Risk is Our Business with William Shatner & Scott Kelly

Summary

StarTalk Radio Episode Summary

Episode Title: Risk is Our Business with William Shatner & Scott Kelly
Release Date: March 18, 2025
Host: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Guests:

• William Shatner: Renowned actor best known for his role as Captain Kirk in Star Trek.
• Scott Kelly: NASA astronaut with extensive spaceflight experience, including a record-breaking 340-day mission aboard the International Space Station.

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1. Setting the Stage: Voyage to Antarctica ([01:56])

The episode kicks off with William Shatner recounting his recent expedition to Antarctica aboard a cruise ship alongside NASA astronaut Scott Kelly. Shatner describes the journey as a perfect setting for a StarTalk episode, emphasizing the parallels between polar exploration and space exploration.

William Shatner ([01:56]): "This voyage, having just returned from Antarctica... risk is our business."

2. Understanding the Drake Passage ([04:04])

Scott Kelly provides a scientific overview of the Drake Passage, explaining its significance as a challenging part of the Southern Ocean where the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans converge. He details the extreme weather conditions, including towering swells that make the passage notoriously difficult to navigate.

Scott Kelly ([04:04]): "The Drake Passage is where the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans meet... swells can get as high as 50ft."

3. Exploration: Humanity’s Innate Drive ([06:35])

The conversation delves into the essence of exploration. Shatner and Kelly discuss how exploration is embedded in human DNA, likening modern explorers to historical figures like Ernest Shackleton. Jasmine Wilson shares a personal anecdote about interacting with penguins in Antarctica, highlighting non-human forms of curiosity and exploration.

Jasmine Wilson ([07:49]): "We're in this arid land that's rife with life, but you can't see too much of it... the penguins are a big part of it, and it's exploration."

4. Spacecraft Design and Safety ([13:04])

Scott Kelly contrasts the Space Shuttle with the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, emphasizing the Shuttle’s versatility and the Soyuz’s reliability. They discuss the safety records of both vehicles, with Kelly highlighting the complexities and inherent risks involved in space travel.

Scott Kelly ([14:00]): "The Space Shuttle is one of the most diverse spacecraft we've ever built... it built an International Space Station."

5. Physiological Impacts of Space Travel ([24:10])

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on the physiological changes experienced by astronauts during long-duration space missions. Scott Kelly reveals that his time in space caused his heart to shrink by 25% and affected his telomeres, which are indicators of biological aging.

Scott Kelly ([27:10]): "After spending a year in space... my heart is smaller than it was when I went in there."

6. Risk Assessment in Exploration ([29:52])

The trio explores the concept of risk in exploration. Kelly rates his acceptable risk threshold for space missions at around 10%, reflecting a balance between ambition and safety. Shatner challenges the notion by questioning whether reducing risks diminishes the essence of exploration.

William Shatner ([32:31]): "If you know that much about where you're going and it can be done in the safety and comfort of a luxury ship, then is it really exploration if the risks have been reduced?"

7. Historical Perspectives and Modern Parallels ([36:37])

The conversation draws parallels between early explorers like those who traversed to the New World and modern astronauts heading to Mars. They discuss the enduring human spirit of exploration despite inherent dangers, highlighting how each generation builds upon the sacrifices and discoveries of the previous.

William Shatner ([36:37]): "Is that really exploration if the risks have been reduced?"

8. Personal Reflections and Anecdotes ([48:43])

In a lighter moment, Shatner shares a humorous experiment about resisting an itch while in a metaphorical 'spacesuit,' emphasizing the mental fortitude required in extreme situations. This segment adds a personal touch, showcasing the guests' ability to blend humor with serious topics.

William Shatner ([51:14]): "I have found. I did the experiment, at least on myself. Right."

9. Science vs. Pop Culture ([53:05])

Scott Kelly addresses a Twitter debate sparked by a Top Gun movie scene, where he clarifies the realistic outcomes of high-speed ejection from aircraft based on his firsthand experience. This exchange underscores the importance of scientific accuracy in popular media.

Scott Kelly ([53:05]): "At Mach 10.5... your body would splatter like a chainmail glove swatting a worm."

10. Final Thoughts: The Spirit of Exploration ([58:17])

As the episode wraps up, William Shatner shares heartfelt praise for Scott Kelly and Jasmine Wilson, highlighting their curiosity and enthusiasm as infectious traits that inspire others. The discussion reinforces the central theme that embracing risk is integral to the spirit of exploration.

William Shatner ([58:17]): "Your enthusiasm, your boyish curiosity... it is contagious."

---

Key Takeaways:

• Risk and Exploration: Both historical and modern explorers, including astronauts, embrace significant risks to push the boundaries of human achievement.
• Physiological Challenges: Extended space missions have profound effects on the human body, offering valuable insights but also posing risks.
• Science in Pop Culture: Accurate scientific representation is crucial in media portrayals to inspire and educate the public effectively.
• Human Spirit: The innate drive to explore, despite dangers, is a defining characteristic of humanity, continuously shaping our journey into the unknown.

Notable Quotes:

• Scott Kelly ([27:10]): "After spending a year in space... my heart is smaller than it was when I went in there."
• William Shatner ([32:31]): "If you know that much about where you're going and it can be done in the safety and comfort of a luxury ship, then is it really exploration if the risks have been reduced?"
• William Shatner ([58:17]): "Your enthusiasm, your boyish curiosity... it is contagious."

---

This episode of StarTalk Radio masterfully intertwines personal experiences with scientific discourse, offering listeners a comprehensive exploration of risk, physiology, and the relentless human pursuit of discovery. Whether you're a fan of space exploration, pop culture, or simply intrigued by the complexities of venturing into the unknown, this episode provides valuable insights and engaging conversations that resonate long after the final word.

Transcript

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

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[William Shatner]

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[William Shatner]

This past December 2024, I was on a ship to Antarctica. That's one of my bucket list items and I couldn't resist because there were some notables on board and I said this would make a good StarTalk episode. So I snared the one and only William Shatner. Captain Kirk. I don't know if you know, but he is a big fan of exploration. That's not a hard stretch given what he's known for, crossing the universe during the TV commercials using warp drives. But he's also a deep thinker and he loves science, so I had to get him on the program. And also on board was NASA astronaut Scott Kelly. You may remember he's a twin with Mark Kelly and both of them have been in space, but Scott Kelly in particular was sent into orbit into the International space station for 340 days, almost an entire year. He holds the record for continuous time and space. For an American, he has a lot to say about exploration and he's a big fan of Shackleton. And let's remember that every explorer who goes where no one has gone before is a risk taker. So if you encounter a challenge where you say, this might not work, this could be dangerous. For some people, Captain Kirk included, risk is their business. It's a conversation I'm having with both of them for StarTalk on board a ship to Antarctica. Check it out. Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. Scott, we're in the Drake Passage right now. Could you give us a little background on that? Why are we listening? Why are we feel nausea? What's going on here on Earth?

[Scott Kelly]

Yeah, well, the, you know, the Drake Passage is the part of the Southern Ocean where, at the tip between South America and Antarctica, Cape Horn, the tip.

[William Shatner]

Yeah.

[Scott Kelly]

But where the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans meet. And it's very deep here, which causes, with the prevailing winds that are generally west to east, some pretty big swells. And I think we're seeing about, I don't know, maybe 14, 15ft right now, but they can get as high as 50ft in this passage.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Ooh.

[William Shatner]

So we're in a, a cruise ship. What would this passage have been like in a wooden ship a hundred years ago?

[Jasmine Wilson]

You wouldn't want to do it.

[William Shatner]

But risk is our business.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Yes, I said that.

[Scott Kelly]

Yeah. I think it would be pretty harrowing, you know, in this kind of, even in this sea state, in a ship like that. But I can't imagine being at swells of 40 and 50ft. I was just talking to my brother on the phone.

[William Shatner]

This is your twin brother.

[Scott Kelly]

Twin brother?

[William Shatner]

Last interviewed you on StarTalk. I said, which brother are you? You said, you're the good looking brother. Yeah, that's still true. Okay.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Yeah.

[Scott Kelly]

But anyway, he was telling me about being in the North Atlantic on a cargo ship because we were both, when we were younger, training to be Merchant Mariners in 80 foot seas and losing 20 containers off the ship. So if you think this is bad, just imagine that.

[William Shatner]

So now, Mr. Shatner, my dear, your show, the original Star Trek series in the 1960s was coincident with while we were priming our space program to go to the moon. But as far as your show is concerned, we were already there. Space was not a question about whether it should happen. It had already happened.

[Jasmine Wilson]

It was a matter of learning to speak Klingon.

[William Shatner]

As many fans of the show managed to agree. I can't count myself among those who are fluent in cling.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Nor I.

[William Shatner]

So were you just an actor at the time, or did you participate emotionally in this idea that exploration is in our DNA?

[Jasmine Wilson]

Exploration doesn't necessarily mean going to Mars and colonizing Mars. You can explore, for example. May I spend a moment, please, on exploration and why exploration? A while ago, seven years ago, I heard a story of a ranger in the forest and the Sierras occupying a cabin. And he was there, I guess, for fire observation. And while he was living in the cabin alone, deer came and ate the grass around. And then one deer poked its head in the window to see who was there. And he struck up a conference and had a relationship with the herd of deer and discovered that deer had posted types of personality. There was the diplomat deer, who poked his head in to see what was going on. There was the guard deer. There was a deer, you know. So this herd group had assigned roles that he discovered that, my goodness, that's how we organize ourselves. When we were on the most. The last island with the penguins on.

[William Shatner]

This voyage, having just returned from Antarctica.

[Jasmine Wilson]

On this voyage of exploration for all of us, for me, certainly, of discovering new worlds, new whatever that. Whatever the language was, and seeing new civilizations, which were the penguins. And a penguin came up to the group that was standing, having landed, and the penguin.

[Scott Kelly]

What are you doing here?

[William Shatner]

Was that what it was saying?

[Jasmine Wilson]

This was the diplomat penguin.

[William Shatner]

Okay.

[Jasmine Wilson]

And I thought, of course, this whole thing is a circle of life. And here's a penguin acting like the deer and the ranger and us and this circle. I thought, wow, what a discovery of. We're in this arid land that's rife with life, but you can't see too much of it, but it's there, and the penguins are a big part of it, and it's exploration. And I was a discovery and I had the best time.

[William Shatner]

Okay, so what you're saying here implicitly and explicitly, is that humans aren't the only curious animals out there.

[Jasmine Wilson]

That's right. The penguin was exploring.

[William Shatner]

It was exploring in its own way.

[Jasmine Wilson]

No, it was exploring in a very explicit way. What are you guys doing here? You're two legs, you don't waddle. Well, some of us waddle, but you.

[William Shatner]

Point to me that I waddle. I don't. Let's go back 60 years ago. You're an actor, by the way. By the way, I don't know if you knew this But William Shatner appeared in two distinct episodes of the Twilight Zone. Yes, and quite memorable episodes at that, predating, of course, the Star Trek series. You're an actor in Hollywood. Yes. And so was there anything in particular that drew you to the part?

[Jasmine Wilson]

You're talking about Star Trek.

[William Shatner]

Yeah, Star Trek.

[Jasmine Wilson]

I was in New York doing something in New York and they had made a pilot of Star Trek and NBC didn't want to buy the pilot. They had faults with it, but they loved the idea and they wanted, for the first time. I'd never heard of it before, I've never heard of it since. They said, we'll give you another. Whatever the cost was to make another pilot, recast it all. And they called me. I was in New York, they called me, would I come to Hollywood to see this thing that they had made with the idea of playing the captain? So I was like, ushered in.

[William Shatner]

Can I presume you had no idea what impact that would have on our culture at the time?

[Jasmine Wilson]

None whatsoever. And I saw the thing that NBC had turned down. I thought, that's pretty darn good. It's a little pedantic. It's a little, you know, here we are sailing the five oceans. But whereas the guys in the capsules are all friendly and, you know, there isn't this distance between them. So I suggested little more camaraderie and humor and we sold the pilot.

[William Shatner]

So when I look at this, by the way, I don't know if anybody's ever been to Comic Con. The one, at least in San Diego, I don't know if they also do this in New York. The very last session is a starship smackdown where every single starship spaceship ever appeared in fictional storytelling is put up on display like drawings of them, photos of them, and you vote. There are people arguing the case of one ship or another, of which is the greatest of ships. The year the starship Enterprise won that what carried the day was a simple fact that no ship before then ever displayed in storytelling was ever designed to just explore. Every ship you ever see someone get into and out of in a science fiction movie or story. It's designed to take you to a destination. That's why those ships existed. So this as a concept is like, oh, my gosh, exploration was paramount in why the ship existed at all.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Right. It was designed. I mean, what you've said is valid. The truth of the matter is the designer of the ship had designed many versions, put them on a wall and invited all the executives in to see which aspect of which drawing they loved. And then he combined what everybody loves. It was like a potpourri of.

[William Shatner]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Scott Kelly]

Yeah, NASA's done that before, I think.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Say that again.

[Scott Kelly]

NASA's done that before. That's why they get canceled.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Space Shuttle.

[William Shatner]

Space shuttle is an amalgam of ideas stapled together pretty much.

[Jasmine Wilson]

It's a noble looking ship. The. It's got, it's got. It looks like it should go someplace. Unfortunately, it's not powered right.

[William Shatner]

The Space Shuttle orbiter, it's got wings and jet nozzles out the back. So it seems to me wherever you are, you ought to be able to choose, let's go someplace new. And in fact, that's what they did in the film Armageddon.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Yes, but in real life, once they start their approach, they gotta land it.

[William Shatner]

That's one of the reasons why Armageddon violated more known laws of physics per minute than any other film ever made. So just tell me about the space shuttle, what it meant if its only job, as fun and versatile as it looked, if its only job was to get you to orbit.

[Scott Kelly]

No, it's not. That wasn't its only job.

[William Shatner]

Oh, please.

[Scott Kelly]

So he. The Space Shuttle is one of the most, is the most diverse spacecraft we've ever built and probably will be so in our lifetime. But it has one serious limitation. It's heavy and it doesn't carry enough fuel to get out of low Earth orbit. But it does launch people. It launches cargo. It can build things. It built an International Space Station. It can be its own science laboratory. You can do spacewalks from it.

[William Shatner]

And that cargo bay is huge, as far as I can tell because it launched, it deployed the Hubble Space Telescope. And my favorite size analog to this Hubble Telescope, it's about the size of a Greyhound bus, which means you could lower a Greyhound bus into the payload of the shuttle.

[Scott Kelly]

Yeah, something that weighed up to £50,000. Whereas the Soyuz, if you use that as the counter example, this is the Russian, the Russian Soyuz spacecraft is really only designed to launch three people and a very small amount of cargo. And that's it does it very well, but it doesn't do very much.

[William Shatner]

You've been up more than once. Have you been up on each of those craft?

[Scott Kelly]

Twice on each.

[William Shatner]

Twice on each, yeah. So now maybe because the Soyuz is not as complex as the shuttle and the orbiter and the solid rocket boosters, the Soyuz has the best safety record of any space rocket.

[Scott Kelly]

They've had two fatal in flight accidents, just like the space shuttle, but less people.

[William Shatner]

Okay.

[Scott Kelly]

Similar number of flights, but oh, I.

[William Shatner]

Thought they had many more flights. Okay, I didn't know that.

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[Jasmine Wilson]

I'm Jasmine Wilson and I support StarTalk on Patreon.

[William Shatner]

This is StarTalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Where does this fit with you? We know we learned earlier on this voyage you gave a marvelous talk reviewing Shackleton the Explorer to the Antarctic and the trials and tribulations he went through and no one died after he got stuck in the ice. And he's a bit of a hero of yours, as we all felt.

[Jasmine Wilson]

And mine too, and yours too.

[William Shatner]

So here's someone who's gone where no one has gone before.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Oh, I've heard that.

[Scott Kelly]

Boldly, Boldly.

[William Shatner]

Boldly gone where no one has gone before.

[Jasmine Wilson]

He's right. You sound so good on the track. Is that you narrating it?

[Scott Kelly]

That was me.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Boldly Go. Oh, my God.

[Scott Kelly]

That was you, though, right?

[Jasmine Wilson]

That was me.

[William Shatner]

That was right. With the very famous split infinitive.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Boldly Go. Go Boldly.

[William Shatner]

Yeah. And later, in the later films, they said to go boldly.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Well, I wrote a book called A Boldly Go.

[William Shatner]

Yeah, no, we loved that. When they tried to fix the grammar in a later movie, it was like, no, that's just. Just deal with it.

[Jasmine Wilson]

It doesn't work that way.

[William Shatner]

Yeah, it doesn't work that way.

[Jasmine Wilson]

You were talking about ships and its efficiency. I was invited to the Cape one time. Rolled out the rest of the Cape.

[William Shatner]

Canaveral Flor.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Yeah. Where they would launch all our spaceships. And in the center of one of those hangars, on a platform, was the lunar excursion module. The LEM went up the stairs, and they invited me in to the lm, which looks like whatever you call it, you know, the pergola. Yes, exactly. It looks. It's the simplest. And you get inside, and they have a hammock to lie down. I laid down on the hammock, and it's this ridiculous children's toy. And it's got more instruments, more complications. And that's the result from the shuttle to the spaceship to the thing and the mud. They've got a little garden tool thing to land on the moon. Get out there, take a picture, get back in, and then meet up with the. Whatever we call it, the thing circulating command module, orbiting. Then they get out of the land, into the. Into the ship that's going to take them back to the. Back to Earth. And this. What happens to the. Oh, that's been let. No, no. What happens to.

[Scott Kelly]

It crashes into the moon.

[Jasmine Wilson]

It crashes into the moon. That's how.

[William Shatner]

Eventually, I guess, however, if memory serves, Apollo 13 realized that for their life support, they needed some of the life support that was on the LEM. So that in missions subsequent to Apollo 13, didn't they keep the lamb a little further in towards Earth to make sure? Is that what happened? I don't remember.

[Scott Kelly]

They used to use life support systems to save themselves. The life support systems on the lem, they had to do some modifications, but they were able to use that to, you know, safely get back.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Can you imagine? You're getting. And they're saying, well, what do we do. And the engineers down on Earth are saying, well, try this and try that and you're going to die. But when you talk about exploration and the means of exploration from the. What's his name? Thor Heidel, using papyrus as a raft and then getting to all shackled in a wooden boat. And here we are on this modern liner, which was being explained by you that the engines here are of particular make. And because we don't hear the engines propelling this boat as we are right now going back to Ushuaia, we don't hear the engines except every so often. And I didn't understand why. You hear. When we're parked, you hear a rumble, I think. What is that? Is that the anchor going down the ground? It's not.

[William Shatner]

Well, it's station keeping.

[Jasmine Wilson]

It's the station keeping from.

[William Shatner]

Yeah. So you could drop an anchor, but if you don't need to, then why. Right. And now we know exactly where the boat is.

[Jasmine Wilson]

We.

[William Shatner]

It's not my boat.

[Jasmine Wilson]

The captain knows all the means of exploration going on the variety of things that we're using to explore.

[William Shatner]

Well, let me throw a little monkey wrench in this as usual. If you know that much about where you're going and it can be done in the safety and comfort of a luxury ship, then is it really exploration if the risks have been reduced?

[Jasmine Wilson]

If you're rowing in an open water boat, you're more exploring than getting.

[William Shatner]

If you're going where no one has gone before, that is exploration. All right, if you're attempting tasks that have never been attempted before. Scott goes into orbit, he's a guinea pig for the doctors on Earth because he's got a twin brother we're going to learn about. No one had done that before with a twin brother.

[Jasmine Wilson]

That's incredible. What an incredible thing.

[William Shatner]

Your brother was not the guinea pig. You were. Cause you're in space and you're exposed to cosmic rays, what happened to you?

[Scott Kelly]

Well, I was exposed to the environment. He was the guinea pig on Earth. That was.

[William Shatner]

Yeah, keep telling yourself that. He's chilling on the safety of Earth's surface and you're not.

[Scott Kelly]

And you know, he had people following him around the country and taking all kinds of samples and having to leave stuff outside his front door and also.

[William Shatner]

Was like the lowest stuff outside his front door. We figured that is.

[Scott Kelly]

Yeah. For people to pick up. Lois. Lois. Paid government employee at the time because they had to pay him. So he was making minimum wage because he was no longer a NASA astronaut. So I really have to hand it to him to do that. Whereas I was like getting all the glory by being in space. But also, like you mentioned, the radiation.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Yeah, but your heart is smaller than it was when you went in there.

[William Shatner]

Yeah. Stuff happened to you.

[Scott Kelly]

It grew back.

[Jasmine Wilson]

It did.

[Scott Kelly]

But as my wife Amico says, it's a good thing I started with a big heart.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Oh, that's great.

[William Shatner]

I just want to understand this. So even though the exploration was not in the realm of place, it was in the realm of physiology. It's exploratory physiology.

[Jasmine Wilson]

It's exploration.

[William Shatner]

I agree, I agree, I agree. So what did we learn by exploring what happens to your body in orbit.

[Scott Kelly]

For how many days on that mission? 340.

[William Shatner]

340. They couldn't stay an extra 25 days and call it a year?

[Scott Kelly]

I wanted to, but the Russians had a certain schedule they had to meet, so we had to come back.

[William Shatner]

Because you came back on the Soyuz.

[Scott Kelly]

Yeah.

[William Shatner]

Let me remind people, the Soyuz does not land in water. They just land on land.

[Jasmine Wilson]

They crash land on the boat.

[William Shatner]

They crash land.

[Scott Kelly]

Yeah. It's really not a landing.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Well, a zealandage, if you walk away, it's a landing.

[Scott Kelly]

It's the ultimate E ticket ride when that parachute opens. And if I hated being in space every minute for that entire 340 days, I'd do it all over again for that last 20 minutes.

[William Shatner]

Really just the, the thrill.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Last 20 minutes of coming back to Earth, you mean? What was that like?

[Scott Kelly]

Well, this. When the parachute opens, you're just. You just tumble and are thrown around like crazy. And there have been, I, I know one of one particular person, I'm sure other people have felt this way, who was an experienced test pilot. I'm not going to say the person's name because I don't want to embarrass them. But he was not, apparently not, briefed on how dynamic the landing is. And he started screaming because he thought he was going to die.

[Jasmine Wilson]

High pitch or low and guttural?

[Scott Kelly]

I wasn't there.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Yeah, because there's flames coming out of the tile. Right.

[Scott Kelly]

It's like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, but while you're on fire. And as soon as you realize the.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Flames are coming up through the windows, you're on fire.

[William Shatner]

That's while you're slowing down on chute.

[Scott Kelly]

Opens a little bit later.

[William Shatner]

The chute opens later than that.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Oh, I understand that. But in that moment when I was screaming, flames are coming up, you're burning up. And you don't know whether the tiles are glued down and up. They May be flipping out the tiles. May be they lost some tiles.

[Scott Kelly]

There's a lot of things you don't.

[William Shatner]

Know that's going on from the inside. You don't see what it's going on the outside.

[Scott Kelly]

You might not want to know.

[Jasmine Wilson]

What was it like to have so three of you in the ship? Right. And one guy's going, what's that like?

[Scott Kelly]

I wasn't there on that one. But it was only reported afterwards that.

[Jasmine Wilson]

This particular person did they say, you can't do that.

[Scott Kelly]

I don't know. Lot going on then. You might not.

[Jasmine Wilson]

I'm an astronaut and I explore space. I'm going to Mars. But when I came down, I saw flames.

[William Shatner]

But I still want to get to the bottom of the. Advancing a space frontier by learning what's happening to your physiology. So.

[Scott Kelly]

Oh, yeah, okay. Let me get back to that.

[William Shatner]

Heart sunk.

[Scott Kelly]

Yeah. Heart shrunk. 25%. Changes to my telomeres.

[Jasmine Wilson]

25%?

[Scott Kelly]

Yeah.

[William Shatner]

Telomeres, that's like the end of your DNA or something. Yeah.

[Scott Kelly]

Really an indication of your physical age. As you get older, they get shorter, more afraid. Initially, NASA thought that was due to the controlled diet and exercise. Later, you know, we learned that there were some worms that the Japanese were doing telomere experiments on, too, and their telomeres got better while they were on the space station. Never once saw them working out on the treadmill or doing any kind of exercise. So it turns out it was actually the radiation. Most important result that I always want everyone to understand and point out, is after spending a year in space, like you mentioned earlier, I am now not only smarter but more handsome than my brother Mark.

[William Shatner]

Would he agree to that?

[Scott Kelly]

Probably not.

[William Shatner]

Okay. This idea of pushing the limits of not only what a machine can do, but what human physiology can do. This is exploration. And who. And who? You. You, sir.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Yes.

[William Shatner]

Now the oldest person to ascend above the carbon ladder.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Again, I am not. My telomeres are very long.

[William Shatner]

Okay, but let me ask you this. When I saw you go up the ladder to go into space, into the Blue Origin capsule.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Yes.

[William Shatner]

You know, and I said, this man is 89 years old. How old were you for that flight?

[Jasmine Wilson]

I don't know, 32, something like that.

[William Shatner]

No. Times three.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Wait a minute. I'm walking up the stairs to go. And they're vent. Something's venting out of a pipe out.

[William Shatner]

Of the side of the ship.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Side of the ship. What's that? Hydrogen. Hydrogen. The fuel. Zeppelin.

[William Shatner]

The Hindenburg.

[Jasmine Wilson]

The Hindenburg burned. And hydrogen was what was burning?

[William Shatner]

Yeah.

[Jasmine Wilson]

And I'm looking at this.

[William Shatner]

There was some coating of aluminum powder on the surface to make it highly.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Reflective, that burned, also scattering electricity up.

[Scott Kelly]

Had you been in Russia, not only would the thing be venting the fuel, there'd be people smoking cigarettes right at the bottom of the launch pad.

[William Shatner]

Let us be candid with ourselves that part of the risk of exploring on some level is even the risk of even starting the trip.

[Jasmine Wilson]

If you're exploring, you're ready to die, because you're going at some level, you.

[William Shatner]

Gotta be ready to die. Here you go. What probability of death would you have accepted? What's the highest probability of death? You would have accepted to do that mission?

[Scott Kelly]

To launch on the space shuttle?

[William Shatner]

Yes.

[Scott Kelly]

Well, I launched on the space shuttle. I was STS103. And so we had approximately 103 prior missions. And there was one fatal accident. So that's a 1% chance of dying. Yes. What would I have accepted? Certainly not 50%. 10%, maybe. Maybe 10%. It would depend on what we were doing.

[Jasmine Wilson]

That's an interesting question.

[William Shatner]

Yes.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Because death is so permanent, you lose the bet. It's 10 to 1. You don't just pay up. Here's the hundred I owe you. It's your life. One percent is not acceptable. Nothing is acceptable. I'm going up. I'm a test pilot. I've tested this plane, I've tested this thing. I know it works. I'm not going up to die. I'm going to explore.

[Scott Kelly]

Oh, that has to be your attitude.

[Jasmine Wilson]

That has to be your attitude, and.

[Scott Kelly]

That'S what you come to terms with. Like, I would think about it leading up to my first flight with, you know, you kind of rationalize, hey, for one, I want to do this. I think it's important. I want to serve my country. It's my job. I'm a test pilot. There is risk. My brother and I used to exchange those, like, death letters for our families. Like, if the thing blows up, give this to my wife and children and we would do the same. Fortunately, never had to use those. But it's, you know, everything.

[William Shatner]

Is that a thing in NASA, is that a thing? Death letters?

[Scott Kelly]

Maybe. I don't know. The thing with my brother and I.

[Jasmine Wilson]

You'Re a test pilot. So you've run that. It's a new airplane and you're testing the airplane. So you run that airplane along the Runway, the front. Now you're a foot off the ground, you make a circle and get you 10ft, 20ft, 30, then you're 50ft. By that time you know, the plane works. You go up to Mars.

[Scott Kelly]

No, you know, it worked. It might not continue to work. As you expand out the envelope now.

[Jasmine Wilson]

You press a button, you eject. I mean, the chances of living. Now let's go to Mars, guys. Okay. Flames. Scream. Ah, flames. And then finally, you're into orbit and you're going towards Mars. You're going to die. Meteorites, radiation. Landing on Mars.

[William Shatner]

This is why we have engineers.

[Scott Kelly]

You may die.

[Jasmine Wilson]

What?

[Scott Kelly]

You're not definitely gonna die. You may die.

[William Shatner]

It's why we have engineers to figure this out.

[Jasmine Wilson]

You're going to die. The chances of you surviving a meteorite hit or lasting six months on Mars with all that radiation and then getting back in and saying, oh, more flames. You got to get liftoff. Get out of orbit of. I mean, and land on Earth. You're going to die.

[William Shatner]

Okay? None of us want to hear you say that. Who uttered the words to boldly go into.

[Jasmine Wilson]

You're going to die. Boldly go. Boldly go to your death. And if you don't die, we'll congratulate you and we'll tell you your telomeres are lengthening.

[William Shatner]

You know, take us back to Antarctica. They're on the open sea. They could be monsters in the ocean. There could be weather patterns they've never thought of or predicted. They don't know how much food they'll actually need. They don't even know if there will be food there.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Gavin coined the word katabatic or adabatic.

[William Shatner]

What does that mean?

[Jasmine Wilson]

100 mile an hour winds coming downwind, or 100 mile an hour is going up. 100 mile an hour winds. You gotta. You're in a rowboat, for crying out loud. You gotta sail. Sail's good for 15 knots. 20 knots. You're going to blow your sails out. 30 knots. Your masts are crashing. You're going to die.

[William Shatner]

So what I have come to learn, being a member of the species that we call Homo sapiens, not all of us fear the risk of death at the same level.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Wait a minute.

[William Shatner]

Well, hang on. No, very simple. There are people who ascend Mount Everest knowing there's a real chance they're going to die.

[Jasmine Wilson]

They got oxygen, they've got parkas. They're going to slide down on their ass down the glacier to get back to camp. They've got Sherpas who go up without oxygen, run up and run back. If you need some help, sir, I'll help you. Says a Sherpa.

[William Shatner]

They probably give the, you know, all those National Geographic specials where they show someone ascending the mountain for the first time. But there's a camera already there when they get up to the top. Who got the camera? The camera got there first?

[Jasmine Wilson]

The Sherpa.

[William Shatner]

The Sherpa and the camera got there first.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Exactly.

[William Shatner]

But what I'm saying is there are people who jump out of airplanes willingly. People who rock climb.

[Jasmine Wilson]

But they have a parachute. They're not going. This thing's going to open. How about that guy that jumped out of his 50,000? Yeah, Baumgartner.

[William Shatner]

Felix Baumgartner. Who by the way.

[Scott Kelly]

He was scared.

[William Shatner]

He was a guest.

[Jasmine Wilson]

He was dead. He was scared. Scared he was gonna die the moment he started twisting. I'm gonna die of centrifugal force. How would you like to die of centrifugal force? Your blood comes out of your ears.

[William Shatner]

I had Felix Baumgartner on startalk. Yes. He check our archives. And he's a pretty good guy. I thought he'd be a little weird.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

What was he?

[Jasmine Wilson]

Exploring?

[William Shatner]

He liked. Look, he liked exploring the limits of his own body's tolerance.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Okay, so it's like a rock climber. How many rock climbers live to 40? Nobody. You know why they're after that thrill after a while to climb a rock. I gotta go further. I gotta go further.

[William Shatner]

Here's where I want to take this. Listen to me. Some of us do that and some of them die. Those who don't die figured out how to do it without dying. They'll write about it. There'll be someone documenting it. No. And it opens up horizons for the rest of us who aren't that brave.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Wait a minute.

[William Shatner]

And that's how we got.

[Jasmine Wilson]

You don't understand. They're a joke.

[William Shatner]

Because risk is our business.

[Jasmine Wilson]

I've heard that their adrenaline junkies, they need the adrenaline. And the adrenaline doesn't flow after three times.

[William Shatner]

Dude. If we didn't have them in our species.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Yeah.

[William Shatner]

We'd still be in the cave.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Exactly. They're the explorers.

[William Shatner]

Yes.

[Jasmine Wilson]

And as they falling, they say, I'm dying. And that's it.

[William Shatner]

But the next person that does it makes sure that they don't make whatever mistakes.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Exactly. That the previous person make their own mistake. And that's what. That's what they. These guys are. That's who these. That's who the original group of astronauts were.

[Scott Kelly]

I agree with you on the. On the one. The one way mission is not something I would be interested in. Having lived in a. In a. In an enclosed sealed environment for a year when you cannot walk outside, you know, Earth has like everything practically for, for humans. It has everything, everything to offer.

[William Shatner]

Scott, Scott. We went 150 years with people coming from Europe on one way trips to the new world.

[Scott Kelly]

Oh, I know it's for some people. It's not for me, it's not for you. I would not want to live on Mars for the rest of my life. However, I would watch that reality show because I think at some point it's going to turn into like Lord of the Flies situation.

[William Shatner]

Oh, the darker side of what it is to be human.

[Jasmine Wilson]

But that, that's what you're on. We're on to an interesting part of this thesis of what is exploration. Those who do explore, those not, you know, the ranger with the deer and the penguin who asked a question, that's one kind of exploration. But the jeopardy of exploration is something to be discussed. Who goes on what could be a one way trip? These guys didn't know they were, they, they, they had to know. When that guy, when that brave astronaut was seeing flames coming up from the entry point and screaming, I'm going to die. That's just his humanity. But he was willing to go. Somebody must have said, you know son, the, the, the tiles are going to heat up and you'll probably feel some heat and it's going to look, oh, it's okay, I can take that. But when you see it flaming and it's going to burn your parachute and you're screaming, you're succumbing to humanity.

[William Shatner]

So you don't always know where your limits are.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Exactly.

[William Shatner]

Even if you have bravado leading up to that.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Exactly, you're bravado, but that's what this adrenaline is. One more rock I can climb. I'll put my fingers in there. I got a grip, I got a grip. Do I let go with the legs? I don't know whether I can.

[William Shatner]

Because I can tell you the only people, friends I've ever had who died prematurely were rock climbers dying in just such an accident.

[Jasmine Wilson]

I'm telling you, that's why they do it. Free climbing.

[William Shatner]

See, I grew up in a city. The city was dangerous enough. I don't need to add other dangers.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Exactly.

[William Shatner]

Okay, I already was feeling. It wasn't the exploration gene, it was a survival gene. Enough so that I don't need to do something else to put my life at risk.

[Jasmine Wilson]

So what is your collective opinion on people who are looking at like the people who are going to go to Mars once the instruments go, people are going to go for at least a year and A half.

[William Shatner]

Wait, wait. So, Bill, I think the people who want to go to Mars have already noticed that NASA has plunked an SUV sized rover on Mars following a half dozen other rovers that got there before it. And this current rover brought a helicopter. So Mars is not some unbreached place in this.

[Jasmine Wilson]

By humanity.

[William Shatner]

By humanity. So I think that they're not thinking they're going to die.

[Jasmine Wilson]

No, but they know that the risk, like Scott was saying, 1%, you know, out of 99. 1%. That's pretty good odds. I'm not going to die. But would you put the odds at 50? 50 to go to Mars? I would say 50. 50 is very generous.

[William Shatner]

I agree. For the first ones to Mars, I'd agree.

[Scott Kelly]

And I think that's what they were considering maybe even for Apollo 11. Right, Charlie? Maybe a 50% chance of success.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Really. So now you're looking at guys in the magnificence. And they were all men at that time in the magnificence of their manhood. They running on the beach. They're in the best physical shape. They've learned everything. Nine, six years of geology, Jose was saying, wasted on him because he was Jose. Another astronaut on board trained to a warrior degree. They are wielding their swords of intellect like the ancient Spartans.

[William Shatner]

Yes.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Okay.

[William Shatner]

Yes.

[Jasmine Wilson]

They're gonna die nobly. One percent chance. That's what these guys were. That's the original 16, 19. What was it?

[Scott Kelly]

Original 7.

[Jasmine Wilson]

The original 7.

[William Shatner]

Well, the Mercury 7. The original Mercury 7, yeah. Mercury 7. By the way, in the spirit of your exchange letters of who might die within. A few years ago, I forgot exactly when it went public, the letter that Nixon was going to read. Had Apollo 11 not successfully left the moon and if it couldn't launch, they'd still be alive until they died. And so you'd be watching them die.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Which is another aspect. You couldn't test that lem's takeoff. Right. The lem's takeoff could not have been tested on Earth.

[Scott Kelly]

Well, I'm sure they fired the engine many times.

[Jasmine Wilson]

One sixth the gravity and suffering that journey. And landing. Landing.

[William Shatner]

But we do have the laws of physics which work very well for us. Yeah. It's not just a random. When we ignite it, where will it go? I don't know.

[Jasmine Wilson]

No, not where will it go, but will it work? Was random. Will it work in those kind of. With that kind of GS starting off and landing and circling.

[William Shatner]

Every mission before Apollo 11 was incrementally leading up to. To that landing right up to Apollo 10. Right up to Apollo 10. We all forgot Apollo 10, but that one was important. It got to the moon deployed.

[Jasmine Wilson]

But if you're in an airplane, in the density of this air and you can pull a switch and eject is far different from circling the moon and wondering, with its little collapsible arugula, what was it? The little hut that was. That they were going to live in the moon. Live on the moon. And it. And. And get the fire to get back into orbit and then climb from that back into there and then get from there back to there. I mean, the chances were incredible.

[Scott Kelly]

That's why they're heroes.

[Jasmine Wilson]

That's why they're here. That's why they're here. Exactly.

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[William Shatner]

So we're running short on time here. One feature of Star Trek in the original series, and it trickled into other incarnations of it, was that there was a morality tale. So each episode was a lesson in how we treat one another here on Earth, but under the guise of, oh, it's just science fiction and it's aliens. And it's. So that would get you to comment on a lot of prevailing geopolitics, social, cultural issues, racial issues.

[Jasmine Wilson]

And my favorite episode was the one where guy was black and white and the other guy was white and black.

[William Shatner]

With Frank Gorshin was the lead actor.

[Scott Kelly]

Mine too.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Yeah.

[William Shatner]

In that episode, the aliens were exactly half black, half white, and one group of them were persecuting the other group. Why? Because they were black on the other half of their bodies. And so again, it's just the space, but really, they're Mirrors back to civilization, especially there in the 1960s, civil rights movement was still in full swing. So I just want to say, to be able to explore and still do something socially conscious, I think was. With Gene Roddenberry as the creative genius behind it all.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Yes, you should get a lot of credit. But there were other guys that really worked on the show.

[William Shatner]

Okay.

[Scott Kelly]

You know, people as a. And I was a huge Star Trek fan as a kid. My early memories were watching sneaking behind the couch, watching Star Trek episodes when I was like five years old, when my mother didn't know my brother and I were there.

[Jasmine Wilson]

What were you doing behind the couch?

[Scott Kelly]

We were just hiding so she wouldn't see us. We were supposed to be in bed and we would watch and she would be.

[William Shatner]

Same with me. We weren't allowed to watch TV during.

[Scott Kelly]

The week and it was scary.

[William Shatner]

So I had to catch most of.

[Scott Kelly]

It in reruns and Apollo 11 memories. But as an astronaut, people would sometimes ask me a simple question, you know, the yes, no questions or the binary question. Star Trek or Star Wars?

[Jasmine Wilson]

What was your answer? Scott?

[Scott Kelly]

I used to say when I was a young fighter pilot. Oh, absolutely. Star Wars X Wing fighter.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott.

[Scott Kelly]

Security.

[William Shatner]

Could you get him off of this stage?

[Scott Kelly]

As I got older, you're a test.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Pilot, so you gotta be in your 20s.

[Scott Kelly]

You know, once I got into my 40s, my 50s, you know, the harsh edges have gotten rubbed off on me a little bit. Clearly Star Trek now because of the very reason you mentioned and how that show was just so far ahead of its time, decades ahead of the time.

[William Shatner]

It cared about the laws of physics, unlike Star Wars. Just to be clear here, I didn't want this to go unrecognized. You flew for the Navy, correct?

[Scott Kelly]

Correct.

[William Shatner]

I just want to make sure that's on the table here. Why, why.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Why is it important that he flew for the Navy?

[Scott Kelly]

I was a fighter pilot. Oh, Versus the Air Force. Because the Navy. Being a Navy pilot, much more challenging than being an Air Force pilot. That's why it's important. Sorry, Charlie.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Landing on those carriers. Landing on the carrier. Landing on a carrier at night apparently is the.

[Scott Kelly]

That's the worst.

[Jasmine Wilson]

The worst.

[William Shatner]

Because I once went on a centrifuge at a. In Brandeis University. We were doing a show there, and they had a centrifuge and they didn't put it at its fastest or anything. And I got off and my lunch came out of me. And it was so I realized I.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Was none unlike this ship right now.

[William Shatner]

I realized I was the inadequate stuff rather than the right stuff. But I can handle that because I have other talents I think I can bring.

[Jasmine Wilson]

This is the second time I've talked to you in the last couple of days where your upchucking has been a subject. Is it a fetish with you? I mean, are you trying to release something from inside you? What is it?

[William Shatner]

I'm exposing my vulnerable side. That's who you are.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Yeah. That's all. You're letting us see your insides.

[William Shatner]

So we can land this plane here, if I may use a metaphor from your. Or land this starship. When I look at the challenges of Shackleton and other polar explorers, it is many dimensional. It is the temperature, it is the time, it is a place they've never been before. Do they have enough food? There's all manner of things that have never been breached before. And it's all rolled up into one expedition and that's got to be the scariest thing ever. So can you just comment on that? Reflect on how. It's one thing to say Mars is a risk because there's radiation, or maybe I'll get a radiation suit or something, that's one thing. But if you got 20 things that could kill you, you know what it reminds me of? I don't remember which film. It's one of these sci fi films. Where their hand. Oh, I remember. Excuse me. I remember what it was. It was a movie, Contact, based on the Carl Sagan novel where Jodie Foster's character is going to visit the aliens. All right, because they sent us a recipe of how to do that before she gets on board this newfangled alien spacecraft. They hand her this thing to bite on, that where she can kill herself, commit suicide. Cyanide pill, some kind of. It might have been cyanide or I don't remember what it was, but it's sticking. And she says, you think I'm going to travel all the way just to kill myself? And they leveled with her. They said, we can list 100 reasons why you might want to do this. What scares us are the hundred reasons we can't think of why you might want to do this.

[Jasmine Wilson]

I want to ask one question about that very element of torture.

[William Shatner]

Yes.

[Jasmine Wilson]

You're dressed in a suit from head to toe. I mean, it's airtight. Water is flowing through it to cool it. It's 200 degrees on that thing. And your armpit itches. What do you do?

[Scott Kelly]

Well, you can't do anything. The worst, though, is something on your face or suffice.

[William Shatner]

Yeah.

[Jasmine Wilson]

You can Kind of scratch your cheek. And you can't scratch your cheek. What do you do?

[Scott Kelly]

You deal with it.

[Jasmine Wilson]

What do you mean deal with them?

[William Shatner]

You did the right stuff. They're not gonna freak out'cause their face itches.

[Jasmine Wilson]

No. I don't mind dying, but I gotta scratch this itch.

[Scott Kelly]

Not something we really ever talk about.

[Jasmine Wilson]

But it's so practical.

[William Shatner]

As I understand there was a variant on the spacesuit where they had like a thing where you can maneuver it from the outside, it can scratch. I. I read about this.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Is that true?

[Scott Kelly]

I don't know. I've never heard.

[William Shatner]

I just heard about this.

[Jasmine Wilson]

You may have heard about it.

[William Shatner]

I tested this.

[Jasmine Wilson]

He was in one. Okay. Whose word are you going to tell you?

[William Shatner]

So I've tested this. So I tested. I said to myself, if I'm in a spacesuit and my face itches, I can't scratch it. So I said, how long can I go without scratching a face itch? And I would stand there and initially it's a little twitchy.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Yeah.

[William Shatner]

But after a while, the itch goes away.

[Jasmine Wilson]

So I pictured myself as an FBI agent and I'm hiding in a closet and the bad guy is in the room, and I itch. I gotta scratch this thing and he's gonna hear me. Scratch.

[William Shatner]

You wouldn't be a good FBI agent. No.

[Jasmine Wilson]

You have to deal with that itch.

[William Shatner]

Yeah. They'd shoot through the closet and then you'd be removed from the jeep.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Absolutely. Here you got an itch. Where is it?

[William Shatner]

So I found. You can resist itches. If you wait long enough, the itch goes away.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Is that right?

[William Shatner]

I have found. I did the experiment, at least on myself. Right.

[Jasmine Wilson]

So now we've covered that.

[William Shatner]

All of my shows, when they have fun. Folks on. I want to give you a chance to ask me a question about astrophysics. Only because there aren't many astrophysicists in the world. In fact, if you do the numbers is one in a million people in the world is an astrophysicist. So if you're ever in the same.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Space as one of them, you better ask your question. My ambition is to sit down and talk with you about astrophysicists. All the stuff I have no comprehension about that you do. There's so much to learn from you.

[William Shatner]

Ask me one question now I can't think of one.

[Jasmine Wilson]

No, no, Scott. Scott first. Scott go.

[William Shatner]

Yeah.

[Scott Kelly]

I wanted to clear something up for you, Neil.

[William Shatner]

Uh oh. Clear something up from Twitter.

[Scott Kelly]

October 9, in 2022, after the top Gun movie came out, you said late to the party here. But in this year's Top Gun movie, Tom Cruise character Maverick ejects from a hypersonic plane at Mach 10.5 before it crashed.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Holy mackerel.

[Scott Kelly]

He survived with no injuries. At that airspeed, his body would splatter like a chainmail glove swatting a worm. Just saying. And then I responded to it and.

[William Shatner]

I said, thus began the Twitter dust up.

[Scott Kelly]

Yeah. So I said, depends on his altitude. I was going Mach 25 when I left the ISS on a spacewalk. And that was just fine.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Oh, that's true.

[Scott Kelly]

Which is a lot faster. So. And it was interesting to see this whole thing unfold because people chose sides.

[William Shatner]

They so did. There was like, Tyson, you've never been in space, so I'm siding with the guy who's been in space. And other people said, you can't duck the laws of physics. So it divided right down the middle, I think.

[Scott Kelly]

Yeah. And they thought it was just like beef. Like, we hated each other. I don't.

[William Shatner]

It's Twitter. Because the Internet thrives on just that kind of.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Let me ask you an astrophysicist question.

[William Shatner]

Are you going to leave this dangling here? Okay, that's fine.

[Jasmine Wilson]

I'll come back to. He's going 18,000 miles an hour where there's no air. And he's not suffering anything. Because there's no air.

[William Shatner]

Because there's no air.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Right. You're talking about a winged airplane using air as. As a lift.

[William Shatner]

Right.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Ejecting at 10,000.

[William Shatner]

Whatever it is, Mach 10 be 7,000 miles an hour.

[Scott Kelly]

Yeah, but there's almost no air where a Mach 10 airplane would fly.

[William Shatner]

They would fly very high. You can't do that at low altitude. But that's kind of the whole point where there's less air. You can go faster so that you're still intersecting the requisite air molecules to measure the fact that you're going Mach 10 next time you're driving down the street.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Yes.

[William Shatner]

60 miles an hour. Roll down the window.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Yes.

[William Shatner]

Oh, sorry. How do you open windows? Oh, lower the window. Lower the window with the button. Stick your hand out just like that. You can barely hold your hand straight against 60 mile an hour air. That is a hard thing to accomplish. Now increase the speed of that air by a factor of 100. You'd stick your hand out there. Your hand will just blow away separated.

[Jasmine Wilson]

From your arm, and you're gonna. We've missed 100 mile an hour winds here, but they happen all the time.

[William Shatner]

Now pick up. Where are you going with your question? Okay.

[Jasmine Wilson]

The universe is expanding.

[William Shatner]

All measurements tell us that.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Okay, where? So the star system that we saw, we think is the original one, is the farthest away, 13.8 billion years away. Where has it gone? Where's it going?

[William Shatner]

That star system? We see it not as it is today, but as it once was, 13.8 billion years ago. Because that light is only now just reaching it.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Jesus. Yesterday you said that it's instantaneous. I mean, you got to have the rules. Follow the rules here. So wait a minute. So that still is my question. It's only more compounded. So I'm looking at light from that galaxy 13.8 billion years away. And it's another. It's 26. It's 29.6 light years away now.

[William Shatner]

Billion. So what's going on is there's the light you see from objects formed at the beginning of the universe, only now just reaching us today. That object is way farther away from us than that.

[Jasmine Wilson]

So the universe is far.

[William Shatner]

You just can't see that. Yes.

[Jasmine Wilson]

The measurements of the universe is far larger than the universe.

[William Shatner]

It's like 90, nearly 100 billion light years across.

[Jasmine Wilson]

So it's like immeasurably big. So what is space? Gotcha.

[William Shatner]

It's the final frontier. Oh, Mic drop on that. Let me say, Scott, it was fun doing a little dust up with you on Twitter just to see how people chose sides. Right. They thought we were just enemies, and they wanted to watch it happen. But it was fun. It was a highly educational moment for people to see what's going on there. Bill. Yes. You're my man.

[Jasmine Wilson]

You are my man.

[William Shatner]

You are a treasure not only to me, but to everyone assembled here on this ship, to the country and to the world. Your enthusiasm, your boyish curiosity, childlike curiosity is infectious. It is contagious. I don't want to use these biologically bad words. It is. It's. Yeah. It's contagious.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Great.

[William Shatner]

It's contagious to us all.

[Jasmine Wilson]

That's one.

[William Shatner]

This past year, you had your 93rd birthday.

[Jasmine Wilson]

My birthday is March 22, so it's not that far away.

[William Shatner]

It'll be 94.

[Jasmine Wilson]

It'll be 94.

[William Shatner]

And there's a documentary called you can Call me Bill that's out and around making its rounds right now.

[Jasmine Wilson]

It's really good.

[William Shatner]

And I was with you for the New York premiere of that, which I delighted in just to. And just if I can steal another minute here, could you tell us all, recount for us all as you did in the film, what were you thinking after they had canceled Star Trek after its third season. We haven't yet landed on the moon. And you're living out of a trailer. Trying to.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Did I tell that story in the film?

[William Shatner]

Or maybe you told me, I don't. But you had a trailer in regional theater. Trying to make a buck.

[Jasmine Wilson]

I have three children. Children. They're going to school. I was getting divorced as it was being. As the show was being canceled, I was broke. I couldn't write a $15 check at the end of Star Trek. I had acquired, I think I bought an old truck with a cab on the back and a dog, a Doberman, And I drove and I put together a summer theater show, and I drove across the country to the Cape. Cape Boston, Cape Cod, and did summer theater for 13 weeks. Turned around, headed back home to go back to my family. Made a point of calling my agent every day from a gas station. Put the quarters in, and he said, oh, Rose Kennedy wants you to come to a party. Can you come to. I said, well, I'm on the road like Dunn. I can't come to a party. I gotta go see my kid. All right, call me tomorrow. I call him tomorrow. He says, I'm telling you, Rose Kennedy wants you to come to the Kennedy party. And the thing over there, I can't come. I get to Phoenix, I call him, he says, they'll send an airplane for you. Had I not been so blinded by coming home in this. Pilots know about the danger of coming of Homitis. Is it where you satisfy the rules to get home? You're so anxious. I sacrificed the rules. I could have asked her. Send the plane to Arizona, fly me to Los Angeles, pick up my kids, fly back to New York, meet the Kennedys and fly me back. I didn't think of it. And that was my journey, my initiation after Star Trek.

[William Shatner]

So it went to a low, and then it has been ascending ever since.

[Jasmine Wilson]

I've had good luck ever since.

[William Shatner]

And of course, you have the book to boldly go.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Boldly go. But there's more than one book out there.

[William Shatner]

Okay, yeah. All right, we'll look for those. And, Scott, what projects do you have going right now?

[Scott Kelly]

I do a bunch of public speaking. I'm on some advisory boards.

[William Shatner]

Yeah, okay.

[Scott Kelly]

You know, I write a little. I have some other book ideas I need to.

[Jasmine Wilson]

He's a wonderful public speaker. He's perfect in front of an audience.

[William Shatner]

Guys, thanks for coming back onto StarTalk.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Yeah, it's great.

[William Shatner]

So this has been StarTalk Live in a voyage sponsored by the future of Space, an organization that's trying to connect us to exploration.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Absolutely.

[William Shatner]

And this is the inaugural voyage of space to sea trip to Antarctica, which brought the three of us together fortuitously.

[Jasmine Wilson]

Fortuitously? Yes.

[William Shatner]

I'm Neil Degrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And as always, I bid you to keep looking up.

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