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Kal Penn (5:54)

To explore the past, present and future of the space race. I knew only one guy would do. He's super sciencey, a spokesperson, an adventurer, a teenager, teacher, and the only adult man I trust to wear a bow tie. Unlike me. He's got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The singular William Sanford Nye, better known as my friend Bill Nye the Science Guy. Welcome, Bill.

Bill Nye (6:19)

It's so good to be here.

Kal Penn (6:20)

Thanks for doing this, man. I, I think that most of us have a very rudimentary understanding of space. And I will, I will preface this by saying I think I've shown you my, my astronomy tattoos, most of which are based on the, the Voyager Golden Record, little pulsar map and things like that. But, but that is still, you know, for an actor that's still a rudimentary, like.

Bill Nye (6:44)

Well, you're a citizen of Earth, Cal.

Kal Penn (6:46)

Thank you. I like to put it that way.

Bill Nye (6:48)

Yeah. Well, that's what we're going for here.

Kal Penn (6:50)

So like, what is the, what is the history of the original space race in like a minute. And I'm not asking for the version of like if you and Neil Degrasse Tyson were in a room together, which I have seen and it's brilliant, but like, what's the second grade version of that?

Bill Nye (7:07)

The second great version is the Soviet Union was created with this idea that they would be. That its system would be better than the West. And along with that, we're going to prove that we're better than the West. We're going to go into space, the ultimate high ground. So they built Sputnik spacecraft. And I was a little, little kid, 1957. And the grownups are all very, very concerned about this. And so then the US answered the threat or the historic achievement of Sputnik by creating NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, a civilian space agency that was involved in flying around in space, which you might think was more of a military thing.

Kal Penn (8:01)

Yeah.

Bill Nye (8:02)

But this became, and this, everybody talks about this turning point with John Kennedy, whatever else you might think about him, presented this challenge of putting somebody on the moon before 1970. So that became a way to fight the Cold War, was put somebody on the moon and the US did. And not too long in historic terms after that, the Soviet Union went out of business. So that was good for us.

Kal Penn (8:34)

During Sputnik, the old folks were kind of freaking out. And I'm Curious at that point, was there an understanding or a keen interest in the exploration part of this, or was there a fear about the militarization part?

Bill Nye (8:50)

So there was both. So the guys at NASA, and they were mostly men, were arguing that we needed to understand the cosmos. We needed to understand what cosmic rays are. We need to understand the processes of that create sunlight and stars. And we need to know more about what I like to call our place in space. But the reason it was done was the Cold War. But with that, these extraordinary discoveries were made and a couple of remarkable things. In 1968, Bill Anders, this astronaut, took a picture of the Earth that came to be called Earthrise, with the moon in the foreground. And this is where you see the Earth against the icy blackness of space. When the aperture of the camera was set to capture the planet Earth, the stars behind Earth were not bright enough to show up. So it's stark. There's the Earth, this planet. And then the thing that struck my grandparents was the clouds. You see Earth from space and you see all these clouds. When you think of Earth before that, you would think of it as a classroom globe. No clouds and just political boundaries. And the ocean is perfectly uniform color all around the world and so on. And so this changed history. And it was not, in my opinion, and keep in mind everybody, my opinion is correct. And so a few years later, the Soviet Union was doing these extraordinary things and they sent these missions to Mars, they sent missions to Venus, all these things. And along that line, the U.S. was going to keep up. And the U.S. did. And this led to this extraordinary event, events of the launching of the Voyager spacecraft. And these were R2 spacecraft that did this so called grand tour of the solar system because of the alignment or the orientation or the places and spaces of the planets. And the old hilarious joke is the same arrangement of planets happened during the Adams administration in 1820, but they didn't do anything about it. They didn't send any spacecraft in 1820. What were they thinking? And so anyway, I claim this changed the course of history and this led to the Golden Record, which is on your tattoo.

Kal Penn (11:33)

Can you tell us more about the Golden Record? Like I, I obviously like to think I'm an expert enough that I tattooed it on my body. But my real understanding is that what it's a group of people which I think involved Carl Sagan, they made this recording of positive Earth stuff that we sent up on the Voyager missions. Is that essentially it?

Bill Nye (11:50)

Yes. So everybody, let's just talk some more about me. I happen to Be in class with Carl Sagan, famous astronomer. I happened to be in class. I was a senior in mechanical engineering school. I took Astronomy 102 for kicks. Just I took a freshman level course because this guy had become so famous, this Carl Sagan. He was on the Tonight show with Johnny Carson. This is before Jimmy Fallon, before Jay Leno.

Kal Penn (12:21)

Yeah.

Bill Nye (12:22)

And Carl Sagan said, we're going to put this record, this phonograph record. And for the young people listening, I know you're all into vinyl again. Right on. Way to go. Turn it up loud. Okay, While you're doing all that, the idea was to send a phonograph record, two phonograph records into deep space. And so then you're going to put sounds on the phonograph record, sounds of this extraordinary world, Earth. And Carl Sagan said, don't worry, young people, we're going to put a rock and roll song on the record. And he said, it's going to be Rolled Over Beethoven by Chuck Berry. And I certainly voiced a concern, but this next part may be a so called constructed memory. I claim I stood up. This is a part of the semester. You know, there are people who are so confident in, in college that they don't go to class. They just take the tests and the final, and they write the paper and they just read the text, don't go to class. I was not among those people because I felt that Sagan was so entertaining. He was such an amazing speaker. So I claim I stood up and I said, professor Sagan, it's not Rollover Beethoven. The song you want is Johnny B. Good by Chuck Berry. And so I was not the only guy expressing this sentiment. But I was, I was particularly vocal because I'm a particular fan of Chuck Berry. And so the Chuck Berry's on the record, I take full credit.

Kal Penn (13:55)

Wait, you're saying that you helped decide what was on the golden record? How did I not know this?

Bill Nye (14:00)

It's all me, everybody. And it's just. You guys understand the dumb lock activity of my life, that I happen to be in this class. First of all, that I got into this extraordinary university, Cornell, that I got into there was, I'm sure, some mistake in the admissions department, but I happened to be there at this moment in history of space exploration that changed my life. And so I'm very thankful. And I tell everybody those two spacecraft are still flying because they're powered by plutonium. It is extraordinary. And this is what Carl Sagan used to talk about all the time. Humans in so many ways are not worthy of respect. Like we're just mean spirited, crummy creatures, but in other ways we can do these extraordinary things and understand our place in space and try to know where we came from and to ponder whether or not we're alone in the cosmos. These are just extraordinary questions. And along with that, for Carl Sagan and Andrea and his wife then and the people that he worked with, they just wanted everybody to appreciate the beauty that humans appreciate. And that's what's on the record.

Kal Penn (15:29)

The way that you're describing everyone from the astronaut who took that photograph of Earth from the moon to the fact that you put Chuck Berry on the golden record, all of the 60s and 70s and 80s, the reputation that NASA had was almost this glamorous. And certainly now looking back, very fucking cool. Cool group of people who seem, especially in retrospect, given the world we live in now, very, hopefully very aspirational. And I think we think a lot about that. But also think about, you know, the competition that has come to dominate space that then kind of ignores the cooperation. What I'm getting at here is at what point did the International Space Station come into this conversation? Can you talk a little bit about how it started and then which countries cooperated with it? Did it come out of the same idea of, hey, we can do amazing things together, let's put music and send it out there?

Bill Nye (16:25)

Well, another thing along this line, talking about Carl Sagan again, this mythic astronomer. I say mythic, he's a real person, but he's so influential. Like, for example, you mentioned earlier, before we started, you mentioned Neil DeGrasse Tyson, as, you know, Steve Martin said, personal friend of mine and me, we probably would not be doing what we're doing without the creation of NASA and without Carl Sagan and his influence. So along this line, Carl Sagan started the Planetary Society because he and his colleagues felt that public interest in space was very high, but government support of it was not especially high. That would never happen again. Same thing's going on now. And they were very concerned about nuclear war and they wanted very much to engage the Soviet Union. And so there was this handshake in space. Now I'm doing this from memory. I should look this up. I should have it at my brain for tips. Leon and Alan, that's not quite right.

Kal Penn (17:39)

I got it. It's Leonov and Stafford, astronaut Thomas Stafford and Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, right?

Bill Nye (17:46)

They shook hands in space. An astronaut and a cosmonaut, and this was going to be okay. Cold War over, shook hands in space. Let's go. And that led to the International Space Station. And for those of you who remember, for many years the only way to get up and down to the International Space Station was on a Russian rocket. Because the Russian rockers were just big, heavy and reliable, and they still are. But the space shuttle was created to get people up and down to the space station. They use the word shuttle like you're going to go, you know, on a bus every day. But it turned out to be fantastically expensive. But that dream or that vision of using space exploration to establish international relations to prevent an international conflict is still with us. That you talk to any US Astronaut, he or she speaks Russian. You talk to any cosmonaut, he or she speaks English. Because they train together, they still cooperate with all the other stuff that's going on, sabotaging underwater natural gas lines, conflict in Ukraine, all the other sort of cold war knock on stuff that's going on, there's still international cooperation in space. It's remarkable.

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Kal Penn (19:56)

Years.

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Ed Helms (20:16)

Hey everyone, Ed Helms here and hi.

Kal Penn (20:19)

I'm Cal Penn and we're the hosts of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.

Ed Helms (20:26)

This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Jenny Garth, host of the iHeart podcast. I choose me to discuss the new Audible adaptation of the timeless Jane Austen classic Pride and Prejudice. This is not a trick question. There's no wrong answer. What role would I play?

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You know what?

Bill Nye (20:48)

I can see you as an Mr. Darcy.

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You got a little call in Firth.

Ed Helms (20:52)

Okay, that's really sweet. I appreciate that, but are you sure I'm not the dad? I'm not Mr. Bennett. Here, listen to Earsay the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcast.

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Kal Penn (22:16)

Welcome back to Here We Go Again with me, Kal Penn, your host, and our guest, the wonderful Bill Nye. Okay, Bill, so I love how you ended that last segment with the reality that no matter what conflicts are happening in the world, we're still cooperating in the space station. But, okay, what about the space race? Now, I'm curious what's the same and what's changed? And especially that original space race. Did it truly ever end? Does it continue in a version of its original form?

Bill Nye (22:43)

Today? It doesn't continue in the original form in that it's not the US versus the Soviets or Russians anymore. Now people are just as far as space racing. People are just beginning to acknowledge the importance of China. And the Chinese national Space Agency is doing extraordinary things. And they're doing them for the same reason everybody else did. First of all, it's national pride. You get Taikonauts up there in their own space station doing their own cool experiments. They want to go to the south pole of the moon because there is nominally an engineering reason to go there. That is to say, people suspect strongly there's enough ice in the regolith. That's a fabulous word. The. The rocky surface of the moon that you could use solar panels to make electricity, turn the water into hydrogen and oxygen gas and then liquid hydrogen and oxygen recombine them and have a rocket from the moon run by rocket fuel made of moon stuff. I know it's okay. It's a lot. But the other reason to go to the moon is national pride and plant the flag and so on. But then that's this international space race that's just getting acknowledged here in US circles. Since that Congressman Wolf retired, you don't have the same. He just was bringing it up all the time.

Kal Penn (24:10)

So Congressman Wolf, for those who don't know, was the author of the Wolf Amendment, which prevented and prevents still the US from cooperating with China in space exploration.

Bill Nye (24:19)

But then the other space race is these billionaires, rather, who are going at it with their own rocket companies. And so they're doing it for a couple reasons. First of all, their own pride.

Kal Penn (24:32)

Yep.

Bill Nye (24:32)

And space intrigues everybody. Everybody, I think, goes through a period of wanting to be an astronaut and fly in space. And we all embrace science fiction where you go to other worlds and do these extraordinary things and compare the other world to our world and wonder if we're alone in the universe. That's all in there. And then there's real money to be made. A lot of people I speak with are not aware of the extraordinary amount of money that's spent in space. Wait, all the money that's spent in space is really spent on Earth? Wait a second. Yeah, so the SpaceX, for example, is huge business with the Air Force, Space Force, NASA, along with its own Starlink thing, man, they launch rockets a couple, three times a week, these very reliable Falcon 9 rockets. And they do it for business, to dominate global communications in low Earth orbit. And the technology has gotten to the point where you can do that. You know, it's like a cell phone signal. You know, when you drive around a cell phone, you can go from one cell to another, and the system hands it from one, hands your phone call from one cell to another cell seamlessly. Now, these, you know, these spacecraft are going in English units over 17,000 miles an hour, and they're handing. Handing the communication signal from one to another. It's really amazing.

Kal Penn (26:00)

The number of satellites that allow us to do what we do was kind of put into scope. I did a USO tour to the Space Force base in Greenland at Thule a couple years ago.

Bill Nye (26:13)

What time of year were you.

Kal Penn (26:15)

I mean, it didn't matter. It was greatly.

Bill Nye (26:17)

You'd have to kill me.

Kal Penn (26:18)

It was. It was so. It. Well, it was winter because it was cold and it was dark. It was dark the whole time we were there. And two I mean, two things that I walked away with a thing on my list. You're never allowed to have your own schedule when you go on these USO tours, nor should you. I guess you're giving your time. But I really wanted to see the Greenland Telescope, which is part of the Event Horizon Telescope. And So I, like, DM'd the folks who were working on it directly. I found out who they were, followed them on Instagram. They were gracious and excited that I was coming.

Bill Nye (26:48)

And so, as Carl Sagan said, all the time when you're in love, you want to tell the world. They wanted to show you their equipment, right?

Kal Penn (26:55)

It was very cool. They wanted to show me the equipment. And they were from all over the world. I mean, these, These. These incredible scientists. But the second thing that I saw, I did, you know, worked in government years ago, no longer have a clearance, so I couldn't see everything. But it seemed like one of the big purposes of Space Force, especially at that base, was to track satellites all over the world and make sure that they don't crash into each other.

Bill Nye (27:19)

A huge problem.

Kal Penn (27:20)

And I was like, this is crazy there. And of course, I mean, when you think about it, exactly what you said, the fact that you can, you know, you can listen to everything no matter where you are in the world. I mean, how do we think? On my phone, telling me which subway line to take and knowing where I am and whether I'm changing trains, like all of that is because of all of this. You've also spent some time at a Space Force base, Colorado, right? Last year.

Bill Nye (27:42)

Yeah. To Butler. Yeah.

Kal Penn (27:43)

So is that the. Are these big concerns? That. Is that why Space Force exists?

Bill Nye (27:47)

It is the concernist of concerns. And so you hear it expressed different nouns, but Kistler, a guy named Kistler did this analysis. The Kistler Effect, the Kistler Syndrome, the Kistler catastrophe, where he pointed out, when you start running these spacecraft into each other, you'll create orbital debris on a global scale that you cannot clean up. This is trying to catch a bullet with a bullet, as the saying goes, and you just can't. I mean, it almost certainly cannot. And every year at science fairs, people come up with giant nets and look. But it's just a huge concern. And so were you around when people's Republic of China army shot down one of their own satellites?

Kal Penn (28:38)

This was literally my next question for you. I was around for it. And I remember it being shocking, at least in some of the astronomy blogs that I read. And then, so just this danger of can it pierce the space station? Will it affect other satellites? What was that about?

Bill Nye (28:56)

Well, they were showing off. Is my understanding, okay, that we could do this. We could shoot down satellites. We could shoot down your satellites. So you better have a treaty with us. You better not presume we're not a spacefaring nation with extraordinary technical capability. Okay, so in response to that, you may remember the US shot down its own satellite, this ucars, which was an acronym, Upper Atmospheric something something Research System. The acronyms just take over. Like the word. Even the word NASA is a word now. It's not an acronym for many people. National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Kal Penn (29:36)

So the Chinese shot down a satellite kind of as a display of power.

Bill Nye (29:40)

Or what happened next along this line. Then the US shot down its own satellite to show this is how you do it. You don't make a mess. You shoot it down, you know, carefully. And I just remember this, that it was shot down from a missile on a ship at sea, a US Ship at sea. And they couldn't shoot it down sort of same day because the ocean was too rough. They didn't, they didn't want the initial trajectory of the missile to be messed up by the, the motion of the ship.

Kal Penn (30:19)

Yeah.

Bill Nye (30:19)

And I just remember thinking, okay, the Cold war will be. Once the hot war starts, it'll be really good as long as the ocean is calm. Like, this is serious business. When you start weaponizing outer space, things can potentially go really wrong.

Kal Penn (30:37)

I mean, so then militarization is still. It sounds like a major aim. You're basically describing war games in space right now.

Bill Nye (30:44)

Well, sort of. But what is your, what's the name of the podcast?

Kal Penn (30:49)

Here we go again.

Bill Nye (30:50)

Yes. So there was an anti Ballistic missile treaty, right. Long about 1968. Because people realize this is not winnable. Man, if we start throwing weapons, this expression, so called mutually assured destruction. Mad, you can't do this. If everybody's in on it, then we can take a meeting. If you pretend that it's a winnable situation, then you're just going to keep escalating. And this was something that Carl Sagan and the guys in the 1970s and 80s talked about all the time. Okay, let's have a treaty. Gee whiz, man. And then if we start blowing up or knocking apart satellites in space. I worked at a company that was involved in the kkv, the kinetic kill vehicle. You just run a satellite into another satellite and have it shattered. It's not winnable. Let's have a treaty. And yet it's come all the way back around, people are talking about warfare in space, weapon putting weapons in space, the ultimate high ground. And man, it would be much better if everybody got along. It's just, it is not a winnable thing. And this thing in Ukraine is what I like to call the extended dance mix of World War II. It's the same bunch of people fighting over the same land, and it's a land war in Europe, just like we had in my parents day. And everybody got together and resolved that. But right now it's not clear that everybody's getting together to resolve it this time.

Kal Penn (32:25)

So things are repeating themselves. Is it fair to say the one big difference is the role of billionaires in the private space sector? That didn't exist in the 80s?

Bill Nye (32:35)

Yes, you're right. But with that said, you know, it's government investment in weapons that, you know, the space force goes back and forth all the time about which rocket company to use and who to sign contracts with and all that stuff. But that aside, Cal?

Kal Penn (32:51)

Yeah.

Bill Nye (32:52)

The reason we love space exploration is it brings out the best in us. Yes, we solve problems that have never been solved before. But on the way people realized the extraordinary nature of planet Earth, that we live on this extraordinary world that is but one world in this literally unimaginable vastness of creation. Nobody can really imagine how big the universe is, how big how many galaxies there are and how many planets there must be. And this leads us to the two deep questions. Where did we come from? And are we alone in the universe? And I say all the time, if you meet somebody who says they've never wondered that, they are lying to your face.

Kal Penn (33:48)

You know, obviously all of us have thought about the philosophical part, the, the exploration part, the part about whether, you know, how it is possible that we're here, and the idea that you can't wrap your head around the infinite nature of all of these galaxies.

Bill Nye (34:05)

So there's three things that keep me in this game. First of all, I want to explore. I claim that our ancestors who did not have the drive to explore are not our ancestors. The guys, if you had a tribe where the men and women did not want to go over the hill to see what's on the other side, they got out, competed by the people who did want to go over the hill and see what's on the other side, the other valley, the other resources, and what have you, so I claim that's deep within us. Then the other thing is I want to find evidence of life on another world. I want that to happen while I'm alive. So the places to look are Mars. And this is, I'm talking about evidence of life. So it'd probably be the equivalent of fossil bacteria locked in the mud rocks of an ancient river basin on Mars. Stranger still though, near the equator of Mars, maybe there's some really salty slush under the sand and there are Martian microbes, Mars probes still doing their thing, like alive things that we could find with spacecraft. I mean it's extraordinary. Then the other place right now is Europa, the moon of Jupiter, where there's twice as much ocean water as Earth has. If you have ocean water for four and a half billion years, is there something alive on Europa? It's amazing. A question. Then the other thing, the third thing is do not want to get hit with an asteroid.

Kal Penn (35:40)

Right?

Bill Nye (35:40)

It's a real thing, it's not just science fiction. In 2029, nobody's talking about it much yet, but oh, we will be Apophis, name for an Egyptian God of chaos and anxiety. It's going to come not closer to the moon, it's going to come closer than the geosynchronous satellites. On Friday 13th April 2029, people are going to be talking about it. And so we want it Planetary Society, we want it to be a dress rehearsal for international cooperation on deflecting an asteroid or so called mitigating the effects of an asteroid. If you knew exactly or pretty much where it was going to land, you could get everybody out of the way, you know. But if it's going to land in Paris, like that would be bad. Like you get everybody out of the way but you still crushed a major international city.

Kal Penn (36:40)

How far out would we know where it's going to land if it is going to land?

Bill Nye (36:43)

Oh, this is the dark art, my friends. No. So 30 years would be really good. And right now I don't know how serious these people are, but right now there's an effort to cut NASA's funding overall by 25%. Half or more of the science budget, so called Science Mission Directorate SMD within NASA. So that is not in anybody's best interest. That is short sighted and not being able to find asteroids using the NEO Surveyor Neurath Object Survey mission and other ground based telescopes, coordinated systems is. You don't want to stop doing that.

Kal Penn (37:28)

Well, that was sort of the big question I had for you obviously as a Planetary Society member and you should all join the advocacy that is around funding for NASA and funding for STEM and all things astronomy and exploration related. They were always impressive to me, even as a kid, I went to space camp when I was in sixth grade, and I was that nerd. Right. And you get this sense of like, oh, there are all of these different. When NASA was set up, it was purposely set up in different places around the country so that funding would be sustained. Right.

Bill Nye (38:05)

That was done on purpose. Yeah. There's 10 NASA centers spread all over the country. It is inherently inefficient. But that's not a bad thing in.

Kal Penn (38:14)

This case for folks who don't know. That's because Congress ideally sets and decides and eliminates funding according to what they think their priorities should be. And so distributing NASA facilities around the country assures that there are going to be jobs in particular communities and therefore votes to fund this stuff. Right?

Bill Nye (38:32)

Yeah. And there's almost not a single county in the United States that does not have a connection to NASA.

Kal Penn (38:38)

Oh, wow.

Bill Nye (38:39)

Yeah. The one that doesn't have too many is Nebraska, but it has a few. And a big advocate for NASA is Don Bacon from Nebraska. He's a good guy.

Kal Penn (38:49)

You just mentioned that people want to cut the NASA budget, cut the funding budget. A what percentage of the larger federal budget is it, by the way? Big pet peeve of mine. So I can't even imagine how big of a pet peeve this is of yours. This idea that, like, why are we wasting money on space when we have all these challenges on Earth? Can you walk us through the reality of what that is?

Bill Nye (39:10)

That's ancient. That's an ancient concern. First of all, you can't stop exploring space. We rely on space for all, for. For this phone call or this podcast. We could not do without space assets. The weather you rely on and military situational awareness is all about space. We hived off part of the Air Force and into the Space Force because the space concerns became so significant. And so you can't not explore space. And then the other thing is, everybody wants to know what's going on on Mars. And then this perception that every kid, everybody in the world has now that Earth is this planet that is like Mars, that's like Venus, that's like Saturn, only different and special and remarkable. And how did we all get here? And we've got to be ste records of it and all that, that is a result of space exploration. And if we were to find evidence of life on another world or stranger still, something alive on another world, it would change the course of history.

Kal Penn (40:22)

Yeah.

Bill Nye (40:23)

Everybody everywhere would feel differently about being a living thing. Everybody would just feel differently about being alive. Not saying we'd all start driving on the left in North America or something.

Kal Penn (40:38)

Right.

Bill Nye (40:38)

But it would, it would change history. And we do it for an extraordinary small fraction of the federal budget. You know, it's, it's barely 0.8% of the federal budget. And then this planetary division within NASA is 9% of that.

Kal Penn (40:58)

Wow, that's minuscule.

Bill Nye (41:01)

It's just very, very small fraction of the, of our intellect and treasure. And you ask people on the street, well, how much, how big is the NASA budget? They'll say 10%. They're off by a.

Kal Penn (41:12)

They think it's that inflated. Wow.

Bill Nye (41:13)

Yeah, yeah, because it is such an important part of what I like to call. And Casey Dreier, our policy guy, likes to call the American story. NASA is such an important part of the American story. And everybody understands. South Africa has space program. Vietnam has a space program. Mexico has a space program, Australia has a space program. Because everybody realizes the value of exploring space to your overall national treasure.

Kal Penn (41:48)

So that's us now. A sky full of satellites, hearts full of hope, and a space program in desperate need of more funding. What's next? Is our future mutually assured destruction or mutually assured cooperation. We'll be back to the future of the space race. Sorry, I had to. After this.

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Ed Helms (43:12)

Hey everyone, Ed Helms here and hi.

Kal Penn (43:15)

I'm Cal Penn and we're the hosts of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.

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This week on the podcast I am sitting down with Jenny Garth, host of the iHeart podcast. I choose me to discuss the new Audible adaptation of the timeless Jane Austen classic Pride and Prejudice. This is not a trick question. There's no wrong answer. What role would I play?

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Okay, that's really sweet, I appreciate that. But are you sure I'm not the dad? I'm not Mr. Bennett. Here, listen to earsay the Audible and iHeart audiobook club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Kal Penn (45:24)

When we're talking about exploring Mars, whether it's to find hopefully life there or elsewhere, is that something that NASA ideally is investing in or is it some of these private companies? Because I feel like there's so much conversation now about rare minerals resources we can harvest from these places. Are they the same conversation or are they different conversation?

Bill Nye (45:44)

Well, if you're asking me and I got the impression you were, I was. I like to remind people there's a lot of platinum on Earth. When you say let's get an asteroid made of essentially stainless steel and bring it back somewhere near Earth where we could access it, that is just, it's just a very, very difficult and expensive proposition. More power to you guys. But I'm not writing a check. It's. It's just a very, very difficult problem. And what we advocate for and what I strongly believe in based on my life experience is NASA does things that nobody else can do. There is no business case for looking for life on Mars unless you, you know how to say, oh, it's going to be great, I'm going to sell theater tickets or something. Well, maybe. But this exploration is done for exploration's sake to know more about outer space than to know more about ourselves. The more you travel, the more you know about your home. This is the old saying, what's absolutely true about space exploration. Also, you know, people thought Mars had canals on it and there were Martians running around doing Martian stuff. It turns out that's not the case. People thought the Venusians were these great looking people living in a tropical paradise. It turns out to be a deadly hellish place, a hellscape on Venus. And that's where I like to argue that climate change on Earth was discovered on Venus. When especially James Hansen, Dr. Jim Hansen at Goddard Institute for Space Studies, he was looking at Venus and realized what's going on in Venus was happening on Earth. And then all this research came together and the greenhouse effect, especially due to carbon dioxide, was international news based on that research. So you know, when we talk about space exploration, it was space exploration that led to the discovery in the modern era of climate change, people exploring other planets realize that we're changing the climate of this planet. And it does, I admit it does seem incredible. It does not seem possible that the human presence on Earth could change the climate of a whole planet. But we have. And the example from Earth history we like to give you is cyano blue green algae. Cyanobacteria.

Kal Penn (48:33)

Yeah.

Bill Nye (48:34)

Where these organisms stumbled on a way to take carbon dioxide out of the air, metabolize it and make oxygen. And it changed the course of planetary history. None of us would be here without this species or set of species. And so this bacteria change the whole planet. So yes, when you have 8 going on 9 billion humans breathing and burning the atmosphere, you can change the climate of a whole planet. But the other side, as people who used to work in the White House would say, is just spiritually committed to the idea that climate change is not happening, that humans are not causing it, just committed to the idea that it is our manifest destiny to dig up old swamps and burn them. I'm talking about fossil fuels.

Kal Penn (49:31)

Do the, I, I, I don't mean to be referring to them as billionaires as a pejorative, but the, a lot of these big aerospace and space exploration space tourism companies are run by individual billionaires. Does their, is their involvement in Mars in space exploration and space tourism in private Space flights, like can that interrupt things like climate research in certain places or can they work hand in hand? Is it ultimately a good thing that there's that much new stuff?

Bill Nye (50:06)

Is it a zero sum game?

Kal Penn (50:07)

Right? Yeah, basically.

Bill Nye (50:09)

I don't think so.

Kal Penn (50:10)

Okay.

Bill Nye (50:11)

They're all winners. I mean, just the time. While the fraction of the US budget goes to space exploration is quite small, the fraction of the billionaires budget might be pretty large, but it's still a small relatively. Compared to the challenge of climate change, it's a relatively small investment. Everybody, okay? And space assets are going to be involved in addressing climate change. You know, there's methane sat, a satellite that's looking at methane from Earth orbit right now. There's Pace, this plankton satellite that can tell by the light reflected off the ocean what species of plankton are living in the ocean and how they're getting moved around by ocean currents and how o chemistry is being changed by the interaction of the species, the plankton with the salinity and the water and the warmth of the water. And these are all being studied from outer space. From outer space, people, we're learning these extraordinary things. So climate change is a big issue with me, but I work professionally in space exploration because I've always had this wonderful passion for knowing our place in space.

Kal Penn (51:30)

Is the solution to invest in escaping Earth? Like you hear all these people having that conversation, is that okay?

Bill Nye (51:39)

The answer for me is absolutely not. Or put another way, are you high? Like, okay, the example to ask yourself is, do you know anybody that goes to live, not goes to explore, goes to live in Antarctica? No, it's too cold and there's not enough to eat for a large population. And nobody's going there to build schools and libraries and stuff. People go there to learn more about Earth's climate systems and ice and species that wander around there. But you're not going to go there to live. And if you want to run this experiment, go there to live. And you have to bring your own air because on Mars there's nothing to breathe. You will notice that immediately. Man, if you go to Mars and open the cabin door, you'll suffocate in a few seconds and that would be undesirable. And this whole idea of being a two planet species for the sake of being a two planet species. I am not on board with building an exploration base, a science base on Mars where people come and go. Okay, perhaps it is an extraordinarily difficult problem. And it's not only difficult technically and scientifically, it's very difficult financially. Like, how are you going to make money? Doing this is a pretty. It's a tough nut to crack.

Kal Penn (53:06)

So basically you're saying no.

Bill Nye (53:08)

This guy said he wants to go die on Mars, but not on impact. Okay. I just don't think he's really thought through how difficult it is to be on Mars. There's no place like home. There's no place like Earth. Space exploration has shown us there is no place like Earth. We have to be stewards of this world. We are all crewmates on Spaceship Earth.

Kal Penn (53:35)

And it's worth saving.

Bill Nye (53:37)

Well, if you want to stay alive and a lot of people do, there's a few people I wouldn't mind. Am I right? And so you probably have a few people in your world, so I might be one of them and all that. But Earth is extraordinary. There's no other place to live. Let's go.

Kal Penn (53:59)

Thanks, Bill.

Bill Nye (54:01)

Thank you, guys.

Kal Penn (54:04)

Here We Go Again is a production of I Heart Podcasts and Snap Fu Media. In association with Kelly and Kelly. Our executive producers are Me, Cal Penn, Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Alyssa Martino, Andy Kim, Pat Kelly, Chris Kelly and Dylan Fagan. Caitlin Fontana is our producer and writer. Dave Shumka is our producer and editor. Additional writing from Megan Tan. Our consulting producer is Raman Borsalino. Tori Smith is our associate producer. Theme music by Chris Kelly. Logo by Matt Gossett. Legal review from Daniel Welch, Caroline Johnson and Megan Halson. Special thanks to Glenn Basner, Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Lane Klein and everyone at iHeart podcasts, but especially Will Pearson, Kerry Lieberman and Nikki Etor. Thanks for listening. See you next week.

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Kal Penn (56:55)

All right, here we are.

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Another. We definitely need more space to more practical homes.

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