Cosmic Queries – Seeing Earth From Space with Jordan Klepper & Nicole Stott

What do you learn from going to space? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and guest co-host comedian Jordan Klepper answer patron questions about living in space with engineer and NASA astronaut Nicole Stott. What’s the Overview Effect?

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And today we're doing cosmic queries. We're going to start off in the first segment with a grab bag. And my guest co-host today is Jordan Klepper. Did I get you? Say your name, Klepper.

• 0:33Jordan Klepper?

  Klepper, yes.

• 0:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Klepper.

• 0:36Jordan Klepper?

  Klepper. Take it slow, Neil. I know there's consonants, there's syllables in there. It takes a while. We're gonna get through this.

• 0:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll get through this.

• 0:45Jordan Klepper?

  Way to tell there's questions about a gravitational field. This is the easy part, Neil.

• 0:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Jordan, I missed you. We haven't had you on the show all since COVID, so...

• 0:55Jordan Klepper?

  It's been a while. I've been waiting.

• 0:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Brody told me...

• 0:58Jordan Klepper?

  I've had nothing to do, Neil. I've had nothing to do. Please. Sour bread, children, all sorts of stuff. Thank you.

• 1:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's called sour dough bread, not sour bread. Just...

• 1:10Jordan Klepper?

  I haven't been paying attention to what the kids are into these days.

• 1:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you also cranked out a COVID baby.

• 1:16Jordan Klepper?

  I got a COVID baby at home right now.

• 1:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Congratulations. Congratulations. And you're still a correspondent at The Daily Show.

• 1:22Jordan Klepper?

  I am, yes.

• 1:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent, excellent.

• 1:24Jordan Klepper?

  Still going out into the field, talking to people who are anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-science.

• 1:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exposing the irrationality of the world.

• 1:34Jordan Klepper?

  Exactly. That's why this... I need this, Neil.

• 1:39Jordan Klepper?

  The ability to have an articulate conversation about things that aren't happening on this planet is...

• 1:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent. Let's do this. And we've got a grab bag of questions for this one. So this is gonna be a potpourri. And you have the questions. I haven't seen them. If I don't know the answer, I'll just say, "I don't know, go to the next one."

• 1:55Jordan Klepper?

  Yeah.

• 1:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so give it to me. And tell us who asked the question as well. We know they're all from Patreon, who are our most devoted supporters. And so, so give it to me. What do you have?

• 2:06Jordan Klepper?

  Kudos to you, Patreonics. Do they have a name? Do we have a... Is that shorthand?

• 2:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, no, we don't. I like that, the Patreonics.

• 2:11Jordan Klepper?

  Patreonics? It sounds like an old-school R&B group.

• 2:17Jordan Klepper?

  The Patrionics, yeah. Give it up for Gladys Knight and the Patrionics.

• 2:24Jordan Klepper?

  The Pips couldn't...

• 2:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like it.

• 2:25Jordan Klepper?

  Yeah, she moved past the Pips. They were asking for too much money. The Patrionics, let's bring them in.

• 2:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love it, I love it. Alright, so what do you have?

• 2:32Jordan Klepper?

  Our first Patriotic is Sandra Pagliani. And she wants to know, knowing what we know now, do you think we have all that we need to be able to safely send humans to Mars today? If not, what are we missing?

• 2:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so, great question. So, the answer is yes. No one is saying we can't go to Mars because we can't figure it out. That is not the issue. The issue is it's expensive. Do people want to do it for that much money? And there'll be dangers because there'll be some unknowns and some unknown unknowns. We get it. But probably the last thing that we haven't fully figured out, but if you task some engineers to it, they'll be on it. I'm not worried about this, is when you leave the protective magnetic blanket that we enjoy here on Earth's surface that shields us from some ionizing radiation from the Sun. The Sun is a very active place. The solar wind has all these charged particles that are not good for human physiology.

• 3:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The atmosphere and the magnetic field protects us from that. You leave that and go on a long voyage? Then you are now susceptible. So, we need radiation protection along the way. And so, the engineers would figure that out. They'd figure out what materials... By the way, you know what absorbs that radiation? Water. So, imagine a spaceship where there's a... There's a layer of protective water that cycles through you, okay? So, you would drink it, you pee it out, filter it, go back in. So, you'd have this system where life-sustaining water is also your shield. Then you get to Mars. Mars doesn't have a magnetic field to protect it. So, you just, you need to like

• 4:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  live underground or something, okay?

• 4:17Jordan Klepper?

  And you feel confident that we just throw some engineers at that and they can figure it out? I... There's still not the technology to figure out how to send me to Phoenix safely.

• 4:27Jordan Klepper?

  I've tried SPF, I've tried thick clothing. My body doesn't withstand the heat.

• 4:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Phoenix latest research is like a quarter mile from the surface of the sun.

• 4:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you need special SPF one billion for that. Yeah, so yeah, I think engineers, what they need is what is the challenge? How much money do you have and how much time do you have? Okay, and then that's where ingenuity feeds the engineer. And they solve problems that previously might have thought to be intractable. So that's where, so we don't have a field, we don't have discovery without engineers sitting in the next room, helping us figure out how to build the thing. So yeah, there's nothing in the way except money.

• 5:13Jordan Klepper?

  Right, so we're basically there. In a capitalistic society, consider us on Mars.

• 5:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's the little, I would say, a capitalist society with vision and a sense of wonder and exploration, we're already on Mars.

• 5:31Jordan Klepper?

  I'll take it. Let's hear from our next patriotic. This is TJ Monroe, he says, Dr. Tyson, could you explain the relationship between the plane of our solar system and the plane of our galaxy? I know that our sun is moving south, but how does that relate to the galactic disk?

• 5:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay, the sun's spin axis and the disk in which all the planets orbit, except Pluto, which is tipped thirty degrees out of the plane of all the other planets. That's another reason we never even listed for you, why Pluto never, Pluto had it coming. Okay, so, and don't get me started.

• 6:10Jordan Klepper?

  Neil, you gotta get off the Pluto thing, all right? The patriotic have spoken, it's time to move on from the Pluto thing.

• 6:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Moveon.org. So, so the angle that the solar system makes to the plane of the galaxy, it's like, what is it, ninety? It's more than fully tipped. And so, we're actually sort of dragging through the galaxy as we orbit it. Takes a couple hundred million years to complete an orbit. But here's what's cool. The cool part is, as the solar system moves through the galaxy, if you track the paths through space that the planets are making, it's a corkscrew.

• 6:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Through the fabric of space and time. Because we're going around the sun, but we're also moving sideways. So if you combine circular motion with motion sideways, you get a corkscrew. And so all the planets are corkscrewing around the sun as it moves through the galaxy. It's a beautiful thing to watch when you see it mapped out.

• 7:16Jordan Klepper?

  You could also say it's like a toilet bowl, but then it wouldn't be a beautiful thing.

• 7:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm. So we spiral.

• 7:22Jordan Klepper?

  Corkscrew was the right call is what I'm saying.

• 7:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I'm good. I'm sticking with the corkscrew.

• 7:26Jordan Klepper?

  Stick with the corkscrew.

• 7:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On that, yeah.

• 7:29Jordan Klepper?

  Uh, this is from Rick Carlson. Hi, Dr. Tyson and friends. Because, I'm gonna, I'm one of the friends. Klepper is how it's pronounced, Klepper. Because we can detect gravitational waves from massive astronomical events, Lego and Virgo, that obviously didn't tear the place up. Is there a distance from the event that would be considered safe, but would still allow you to notice slash feel it?

• 7:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 7:55Jordan Klepper?

  Yeah.

• 7:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, I never thought about that because you occupy a volume in the fabric of space and time, and a gravitational wave washes over you, distorting the fabric of space and time. But you are occupying the space and time. So how would you know if you had a wave move across you, if you become part of the wave that moves across you? That's, I don't have an answer for that. So you ever see a duck sitting on the, on the ocean, and then a wave comes by? The duck just goes up and down, right? Does the duck even know or care that it's a wave went under it?

• 8:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so I don't know that you would feel it.

• 8:42Jordan Klepper?

  This is, this is why I get stoned before doing these things.

• 8:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, think about it. Consider you have an ant walking on a sheet of paper. Okay, and the ant is just mining something. And you take the piece of paper and curve it. The ant is just still walking. Does it even know or care that you put curvature in its universe? You would have no idea if you're the ant. And so unless you made like a kink in it, then it would have to sort of, then the kink is a, is like, is, is, is sharp compared to its own body. But if it's a wave moving through, I, I, I, I wonder if we would notice at all. And you need the special instruments to make this measurement. That's why. That's why. So you're measuring at two right angles, alright? And so you look at what the length of one of these is relative to the length of the other.

• 9:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As the wave moves across it, because it stretches in one direction and not the other. And for you to notice that, I don't, I don't know. So that's a good question. I don't have a firm answer for it.

• 9:45Jordan Klepper?

  I like it.

• 9:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But nor do I want to do the experiment to find out.

• 9:50Jordan Klepper?

  You don't want to ride that wave?

• 9:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, no, I don't want to ride that wave. No, no, no.

• 9:56Jordan Klepper?

  Uh, let's check in with Roman Precop.

• 9:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 10:00Jordan Klepper?

  Okay, Roman. Roman says, is there any scientific reason for the shape of the Enterprise ship? If it is just an artistic impression, would it actually hold up as an effective shape out there?

• 10:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so first of all, all these aerodynamic shapes in space, completely pointless because there's no aerodynamics in space. So they're cool and badass looking, okay? But that ship was built in dry dock in space and launched from space, so it didn't have to move through our atmosphere to get there, right? Whereas the space shuttle, the orbiter, because it had to actually come out of orbit and navigate through our air, there's some air surfaces on it. It's got wings, it's got a nose cone, it's got things that matter when you're moving through the air. So the Enterprise, badass as it looks, did not have to be that bad.

• 10:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It could have been just an angular thing, that it could have looked like anything, and would have been no less effective achieving warp speeds. So...

• 11:01Jordan Klepper?

  Here's a question I'm gonna add on to this for you, Neil.

• 11:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 11:04Jordan Klepper?

  So in this world where the Enterprise is being built in space, uh, from a more advanced civilization, time period wise, they have the technology to build the Enterprise. Do you think the people at that time, even though they could build a more functional ship, the people at that time would still need an aesthetically cool ship to want to support such a project?

• 11:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 11:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you want people to rally around it. You want it to feel like the future. Otherwise, what's going to motivate you? What's going to do? So I'm into design. I love design. I love good design. I love design that says, yeah, I want to be in that. I want to be a part of that future. Because what is the future if not something that doesn't look like anything we've ever designed before?

• 11:55Jordan Klepper?

  Do you think human beings will ever evolve past the need for design to be over-functioned? Or is that inherent to us as humans?

• 12:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yes, a good question. I know that, you know, once we control the human genome, you can put more of it in or take it out, I guess. I don't know. I know some people who don't care about design at all. We all know such people. They're not following the latest fashions or trends or anything, and they're just living. All right? And that's cool. That's cool. But we happen to live in a world where there are people that care about what things look like. And I'm glad some of them are designing our spaceship. So, Jordan, we're going to take a break. And when we come back, we're going to bring in Nicole Stott, who has a new book on what Earth looks like from space. Because guess what? She's been in space, okay?

• 12:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And she's also an artist and thinks a lot about the effects of having these views of the universe on one's creativity. So we're going to look into that and continue Cosmic Queries into those topics. When StarTalk returns.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  I'm Joel Cherico, and I make pottery. You can see my pottery on my website, cosmicmugs.com. Cosmic Mugs, art that lets you taste the universe every day. And I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 13:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition. And I got my co-host, Jordan Klepper. Jordan.

• 13:52Jordan Klepper?

  Let's bring your friends, Neil.

• 13:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 13:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jordan, do you have a social media presence? Why don't you tell us what that is?

• 13:59Jordan Klepper?

  Do I have a social media presence? I think I'm all over that place. You can get at me at Twitter, at Jordan Klepper. Get at me at Instagram, also, my name.

• 14:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jordan Klepper, very clever. They both have the same handle.

• 14:12Jordan Klepper?

  Exactly. You gotta be clever with this kind of a thing. It's a nice chance. It's an invitation to see more of my life and my insights.

• 14:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we love your dispatches on Comedy Central's daily show. So keep those going. That's right. And what that means is, if the day that rationality takes over the world, you won't have a job.

• 14:36Jordan Klepper?

  Well, once this world becomes a rational, peaceful place, I'm out of work. But until then, business is booming.

• 14:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Business is booming. All right. So in this segment, we're bringing in Nicole Stott. Nicole is an engineer, an artist, and a retired NASA astronaut. Put in 104 days in space. So that's up there doing some stuff. And also, I remember we had these, the NASA Aquanaut. All right. Spending 18 days underwater in the Aquarius Undersea Laboratory. Very pleased to know that we're doing some work there at the bottom of the ocean. And, but here's what I love about it. Nicole, you're the first person to paint in watercolor in space. What's up with that?

• 15:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And tell me about this Space for Art Foundation that you're a director of.

• 15:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, thanks. Great to be here with you guys. And yeah, painting in space. I don't know that I would have figured out to do that on my own. One of our people that I thank every time I see her, Mary Jane Anderson. You know, she was the person who helps us put all of our stuff together that we're gonna take to space. And she encouraged me. She's like, you know, Nicole, you're gonna be living there, not just working there. Bring something with you that you enjoy doing on Earth. And so I chose watercolors.

• 15:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it's something that fits in a small bag.

• 16:00Speaker 03

  It has to fit in a small bag. Although, there are others who have gotten away with bringing keyboards and guitars and other things up there.

• 16:09Jordan Klepper?

  Peloton. The Peloton might not make it up.

• 16:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 16:14Speaker 03

  Yeah. But it was awesome because, you know, I think about it now in hindsight, it's like, man, that's what we need to do to put the human in human spaceflight, right? We need to recognize that we're living there. We need to bring our humanity with us. That should be stuff that we enjoy. And you should enjoy yourself when you're in space on a spaceship, but, you know, as well as here on Earth.

• 16:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, is this part of the themes that fed your latest book, Back to Earth? What life in space taught me about our home planet and our mission to protect it? Because that all sounds like it's drawn from the same thematic pot.

• 16:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think so. You know, we go, and you guys talk about this all the time. Complexities that are just beyond my total understanding. But for us to fly in space, to live and work in there, even for a short period of time, it's a pretty complex thing. But for me, in the end, it all came down to like, simple lessons, like, oh my gosh, we live on a planet.

• 17:09Speaker 03

  Who knew, you know?

• 17:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait, Nicole. We have to spend a hundred million dollars to put you in space to tell me we live on a planet? Really?

• 17:18Jordan Klepper?

  There's taxpayers listening to this right now.

• 17:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The taxpayers listening.

• 17:24Speaker 03

  There's gonna be an alert put out now, right?

• 17:26Jordan Klepper?

  We gotta use that money for the American education system, clearly.

• 17:31Speaker 03

  However, it's this, we all know these things, right? We know we live on a planet. We know we're Earthlings. We know that the only border that really matters is that thin blue line of atmosphere. And yet, that time and space for me made that really real to me. Made me realize that, wow, we are doing things, complex things as an international community peacefully, successfully, on this mechanical life support system.

• 17:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The International Space Station.

• 17:57Speaker 03

  The International Space Station. We've built it, right? To mimic as best we can what Earth does for us naturally. And it's just the most wonderful example for how we should be living like crewmates here on Spaceship Earth. And that, I mean, that really became the reality of it for me. What are the ways we do that in space? You know, as the crew of six or seven on the space station, the tens of thousands of people across the agencies here on Earth, that we can share that might encourage people to behave that way as crewmates and not passengers?

• 18:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so what does art have to do with it? And plus, I'm a little worried because that thing hanging behind you on the wall, was that a spacesuit that an artist got a hold of?

• 18:38Speaker 03

  I painted in space, came back to Earth thinking, okay, I'm going to use, after retiring from NASA, I'm going to use my artwork to share the experience, right? Get people knowing about all this work we're doing in space that's ultimately about improving life on Earth. And that evolved into working with kids and hospitals and refugee centers around the world and creating these really, I mean, they are works of art, art spacesuits. And partnering with teams like the folks here at ILC Dover, the spacesuit company who quilt these kids' art together for us.

• 19:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's where you are in this moment?

• 19:14Speaker 03

  That's where I am right now, yeah. Really kind of cool today, you know, as a, even as a former astronaut, it's like, anytime you can get in a spacesuit, that's a good day. Hey, I got to do that. Got to get in one of the new designs and move around and see what it's gonna be like and imagine myself walking around on the moon or Mars.

• 19:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're not the first astronaut to bring art to the forefront of people's attention. We go back to the Apollo era, we get to Alan Bean. I mean, he published books on art.

• 19:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So should we be sending more artists into space? Because they would communicate a different kind of life experience than an engineer would. And you have the benefit of being both.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think, and what's interesting to me is I've kind of, through my NASA career, watched the people around me and tried to get a sense of, you know, what they enjoy, the kinds of things they're doing outside of the technical work area. And I think for most of us, there's some creative outlet. And, you know, you mentioned Alan Bean, Apollo, fourth guy to walk on the moon, who comes back, retires from NASA, and paints the experience for people. You can go back even further to Alexei Leonov, who wanted to be an artist before he wanted to be a cosmonaut, and took colored pencils with him and sketched, you know, sketched orbital sunrises, drew portraits during the Apollo Soyuz mission. And it's just in us to wanna, you know, to wanna share the experience in different ways.

• 20:37Speaker 03

  And I'm absolutely open. We should be sending artists. We should be sending...

• 20:41Jordan Klepper?

  Satirical comedians.

• 20:42Speaker 03

  Different kinds of people to space to share it. We should be sending Jordan.

• 20:46Jordan Klepper?

  Thank you.

• 20:48Jordan Klepper?

  I tell you, what you're describing, you go away just to understand that the Earth is beneath us. You get to quilt, you get to paint a little bit. I feel like this sounds like an ayahuasca trip, and I am in.

• 20:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and we need it. We'll need some Earth jokes, you know, when we get back.

• 21:02Jordan Klepper?

  Yes, exactly, yes.

• 21:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  New material for that, for that stand-up routine you got going. So Nicole, your book is Back to Earth: What Life in Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet and Our Mission to Protect It. And we solicited questions for you from our fanbase, from our Patreon fanbase. And in this program, Jordan has renamed this community, the, what did you call them?

• 21:25Jordan Klepper?

  The Patreonics, you know?

• 21:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Patreonics.

• 21:27Jordan Klepper?

  Ladies and gentlemen, Gladys Knight and the Patreon.

• 21:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So here we go. They're our most loyal supporters, and they get to get their questions asked, submitted and answered. So Jordan, what do you have for us?

• 21:39Jordan Klepper?

  I got Ben Moore, and Ben wants to know, he says, hi, Dr. Tyson and Nicole. My question is for Nicole and I was wondering if you could give us an insight into what it's truly like to look back at Earth from space. It's been a dream of mine and I can barely begin to comprehend what that must be like. Thanks for your time.

• 21:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Nicole, before you answer that, let me just, I have to put this in. There are people who are going in the suborbital sort of joyride, the billionaire joyride, and to a schoolroom globe, they went up the thickness of two dimes. Okay, I did the math on that. And so, and so not even in orbit and even that low. Is there some distance above which you do feel like, yeah, I'm an astronaut and I'm looking down on Earth, rather than I'm just in a very high airplane?

• 22:29Speaker 03

  You know, I don't know what that number would be. I can tell you, nothing prepared me for what I was gonna see, what I was gonna feel, how it was gonna get in me. This, this sense of our home as a planet, as one place in space. I don't know, I mean, I was the farthest I've ever been from home and I felt more connected to that place and everything below me than I had necessarily ever felt with my feet right on it. And I want people to feel that.

• 22:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Nicole, can you tell me an IMAX movie can't do that for you?

• 23:00Speaker 03

  There's a sense of it.

• 23:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because that's cheaper, that's cheaper.

• 23:03Speaker 03

  It is cheaper.

• 23:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jordan, what else you got for us?

• 23:06Jordan Klepper?

  We got Brian Lacy here. Brian says, "Art is the expression of emotional power. What object in the universe makes you feel emotional power?"

• 23:16Speaker 03

  Emotional power? Wow, I, you know, I think I would have to come back to this, this view of Earth, this, you know, this sense of, of home that comes from that. And I don't, I don't know, I think it's emotionally powerful. I don't know. Necessarily gives me emotional, but it's emotionally powerful. And, and you guys talk-

• 23:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, powerful on you is different from feeling power.

• 23:43Speaker 03

  Right.

• 23:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? That's a different thing.

• 23:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, is it humbling?

• 23:46Speaker 03

  Oh, my gosh, absolutely.

• 23:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 23:48Speaker 03

  Absolutely. And you know, you, you, you know, the, this, this almost unfathomable size of our universe, what we know of the universe, this sense of, oh, we're this tiny little dot kind of thing, and the grand scheme, and that always worried me that there, I'd have this feeling of insignificance associated with that. Absolutely not. I mean, thinking about our planet perfectly placed from the sun, you know, distance-wise, doing all it needs to do like it's the spaceship to take care of us, that's significant to me, that we're meeting each other today because there's some significance in all of this that's going on around us in this place. And that's a, I don't know, that's a pretty powerful, emotionally powerful thing to consider.

• 24:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, your, your book has a new age chapter, then?

• 24:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. There is the stay grounded chapter, yes.

• 24:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're all spiritually connected.

• 24:40Speaker 03

  It's true. I think it's true.

• 24:41Jordan Klepper?

  I'll tell you what object makes me feel emotionally powerful and wield power over me and makes me feel insignificant, it's, it's Instagram.

• 24:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Instagram, okay.

• 24:52Jordan Klepper?

  Immediately, I feel like-

• 24:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We need top people to look into that.

• 24:55Jordan Klepper?

  Exactly. I feel like-

• 24:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Instagram effect.

• 24:57Speaker 03

  Can't look away.

• 24:58Jordan Klepper?

  Nothing. Yes. You, you stare at it and yet you feel small in comparison to the, your friends who went to Tulum.

• 25:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. All right, keep them coming.

• 25:08Jordan Klepper?

  This is from Chester Lipschitz. Would it even be practical to use the mediums we use today to create art in zero gravity as in orbit or low gravity such as Mars? Would we have to develop a whole new set of materials to continue to use our human creativity to express the environment that surrounds us?

• 25:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love that. Yeah, what role does zero G play in your artwork? Or even like forty percent G, what you'd get on Mars?

• 25:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think we will, I think we will try to continue using the same medium that we have. And then we'll just realize that that environment allows us to do a lot more creative things with it. And I mean, I even found that on the space station. You know, I didn't have a cup of water that I could dip my brush into. I had to squirt a little ball of water out and watch it floating and, you know, go to dip the brush and then, and maybe you guys can, once and for all, somebody can explain to me. But that floating ball of water, even before the tip of the brush touched it, it's like it wanted to move onto the end of the brush. And then I'm watching this floating ball of water under the brush and I move it down to the paints and the paints kind of pulled it away. And, you know, in my simple mind, I'm thinking, what's this super mysterious

• 26:17Speaker 03

  attraction thing that's going on between these materials?

• 26:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, surface tension, yeah.

• 26:22Speaker 03

  I know, and it is, and that's like the surface tension is, that's, that's really, really cool, you know? And, and, and I tried to paint the way I paint on Earth. And yet, if I touched the brush to the paper, that whole blob of colored water would go into the paper and I'd start over. And it turned out-

• 26:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So your tactics have to be different, yes.

• 26:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, and you're floating and everything has to be organized. And I found I was just like dragging the colored water along the paper to create. So in some way-

• 26:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so what we need to see is your, we need to see your first painting. That's the one where you're adjusting.

• 26:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, I wish I had activated my brain cell to not throw those things away, to paint them.

• 27:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My first painting in zero G, that's what that is.

• 27:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and another little point, unappreciated perhaps, is on the moon or, or on Mars, you can construct sculptures that are multiple times larger than you can on Earth. Because they don't weigh as much. And so they won't sort of, structurally, they can hold themselves up to, to larger sizes. And so you're right.

• 27:24Speaker 03

  I can't wait to see what we do.

• 27:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, but you have to send the artists. And the one comedian, you have to do that. Please.

• 27:33Speaker 03

  To critique the art, right?

• 27:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so Jordan, here's a joke for you for when they send you to the moon.

• 27:39Jordan Klepper?

  I'll take it.

• 27:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, and saying, "I loved the restaurants there. They were wonderful, great food, but they had no atmosphere." That's a gift to you. Your first joke in the nightclub.

• 27:52Jordan Klepper?

  Is this thing on? Does electricity work up here? Actually, I don't know. Is this room dead? Oh, it is. Okay, all right, okay.

• 28:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's see if you can squeeze one more question in before we take a quick break.

• 28:05Jordan Klepper?

  Great.

• 28:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go ahead.

• 28:06Jordan Klepper?

  This is from Gabriella Digjof. "Hi, Nicole. As a female engineer, it's so impressive to see another fellow female being an astronaut for NASA. In a male-dominated industry, only 65 out of 565 total astronauts have been women. What was it like for you throughout your career to be a female in the industry? And do you have any advice for young female engineers?"

• 28:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which we'll get to after this break.

• 28:29Speaker 03

  All right.

• 28:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See what I did there?

• 28:31Jordan Klepper?

  I also felt like you were like, "Let's keep it short." And I asked a question. "What's it like to be one of the few females in space?"

• 28:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I said, "We have a few seconds left to get in a question."

• 28:39Speaker 03

  Let's keep it short, Nicole, that's a long one.

• 28:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Nicole, answer that in three words, please. When we come back, we will answer that very important question about sort of gender parity in space exploration and in the engineering community when StarTalk returns.

• 29:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back with Nicole Stott, who's our engineer, artist, astronaut in the house, and who's now coming to us from Planet Houston, from a whole company that thinks about innovative designs of spacesuits. And you've got one behind you that where an artist got a hold of it, it looks like.

• 29:31Speaker 03

  Lots of little artists, yes.

• 29:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lots of little artists got a hold of it. Jordan Klepper left off with a brilliant and important and incisive question. Could you just read that back again?

• 29:42Jordan Klepper?

  Yeah, in a nutshell, this is again, this is from Gabriella, who's also a female engineer. She wonders what it was like for you throughout your career to be a female in the industry? And do you have any advice for young female engineers?

• 29:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, excellent, and especially given the prevalence of males in such an industry and what struggles or challenges you had to overcome.

• 30:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is a great question. And you know, first I'll say, I felt all along really fortunate because I think when I came into NASA as a young engineer in the late 80s, already there was this push, there was the group I came in with, half of us were young women coming in. We were getting back up and running with the shuttle program. We're working in the hangar, you know, getting the vehicles ready to fly. And there was just a presence there already and.

• 30:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which by the way was a huge shift from the previous generation of anything we thought of who would be an astronaut, right? Yeah, that was a whole new era for NASA.

• 30:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, and it's from within NASA, at least from the human spaceflight side of things, there's been a real progress over these, you know, 50 or so years to where, I mean, we've been celebrating the Apollo anniversaries, 50th anniversaries of all the Apollo missions, right? And when you look back at that and you look in mission control, there were no women in the front room. Poppy Northcutt was in the back room doing some really, you know, important stuff. At launch control in Florida, at Kennedy, there was one woman, Joanne Morgan, smack dab in the middle of the launch control center. And now at NASA in mission control and launch control, both of those places are run by really incredible women. And when you look across the consoles, you're just seeing this mix of humanity.

• 31:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As it should have been from the beginning.

• 31:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it's a really impressive thing. And it kind of is pervasive across all of the human spaceflight stuff, engineers, astronauts. When you look at the astronaut office even now, when I left in 2015, it was still at about the 20, 25% women in the office. Now I think there's roughly 40 active astronauts and almost 40% are women. And that far exceeds what. You know, what's happening in our universities and the engineering programs. And that's why I think the one piece of advice I would have for, and maybe it's more for us women who have already experienced this, is that we need to be present. We need to be there encouraging the young women in middle school.

• 32:12Speaker 03

  So as they continue on to, they need to see, I think girls are kind of see it, be it, right?

• 32:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we should get you on StarTalk.

• 32:19Speaker 03

  Well, I'd be happy to be on StarTalk. Let's, let's see, hmm, okay.

• 32:25Speaker 03

  So, thank you.

• 32:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no.

• 32:27Speaker 03

  And I mean, it's huge, isn't it? And, um, and it's just so that, and, and young boys too need to know. It's like the rocket ship doesn't care if you're a boy or girl. Right? We do that kind of ourselves and, and my biggest.

• 32:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait, there's another, another important point there, which you hinted at, but I want to drive home. It is one thing for other, for up and coming girls to see successful women in these roles. It's also important for up and coming boys to see that.

• 32:55Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 32:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is almost equally as important because then they will realize that they could be entering a field where this is fully participatory across the spectrum.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 33:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that, that's part of the forcing of what needs to happen in this society if we're truly to have a representative world.

• 33:13Speaker 03

  Yep, totally agree. And it's why, I mean, I'm hugely thankful to my, the male leadership I had at NASA for, you know, encouraging, you know, the growth, kind of the diversity that showed up in that, that timeframe as well. And, yeah, I mean, I, my, I have a son. He's 19 years old now. I don't think it crossed his, his mind to consider, oh, why is that girl doing this versus, you know, and, and I love that. I love it.

• 33:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you, are you friends with Kathy Sullivan?

• 33:41Speaker 03

  I am, yes.

• 33:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you come up with her? Yeah, yeah. We, we've served on several boards together. She, she became a good friend and.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, that, this is also a shuttle astronaut, Jordan, and she went on to, she became head of NOAA, I think. Yeah, she had quite a career.

• 33:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like, usually you say, oh, I'm done as an astronaut. No, you're out to pasture. No, this just kept going. And so it's great to, it's great to see.

• 34:04Speaker 03

  She just did like the Marianas Trench thing, too.

• 34:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, my gosh, you guys are out of control.

• 34:09Jordan Klepper?

  I, I, I know astronauts too. I, you ever heard of Buzz Aldrin?

• 34:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yes, we

• 34:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jordan, we had Jordan on a program, on a show where we had Buzz Aldrin as one of our guests. This is one experience that he'd never let anybody forget.

• 34:24Jordan Klepper?

  I text with Buzz all the time. We're all friends with astronauts.

• 34:29Speaker 03

  Pictures, videos, yes.

• 34:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so you've got more questions, Jordan, from our Patreonics.

• 34:35Jordan Klepper?

  This is from Miss Magoo from Canada. All right, a question about coming back to Earth for Nicole. What goes on inside the body when you experience a massive change like going from space to Earth? I live with a nervous system disorder called POTS, and I understand astronauts can experience something similar upon returning to Earth. For example, fainting, trouble being upright, etc.

• 34:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, great question. You know, one thing we all have in common when we come back to Earth, whether we're there for a short period of time or a long period of time, is you feel really heavy. This whole 1G thing, that's put a lot of load on us every day. We just kind of take it for granted, right? We don't really consider it. Let me tell you, everybody feels heavy. But yeah, you know, the whole vestibular system, that whole thing in our bodies that help us stand up straight, know which way is up-down, you know, it gets a little wacky. And the little hairs in our ears that help control that or monitor it for us need to be recalibrated, really, once you get back in gravity and...

• 35:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Buzz, don't you break a lot of glasses? Because you drink water and you just let go of it and it falls to the ground and you forget you're no longer in 0G.

• 35:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, there is. There is. I mean, there's the, "Oh, my gosh, I was just in space an hour ago." And there's the, "Why don't things just float in front of me like they do?"

• 35:58Speaker 03

  It's funny, though. Our brains and our bodies are so cool. They adapt so quickly, both ways. I mean, really, in the grand scheme of, you know, getting to space and figuring out how to float and move in three dimensions and fly, you know, like we all dream about doing. And then coming back to Earth and moving and functioning and being healthy the way, you know, we were before going to space.

• 36:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, how about in the condition that the woman describes? Are there any musculoskeletal coordination issues you have to contend with when you come back? Other than just what's up and down and left and right?

• 36:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, and... And I think some of that comes from kind of that spatial, you know, orientation that we have is that, you know, which way should I move? And, and when you're in space, your body's floating and you can just offload all of that. But when you come back to earth, now you have to be in control of it. You have to think about holding your head up. I mean, our heads are heavy. And so now I'm like, I didn't have to do that for six months. Now I gotta hold it up.

• 36:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I hadn't even thought about that. So astronauts come back to head as a thing.

• 37:04Speaker 03

  This could be Bobbin, yeah.

• 37:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The original bobbleheads are astronauts.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  But there is, I think there's, there's a lot of that, that same kind of thing. And if we were in space and we didn't exercise the two hours a day that we do, because of the accelerated bone and muscle loss, because our bodies figure out, oh my gosh, I don't need those bones and muscles to function in microgravity. So I'm not going to waste any energy maintaining them. We are having to counteract that all the time.

• 37:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, okay. So it's the, it's the prior knowledge that, yes, you have to keep your musculoskeletal system tuned. So that when you come back, you're not just this pile of goo that collapses on the ground. Yeah, okay. All right, Jordan, keep them coming.

• 37:44Jordan Klepper?

  This is from Taylor Prim. Taylor wants to know, what do you think art can do to help make a science or science itself more accessible for the blind? I'm trying to get a degree in astronomy and I'm blind. Most of the tools the school uses for teaching students is inaccessible for the blind.

• 38:01Speaker 03

  Wow, wow. You know, I was just on a call yesterday with some of the folks at Huntsville that run Space Camp.

• 38:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's Huntsville, Alabama.

• 38:11Speaker 03

  Yep, Huntsville, Alabama. They, they run Space Camp and they have, every summer, they have, at the end of summer, beginning of the school year, they have a camp where all of the kids are blind or really, you know, to have trouble seeing. I mean, it's, it's, and I, I struggle with that. I'm like, how? They have created an environment around these kids where it's not just, you know, the procedures that are in Braille or the screens have bigger writing on them. But they've, they've put them into an environment in a way where through their other senses, they're experiencing the whole. You know, world of being in mission control, of being a crew member, through those different...

• 38:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So somebody thought about this, clearly.

• 38:58Speaker 03

  Somebody has actually thought, I encourage you to go, you know, go check this out. I'm sure the people there would...

• 39:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I did not know about this. This is brilliant. This is brilliant.

• 39:04Speaker 03

  ...love to talk about what they've done. It was just incredible to me. And I think art as a way, it allows us to use those other senses, right? To create something, like I always imagine, like these Hubble images, we're looking at them, we're seeing them, the colors, you know, those colors we put into these images, they are works of art. And yet, we could create a structure out of that. We could, almost like a textured map, that would give you a sense of that same thing we see in the colors, but through the touch of that, of that scene. Or what we're seeing in the night sky, just with our naked eye.

• 39:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interesting. So is this, is this a well-known program?

• 39:43Speaker 03

  I didn't know anything about it before. I was so excited to hear about it because... And then to, to hear some of the, the comments from the, the students that were participating. I mean, first of all, there was like this joy of being with other people that were experiencing it in the same way they were, and being able to share that. And then really, just actively being able to engage in what every other kid that goes to space camp engages in, but, but through different means.

• 40:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And of course, art is not, art is not only a two-dimensional phenomenon, right? I mean, sculpting and, and so much else. Yes, yes, exactly. Acoustic sculptures, that's right. That's right. There's more going on.

• 40:25Jordan Klepper?

  I went down to space camp a few years ago. And a fun fact, even a 40-year-old who goes to space camp can find himself nauseous for over an hour straight.

• 40:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. Yes, that's right. You don't need to be sighted to feel nauseous and throw up.

• 40:42Speaker 03

  I blew, but I flew, yeah.

• 40:46Speaker 03

  That is true.

• 40:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, excellent. So, Jordan, keep going.

• 40:50Jordan Klepper?

  Yes. Uh, this is from Woody. And Woody wants to know, what part of space travel could be better? We've been doing it for over fifty years, we've spent trillions on it, so why can't they keep the cabin pressure constant enough that kids' ear holes don't explode on a ninety-dollar, three-hour trip to, on a dang Boeing? All right, there's some... Woody's editorializing there. Apparently Woody had a bad trip recently.

• 41:13Speaker 03

  There's a lot of layers in that.

• 41:14Jordan Klepper?

  There's a lot, but, um, this is... I think, yeah, the Patreon page is right next to the Delta complaint page, so sometimes StarTalk gets some overlap. But I think the nugget that Woody's trying to get out of here is, uh, essentially what part of space travel could be better?

• 41:33Speaker 03

  Oh, my gosh. I, you know, I loved every minute of... I would have to say, you know, my first spaceflight, we didn't have the Cupola module, that, um, kind of Earth-facing bay-window observatory, um, on the, on the space station. And on my second flight, we did. And I'll tell you what, what could make it better is just more, more windows, bigger windows. Let me look back at Earth, let me look out to deep space, let me have the opportunity to just experience everything around me from every angle.

• 42:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by the way, the Boeing 787 has larger windows.

• 42:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Relative to other, uh, craft. And by the way, the size of the window is a, is an important structural issue because the window is not holding the plane together, the rest of the plane is holding the plane together. So the more windows you have, the, you know, there's a compromise there. So, uh, now, how about the pressure? What is the pressure inside the International Space Station, relative to what you might experience in an airplane?

• 42:28Speaker 03

  Uh, well, um, probably better because we keep the pressure inside the space station at sea-level pressure. So what...

• 42:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you do?

• 42:36Speaker 03

  ...people are normally, you know, experiencing. Yeah, it's very nice, very comfortable. Yeah.

• 42:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, yeah, because on an airplane, they, they drop the pressure a little bit, just so... Because if you keep the same pressure as sea level, they have to make the structure of the plane stronger to accommodate the pressures against the very low pressure at thirty, forty thousand feet, so, fascinating.

• 42:55Jordan Klepper?

  So they cheap out, that's why? That's why you get headaches?

• 42:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, eventually. It's not how I said it.

• 43:00Jordan Klepper?

  You're a little bit loosey goosey sitting, you end up buying three Tangerine and Tonnix. They do that because they don't want to split.

• 43:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, they knock it down, they just knock you out.

• 43:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, in fact, with the lower air pressure, the alcohol has a stronger effect on you. And so.

• 43:14Jordan Klepper?

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, and also, is that why I weep at any Pixar movie on a plane?

• 43:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is, I've teared up in some movies that I don't think I would have teared up at sea level. We've got to have somebody look into that.

• 43:28Jordan Klepper?

  Oh, yeah, Old Yeller at Sea Level, dry face. Old Yeller.

• 43:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I saw Babe, the movie Babe with the pig. I teared up at the end of that. That was so, that was so tender. I first saw that on an airplane. But anyway, we've got time for like one or two more questions. Let's, let's keep going.

• 43:44Jordan Klepper?

  This is from Zenskudy Benz. Hello Neil and Nicole. What was the strangest habit you had to get used to while being in space? Many thanks from Hungary.

• 43:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, cool.

• 43:55Speaker 03

  Strangest habit?

• 43:59Speaker 03

  It's strange but wonderful, floating.

• 44:03Speaker 03

  Well, it's strange, it is strange. I mean, it's funny how now I look at my friends, I live vicariously through them floating through the space station, but that's a, that's a pretty strange thing to.

• 44:12Jordan Klepper?

  Easy habit to kick, though.

• 44:17Jordan Klepper?

  One of the easiest, one of the easiest habits to kick.

• 44:20Speaker 03

  You want more, though, you want more.

• 44:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You want more, so would you find yourself, now that you're retired, would you go up on what they used to call the vomit comet? You know, the, the trajectory planes that simulate zero G?

• 44:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Would you do that, just to get a little, a little piece of the action again?

• 44:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, I just did it recently, actually. It was really wonderful. Got to take my family with me, was on the plane with Charlie Duke, which was outstanding. You know, I want to throw astronaut names out there.

• 44:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See, Jordan, what you made her do, you made her name drop an Apollo astronaut. Yeah, Jordan, come on, why did you make it?

• 44:51Speaker 03

  That was so much fun.

• 44:52Jordan Klepper?

  It's not a competition, guys. Base races decades ago, let's stay fucking here.

• 44:58Speaker 03

  I do highly recommend you go on that zero G airplane though and just gracefully float and appreciate it, yeah.

• 45:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but, okay, you can tell us and we won't tell anybody except for our half a million viewers, yeah. So, how quickly did you barf in zero G?

• 45:16Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh, I didn't. I did not barf. I was so fortunate, so fortunate.

• 45:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are lying, you are lying.

• 45:23Speaker 03

  I am not lying.

• 45:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jordan, on to the next question.

• 45:24Speaker 03

  I'm not lying. I felt so good. All I wanted was my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Now, when I got back to Earth, I wanted to barf but couldn't. I so wished that I could have thrown up. And I think I would have felt so much better on that, you know, those first few hours, but it didn't happen.

• 45:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, wow, okay.

• 45:43Speaker 03

  I'm not lying to you, man. There, I had what, plenty of crew members who didn't either.

• 45:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay, okay. Well, I don't want to end on a barf question.

• 45:51Speaker 03

  Don't end on a barf, yeah.

• 45:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so Jordan, last question.

• 45:53Jordan Klepper?

  Last question, and you know, a lot of people want to know about the overview effect, and I know we talked a little bit about it. But Matty Fontaine wants to know from Minnesota, what would be the effect on society if every person got the chance to see Earth from orbit?

• 46:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, beautiful question to end this on. And unfortunately, Nicole, you got to be a little fast in the answer.

• 46:11Speaker 03

  Okay, I'm gonna be fast. It would be, I think it would be one of the most wonderful things, most positive, uplifting, life-changing things for everyone.

• 46:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And would it be the end of all wars?

• 46:24Jordan Klepper?

  I'd be out of a job. I'd be out of a job. Oh no!

• 46:29Speaker 03

  I don't know. It would be better.

• 46:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything would be better?

• 46:32Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 46:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 46:33Speaker 03

  You can't, you can't experience that and not have it affect you.

• 46:39Jordan Klepper?

  I like that crewmates, not passengers idea. I think that's a nice way, that's a nice way to put it.

• 46:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so here's, here's, here's, I'm gonna give Edgar Mitchell the last word in this. Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14. You ready? Here it goes. "You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty, you want to grab a politician by the scuff of the neck and drag him a quarter million miles out and say, 'Look at that, you son of a bitch.'" Nicole, do we have agreement on that?

• 47:22Speaker 03

  We have absolute agreement on that.

• 47:24Jordan Klepper?

  Oh, man. Can a podcast get an Emmy? A podcast should.

• 47:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, guys. Nicole, thanks for spending time out of your busy life with us on StarTalk and our fan base. And just keep it going, keep inspiring us all in everything you do. And how do we find you on social media?

• 47:44Speaker 03

  You can find me at @astro__nicole.

• 47:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  @astro__nicole, you've got it. And we've got your new book coming out, and who's the publisher of that?

• 47:55Speaker 03

  Hachette Books with Seal Press.

• 47:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, excellent. We'll be looking for it.

• 48:00Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 48:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, all right. And Jordan, always good to have you, man. I missed you throughout all of COVID. Don't be a stranger next year.

• 48:05Jordan Klepper?

  Just call me, just call me, Neil. I'm by the phone, and I need the human interaction.

• 48:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're waiting by the phone?

• 48:12Speaker 03

  But it'll hang up on you at buzz calls.

• 48:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, right, right.

• 48:15Jordan Klepper?

  Which he does regularly, regularly. We talk about anything.

• 48:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. This has been StarTalk Cosmic Queries, the overview edition. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. Keep looking up.