Journey to the Stars with Bill Nye

Summary

StarTalk Radio: Journey to the Stars with Bill Nye

Episode Release Date: December 3, 2024

Host: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Guest: Bill Nye
Duration: Approximately 50 minutes

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1. Introduction and Personal Banter (02:59 - 04:12)

Neil deGrasse Tyson welcomes his longtime friend and fellow science advocate, Bill Nye, to the show. Their conversation begins with light-hearted remarks about Bill Nye’s signature bow tie, showcasing their camaraderie and mutual respect.

Notable Quote:

Neil deGrasse Tyson [03:37]: "The Science Guy."

2. The Planetary Society: Origins and Mission (04:12 - 07:04)

Bill Nye delves into the history of the Planetary Society, highlighting the influential role of Carl Sagan and other key figures like Bruce Murray and Lou Friedman. He explains the society's foundation in Pasadena, California, and its mission to promote planetary exploration amid waning government support in the 1970s.

Notable Quote:

Bill Nye [06:40]: "The Planetary Society had tens of thousands of members by the end of [year]. I'm a charter member now."

3. Impact of the Planetary Society on Space Missions (07:04 - 11:43)

The discussion pivots to the Planetary Society’s influence on significant missions such as the Europa Clipper. Bill Nye emphasizes how grassroots support—through letters and emails from over 40,000 members—was instrumental in securing funding for missions that explore moons with potential subsurface oceans.

Notable Quote:

Bill Nye [07:26]: "The Europa Clipper... flying because our members think space exploration of planets is very important."

4. Reflections on Space Exploration and Storytelling (11:43 - 16:20)

Neil reminisces about the 1969 film "Marooned," drawing parallels between cinematic storytelling and real-world space missions. The conversation explores the importance of human presence in space exploration and how storytelling can inspire and shape public perception of space endeavors.

Notable Quote:

Neil deGrasse Tyson [07:51]: "I wanted to have a little sort of romantic nostalgia for the 1969 film Marooned."

5. Technological Advancements: From Voyager to Cubesats (14:05 - 23:34)

Bill Nye discusses the evolution of space technology, from the Voyager missions to the advent of cubesats. He highlights how miniaturization and increased accessibility have democratized space exploration, allowing universities and even high schools to participate in satellite programs.

Notable Quote:

Bill Nye [43:40]: "Cubesat programs... electronics have gotten increasingly smaller, more miniaturized."

6. Comparative Planetology and Understanding Earth Through Other Worlds (23:34 - 39:05)

The conversation shifts to comparative planetology—the study of planets by comparing them to Earth. Bill Nye elaborates on how missions to other celestial bodies, like Mars and Venus, have provided insights into Earth's climate and geological processes. They discuss the significance of missions like Voyager in fostering a generation's hope for space exploration.

Notable Quote:

Bill Nye [39:34]: "The more we explore these other worlds, the more we know about our own."

7. The Search for Intelligent Life: SETI and Panspermia (22:36 - 26:41)

Neil and Bill delve into the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) and the hypothesis of panspermia—the idea that life can spread between planets. They discuss the technological and scientific efforts to detect signs of life beyond Earth, emphasizing the profound implications such discoveries would have on humanity.

Notable Quote:

Bill Nye [26:31]: "SETI finding microbes, that's not their thing."

8. Advocacy and Political Engagement for Space Exploration (34:54 - 50:19)

Bill Nye outlines the Planetary Society’s strategies for advocacy, including mobilizing its vast membership to influence policymakers in Washington. He recounts his testimony before Congress supporting missions like the Europa Clipper and stresses the importance of sustained investment in space science for technological leadership and societal benefits.

Notable Quote:

Bill Nye [35:19]: "We send letters and emails to members of Congress and the Senate advocating for space missions that we believe are in the best interest of humankind."

9. Personal Anecdotes and Inspirational Stories (41:53 - 47:19)

The hosts share personal stories that underline their passion for science and education. Bill Nye reflects on his interactions with influential figures like Mr. Wizard and Barack Obama, illustrating the broad impact of science communication and advocacy.

Notable Quote:

Bill Nye [46:37]: "I went to his memorial service... The guy was so influential."

10. Future of the Planetary Society and Space Exploration (47:19 - 50:19)

As the conversation wraps up, Bill Nye highlights ongoing and future projects of the Planetary Society, including the Planetary Academy and the Planetary Report. They discuss the significance of missions like LightSail 2 and the continuous need for innovation in space technology.

Notable Quote:

Bill Nye [44:51]: "And so we launched in 2014. We got these pictures down and that enabled us to get funding to launch LightSail 2."

11. Closing Remarks and Call to Action (50:19 - 50:48)

Neil concludes the episode by encouraging listeners to support the Planetary Society and stay engaged with space exploration efforts. Both hosts reaffirm their commitment to inspiring curiosity and advancing scientific understanding.

Notable Quote:

Neil deGrasse Tyson [50:19]: "This has been my exclusive conversation with the one and only Bill Nye the Science Guy. ... Keep looking up."

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Key Takeaways:

• Grassroots Advocacy: The Planetary Society leverages its large membership to influence space policy and secure funding for critical missions.

• Technological Innovation: Advances like cubesats and solar sails have democratized space exploration, enabling broader participation and innovation.

• Comparative Planetology: Studying other planets and moons provides valuable insights into Earth's climate, geology, and potential for life.

• Search for Life: Efforts like SETI and research into panspermia aim to answer fundamental questions about life beyond Earth.

• Science Communication: Personal anecdotes emphasize the importance of effective science communication in inspiring future generations and shaping public policy.

Resources Mentioned:

• Planetary Society Website: planetary.org
• Europa Clipper Mission: A mission by NASA to explore Jupiter's moon Europa.
• LightSail 2: A project by the Planetary Society to demonstrate solar sailing in space.
• Bill Nye's Book: Undeniable—focused on climate change and combating misinformation.

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Stay Connected:

• Subscribe: Listen to StarTalk on SiriusXM Podcasts+, Apple Podcasts, and other major platforms.
• Support: Become a member of the Planetary Society at planetary.org/startalk to support ongoing space exploration initiatives.
• Join the Conversation: Engage with the Planetary Academy for educational resources tailored to families and educators.

Keep Looking Up!

Transcript

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[Bill Nye]

Rated M for mature Space exploration is not guaranteed. That's why we have the Planetary Society. We're the world's largest, most effective space advocacy nonprofit. Check us out@ Planetary.org StarTalk and become a member today.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk. Neil DeGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist and today I've got an exclusive one on one conversation reserved for only those people who are not only important, but are also a friend of mine. We got with me in studio, Bill Nye.

[Bill Nye]

Greetings, Doctor.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

How you doing, man? Got a bow tie on and everything. You're just completely that guy.

[Bill Nye]

I am that guy.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

The science guy.

[Bill Nye]

What you see is what you get.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And did you tie your own bow tie today?

[Bill Nye]

Yeah. Can you imagine? Bill Nye wears clip on tie.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That would be a funny skit.

[Bill Nye]

Bill Nye decided to end his career and lose respect from all his fans.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Just I want you to know, if I ever see anybody with a bow tie, I ask them if it's real. And if they say nothing, which is about 2/3 of people not see what he did there, I say I would tell Bill Nye on you. And then they shudder because they, they.

[Bill Nye]

Can wear a clip on bow ties. That's fine. I mean, I just think it's, it's not in the, as we say, the spirit of the game.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I flew my ass out here to Los Angeles. We are now in your office of the Planetary Society, Pasadena, California, the same town where this society was birthed.

[Bill Nye]

A true fact.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So give me a fast birther story on this.

[Bill Nye]

So Carl Sagan had been very influential in getting Voyager, the Viking landing on Mars and the two Voyager spacecraft launched.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And just for historical completeness, there were two missions of Viking lander and a Viking orbiter. And so it could photograph the surface.

[Bill Nye]

Yes, amazing. Really amazing, visionary ideas. And so he noticed that public interest in space exploration, especially planetary exploration, was very high, but government support of it was waning. And he had this big idea for a solar sail spacecraft.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

This is the 1970s now.

[Bill Nye]

1976.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Nye]

And the disco era. And that was set aside for more human missions, including the famous handshake in space so that the Soviet Union and the United States would have no more conflict. And that worked out great.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It was an Apollo capsule in orbit around Earth, a Soyuz capsule, and they were configured so that their collars could join and they open the hatch and they're all weightless, so they're just floating through. And they would shake hands. And I was told that the Americans were trained to only speak Russian and the Russians were trained to only speak English.

[Bill Nye]

And U.S. astronauts still speak Russian. It's still a thing they do. So. And we flew on Soyuz rockets for a zillion years. All that inclusive. Bruce Murray, who was head of the Jet Propulsion Lab during these famous missions, Viking and Voyager.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Jet Propulsion Lab, right Here in Pasadena.

[Bill Nye]

Yes, Right at the Libra up the street. And then Lou Friedman, who was an orbital mechanics guy. Engineer, yes, but with a PhD, which you like. They decided that there was enough interest in space exploration that they could start the Planetary Society.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Enough grassroots interest.

[Bill Nye]

Grassroots, yeah. So we had. The Planetary Society had tens of thousands of members by the end of. Pick a number. 1982 was started in the winter of 79, 1980. I'm a charter member now.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I remember getting the letter, and I was not. Be frank with you, I was not moved by the letter because if I remember correctly, it says, Dear Citizen of Planet Earth. And I said, that's not very special to me.

[Bill Nye]

What did you want? Citizen of New York.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Dear Neil, I mean, I don't know, something a little more personal than Dear Citizen of Planet Earth.

[Bill Nye]

It was the state of the art. Anyway, the planetary side has been around now that we'll have our 45th anniversary this spring, and what we do is promote planetary exploration. And just notably, just last week as we're recording this, the Europa Clipper mission left for the moon of Jupiter with twice as much ocean water as Earth. And that is in part, let's say, entirely because of the Planetary Society, where our members, 40,000 people around the world, think space exploration of planets is very important. Wrote letters and emails to us. Congress, especially got this mission funded 11 years ago. And now it's flying.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And it was delayed because of Hurricane Milton.

[Bill Nye]

Hurricane Milton.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You know what? I wanted to have a little sort of romantic nostalgia for the 1969 film Marooned. Do you remember that film?

[Bill Nye]

Yeah, with O.J. simpson.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

No, that's a different. No, he was.

[Bill Nye]

Oh, that's. What's that one?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You're getting your movies mixed up. That was Capricorn 5.

[Bill Nye]

Capricorn 5.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Bill Nye]

Capricorn 5 or Capricorn 1.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Oh, maybe Capricorn 1.

[Bill Nye]

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, Marooned, where they Marooned. Retro rockets don't fire and they can't click in the button.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

They can't get out of orbit.

[Bill Nye]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

All right. But they have a rescue ship to go rescue them. But they can't launch because a hurricane is coming through Cape Canaveral.

[Bill Nye]

Those were the days, okay.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And I remember as a kid, it was like, hurricane. That's pretty artificial, you know?

[Bill Nye]

And then I realized. Storytelling.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, It's Florida.

[Bill Nye]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

This was not a weird fact to put into your story. And so then some clever meteorologist said, hey, Neil, the eye of the hurricane is going to go over the launch pad.

[Bill Nye]

Have you seen. Have you ever been in an eye of a hurricane.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I'm told it's really eerie.

[Bill Nye]

It's weird.

[Hurricane Agnes Survivor]

Yeah.

[Bill Nye]

I was at Hurricane Agnes in the early 1970s, came over, and all of a sudden it's a clear sky for a little while.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And I'm told there are birds that get trapped inside of the eye of the hurricane. Like tropical birds that end up thousands of miles away from it. Would have been cool had they launched in the eye. You rope a clipper in the eye there.

[Bill Nye]

That would have been a risky set of businesses.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Because the window is big enough, they just delayed it a week.

[Bill Nye]

Well, not just that. Just keep in mind, everybody, humans have to be there to launch the thing. Like, people have go home, they have to secure. They've got to screw plywood to the windows of their house. And then they have to come back to the Cape to be ready to push the button and look at all the fuel lines and liquid oxygen connections and all that. That there's a lot more to it. When we talk about spacecraft, we remind everybody there are tremendous number of assets and investments in the infrastructure on the ground. Back to you.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Has the mission statement changed over the decades?

[Bill Nye]

Very little, but it's succinct now.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Bill Nye]

We are the world's largest independent space interest organization advancing space science and exploration so that citizens of Earth will be empowered to know the cosmos and our place within it.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That's really catchy, you know.

[Bill Nye]

Well, here's what it is. It's succinct. We empower citizens.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I agree. I'm just saying it's like it doesn't roll off the tongue.

[Bill Nye]

Well, it does if you're the CEO. Yeah. Before the elevator doors close.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You are CEO and president. President?

[Bill Nye]

No, no, no. There's a bylaw rule. I'm not president.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

What are you?

[Bill Nye]

We have a separate. I'm CEO.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Just CEO?

[Bill Nye]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I thought you were important.

[Bill Nye]

Exactly. So the president is an unpaid position.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Did not know that.

[Bill Nye]

Yeah, that's a great tradition here at a nonprofit in California.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You used to be president.

[Bill Nye]

I used to be vice president.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Vice president. Okay.

[Bill Nye]

I was equally unpaid as vice president. And so the board of directors is committed. And just notice everybody. Our board is the real deal. Bunch of people. Our president is Bethy Elman. Dr. Elman is a professor at Caltech. She has a couple missions that she's a principal investigator, a PI on. And our vice president, Heidi Hamill, is one of the 20 most influential women astronomers in history. Brittany Schmidt is driving around submarines under the ice in Antarctica to prepare to go under the ice on Europa and Titan, or Enceladus. I mean, I was joking. Enceladus of one of the moons of Saturn.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Of Saturn, Another icy moon.

[Bill Nye]

Icy moon, yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Bill Nye]

And so everybody, if you have ocean water for four and a half billion years, is there something alive that happened here on Earth? Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

One of the defining missions of the 1970s was the Voyager.

[Bill Nye]

Oh, it still defines people.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Here's the Voyager.

[Bill Nye]

I don't know if it's wide enough to see, but there's a replica of the record.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So this defined a generation of hope for our future of space exploration. And Carl Sagan was particularly visible and known over that time.

[Bill Nye]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Has it changed over that over the decades? And I ask that because, if I remember correctly, because I used to serve on the board of the Planetary Society, and I cherish that those years because it's where I met you and it's where I met Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan's widow.

[Bill Nye]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I did not know either. I might have met her once or something, but we didn't know each other until we were both on the board. So that was. These are important connections to be made.

[Bill Nye]

This is what we do. We connect people with the passion, beauty and joy. The PB&J.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

PB&J. Loving it. That's a Bill NYism. PB&J.

[Bill Nye]

Yeah, it is. Yeah. But it's really caught on in science education, that's how. But now, all that aside, peanut butter and jelly used to be a very common lunch treat.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I remembered there was a resistance to people in space relative to robots. Some of that might have just been the sphere of influence of Carl. Carl Sagan, where he just. Who's a robot guy?

[Bill Nye]

From an engineering or scientific or science fiction critic of Astrophysical observer, which I.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Count myself among the ranks of.

[Bill Nye]

Yes, Premier Astrophysical observer. Note. Well, you can't get people to Europa. It's too flipping far away and too cold and there's nowhere to walk and everybody's going to die. So you build spacecraft to go there as our proxies. We design the instruments to be as human, to give us both scientific perspective and a human perspective.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

But in the day, robots were nothing compared to today. In the day. I mean, 50 years ago.

[Bill Nye]

50 years ago.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Compare robots then to today. Today I'm walking down the street in la. There's a car with no driver.

[Bill Nye]

Yes. No driver.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Making left turns, turning, going straight.

[Bill Nye]

You may see the bumper sticker here in California on the Tesla that says, I'm probably not driving. It's pretty charming. But no, these are robots.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It's a car robot in that sense.

[Bill Nye]

Right, that's what I'm saying.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

What do you got here?

[Bill Nye]

So this is the Spirit rover. A picture of the Spirit RO and.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

The cameras and its solar panels.

[Bill Nye]

Yes, the cameras were set up to be, this is the expression, as high as a 10 year old's eye. So that these cameras were put there so that humankind could imagine ourselves walking around, driving around on Mars and talking about the planetary side. The lore that we promote, and I think you alluded to this earlier, is that Bruce Murray was a young guy in the 1960s, co founder on working on the Mariner program.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Mariner to Mars.

[Bill Nye]

Mars, which was the Ranger spacecraft repurposed.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

To go Ranger, went to the moon to map the moon.

[Bill Nye]

And as a kid I was being class and we watched the moon come up. Yeah. Except in space, no sound.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Some of the rangers crash landed.

[Bill Nye]

Yeah. On purpose. Purposefully. And to see what the lunar surface was like up close.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So I forgot all about Mariner because Mariner, I think, took the first pictures of Mars that revealed there were no canals.

[Bill Nye]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

At some point.

[Bill Nye]

And so this Bruce Murray gets credit when you're talking to us at the planetary site for being the guy who insisted that spacecraft have cameras.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Because people think scientists love pictures, but we don't give a rat's ass about a picture.

[Bill Nye]

Well, it depends on the picture.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

No, what I mean is there's much less science in a photo than the public is led to believe. Well, we get chart recorders, we get.

[Bill Nye]

Magnetic magnetometers, Geiger counters.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Geiger counters, magnetometers, magnetometers, spectra.

[Bill Nye]

We got a lot of optical.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Give me spectra over a photo any day. But if people get doe eyed about how beautiful the universe is, changed the world.

[Bill Nye]

Pictures from space change the world.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

We all at some point must confess to ourselves that that is the fact.

[Bill Nye]

Confess your brains out. Greetings StarTalkians. Start Talksters, start talklings. You know, space exploration is not guaranteed. It needs your support. That's why we have the Planetary Society. We are the world's largest nonprofit space advocacy organization, connecting you with a grand adventure of exploring the cosmos. Become a member today. Check out planetary.org startalk.

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[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

If we want to credit back to some of these founding fathers, I think Carl Sagan was the first scientist in his writings and in his appearances on television. And to put you just a regular person.

[Bill Nye]

Regular person, citizen of Earth.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You became a participant on that frontier. It was no longer let them go do anything and they'll report back later. No.

[Bill Nye]

Or spend some tax dollars on this. It probably doesn't have anything to do with you.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That's not as it all has something to do with you.

[Bill Nye]

Everything. You are part of this great process of discovery, this adventure. And Bruce Murray used to talk about the unknown horizon. Why are you guys sending spacecraft out to these extraordinary distant places? What are you gonna find? We don't know what we're gonna find. That's why we're sending the spacecraft.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I think it's Einstein that famously said, research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.

[Bill Nye]

That sounds good.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Nye]

That's completely Isaac Asimov. Science doesn't begin with a hypothesis. It begins with, oh, that's funny.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Oh, no, no, you got that wrong.

[Bill Nye]

Oh, help me out.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, he said very few scientific discoveries, if any, ever begin with Eureka. It's. That's funny.

[Bill Nye]

That's funny.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Bill Nye]

What is that?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So we explore the planets. So another thing I credit the Planetary Society for and its Philosophies and its outlook is turning objects in space into worlds.

[Bill Nye]

Worlds is a great word.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

When you use the word world, it's no longer a detached object from your imagination. It really gets you here.

[Bill Nye]

You got it, man. You hit the. No, Neil. That's absolutely right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I don't know anyone else who. Any other organization or worldview that made that such an important point.

[Bill Nye]

Right on, man. So you guys, you should join the planetary side.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Another thing that I credit the enthusiasm of the Planetary Society for is when I was growing up, the moons of planets. Like, why wouldn't anyone give a rat's ass? It's the moon. Look at the planet, not the moons. And then Voyager goes out there, gets pictures of the moons, and the moons are more interesting than the planet.

[Bill Nye]

There's a lot going on.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

A lot. They're all different.

[Bill Nye]

IO, Europa, Gambling Moon is like the.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Least interesting moon in the solar system.

[Bill Nye]

What's interesting about the moon is it's got a far side and a near side. That, to me, is amazing. And I asked Carl Sagan, why is the near side relatively smooth? I asked him this, as we say in middle school, to his face, and he said, it's the Earth's gravity enabled these impacts to get. Impacts get accelerated. Yeah. And so lava flowed more recently on the near surface than the far surface.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Did that turn out to be true?

[Bill Nye]

You tell me, astrophysics gravity guy. I've seen your gravity books, man. I dabbled in the three Body. I dabbled in the Hamilton.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I think there's an argument that any asteroid that's headed in our direction would feel Earth's gravity and you'd have a focusing effect towards.

[Bill Nye]

So Sagan back then said gravitational lens, which was. That's not how the term was used, but we'll all get through it.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Nye]

Words include more than they leave out.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So planets become more interesting, moons become places to go and revisit. But there was a whole other. A whole other goal, and that was the search for intelligent life. Still is in the universe.

[Bill Nye]

Oh, man.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And I'm remembering how big a part of that was in my couple of years when I served on the board. But then when I came off the board, you know, it's less tangible. Right. Because we don't know if the aliens are out there and are they hearing or hear. Listening to us. So where is tps, the Planetary Society, relative to the Search for Intelligence?

[Bill Nye]

Well, we've let that go to this SETI Institute. SETI Institute, of course, Intelligence Institute.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And they're based up in Northern California. Right.

[Bill Nye]

And they're very well endowed and they chip away at this problem.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

They just got to boatload of money just for some.

[Bill Nye]

Well, I went with well endowed, you can go boatload of money. Spacecraft full of money.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Bill Nye]

And so they will carry on a.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Barge full of money.

[Bill Nye]

A barge full of money. They will carry on that research in their enabled best way possible.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And they have a whole suite of telescopes originally funded by Paul Allen Array.

[Bill Nye]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So these are telescopes that are sensitive to radio waves on the assumption that if anyone is going to talk to us, so they're going to use radio because radios penetrate clouds.

[Bill Nye]

Carl Sagan was very well spoken about this, about this logical place where water molecules would not absorb radio waves. Logical place, logical frequency where radio waves would not be absorbed by water vapor. And so if an alien civilization, water.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Vapor is in the across the universe as well.

[Bill Nye]

Hydrogen's everywhere. It would. You could aim your intergalactic or interplanetary. Interstellar Interstellar message to go through the water hole, as he called it. Very well. Very cool term.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Bill Nye]

But all that aside, it is very reasonable that maybe in my lifetime, but in your kids lifetime, somebody's going to find evidence of life on another world and the logical places are going to be under the sands of Mars.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay, but this would be microbial life. This is not.

[Bill Nye]

Yeah, but still change the world. Then you would say to Mr. Microbe, Ms. Microbe. They Microbe, do you have DNA? Are you a whole nother different?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I get that. But that wasn't what SETI was about.

[Bill Nye]

No, no, it's still not right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

SETI finding microbes, that's not their.

[Bill Nye]

That's fine, knock yourselves out.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That's not their thing.

[Bill Nye]

And because if we found such a signal, it would, dare I say it, change the world. And so we keep, so SETI Institute keeps listening.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

We had an exhibit at the Hayden Planetarium before we rebuilt that was narrated by William Shatner and was about the search for life. And I remembered the quote because I thought it was a brilliant sentence and he said it in his sort of pause acting way. The day we discover life will signal a change in the human condition that we cannot foresee or imagine.

[Bill Nye]

Do do, do, do do do do. That's pretty good. No, everybody, I say all the time, everybody will feel differently about being a living thing.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yes. Whether or not it's what we call intelligent. Oh yeah. It would transform biology.

[Bill Nye]

The logical question from the sands of Mars. There's another hypothesis that once life starts, you can't stop it. So if life started on Mars, life Finds a way. There's. Yes, there's salty slush near the equator of Mars. We kept almost warm by sun. Are there microbes living under the sand? And if we found them, do they have DNA? To wit, was Mars hit with an impactor, which happens all the time long ago, knocked a living thing on a rock off into space. It fell. Woo, woo, woo. Exception space. No sound.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

These would be microbes stowing away in the nooks.

[Bill Nye]

Stowing away. Trapped. Stowing away. Land on Earth and you and I are descendants of Martians. That is an extraordinary hypothesis.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I think you more so than me. Just.

[Bill Nye]

Yeah, well, it's an extraordinary hypothesis, but if it proved to be true, it would change the world. And so it is worth.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That would be panspermia.

[Bill Nye]

Panspermia. It's worth investigating. And I just discourage all of you out there who want to go to Mars by yourselves on your own giant rocket. Just don't go to the same places. The same places that are interesting to you maybe are very likely the same places that are interesting to people studying astrobiology.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That's just for anybody who happened to.

[Bill Nye]

Just anybody who happened to. Used to be on the board of the Planetary Society before he or she was being sued by the securities and Exchange Commission and is trying some political tactic to try to not try to get a pardon someday. If you are that person, consider doing.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Could be any one of a number of people for sure. There's nothing specific there.

[Bill Nye]

So in the Viking missions, famously, the rocks came back. Those pictures depicted the Martian sky as blue, and the rocks were too pink. And it took them. I was at the 30th anniversary of this thing and these guys were talking about. It took them about a day and a half to realize that the cameras had been calibrated on Earth and the pictures needed to be recalibrated. So they found intuitively that if you look at the shadow, you can infer the color of the sky. So those of you out there haven't sat through this. Go outside on a sunny day. If you're in Ithaca, New York, where I went to college, there is a sunny day scheduled in the next 10 years.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yes. Yeah.

[Bill Nye]

Then you make a shadow on something white, like my shirt would be good. And you'll see the shadow is gray, to be sure, but it's also ever so slightly light blue. And that's because the sun is not the only source of light here on Earth's surface. The sky is a source of light looking at me. Nothing but orange skies on the other planet. Yeah. So on Mars, the sky is orange or salmon colored or what have you. And so they found that by looking at the shadow, they could infer the color of the sky and then how much the colors of the rocks had been influenced on the camera, on the images by the color of the sky.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That's very clever. So what you're saying is to summarize, whatever's going on in the shadow is not directly influenced by the sun?

[Bill Nye]

It's directly influenced, but it's not the only influence.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

No, no, no, sorry. You get an authentic background lighting from the rest of the sky.

[Bill Nye]

Yep.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Bill Nye]

So let's send a shadow caster to Mars. I was in a meeting, a Stratocaster.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That's a guitar.

[Bill Nye]

That's the blues guitar. And you. I don't know if you are a Stratocaster master, but there is. The idea was to send this post, the stick to Mars to cast a shadow. And I was in the meeting and I said, aren't there many, many things to cast a shadow? No, we need it to fall on something precisely calibrated or well known colors or grayscale. And so I was in the meeting. Now, my dad had the misfortune of being a prisoner of war in World War II for almost four years. And he told the story often of walking in Japan, in China at first and then Japan at the end of the war. They got, as Japanese influence shrunk. They got moved to the south island of Japan for the last year of the war. But he would by all accounts stick a shovel handle in the soil and watch the shadow and reckon when it was lunchtime kind of thing. And so he became. That's right. So he wrote a book about sundials. He was the astronomy merit badge counselor. He made a sundial that would be.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

For the Boy Scouts.

[Bill Nye]

For the Boy Scouts. So I was in the meeting. They're gonna send a metal stick to Mars to cast a shadow.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So you have genetic.

[Bill Nye]

I'm just jumping out of my chair, you guys. We gotta make that into a SC Sundial.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay. I'm glad you didn't put a shovel here.

[Bill Nye]

So they were all looking at me like, dude, it's the space program. Bill, I see you're wearing a watch. No.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Come on.

[Bill Nye]

It'll be like people who speak Klingon, except it'll be real.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Mars 2004. Two worlds, one sun.

[Bill Nye]

So Lou Friedman, one of our founders, came up with that. We were having dinner at a place that's. Now it was Louise Trattoria, now it's Cheesecake Factory. But he said, one sun, two worlds. And in a few seconds we all went, oh, no, no. Two worlds, one sun. That's really inspirational. Light shadows on Mars are cast by the same life giving star as shadows on Earth. Now wait, wait, there's more. On the edge. Around the dial is a message to the future. We built this instrument in 2003. It arrived here in 2004 to study the Martian environment. Look for signs of water and life. And on the last of the four panels. I can't read this.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

What is it? Is it in braille? What is it?

[Bill Nye]

It's in younger person's font. Yeah, okay, that's what it is. It says on the last of the four, it says, to those who visit here, we wish a safe journey and the joy of discovery.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And that's written in English because of course aliens read English.

[Bill Nye]

Well, English, no, no, it's written for humans.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So other humans who arrive.

[Bill Nye]

Yeah. English is the language of aerospace even now. And so.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And of aviation too.

[Bill Nye]

Yeah, aviation, yeah. So it's optimistic. People are going to be there and they're going to go up to that thing and look at it and think.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

About the way we go up to the Plymouth Rock, the way we go up to whatever. Massachusetts.

[Bill Nye]

Yes. A pyramid, a Mitsu Picchu. We go up and go, wow, that's an extraordinary thing humans before us did. And it's optimistic and it has the joy of discovery. And that has become PB and J. Passion, Beauty and joy. Jod. Joy of discovery. That's become a phrase with me and the staff.

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[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Hello, I'm Alexander Harvey and I support StarTalk on Patreon.

[Rosetta Stone Ad]

This is StarTalk with Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Tell me about literal political advocacy because it's one thing to just celebrate it and but at some point somebody's gotta show up in Washington.

[Bill Nye]

This is what we do. So we've been asked to testify. Oh heck yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Uh huh.

[Bill Nye]

So what we have been able to do is hire two guys who are just really into this and are excellent at it. So we have one guy who studies policies.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

This sounds like you're talking about lobbyists.

[Bill Nye]

No. So lobby. A lobbyist is a paid person and he has to have a license and this and that. We are advocates. So what we do is get our members. 40 plus members around the world.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Thousands.

[Bill Nye]

40,000 members around. Well said. 40K.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yes.

[Bill Nye]

40 plus K. Close to 50K people around the world.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

This is evidence. I'm paying attention to what you're saying. I just want you to know that that's why I interrupt you when I appreciate it, Neil.

[Bill Nye]

It's very appreciated much.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

40 members of the Planetary Society.

[Bill Nye]

40,000 members plus almost 50,000. Some weeks it is over. 50.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yes.

[Bill Nye]

We have this nonprofit problem continually. People fall off, you have to reengage them. You fall off the re. All right, all that aside, we send letters and emails to members of Congress and the Senate advocating for space missions that we believe are in the best interest of humankind. In the best interest of making discoveries on these other worlds that will affect our world. And the one that we're all talking about this week is the Europa Clipper, a replica shown here at launch.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Bill Nye]

And I testified in front of Congress in 2013 about the importance of this mission where we're looking for signs of life on another world and or organic material from on another world to learn more about our own world. And we do it for inspirational, wonderful, joy of discoveries reasons. But it's also, if you Want to be the world leader in technology, you invest in space exploration.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I testified once, but I felt like it was going into a black hole.

[Bill Nye]

Well, that's a black hole. See what he did there?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

But I wasn't representing a whole organization as you are. Well, that's why I say that's a different force operating.

[Bill Nye]

Plus, I'm one voice and my voice is not irrelevant, to be sure it's relevant. But when these congressmen and senators get thousands, tens of thousands of 10ks of letters and emails, it affects them.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You at the helm of this ship, that has influence. When I testified, I'm just Neil talking to the Congress. And what am I doing here? What are they?

[Bill Nye]

That's what they said to everybody said to me, neil, behind your back. No.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So I look at this list here because it's not just Europa Clipper, which.

[Bill Nye]

Is the most recent one.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It's just most recent Hubble, Mars sample return, the New Horizons to Pluto. The Europa Clipper, of course. I got two other missions here, Veritas, which means truth, but that's all I know about it, and Viper. What are those?

[Bill Nye]

So Veritas is a mission to Venus. So I haven't had a mission to Venus in 40 years.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It's not entirely hospitable.

[Bill Nye]

Well, but you want to have a look and see what, have a look on Venus? Yeah. What happened on Venus, we don't want to happen on Earth. In fact, people talk about climate change now regularly. As you know. I've been whining about it for. You got a whole book on. Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

What's the name of that book?

[Bill Nye]

Undeniable.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Undeniable, yes. A whole book talking about the reality of climate change and how to spread that information against misinformation.

[Bill Nye]

Misinformation, yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Undeniable.

[Bill Nye]

From fossil fuel industry, who's worked hard to make scientific uncertainty the same as doubt about the whole thing. But that aside, you can argue that climate change on Earth was discovered by studying the atmosphere of Venus. And so in 1984 or so. So it's really an extraordinary thing. It's this classic Bruce Murray. What are you going to find when you go exploring these other worlds? We don't know. That's why we go exploring.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So, Bill, what you just said reminds me of that quote from T.S. eliot where he says, you I'm going to mangle it, but the essence of it will be there. You explore the world, you know, see new places, travel, travel, travel. And then you come back home and only then will you know you're that place for the Very first time.

[Bill Nye]

As I say, the more we explore these other worlds, the more we know about our own.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That's that. Is it a new field? Comparative planetology.

[Bill Nye]

Carl Sagan used to toss that phrase around like it was a real phrase.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It's not like we're here and everything else is something else.

[Bill Nye]

That's right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Can I tell you, one time I was delightfully out geeked.

[Bill Nye]

You're pretty. When you out geeked, Neil, you got pretty hard.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

But geeks, you know, geeks are on an unlimited spectrum.

[Bill Nye]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay. However geeky you are, there's someone geekier than you.

[Bill Nye]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Particularly if you go to Comic Con. Arms reach, hardcore, shake a stick, there's someone geekier. All right, so I calculated how long it would take to cook a 16 inch pepperoni pizza on your windowsill on Venus.

[Bill Nye]

On your window sill.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. You just put it out on the windowsill, you know, close the window and just let it cook.

[Bill Nye]

It's pretty cool.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It would take seven seconds.

[Bill Nye]

Seven seconds. Okay.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay. All right.

[Bill Nye]

So not only does it cook in seven seconds because of the temperature, did you take into account atmospheric pressure?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yes.

[Bill Nye]

Yeah, Back to you.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yes. In my calculation, I considered, as you suggested, what is the temperature of the air and how many air molecules are hitting it because it's got 10 times the pressure that we have here on Earth. That's all factored in. That's how I got down to 7%.

[Bill Nye]

So bubbling pizza is hardly going to bubble.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay. So I then got out geeked. Someone said, neil, did you consider the thermodynamic radiative layer within the atmosphere? It's the optical depth. It's the distance over which a photon is no longer absorbed by the air and it goes to your target. I said, no, I hadn't. That's important. It's why when you're in front of a fireplace and someone walks in front of you, you feel cold immediately.

[Bill Nye]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That's not the air temperature changing. And so I had neglected the. The radiative factor from the hot atmosphere.

[Bill Nye]

So how long does it really take?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

2 and a half seconds.

[Bill Nye]

2 and a half.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It's three times faster.

[Bill Nye]

It's pretty fast.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. If you got to get out. Geek.

[Bill Nye]

So if you're there with your pizza and you have some means to open a window without exploding, dying, getting cooked. I'll keep that in mind. But these are important thought experiments because they're physics.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yes.

[Bill Nye]

All science is either physics.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yes.

[Bill Nye]

Or stamp collecting.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So we gotta land this plane.

[Bill Nye]

Oh, man.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so a couple of things.

[Bill Nye]

Are we Gonna tail first Propulsively land or are we gonna go in?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You know, we're gonna glider. I'm a glider lander guy, so I don't wanna splash in the ocean. That's very primitive, but it's hard to miss.

[Bill Nye]

That's why they did it. That's why they did.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

The Pacific is a big time.

[Bill Nye]

Well, and so is off the coast of Florida now. Yeah. I don't know if you remember this, but. But when I was young, the spacecraft was in 10 miles of the Navy ship. That was a big deal. Now they. Wait, don't get too close.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

No, you landed on a bullseye.

[Bill Nye]

Yeah. Back to you.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So another big part of the Planetary Society's identity was the successful funding appeal. Funding and launch and deployment of the solar sail, which was the dream of so many people. And one of your founders, Lou Freeman, wrote a book.

[Bill Nye]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And so this was like a very big experience. Andrew was a big proponent of this. Oh, this Andrew. Carl Sagan's widow and board member. So would you count that as among the bigger achievements?

[Bill Nye]

Oh, yeah. Especially under my watch. No, really. We had a solar sail launch funded largely by Andrean and some people associated with the Discovery Channel. And it crashed in the ocean and it was okay, game over, done, Boom. So then it took many years, nine more years to get it together to build another spacecraft. And in that interim, this thing called the cubesat emerged. Cubicle satellite, which are 10 cm by 10 cm by 10 cm. And then variations of that have been created. You can go online and buy parts for satellites.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And they're cheap to launch, very expensive. It's like your science project.

[Bill Nye]

Yeah, it is. And a lot of students, a lot of universities and high schools participate in cubesat programs. And the other thing is, electronics have gotten increasingly smaller, more miniaturized.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

One could argue that the miniaturization of electronics was stimulated by space.

[Bill Nye]

Yes. Well, it's. How to say. Symbiotic.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Bill Nye]

We were able to get funding. 50,000 people around the world just think it's great. We launched a spacecraft in 2014 to prove that it would work. And by the way, I've done very little as CEO. The place is run by Jennifer Vaughn, our chief operating officer. We have a chief financial officer, Jim Su. We have chief of communications, Daniel Gunn. We got a development officer, Rich. We got all these people, but once in a while, somebody's gotta decide to do something. So it was my decision, should we take this launch in 2014 with a spacecraft that wasn't as capable as we hoped one day would be. But it had cameras. And so we launched in 2014. We got these pictures down and that enabled us to get funding to launch LightSail 2.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

There it is. You could see the lightsail unfurling. Am I remembering this? Yes.

[Bill Nye]

And so, by the way, it's very real. So right there is a boom. That golden looking thing is beryllium copper. And what's cool about it or remarkable. This is the same material and much shorter length. Just notice how stiff it is if you try to bend it.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, can't.

[Bill Nye]

And then notice how compact it is if you try to roll it or bend it in the other axis. And so this is what enables it.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Up to get into the fan.

[Bill Nye]

Well, rolled up. Yeah. And if you look at it, there's these tiny dots. These are laser stitch welded at the U.S. air Force Research Lab. Anyway, I mention all this because there's a lot of cool technology that we perfected and flew in 2017.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Any good space mission does.

[Bill Nye]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Because you're doing something that's never been done before.

[Bill Nye]

Never been done before.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Somebody's got to innovate.

[Bill Nye]

Yep. Had to innovate the control laws, how you steer it and rolling it up and getting it robust enough to tolerate cosmic rays without being too heavy to fly. We did all that. And so very proud of that. And people ask us, what's next? I'll just say, stay tuned.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So a quick. I want to remind people, unless they've been living under a rock, many people, you taught them science growing up. As Bill Nye says, guy, it's amazing.

[Bill Nye]

It really is amazing.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Now they're full grown adults with kids and some of them have kids. And you're like Papa Science here.

[Bill Nye]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And you were the heir apparently to what maybe was in our generation. Who's the guy on TV?

[Bill Nye]

Mr. Don Herbert.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, Don Herbert.

[Bill Nye]

I had lunch with him. I look like nobody. I had lunch with him.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Don Herbert. And he was Mr. What was he?

[Bill Nye]

Mr. Wizard.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Mr. Wizard.

[Bill Nye]

Are you fooling with me? Mr. Wizard. So I went to his memorial service. Oh, and you guys, I was just crying. I just couldn't get over it, man. The guy was so influential. I can tell you the technical aspects of everything. But his show was done intuitively. The Science Guy show. We had all this research that 10 years old is as old as you can be to get the so called lifelong passion for science.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Oh, to get it when you.

[Bill Nye]

So it was dialed in.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I was nine. I was nine.

[Bill Nye]

I love you, man.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Bill Nye]

It was dialed in for people 10 years old. That's why that's part of why the show was so successful.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And then you would, I don't want to say transition out of that, but you added to your professional profile. Let's go with it. Yes, yes. To be a space advocate, like for adults and for the nation and for the president, for the world, this sort of thing. Yeah. And did you ride in Air Force One one time?

[Bill Nye]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Excuse me.

[Bill Nye]

Barack Obama got to meet me. Yeah. And spent some time chilling with Barack. There you go. But he is a very thoughtful and frankly charming guy.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And smart. Yeah.

[Bill Nye]

And so I was brilliant. And so we talked about space exploration on Marine One. You've hung out with him, but I.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It was not on his airplanes, though.

[Bill Nye]

But it was quite cool. And he was very receptive to addressing climate change. He was very interested in that. And his policies led to this, the beginning of the start of a. Beginning of climate policies involved in the Inflation Reduction Act, AKA the Clean Power Plant.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Right. Which had some elements to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Bill, Neil, Planetary Society, great to see you. So where do we find it? You got a website for it, planetary.org it's your homepage. Planet planetary.org planetary.org okay.

[Bill Nye]

And we have a podcast button there.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That you can join.

[Bill Nye]

Yes. And so on every page, if you guys want to run a nonprofit, you put a donate button on every page.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Right. That's what it is.

[Bill Nye]

And so we thank everybody out there who is a member, encourage those of you who for some reason are not members to join us. And we have now the Planetary Academy.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Aimed at families and the monthly Planetary Report.

[Bill Nye]

Planetary is there four times a year now because people get their space information on the electric Internet. So we have longer form articles in.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

The printed magazine rather than journalistic articles, which we have.

[Bill Nye]

Some of each we have, I claim, we have the world's premier long form planetary science journalism.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Nice. But I myself have referenced it to catch up on certain missions.

[Bill Nye]

Yes, well, thank you. Yes, we have the best reporters going.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Because, you know, mission information is very fragmented.

[Bill Nye]

It is everywhere.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

There's a little bit there and a little bit there. And it comes into a coherent, sensible.

[Bill Nye]

Pedagogical delivery to give us an idea of what's involved. You want to go, you send a mission to Jupiter, big enormous rocket, Falcon Heavy 3, Falcon 9 strapped together, 27 engines blasting at once, going as fast as you can. Getting a slingshot from Earth takes almost six years. And so you're in this game for the long haul.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And with Europa Clipper, we're six years out.

[Bill Nye]

That's what I'M saying.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, five and a half years. That's what you described.

[Bill Nye]

Yeah. Yeah. And just. And it will change the world. Thank you all. Planetary.org turn it up loud.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

This has been my exclusive conversation with the one and only Bill Nye the Science Guy. Oh yeah. Tune in next time for our next episode of StarTalk. And until then, as always, keep looking up.

[Bill Nye]

Hey, Fidelity, what's it cost to invest with the Fidelity app?

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[Bill Nye]

Hmm. That's music to my ears.

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[Hurricane Agnes Survivor]

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[Capella University Ad]

Imagine what's possible when learning doesn't get in the way of life at Capella University. Our game changing Flexpath learning format lets you set your own deadline so you can learn at a time and pace that works for you. It's an education you can tailor to your schedule. That means you don't have to put your life on hold to pursue your professional goals. Instead, enjoy learning your way and earn your degree without missing a beat. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn [e-mail].