Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Does It Fly? Putting science in entertainment to the test
Episode Date: January 22, 2025This week, we discuss how to examine the science behind our favorite TV shows and movies with the co-hosts of the "Does It Fly?" podcast, Hakeem Oluseyi and Tamara Krinsky. Produced by Roddenberry Ent...ertainment, "Does It Fly?" takes an expert approach to breaking down the science of popular media, from lightsabers to Dune's stillsuits. Hakeem brings his astrophysics expertise, while Tamara provides her media industry insights as they join Planetary Radio to explore where science and fiction intersect. Stick around for What's Up with Bruce Betts and this week's Random Space Fact. Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2025-does-it-fly See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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Does the science in your favorite shows and movies pass the test?
We'll discuss this week on Planetary Radio.
I'm Sarah Al Ahmed of the Planetary Society, with more of the human adventure across our
solar system and beyond.
As space fans, part of the fun of watching our favorite shows and movies is breaking
down the science,
whether it's surprisingly accurate or wildly off the mark.
This week, we're joined by the co-hosts of the Does It Fly podcast, Hakim Oluwesheyi and Tamara Krinsky.
Their show breaks down the science in your favorite bits of media to see whether or not it passes that science test.
Then Bruce Betts joins us for What's Up and this week's random space fact.
science test. Then Bruce Betts joins us for What's Up and this week's Random Space Fact. If you love planetary radio and want to stay informed about the
latest space discoveries, make sure you hit that subscribe button on your
favorite podcasting platform. By subscribing, you'll never miss an episode
filled with new and awe-inspiring ways to know the cosmos and our place within it.
Science fiction and fantasy can inspire curiosity and teach space science in ways that textbooks often can't.
Whether it's that sense of wonder sparked by space epics or the fascination with real-world scientific discoveries,
media can make science accessible, exciting, and sometimes deeply personal.
But let's be honest, TV and movies don't always get the science right.
And that's okay.
Some people can enjoy a film
when it plays fast and loose with the physics,
while others find the inaccuracies
pull them right out of the experience.
Both approaches are valid,
and enjoying media with bad science
can still be a gateway to learning.
This week, we're joined by the co-hosts
of the Desert Fly podcast,
Dr. Hakim Al-Ishai and Tamara Kyrnski.
Desert Fly is produced by Roddenberry Entertainment, which is a media company founded by Gene Roddenberry,
the creator of Star Trek.
Does It Fly is a weekly show that breaks down the science behind some of your favorite films
and shows.
It's the expert version of the conversations that you might have with nerdy friends after
you watch something together.
Could a lightsaber actually work?
Are dune stillsuits possible?
And can you use science to get witch revision, or is that just Henry Cavill's intermediate
evolution before he morphs into a space marine?
Hakeem Olu-Shei is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, and educator.
He's taught space science as a professor at MIT, UC Berkeley, the University of Washington, and the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
He also previously served as the space science education manager for the science mission directorate at NASA HQ.
Hakim is the science expert on the show, while his colleague Tamara Krinsky is a media master.
Tamara is an actress, writer, and on-air correspondent.
You may have seen her on the red carpet during interviews at movie releases,
including many of the Marvel movies.
She co-hosted Tomorrow's World Today on the Discovery and Science channels,
and she's done correspondent work for PBS's Wired Science.
Thanks for joining me.
Thanks for having us.
Yes, thanks for having us.
You know, people pitch me podcasts that I should listen to all the time.
And there's a lot of really wonderful ones that are really specific on science and even
science fiction.
But as I started listening to your show, I just kept thinking, these are my people.
It's been wonderful listening to it because I feel like I've had these conversations with
friends so many times and then I hear it coming out of both of your mouths.
That is really gratifying to hear because, you know, I think one of the things when this
podcast was first being talked about and we were, you know, brainstorming was that we
really wanted that feeling of starting these conversations, initiating them, but then bringing
it out to fans to continue them.
So to hear that this is exactly what you would be doing is really gratifying. Yeah, I personally have been, people have attempted to pull me into
conversations like this, but it's often from a hater perspective, right? Oh, I can't tell me,
I know blah, blah, blah. And that's the awesome thing about being Tamara, because the first thing
we realized like, oh, we seriously do love this stuff. And we just get to evaluate it
from the position of loving it.
Yeah, it was really important to us
that this was not a, this is what's wrong
and this is what's wrong and this is what's wrong.
That it was very much like, oh, we love this stuff.
Here's what they've tried to do.
Here's what's cool to talk about it.
How great is it that these movies and TV shows
inspire this kind of talk for us to dive deeper, whether it's story or the science behind the science fiction. I think any group of nerdy
friends, whether they're scientists or people who work in pop culture and media, have these
conversations all the time. But what actually caused you guys to take that next step and turn
it into a podcast? So this actually I want to give credit where credit is due. This actually came from
The Brilliant Minds at the Roddenberry Company. I had been introduced to them by a Star Trek actor
named Armand Schimmerman who thought we might have some stuff in common there. And we'd been
talking about trying to find a way to work together. And they introduced this podcast idea to me and
said, we've been cooking up this podcast, does it Fly? And the origin story, because as we nerds know,
everything that needs to have its good origin story,
is that when Gene Roddenberry was creating Star Trek,
they came to him with the model of the Enterprise.
And they were like, what do you think?
And he starts looking at it and he was like,
wow, that's really cool.
And then he looked up and said, but does it fly?
And everyone was like, it's a model spaceship for a TV show
that's not a real, we don't know how to go to space yet.
And he said, yeah, but the whole thing is
when this show launches,
I want that to be the aesthetic of the show.
I want the people to believe
that if we did know how to do this,
what we put on screen would actually work.
And context, you know, this is the late 1960s. A lot of sci-fi was very much sort of B-movie flavor,
aliens wearing what looked like tinfoil.
He wanted a different aesthetic.
So the team at Roddenberry extrapolated that idea
and said, what if we could apply that idea
to all kinds of conceits, gizmos, gadgets
from all different kinds of sci-fi, fantasy,
even some horror
movies and have conversations about that. And so they pulled me in, they found Hakeem,
they found Dr. O, and here we are.
LESLIE KENDRICK A Star Trek specifically, of all the different franchises out there,
I think has inspired so many people to be into science and into space, not just because it has
this wonderful grounding in real science,
but because it's showing us this hopeful view of the future. I think so much of science
fiction is in this realm of dystopian terror about the future. But Star Trek specifically,
I think, really points to that idea that if we can work together, maybe we can make it
fly. And I love that about the show.
Yeah, I love that as well. You know. I think that it really fulfills that statement.
You have to see it to be it.
If you think about when it was created, right?
The America of that time is nothing like
the America of today.
And that show had the very first interracial kiss.
And I just saw a stat that in 2017,
25% of black men in America who got married
were married in interracial relationships.
That was, you couldn't imagine that happening, right?
In the 1950s, 60s, unbelievable, right?
And so they were so far ahead of their time,
but also just being a kid at that time,
you know how it goes.
As a kid, you see stuff, you think it's new,
but it's just new to you.
So I was watching Star Trek in the 70s and 80s.
But the thing that I came with was just this hunger, right?
For like nature and weird ideas.
And so it wasn't just Star Trek.
It was also the paranormal and Bigfoot and all these things.
But people seeing that, you know, this hunger exists within us and fulfilling it.
And then when they do so, they actually show us a future that we could be.
That's like the best of all worlds.
It really is.
And I mean, my mom told this story to me when I was young of her experience of Star Trek
as a young person and pointing to Uhura as an example, right?
Like Uhura was a huge pivotal character for her because
her mom was trying to kind of unpack the racial prejudice of their time and instill this idea
of equality in her daughter. And here comes this example, this beautiful future displayed
for us on television. It speaks to that power of science fiction, not only to inspire us
to all kinds of other things, but the social betterment and seeing each other through this
lens of equality.
Well, and I don't, I mean, you guys might know this story,
you might not, that Nichelle Nichols was actually thinking
about quitting Star Trek.
She initially planned to quit,
and it was actually Martin Luther King Jr.
who convinced her to stay, because he said,
look, you are a role model to black women and children,
specifically to everyone in general. And we need you.
We need you to be a part of history to create what we want the world to look like going
forward.
Yeah, I actually wondered that when I was watching, because I had heard that before.
And when I was watching one of the newer Star Trek shows, Star Trek, Strange New Worlds,
I noted that with the new Uhura, that she kind of goes to that moment in that show where
she's thinking about leaving Starfleet. And Spock kind of takes that role of Martin Luther King in that position and
explains to her why she should stay on the Enterprise. And I don't know how I'll ever be
able to validate it, but for me, I think that was a nod to that moment in history because of that
moment with Martin Luther King. Look, you know, I was born in the late 60s, lived in the deep south.
Look, you know, I was born in the late 60s, lived in the deep south. The person I related to and identified with the most on Star Trek was Mr. Spock.
And at a certain time, I got the job title chief science officer and almost lost my mind
because it's like Spock is the chief science officer.
And that's what I'm getting at here is that these ideas, even though we're humans, and It's like Spock is the chief science officer.
And that's what I'm getting at here is that these ideas, even though we're humans and we have that human side,
when people sometimes talk to me
about being a science communicator,
I'm like, look, you know, it's the universe.
It's this universe out here that's amazing.
I'm just amazed with it
and I'm sharing my amazement with it, but it ain't me,
it's it, but that's the thing, right?
Sci-fi extends our universe.
That's right.
It's that magic what if that allows us to go, well, what, what if this was happening?
What if this was real?
What would it be like?
Star Trek strangely holds a pivotal place in my career as well because Star Trek First
Contact was actually the movie I got my SAG card on for folks
who may be less familiar with the way some acting stuff works. SAG is the Screen Actors Guild and
that's the union for we actor folks. So I was very, very lucky in that Jonathan Frakes elevated me on
set and that kicked off a lot of my on-camera acting adventures. After learning that I actually
went back and re-watched Star Trek First Contact because that's beautiful and I would have loved to be any part of Star Trek.
The closest I get is that we have Bob Picardo, who played the EMH on Voyager, on our board
of directors.
And there's also a fun thing in our office that Bill Nye put there, actually.
We have the original Jupiter globe from Star Trek The Motion Picture, the first movie.
The actual prop is in our office. And we keep it right next to the letter from Gene Roddenberry endorsing
the Planetary Society because it's such a big part of our organization's history and
the motivation for all of us to get into this field. And I wanted to ask you, Hakim, are
there any bits of science fiction that you think motivated you to actually take that
career into science?
Because you've worked on many different missions and topics.
Yeah, you know, it's hard for me to the one thing I always point to for myself is learning
about Albert Einstein and relativity when I was 10 years old.
But before that, I was hardcore, like I said, everything weird, anything sci fi, anything
nature, anything paranormal, I just love esoteric knowledge.
So I don't have such a direct connection.
It's almost as if it came to me after the fact
because at nine years old, I don't know anything.
By the time I finished college, I knew nothing, right?
And so, you know what I'm saying?
He's understating himself a little bit here.
I'm going to like prop him up.
No, I'm not.
No, I'm not.
Listen, there is that saying, when you think you know everything, they give you a bachelor's
degree.
When you realize you don't know anything, they give you a master's.
When you realize that you don't know anything and neither does anyone else and gives you
a PhD, that's where it is.
And so the actual enterprise of doing science at the cutting edge level, you don't really get to see that
until you're doing it. And you do it as an apprentice. That's
what a graduate school researcher, undergraduate
researcher, that's what they are. And so when I was all into
this world of sci fi, and the first time I looked through a
telescope and saw Saturn at the age of 26,
suddenly now I'm transported into space, you know,
and later, not long thereafter,
because of doing astronomy
and knowing the sizes and distances between things,
one night while looking up at the sky,
suddenly I saw it in 3D.
And it was like, whoa, and you know,
and that moment the moon was so big
because I knew it was like 65 Earth radio away. Right. And so seeing how big it appears in my sky relative to how
far away it is that maybe see it as just like massive giant moon. Right. And then looking
at Jupiter far beyond, you know, on the opposite side of the sun. That thing is humongous. So yeah, so the doing science
was almost like the fulfillment of the wonder that sci-fi created in me.
S1 05.05 I wanted to ask you, Tamara, so you are steeped in the world of pop culture. You're the
pop culture expert for the show, but also clearly have a passion for science with all the other
things that you're doing.
What do you think came first?
Because you started acting at a very young age.
Do you think you had this idea, this passion for science, or was that kind of a result
of what you were exposed to during your early acting career?
No, it was really a parallel path.
So when my dad is a huge nerd, and to me that's a badge of honor.
So he was a big Star Trek fan, Battlestar Galactica,
the original one.
So I spent my childhood stealing all the Asimov books
from his shelves.
And so things like I, Robot, were seminal in my understanding
and love for science fiction.
And what I really loved was that you could read these stories,
but then reflect on what was actually happening
in the world around you.
By putting distance, by setting something in the future
or in a different kind of world,
you could sort of almost disguise a question about our world.
And I think good sci-fi does that well.
So that's what I became fascinated by.
And I would make my parents wake me up at two in the morning
to watch eclipses in the backyard in New Jersey,
and they, you know, would let me, like like blow things up with a Bunsen burner in the kitchen by mixing chemicals and
turning flames pink and all kinds of things like that. So I really loved all of that. But at the
same time, I was singing and trying to dance. I'm not, I would describe myself as a person who
moves well, but not a dancer, musical theater fans won't know what that is. But I was, you know,
I was doing all
of that. And then I went to a performing arts high school. And
I figured out pretty quickly that I didn't have the patience
to do the science. But I was constantly fascinated by the
what ifs of it. And I luckily because of my dad, I never grew
up with the idea that you know, science and math was for boys,
and English and storytelling
and all of that is for girls. However, what I did grow up with because of just culture
at the time was the idea that you're either a math science person or you are a creative
person. You're an artist. You're a words person. And once I chose the arts as my pathway as
a career, I very much kind of put the science aside
because I had this belief, no, no, you don't get to do both. But then what happened was
it all came back together once I started working professionally. I found myself constantly
drawn to projects that had science themes. I wrote a one-person show about stem cell
research and just all kinds of things like that. And that eventually is what led me back
to the path of finding a way to combine these two loves of mine.
That explains so much of the heart of this show, I think.
Right?
Because clearly, it has the power to inspire people.
But you're meshing worlds in a way
that I think classically a lot of media hasn't done.
You're taking this very kind of thoughtful tactic
with these things.
But you're not picking them apart, as you said earlier.
You're doing it with love, which I think is really key in a lot of these things.
People come at this media with this feeling of like, it's either scientifically accurate
that it's okay for me to like it, or it's right out.
But I think it's okay to love things that don't get it perfect.
And that's what the show does really well. Yeah, one of the innovative things that I love that the producers came up with in the format of
the show, if you look on YouTube or somewhere, you're going to find people that are like,
oh, let me explain this show, right? What's going on with the science of the show.
And having this show in the form of a conversation between two nerd geeks, right? And when I first met Tamara
She was already on board. I was the second person to come on to the podcast
So I looked her up and I'm like, man, she is smart, you know, which I love right and and so I literally
Forget that we're doing the show every show
Because you know, I want to pick her brain because she knows all these
things that I don't know and just in my nature of being a nerd you know I like to do that to
pretty much everybody but you know I'm also performing to Jason you know I was a musician
throughout my childhood I was a dancer and you know I've always loved to perform if anybody
knows about historically black fraternities so I'm a newt, so I was also the step master
at my college with my cane.
But yeah, I loved to perform.
I eventually got involved in media as a scientist,
not as media first, you know, but talking head expert, right?
And now I've come to be more of an appreciator of the art
of the making of media in all of its breath,
which is a lot.
I like the way the show is structured to kind of lay the groundwork for this because, you
know, you're coming at it from the does it fly perspective, but specifically you start
with the science, you go into the story, and then you got to see whether or not it passes
the vibes check.
Why do you think those are three powerful ways to look at a bit of media when you're trying to gauge
at science?
Well, I think that part of it is the desire to make sure that what people are watching
or listening to, because this is both a video podcast and a shout out to our editor, by
the way, he does amazing graphics and always finds really fun ways
to sort of punctuate what we say and add some humor to it.
But it also works really well as an audio podcast.
And we wanted to make sure,
no matter what format you were watching it in,
that there was a roadmap to follow it through
because Hakim is often introducing things
that listeners may be unfamiliar with.
And I love that he is always very, very welcoming
when I'm like, wait, hold up, I don't understand that.
And vice versa, I really like to bring
a lot of the behind the scenes into our talk about the story
and how things are made.
I spent a lot of years programming film festivals.
And so I've got a deep, deep appreciation,
not just for the talent, the acting talent
that you see on screen, but all of the craftsmen, the craftspeople that create our sets, our costumes, editing, the way sound is used. And
so being able to bring that in is a privilege. And, you know, but there's things I'll mention,
I can be like, wait a minute, what is that? So, you know, in this, like Hakeem said earlier,
we get to have a conversation. I love that we've developed this trust with one another that we can each feel very welcome to say, wait,
hold on, explain that more.
I don't get that.
Tell me more about that.
And we get to delve deeper.
So by presenting the science first
and giving a grounding of what it is,
then we go into the story.
And to be really clear for folks who may not
have listened to the podcast yet,
I'm not saying whether the story works or not.
We're coming at it specifically
from the perspective of whatever conceit we're looking at. So maybe that's a still suit from
Dune. Maybe it's a lightsaber. Maybe it's the ability to pass trauma from the movie Smile
and sort of more of a mental health thing, more of a psychological look at something.
So how does that work in the story? How does it act as an engine for storytelling?
Do they follow the rules, the what if rules
that they've set up?
One of the things that I really love
as we've recorded more and more of these
is in the vibe section,
we've been able to really expand what that is.
So I think, Hakim, let me know if you agree.
When we first started, it was very much like,
okay, the science maybe works, the story maybe works,
but does it feel great?
Is it just fun to watch? And now
we've taken it and expanded these these questions. And I
always think about when we did our Transformers episode,
instead of just being like, well, does it work to turn
robots? How does that feel? Is it fun to watch? We actually
were like, our vibe check here is, is it a good thing or not a
good thing to turn children's toys into movies? Does that
stifle imagination? We got to have this whole really cool conversation about how to build children's toys into movies. Does that stifle imagination?
We got to have this whole really cool conversation
about how to build children's imagination
and what is helpful and not.
I think that's a really a great way to break it down
because I think so often we can get caught up
on this idea, right?
The science of this thing is horrible
and therefore I shouldn't like it.
But there are so many powerful stories
that we rob ourselves of. Do you find that there's a line for you where like the science
can be so bad that you truly can't appreciate a story?
Well, look, you know, sometimes it's what is the science of the science, right? So,
you know, how you frame the science, I'm thinking of it as what strikes me immediately when
I see, okay, we're going to talk about this.
I'm typically inspired by a couple of directions to look at it from, you know, scientifically.
And you know, I got a show to do, I got a discussion to create.
I'm not going to, you know, we can't do that when I'm, you know, I'm up to the challenge
and you have to make it and you have to make it,
you have to make it work.
And sometimes if they don't really make it,
deliver it within the show in a way that can work
in the world, I will go into an analysis of how could you
make this work in the world?
And there are some for which you can come to, you know,
a reasonable conclusion that at some point in the future,
this probably will exist, right?
And those are cool.
But I tell you, the other thing that happens more often
is that it's a technology that I don't know anything about
and being the nerd that I am, I love to learn, right?
And Tamara just happens to have this trivia in her brain.
When I ask a question, you know, it's like,
oh, yeah, that reminds me.
Did I ever tell you the story?
And I'm just like, oh, I love these question, you know, it's like, oh yeah, that reminds me that we tell you the story and I'm just like, oh
I love these moments, you know
It's not it's not all in my brain
I do I do research for each episode just as I know you do as well and I also have to give props again to
Our production team because you know, they help support us with you know
Some sources for finding out behind the scenes stuff and stuff like that
But you know same thing like there'll often be a movie
I know
Nothing about because I haven't seen it or maybe I haven't seen it a long time. And like, I love going down
the rabbit hole of learning how it was made and what some of the inspiration for it was. And,
you know, then we get to bring those two things together in our conversation. So as Hakeem said,
I was brought on first and then he was brought on and we did a couple of test episodes before we ever,
you know, published anything just to like get into the groove, kind of figure out this structure.
And when I knew the show was going to work was actually one of our very first test episodes.
I think I'm allowed to say this, we did a test episode for Men in Black,
for the the flashy thing that makes you forget your memory. And I was like,
how's he going to talk about this? I'm so curious.
And what was so cool was that Akeem came on
and he was like, all right,
how does this thing work in the movies?
Well, they take it, and if people remember,
it's sort of a cylinder-like device with a red light,
and they flash it in your eyes,
and that's what causes you to lose the memories.
And the folks don't want you to remember the things
that supposedly you didn't see like aliens.
But he approached it as, so okay,
so they flash it in your eyes.
So that tells me that this has something to do
with the connection between vision and the brain.
So that's where I wanna start.
And I was like, this is totally gonna work
because he was able to take something
that was very, felt very sci-fi,
but break it down and bring it back to something that we all relate to every day,
which is let's talk about the science of vision.
Let's talk about the science of memory and then build it up from there.
And I was like, oh, we got a show. We got a show.
And you guys do such a great job.
And there's so many amazing topics to cover.
I feel like you guys have even in single episodes, you'll
pick a specific thing within a franchise say, you know, the still suits on Dune, but there's
so much you can expand on in other shows. And I know you you've said in past episodes
that you're hoping to come back around to those topics at some point in the future.
What is your vision for the future of this show? How many episodes do you think you're
going to go for?
Ooh, so we're looking at almost,
we come out once a week and we plan a year ahead.
So thank goodness we're like, 2025 is going to exist.
That's right, we did get confirmation
that we are gonna be doing this again in 2025
and we've been told that,
we've been told the goal for 2025 is 40 episodes.
Oh, that's fantastic. So I've got a lot to look forward to then.
What are you hoping that your listeners take away from the show?
Is it just that you want them to know more about the science of the worlds that
they're into, or are you trying to inspire them covertly to do more?
You know, I love educating about the natural world, the way things work, the way technology
works. And I love that I have a way of speaking, people tell me, that doesn't make it all intimidating
or make them feel dumb. They feel like they're getting it. So I like to say that people always
tell me, Hakeem, I thought I was dumb until I met you.
So, right?
They're like, I didn't know.
What they say to me is,
I didn't know I could understand this stuff.
I didn't know how cool it was.
And now I have an appreciation of it.
And I think maybe I can even go and do it.
So for me, you know, that's been almost a mission
for this entire century, right?
All of the 2000s.
And not only that, I also feel that I like to reach
as many different communities as I can.
And science, I've always felt like science communication
needs to lighten up, you know, there's a lot of,
and it's happening, widespread, right?
We're in that era now, post pandemic,
it's no longer everybody going to awe,
I'm so intelligent, I talk funny kind of route, right?
You know, now people are being themselves
and communicating science.
And you know, I feel like, you know,
one of the things I like to point out to people
is that I've never seen in popular media
a popular science communicator with a deep Southern accent.
Okay, and so as a S southerner myself, who I did
change the way I speak to be understood because nobody understood me when I
left Mississippi. You know, I feel like I represent something. I represent a lot of
people who see me in this role and again it's that if you see it you
can be it sort of thing and I'm helping others
and what I've come to find out is whatever it is about me,
you know, it's not as narrowly defined
as what a person's minds typically go to.
I'm consistently taken aback by someone
who I would think of is very different from me,
who tells me how much they relate to me.
That's a really powerful thing because so often I think people,
I mean, as you said, they kind of put themselves in this box tomorrow. Like, it's either I'm a science person or I'm an artist or, you
know, I've literally in my experience teaching children in particular had kids walk up to
me and be like, I can't be a scientist because insert reason here, I'm not smart enough.
I'm a girl. I don't wear glasses. I've even heard that one, right? So anything we can do to disabuse people of this,
like we're all just people, man.
Right, yeah.
And I think what as people do we all have in common?
Stories.
Every single culture on this planet has stories.
And we all have these different,
amazing grand traditions of storytelling
that manifest in so many ways,
but it all comes back to telling a tale. And I think for me, I really hope that people take
what we sort of put out there in the world
and just that it helps it harness their power of imagination.
I do really think there is something magical
about those two words, what if.
And as someone who grew up loving science
but didn't
want to be a scientist, yet has such an appreciation for the work that is done in science and tech,
and then how it affects our culture. I think it's important that not everybody has to be a scientist,
but I do think that appreciation for science and for truth and for the pursuit of knowledge is really important.
And look, you're going to have kids who get into physics class and are immediately amazed
and you're going to have kids who fall asleep.
But if the kid who falls asleep can go see Interstellar and be like, oh, that was cool.
What's going on with that black hole thing?
And they Google it and suddenly they're down the rabbit hole,
even if they learn just a little bit.
If, you know, I was watching,
we watched the wild robot over break,
which is an animated film,
and it is not a heavy-handed film about science
or climate or anything like that,
but they're just a couple of shots
where it very subtly shows
how the world has changed because of some climate issues.
And again, it's never even really spoken about, but you kind of, it just sort of registers
and makes you go, why was the Golden Gate Bridge all flooded?
What was going on there?
That's a big flood.
Oh, that's interesting.
And then that, why did that, what happened?
What happened? What happened?
What happened?
So if culture can lead you to ask questions about science and become just a tiny bit more
scientifically literate, if it can act as an on-ramp for that, that to me is beautiful
and important.
But underneath all of that, a core belief of mine is indeed that pop culture can be
a gateway to greater scientific understanding. We'll be right back with the rest of my interview with Tamara Krinsky and
Hakeem Olusheyi after this short break. Hi, I'm Asa Stahl, science editor from the Planetary Society.
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How many bits of technology, how many space missions, how many of these discoveries wouldn't
have been made if people hadn't written the stories that inspired the scientists to go
off and do it, which is why it's so important to look at these stories and what they accomplish
and what they can teach people.
I think what you're doing is really special and I want to give people a little flavor of it. So let's take a single
topic. I don't want to spoiler this show for people. So let's throw all the way back to your
first episode, your episode about Star Trek transporters. Now, right out the gate, I loved
this take on it because you were kind of underlying the basic technologies that could help create this but also going into the issues with it.
So what is your take on it, Hakim?
What is the science behind this transporter?
Do you think it flies?
When we talked about doing this interview, you can tell me you're going to put me on
the spot, but I'm just going to go with it.
So I look at it as, you know, the obvious one is the fact that you have to put a lot of energy
into the matter that constitutes a human in order to, you know, render them no longer
solid matter, right? Solid and liquid matter. And it's a stupendous amount of energy and people have
calculated it. But even before you're going to do the disassociation, you need to have a record of what that human is.
And the way I look at that is, it's first a data problem.
You have to make the measurements
of whatever you're measuring at the,
there is a phase space, as we like to say,
of you can create some vector
where you have a description of every particle.
You need to know its mass, its charge,
the way it's moving, the way it's spinning, the way it's orbiting, all of these sort of
things. And then you need to say where it's arranged spatially. And, you know, even if
you do all that, when it comes to the brain, how do you know that you are capturing memory,
right? Because the dynamical process, okay. So just reconstructing the neurons does not give you the actual memory.
And the other thing I look at is that, you know, which everybody
gets to ultimately is like, is this a cloning device? Like,
really, you know, you're not really transporting the person
from here and there. That person no longer exists. You just
basically rendered them. They've been E equals MC squared.
Right. And somehow has been confined and that that information of what they are is transported
and reconstituted. And the other thing about it is, why do I even need their specific energy? Once
I do that reading, if I have the ability to reassemble matter any way I want, hell,
I'll just do that using the sand.
Well, I might not have enough stuff.
The soil.
The soil and a tree.
All right.
I had that thought while I was listening to the episode.
Two things.
One, it's basically an immortality machine if you use it correctly.
What's stopping you from just saving that data and then printing someone out as you
would with a replicator, right?
You made that connection between the two technologies.
But maybe the answer therein lies with the data storage problem.
Maybe they simply just don't have enough data to store not just the physical bodies, but
as you said, the complexity of the brain and how consciousness works.
Well, I mean, that actually becomes an episode at play in Strange New Worlds in
the first season.
Oh, do they?
Yeah, I don't want to say anything more for people.
I don't want to spoil anything.
But yeah, that general idea comes up.
But when we did the data problem, when we discussed it, you know, the next thing we
talked about is how technology jumps forward.
And given the way that computer chip manufacturers and software manufacturers have
now gone, you know, people like or organizations like Nvidia to keep Moore's law climbing,
right? Our computer power increasing. Now we got the darn Google quantum chip willow.
You know, what is the actual data limit on data storage that you could think of physically?
Like, what does that look like? Is it something like spintronics or photonics of some way?
But even then, I still think we're so clever
that we might find a way to have data compression
on as fundamental of data as we have,
as we can make such that we beat the physical limit.
So I'm like, man, what we see as a data problem
might not be considered anything
in the future, you know.
Oh, a gazillion petabytes.
Oh, yeah, that's what I have in my little drone that walks around my house eating crumbs.
I don't know.
I love what you pointed out in that episode, Tamara, about the transporter, not just the
science of the thing, but the reason storytelling wise,
why they invented that as a conceit in the first place.
That was such a wonderful insight.
Oh, thank you, thank you.
Yeah, I mean, when you look at what's on screen,
there's always, well, what was necessary for the story,
but then you have to dig a little deeper and say,
well, how are they getting this made?
And the reality is that one of
the things they looked at was every time if we're if we're taking these folks from place to place
and planet to planet, every time we do, we have to get them there. And that would usually involve
a bigger scene with spaceships and models and things like that, which especially in the late
60s were really expensive to do. So suddenly, they didn't have to do that anymore. Boom, you're there.
But then why does it need to fly?
If it's not actually flying into the atmospheres of planets,
does it need to fly?
Well, it's still going,
the ship is still going from planet to planet, so.
But then it becomes a storytelling device, right?
Like you were talking about the rules with warp
and all of these things, yeah.
Yeah, and that gets into the like, OK, well, how
do we make this something that how do we make this technology
something that the audience will actually invest in?
What do you do?
You give it parameters.
You give it rules.
You know, when are you allowed to transport?
When can you not?
And then what that does is that's
what helps to create conflict.
So there are certain kind of fields
that they come in contact with where the transporter doesn't
work.
So suddenly you have a ticking clock and there's your dramatic tension.
There's so much you can do with these things. And within the realm of Star Trek, there's
so much solid science that we can really chomp into. But you also touch on some of the more
whimsical realms of science fiction. And I'm thinking specifically of Doctor Who. See,
I'm a big Whovian, but now I know that you of Doctor Who. See, I'm a big
Whovian, but now I know that you as well, Hakim, have been a Whovian longer than me,
which, you know, it's an honor.
Yeah, all the way back to the curly hair dude.
Yeah. You did an episode about the TARDIS and described it in a way that I hadn't really
heard people describe it before. You compared it to a black hole or all the different kind
of versions of a black hole, white hole.
Why do you think that the TARDIS is like a black hole?
Yeah, it just jumped out at me from studying it.
I had been studying black holes and thinking about black holes.
And so, you know, the first one, the first characteristic of the TARDIS is that it's
bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
And that's one of the surprising things,
facts about black holes.
So, you know, for those of you who aren't experts
on the theory of black holes, like me,
it's really a theory about geometry, right?
That's really what it is.
When you plug in energy densities, pressures,
and you get out geometries.
And so geometries tell you the sizes of things.
And this damn thing, not only is it bigger on the inside
than it is on the outside,
it continues to get bigger infinitely,
which the outside eventually will start to get smaller
via a thing called black hole evaporation,
trillions of years into the future.
So anyway, the point is,
is that you have that geometrical similarity.
Another one is you can't enter the TARDIS, right?
Armies have tried and cannot.
Well, one version of a black hole is called a white hole.
It's essentially a time reversed black hole.
So just like you can't get out of a black hole,
you can't enter a white hole, right?
Just like the TARDIS. Another
thing the TARDIS can do is trap you inside. We all know black holes do that
and the TARDIS is actually powered by a black hole and of
course time travel right. Black holes have all these weird time travel effects.
I'll give you one. There are weird time effects that have to do with the curvature of space-time, right?
Just like the movie Interstellar illustrated.
And the TARDIS also travels through time.
So I see all these similarities and I'm like, yo, why ain't people talking about this?
Infinite ways to connect it to other things.
I mean, in all seriousness, like, it takes me right back to what you were just saying
about the quantum computers, right?
If we can travel anywhere in time and space, it's very similar to being able to ask a question
that takes longer than the age of the universe to calculate it, and yet get that done in
a few minutes with this quantum technology.
I mean, all of that was a dream long before it became reality, and here we are talking
about it.
It's just, it. Yeah.
It's wild.
It is wild. And you know what? Being the nerd dude I am, I look at deep history a lot
and human evolution and the fact that not long ago we were homo habilis, right? We were stone tool
users and now we're dreaming of a TARDIS and then bringing it to the screen
and with a full story.
And these stories become our aspirations for us as a species.
Yeah, I wonder about that a lot, the advancement of human technology and how much of that is
our scientific understanding and how much of that is our storytelling and what we value
as a culture and what we push forward because of those stories?
If it's, Tamara, may I please this one she just set me up so sweet. I'm sorry.
Okay.
All right. Here's what it is. It's that damn rocket. Okay. When we did a rocket episode,
the rocket was first conceived of by hero of Alexandria in the times BCE.
I know he discovered the law of reflection in 60 BCE.
I don't know when he did his little steam motor.
And you know how long it took for it to become
an actual useful military device?
Late 18th century, early 19th century, right?
In the War of 1812, the first time they were using
European war, before that it was in Southern India.
And then the whole idea of thinking about taking it, using it to go to space didn't
occur until the 20th century. So it literally took 2000 years from the inception of the
technology for the culture to catch up and see its promise.
And I'm going to address it from sort of a different perspective. So I just got back
from Washington, DC, where I was at a conference doing some script writing
and some voiceover work that was all about the future
of high school education.
And one of the speakers there is Mark Bumudi Joseph, who is,
he's a performer, and he's the vice president for social
impact at the Kennedy Center.
And I jotted down something that was part of his piece,
because I just thought it was so beautiful. And it actuallyotted down something that was part of his piece because I just thought
it was so beautiful. And it actually dovetails really well with the question that you just asked.
But he was talking specifically education, but for me, it looks into this idea of protopia and
what's next. So he said, we're not here to arrive at the impossible educational utopia, but to
strategically, lovingly and creatively begin to describe an adjacent possible, what is within our reach and also necessary to achieve before we get there.
For instance, we couldn't go from methane to the wheel right after the Big Bang.
We couldn't go from first utterance to Octavia Butler or from the Garden of Eden to Beyonce, although she is as both evolved and as primordial as it gets.
In between these giant leaps are smaller evolutionary steps.
And I think storytelling, isn't that beautiful?
I think storytelling is something
that helps us take those steps.
Well said.
You guys have been on this journey for the last year.
You've got another year planned. What would you say are some of your favorite moments
of putting the show together over the time
that you've been working together?
Honestly, I love when we get to see each other in person.
You know, we had done some stuff in person
during that sort of test period I mentioned,
but then we'd been doing this all remotely,
and we finally got to hang out at Comic-Con
this year and that was a blast.
Yeah, yeah, I feel the same way.
You know, getting to know Tamara well, getting to know our producers and writers and those
folks well, and you know, they're the adjacent podcasters like yourself, right?
The hosts that we've gotten to know.
It is really just a community of people, right? It's a nerd geek community, the folks at Den of Geek
that we've gotten to interact with and see how they do their thing
and become a part of it.
And that's been really cool.
Yeah. And then honestly, I get to have my own personal science teacher.
So that's been a thrill for me.
Whenever I'm in data, it's like, doctor, oh, it's happening.
What's going on? Break this down for me.
Well, hopefully in the future,
we bump into each other at Comic-Con.
I think as fellow nerds, it's quite possible.
And thanks for everything you're doing
to try to share the joy of science with people
through what I think is a really accessible medium.
It's really, really entertaining to listen to.
I learn something every single episode,
and I deeply encourage people to check this podcast out.
I don't just mean this as someone
who's having you on the show,
but I'm genuinely a fan now, so thank you.
Oh, thank you.
Well, thank you so much.
Thank you for having us on.
Thank you for helping us spread the word about the show.
The Planetary Society is so well respected
and has so many fantastic listeners.
So thank you for bringing us into your community.
Thanks so much.
So this week's homework assignment is to start a conversation about a bit of sci-fi tech
and see what happens.
I'm just kidding, but science teachers, if you're listening, I think that might be a
good prompt.
You can find the Does It Fly podcast on their website, Apple podcasts, and Spotify.
So, last week you may have noticed that we opted to rerun a previous show.
As I shared at the top of that episode,
our staff was deeply impacted by the fires here in LA
in January, 2025.
Our headquarters is located in Pasadena,
just south of Altadena,
a beautiful city that was ravaged by the Eton fire. I'm sad to share that
many of our staff members were displaced and some, including our beloved Bruce Bats, lost their homes.
It's a difficult situation, but Bruce has been on planetary radio for 22 years. He's never missed
an episode and so help us, He's not gonna miss this one
Hey Bruce, it's good to see you again. Hi, Sarah. Good to see you
this is not the topic of the show, but we've had a
ridiculously harrowing two weeks and
You in particular, I think you've been through a lot. Do you want to share?
Sure But we lost our house in the Eaton fire.
All of the people and all the dogs, we got them out safely and far ahead of the fire
taking everything.
But you know, we have insurance, we have people around us supporting us and making our life
easier than most people.
But there are, it's just stunning the destruction
that occurred so sorry to hit a negative topic but it's kind of on my mind for some reason but
i mean the the neighborhood's just gone it's just it's just gone there are 10 000 structures roughly
that were burned in that fire alone the fire in the Al Altatina area. So anyway, we go on. The
important things survived, which is the people and the doggies. And we've just had an outpouring of
goodwill from those planetary society employees. They're just so darn nice. And in this case, it's really nice, as well
as family and my sons and everything. So it's one of those situations which, fortunately, I don't
wish anyone to experience, but when you do, it's a touching example of the people who are good.
There's a lot of good in the world.
I am just so glad that you and the puppies and everyone are okay and that our staff made
it through. But I just want people to know out there that we didn't go dark for a week
for no reason. It has been really challenging and there are a lot of people in this area,
particularly the space community that have been really hurting during this time. Like
over 200 workers at NASA Jet
Propulsion Laboratory lost their homes. So while the facility is still standing, it's
going to be hard for the space community in LA to kind of get back to normal. So, you
know, bear with us.
There's also just a lot of good happy stuff in space to keep us looking up. I'm so glad you're okay.
And thanks for being back on planetary radio, literally two seconds after all
that happened, but we can't break your streak.
You've been doing this for 22 years.
I know.
The only, the only work message I sent was since there, it's like, don't do a
show without me, I can't lose my streak.
I can't lose my streak. I can't lose my
streak. I got over a thousand shows in a row.
Never, Bruce.
Someday I may lose my streak and stop doing planetary radio, but today is not that day.
Lord of the Rings for him.
Total departure, but kind of connected actually, and that you just brought up Lord of the Rings
is that this week we were talking about science in movie and TV shows and how to judge whether
or not it is correct, but also about the feelings that people have when approaching media.
And I actually think about you in this context a lot because I know you're one of the people
that whenever you come at media, it has to have accurate science. Otherwise,
you don't want to watch it.
Yep.
Why do you feel that way?
Because science, I'm consistent, but maybe a little complicated in my views. So if they
don't even try and they're just doing a fantasy thing, you know, and Star Wars.
I'm in, I can be into that.
But when you try to make it realistic and you just don't even bother to listen to
the person you hired or hired no one to say, you know, if you just tweak that,
it's, it's the little, it's things that are just, would be so easy to change.
And plus they give such incorrect. We, we work hard to try to get the word out of how cool science is and how
it works. And the fact that that's ignored in so many TV, movie, media, it's, it, it
annoys me. It's frustrating frustrating especially the little stuff again i get
that if you want to do somethings you gotta make something for light
speed if you want to go with or beyond light speed and interstellar
travel and and that's tricky but um but there are a
lot of things that they just took no effort they spent hundreds of
millions of dollars but can't hire some graduate student or don't
listen to the scientists they've hired to just tweak the easy stuff. Anyway, that's my, that's
a definite pet peeve of mine. And so it just kind of ruins my enjoyment.
For me, it's those, it's the things that try so hard to get like just almost there,
but then miss the mark on something that like is really important. Right? And I'm not going to go into personal examples because I'll infuriate
people, but... Well, I mean, there are some classic examples, but of just like Armageddon. I mean,
that was spot on. They nailed the science. Nailed it. Nailed it. No, all they really had going for it was an Aerosmith song and some fun
actors. But wow, they gave a misleading perception of how you deal with asteroids and planetary
defense. But on the other hand, how many people would have no idea planetary defense was so
important without that Aerosmith song and that movie, it's an interesting quandary. I just, you know, I always
really value when people get it right, because then they can both share how cool science is while
also actually giving accurate information. Exactly. I'm still waiting to see that.
Right. Well, I'm glad there are shows like Does It Fly to let us pick apart all this, because it is.
It's one of my favorite things, debating how some bit of science or technology and a show could work.
Because, you know, even if they get it wrong, those are the moments that you plant those ideas
in people's brains and someday, 20, 30, 40 years down the line, now people are trying to make a
lightsaber, you know? It might not always work because the science may be absolutely horrible,
but also sometimes it puts a spark in someone's mind that might create something beautiful.
So I think there's value in both approaches, but I would absolutely love to do a horrible
science movie marathon with you, Bruce.
God. You never cease to amaze me, your positivity. It's a wonderful thing.
And let me clarify, I enjoy a good just out of its mind movie.
I mean, Sharknado is brilliant.
Right?
The peak of cinema awesomeness.
But on that note, because that's super random, what is our random space fact this week?
Well, something that's been on my mind, people often ask about Titan.
Titan's got natural gas everywhere, methane and ethane.
But you know what?
You're not going to be able to get that to burn
Because there's no oxygen essentially hanging out and so there there are literally seas of what we call
Natural gas here on earth and those seas you're not going to get burning because you need the oxygen
or an oxidizer to do it, so
Not a lot of oxygen to breathe either and freezing cold, so not an ideal place, but it is one that does not have wildfires.
It's not a weird thing to think that there might be creatures on worlds, if life outside
of Earth does exist, living on worlds like that with, you know, a full hydrological cycle, but no knowledge
of fire, which was really important to the development of humankind. That might be a
really important thing to note in the development of, you know, other creatures if they do exist.
Yes, this is true. I think we have a movie.
I think we have a movie. Let's do it, Bruce.
All right. I mean, everyone else here in Southern California is doing a screenplay. So why not us? Why not? Well, thanks for joining me,
Bruce. And thank you. Thanks for I appreciate you, Sarah. And I'm sorry and well wishes to
everyone who's been struggling with the fires here and the things elsewhere. And hello to your cat
that just poked into the video screen.
And everybody go out there, look up the night sky,
and think about all the people and pets
that are most important to you.
Take care. Thank you, and good night.
We've reached the end of this week's episode of Planetary Radio, but we'll be back next
week with Matt Kaplan's heartfelt adventure to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the
dedication of the Ed Stone Memorial Trail.
We had to hold off sharing that this week to see how JPL fared during the LA fires,
and I'm happy to report that the facility is still standing.
Our hearts go out to everyone who's been impacted by these fires.
And we're so grateful to our Planetary Society co-workers,
all of our members and our supporters
for helping us during these really difficult times.
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