Bill Nye Takeover

Summary

StarTalk Radio – “Bill Nye Takeover”

Date: October 28, 2025
Host: Bill Nye (guest hosting for Neil deGrasse Tyson)
Guests: Casey Dreier (Chief of Space Policy, The Planetary Society), Chuck Nice (co-host)
Theme: Funding Space Exploration, NASA Budget Cuts, and the Future of Scientific Discovery

---

Episode Overview

In this episode, Bill Nye takes the helm of StarTalk to tackle the crucial and timely subject of U.S. space policy—focusing specifically on dramatic proposed cuts to NASA’s budget and what those cuts mean for scientific progress, future missions, international competition, and the philosophy behind public investment in space. The panel, including Casey Dreier of the Planetary Society and Chuck Nice, brings humor, urgency, and expertise to a conversation that spans government process, the legacy of scientific achievement, and the vital importance of public advocacy in shaping the future of exploration.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The NASA Budget Crisis

[02:38–05:09]

• Bill Nye introduces the main topic: proposed cuts to NASA’s budget, potentially the largest in the agency’s history—about 25%, with half of those cuts directed specifically at science programs.

• Casey Dreier contextualizes:

  “You’re looking at NASA being proposed to be cut by 25%. That’s the largest single amount of cut ever in NASA’s history.” (E, [04:24])

• Cuts to Earth science are even more drastic—over 50%.

Earth Science Defined

[05:32–06:26]
Earth science missions involve “pointing satellites back down at Earth to observe water distribution, gravity anomalies, weather, climate, carbon monitoring—everything that helps us understand our dynamic planet.” (E [06:08])

The Deeper Motivation

• Bill links the value of Earth science to existential questions: “By studying Earth now, we have something to compare everything else we find to...” (D, [06:51])
• Discuss climate science resistance and its historical political origins—even Republican administrations grew NASA Earth science capacity in the 1980s ([07:19–08:27]).

---

2. What Does NASA Science Do for Us?

[17:03–19:09]

• Chuck Nice voices the common skeptical view:

  “Why are we wasting money on going to another planet or getting to Mars... We could be using that money for something else.” (C, [17:10])

• Casey Dreier rebuts with financial context:

  “NASA is just this tiny, tiny fraction... less than half of a percent [of national spending]. Of NASA, a third goes to science. So [science] is 0.1% of every tax dollar. We spend more on pet food than on sending things into space for scientific reasons.” (E, [17:54])

The Value of Comparative Planetology

• By sending missions to Venus and Mars, humanity has learned about unique planetary conditions—like runaway global warming—deepening our understanding of Earth's fragility and uniqueness ([19:09–19:20]).

• Casey: “Our imaginations as humans are so limited... we need to go out and look, because then we’re surprised.” (E, [19:20])

---

3. Mars Sample Return: Case Study in Policy and Science

[20:12–26:48]

• The Perseverance Rover has found the “most promising potential biosignature” on Mars—an ancient rock with carbon compounds in formations that on Earth would be made by life ([20:34–21:21]).

  “If we had found this rock on Earth, we’d say, obviously: bacteria made this.” (E, [21:29])

• NASA has secured samples, but there is currently no funded plan to bring them home; the Biden administration canceled the mission due to cost ($11 billion forecast) ([22:02–26:14]).

Risks of Human Contamination

• Bill: “If you send people [to Mars], you’re going to contaminate it… you won’t be able to distinguish what you were looking for from what you brought by accident.” (D, [24:12])
• Casey: “Every astronaut spacesuit leaks... We’re just these walking bags of bacteria and viruses.” (E, [24:12–24:52])

Broader Value:

• Extreme engineering–like Mars sample return–tends to create technology spin-offs, drive talent and industry advancement, and spur new capabilities in autonomy and robotics (E, [27:51]).

---

4. Science vs. Human Spaceflight: How NASA Chooses

[30:07–32:15]

• Scientific priorities are set via lengthy, collaborative processes (the “Decadal Survey”) among scientists, whereas human spaceflight priorities are more politically driven (E, [30:41]).
• Mars Sample Return is the top scientific priority—agreed upon after deep debate among the planetary science community ([32:01]).

---

5. International Competition: China and Collapse of US Leadership

[32:48–35:13]

• China plans Mars Sample Return for 2028. If the U.S. abandons its own mission, the symbolic and practical consequences are huge (E, [33:26]).
• Bill and Chuck discuss the common American fear of “losing” the space race, and ask: Does it matter? (C, [35:00])
• Casey: The U.S. walking away from cooperative missions damages alliances, pushes talent abroad, and leaves scientific opportunity on the table for China, Europe, and others (E, [45:03]).

---

6. Commercial vs. Public Space Exploration

[36:12–39:03]

• Bill challenges the idea that commercial ventures can replace public scientific missions.

• Casey:

  “No one of [the space companies] has ever built a science mission with their own money... it’s not even their fault, it’s just the wrong incentives.” (E, [38:08])

• Historical digression on how U.S. science was privately funded until WWII, and why public funding became necessary for complex, long-term missions (E, [39:03–40:01]).

---

7. How Budget Gets Made (and Unmade): Inside Washington

[46:01–56:00]

• Explanation of the U.S. funding process: the President’s Budget Request, House/Senate appropriations, reconciliation, and the reality of backroom deal-making ([46:27–47:11]).
• The current White House’s push for cuts comes not from negotiation but from ideology, “a deeper level of animosity [against] federal investment in science…” (E, [49:08]).
• Congress, ironically, is the main line of defense against cuts—often for reasons as much about jobs as about science ([46:01–46:20], [55:08–57:22]).

---

8. Political Stability vs. Efficiency: The Case of NASA’s Moon Rocket

[54:46–58:13]

• The Space Launch System (SLS) was written into law to protect space jobs in many states; it is expensive and inefficient, but builds political coalitions that have protected lunar missions over multiple administrations ([55:01–57:36]).
• Bill points out: “Is inefficiency necessarily bad? If you want stable, long-term projects, you need broad political support—‘inefficiency’ builds that.” (D, [55:42])

---

9. The Power of Public Advocacy

[58:13–62:39]

• Chuck Nice: “If you can incentivize your representative to fund NASA, NASA will be funded... They work for us.” (C, [58:46])
• Casey explains how the Planetary Society enables constituents to contact representatives, providing district-specific data on NASA’s impact and ready-made advocacy tools ([59:45–62:08]).

“If you just participate in that process… it’s the antidote to cynicism… This is not just about science, it’s about making our world better, together.” (E, [62:39])

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Casey Dreier on Budget Perspective:
  “We spend more on pet food in this country than we do on sending things into space for scientific reasons.” (E, [18:09])

• Bill Nye on Discovering Life:
  “If we were to discover life on another world, it would change life on this world.” (D, [28:53])

• Casey Dreier on Human Contamination:
  “Every astronaut spacesuit leaks. And you know, we’re just these walking bags of bacteria and viruses.” (E, [24:12])

• On Political Reality:
  “If you want stable, long-term projects, you need broad political support—‘inefficiency’ builds that.” (D, [55:42])

• Chuck Nice’s Call to Action:
  “Quiet as it’s kept, we’re the boss. They work for us... If you reach out... I do not want to see NASA decimated... I want as much money as possible to go to NASA and beat science... it means something.” (C, [58:46])

---

Highlighted Timestamps of Important Segments

• [04:24] – Largest proposed cut in NASA’s history; half directed at science.
• [06:08] – Earth science and its critical role.
• [17:10] – The “wasting money” objection to space science rebutted.
• [20:34] – Mars “leopard spot” biosignature discovery explained.
• [24:12] – Dangers of contaminating Mars with human missions.
• [32:48] – China’s Mars Sample Return: the new space race.
• [38:08] – Why private industry isn’t funding basic science missions.
• [46:01], [49:08] – How budget proposals become law—and are threatened.
• [55:42], [57:22] – SLS, jobs, and politics: inefficiency as coalition-building.
• [58:46] – The real power of citizen advocacy for NASA funding.
• [62:08] – Tools and tips for advocating for NASA and science research.

---

Tone and Language

The episode balances urgency and humor, with Bill Nye’s signature exuberance (“Turn it up loud!”) and a notable underlying seriousness from Casey Dreier about the stakes. Chuck Nice provides relatable skepticism and comic relief, often representing the average listener’s concerns—and being quickly recruited to the side of passionate advocacy.

---

Conclusion: Why This Episode Matters

This conversation connects the cosmic questions—“Where did we come from? Are we alone?”—to the very practical, earthly realities of government budgets, political alliances, and the critical role every citizen can play in advocating for science and knowledge. With existential stakes, vivid historical context, and real tools for civic engagement, the StarTalk team delivers a vital, inspiring look at why space matters and what’s needed to keep humanity looking up.

---

For more:
Join advocacy or learn about NASA’s local impact: planetary.org

Listen to Casey Dreier’s “Space Policy Edition” podcast for deep dives into space priorities and policy-making.

Transcript

[A]

Go from sceptic to electric in the new Toyota BZ. Hesitant about going all electric? OneDrive can change your mind. With up to an EPA estimated 314 mile range rating for front wheel drive models and available all wheel drive models with 338 horsepower, the Toyota BZ is built for confidence. Conveniently charge at home or on the go with access to a wide range of compatible public charging networks including Tesla superchargers. Inside, enjoy a 14 inch touchscreen with an available panoramic view moonroof. Learn [e-mail] BZ the new all electric BZ Toyota let's go places. A new era of power has arrived with the Alienware Area 51 gaming laptops. Intentionally engineered to push more power to the CPU and GPU for maximum performance. Combined with Intel Core and Ultra 9 processors merging CPU, NPU, and integrated GPU into one AI optimized chip, it delivers fast, smart and seamless performance across everything you do. So no matter what you're playing, Alienware ensures every game runs precisely as its developers intended. A new era of power is here. All you have to do is is take it. Discover Area 51 today at www.alienware.com area-51 laptops. Discover Area 51 today at www dot alienware.com area51 laptops.

[B]

Coming up on StarTalk.

[C]

It's about time we talk space policy.

[D]

Well, Neil, Neil, I have some thoughts on that. Bill Nye here. I will be guest hosting this week. Turn it up loud.

[B]

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the.

[C]

Universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk. I'm Neil DeGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And on today's show, we have.

[D]

We have me. I'm Bill Nye. You're. You're Chuck. Nice.

[C]

Oh, damn.

[D]

Well, it was pretty good, man.

[C]

It was compelling.

[D]

Compelling. I won't say you have a future in it, but it was. It was pretty good.

[C]

With an impression like that, Chuck, you have a future in selling women's shoes.

[D]

That could be. So with that in mind, we now segue seamlessly to talking about how we explore space practically. And by this I mean today we're going to talk about funding space exploration. And right now, we're at a remarkable time in the history of NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, where people want to cut the budget for science just about in half. And whose problem is that? Everybody's problem. And so today, as you may know, Neil DeGrasse Tyson was once on the Board of the Planetary Society. As am I, even now.

[C]

Yes.

[D]

And Neil, apparently, was responsible for voting so that I would become the CEO, chief executive officer, 15 years ago. And since then, the Planetary Society has developed a strong, reliable, remarkable policy arm. And we have here today a guy I consider among the world's foremost authorities, if not the world's foremost authority on NASA budgets and NASA budget policy. Ladies and gentlemen, Casey Dreier.

[C]

And the crowd goes.

[D]

Wow. It's pandemonium.

[E]

My usual welcome. Yes, thank you.

[C]

Are rioting in the streets.

[D]

So, Casey, you have analyzed the NASA budget extensively. I have. And what's going on right now, it's real bad.

[E]

I think that's.

[D]

No, you're judging it. You're judging it. Why do you say it's bad?

[E]

I think that's actually the most objective and kindest way I can put it. I mean, you're looking at NASA being proposed to be cut by 25%. That's the largest single amount of cut ever in NASA's history.

[D]

What about when Apollo ended?

[E]

It was smaller per year than that.

[C]

It's now. It is.

[E]

Yeah. No, now is the biggest. It's bigger than it was during after Apollo. So we're cutting NASA. The proposal is by more than. We ramped down NASA after we ended the moon program.

[C]

So we ended the moon program. We had a contraction.

[E]

Yes.

[C]

And now what we have is a contraction that is greater than that.

[E]

It's like falling off a cliff.

[C]

Like falling off.

[E]

But instead of ending a moon program.

[D]

Proposed.

[E]

Well, proposed. But instead of ending a moon program, we're nominally starting one up. That's the opposite.

[C]

Run worse.

[E]

It seems like a bad idea. Right? Yeah. And then of that big cut. Half. It's directed at science.

[D]

Half of the cut is directed at science. So we then have to. For the listener who's excited about space policy, who isn't, we have to distinguish between human spaceflight and what would be called scientific exploration.

[E]

Yep.

[D]

Is that accurate?

[E]

Yeah. Science, NASA, science is anything motivated by science that doesn't have humans involved in the process. In space. Right. They obviously do all the science here on Earth, but this is things like space telescopes like Hubble. These are things like Mars rovers. These are things like New Horizons, the probe that's out beyond Pluto right now.

[C]

All the stuff we love.

[A]

Yeah.

[E]

And Earth observation satellites, which is even more important.

[D]

So speaking of Earth observation satellites, how much of this, these proposed cuts has to do with what I would call Earth science?

[E]

It would cut Earth science by more than half.

[C]

And for me, what is Earth science?

[D]

Yes.

[E]

So, yeah, so this is when you put a science mission up in space and you just point it back down. And so you're observing things like water distributions, gravity anomalies on Earth, weather, large scale climate, carbon monitoring, all the things that kind of give us the sense of how our dynamic planet evolves and our system works.

[C]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that. That sounds a little important.

[E]

That's very relevant. Tell us among people.

[D]

Yeah, well, the other thing, just from a scientific standpoint, everybody, the big thing, the big questions we ask where we come from. But are we alone in the cosmos? That's a big question. So when we look at Earth, we're wondering what it takes to have living things.

[C]

Right.

[D]

We only have one example of a place with living things.

[E]

Yes.

[D]

So the argument, as I will present it, is that by studying Earth now, we have something to compare everything else we find, two with which. And so of course, although we're talking about policy, we would never discuss. We would not discuss politics.

[C]

No, no, of course we wouldn't do that. We would know that would be absurd.

[D]

How much of that has to do with climate change? Disinterest, uninterest, substantial, I think.

[E]

And there is, I mean, ironically, what was originally called the mission to planet Earth was this expansion of NASA observation of Earth started under the last years of the Reagan administration and George H.W. bush under two Republican President, President.

[C]

Those woke bastards. You kidding me?

[E]

Reagan, man. I know Reagan.

[C]

God, what a libtard he was.

[D]

Thank you, Chuck. That reference. But in other words, Casey, you're saying this goes way back.

[E]

Well, it's interesting. It wasn't originally part of NASA's primary focus. Right. Even though NASA's original. Everyone of course knows the 1958 NASA Act.

[B]

Right.

[E]

Passed by Congress.

[D]

Oh, everybody knows that. No, but if you are a StarTalk listener, you are aware that NASA, National Anterox and Space Administration was created for a reason. And that reason had to do with Sputnik.

[E]

Well, that was. Yeah, that was the motivating reason to form a federal agency. But when they were creating it, one of its, you know, Congress listed out the statutory responsibilities of the space program.

[C]

Okay.

[E]

One of which is to observe phenomena in the atmosphere and space. So that's like actually. Yes. Yeah. They didn't know about other atmospheres and other planets yet in 1958.

[D]

That's remarkable.

[E]

And so this is, I mean, they really expanded this in the late 80s and Earth science has become this major field again. And you have these data sets now that They've been tracking various aspects of earth for over 40 years. And that continuity is really important because then you see these long term cyclical changes. You understand that there's substantial deviations from that. You're monitoring temperature and getting carbon and all these other key indicators of the health of the planet. You do this by kind of this constant focus on it. And that's why they created a, a specific part of NASA science.

[D]

Well, when the second letter is aeronautics. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. So if you're going to study aeronautics, you presume you would have some interest in the atmosphere.

[E]

The air.

[C]

Right, the air.

[E]

And so, yeah, that's pretty important.

[C]

We put the air in aeronautics.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Well, for real. So I took us down a climate change digression. Yeah, but.

[C]

And before we get off of that, let me just, well, let me just set it aside. Oh, okay, good. We're not going to get off of it. But I would say, and I'm just conjecturing here that when you're looking at 40 year long term trends and you know, things that happen in the atmosphere, one of the things that you're going to discover is that our burning of fossil fuels is a deleterious activity with the health to the health of the planet. Right. So could it be that if I wanted to support the multi, multibillion dollar industry that pays me a lot of money, could it be that if I wanted to support them I would get rid of that information?

[E]

It's certainly. Yeah. How do you. If you can't monitor the status of the planet, then it's harder to track kind of the impacts and changes to it. Now it's this type of stuff again, it's. I wouldn't necessarily even make it that strong of a one to one connection.

[C]

Okay.

[E]

There's a deeper political. Well, I think, but it's fair. There's a deeper aspect of this that's certainly part of that motivation.

[C]

Okay.

[E]

But ironically, you know, we're talking about these other parts of NASA science. Earth science isn't even the thing that's cut the most. I mean, so that's where I think there's something kind of going beyond this.

[D]

What is cut the most, kid?

[E]

Astrophysics.

[D]

Astrophysics, yeah.

[E]

Like the actual, like just looking at us.

[D]

So, and then Neil's not here. Coincidence. Perhaps not. So everybody just understand if you're just tuning in. Chuck is here per always. But our guest is Casey Dreyer who works nominal. You work for me.

[E]

Nominal, yes.

[D]

Some disclosure, but I just do what he tells me. He has studied the NASA Budget in a way that is extraordinary. You have written software, you've used artificial intelligence. Tell us about your wonky nerdiness.

[E]

Well, I'll start with my. I'm the chief of Space Policy for the Planetary Society and I'm also. I'll just plug host of Space Policy edition of Planetary Radio, my podcast on.

[D]

A monthly basis, which is for those of you, I'm sure it's your primary podcast and this is your secondary. Of course, Space Policy Edition is.

[E]

I promise it's way more exciting than it sounds.

[D]

Well, it's very important. So, look, everybody who listens and watches Start Talk will be ultimately interested in the NASA budget because NASA is the largest space organization, at least on this hemisphere. In this hemisphere. And how does it get funded so that we can make these discoveries in astrophysics or whatever else it might be. Back to you.

[E]

Well, funding's part of it. And I think there's also just motivations. I'm interested in why things happen. I always say all these missions that we just talked about offhandedly, to study the Earth, to look deeper into space, to go to Mars, someone has to make those decisions. Someone has to rally and provide resources to build them, they have to design them, think really hard about them. Those don't just happen. Right.

[D]

And I just want to emphasize to everybody the word mission is not code but a shorthand for the spacecraft itself and all the things that happen on the ground and all the people employed on the ground to enable the data to come down here back to you.

[E]

Yeah, well, they don't happen in isolation, ironically. They don't just happen in a vacuum. Right. In space.

[D]

See what he did there? The vacuum in space. You got it. You're with us, Chuck.

[C]

You know, it's a little difficult to keep up, but I caught on there.

[D]

No, it isn't. Go ahead, please, Casey.

[E]

So again, I mentioned the why. And so I love the outputs of this of course too, and I want to get more of those. And I think by studying the whys of how they come together, the incentive structures, the reasons why things actually manifest themselves. Right.

[D]

You're talking about in the US government.

[E]

Well, yeah, and particularly in the US here, because it's the largest and it's where we live and spend most of our money on it. How does this idea that this forms like some sparking neurons in one scientist's brain end up cascading to build something multi billion dollar spacecraft out of metal and silicon and what have you, and then launch to a different planet and return this data and discover something completely new. It's that process from neuron to building the spacecraft that I think is so valuable but also fascinating. It's like physics. Why do things happen? You try to model why that happens to understand it better.

[F]

If you're an adult struggling with obesity, if you've struggled for years and years, you are not alone. But Zepbound Tirzepatide is changing what's possible when it comes to weight loss along with diet and exercise proven to help lose weight and keep it off, Zepbound is a prescription medicine for adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight related medical problems. Zepbound should be used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity. Zepbound injection is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5 or 15 milligrams per 0.5 milliliters in single dose pen or single dose vial. Don't use with other Tirzepatide containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound can be used in children.

[G]

Don't take Zepbound if allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer or multiple endocrine neoplasia Syndrome Type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes, depression or suicidal thoughts before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing pregnant, plan to be or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems.

[F]

Discover the weight loss you could be bound for. Ask your healthcare provider about Zepbound or call 1-800-545-5979. Explanation Explore savings options regardless of insurance status at SaveOnZepbound.com Terms and Conditions apply.

[A]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive, where drivers who save by switching save nearly $750 on average. Plus auto customers qualify for an average of 7 discounts. Quote [e-mail] to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates national average 12 month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not Available in all states and situations, the universe operates on elegant principles, from quantum mechanics to cosmic evolution. But what happens? To explore the deeper questions that keep you up at night, Claude is the AI thinking partner for curious minds. Whether you're modeling stellar formation or exploring the intersection of physics and philosophy, Claude helps you dive deeper into the cosmic puzzles that fascinate you. Try Claude for free at Claude AI StarTalk and see why the world's best problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner.

[C]

I'm Brian Futterman and I support StarTalk on Patreon.

[E]

This is StarTalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

[C]

So there are people right now not in this audience, and I know it's not this audience, but there are people who will hear what you just said and then say, but so what? What's that got to do with me? How does that help me? How does.

[D]

Doesn't cutting the budget leave more money for the rest of our.

[C]

I mean, why are we. And this is the term.

[E]

Sure.

[C]

Wasting money on going to another planet or getting to Mars or looking at exoplanets. All this stuff that you guys do. You're wasting money. We could be using that money for something else.

[E]

That's.

[C]

Yeah, that's the argument that you hear more most commonly against spending money for.

[E]

Something like NASA or that we don't have the money or we don't. So we can't spend it. So it's. I always like to put this in context, right? And I know Neil has said this very eloquently before, but, you know, NASA is just this tiny, tiny fraction. So if you want priorities, most of the money the US government spends is on healthcare, national defense, and support for. Yeah, and social support. Right. So Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, military, all that stuff.

[D]

It's vast.

[E]

Three quarters of all spending is that. And then NASA, is this your little sliver? Less than a half of a percent. And then of NASA. Right. A third of NASA roughly goes to science. So you're talking about a third of less than half, like 0.1% of every tax dollar.

[D]

Right.

[E]

You're talking about fractional pennies at this point. So it's not a lot. Right. In the scope of. When you're spending $6 trillion. Right. This is akin to. We spend more money on pet food in this country than we do on sending things into space for scientific reasons. Right. We can afford this. We can walk and chew.

[C]

This dog's gotta eat, man. Come on.

[E]

So we can afford very fancy pet food places.

[D]

We can afford this. And yet there is a movement to not even spend this money.

[E]

Correct. There's an overall desire to kind of cut, cut, cut without really consideration of what does that mean more broadly? And I'd say to your question, Chuck, it's more of there's practical reasons why we do space. And I think we talked about some with climate. You know, we want to understand why we can live on this one planet and not others. And by understanding other planets, we've learned how unique and rare our planet is. You look at Venus and Mars right next to us, those are your two kind of worst case scenarios. You either get way too hot with global warming, which. And global warming was actually an idea spurred by observations of Venus.

[D]

Yeah, Venus. You can make an argument that in the modern era climate change on Earth was discovered on Venus.

[E]

Yeah, I think.

[C]

And that because Venus has runaway greenhouse.

[D]

Effect, boom, boom, boom.

[E]

And it was our imaginations as humans are so limited that we actually, we need to go out and look because then we're surprised about what can actually.

[D]

Especially my old boss, am I right? Limited imagination? No, go ahead.

[E]

He is the problem.

[D]

It's a solid joke.

[E]

But by going out and looking at these things, we're like, oh, this can happen. Things like dark energy, you know, these things about what we don't know surprises us by definition. And it's that surprise that pushes us to modify and improve our understanding of the systems in which we inhabit as humans, which is the cosmos. And so we are behooved to try to understand them better so we can live better in it. You know, and then there's I'd say a deeper philosophical thing of do we want to be people who are looking forward to new things or do we kind of hunch over and just swipe on TikTok for the rest of our existence as a society?

[C]

I know what my vote is.

[D]

All right, so hang on, let's talk about something specific. You talk about. Let's talk about something specific that's near and dear to me, obviously. Chuck. Mars. Yes, Planet Mars. I knew you were about to blow up.

[C]

I was about to go there.

[D]

Yeah. So right now, as we're recording, just last week, a paper that had been published over a year or about a year ago.

[E]

No, the paper just came out. The discovery had been the discovery, the initial discovery.

[D]

Explain that. Yeah, please.

[E]

There is a rock on Mars that the Perseverance Rover studied. This is the. What's called the, they call it a potential, potential biosignature. But is the most promising potential biosignature.

[D]

What makes it promising. What are we looking at? Leopard spots, they're called.

[E]

Yes, the technical term, the casual term, leopard spots. But what they found on this piece of rock is they found biologic, you know, kind of organic traces overlaid carbon compounds. Carbon. Yeah, carbon compounds, which are the building blocks of life overlaid with various kind of these shapes and patterns in the rock that on Earth are always made by biological systems.

[C]

Right.

[E]

Little bacteria. Yeah, little bacteria. And so if we had found this rock on Earth, we'd obviously, bacteria made this.

[D]

Oh, that's what we'd say, bacteria.

[E]

There'd be no obvious other explanation. So they can't fully say that it is because there are some unlikely but possible, what they call abiotic, natural ways to make this that they can't completely rule out. But we have a sample of this thing that if we wanted to. We now have this paper put forward a series of hypotheses that we can test. We have to do them here on Earth because we need the big expensive equipment to do it. But we have the ability right now, there's a piece of rock on Mars that we could bring back and say, was this life?

[D]

And it's in a tube.

[E]

It's in a tube. Ready to go? Helpfully ready to go.

[D]

There is no plan to return these.

[E]

Yes. So we have this. And the White House budget canceled the effort to bring back those samples.

[D]

What motivated canceling that? Chuck's thing about. What are you wasting money on?

[E]

Who cares that. Yes, money is a big part of it. This belief that, oh, humans will just pick it up anyway. So I guess why bother having robots?

[D]

So if I may digress, Chuck.

[C]

Yes, please.

[D]

Surveyor 3.

[C]

Surveyor 3, exactly.

[D]

I'm glad you brought that up. So you ever heard of Surveyor 3?

[C]

I have not.

[D]

Before we landed humans on the moon with Apollo sent a few spacecraft that weighed the foot pad. The cool looking pancakey foot pads had the same. About the same weight on them on the moon as was planned for the lunar excursion module. The thing taking the people. So it landed Surveyor 1, 2 and 3, and then Apollo 12 astronauts in the cool go kart.

[E]

No, they didn't have the go kart yet. They landed next to it. They didn't have the go kart until 2015.

[D]

Thank you.

[E]

Of course. Right. Everyone knows.

[D]

Yeah, well, he does know that. He's the wonk man. So they walked over to it. Moon walked over to it. Oh, and brought back a piece of the camera or camera related.

[E]

It's cut off some pieces of the spacecraft and brought it back to Earth.

[D]

And I was a kid during this. Oh, my goodness. Microbes have survived for two years on the Moon.

[E]

They found micro. Yeah, they found some potential microbes on it.

[D]

But then it turned out it was our microbes that we just contaminated it here on Earth. Just screwed it up.

[C]

Now. I don't think there's any fear of that on Mars though.

[E]

Well, there's. That's. I think the fear is the right word or concern maybe is the thing.

[D]

My fear or anxiety or taxpayer arms of kimboticness is if you send people, you're going to contaminate it. You're going to make a mess. And then will you be able to determine distinguish between what may have grown the leopard spot patterns or what humans brought by accident? And this is not rocket surgery. This is obvious to me, dirty little secret.

[E]

Every astronaut spacesuit leaks. It's constantly leaking little bits. And you know, we're just these walking bags of bacteria and viruses. Right? And so it's just we're walking around on Mars. You're just like shooting off little viruses and bacteria just in this area around you. It's functionally impossible to do what's called planetary protection. This idea that you have to not infuse another planet with your own biome. And as humans. So when we send robots, we bake them at 500 degrees for three weeks to kind of kill everything or cover them with acid.

[D]

Sort of kill everything.

[E]

Yeah, but you can't bake an astronaut at 500 degrees.

[D]

Although there's a few.

[E]

I wouldn't even.

[C]

They are delicious.

[E]

They're alive. They're a lot less effective as an astronaut.

[D]

Whoa. That's true. That's getting a little weird. Just a little. So anyway, this argument is clear on to startalk audience. I can make this argument that you can't send people will contaminate. You won't be able to distinguish. Distinguish what you were looking for from what you brought by accident. Well, there's.

[E]

Yeah, there's a number of reasons you can't have people necessarily do it because it's also where you land on Mars. Can humans get to where they sent the robots? Maybe not. They landed in this big rocky crater. Humans will have to land in a big flat, the safest possible space.

[D]

Right. Big Runway.

[E]

Can you get close enough? If you're landing in a big rocket, will you just kick up so much dust and debris that you damage everything? There's a lot of problems with this. Plus, more to the point, at no point in history ever has adding humans to a space Mission made it cheaper or happen faster.

[D]

Right.

[E]

That adds complexity. Makes sense because you're bringing Bubbles of Earth with you to keep you alive for that amount of time.

[C]

And also we require a lot of maintenance. We are quintessential high maintenance.

[E]

I have a toddler right now, so I resonate with that very strongly.

[D]

So with this in mind, the last budget proposed for bringing back these rock samples. This is an acronym everybody loves. Is MSR Mars Sample Return just the worst name. What would be a better name?

[E]

You know, that's a great question that I don't have an answer for. Can I just be the critic on it without having to.

[D]

Mars Rock Cut Back.

[C]

Bring back.

[E]

Better bring him back. Well, I. My Mars Sample Return Bring Them Home T shirt on right now. But I always think sample makes people think of like the Doctor.

[C]

Like the Bring Them Home is pretty cool. Yeah. Because that elicits a different type of Bring them home.

[D]

And the word home is evocative, right?

[E]

Yeah. Invoked. Call it just something cool like the Athena mission. I don't know. Right. Sample Return just sounds very clinical and kind of static.

[D]

Where.

[E]

This is a really ambitious.

[D]

Is it a true fact or a false fact that the last bid was $11 billion? Right.

[E]

That was one of the reasons that things were. There's deeper technical reasons to do this because you're not. Lots of novel technology. You have to land, go back to where there's a rover now, land next to it, somehow get the samples onto a rocket that you land on the surface of Mars that can sit there for two years on its own. And then.

[D]

Why two years?

[E]

Because it takes two years to get to Mars and come right and land and come back. You have to launch on these cycles and then it has to launch itself, go into orbit, rendezvous with itself, with another spacecraft, all autonomously, and then come back to Earth without, you know, getting anything dirty with.

[D]

So it's not seven minutes of terror, it's two and a half years.

[E]

I mean, it's incredibly difficult. It's all stuff you have to do if you want humans to go to Mars.

[C]

Right.

[E]

Ultimately, anyway, yeah.

[C]

I'm saying it's a. It's a. It's a great dry run for when we go. But more importantly, and I don't know if you can answer this, are there benefits that we would glean from doing this that have nothing to do with the Mars mission, but that would end up spilling over into our everyday life?

[E]

Yeah, this type of stuff. When you set extreme limits for yourself. Why do people run triathlons? Why do People run marathons. Why does Mercedes, you know, build cars for F1 racing, right? These are extreme. They seek out extreme conditions. So you can practice and train yourself to be extremely good at something and have high precision, have high capabilities and figure out how to do really hard things. So it makes your manufacturing better, it makes your engineers better, and it motivates and challenges people to pursue these incredibly difficult things that then go out and just make the world better through their own spin off businesses and technologies. You need a goal like this. It just sets this bar. And these types of, again, autonomy robots know how to do things is kind of a big deal right now, right? We're figuring out how to do that and there's huge reasons to do that.

[D]

So you threw in the word reason. Why does anybody want to bring these rocks back, bring these rocks home in the first place?

[E]

Well, the life question, right, is a big one.

[D]

That's it for me. If we were, I claim, if we were to discover life on another world, it would change life on this world. That's my claim.

[C]

Could that be a fear for many people though? I mean, let's be honest. If you find definitive proof, okay, evidence that there is life on, or was life on Mars, and then you look at the whole, you know, how do we fit in? How do we fit in? There's going to be a lot of people who are going to be very upset because their origin story changes. It's like saying Spider man didn't become Spider man. You know, when Uncle Ben got shot.

[D]

When did he become Spider Man?

[C]

Well, that's when he became Spider Man. I don't know.

[D]

That's documented.

[C]

That's documented.

[D]

All right, so hang on now. With this said, I went down this road, or I believe took you down this orbital path, presuming that this was worth doing, right? But there are people, scientists, engineers in the Mars, or rather planetary exploration community, if that's a thing, who think this isn't really a worthwhile use of our intellect and treasure.

[E]

Anytime you get a bunch of scientists in the room, and I'm sure you've heard it on this show, they will never fully agree with each other, right? I mean, they are contrarians by nature. And so there's ongoing and vigorous debates about how to prioritize things. But I think it's been through this very long term and ongoing processes to try to. There's a whole thing, a bunch of scientists, every 10 years get together. It's making it sound like some people conclave.

[D]

It almost is.

[E]

It kind of is. They get Together. It's more open than that. They don't go into a secret room.

[D]

Do they wear the hats? They don't wear the hats.

[E]

You know, they don't let me in, so I can't.

[D]

Yeah, you can't say, there you go.

[E]

But it's through the National Academy of Sciences, right? And it's through. They argue for about 18 months about what our priorities are and they argue.

[D]

By email or something.

[E]

They get together, they go to conferences, they have formal ways to get together and then they argue in person and they say these should be the biggest. Actually what they do is that these are the biggest questions. And I think this is what's interesting about separating science from human spaceflight, about how we decide what to do. Science, because it's measuring real things in the physical world, you have some external set of conditions and realities that constrain what you do, right? Give me an example.

[D]

You're talking about measuring temperature.

[E]

Well, you have a bunch of scientists, a bunch of contrarian scientists in a room together. No, you don't. And that would just be. How do you resolve. I think looking for life on Europa is more important than looking for the history of geologic evolution of the cosmos in dark matter or dark energy. Well, they can get together in a room and they can say what are the biggest questions? Because as a field they generally know what that is. These are the biggest unknowns that we've learned in the last 10 years. And because those unknowns exist beyond the opinions of somebody, because again, science is measuring some objective reality, you will eventually find some version of consensus to say these are actually the biggest and most important questions.

[D]

Right, so what happened with Mars sample return?

[E]

Well, I think it's set as the priority and I think it has been a long term priority because again, it has all these benefits. I think the problem with Mars sample return is that there's so many various justifications for it that there isn't a single one that you can just.

[D]

So do I have to get in charge, Chuck? Is that what it is?

[C]

That's pretty much what the answer is.

[D]

We're going to find out if life started on Mars. Martin, Mars was hit with an impactor, this fell to Earth, and you and I are descendants from Martians. That's what we're gonna go find out.

[C]

Right.

[E]

Do you guarantee this as the outcome?

[D]

I guarantee that we will evaluate. That we can evaluate that hypothesis before we send people and contaminate it. Yeah. So with that said, there's this proposed. Cuts, cut, cut, cut. Meanwhile, people at the China National Space administration are going, Chuck, I've disturbed.

[C]

I'm sorry.

[D]

Take it, Chuck, take it. That was a fabulous reaction.

[C]

No, I'm just for those of you listening only.

[D]

Chuck grabbed his face. Yeah, and that would, you know, this very troubling image back to you.

[C]

I'll put it in the words of a very wise leader who said we invent all of this and then we don't have it. It's not here. China. China's killing us. They're killing us. So I mean, you know, who are you talking about?

[D]

So the China National Space Administration is doing all these missions that are almost one for one.

[E]

They actually have a Mars sample return mission going in 2028. Well, I mean, I did.

[D]

Offhanded remark. Expand on that please, if you would.

[E]

Well, I think so. Maybe just to step back and say even if you don't buy the China competition or don't want to have that kind of geopolitical thing, it is the framing of the administration right now that there is a. And even beyond that, a new space race with China. There's just a hearing in Congress framing it literally that way. So it doesn't make sense that they're. In order to win a space race, they cut our science budget at NASA in half.

[D]

Well, isn't the argument that getting to the moon is what matters?

[E]

Well, the moon, yeah. The universe is a lot bigger than the moon and Mars. Right. There's a lot more to the universe. If you say you want to become or retain leadership over China or any other country, you can't just decide other parts in space don't count. Right. It's like no to start, you know, it's like no, no, no, no going to Mars sample return, that doesn't count. Jupiter doesn't count. Anything further out, that doesn't count. Only the moon counts. That sounds like again a two year old determining, making things up on the flies so that you can.

[D]

And you have a two year old now, so you're.

[E]

I resonate very strongly with irrational claims. Very strongly held.

[D]

How often have you said to your two year old you have three kids, how often did you say your claims are irrational?

[C]

Young man, I can't count them. I can't count how many times I.

[E]

Say one way to argue with China's.

[D]

Space administration is planning to do this. Mars. And we'll talk about stuff besides Mars, everybody, but just this one thing. They're going to do this similar mission. Yep.

[C]

Okay, so how about this? The person, these same people that we spoke of hypothetically in the beginning of the conversation and they say, so what? They beat us, big deal. So what? We lose our hegemony in space, big deal. What's it mean?

[E]

Yeah, that's actually frankly a really good question because I don't, I mean I tend not to really go in on the pure competition aspect of it. I think there's a symbolic aspect of what do we choose to do as a nation that is peaceful and cooperative and ambitious. And space science is all of those things. It by definition requires us to work together in groups of people. Cuz it's so complicated. It requires us to work with our allies, you know, very closely. And it says it's wildly ambitious and optimistic. It's like we're gonna go, what's on that red dot in the sky over there? Well let's, you know, roll up our.

[D]

Sleeves and move along this line. You say it's cooperative right now. So during the Apollo era, as I like to point out, when I was young, during the Apollo era it was a government effort. Everybody who worked NASA was considered the best job in the world for a few years. But now we have these commercial companies competing with each other, not working together. Address that man of wonk.

[E]

Well, commercial can do a lot of great things. They can make it cheaper to launch things into space. They can make satellites that bounce our Internet signals back to us. They can make things that look at Earth, they do things that go up and point back down. That's what commercial does. And because that's where the market is.

[C]

Because there's money there.

[E]

There's money there, right?

[D]

Well why is there money there?

[E]

People like to hear themselves talk. Like are we not the most insular creatures? Right? Like we are self absorbed. So everything is just again I go back to this TikTok and sorry for people who like TikTok, but I'm a little man now and it's just swiping. And social media is like the lunchroom in the high school cafeteria, right? And it's all this, who's saying this? And who said that? Oh, this person has a beef with this person, blah blah, blah, blah. It is the most kind of internal and closed kind of self obsessed driver of human interest. Space is literally the opposite. It literally pulls us out and away from ourselves a little bit.

[D]

So about the perspective.

[E]

We have a bigger perspective.

[D]

No, no, it's cool man.

[E]

So people will pay for again, practical things. I need to have a communication satellite that can beam this amount of data to the Indian subcontinent for this expansion of broadcast market that I have. I want to learn about trends in agricultural development in various places. Right. But go beyond that. There's no market to say how does Jupiter work. Right. What is the nature of dark matter? Is there life on Mars? And I can say, you know, we've had a lot of private space companies and individuals. They've been happy to send themselves into space and they've been or small tourism in various ways and they built rockets and they built a lot of things but there's no one of them, not a single one of them has ever built a science mission with that money. Not a single one of those companies has ever decided to just go and figure something out because it's not even, it's not their fault. That's just the wrong incentives. Right.

[C]

Well they have investors and they need a return.

[E]

That's exactly right.

[D]

So along this line Casey, you have talked about guys who built telescopes in the early, early days.

[E]

Build telescopes, space exploration before we had rockets. Right.

[D]

It's just a little digression there if you would.

[E]

So in the United States we didn't have public funding of science basically until.

[D]

After World War II because science turned or technology turned out to be so valuable in winning a war.

[E]

Yeah, I mean it turns out oh there's actually like a radar fundamental. Yeah. The nuclear bomb or any number of things. And rockets themselves. Right. Dual use technology. But before that it just wasn't seen as a responsibility of public investment to do. It was private sector responsibility to do scientific research. And that works up to a point. But when you start doing really complex things like going into space, it's hard for any one person to do that. So before we had rockets you can say space exploration was basically looking through big telescopes and there was a.

[D]

Which was amazing and that was revolutionary.

[E]

I mean the technology enabled bigger and bigger lenses and nearest and. And there's kind of this prestige race among the equivalents of billionaires at the time. These like Yerkes and Keck and some of these other people whose names now grace these telescope ground based Telescope Global and they used their money to build these big space telescopes on the ground to put their name on them. And what they would do generally they'd cut the ribbon. They'd say haha, I'm such a great person and I've built this thing for the benefit of humanity and they take off and they never fund anyone to actually look for through it. And that's the difference. Right. So you can get sometimes an individual to build a thing because I think our brains like to focus on a physical thing. But the ongoing activity of something is really hard for a person to take a lot of attention to, which is why we built this into the public sphere. Right? We have funding. It's not just enough to build a mission to Mars. You have to pay scientists to figure out and look at the data.

[D]

Right?

[E]

Without any data, none of those missions mean anything.

[D]

The telescope without making sketches of what you see, taking pictures of what you see.

[E]

Right? It's like the equivalent of a falls in the forest and no one's there to hear it.

[F]

If you're an adult struggling with obesity, if you've struggled for years and years, you are not alone. But Zeppbound Tirzepatide is changing what's possible when it comes to weight loss. Along with diet and exercise proven to help lose weight and keep it off, Zepbound is a prescription medicine for adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight related medical problems. Zepbound should be used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity. Zepbound injection is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5 or 15 milligrams per 0.5 milliliters in single dose pen or single dose vial. Don't use with other Tirzepatide containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound can be used in children.

[G]

Don't take Zepbound if allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer or multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes, depression or suicidal thoughts before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing pregnant, planting to be or taking birth control pills, taking Zepbound with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems.

[F]

Discover the weight loss you could be bound for. Ask your healthcare provider about Zepbound or call 1-800-545-5979. Explore savings options regardless of insurance status at SaveOnZepbound.com Terms and Conditions apply.

[B]

Meat Song his fantasy lineup not so great. A no name QB and an injured rookie run. But you know what is great? Getting a single line unlimited plan for $35 a month and a free Samsung Galaxy A15.5G at Cricket Wireless. No injuries, just reliable service. Cricket may temporarily slow data speeds if the network is busy. Must bring your number to Cricket on select unlimited plan. Pay $40 first month new lines only. First month service charge and tax due at sale. Cricut 5G is not available everywhere. Fees, terms and restrictions apply. See cricketwireless.com for details.

[F]

Score holiday gifts Everyone wants for way less at your Nordstrom Rack store. Save on Ugg, Nike Rag and Bone Frame, Kurt Geiger, London and more.

[E]

Cause there's always something new. I'm giving all the gifts this year with that extra 5% off when I.

[F]

Use my Nordstrom credit card. Santa who join the Nordy Club at Nordstrom Rack to unlock our best deals. It's easy. Big gifts, big perks. That's why you rack.

[D]

Now along this line. You have mail. You referenced Jupiter. You might have said. I think you said you for a minute. So there's different opinions in the science community about which place to explore with how much money. Right?

[F]

Yeah.

[E]

I mean, until basically all this money was cut by the White House. Right. So that's like, I think that's really pushed a lot. Those are, those are internal. You know, it's like we have a certain amount of steady funding. Let's kind of figure out where to put our efforts.

[D]

And over time, you say that was a good process or good enough.

[E]

I mean, I think that's the best. You know, it's an ongoing process, but it's an open and deliberative process. There's always going to be disagreements. But the point is that you have these external factors of just the big questions. What big questions are we trying to answer?

[D]

Where did we come from Functionally?

[E]

That's.

[D]

Are we alone?

[E]

They're all related to that. How did these things form? Why does the solar system the way it is? How did life arise? What is that again? The nature of dark matter, dark energy? These are all frontier science things. And that's what you bring up in terms of China's space ambitions. Their scientific program is ramping up to answer the same questions.

[D]

They're like people in many ways.

[E]

Well, I mean, they're driven by the same. And there's all these aspects of national pride. And are you going to be the nation that discovers the future or not?

[C]

Yeah, but they also, you have to remember. Well, we all have to remember that their government invests in these technologies that we did. But that's what I'm saying. So Bill Nye people, years ago on this show predicted the future that we are living in now, where he said that it was going to be imperative that we developed battery technology. And I never forgot that. Like, wow, I love you, man. Yeah, I never forgot that. And now the Chinese, they dominate battery technology because where we did not invest, they did.

[D]

Yeah, Casey, what about that?

[E]

Well, batteries are very useful on spacecraft.

[D]

No, but, but seriously, China has like mission for mission.

[E]

There's a very strong one to one correlation between what China is developing and what we have proposed to cancel in the United States.

[D]

Proposed to cancel?

[E]

Yeah. So it's like a needless seeding of this kind of competition to other nations, not just China. I mean, the US would become second to not just China, but Europe and Japan and other places.

[D]

So. But the thing is not just human. We're not talking about human spaceflight, all.

[E]

The space science, everything.

[C]

And let me ask you both that. So if we're ceding these areas to other nations, does that mean that the scientists and the brilliant minds that go along with those projects go to those nations?

[E]

Yeah, absolutely. And the partnerships between nations. So all of the things that the White House has proposed to cancel, more than a dozen, are with our closest allies. Nominally. Right. And so we're European Space, European Space Agency. These missions, these joint missions that we've made commitments to, were just abrogating those commitments. And we're saying, sorry folks, we are no longer going to fulfill our commitment.

[D]

So there is no one within the administration pushing back against what? The way you describe it, it sounds extraordinarily short sighted.

[E]

It is extraordinarily short sighted. So, yeah, strangely enough, Congress itself has actually been doing the right thing on this.

[D]

Tell us, which is not a phrase.

[E]

I say often, but they've actually been doing whatever they've been doing. They both House and Senate, which are both Republican run, same party as the President, have put forward their own kind of funding bills for NASA next year as part of this whole ongoing annual process.

[D]

So can you wonk it for us? Sure. There's something called the President's budget request.

[E]

President's budget request, the pbr.

[D]

So then what happens?

[E]

So the President requests, here's what I want to spend next year for NASA. That sets the baseline of argument. And then the House will put out what's called an appropriations bill and say, well, here's how we would appropriate money in response to your request. Then the Senate would do the same. They vote on theirs, they reconcile, they kind of iron out the differences between.

[D]

They have a meeting in some smoke filled room.

[E]

Yeah. The Proverbial kind of dining Coke filled room. And then you ideally pass it by the Congress, and then the President would have to sign it into law. Right. So that's like the ideal process. This is your spherical cow of legislation process.

[D]

So do you get the spherical cow?

[C]

I don't know.

[E]

The spherical cow.

[D]

It's hilarious. Casey, Physics major. Tell us about that.

[E]

Let's see if I can do this joke. What is it? A farmer comes up and goes to a university and says, my cow isn't producing enough milk. How can I get my cow to produce more milk? So he goes to the biology professor, and the biology professor goes through this long process of understanding that he explains to him, you give these types of foods and things, we understand these kind of process works. And he does that. And that'll help your cow get more milk. So the farmer goes, okay, okay, that's a lot. And then he goes to. What's the other one?

[D]

An astrophysicist.

[E]

An astrophysicist. I'll just do it in two instead of. And he goes to a physicist and says, my cow's not producing enough milk. What do I do? So a physicist thinks for a while.

[D]

Let'S go a year.

[E]

He goes a year, draws up a bunch of stuff, comes back, okay. And the physicist goes, all right, I figured it out. Here's how we get your cow to produce more milk. He said, step one, assume a spherical cow.

[D]

First, we assume a cow is a.

[C]

Sphere, which is hilarious for any physical.

[D]

So the reason planets are round, you guys, is cause of gravity. And the reason asteroids are not quite round, they don't quite have enough gravity. So with all this in mind, Casey. So the President's budget request this year was extraordinarily low.

[E]

Destructive.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

So destructive, Unstrategic, wasteful.

[D]

Wow. Tell us how you really feel.

[E]

These are the polite terms.

[D]

So along this line, is it as an observer, is it a bargaining technique just to go into the meeting saying, we're gonna give you half what you asked for so that they would reach three quarters of what you asked for when they split the difference?

[E]

No, because this predates this whole process. The person who runs the budget office in the White House called a shot three years ago when he published a report saying he wanted himself to cut NASA science by 50%. This is deeper.

[D]

You talk about the voxter, Russ.

[E]

Russ Vodster, yeah. The director of the Office of Management and Budget, who. We don't have to go into this level of detail, but that's. That's what the Space Policy Edition is For but the point is that.

[D]

But the startalk listeners are interested in how we got here.

[E]

There's a deeper level of animosity clearly being expressed towards federal investment in science that I think is profoundly shortsighted and ignores the wild benefits that have come from again this very brief. In one person's lifetime, the United States went from not funding science barely at all to having winning most Nobel prizes in science. Right. That all started again and started in the late 1940s. It was 1950 when the National Science foundation was created. It all came from this, a report by this guy Vannevar Bush, the president of MIT to Franklin Roosevelt saying we won World War II because of science. He called science the endless frontier science. And through science, public health, national interest, national defense, industry, everything. But we need to do this fundamental stuff that markets and private individuals cannot do.

[D]

And because Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution Congress is to promote the progress of science and useful arts since 1787. Wow, Casey made it a slam on.

[E]

Other arts, isn't it?

[D]

Well, useful arts. What are the non useful arts is making stuff bridges. What did they do?

[E]

Church depending on engineering and architects.

[D]

So now Casey, you threw out a word which I dig.

[E]

Okay.

[D]

Can you describe why these cuts are you view as unstrategic?

[E]

Well, again, so you're destroying the fundamental research base of the entire country, right. And this goes all the way down to whether students can be trained to become scientists and good thinkers or engineers. It breaks again all these alliances with our allies. It pushes them to work with other countries who are more reliable. So we're actually pushing allies away. We're becoming more insular. We're destroying our own ability to do this research. And through this broader attack, I'd say on universities and academia, we are undermining like the very this kind of like powerful engine of insight, discovery and economic growth that we've created in the.

[D]

So specifically I wanted to ask you about sending humans back to the moon.

[E]

So in that sense too by. Well, and also. And so there's a pivot to sending humans to Mars.

[D]

Your strategy is to send people to the Moon. This is unstrategic.

[E]

It also again tried to disrupt a ton of the other political investments and in the political consensus behind going to the Moon. So that's the other thing. Nothing happens. Space at NASA is inherently. It's a product of politics. Right. We are in a democratic, nominally still democratic society and we have the ability and the right of every representative to have some kind of valid reason to support. You need a Coalition of people to support you. Why are we gonna go back to the moon?

[D]

It's not, it can't just be one.

[E]

Person, it should not be one person. Right. And it cannot just be one person. And so you need to have something that you builds a coalition of people who agree with you. And you have all sorts of reasons, people have all their reasons for wanting something. And you have to accept that that's just a product of our system. And so our current effort to the moon, it's not the most efficient, it's not the cheapest, it's not the fastest, but it is politically stable. And that's your 0ish wrap.

[D]

Describe it. What do you mean? Because it's been going on for decades.

[E]

It's the first effort to return humans to the moon that has survived a presidential transition since. Where did it start? It started under the first Trump administration. He actually had really, the first administration had really good space policy.

[C]

He was all about it with Space Force and the whole deal.

[E]

Yes, Space Force got a lot of it, which is arguably actually not the worst policy. But then creating Artemis, Project Artemis and the Biden administration carried that on unchanged. What else did Biden and Trump agree on? And so the fact that, well, cause you know nothing. I mean, as your listeners know, right, the motions of the planets do not follow convenient political cycles, right? They don't go on two and four year cycles of politics. You need to have someone to pass this baton off on, because you can't.

[D]

Do it in four years, you cannot.

[E]

Do it in four years, you can't do it in two or four years. And so you need to build some consensus of someone to carry on that progress. And if you want to send people back to the moon and then go to Mars, which is also in this proposal, despite cutting NASA's budget so much while destroying such a popular part of the agency and this broader, not even making an effort to build a coalition around will fail. And so it is an anti strategy who will carry this forward, Right? Because why would they bother to do it? There's no groundwork established that anyone else agrees with this. Right. And so by destroying the coalition we do have and then not making one for this new idea, you end up wasting money in the, in the immediate term destroying this huge thing that we have built support for and then undermining their own goal in the long term, which is why it's an anti strategy.

[D]

Specifically, certain listeners, viewers may remember the Aries program and the Constellation program. So I went to Cape Canaveral, they built a Giant gantry, tower, steel welded things, rivets, spray paint, giant thing to hold up a giant rocket. And the rocket was gonna be all solid motor, a solid rocket motorcycle. Right.

[E]

Wow.

[D]

And then people realized the thing was gonna be a wobbly mess. Is that accurate?

[E]

Yeah, I mean, yes. It was the last gasp of George W. Bush's Return to the Moon program was this. Right. And it was.

[D]

So hang on a second. Is the current Artemis program not derived from Return to the Moon?

[E]

One piece of it is the Orion capsule which is going to launch with astronauts in it next year. But the Space Launch System, big rocket. No, that's not derived from that. That's all different stuff.

[D]

All right, so let's talk about the Space Launch System.

[E]

Sure.

[D]

So the other organizations, everybody, this has to do with cosmology and exploring space. SpaceX, Blue Origin, European Ariane rockets, Jet Rocket Lab, Firefly.

[E]

All these new rockets.

[D]

Yeah. Are working largely, largely by and large space launch System.

[E]

It's fun.

[D]

Go ahead.

[E]

It's fun. I mean it's the big government moon rocket. So this is why Congress mandated. This is the first rocket to be mandated. Written into law. It's illegal for the US not to make this rocket.

[D]

2010 or something.

[E]

Yeah, 2010 it was written into law that NASA had to make this rocket using existing shuttle components. It's a way to. Basically when they retired the shuttle, they wanted to keep their workers in their states working on space stuff. So they build this rocket out of the same shuttle.

[D]

And this is part of what you say, the inefficiency of NASA. But is inefficiency necessarily bad?

[E]

It's appending what you're optimizing for. Do you optimize for political stability then? Yes. You like inefficiency because then you spread your money around the country.

[D]

You build that NASA center for a reason.

[E]

There's 10 NASA centers, big contractors. And contractors like Utah is really invested in the space launch system because they build the solid rocket boosters there.

[D]

Because it's Morton Salt.

[E]

That's just like where they happen to. Yeah. Create that. That's where that company happened to be established. And people don't like that. I mean, I understand the frustration. And then they say, oh well, we should have SpaceX, which does things a lot cheaper, which they do, and a lot faster, which they do. But because there's an irony when in. And because they're so much more efficient, they have a much smaller footprint around the country. So their political invested political coalition is a lot smaller. So they're actually at cross purposes, efficiency and political stability in terms of kind of, does my district benefit from this moon program? And so these are the types of inputs that I think are really fascinating. Why do we have this rocket that costs roughly $4 billion per launch. Right. $4 billion to launch the full stack with the Orion. Expensive. It launches once a year, which is crazy low at most. Right.

[D]

Versus, you know, SpaceX has over 100 launches this year.

[E]

Yeah.

[D]

And it's worked. It's only September.

[E]

Well, you have then. Yeah. Then you have Starship. Right. Which is the whole space, which is like everything will be made obsolete by Starship, which it might be, but the reason why it persists. And so the Trump administration tried to cancel this rocket this year, but you know what happened is that Ted Cruz, no critic, no real critic of Trump, completely wrote into a separate bill. Nope. You're actually gonna fund this. He's gonna spend a billion dollars on this every year.

[C]

But see, that sounds like it's more like a jobs program than advancement.

[E]

It is. But I like to say space is the only industry that is a shame, that it makes jobs. Like, great. I love jobs.

[C]

That's true. Cause defense is nothing but a jobs program, too.

[E]

There's a lot of jobs.

[D]

No, no defense. They make stuff to defend.

[C]

Well, this is true, but I'm saying there's. There's a lot of defense. When you look at almost. When you look at $800 billion, there's.

[E]

A lot of ways. Almost a trillion now. Almost a trillion.

[C]

Almost a trillion now. Yeah, there's a lot of ways there.

[E]

This is my contrarian self. Right. And this is. I'm frustrated by it too. And this is like, I don't necessarily defend this way of doing things, but it's the incentive structure selects for these types of programs. Right. Based on this distributed, representative democratic system we have. And if that's the tax, in a sense of getting a moon program to survive for the first time, that. The fact that we will be launching astronauts around the moon next year, fine.

[C]

So let me just make a public service announcement, if I might, because what you're saying right now seems to be that if you can incentivize your representative to fund NASA, NASA will be funded. And believe it or not, when you reach out to the people that you vote for and tell them, hey, man, you better do this, they actually do take note, because quiet as it's kept, we're the boss. Okay? I know nobody wants to actually believe.

[D]

That they work for us.

[E]

They work for us.

[C]

So if you reach out to them and I'M talking about our Star Trek audience and say, I do not want to see NASA decimated. I want to see as much money as possible that can go to NASA and be science.

[E]

Right.

[C]

And to studying the Earth. I want money there. Believe me, along that line, it means something.

[E]

Yeah. Well, so I'll just plug planetary.org, so I mean, one of the things we do is try to. This is a nonpartisan grassroots effort that we try to do, for the most part, you know, what Congress has agreed with us on. All the things I've just said Congress has largely agreed with. And it really speaks to the. This is not something to completely despair over. Right. And because it's generally still, with exceptions of things like Earth science, unfortunately, but generally still non. It's political, but nonpartisan.

[D]

Political, but not partisan.

[E]

Yeah. And so if you just participate in that process, and we've done this for years and we've had a very good.

[D]

Response, how would a visitor to planetary.org participate in the process?

[E]

Casey, funny you mentioned that, Bill.

[C]

And what was that website again?

[E]

Planetary.org well, we have a link Save NASA Science as our big campaign to do this. And it's been a huge. We've had hundreds of thousands of people respond and we've had dozens of other.

[D]

Organizations, thousands of scientists, our members and people who visit the website, send emails, they write paper letters and they, they.

[E]

Go to Washington, D.C. with us. Over 200 people will be joining us in Washington, D.C. so 200 people who.

[D]

Take the time, they take a day or two off from a job, often fly on a plane to Washington, sometimes drive, take a train and that we organize it so that they can visit their congressional representative, their senator, and make just the case that you're describing.

[C]

Excellent.

[D]

Yeah. So check us out, you guys. It is also very rewarding. I think everybody who participates gets a lot out of it. You really walk the halls of Congress. You really meet with your representative, you meet their staffers, some of whom are old enough to drive, and you. Oh, in New York, that's a reference. People operate motor vehicles. Many of you don't. And so it is really a cool thing that with Casey's leadership, with our other guy in D.C. jack Corrali, we have been able to build this very well organized effort. And furthermore, when members go to congressional offices, Casey, you have created what we're trying to call tools. Tools to help people take it.

[E]

Well, we want to empower people, so.

[D]

Empower?

[E]

Yeah. I mean, well, you want to walk in and just say, you can say you can go in and say I want this. And that's totally legitimate. You're not a I want this expert. But if you can make the case saying you walk in and say, oh, here's actually NASA's real economic impact in your district. Here's NASA's science impact specifically.

[D]

So you have written software, we have.

[E]

Pre generated, we've done all the analysis for people, all this stuff to show that there's an impact here. Right.

[D]

So if I'm from a congressional district, I go to planetary.org and I find.

[E]

You can go to dashboards. Planetary.org and you can find or save our nasascianetary.org and you can find your state and district and you can find out how it impacts your locale because that immediately establishes relevance. Yeah, something happens here because of this and if we don't do it, it goes away.

[D]

How many congressional districts are there?

[E]

Well, 435 congressional districts and 50 states.

[D]

And 50 states. So that's 100 senators.

[E]

Yep.

[D]

So you can go in either with the ideas or the numbers in your head or you can print out the numbers and you can present them to your representative and senator and say this is the effect in our district. We want to fund NASA science, we want to explore planets and China National Space Administration will kick our empennage if we don't do something.

[E]

Well, so we give you. Yeah, I mean it's whatever works best for you and what's best for your representative and what resonates. And the point is that there's a lot of ways to argue for this and that it's also in so doing, it's anti cynicism. It's like a good antidote to cynicism, frankly, like most people come out of this and this is because you don't run into these partisan walls. You are there really just trying to express your passion. And that's at the end of the day, what we all have and what's so unique about this is that this isn't just. And as Bill, you said we're independent. I don't get any bonuses if we go to Europa or Jupiter. Unfortunately, we don't have anything to gain but seeing the incredible pictures or sharing in the knowledge that we find and that enrichment, that is an access, I think, to the sublime that we do not get from pretty much anything else in a secular world today. And that's why I say it's the antidote to scrolling on TikTok or whatever endlessly is that there's something bigger and grander and just waiting literally Sitting on the surface of Mars, waiting to be known.

[D]

Service to Mars is one example.

[E]

Europa, just whatever, right? And we have the ability to do it.

[D]

We're all for all that.

[E]

You're not just there talking about a specific thing. You're saying in this, doing this action, we ourselves become better. So what a great thing to do.

[D]

Let me just add this, you guys. Planetary Society was founded by the famous Carl Sagan. The guy who gave Neil a copy of his book, gave him a ride to the bus station, but Neil chose not to take his course. I. You'll have to take that up with him. Carl Sagan, Lou Friedman, who was an orbital mechanics guy at Jet Propulsion Lab at the time, and Bruce Murray. And Bruce Murray was the head of the Jet Propulsion Lab during these famous, famous missions. Viking landing on the surface of Mars, and Voyager, the famous Voyager spacecraft that did the grand tour of the solar system. The golden record, which is still, still flying out beyond the heliopause into the cosmos.

[E]

Dalactus now.

[D]

Yeah, he was the head guy during all that. And he famously was asked, why are you building these spacecraft? What are you gonna find? We don't know what we're gonna find. That's what we're building them. And to that point, all four of my grandparents were born in the 19th century. They were born in the 1800s. I'm of a certain age. All four of them. They did not know there were neutrons. They did not know there was relativity. They did not know that one day we would have mobile phones that depend on both special relativity, the speed of the spacecraft, and general relativity, the Earth's gravity affecting the speed of clocks. They did not know any of that. And all of that is derived from space exploration and in the case of relativity, and largely from just, just the telescopes, just the beginning.

[E]

They didn't know about Pluto.

[D]

They didn't know there was a Pluto.

[C]

And there still isn't a Pluto.

[E]

There's a Pluto.

[D]

Pluto.

[E]

So anyway, you guys made up.

[C]

I'm starting my own movie.

[D]

So to take it back to Casey's point, with all this talk, all this concern about NASA budget funding, international competition, what could a person do about it? Casey?

[E]

Well, again, planetary.org, there's links right on the homepage for our Save NASA Science campaign. It'll catch you up on the news. It'll give you ways to write your member of Congress. You can call them if you want. Catches you up on talking points. And then whenever you want, you can join us. We go to Congress every year, and so sometimes twice a year. Sometimes twice a year. And so you can sign up I have a Space Advocate newsletter and then also subscribe to the Space Policy edition of Planetary Radio to keep going into all the depths and nuance and reasons for why we do these things. And then the more you know, you know, the better you're going to be.

[C]

I saw a star go across the moon.

[E]

How appropriate for women.

[D]

So really, you guys, a lot of times on StarTalk we talk about cosmology and astrophysics and so on and the discoveries that have been made about anthropomorphic star ripping the guts out of the star cluster or the planetary nebula or something. But this is the practical information about what it takes to support NASA science so that we can make these discoveries and work to answering the two deep questions where did we come from? And Are we alone? The Search for Life Keep looking up. Thanks for listening.

[E]

Hi, I'm Jenny Slate and believe it.

[F]

Or not, someone is allowing us to have a podcast.

[E]

I'm Gabe Liedman. I'm Max Silvestri and we've been friends for 20 years and we like to reach out to kind of get advice on how to live our lives. It's called I need you guys. Should I give my baby fresh vegetables? Can I drink the water at the hospital? My landlord plays the trombone and I can't ask him to stop. You should make sure that you subscribe so that you never miss an episode. I need you guys.

[B]

Tis the season of gifting and holes to Deck and the who's in Whoville were in love with new tech. Where can we find Sonos and Samsung and Nintendo? They shouted. Would they find it in one place? This they questioned and doubted when suddenly a who yelled, walmart's the place to start. And each who added headphones, TVs and games to their carts with Walmart, their shopping was done in a flurry. They cried out, who knew? And ordered their gifts in a hurry. Shop the latest tech gifts in the Walmart app.