29:02Chuck Nice?

  Well, okay, so, that's cool, man. Mm-hmm. That's cool, so he didn't want to save humanity, but he put his ass on the line for some Rocky ass alien.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:11Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah. Now I'm pissed off.

• 29:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:14Chuck Nice?

  Now I'm angry.

• 29:15Speaker 02

  Within the context, saving humanity was a guaranteed death sentence. It was a, it was a suicide mission.

• 29:20Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  Saving Rocky was, um, uh, high risk of death. It was a little different.

• 29:26Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 29:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, that's an interesting distinction.

• 29:28Chuck Nice?

  I like, I like the distinction.

• 29:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. High risk of death or certain, or certain death?

• 29:32Chuck Nice?

  Certain death, yeah.

• 29:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm taking the high risk.

• 29:34Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 29:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I want to just compliment you on conceiving of aliens that are not just actors in a suit.

• 30:05Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 30:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so therefore, you have the freedom for them to not be humanoid.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  Right.

• 30:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is one of the weakest points of all Hollywood aliens.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  Well, to be fair, Hollywood aliens are usually not in $200 million movies, right? And so you've got to, you've got to be realistic.

• 30:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that what the movie cost?

• 30:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  $200 million?

• 30:25Speaker 02

  Actually closer to $250, but we got tax rebates from the UK for shooting there. Yeah.

• 30:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 30:30Speaker 02

  Nice, yeah, we better make a lot of money on this.

• 30:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why he's got an expensive Panama hat.

• 30:34Speaker 02

  That's why I've got this expensive Panama hat.

• 30:38Speaker 02

  So half of that budget went to this. All right. But yeah, um, most of the time, you know, for, if you're going to write a science fiction story and you want to tell it in a reasonable budget, like an episode of Star Trek or something like that.

• 30:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You get the rubber costume.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  You get the, yeah, you get the forehead prosthetics. You have the alien be in the same environment. You're good. Um, but yeah, with the luxury of being able to do whatever you want, we can have our alien require, you know, xenonite barriers, you know, and stuff like that and be completely non-humanoid.

• 31:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, tell me about the barriers because your alien requires a different environment.

• 31:14Speaker 02

  Twenty-nine atmospheres of ammonia.

• 31:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Twenty-nine atmospheres. A lot of pressure and ammonia.

• 31:18Speaker 02

  And a lot of heat.

• 31:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's right. Hot, high pressure and poisonous gases. So. Sounds a lot like me and Melania.

• 31:27Speaker 02

  And it went, sorry.

• 31:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So how do you? After a lot of tacos. How that the boundary between the regular spaceship and the alien in the spaceship, what was that bound? It was transparent.

• 31:43Speaker 02

  It was made of xenonite, which is a material that is somehow, one of the main components of it is xenon, a noble gas that doesn't normally react with things. What I wanted.

• 31:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And makes super bright headlights.

• 31:56Speaker 02

  But yes, so Ryland has no idea how that stuff works or how it's made.

• 32:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so it's a rocky, it's a rocky.

• 32:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it's Iridian technology.

• 32:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  And so what I wanted was, what, I didn't want either, either species to be like completely scientifically more advanced than the other. From the Iridians' point of view, we're kind of the advanced aliens because we have computers, we have better technology across the board. Uh, but Iridians have much better materials technology.

• 32:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the material scientists, basically.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, their material science is far better than ours. Um, but our, like, like they didn't understand relativity. The Iridians didn't.

• 32:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Those idiots.

• 32:32Speaker 02

  They didn't understand.

• 32:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've only known it for about a hundred and twenty years, so don't get so high in mighty. Wait, so why was it important that they didn't know relativity?

• 32:43Speaker 02

  We figured out flight before we figured out relativity. Okay, so.

• 32:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why was it important that they did not know relativity as a storyteller?

• 32:50Speaker 02

  Because it gave me an excuse to, if you calculate, if you assume Newtonian physics, which they did, uh, they calculated how much fuel they would need to get from their home star, Forti Erdone, to Tau Ceti. And, and, and for a trip back, it was supposed to be a round trip thing. Um, and you calculate that fuel, you get a certain number. The real amount of fuel you need to use is considerably less due to the time dilation and, and the relativistic effects you have when you're going there. So he ended up with a whole bunch of excess fuel, which enables him.

• 33:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There, I didn't catch that.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is.

• 33:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so the evidence, they didn't know relativity, otherwise they would have done the, the proper calculation.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  Right.

• 33:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  And Rocky, it's in the book, but not in the movie. Rocky says they were very confused. It's like, okay, we, the, the planet was, you know, the other star was closer than it should be, so he slowed down, but then it got further away. And what?

• 33:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so they're experiencing relativity, not knowing what the hell's going on?

• 33:44Speaker 02

  What is going on?

• 33:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow. So do you regret that that wasn't in the movie?

• 33:48Speaker 02

  No, that, you had to cut things out.

• 33:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so what's, what, okay. What, cause you don't have final edit control, I presume, cause you're just the author.

• 33:56Speaker 02

  Well, I'm also a producer, so I had to say.

• 33:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But were you executive producer?

• 33:59Speaker 02

  No, I was a real producer.

• 34:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh! So is there a scene you felt should have been in the movie?

• 34:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, my only regret, and Drew and I both fought for this, Drew made, wrote the adaptation for it.

• 34:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I saw, he credited him for that, huh? Drew, the full name?

• 34:16Speaker 02

  Drew Goddard.

• 34:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Drew Goddard.

• 34:18Speaker 02

  Drew Goddard wrote the adaptation, did a fantastic job. And he and I both wanted this one scene, and we just didn't have time for it, cause the runtime was going so long. But there's a scene in the book where they nuke Antarctica. They basically put.

• 34:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Back on Earth, yeah.

• 34:30Speaker 02

  On Earth, they dropped, they set off a bunch of nuclear explosions in Antarctica to make an entire ice shell fall into the ocean, so that it will melt and release all the methane, which is greenhouse gases, so that Earth will retain more of the heat that it is getting from the sun.

• 34:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because they are, because the astrophase is eating the sun.

• 34:49Speaker 02

  Dimming the sun, not dimming the sun.

• 34:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, wow.

• 34:52Speaker 02

  So they're like, we need some global warming.

• 34:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 34:56Speaker 02

  And that's why.

• 34:59Speaker 02

  Are you doing Trump? Is that it?

• 35:02Chuck Nice?

  And that's why I'm

• 35:04Speaker 02

  This is between Trump and Fat Albert.

• 35:09Chuck Nice?

  There's something wrong with your ears.

• 35:11Speaker 02

  You're sounding pretty gravelly, Trump, my friend.

• 35:13Chuck Nice?

  No, if you've listened to him now, that's how he talks. So I'm not doing rally Trump. I'm doing the Trump that talks in front of the cameras and wants you to know, wants you to know that's great frankly.

• 35:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's something that was not in the film where we don't see Earth descending into

• 35:35Speaker 02

  Right, and that's also not in the book. We see in the beginnings of it in the book, there's issues, they're starting to have problems, and a lot of their problems are caused by the amelioration techniques they're proactively doing. So they knew, they're gonna, things are gonna get worse, but then we're gonna need that heat.

• 35:51Chuck Nice?

  So we have a, we have a mouse problem. Well, let's get a bunch of hawks. And now we have a hawk problem, okay?

• 35:58Chuck Nice?

  That's the deal. All right, and it was a stretch for me, if I may.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  You and I are enemies now.

• 36:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was a stretch for me to, as an academic, to completely embrace the idea that the entire world of biochemists is insufficient to handle this mission, and they need the one guy who has the expertise that no one else has, and he's a middle school, a middle school chemistry teacher.

• 36:35Speaker 02

  Right. So to be fair, he was, you know, a speculative xenobiologist. He has PhD, you know, astrobiologist. So he had done that, and then he'd left that field. He'd written papers and stuff.

• 36:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But he wrote papers, so the papers are out there, and other people are still active. And he's no longer active. So why does he still become the guy?

• 36:54Speaker 02

  Because he's been part of the mission and the mission planning the whole time. So he understands all the other aspects of the mission as well. He knows all about the Hail Mary itself. And they don't have time to train someone else up on all the other stuff. And he's as well trained as any of the other biologists.

• 37:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the, in the way they need it to be.

• 37:14Speaker 02

  That they need him to be.

• 37:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. All right, he got out of that.

• 37:17Chuck Nice?

  Does that work for you?

• 37:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He got out of that one.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  I got wriggled out of that one.

• 37:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So again, congratulations.

• 37:21Speaker 02

  Thanks so much.

• 37:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some of your books getting turned into movies.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  On two, two out of three.

• 37:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some of your books getting turned into movies. And it's a delight anytime you come visit us here. And for whatever might be your next book still, we want to stay on your tour.

• 37:38Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 37:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your tour list.

• 37:39Speaker 02

  Always.

• 37:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  All right.

• 37:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent.

• 37:42Speaker 02

  Thank you. Thanks for having me.

• 37:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And any last, just bits of wisdom or advice for us all? How about aspiring writers?

• 37:48Speaker 02

  Aspiring writers? I've got three bits of advice for aspiring writers. One, you have to actually write. Ideating and imagining and world building is not writing. You need to type. Number two is resist the urge.

• 37:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Execute the idea.

• 37:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. Number two is resist the urge to tell your friends and family your story. It satisfies your need for an audience and saps your will to write.

• 38:07Chuck Nice?

  Oh, very nice.

• 38:08Speaker 02

  So you, you can, you can give them a chapter at a time as you write it to satisfy that need.

• 38:13Chuck Nice?

  Don't tell them.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  Don't tell them. Okay. And then the third one is there's never been a better time in human history to self-publish. There's no old boy network between you and the readers anymore. You can, for absolutely zero financial risk, you can put your book out there and millions of people.

• 38:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Says the man who's published with Penguin Random House.

• 38:30Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 38:30Speaker 02

  I was gonna say. Initially published on Kindle Direct Publishing.

• 38:33Chuck Nice?

  Oh. But for all of you who aren't this talented, don't quit your job.

• 38:40Speaker 02

  I didn't quit my job until I had. I'm just a publisher and I'm on Penguin, so.

• 38:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 38:46Speaker 02

  All right.

• 38:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're, we're done here. That was Project Hail Mary.

• 38:50Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 38:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Full of grace.

• 38:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Lord was with thee.

• 38:55Speaker 02

  Well, Phil Lord.

• 38:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, always good to have you, man.

• 38:59Speaker 02

  Always a pleasure.

• 39:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and Andy, thanks for being high up on my compliment list.

• 39:04Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you.

• 39:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And let me give you the highest compliment I could ever give. Don't stop moving the needle in your storytelling for Hollywood because.

• 39:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was looking like same shit, different day.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For so many years. And with your stories out there, it gives us something fresh to embrace and imbibe.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  Thanks so much. It means a lot to me.

• 39:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the genre. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, do keep looking up.

• 39:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  They say in that song, they're going to Venus, and then they also say they have so many light years to go.

• 39:59Chuck Nice?

  Oh, God.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  This is me.

• 40:00Chuck Nice?

  What a shame.

• 40:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, don't get me started.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, God damn it.

• 40:02Chuck Nice?

  That's awful.

• 40:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we almost started with the, I did that Kessel Run in 12 parsecs.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  No, no, the Kessel, hey, hey.

• 40:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, that's, don't, don't come after the fact and explain that.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  No, no, no.

• 40:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the time, they didn't know what the.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  There are two black holes orbiting each other.

• 40:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't make me slap you.

• 40:18Speaker 02

  And so if you go between the black holes.

• 40:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't make me slap you.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  Then you manage to do it in under 12 parsecs. Everyone else goes around the black holes.

• 40:26Chuck Nice?

  Okay. So I've heard that was, I've heard that, that explanation before too.

• 40:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is bailing out there.

• 40:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what we're doing.

• 40:33Chuck Nice?

  No, but nobody has given me a compliment at all. I don't know what.

• 40:37Speaker 02

  I don't know, man.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  Way to, way to, way to escape Philly.

• 40:45Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that was, man, that hurt.

• 40:49Chuck Nice?

  That one hurt.