Return to Venus with David Grinspoon

Summary

StarTalk Radio — "Return to Venus with David Grinspoon"

Episode Air Date: February 3, 2026
Host: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Guest: Dr. David Grinspoon ("Dr. FunkySpoon")
Co-Host: Chuck Nice

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Overview

In this lively episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice welcome planetary scientist and astrobiologist Dr. David Grinspoon. The trio embarks on a deep exploration of Venus — its history, the upcoming NASA Da Vinci mission, and the evolving visions of space exploration. They discuss the interplay of culture, media, science fiction, and policy in shaping our view of life in the universe. The conversation ranges from the nostalgia of Apollo to the astrobiological potential of clouds on Venus, all punctuated with humor, pop culture nods, and fresh scientific insight.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Space Dreams: Past, Present, and the Influence of Pop Culture

Timestamps: 03:00–13:00

• The hosts reminisce about the youthful influences that shaped their fascination with space, including Apollo, classic science fiction, and TV shows like Star Trek.
  • David Grinspoon reveals personal stories, such as growing up with “Uncle Carl” — Carl Sagan — as a family friend.
    • "He and my dad were best friends…he was Uncle Carl…as I was growing up, which was pretty interesting on a lot of levels." — David Grinspoon (06:20)
  • Chuck Nice tells how Star Trek's "plasma conduit, light speed, phasers" vocabulary sparked a drive to learn real science.
    • "I wanted to be like a crew member…I started looking all this crap up…that's when I first got excited about science and space travel." — Chuck Nice (10:20)
• Discussion about how science fiction, like 2001: A Space Odyssey, shaped public expectations for space futures that haven't quite materialized.

2. Visions of Spaceflight and the Power of Propaganda

Timestamps: 18:30–24:00

• Grinspoon describes his Georgetown University course on the "History of Space Futures," examining not just the facts but the dreams, visions, and cultural forces behind exploration.
  • "What were people thinking? What was the motivating vision? What future did they think they were creating?" — David Grinspoon (05:12)
• Discusses Wernher von Braun, Walt Disney, and Chesley Bonestell’s collaborations:
  • Von Braun’s background, Operation Paperclip, and his role in both Nazi Germany and later the Apollo program in the US.
  • "Von Braun…was the former Nazi rocket scientist…instrumental in designing the Saturn V and getting us to the moon." — David Grinspoon (19:02)
  • The use of planetariums and magazines to "propagandize" space and prepare the public for exploration.
• Tyson laments the lack of modern space propaganda:
  • "We need better advertising. That's what you want there." — Neil deGrasse Tyson (22:16)

3. Portrayals of Life Beyond Earth: From Green Men to Real Science

Timestamps: 10:40–13:54; 23:49–31:28

• They critique how aliens are depicted in pop culture (usually just humans with prosthetics for economic reasons), contrasting this to the diversity we now know exists thanks to exoplanet discoveries.
  • Tyson notes how Star Trek’s planetary classification system outpaces even modern science.
    • "They classified planets better than we ever did even today." — Neil deGrasse Tyson (12:14)
• The historical tendency to project life onto other planets — "If Earth is a planet with life, surely others must be as well."
• Discuss the Mars "canals" controversy and how wishful thinking, confirmation bias, and lack of photographic evidence led to mass scientific delusion.
  • "There is a literature of other people mapping the canals…It's a complete delusion." — David Grinspoon (30:37)
  • Tyson quotes Leonardo da Vinci:
    "The greatest deception men suffer is of their own opinions." — Neil deGrasse Tyson (31:11)

4. Venus Revealed: Past, Present, and the Da Vinci Mission

Timestamps: 31:28–38:33

• Dr. Grinspoon, a science team member for NASA’s upcoming Da Vinci mission, gives a comprehensive update.
  • Context: No US mission to Venus since the 1980s — a gap Grinspoon finds "embarrassingly long." (02:58)
  • The Da Vinci mission (launching ~2031) aims to send an entry probe through Venus’s atmosphere, collecting unprecedented atmospheric and surface data:
    • "We drop it into the atmosphere on a parachute…in the upper clouds…same temperature and pressure as the surface of Earth…as you drop down…it gets hotter and hotter…[surface] 900 degrees [F], almost 100 times Earth's pressure…clouds of concentrated sulfuric acid." — David Grinspoon (34:00)
  • The probe will do descent photography and (if it survives landing) even more surface science.
  • The politics of space: International competition (India, ESA) helps catalyze US missions — a "space race all over again."
    • "It's easier for us to declare we want to go somewhere if other countries are going too." — Neil deGrasse Tyson (38:14)
  • Even mission naming humor: "All you have to do is name the project the Donald J. Trump Venusian Ballroom construction project." — Chuck Nice (37:30)
  • On engineering challenges: The probe will “crash” by design, but surviving landing would be a bonus — reminiscent of Huygens on Titan.

5. Astrobiology and the Possibility of Life in the Clouds of Venus

Timestamps: 41:05–46:20

• Revisiting the debate over recent claims of phosphine in Venus’ atmosphere and its implication as a possible biosignature.
  • "On Earth it's weird things like rotting fish…a byproduct of actually kind of decomposing life." — David Grinspoon (44:34)
  • Debate with other astrobiologists about likelihood of cloud-borne life.
    • "I've been a proponent…we have to keep an open mind about that. …[But] Chris McKay…says 'why aren't the clouds green?'" — David Grinspoon (41:36)
  • The unique stability of Venus’s cloud decks compared to transient clouds on Earth could, hypothetically, support life in a way our clouds cannot.

6. The Search for Life: Europa Clipper, Bennu, and Cosmic Ingredients

Timestamps: 46:20–52:23

• Europa Clipper’s launch and the resilience of long-term exploration in the face of political and budgetary uncertainty.
  • "The timescale of these projects…gives one a certain perspective. They outlast administrations and government figures." — David Grinspoon (47:00)
• Discussion on the Osiris-Rex sample from asteroid Bennu, which returned amino acids, sugars, and bases — but not fully assembled proteins or RNA.
  • "What this implies is that when the planets were young, they were all being sprinkled with the ingredients for life…implies that the stuff of life is all over young planets in the universe." — David Grinspoon (50:51)
  • But the process to life is not inevitable: “You have the kit, but not the caboodle.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson (52:15)

7. Music, Consciousness, and Alien Communication

Timestamps: 52:23–57:17

• Lighthearted speculation: If aliens visit, should Dr. Funky Spoon play his guitar for them?
  • "Would they want to kill you or hold you? How might they react to your music?" — Neil deGrasse Tyson (52:37)
  • Examining music as a possible universal phenomenon rooted in cognition, rhythm, and pattern recognition.
  • "What is music? Why is it that every culture on Earth finds it important and valuable?" — David Grinspoon (53:00)
  • Could rhythm or sonification form a foundation for interstellar communication, à la Close Encounters of the Third Kind?
  • Cultural highlight: If aliens came, "introduce them to George Clinton and the Mothership Connection." — Chuck Nice (55:43)

8. Dr. Funky Spoon's Day Job: Performing in D.C.

Timestamps: 56:41–57:17

• For local listeners: Grinspoon plugs his band, The Groovadelics, at various venues in D.C.

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Memorable Quotes

• "He and my dad were best friends…he was Uncle Carl…as I was growing up, which was pretty interesting on a lot of levels." — David Grinspoon (06:20)
• "I wanted to be like a crew member…I started looking all this crap up…that's when I first got excited about science and space travel." — Chuck Nice (10:20)
• "The greatest deception men suffer is of their own opinions." — Leonardo da Vinci, via Neil deGrasse Tyson (31:11)
• "We drop it into the atmosphere on a parachute…in the upper clouds…same temperature and pressure as Earth…as you drop down…it gets hotter…surface…almost 100 times Earth's pressure…clouds of concentrated sulfuric acid." — David Grinspoon (34:00)
• "What this implies is that when the planets were young, they were all being sprinkled with the ingredients for life…implies the stuff of life is all over young planets in the universe." — David Grinspoon (50:51)
• "If aliens come, we should definitely introduce them to George Clinton and the Mothership Connection." — Chuck Nice (55:43)

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Notable Timestamps

• 06:01 – Grinspoon on childhood with Carl Sagan
• 10:20 – Chuck Nice on Star Trek and learning science
• 12:14 – Tyson on Star Trek’s planetary classification
• 19:02 – Grinspoon on von Braun, Paperclip, and Apollo
• 31:11 – Tyson quoting Leonardo da Vinci
• 34:00 – Grinspoon describes the Venus environment Da Vinci probe will face
• 41:36 – Phosphine, life in Venus’ clouds, astrobiology debates
• 50:51 – Ingredient molecules for life on Bennu asteroid
• 53:00 – "Why is music universal?" the alien guitar question
• 55:43 – Humor about George Clinton and alien diplomacy

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Summary

In "Return to Venus," Neil deGrasse Tyson, Dr. David Grinspoon, and Chuck Nice weave a tapestry of pop culture, history, politics, science fiction, and hard science to explore humanity’s evolving relationship with space and the prospect of life beyond Earth. The conversation is grounded in scientific nuance but colored by humor, nostalgia, and cultural commentary — all orbiting the looming return to Venus, its past misconceptions, new missions, and persistent mysteries.

Takeaway: The future of astrobiology and space exploration is driven as much by dreams and imagination as by data and engineering — and the search for life, whether on Venus, asteroids, or Europa, always starts with asking bold questions. And maybe, just maybe, the mother ship connection is funk.

Closing words:
"Keep looking up." — Neil deGrasse Tyson (57:53)

Transcript

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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[David Grinspoon]

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[Chuck Nice]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Chuck, we're going back to Venus. Haven't been there in like 50 years.

[Chuck Nice]

You know what? I haven't been at all and don't.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Ever want to go. Coming up, what's on the docket for NASA and the search for life in the solar system with the one and only Dr. Funky Spoon on StarTalk. 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 right to my right, Chuck. Nice.

[Chuck Nice]

What's up, Neil? All right. Yeah, man.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So one of my favorite subjects today. Yeah, it's gonna be astrobiology. Ooh.

[David Grinspoon]

Ooh.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But not only that, we're gonna take some extra twists on it. Cause we're bringing in the one, the only. Drumroll, please. Dr. Funky Spoon.

[David Grinspoon]

Dr. Funky Spoon. Oh.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

David Grinspoon. David Grinspoon, welcome back to StarTalk. This is your 20th time on StarTalk.

[David Grinspoon]

Something like that. Hey. Yeah, it's great to see you guys. As always. Great to be here.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Yeah. Let me get your resume updated here. A professor at Georgetown University. You're based in Washington area. You're on the board of the Scientific Society for Astrobiology. That's a new one for me. Advisory board of the SETI Institute. They can't do much better than you on that one. And on the science team of NASA's upcoming Da Vinci mission to Venus. Ooh. Now, you wrote a book on Venus, but was it the book on Venus?

[David Grinspoon]

Well, I like to think it was.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That was a few years back. What was the title of that book?

[David Grinspoon]

Venus Revealed.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Okay, okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Sounds very sexy.

[David Grinspoon]

I know it does.

[Chuck Nice]

Sounds very, very sexy.

[David Grinspoon]

I wrote it right after the last US Mission to Venus, which is, you know, embarrassingly long ago. Except it's amazing that, you know, since the 1980s, we have not had a US mission to Venus. But we're trying to change that now, so maybe I'll have to write another one.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So, more fully in this episode, we want to probe your thinking of late and the history of space futures. Oh, that's an interesting thing. It's your children, Marty. Your children. You know, in that scene. Why were they rushing if they have a time machine?

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Hurry up, hurry up.

[David Grinspoon]

There's no.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We've gotta get to a point in time that's already passed.

[David Grinspoon]

It seems like time would be the one thing you wouldn't have to worry about.

[Chuck Nice]

Exactly, exactly. Pretty good observation.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So this history of space futures that seems like it's intimately intertwined with politics, with culture, with funding, with dream states, even with movies that might try to shape our visions, as, for example, 2001 A Space Odyssey. That got everybody ready for the future that actually never came.

[Chuck Nice]

Exactly.

[David Grinspoon]

That was the one that really, you know, when I was a kid, it was 2001. That was the future that was going to come to pass. I'm still waiting.

[Chuck Nice]

One Future from 2001 Space Odyssey has come to pass, and that's artificial intelligence. Because that was hal.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

He was, you know, an AI, and HAL was homicidal.

[Chuck Nice]

So are the ones from Google. I'm sorry, are they a sponsor?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I take that back. They're great. So how long have you been at Georgetown?

[David Grinspoon]

Well, I've taught there before, and then I was sort of adjunct, but not really active because I was doing other things. And I was at NASA, but I'm returning there to teach. Just starting this upcoming spring semester. So it's.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And that's the title of your course, right?

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think it's Justifying Space. And then the subtitle is, you know, A History of Space Futures.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[David Grinspoon]

But it's a fun lens to look at the history and the present of space exploration because it's not quite just asking what happened. It's, what were people thinking? What was the motivating vision? What future did they think they were creating? So, you know, you can go all the way back to H.G. wells and Jules Verne and those kinds of images, and then up to, you know, Verna von Braun and, you know, Robert Goddard and, you know, sort of start of rocketry and Apollo and, you know, all these, like, inspiring visionaries like Carl Sagan, you know, what kind of future were they helping People imagine was going to come to pass through space exploration, and then you can take it right up to the present.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Carl Sagan, who you knew very well.

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah, Big influence.

[Chuck Nice]

Right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

For sure. So when you were a kid, we buried the lead.

[Chuck Nice]

How do you know Carl Sagan?

[David Grinspoon]

Oh, man, I grew up with. He and my dad were best friends. Actually. Sagan and my dad, they were both Harvard.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, my God.

[Chuck Nice]

Get out.

[David Grinspoon]

And before Sagan went to Cornell because he was denied tenure at Harvard.

[Chuck Nice]

Take that, Harvard. You effed up Harvard.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, everybody been saying that ever since. Yeah.

[David Grinspoon]

So, okay, yeah, so he was kind of in the household when I was six years old. He was Uncle Carl and kind of just around as I was growing up, which was pretty interesting in a lot of levels. For one thing, he wasn't famous when. When I first met him, when we first knew him. And so seeing that whole phenomenon happen to somebody that you knew well was pretty interesting.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right, Right. That could have been interpreted another way. He wasn't famous until he knew me.

[David Grinspoon]

No, I was not implying a causal relationship.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

He didn't put the cause and effect in there. And so tell me, were you. What were your cause? I want to hear from Chuck as well. And I got my own views here. Who were you primarily influenced by? The dreams of people you knew? By storylines in movies, by books you read, or by what you knew the government was attempting to do in the space race?

[David Grinspoon]

I hate to say it, but all of the above. Like so many space scientists of my generation, I have to say that the Apollo moon landings were formative. Like, I was in fourth grade and we saw the people walking on the moon and it was amazing. And then I became, probably as a result of that, a space and science fiction geek. When you're 11 years old and you're reading all this science fiction and watching the first actual human ventures into space, you don't necessarily differentiate. It's all just like, space in the future is cool. So. And then. Plus, obviously, I had some people in my life that I knew that were involved in space exploration, which was a big influence. So it was. It was kind of all of the above. It was just in the air, science fiction and what was happening in real life and what people I knew were involved in. And it was just clear to me that space was where it was at and that was the future, and that was what I wanted to be part of.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So you've got firsthand DNA for this curriculum of this class that you're teaching.

[David Grinspoon]

Wow.

[Chuck Nice]

Look at that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

How about you?

[Chuck Nice]

My biggest influence? I'M terribly sorry to say, was not education or Carl Sagan. It was Star Trek when I was.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Don't apologize for that.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. When I was a kid, Star Trek came. It wasn't even on TV anymore. It was on UHF channels. And so when I. Wow, Grandpa. What? It was uhf. What?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, do you know what it stands for? Uhf.

[Chuck Nice]

Let me think. Ultra High Frequency.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There you go.

[Chuck Nice]

There you go.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You know what VHS stands for? Very High Frequency.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay. Get out. Somebody dropped the ball there. Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

But my reward for. I would come home and watch cartoons because my parents weren't home. But then I knew I had to start my homework by 4:00 no matter what, because if I wasn't doing homework or if it wasn't mostly done by time I got home, you know, there were consequences to be had. So then as a reward for when I get. When I finished my homework, Star Trek would be on. And because it was not like on regular tv, it came on every day. And then I found my call.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Reruns.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

And so I watched it every single day. And I was like, oh, wow. I guess I reached the end because they're coming on over again.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, you saw. Rerun. Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Cause it was only.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It was repeating.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. I mean, I don't know.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Episodes.

[Chuck Nice]

Episodes.

[David Grinspoon]

There were.

[Chuck Nice]

Because there weren't a lot.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Three seasons.

[Chuck Nice]

Three seasons.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. That's all. Well, they canceled after three seasons.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. So in a year, you could see everything. In less than a year, you could see every single episode.

[David Grinspoon]

And in retrospect, canceling Star Trek is like not giving tenure to Carl Sagan. It's like.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, exactly.

[David Grinspoon]

You did what?

[Chuck Nice]

You did what? Yeah, anyway, so here, let me not bore you with the details. What it did for me was they would say things like plasma conduit, light speed, phaser.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So vocabulary.

[Chuck Nice]

Vocabulary. I was like, what? I honestly didn't. I didn't want. I wanted to understand what they were saying. I didn't. I wanted to be like a crew member on the. I didn't want to just sit there and watch. I wanted to understand. So I started looking all this crap up, really. And honestly, that's when I first got, like, excited about science and about space travel and the whole deal. All from this stupid TV show.

[David Grinspoon]

So, Chuck, then can you explain to me, like, how dilithium crystals.

[Chuck Nice]

But I can't explain to you, but I can tell you this. They'll never hold up at 1.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

They'll never hold up.

[Chuck Nice]

The dilithium crystals will dissolve. So, yeah, the dilithium crystals Was a great. Like. I also love the fact that they put all that kind of little stuff in there, which is absolute nonsense, but they somehow married it to some form of science to make it work.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

This is the creativity on the frontier. Just to flesh out what's going on.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And so have you ever seen the periodic table of fictional elements?

[Chuck Nice]

No.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Dilithium is on there.

[Chuck Nice]

Awesome. I love it.

[David Grinspoon]

Unobtainium, Unobtanium is there.

[Chuck Nice]

That's where Vibranium is on.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Vibranium is definitely there. It's a very cool list.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, I got it. I gotta look that up.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

How did you guys feel about the portrayal of aliens in Star Trek? The astrobiology of this.

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah, there's obviously a range. And Star Trek, I mean, in a lot of ways Star Trek holds up really well. It was very sophisticated, high quality entertainment for some of the reasons Chuck just mentioned. And it's amazing how much it's still referred to even amongst professional astrobiologists. We get into conversations, well, could you have something like a class M planet? But then obviously they're devices which are just devices which have no correlation to any science.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And I have to interject there. They classified planets better than we ever did even today.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, Right, right, right. They classified them by whether they could sustain life, by whether they were rocky, gaseous. To us, a gaseous, a rocky, or one that sustains life. They're all just planets.

[Chuck Nice]

Planets.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So if you just say I discovered a planet, you have to play 20 questions to know what kind of planet was discovered. So this was my sympathy for the Pluto folk out there, because to remove it from the ranks of planets when what should have happened is that we should have nuanced the word planet with many more adjectives, descriptive adjectives before it. Gas planet, rocky planet, dwarf planet. You just go down the list.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[David Grinspoon]

You know, we're still in the infancy of our understanding of planets. And, you know, they're from the 23rd century, so it makes sense they would know, more importantly. But, you know, I mean, at the time of Star Trek, of course, we hadn't even discovered any exoplanets. And so we had no real diversity to work with. Now we at least are starting to.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Understand it would be another 30 years before we discover our first exoplanet.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[David Grinspoon]

So we're starting to understand the diversity of planets, but we're still pretty naive. But, you know, as far as aliens, the problem with Star Trek aliens is they're, you know, generally humans with prostheses.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[David Grinspoon]

And that makes sense for the economics of producing a TV show, but they don't generally look like what we would picture aliens to to look like. Of course we have no idea what aliens look like, but but we imagine probably they don't look just like humans because of the randomness of evolution.

[Chuck Nice]

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[David Grinspoon]

This is Ken the Nerdneck Zabera from Michigan and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk Radio with Neil Degrasse Tyson.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So I have a book behind me which is called Visions of Spaceflight, which is a modern book but goes back 40, 50, even 60 years to show how people were dreaming this up. Is any of that infused in your class? Just where we got it all wrong?

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah, no, a lot of that is in there. And you know, there's so much fun material to work with. There's like, you know those famous Collier's articles, Collier's magazine with that von Braun did with Walt Disney and Chesley Bonestell, you know, there's so many.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So remind us who all these people are. So Wernher von Braun, give us a three sentence bio.

[David Grinspoon]

I just Mixed two different things up, But. So Wernher von Braun, of course, was the former Nazi rocket scientist who invented basically the V2 in World War II. And then came over with a bunch of other German. German scientist and was very instrumental in designing the Saturn V and getting us to the moon. The Apollo program.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, he said he's just. They came over. No, we. We grabbed them. Right.

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah. I didn't know how much we should go into Operation Paperclip.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes, that's what that was. Yes. Because we didn't want them going to the Russians afterwards.

[Chuck Nice]

Right, yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The Russians and Americans divided Germany. Right, right, right. Okay. So we bring them. I'm intrigued that we bring them and put them in Huntsville, Alabama, which is like.

[Chuck Nice]

Makes sense. That's a place where you would put some Nazis. Alabama is the place if you gotta relocate some Nazis. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't do a bad thing by putting them in Alabama.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Don't put them in Detroit.

[Chuck Nice]

You damn sure better not put them in Chicago.

[David Grinspoon]

Vasistis the mini spots us.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The space program would have never happened. So anyhow, so he goes to Alabama, and that's Huntsville, Alabama, where he births our presence in space. Because you didn't say this, but I have to add, the V2 rocket was the first rocket to leave our atmosphere. And everybody knew that if there was any future in space, it's gonna be through the technologies that enabled that rocket. Okay, so you got more on von Braun.

[David Grinspoon]

Well, he was also a proselytizer for space and a major popularizer. And so he got together with Walt Disney and they did these kind of propaganda films, but all about the great future of man in space. Of course, it was man in space, then it wasn't humans. And then they also did this series of articles with Chesley Bonestell, who was almost like the space artist or the guy that, you know, did the first very scientifically accurate and careful space art. And they, and he and von Braun teamed up for the series of articles in Colonies magazine, I guess in the late 40s or early 50s.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, no, 50s.

[David Grinspoon]

Early 50s, yeah, in the 50s. Thank you. They're really fun to look at because it's all, you know, our future in space. And, you know, very imaginative and very evocative. And I think it really did help, you know, along with other efforts to kind of prepare the populace for thinking about space as this aperture to this wonderful future.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And you know where the first of those meetings were?

[Chuck Nice]

No.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

At the Hayden Planetarium.

[David Grinspoon]

Get out.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

Impressive.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. And so others would Happen, sort of offline, but the original ones. And it was not only the Chesley Bonnet stall, they also had journalists there and other people who could sort of help spread the love. And like you said, it was a little bit of propaganda getting people ready for the future in space.

[Chuck Nice]

I love it. But we need more of that today. I'm serious. It's like one of my biggest complaints about science today is that we don't propagandize the.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We need better advertising. We need better advertising. That's what you want there. And we have an installment of StarTalk, where we toured Paul Allen's collection of space art, which was heavily represented by Chesley Bonstel art.

[David Grinspoon]

Nice.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And so we went to the Christie's. They let us. They gave us access to the back of house. Wow. And so, yeah, find that in our archives. That was a fun little tour we took.

[David Grinspoon]

Oh, cool.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So tell me. I don't remember them showing aliens in any of those illustrations. So it was just we as explorers.

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah, no, that's right. There was nothing. I don't remember anything in those sort of Disney films he did or the Colliers magazine, that kind of stuff about extraterrestrial life. It was more just like, humans are going to go to space and there'll be new places to live and new resources and new places to explore. And he talked about the national security implications. Of course, America has to dominate this space because we can put nuclear weapons up there and make sure that the world is. Is peaceful and American. You know, it was kind of infused.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Because the harder I pull the bow, the safer I feel.

[David Grinspoon]

Nice.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

As we aim arrows to each other. The harder we each pull, the safer we feel.

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah. So, of course, there is speculation about alien life going back and, you know, some of the other future literature of the past, but not. Not in this sort of Apollo propaganda stuff that we're talking about.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So let's go back in time 120 years or so, or even a little earlier, and we get to Jules Verne, from Earth to the Moon, and he gives how many hours it takes and he comes pretty close.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. I don't know how he figured that out. Earth to the moon in like 96 hours or something, which is a little longer than it actually takes, but it's close enough, you know, for fall apart. I mean, really good. Yeah. What intrigues me is that if you go far enough back before we knew anything about the moon or anywhere, everybody presumed that since Earth is a planet and we have life, that every other planet would have life. And so from Earth to the Moon portrayed moon beings.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And no one is wondering, well, can they breathe the non air, do they? You know, no one is asking that question. And so just the fact that we are a planet and have life opened the floodgates for imagining every other planet to have life. When did planetary scientists discover that Venus has a runaway greenhouse? And you're not gonna imagine life thriving there?

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah, it's pretty recent really. It wasn't until people started to wonder in the 50s because they saw this excess microwave radiation they couldn't explain and they thought, well, could that be from a super hot surface? With basically the advent of radio astronomy after World War II that made that possible. But it wasn't until the first mission to Venus, which was Mariner 2 in 1961, that it was demonstrated that Venus was hot. And definitely unearth like so throughout the whole time of really the 20th century, up until the space age, there was a lot of speculation that Venus was probably pretty Earth. Like a lot of scientists thought that and, and could have life.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, so it's approximately the same size as Earth. It has the same surface gravity, a little closer to the sun. Sorry, so it's a little hotter. That wouldn't hurt anybody. Yeah.

[David Grinspoon]

And it's completely covered with clouds. And so they deduced that correctly. It said, oh, it's covered with clouds and well, what are clouds made out of? Water vapor. So therefore it's probably a swamp planet. That was what people thought it was.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. Now what about Mars? Wasn't there a point where, you know, they thought Mars was a thriving.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The canals.

[Chuck Nice]

Canals. And they thought, well, they had to.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Be made by someone because nature makes channels or humans.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes, right, that makes sense.

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah. So they, they, they, you know, they thought they saw all these linear features which couldn't possibly be natural because there are all these straight lines going across Mars. Of course, Percival Lowell popularized this and he was a very persuasive guy around the turn of the beginning of the 20th century. And he was so persuasive that a lot of other people saw the canals too. They were like, oh yeah, we see them. And it took years to realize that the canals weren't there, basically from close appearances of Mars and better telescopes and cameras. But the interesting thing is that even after the canals went away, the idea of life on Mars, sort of scientifically supported, did not go away. And people thought there was evidence for vegetation. You know, Mars surface changes with basically what we now know are seasonal patterns of windblown dust. But you see these changes in color and brightness. And they thought, oh, that's seasonal vegetation patterns. And then even in the late 1950s, there was an observation of chlorophyll in the atmosphere of Mars that was published in Science magazine. Turned out to be wrong. But there's so much wishful thinking that people would say, aha, there is plant life on Mars. And again, it was pretty recent. It was really once we started going there with spacecraft that these visions kind of vanished. The more realistic, very alien conditions that you find on these planets.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And just. Just to be clear, the older you get, the more recent. The 1960s.

[David Grinspoon]

Oh, yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm just saying. Was 60 years ago recent to you?

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Because 60 years before that was the year 1900.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, my God. Okay, so. But it was so much believed so widely that that's how Orson Welles was able to pull off the radio broadcast that put everybody into a tizzy panic.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wait, wait, so. No, but it's before that, because it was Percival Lowell's published work on Mars and its canals that spawned War of the World to be written in the first place. War of the Worlds was written right after that got published.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Within five years, H.G. wells wrote War of the Worlds because canals on Mars, that's headlines. In 1895, that's headlines. And so H.G. wells writes it. And these are like evil aliens from Mars sucking our brains out. Then we still have 30 years whenever the radio broadcast, which is based on H.G. wells story. Okay, people confuse H.G. wells and Orson Welles.

[Chuck Nice]

It was Orson Welles. No relationship. Orson did the radio broadcast.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The radio broadcast. And he did it on Halloween Eve. Right. And not Halloween, though, but the eve of Halloween.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. Mischief Night.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Take it.

[Chuck Nice]

Mischief Night.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, is that right? Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so everyone's primed for this.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And I think that might have been the first evil alien trope.

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah, well, you know the other thing that H.G. wells was really influenced by, Definitely Percival Lowell. But also the recent stories he had heard about the Tasmanians basically being wiped out by Europeans from Australia.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

He mentions that in his book.

[David Grinspoon]

Oh, yeah. What had happened when a quote, you know, technologically superior civilization encounters a, quote, more primitive civilization, and it's not good for the. And so that also led to this trope of the evil invading superior aliens that you don't stand a chance against.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, but no, you missed a point there. Very true. But there's a nuance which is in his book, he's trying to justify why these Martians wanted to kill us all. And he said, should you Be surprised by this, given that we exhibit that same behavior to ourselves.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow, that's a great point.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

This is. You got no argument. How are you gonna come out of that?

[Chuck Nice]

Exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You got no way to come out of that argument. So, David, I didn't know that others also saw the canals, but if they did, that's a form of a mass delusion, because Percival Lowell has, like, the best telescope and he's rich and he's on a mountaintop. He's got great observing conditions. He sees it. You don't want to not see it, because how could you not if you don't see it with your crappier telescope? You're not in the books. Right. So if they really are there and you did see it. Second, you still get talked about.

[Chuck Nice]

Right?

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah. No, it's funny. There is a literature of other people mapping the canals and saying, well, Lowell's position for this one is just a little bit off. It's really over here.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And it's a complete delusion. And this is because nobody has photography yet. There's not a. Let's look at the photograph. It's everyone's eyewitness testimony of what they think they see.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. So this is evidence of the susceptibility of even scientists to the power of suggestion, the power of your own bias. And Leonardo.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Once said.

[Chuck Nice]

Go ahead.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The greatest deception men suffer is of their own opinions.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes. Ooh, that's. That's. Gosh.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

He knew this.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. Well, that's why he was so brilliant.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

He was like, I will not even fall prey to me.

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's beautiful.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Give me, give me, give me some of that.

[David Grinspoon]

Well, that was his opinion.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So, David, that's a perfect segue to this da Vinci mission. Please catch us up on what's going on. We're finally going back to Venus.

[David Grinspoon]

Yes. Yes. It's been a long journey already. We haven't even left the ground. But for those of us who've been advocating and agitating for new Venus missions, and the good news is that we have several Venus missions, two American missions, Da Vinci and Veritas, which is a. Which is an orbiter which very much complements DaVinci, which is an entry probe that descends down through the atmosphere to the surface. And then there's also a European mission and an Indian space agency potential mission. So a lot of agencies are getting into the game now, but the one I'm most excited about because I'm on the team and very involved with, is this da Vinci mission, which, if all goes well, will launch in the 2031 timeframe. Now, as you probably have heard, NASA's had a little bit of turmoil with the budget and a little bit. Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You used to have a job with NASA?

[David Grinspoon]

Oh yes, until fairly recently I was the, the senior scientist for astrobiology strategy at NASA.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Totally useless.

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

A terrible hoax. I'll tell you what we need.

[David Grinspoon]

If I had, if I still had that job, I wouldn't be able to talk to you about some of the things I can talk to you about now.

[Chuck Nice]

Should have kept them on. I'm loyalty, I'm fighting.

[David Grinspoon]

But yeah, I'm still very fond of and close to NASA and working with NASA on a lot of projects. I no longer am a NASA employee at the moment, but DaVinci is very much a NASA mission which is still moving forward and being built. There's some question as with a lot of projects right now about the future schedule and viability. But right now nobody's told us it's not happening and we're pretty optimistic about. We know that Congress is very supportive of maintaining this mission. A lot of it's built, we have an entry sphere and some of the instruments are already built. And it's a very challenging engineering problem to drop something into that intense environment of the Venus atmosphere and have it survive to the surface.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Quantify intense.

[David Grinspoon]

Okay. Well in the upper clouds where the mission starts, we drop it into the atmosphere on a parachute. And in the upper clouds where it starts to operate, it's actually more or less the same temperature and pressure as the surface of Earth. Like in the room you're sitting in now, that's sort of the middle upper clouds of Venus. But as you drop down, it gets hotter and hotter to the point and higher and higher pressure to the point where when you reach the surface, it's 900 degrees hotter than the hottest self cleaning temperature on your oven Fahrenheit. And it's almost 100 times the surface pressure of Earth. So crushing pressure, searing temperature. And by the way, those clouds you drop through are made out of concentrated sulfuric acid, like battery acid. So you have to be able to withstand all these crazy environmental factors. And we know how to do it. You know, this thing is well engineered, but it has to be done very carefully and you have to use some, some expensive materials.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So, so you're, the data you're collecting, is it atmospheric data or you're going to do stuff when you get to the surface as well?

[David Grinspoon]

Both. A lot of the important part of this mission is involving measurements of the atmosphere that have never been made before because again, we haven't been able to operate that much in the Venus atmosphere because it's so forbidding. So we've never had modern instrumentation, never had 21st century instruments that can really tell us exactly what those gases are made out of, exactly what the isotopes are of hydrogen and what the rare gases are. All these things that really can be diagnostic of the history of the planet. We've never measured them well, and the radiation going down. But we're also going to do really cool things with the surface. We have an imaging system where we do the first ever descent photography, like really high resolution stereo descent photography of this very mountainous area where we're going to land.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's always cool when you can see the ground come closer and closer.

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah, you've seen those famous images from like the Ranger program of the Moon. Right. Where they, they get closer and closer and closer and then the thing crashes. We're going to do that for Venus, except again with 21st century cameras and it's never been seen before. And this is going to be a very dramatic mountainous region with really cool and revealing topography, not just in the visual wavelengths, but also in the infrared. So we'll be able to tell what the minerals are.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But you're not going to crash.

[David Grinspoon]

Well, we are going to crash.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You are.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, wow. Okay.

[David Grinspoon]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You are going to crash.

[David Grinspoon]

Well, we're going to reach the surface. We don't say. We don't use that word, we don't use the term grass, we use euphemisms, but in fact, we're not designed to operate on the surface, although it's possible. In other words, the mission will be considered a success if we reach the surface, but we could survive for a while. It's very similar to. You remember the Huygens probe on Titan?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[David Grinspoon]

Where it was only designed if it reached the surface, it would have been considered a success. But it lasted for another 45 minutes on the surface and did some really cool stuff. So we have the opportunity to do that. But if we actually make it to the surface, then we've satisfied.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I don't understand something.

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Venus has gravity. You drop it into the atmosphere, it's gonna reach the surface. What do you mean? If it reaches the surface?

[David Grinspoon]

Oh, sorry. If it's functioning.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, oh, okay. Thank you.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, gotcha.

[David Grinspoon]

If it's talking to us.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, got it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Well, if you need more money to be put in the budget, all you have to do is name the project the Donald J. Trump Venusian Ballroom construction project. There you go.

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah. But solid gold does not survive at those temperatures.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Just one, if I add a geopolitical comment here, you mentioned that India was also has Venus on its sites. Isro. So Indian Space Research Organization. Research organization isro. And the United States does not want to be left out of where people are going in the solar system. Absolutely. So it's easier for us to declare we want to go somewhere if other countries.

[Chuck Nice]

Other countries are going too.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So it's the space race all over again.

[Chuck Nice]

It's always about that, right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's always about that. So I wouldn't put it past our motivations to realize that the list of other interested parties added a little flame under our rear end to try to go.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[David Grinspoon]

And I wouldn't put it past me and my colleagues to remind our representatives that like, oh by the way, our competitors are doing this so we better not mess with our budgets.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right? Right.

[Chuck Nice]

And on a non geopolitical note, just a political note, people could stop voting for representatives who want to give tax cuts to billionaires instead of funding the stuff that will advance us as not only a nation, but as a species. I mean, that's just a thought. You can just hang on to that thought if you want.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

This has been a public service.

[David Grinspoon]

Comedians Against Billionaires.

[Chuck Nice]

What can I say? You know, you will never meet a comedian billionaire. That is for sure.

[David Grinspoon]

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[Chuck Nice]

To possible Chase for business. Make more with yours.

[David Grinspoon]

Real business owners compensated for the the.

[Chuck Nice]

Of rest participation cards issued by JPMorgan Chase bank and a member FDIC, subject to credit approval terms apply.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So we remember from a few years back the assertion that there were. What was the molecule in Venus's atmosphere that may be evidence for life thriving within the atmosphere. Will you be. It was phosphines, I think they were. And we had you on to talk about that result.

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Go dig that out of our archives, those of you who are archived dumpster divers.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But how much credence is given to the idea that life could be completely thriving within an atmosphere and not require a surface at all?

[David Grinspoon]

Well, there's a range of opinions about that, and, you know, I've been a proponent of that. We have to keep an open mind about that. You know, there are people who will point out, you know, one of my colleagues, Chris McKay at NASA Ames Research Center, a great astrobiologist.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We'd love Chris McKay.

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah, yeah. And Chris doesn't agree with me about the prospects for life on Venus. And what he says is, like, why aren't the clouds green? Meaning on Earth, if you could have life in the clouds so easily, then why aren't the clouds green? And that's an interesting objection. But it may be that there's some characteristics of the Venusian clouds that are more suitable for life than Earth clouds.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But if they were green, it would mean some chlorophyll photosynthesizing life.

[David Grinspoon]

Well, I mean, his point is that life is so opportunistic that anywhere on Earth where you can have life, it's abundant.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You do.

[David Grinspoon]

Why are our clouds full of life if you can have life in clouds?

[Chuck Nice]

But didn't you just give the answer to that when you said life is opportunistic? Which means if it's easier not to have life in the clouds here, then the life will take advantage of the opportunity that's available, which is life everywhere else. But if there were no other choice, then perhaps life would manifest itself in the cloud.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No, that's not how life works.

[Chuck Nice]

You don't think.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No. Is everywhere it can possibly go.

[Chuck Nice]

Any place it can possibly.

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah, because you always want to find some niche that. Where your predators can't get to. You know, there's a lot of pressure to just, like, live in new places, if you can.

[Chuck Nice]

So then, in that we have life.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Forms living at the bottom of the ocean.

[Chuck Nice]

Absolutely.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Where there's hot vents coming out.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes. And sulfur and all kinds of terrible stuff. And they're doing the backstory, and they're chilling down there.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Just chilling.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. So in that case they're hot. Yes. So then what could, what would happen in Venus? That would be the difference where life could exist. Would, would the pressure create some kind of difference or.

[David Grinspoon]

Well, one difference is that on Earth clouds are not a very stable environment. They don't last, they come and go, they evaporate, they literally dissipate. Very thin, gathering water. Venus is covered with a permanent global cloud deck. So the clouds of Venus are almost like the oceans of Earth in terms of the stability of the environment.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, well that's a good reason.

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah, that's my main answer to that point that Chris makes. But you know, there's other objections. Like, like all that acid, you know.

[Chuck Nice]

All that acid?

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah, no, I don't mean, I don't mean that kind of acid. The kind that makes you hear voices. No, I mean all that sulfuric acid. But you know, the more we'd study life on Earth, the more we find that life thrives in these extreme environments. We didn't anticipate and, and people have been sort of playing around with that chemist, alternative chemistries of life that could possibly survive. So I think, you know, it's, it's just an interesting unknown and there have been some observations. Neil, you mentioned the phosphine. That's controversial. Did we really see phosphine in the cause of Venus? Which if we did, it's hard to explain.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And who gives you phosphine? What life form gives you phosphine?

[David Grinspoon]

So on Earth it's weird things like rotting fish, you know, and it's like it smells terrible. It's just this sort of byproduct of actually kind of decomposing life. It's, you know, it's a hydrogen rich molecule. So it's, it's what we call a reduced molecule, which is common in biological materials, but not common in an atmosphere like Venus that's full of more oxidized and acidic materials. So it's not something you'd expect on Venus. You expect there to be phosphorus, but it to be bonded with oxygen or some other other compounds. If it's bonded to hydrogen, there's something.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Weird going on that would be oxidized rather than reduced is the pairing of those words. So for me, what's intriguing about Venus is you can pre choose a pressure and a temperature that might be good for your life in a particular layer of that atmosphere. Right. And this is why the surface temperature is irrelevant. If you can find a nice cozy place at a stable layer in the atmosphere that you can call home.

[Chuck Nice]

Makes sense.

[David Grinspoon]

Well, right. And where that cloud deck happens to be that stable, thick cloud deck I was mentioning is at a place where the temperatures are moderate and the pressure's moderate.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Moderate to humans. Yes.

[David Grinspoon]

But you can legitimately call that surface pressure uninhabitable, even not just being sort of human centric or Earth centric, because almost no complex chemistry can survive there. Like no organic molecules. Nothing that is bonded to anything else basically could survive there. It's so hot, it just rips molecules apart. So that seems even if you're not being sort of Earth centric, it seems like that kind of temperature would be very hard for anything to live in.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So what do you fear most going forward with budget, with culture, politics is there in terms of the health of the search for life in the universe?

[David Grinspoon]

Oh, man. What do I fear most? Well, I'll answer that in a roundabout way. Here's something that gives me hope, which is that last year we launched the Europa Clipper mission.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Love it.

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah. And if you think about the timescale, it's going to get to the Jupiter system In the early2030s, it's on its way there, it's been launched. They can't stop it. Well, amusingly, it's on its way back to Earth now for a flyby, but it's going to Jupiter.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You mean a gravity assist, you mean?

[David Grinspoon]

Yes, yeah, exactly. So I think about that and I think, well, okay, by the early2030s, we'll have a different administration, presumably, we'll have different leadership. But there will be a NASA, there will be a science team, we'll be operating that mission. Somebody will be here. And so the timescale of these projects that we do in our field gives one a certain perspective. They outlast administrations and government figures. Now, that's also a reason to be scared because things can be canceled and so forth. So the fear, that's the flip side of that is my worst case scenario is things go so wrong that by the time Clipper gets to the Jupiter system, there is nobody here operating it. And that's a nightmare for me. But I don't think that's gonna happen. It's more a source of hope because whatever happens, it's not gonna be so bad. And we will have a mission and we'll get through this and we'll keep exploring.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Plus, if I can add, NASA has 10 centers that reside in eight different states.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And those states variously vote. Four red, four blue, five red. Three blue. Five blue, three red. So NASA is embedded in our political landscape as no other agency is and.

[David Grinspoon]

So everybody loves it and everybody loves space.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, everyone is looking up. All it means is if you love NASA or hate NASA, you cannot deduce what their political leaning is based on that alone.

[Chuck Nice]

Based on that alone.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right, right. And just to put nuance to what you said, the Europa Clipper is not just going to Jupiter, is going to Europa.

[David Grinspoon]

Well, it's going to make 50 close passes by Europa from its perch orbiting Jupiter. Yes. Europa is the place we're going to be looking at.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's where the action is.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. Hey, let me ask you. Now, I know you're a planetary astrobiologist and this is not planetary because I want to talk about an asteroid, but I just read about some of the findings from Bennu, and one of it was, I think that they had. They found 14amino acids and RNA, and we know that those are the building block proteins of life.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So that we're on the same page.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Bennu is an asteroid that's the size of the Empire State Building.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It is on a collision course. Well, it has an orbit that crosses Earth's orbit.

[Chuck Nice]

Earth's orbit.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Its next close approach will be in 2182.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We went there with the mission Osiris Rex. Osiris Rex, which did a touch and go.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Grabbed some of the material and came back and came back and it deposited back here on Earth.

[Chuck Nice]

That's badass.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And we analyzed it and leading to what you just described.

[Chuck Nice]

That is badass.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Now pick it up with.

[Chuck Nice]

All right, so what I want to say to you as planetary astrobiologists is what are these implications of finding these building block proteins of life? Does it just mean that that stuff is in our solar system and no big deal, or does it mean that, you know, the likelihood of life is more likely someplace else? What does it mean?

[David Grinspoon]

It's really profound. They didn't find proteins, they didn't find rna. But what they found was all of the stuff you need to make proteins and rna, the amino acids that make proteins, the nucleotide bases that make RNA and DNA. And they found sugars now, too. And that's all the basic stuff you need for life.

[Chuck Nice]

Well, what kind of sugar did they found, Domino?

[David Grinspoon]

A couple of different sugars. I'm not remembering which ones. I think ribose was one of them, actually.

[Chuck Nice]

I was absolutely. Yeah, it absolutely was.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And these are molecules that have built in them quite a bit of chemical energy where you can set stuff into motion if you wanted to have some serious chemical action.

[Chuck Nice]

Very nice.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[David Grinspoon]

So there's a couple of really amazing implications. One is, I mean, remember this asteroid Benno was just kind of chosen because, as Neil said, it's coming close to Earth, but was also convenient to get to. So there's nothing about it that's different from like thousands of other carbonaceous, primitive, carbon rich asteroids out there, but it happens to be full of the stuff of life. What this implies is that when the planets were young, they were all being sprinkled with the ingredients for life. Not just Earth, but all of them were being plastered with this stuff that's sort of like the kit, you know, the recipe, just add water, you know, and, and, and it implies not just our own solar system, but probably elsewhere. I mean, again, you know, we, we have to extrapolate. But there's nothing that we know about the chemistry of our asteroid belt that's probably different from that around other stars. And so it implies that the stuff of life is all over young planets in the universe when they've just formed. But the other weird thing is you can ask, so why didn't it progress to life in this asteroid? Why don't you have proteins and rna? You have the kit, but the kit has not been assembled there. So it also tells you something about that the progress of those materials towards life is not inevitable in every environment, that you need the right environment, but the stuff is everywhere.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You have the kit, but not the caboodle.

[David Grinspoon]

Right, right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You need the caboodle.

[Chuck Nice]

You need the kaboodle.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So, David, let me ask you some just completely out of left field questions here. Remind us. You play an instrument. What instrument is that? Mostly guitar and it's jazz guitar.

[David Grinspoon]

Well, funk and funk.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Funky spoon.

[David Grinspoon]

Reggae funky spoon.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Excuse me. Funky smooth. So if aliens visited us, would you play your guitar for them? Would they be able to hear it? And would they want to kill you or hold you? How might they react to your music?

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah, boy, that's a great question. I would love to have the chance to try, you know, could be a tough audience.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's a tough crowd. I don't know, because Close Encounters of the Third Kind musical notes were a fundamental part of the communication.

[David Grinspoon]

No, I mean, it's a really cool question because there's a lot of dimensions to that question if you start to think about it. Because what is music? Why is it that every culture on Earth finds it important and valuable to put together sequences of frequencies and rhythms and do this thing that we call music? And is it possible that that's so built into what it means to have consciousness and a brain And a culture that. That would be something that would be shared by extraterrestrials. I don't think it's impossible. But, you know, it gets to these deep questions. You know, first of all, what is music? And why are we. Why is it so universal? And second of all, how does it relate to our experience as conscious beings? And is that something that might truly be universal beyond just this planet?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But you didn't mean why is music universal? You meant why is music Earth wide?

[David Grinspoon]

Yes. Universal. On Earth. On Earth.

[Chuck Nice]

Could it be universal?

[David Grinspoon]

Could it be universal? Capital U.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right, yeah. And that presumes that the aliens have a sense of hearing, for example.

[Chuck Nice]

Not necessarily. Maybe they actually would experience the vibrations of the music with. I mean, that's what our ears are.

[David Grinspoon]

We do sonifications of other kinds of data. Right. So could we take our music and convert those patterns into whatever they could.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

If they sense the vibrations? You would call that hearing, I think.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You would, you would. But I'm saying what Dave is saying is that we have sonified other forms of data.

[Chuck Nice]

Correct.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And in fact, we did a whole show on the sonification of images.

[Chuck Nice]

That's right. Right, yeah. From Chandra.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, from the Chandra X ray telescope. Yeah. We featured Kim Arkand's work on that.

[Chuck Nice]

Absolutely.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

On stage.

[Chuck Nice]

Fascinating stuff.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes. Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

But like I'm saying, if they had, like, the receptors all over their body and they were, you know, receiving the vibrations that way, we just have it in one little portal call our ears.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Good point.

[David Grinspoon]

I mean, presumably they have some kind of senses. It's hard to imagine some, you know, cognitive being that. And whatever senses they have, they can perceive patterns and rhythms and so forth. And so there's gotta be some way to play our music for them, even if it's not just.

[Chuck Nice]

Well, I'll tell you this, Dr. Funky Spoon. If you play for them. And the response is. All right now. All right. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's my jam. And guess what? You have done some great work for. For bringing us together.

[David Grinspoon]

I think it's worth a try.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah. He would be the ambassador do.

[David Grinspoon]

But I actually. I think there's probably more appropriate, like, sun Raw, you know, or. Or George Clinton with his mothership. You know, there's probably more.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, that's the. What do you call it? Afro futurism.

[Chuck Nice]

Afro futurism. I got to tell you, if you. I've never thought of that. But if aliens come, we should definitely introduce them to George Clinton and the mother ship connection.

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah, that. You know, the ship. The mothership. It's in the National Museum of African American Art here in Washington D.C. they actually got that as one of their artifacts, so we can take them over there.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Does the museum still exist?

[Chuck Nice]

Not for long. I don't understand it.

[David Grinspoon]

As of today, I believe it does, but there's no telling about next week.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, I gotta go check it out then. Oh, it's fans. So, David, I think we run out of time here. Wow. But like I said, it's always good to check in with you, Dr. Funkus Poon. And where do you perform in Washington D.C. you got a hovel there.

[David Grinspoon]

There's a few different places. One of our favorite places to play is a VFW post called Hell's Bottom in Takoma Park. Just cause it's like it was rated one of the ten best dive bars in Washington D.C. by the washing. And it's just like a really friendly neighborhood place. And we play there basically the first Wednesday of every month with the Groovadelics.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The Groovadelics.

[Chuck Nice]

Right on.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That feels very 1960s.

[Chuck Nice]

I like it.

[David Grinspoon]

Yeah. Yeah. There's a number of places around town. If you're in D.C. and you want to catch us, the best thing to do is go on Facebook to the Groovadelics web page and we post stuff on there.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Excellent. And you're on social media as Dr. Funky Spoon.

[David Grinspoon]

That's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Correct. Doctor. Dr. Funky Spoon.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. Very nice.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You got it. All right. Dude, we love you here in the man.

[Chuck Nice]

Always great to see you guys.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We love you here.

[Chuck Nice]

All right, Chuck, always a pleasure.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right. Yeah, we. We gotta get this guy. We gotta have him every week.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. Dr. Funky Spoon is always a good time.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

He's always a good time. This has been Star Talk, our Astrobiology Dr. Funky Spoon edition. Because we get a whole fresh look on astrobiology anytime we talk to this man.

[Chuck Nice]

That's right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Neil Degrasse Tyson here. Four Star Talk as always. Keep looking up.

[David Grinspoon]

Hi, I'm Kaitlin Coleman, winner of Target's HBCU design challenge. This challenge moved me closer to my dream of becoming a fashion designer. Through mentorship and support, you can find my design along with creations from other black founders in Target's Black History Month collection.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You've made it on time for the McDonald's breakfast menu.

[Chuck Nice]

You think to yourself, finally, I can start my day.

[David Grinspoon]

But what if breakfast could be even more perfect with the hot honey sausage egg biscuit? It finally is.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Go to McDonald's and get it while you can.