StarTalk Radio - Cosmic Queries: Altered States, with Bill Nye

Episode Date: December 15, 2017

If you think this episode will be filled with questions about pot and LSD, you’d be right. But Chuck Nice also throws a few other Cosmic Queries at host Bill Nye, from how to get more women into STEM to the potential impact of discovering life on Mars.NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/cosmic-queries-altered-states-with-bill-nye/ Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. Welcome, welcome to StarTalk. This is StarTalk All-Star Edition. Bill Nye, hosting this week. I'm joined by none other than Chuck Nice. Chuck, it's good to see you. Always good to see you, Bill.

And this week, our Cosmic Query topic is expanding our perspectives. That's correct. Is that the sound effect that goes along with expanded perspectives? Well, it's a zoom out. It's got to be right. We're zooming out. It's an iris out. So Chuck, you have the great list of cosmic queries which come to us from our listeners.

Yes, they do from all over the internets. And we're going to expand our perspective. Yes, we are. And we're going to expand our perspective. Yes, we are. We've got some great questions from Facebook, Twitter, StarTalkRadio.net, and every other incarnation where we live. These are electronic media.

These are electronic media. That the kids use. Yes, that's right. With their electric computer machines. That's right. And I think we're on everything except Snapchat because, you know. This doesn't last long enough. It doesn't last long enough. And nobody wants to see us naked.

That's very troubling. Yeah, lead on. Did I disturb you there? Just a little. Okay, so listen, let's just jump into it. You haven't seen the questions. That's the way it works, and it's just really, you know, the great thing about expanding your perspectives is a lot of this is science as well as Bill Nye's actual opinion.

So we got a little Cypinion going on here. Cypinion. Cypinion. Quite the coinage. Yes. All right. So let's go with Nelson Sa from Facebook. This is a pretty decent question.

You have to sound so surprised. Our listeners are a very sophisticated bunch. You know what? I just realized that I did sound so surprised. Our listeners are a very sophisticated bunch. You know what? I just realized that I did sound that way. To let it go, I would have been remiss. So lead on. Right. Okay.

So Nelson from Facebook says this. Have NASA's zero gravity experiments had any useful breakthroughs which better our society. So I assume that Nelson means outside of space travel, where, of course, it is directly applicable. But here on Earth, do those zero-gravity experiments do anything for us down here who are living in gravity? I'd say there's one thing specifically. They have led to research in bone health really yeah so these modern bone medicines wouldn't probably they probably wouldn't be the way they are without all these discoveries made

in zero or so-called microgravity where people have very low gravity your bones you know you look at a skeleton right there in the museum let's say of American Museum of Natural History, for example. Okay. And they are solid. They look like rocks. But bones get flexed. They're alive. And if you stop putting a load on them, they get weak.

And this is one of the things they discovered about astronauts in space for a long time, or even a medium amount of time. They lost their bones, their calcium. They would urinate it away. medium amount of time, they lost their bones, their calcium. They would urinate it away. Now, is that because the body just realizes, well, there's no need. I'm not using this. I don't need it.

Yes, and when you say realizes, reacts as though it realized. Yes, that's my non-scientific way of saying the body reacts. Body reacts, yeah. And so now people take pills to keep their bones going and so they've speculated people who are in this world speculate that you could go to mars in nearly zero gravity just by taking the right drugs you could keep your bones so this is affecting health on earth the other thing we've learned so much about physics writ large by watching people bounce around in microgravity. Oh, really?

Yeah, you just, I mean, you just watch how things happen. You learn about torques and reactions. Sort of classical physics. It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. Nice. All right. observations, especially when it comes to watching objects or people bounce around in zero G. Does that do anything in any particular industry? Like I'm thinking maybe the automobile industry

might be able to, you know, go ahead. Two things people all dreamt of was new alloys okay of metal right that would only be fabricable if i may coin the adjective in space or in nearly zero gravity that hasn't been panned out or alloyed out and then the other one was sophisticated drug molecules that you could create more easily in zero gravity than you could create on earth and while that that sounds reasonable, when you're working on a molecular level, gravity isn't the main thing. It's sort of viscosity, just stickiness of molecules or overwhelms the gravitational effect. With that said, who knows what lies ahead, what discovery is yet to be made?

And they study, they, we, people, astronauts study spiders who are still able to capture prey even though there's zero gravity even in zero gravity they have trouble spinning webs they have trouble spinning webs but they somehow can still well it's a learning curve or it's a learning process spider jumps and misses spider adjusts and gets. So there's something going on spider brain-wise. Right. Compensating for zero gravity. So what you and I think with our inner ears and how we roll or keep from rolling, we think that you might project that on spiders and other arthropods, but they got something else

going on. There's something else going on. And so you wouldn't really learn that without experiments in zero gravity or near zero gravity. Well, that's great. So zero gravity, there you have it, Nelson, doing great things for us as a society and for spiders as well. For example. For example.

But you know, Spider-Man, one of the things that he can do, he can do whatever a spider can. This is true. He can spin webs any size. Catches thieves just like flies. Look out. Here comes the Spider-Man. But we've all dreamed of being able to hang upside down without blood going to our brain. Spiders apparently are able to roll yes hang and i have dreamed of hanging upside down and uh

kissing mary jane my girlfriend who doesn't know that i'm a radioactive superhero all right i'm gonna move on now because that was uh that was kind of weird and creepy and i don't know why it wasn't really creepy okay digression yes all right here we go. This is Chad William Harden. He is coming to us through Facebook from Irvine, California. And he says this. My question is, can physics explain why time seems to speed up as we get older? Could this have something to do with the entanglement and the more interactions we have with each passing day or the expansion of the universe decreasing density and altering time itself chad i want

some of what you are smoking well here's what i say to people like that the head where we start any of these things chad you may be right but far But far more likely, it seems to me, is that each day as you get older becomes a smaller fraction of your total number of days. And so each day blends in with the others more easily. When you're five years old, a day is- That's a long time. That's right. That's a long time. When you're 55 year old, it's a day in, you know, 55,000. Have we talked about 30,000 days? No, we haven't. So if things go really well for you, Chuck, and you live to be 82 and 7 weeks, a month and three quarters.

A month and three quarters. You get 30,000 days. Wow. 30,000 days. When you're five years older, maybe Chad's age, 30,000 is a lot. That's a long period of time. But when you get up near it, it doesn't seem like that many at all. So the days behind you are bigger than the days in front of you.

Yeah. As a result, time seems to speed up. Seems to speed up. That's right. Wow. It could be dilation of the space-time continuum. Could be. It could be dilation of the space-time continuum.

Could be. But more likely is just the arithmetic fraction denominator getting bigger than numerator. But the truth is it's a perspective at that point. It really is your perspective. So the five-year-old has a different perspective of time than you do. You hope so. At 65. You hope so.

Right, you hope so. Unless you're that Benjamin Bratt. Oh no, Benjamin Button. What did he do to tick you off? He kept getting younger. You're just mad at him. Let me tell you something. I'm so P.O.'d at that guy. Okay?

Take comfort. He's not real. He's living my dream, though. Real or not. Hey, Chad, thanks for the question. That was pretty cool. So there you have it. Who was he interacting with in the movie? Who, Benjamin Button? Cate Blanchett, is that right?

Was it Cate Blanchett? Well, that would be a good dream. That's a solid dream. Lead on. All right. Let's go to Matt. We can say interacting on radio yes you can absolutely uh matt ellie no no i'm doing this wrong i'm gonna say it's matt eli even though it's spelled e-l-y matt eli matt matt what's your what's your what's on your mind prospectively

matt is coming from facebook, and he says, Is there a moment that sticks out in your memory, Bill, when you have witnessed someone else's cosmic perspective expand when they weren't seeking it, but it happened anyway? Steve Jobs experimented with hallucinogenics, and it aided him greatly. So I think Matt is looking for tacit approval from you for him to do psychotropic drugs.

I don't recommend those. Okay. However, I am a host on this show, and when you work with Neil, wine is often after the show. Yes, flowing, flowing, yes. That said, it's happened more than once, and it has been with the planet saturn okay i set up a telescope i have a modest 80 millimeter telescope it's enough to look at

planets yes it is and you get a 30 times or better 50 time magnification woman looks through the eyepiece and goes whoa whoa sends me postcardsends me postcards the next day, like just in romance with Saturn. Oh, okay. Sending you postcards of Saturn. No, no. Just sending you postcards. Some things. Okay.

But it's happened more than once. When people look at the planet Saturn, I claim they have a cosmic moment. Your perspective is enlarged. People think it's- Now, why just Saturn? I mean- Well, I think it's because it's inherently intrinsically so pretty. It's such a beautiful object.

Okay. And there's this moment, it's happened, I cannot count, more than a handful of times when people say, did you put a slide in there? Did you put a slide in the other telescope while I wasn't looking? No, that's it. That's actually Saturn. That's actually Saturn. You're looking at it.

When the plane of the rings is especially? No, that's it. That's actually Saturn. You're looking at it. When the plane of the rings is especially favorable, it's especially beautiful. Well, I'm sure Carolyn Porco would be very happy to hear you say that. I hope so. She's the leader of the Cassini team, if you're scoring along with us. Cassini was the mathematician

who predicted the gaps in the rings mathematically, and after whom the spacecraft is named right the cassini space press which took pictures and you know still does it's still taking pictures your tax dollars at work people and you know what it's a better uh use of tax dollars than most of the stuff that's happening i'm sorry testify chuck nice testify hey matt eli there's the answer man so the cosmic perspective expands recommend the psychotropic don't do the don't do the drugs man buy a telescope and look at saturn there's your answer and you know steve jobs although he brought success to some companies he also

rubbed a lot of people the wrong way and one cannot help but wonder if he wouldn't have been even more successful. If he didn't rub those people the wrong way? Yeah, if he'd stayed focused. Right. But who knows? Listen, I've had- We're speculating on, we can't. I've had my share of problems for rubbing people the wrong way.

I am shocked. Your last name is not Chuck rub the wrong way. You're Chuck nice. People have expectations or maybe that's the switch. That's the problem. You see. That is the problem. That's where you go light fingered on. You expect this and you get that. That's right. Okay. Nice. Chuck mean. Chuck mean. Oh my God. Just as I digress for a second, there's a club owner here in New York City who calls me that. Calls you Chuck Mean? Chuck Mean. He was like, I'm the one who knows the truth.

No one knows the truth. That's not bad. You're Chuck Mean. I still let the record show I still have great interest in meeting your wife. You know, I have to tell you. Because she's got to be extraordinary. She is an extraordinary woman. And you know what?

I got to tell you, you and I are in the same boat. I still look very much forward to meeting my wife. And we've been living together for 18 years. But you work nights. There you go. Very clever, Mr. Nights. All right, here we go. All right, this is Lissandro Gutierrez.

Lissandro Gutierrez must be coming to us from Twitter, although she doesn't say. So Lissandro wants to know this. Wow, look at this, man. When you say expanding perspectives, people pretty much go to one place. She says, would it be better for marijuana to be available as a prescription drug for those who truly need it or be available for recreational purposes? What are your thoughts on marijuana?

Well, I'll give you two separate tines of this fork. separate tines of this fork. Okay, and let me just say before you answer that, that Lissandro comes to us from Patreon. So this is a Patreon question. So we must give it special attention, Mr. Nod.

Well, there are two tines to this fork for me. The first one is in Washington State in the United States, they claim that their new marijuana laws are working in the following way they've reduced the number of duis driving under the influence they don't have policemen don't have to spend as much time pursuing what used to be

petty offenders when people have a small amount of marijuana with them right and uh not that it's hard to pursue somebody who's high on marijuana let me just tell you yeah dude and i would run right now but yeah but so it's an income stream instead of a burden but i will say that's the first time of the fork the other one just for me i do not like the smell i'm not i'm not a fan of marijuana see i'm just i i don't mind the smell of marijuana uh i like the smell of cocaine a lot better uh can't hear you can't hear you and so the thing is if if marijuana is taxed and we have an education program because i i i mean this is anecdotal chuck go ahead just people i've known who've smoked marijuana for a long time long time some of them are completely unaffected but some of them just seem like they get stupider well yes and so i think it's related or not related it's a similar pattern to what you see with alcohol right some

people are tolerant of it some people aren't correct and so i'm all for legalizing marijuana so long as we include an education program with it. Some people are not going to be able to do it. You know, and this is – what you just say right there is very important. And I agree with you exactly in that same way because I myself used to. And when I say used to – Look, he's fine. No, I'm not.

That's the point. I am not fine. I used to smoke marijuana and it's not that I'm – That's it point i am not fine i used to smoke marijuana and um it's not that i'm done that's it right there there you go i used to smoke and um like what happened was no so i used to smoke marijuana but it's i'm not done with marijuana it's done with me so you lost me so what happened what took a meeting no it just it fired you it stopped working oh i see it the the the desired effect that i wanted was no longer available uh it did not produce the desired effect and so basically i would smoke it become very paranoid and that would be the entire

experience me sitting alone in a room going there's a lot of people in here and i was by myself so you know so you stopped doing so i stopped because it just it wasn't what was the effect you were going for before uh that whole i would run right now officer but yeah a sense of well-being yeah exactly like the sense of well-being like who cares everything is great you know now i have a friend who told me i'm just smoking the wrong marijuana but that's a whole nother conversation. Sounds like a pushing person. No, it sounds like a guy who's trying to make a sale.

That's my dealer, right? No, I don't mean to. No, he wasn't. He's not. Oh, no. No, he's just a guy who always had it and I bought it from him. That's all you're saying. That doesn't make him a drug dealer.

Right? And so with that thought, we've expanded our perspective somewhat, and we're going to expand them further in the coming minutes here on StarTalk. Appreciate everybody who's sending your perspectival questions in, and we will join you, Bill Nye and Chuck Nice, right after this. so uh everyone you're watching and listening to star talk all stars that's right bill nye here hosting this week i'm joined by a man with extraordinary cosmic perspective none other than chuck nice yes and we are taking your uh input with respect to a cosmic perspective. Yes. And we finished the last segment with some mind expansion questions about smoking marijuana and the role of the pusher person in Chuck's life at one time.

Hey, you know what? Since we're back on that theme, I got to ask this question. This eli again who who sent in he's prolific he is if matt's a man and you never know because it could be uh could be matilda this is what matt wants to know have you bill nye ever experimented with any perception-altering drugs or aids that have expanded your perspective? No. I mean, I've enjoyed alcoholic beverages. I don't know if that's expanded my perspective.

It's definitely reduced my inhibitions. But I don't know if that's the same as expanding perspective. I am picturing a shirtless Bill Nye up on a bar right now, baby. That's, yes. With that said, I've tried on the glasses. I've tried closing my eyes for extended periods, trying to turn off all your senses. I've tried meditation with extraordinary input or techniques with words to say, thoughts to think, breaths to feel on your upper lip. I've tried all this stuff.

But I never really had my reality expanded, my perception of reality expanded, got to say. Okay. Oh, I've tried. But I haven't tried as hard like i knew people who take lsd right and they've had they claim you know good experiences and they all come back a little afraid of it okay yes i was going to say there's a there are a lot of people who have good experiences with uh lsd or even if it's not LSD like just any hallucinogenic like mushrooms or and they tend to like it

and then at the same time they are very leery. Like they don't they would never say, yo man you should do that. Like I don't know too many people like LSD man you gotta do that. I don't know too many people who are like, LSD, man, you got to do that. I don't know too many people like that.

I know what you mean. Yeah. They're like, I've done it. It's not my thing. But I'm, you know, people, I am dull and boring. I mean, I have an unexpanded life. Give me a perspective. Expand me.

Okay. All right. Well, let's move on. This is from Cosmos Matters. This is the person. That's what they call themselves. It may not be. It could be his real is from Cosmos Matters. This is the person. That's what they call themselves. It could be his real name. Cosmos Matters.

That's true. Cosmos is a real name. From Facebook. What waste management strategies are they considering when people go to Mars? I sometimes think we need to save Earth before potentially polluting and messing up another planet. So he is assuming that when we go to Mars, we are going to screw it up. Well, he raises a very important point.

He raises a very important point, a key point, something to consider. You don't want to contaminate another planet, especially if you're going there as an explorer to look for signs of life. Prime directive. The prime directive. And the prime directive is, of course, spiritually reasonable. Don't let other people, don't mess up other people's societies. But technically or scientifically, it's a guideline, a very good, strong guideline.

If you're going to try to look for evidence of some Martian microbe, a Mars-crobe, you don't want to bring a bunch of microbes from Earth that would contaminate them. You wouldn't be able to tell one from the other. That said, I will just remind everybody, it is my opinion, as you pointed out earlier, Chuck, my opinion, Bill Nye's opinion is so often correct, that you don't really want to go live on Mars. You want to colonize Mars. Now, listen. See, you say that, Bill, but you have to understand that you say this in the face of an actual lust for living on Mars.

There is a living La Vida Loca Mars movement right now. You got the movie Martian. Loved it. But he's not colonizing it. Okay. He's doing scientific research, and he fully intended to come home. Right. He's like, oh, I can't wait to live where I can't breathe or drink or eat.

Cool. But it seems just like- Where it's bitterly cold. What is wrong with you? But you do want to go find out, because everybody, in the next hundred years, But it seems just like- Where it's bitterly cold. What is wrong with you? But you do want to go find out because everybody, in the next hundred years, humankind will know whether or not there are living things on Mars or were living things on Mars. Humankind will probably know whether or not there are living things on Europa, the moon of Jupiter with twice as much seawater as the Earth.

I want to do it now. I want to do this exploration now. And as far as waste management on Mars, the main thing I would say, Cosmos, is you got to conserve water. You don't want to waste water. About 90% of human waste is water. So you want to recover all that. When you go to set up your Mars base to do your scientific research, to learn about Mars' past and prepare for our future, to have a safe journey and the joy of discovery, we also hope you keep track of all that water.

It's precious on Mars. You know, it's kind of precious here on Earth, too, if you kind of look around. I mean, do you think that that's something we should be worried about here? Oh, Chuck. I did not cue Chuck up on this, people. Yes. The water is one of Bill Nye's big four. Oh, really?

Yes. I did not know Bill Nye had a big four. Yes. I must hear all four of them now. What we want is electrical storage, a way to store electricity. Okay. We need electrical transmission. All right.

So once you store it, you can get it from place to place. We lose about 6% in transmission. That's huge. There's enough to power Montana or Saskatchewan or some exotic place. Wow. And then we need a new policy. We need to penalize or incentivize people to not make carbon dioxide we need a fee on carbon dioxide this is a big policy it's a big heavy thing then the fourth thing is

clean water for everyone on earth so if you can come up with a way cosmos out there if you can come up with a way to desalinate seawater more cheaply than we are able to do I mean we do it But if you could do it More cheaply And by cheaply I mean using less energy Right You could get rich And change the world

Improve the quality of life For humans everywhere Yes I must pull back I must pull back Right And I cannot help But point out

That these big four Are described in my book Unstoppable Harnessing science to Change the World. They're 20 in a carton. They make great gifts. Pick up a carton today. Pick up some eggs.

If you want them autographed, I know a guy. There you go. All right, Cosmos, good question there. There you have it. Let's save water on Mars and on Earth. When you go to Mars in waste management, you want to save water. Save water. That's the number one thing.

And let's do it here. Well, it's the number one. It's a thing. It's an important thing. You've got to save air, too. That makes sense because I hear there's not a lot of it. But they want it like we're going to in situ resource utilization. It's true.

We're going to make oxygen from the regolith. Okay. It's just not that easy. Cool. See, when you say it's not that easy, what I hear is, that ain't happening. Well, no, we'll see. We're going to run tests on the 2020 rover. We're going to get started on this.

All right, cool. That's cool. That's cool. All right. Let us go to another Patreon question. Okay. Let us go to another Patreon question, okay? And for those of you who don't know, Patreon is at patreon.com where you can go, and you can help StarTalk sustain this wonderful programming that we bring to you and be a sponsor of the show.

And we pay special attention to you because you have made an investment. So you're saying people are buying their way on the air that's exactly what i'm saying and i have no problem with it patrons and supporters that's right and this is from joel cherico and uh he's at cherico pottery and from saint joseph minnesota and this is what joel wants to know, Bill. Smartphones and computers give us amazing access to information, but come with financial burdens. Should powerful new technology be made available to everyone? Or is it fair that only those who can afford new technology are the ones that can use it? Wow, this is really opinion. This is straight up bill nye's opinion kind of like the art question

the technology question when art is made is it for everyone or is it just for the rich people who can afford to commission it when technology is made is it for everyone or is it just for those yuppies who actually need to do stuff with apps this so you're saying that's my opinion. She sounded like Chuck's to me. No, I'm saying that's the question. What's your opinion? I kid because I love it. So what you want is for everyone to have access to the internet. You want everyone to have access to the world's information.

This is to say, this doesn't mean all the information is free, but you have access to it. For example, if you buy a book online, you want the author to be compensated. So you have to buy it, and there's an electronic scheme to do that. example of the post office the united states post office you can send a letter from miami to what's another exotic place uh tampa okay for the same price you can send a letter from tampa to juneau alaska it's the same price and the reason is not because our forefathers, the drafters of the Constitution, were crazy. It's to enable people to vote, to engage the whole country or ultimately the entire planet in the same means to communicate.

The reason the post office was established was to have communication for everyone in the same way. Now that we have the internet, which is the electronic equivalent of the post office, we want to include everyone. And people have talked quite a bit in my business of science education and education writ large about the digital divide. You don't want to have people excluded from participating

in information-based events or information exchanges because of money. And so this is why we want to not have – we want to have a neutral internet where everyone gets access. This is to say it's not free, and the way it would be paid for is through taxes in the same way we expect sewers to work water in the united states water out of the tap to be drinkable right or if you want to change whether you can afford it or not yeah right it's there uh in the same way everybody gets has access to electricity you can control how much you buy. We want everyone to have access to the information. So to leave people out based on money is, information is power. It sounds cool, but it is not in everybody's best interest.

All right, let me just follow up on Joel's question with this. Okay, you're talking about net neutrality. Why, when you say everyone should have access to the information, the question, me as a soulless capitalist pig who needs to make money no matter what, because that's my God-given right as an American. All right, yes. Why? Why do these people, why should they have access to the internet

when they can't afford it? I mean, what is the benefit? Let's make it affordable. What is the benefit? What's the benefit of, what's the downside of having people not have access to sewers? We have poop in the streets.

Yeah. So in the same way, if you have people excluded from the goings on in society, you're going to have people that become a burden rather than contributors. And this is, I'm first to admit, you know, this progressive, bleeding heart, liberal, crazy, thoughtless, two chickens in every pot perspective. But believe me, if you exclude people. I don't know why I'm very hungry now. If you exclude people from what goes on in the

community electronically you're there will become a burden rather than contributors just imagine you're trying to hire somebody who who goes home and cannot receive email from you or cannot communicate with you or does not have a phone that person is much harder to employ true and so that person then will ultimately pay less taxes or none will become a burden on you right and so this is a while this is obvious to me and not other people is charming okay so but who do we hate more than the cable company I mean very few things so you want to you want to straighten that out and make it competitive.

Boy, you touched the nerve there. That's for sure. So we want to straighten that out and make it reasonably priced and competitive. And this gets in, as we say, just like a machine should have all the parts it needs and no more, we want our government regulations, our government rather, to enact and enforce all the regulations it needs, but no more. Gotcha. All right.

Hey, Joe, what is wrong? That's why we have governments and legislatures and we argue about stuff. No, all that stuff should go away. I'm sorry. As a libertarian, I'm just saying there should be no regulation. People should do whatever they want to do. So they build their own telephone lines. That's it.

Their own routers. Can and a string, Bill. Can and string. Okay, who paves the road out front of your place? You hire people. Gravel. Get yourself some gravel. You've got yourself a road.

Where do you get gravel? From Gravel Co. Your other libertarian buddy who sells gravel. There you go. Does he get his gravel from a glacial till or does he get it by stealing it from the other libertarian gravel.com? Or we be gravel?

I don't know. I think you're just patronizing me to blow holes in my argument here. Well, I'm just reminding us all that we live in communities and communities are where you're productive. Communities are where you have radio shows. Communities are where people work together to create wonderful things,

like StarTalk Radio with Chuck Nice and your host, Bill Nye. And we will be back right after this. Welcome back. Welcome back to StarTalk. Bill Nye hosting this week. i'm joined today by none other than chuck nice that's right and we are doing your questions we are answering your questions from an expanding of perspective point of view now this fall uh I guess earlier this month, that we had Comic-Con in New York. Yes, we did.

Which is sort of Halloween on the Hudson. Nice. We have some expanding of our perspective queries and cosmic query sense from Comic-Con. Yes. Is that true, Chuck? That is correct. So we were out at Comic-Con, and we took a microphone and got some people who were fans of the show to ask us some questions. So we could say, roll that digital recording.

Absolutely. That's all we have to do is roll the tape, and let's see who it is and what they want to know. Leora from New York. Hey, Bill. How much of humanity's trash is currently on Mars? How much of humanity's trash? Trash.

Well, they're very valuable scientific instruments. Do you want to call the parachute that landed the Spirit and the Opportunity rovers, are those trash? rovers are those trash are those glorious artifacts of humankind dedicated to exploring the solar system so that we would know the cosmos and our place within it or are those refuse i would say there's no human trash on mars no human trash on mars not yet and that's because you are not a martian if you walked out of your front door on mars that you saw a big parachute laying on your lawn you'd be, who put that trash there? Or you'd say, wow, how do I take advantage of this wonderful alien material? That's true, too.

Yes. Wow, this is a gift from the sky. Cool. The gods must be crazy. Okay. All right, well, there you have it. Exactly. Instead of a Coke bottle, it's a big, giant parachute.

That's pretty cool. Or sky crane. All right, well, there you have it. Instead of a Coke bottle. Instead of a Coke bottle, it's a big giant parachute. That's pretty cool. Or sky crane. All right, excellent, excellent. No trash on Mars, no human trash on Mars as of yet. Here to four. Here to four. All right, let's go with this name here, okay? That's an unusual name.

How do I spell that? All right. Dietrich Iswig Chaya or Chaya. All right. Dietrich Chaya. Dietrich Chaya. Okay. From Facebook.

I am from Alaska. My question for you, Bill, is what do you believe our next step in space exploration is or should be? We've been to the moon, but we haven't gone in a little while. Is our next step another trip to the moon? Is it perhaps an asteroid, Mars, Europa? where do you think it is and where do you think it should be i'm listening to the nature of your question i think you mean what's the next place for people because in 2020 we're going to land another rover on mars okay shortly after that we hope by 2023 we'll have a mission orbiting a spacecraft orbiting Europa, the very thing you brought up.

What we at the Planetary Society propose is that NASA get itself organized so that we send humans in orbit around Mars in the year 2033. This is an especially favorable orbital opportunity. I mean, it's not magical, but it's favorable. This is an especially favorable orbital opportunity. I mean, it's not magical, but it's favorable. And we would have enough time to build the architecture, and architecture is space words for a bunch of rockets and spacecraft ship things that you would use to get humans all the way to Mars and orbit around Mars, and then probably four years later you would land on Mars.

In 2033, that orbital mission might land on Phobos. And the word land, Phobos is a moon of Mars. It has so little gravity. How little does it have? It's more like lasso Phobos more than land on it. And so this would be an extraordinary thing. And the claim of the Planetary Society, we sponsored a workshop. We brought in 70 of the world's experts, people expert on what it costs to explore space, and experts on NASA's budget. And we could do this only adjusting for inflation. The key thing would be to agree that we've actually agreed to actually agree actually to actually not support the International Space Station with NASA money after 2024.

not support the International Space Station with NASA money after 2024. So wait a minute. Is that the condition under which we would be able to go to Mars? Is that we no longer support the ISS? Without an increase in the budget. Oh, okay. Without an increase in the budget. If you just leave the budget just the way, adjusting only for inflation, which is an increase but an expected one, you could do it.

We could do it. And this would be an extraordinary thing. And as Neil deGrasse Tyson often remarks, if we were really people going to Mars, there would be a line around the block of people who wanted to go. And what we would do is go there to look for signs of life. If we were to discover life on this other world, it would change this world.

It would change the way everyone feels about his or her place in space. Would it now? I'm not saying we'd start driving on the left. I know, but I'm saying it would be, it would just get to you in the same way Copernicus showed the earth goes around the sun. It changed everything, not in a weekend.

No, you're right, because it took quite some time for that to happen. So what would be, in your your estimation when you talk about expanding perspectives which is what we're talking about here on cosmic warrior and star talk radio right what would be the number one perspective or change in people's perspective okay what would the delta be for that perspective in humankind because you found some microbes on Mars? We're not talking about just the microbes that you don't have on Earth. What does that do to the perspective?

Life is more likely than you thought. So there's got to be something else out there. And it's, once again, this humbling nature of astronomy. You think you're the center of the universe? First of all, you think your territory, the map that you draw is the whole thing. Then you go over some mountains and there's some other people whose skin's slightly different color and their faces are a little different shape. And you go, dude, we're in Detroit.

For example, then you find out you expect the sun to go around your flat place. But then it turns out, no, you go around the sun. And wait, the sun isn't the only star. Wait, there's billions of stars. Wait, there are things that look like stars that are actually groups of billions of stars. And you're in one of them. And you suck because you are nothing. You are smaller than

you could even at first imagine but then you find out not only do you suck that way you suck because there's life on another planet right down the solar systemic street and somehow it's your fault no wait then the question would be are those things on Mars, like us, to wit, do they have DNA? Okay. If they have DNA, what would that mean to medicine? It would mean DNA is always there? DNA is, or does it mean, obviously, when Mars was hit with an impactor, SFX coming, bang. Right.

That's Mars getting a bitch slap from the cosmos then uh rock went into outer space but you're in space there's no sound just and then landed on earth right fiery entry and then you and i are descendant of mark martian microbes right that is extraordinary see now that is wild. And that would change, I hope, the way you feel about it, what it means to be a living thing. And I hope it gives you just that much more reverence for the cosmos and our place within it.

It is worth exploring. The NASA budget now is 0.4% of the federal budget, less than half a percent. And you could keep it right there, just adjusting for inflation, and you could change the world. Then you engage international partners, Canadian Space Agency, European Space Agency, Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, ISRO, Indian Space Research Organization, Chinese Space Administration, and here we are, changing the world together. Nice, nice. I'm okay, I'm okay. Wow, you know, that was real.

I'm okay, Chuck, I'm okay. Do you need some water? Because that was fantastic. I'm all right, I'm all right. Let's get another question from Comic-Con. All right, let's do a Comic-Con question, shall we? Let's hear it. Hey, Bill, this is Sam Eifling.

I live in Brooklyn, Metcomicon. I had this thought, and I want to know what you think about it. There must be a finite number of possible molecules that we could catalog and understand in the same way that we've done with human genes. Is there any chance we will ever have a full catalog of all the possible, let's say, organic molecules available to us on planet Earth? That's a great question. And I'll say people are pursuing this in plants. There are people at the Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell that are working hard to assay

or assay all the different molecules in plants that people didn't realize were there. I have to say from a practical standpoint, you probably never get every molecular combination because we just can't think of them. And when you start talking about polymers, do you count ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene like Tupperware? And then do you count plastic wrap molecular weight polyethylene like Tupperware?

And then do you count plastic wrap, food film? Right. Which is a different, like, then it gets to be a question. You know, Chuck, that question is sort of overwhelming. But nevertheless, I feel a jolt. And by that, I mean, I think it's time for the lightning round. There you have it. It is time for the lightning round. There you have it. It is time for the lightning round. Shall we?

Yes, this is where you hit me with a question. Answer really quickly. Then I hit the bell. Take a chuck. Here we go. This is Bethany DiCaprio coming from Facebook. Here she says, what do you think it would take to unite the human beings on this planet? Big question.

Working together over the next century and a half to resolve climate change. Wow. Good one. Kelly Elizabeth Claus from Facebook wants to know, what are your thoughts on toys and games such as GoldieBox that are recently being developed and marketed towards young girls to help foster an early interest in engineering, which you are, Bill. You're an engineer.

What? What do you think about that? Oh, it's terrible. No, wait. It's great. Come on. It's great. The more, the merrier.

Let's go. We'll double the number of brains applied to engineering problems, and we will improve the quality of life for humans everywhere. What's not to love? Okay. And follow-up question. Do you think that those games work? Time will tell. It's hard to love? Okay, and follow-up question. Do you think that those games work? Time will tell.

It's hard to say right away. But intuitively, if the parents are excited about it, then the kid will get excited about it because kids watch what the parents do and emulate them. For better or for worse, that's the way it is. And full disclosure, everybody, Chuck Nice has three kids. But I'm not a role model okay this one comes from this one comes from gabe dominguez on facebook how can we get more women into stem careers at what point in

life do you think the little girls stop believing that they can become astronauts or inventors the key may be algebra by engaging people, students in school, in letters representing numbers much sooner than we do now. So that when you take formal algebra in seventh grade, let's say, in the United States, the stakes aren't as high. Apparently, algebra not only enables you to think abstractly about numbers, it enables you to think abstractly about all sorts of things. But in a formal fashion. And that's what – so we could just up the algebra budget just a little bit and see what happens. Keep in mind, it takes years for these things. Now, the European Space Agency is largely run by women, but it took many years or decades

for those people to work their way up through the brittle glass ceilings there you have it okay bradley dean summerfield from facebook wants to know this is there a room in our current understanding of the universe for the possibility that our consciousness may in fact reside somewhere in space and not necessarily within the brains of our bodies wow Wow. In a word, no. No, because if you hang around people who grow old and die, it certainly seems like, as they lose their faculties, which many of us do, it certainly seems like it's a chemical thing going on in your brain.

But when I watch science fiction, when I read my science fiction, it would be great to put your consciousness in some receptacle, as long as I still could feel the whole thing. Wow, that was oddly sexual. I don't know why. You talk on right. That's exactly what we're talking about, people. What did you think I was talking about? He's the guy with three kids. Are you down with cause and effect, Chuck? We've got time for one more question. Here we go. Kayla Lynn Yetman on Facebook wants to know this. As we explore the universe more and more

in search of life and answers, if we did encounter new life, microbial or intelligence or ascension, how do you think the world proceeds from that point forward? We would think differently about what it means to be alive in the universe, in the cosmos, and we would have more respect for it,

and that would improve the quality of life, quality of life for humans everywhere. Let's work together and change the world. This has been StarTalk with me, Bill Nye, as your host, joined by Chuck Nice. Together, that's right, keep looking up. Oh, God, it's so fun, man.