StarTalk Radio - Cosmic Queries – The New Space Race

Episode Date: February 22, 2019

Why haven’t we gone back to the Moon? What are the responsibilities of the Space Force? Is Mars the new end goal for exploration? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Ray Ellin answer fan-submitted questions on the “new” Space Race.NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free.Photo Credit: SpaceX Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

From the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and beaming out across all of space and time, this is StarTalk, where science and pop culture collide. This is Star Talk. And I'm your personal astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson. And we're here in a Cosmic Queries edition. And I have a new co-host, never co-hosted before, Ray Ellen. Ray.

Hello, hello. Ray in the house. Great to see you, Neil. I know you because you basically, you're a warm-up guy. Yeah. A warm-up comedian for when we do live Star Talks. Four seasons now. Four seasons. Four seasons, yeah. So now we put you in front of the camera. Right, fantastic. I'm ready.

I'm ready for it. Can you handle it? I think I can. Can you handle it? It is such a fun, Star Talk is such a fun show. Oh, thank you. Yeah, that's not me. I'm thanking you for 50 of us. There's a trickle-down effect. It starts with you

and it runs through, ripples through the entire cast. Oh, excellent. It's all labors of love for us. Yeah, for sure. And I'm always delighted you make the crowd feel at home and comfortable.

You only insult them intermittently. Very sporadically. Very sporadically. When they have it, when they deserve it. when they deserve it. When they deserve it. They deserve it when it happens. Yeah, sure.

Excellent. And are you active on social media? I am. At Ray Comedy on Instagram. Ray Comedy? On Instagram, yeah. Instagram, okay. Ray Romano is very upset that I got Ray Comedy.

Okay. How'd you get that? How? What? I'm like, you're fine without it. And then I have Twitter is at Ray Ellen. Ray Ellen. E-L-L-I-N.

R-A-Y-E-L-L-I-N. I-N. You got it. Okay, dude. Thank you. So this is Cosmic Queries. Love Cosmic Queries. And so you got the questions?

I got the questions. Called from our social media? Yes. A footprint? Yes. And bring them on. I haven't seen the questions, but the topic solicited is the

new space race. The new space race. Yeah, not old, boring space race where we only went to the moon. The new space race where we're trying to get into That's right. The new and exciting updated space race. Updated space race. Although this first question does pertain to the moon.

It's from Ryan Espinoza on Facebook. All right. And Ryan wants to know, why do you think we haven't gone back to the moon in decades? And would there be any good sustainable reason other than preparing for Mars to have a permanent research station there, perhaps even to launch spacecraft?

No. Okay, next question. No reason at all. What about the launching spacecraft? No, no, there could be reasons, but the economics is hard to justify. So you need a reason that overrode the economics, like war. Or if China says, we're going to put military bases on the moon, we're going back to the moon. We're going back to the moon.

Right, because then we use that as an argument to justify it. That's why we went to the moon in the first place. Right. Russia was getting our upper hand. Here's something nobody talks about. We're Americans, right? Americans. Americans.

Apostrophe M-U-R-R-I-C-A. Americans. Our narrative of our history is that we are pioneers in space. Okay? But let's look at it. The Russians came up with the rocket equation. This is the equation that tells you how much fuel you need to put a payload into orbit. Why does that matter?

Because you need fuel to carry the fuel that hasn't burned yet to put the payload in orbit. to carry the fuel that hasn't burned yet to put the payload in orbit. So for every pound you want to put into orbit, you need much, much more fuel than you'd otherwise think you'd need. And that's why the Saturn V rocket is so tall and the astronauts and all their payload is just an upper little section.

All the rest of that is just controlled bomb. Wow. Okay? So the rocket equation was Russian. Russians had the first satellite in orbit. Sputnik. Sputnik. And in fact, they got Sputnik right here.

Oh. Okay. I got this in Star City, Moscow. I mean, outside of Moscow. It's a very distant suburb of Moscow where they, it's like our Houston. Okay. Except it's really just for space. Are there any cowboys there at all?

No. So, this is the International Space Station. Okay. And then we go next one down. This is Skylab. Oh, cool. Yeah, which was the Apollo-Soyuz project. We used the Skylab as a space station.

So that's smaller than the International Space Station. Right. I have no idea what this is. It looks like a flying saucer. Could have been some prototype thing that the Russians designed. And what else do I have here? This is some large satellite. Satellite.

But we keep going. And there's Sputnik in the tiniest of the dolls. Look at that. That's a very, very clever doll. I don't know how this translates to radio, but I just disassembled one of the dolls. Look at that. That's a very, very clever doll. I don't know how this translates to radio, but I just disassembled one of these dolls. What are they called? Those are the...

The Russian dolls? The Russian dolls. The nesting Russian dolls. There's a Russian name for it. I was thinking a Faberge egg. It's not a Faberge egg. No, no, no. Not even close. So the littlest one in there, normally they have heads of state or popes or prime ministers or czars.

These are spaceships. If you crack that one open, it'll be a little bottle of vodka. If you crack that open, it'll be a little piece of potato. I'm not showing it. So Sputnik, they have the first non-human animal in space. Who's that? Chimp? No.

Non-human animal? It's a dog. Was it really? Yes. What kind of a dog was it? Laika. It was a mutt. I don't know if it was a mutt, but I think it was kind of like a mutt. It was a stray dog from Moscow. How would you feel if you were a stray dog just running in the streets of Moscow?

Next thing you know, you're up in orbit. Well, if they had no plans to bring it back alive. Oh, wow. So maybe you'd have second thoughts. However, I'm thinking to myself, if I were a dog, I could be a stray dog and die in the streets of Moscow in the winter

or be the most famous dog since Lassie and die in space. Yeah, that's not a bad option. Or how about just being adopted by a family with a yard? A rescue dog. Yeah, a rescue dog.

Wouldn't that be sweet? So there's some bitterness about the fact that there's no plans to bring it back alive. And it was a Russian mutt. Yeah, I think it's't that be sweet? So there's some bitterness about the fact that there was no plans to bring it back alive. And it was a Russian mutt. Yeah, I think it's most of some kind of breed. But I don't think it was a, I don't remember it being a purebred. Anyway, they had.

It's rough, rough. And the first human in space. Okay. And that was who? The first human ever in space? Yes. Yuri Gagarin. Yes.

It was Yuri Gagarin. He said yes. That was a good. You saved yourself on that one. If I answer quickly, it meant I knew it. That was very Stewie and Brian right there. That was very... And so they also had the first...

A lot of firsts. And then we landed on the moon first. Right. And then we say, we win. And obviously we walked on the moon first. Right. And then we say, we win. And obviously we walked on the moon first. You know, I'm just saying, we landed on the moon first. Right. And we say, we win the race.

Right. When almost every other important achievement in space was achieved by the Russians. And the reality of that progression of achievements is what spooked us. Because they were accomplishing things faster and better than we were. And so then we leapfrogged it, and then we went to the moon. So that's all I'm saying. So, but going back to what Ryan asked. I forgot the question.

No, it's okay. But why isn't the moon useful to launch spacecraft? Oh, okay. So here's the problem. If you're going to leave Earth to go to the moon to then go to Mars, just go straight to Mars. Go straight, okay. All right?

You're going to need fuel to land on the moon because you have to slow down. Fuel is not just to go fast. Once you're going fast, how are you going to slow down? In our atmosphere, you can use aerobraking, which is why we have heat shields. People say, oh, you need heat shields, otherwise you'll burn up. Glad you're going through the atmosphere.

I don't need fuel to do it. Using the friction and shock waves between the craft and the air to slow it down so that I don't need to use retro rockets to slow it down. You go into the moon, you need retro rockets to slow yourself down. So you have to carry fuel that you're not using yet. So no, the moon would not be a place to organize to then go to Mars. You want to organize?

Organize in zero G, in a Lagrangian point. There are these points where gravity balances between the moon and the earth and the planets. Well, you just put stuff there, it just stays. So you can make really big ships. And then you leave from zero gravity. And now you're not trying to climb out of what we call a gravitational well, which is all the exhaust that's coming out of our rockets needs to do.

That's interesting. Do you think that'll ever become a reality? Possibly, but unless there's a war driver, there's got to be an economic driver. Otherwise, I don't see it happening ever at all. Right. And I wrote a whole book on this. This was called...

What's it called? This one right here? No, it's not that book. The Unspoken Alliance? No, it's not that book. So I wrote a whole book on this that I wanted to call Failure to Launch,

The Dreams and Delusions of Space Enthusiasts. And the publisher says, no, we can't have the word failure in a title. That's just bad. But I love the title. And the publisher says, no, we can't have the word failure in a title. That's just bad. But I love the title. They said, by the way,

isn't there a movie with that title? Yes, except I'm using the title literally, Failure to Launch. That one was figurative about failing to leave home and get married. So why don't you just call it Successes and Unsuccesses in the World of Launching. Unsuccesses.

So that book is called Space Chronicles Facing the – so I settled on the title Space Chronicles Facing the Ultimate Frontier. Half of that book is on why we didn't continue to go to Mars. My takeaway from this is that you've written so many books, you can't remember the names of the books. No, no. That is remarkable. I've just written so much.

I'm such a prolific writer. I don't know. That's amazing. I didn't know it came out that way. No, it didn't. That's awesome. That was not. That's pretty impressive, actually.

Can I give you my one impressive book story? Yeah. My first time I ever met Carl Sagan. I was 17. I'm in his office. I'm sitting across his desk. And he said, I'd give you a gift. He reaches behind, does not even look, grabs a book from the shelf, and it's his book.

And he signs it to me. Wow. That is badass. That's badass. You don't even, whatever you touch, it's going to be one of your books. It's going to be his. Yeah. It's just a bookcase full of Sagan.

And then it was like some years later, after my sixth book or something, I had them lined up behind me, and a kid comes in, and I just reach back, and I say, damn. I'm like, that's what I'm doing. Did you reach back and grab one of Sagan's books? No.

How many books have you written? 20? 15. 15, that's incredible. About four or five of them are co-authored, because you can't know everything for everything you write about. But some of them I'm more proud of than others.

But it's an opus of my effort to communicate the universe to the public. That's amazing. My sister Abby just wrote her second book called Duped. And I see firsthand up close how difficult it is to write a book. Oh, yeah. You have that many. That's incredible. Oh, yeah.

No, it's a whole – it's a chapter of your life. It's a piece of you in the book. Right. And when you're done, you just got to regrow the organs that you expend. Right. You know, regrow your energy, refill your fuel tanks, regain energy, reestablish your existence as an entity because you're putting so much of yourself in the book itself. Sure. regain energy re-establish your existence as an entity

because you're putting so much of yourself in the book itself sure this is why after every episode of Star Talk when Chuck Nice

and I say to Neil hey you want to go out maybe have a glass of wine you're like nah I gotta go home I have things to do like write another book see you later drunks

the number the amount of interstitial time most people spend doing nothing is extraordinary. Yeah. I'm writing. Yeah.

That's exactly right. That's great. Great use of time. Yeah. You know who else spent some time writing? Matt. Matt Harefield. All right.

So what do you have? Next question. Matt wants to know, Matt Harefield on Facebook, why are we framing this as a race? Is there an end goal that one country could achieve first? Oh, really? This is a thoughtful question. Oh, man.

Took him 30 seconds to write. It's, you know, race implies there's a big start point and an end point. Right. And the race to the moon that we won, but we didn't win the race to space itself. Russia won that race. So many people say Mars is the next obvious choice.

You're not going to go to Venus. It's hotter than a pizza oven on Venus, by the way. So Mars would be the next obvious target. But I have a contrarian view here. I don't want to call it contrarian. I have an unorthodox view here. I want to build the capacity to explore without reference to where you're going. So you have a warehouse of rockets.

So what do you want to do in space, Ray? I want to play baseball. You want to play baseball. So play baseball on the moon love to okay so um and you should know that the restaurants on the moon they have no atmosphere that's you saw that i did but tell me please tell me about the italian suppositories on the moon so uh so you want to play baseball so you might want to doories on the moon? No. So you want to play baseball. So you might want to do that on the moon. So you go, what rockets do you need?

How many people are you going to take with you? That's this vessel with this many rockets. And you need to last this long. So you need this food supply and oxygen, this sort of thing. And then you go to the moon and have fun. There's scientists that might want to study the possibility of life on Mars in some other genesis on Mars.

So they'll bring equipment with them and they want to go there. Maybe they want robots. Maybe they'll stay in orbit and control robots down on the surface. So what I want is everybody's creativity to be empowered by our capacity to explore space. And that way, no one is saying where the destination is.

So in that sense, it's actually not a race. It's let's all go play in our backyard. And that backyard is the solar system. Right. And well put. It's amazing to me. I always thought it was just so interesting how everything has to be turned into sort of framed as a competition. Well, we're human, and particularly,

there are people who rise to higher heights when they compete. When I first started watching the Olympics, I thought to myself, why is it that you can set a world record in the Olympics? Why didn't you set the world record a week ago? It's you. You're the same person. How different are you this week than last week?

Exactly, yes. Or than a month ago? Right. Why did you set a world? Because the competition, the moment, the urge, the pageantry, all comes together and creates a will, a force, almost another force of nature operating on your ambitions. But it also creates a sense of pressure that maybe someone can, maybe someone could run the fastest time ever if he didn't feel this pressure. For example, there's some people who

can only sing in the shower. They can't sing on stage. They're great in the shower. What if somebody... Well, I can sing... I sing really good in the shower and I could sing on stage but no one would want me to. That's the difference.

You want to do the remake of Jesus Christ Superstar? My favorite musical of all time. And I saw it in 1971. Oh, wow. Yeah, with an original cast

including Ben Vereen as Judas. Oh, you saw it when you were two years old. Yes. Good stuff. But why did you oh yeah so so i don't have a voice that i that's good i don't have a good singing voice other than i just sing in the shower right but there's some people who sound incredible in the shower and wouldn't be good in front of a live audience so i'm sure there's people that participate in the olympics who maybe aren't maybe they could have broken the world record just sort of on their own time.

Like on a random Sunday, they get up, they feel kind of relaxed. So we need an Olympics with no cameras and no audience. No cameras, no audience, no fanfare. Sure. Exactly. It's called the home Olympics. The home Olympics. All right. We'll see. We'll see how that one plays. See how that goes. So yeah, competition drives it. so does the urge to gain wealth and power right so that's driven all the greatest projects that humans have ever done in the history of civilization greatest in terms of what what fraction of a society's intellectual Intellectual, physical, and financial capital was invested in it.

So when that's high, generally it's praise of royalty, gods and royalty. It's economics or it's war. And today you don't have praise of royalty triggering expensive projects the way we once did in civilization. So that basically leaves war and money. War and money. I wish that were not true. I'm just simply reporting what has driven and motivated people

in the past. And so, yes, competition to be the first to get the economic return or to get the high ground if there's a military motive to it. The Cheney effect. Yeah, definitely.

All right, next question. Next definitely. All right, next question. All right, next up. All right, next question is from Pedro Semedio on Facebook. Pedro asks, are there any international ethics or rules for space exploration? Let's suppose, for example, that Chang'e 4 had a problem when landing. This is the Chinese mission that landed on the backside of the moon. Yes. Yes, okay.

The backside or dark side? They're the same thing. No, no. Two different things. In spite of the 1973 album by Pink Floyd? Yes. The dark side of the moon? There is no dark side of the moon.

All sides of the moon receive light. Oh, okay. Yeah, a day on the moon lasts a month. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, yeah. I can get a lot done. So there's a far side of the moon. That's why I said the backside.

I got you. Okay. Yeah, yeah. I can get a lot done. So there's a far side of the moon. That's why I said the back side. I got you. Okay. Not the underside. But it's not a place where the sun don't shine. Okay. Okay. So, okay, so in Chang'e 4, if it had a problem when landing and the potato seeds and silkworms were spread over lunar soil,

were they to be punished somehow for contaminating lunar soil with terrestrial life? Yeah, so there are three things here. In 1967, there's something called the International Space Treaty. That's a much longer title, but you want to shorten it, International Space Treaty, okay? Assigned by more than 100 countries. And it's a code of conduct for space. Very kumbaya they saw them that the cold war was getting hotter and space was becoming a contested regime okay of international politics and the un

said we got to do something about this so in it it says if you're in trouble even if we're enemies on the ground i got to help you. I will bring you food or help you. You know, it's this kind of, it's very forward looking and unifying. It's beautiful. My cynical skepticism is if you can actually pull that off in space, why didn't you pull that off down here on Earth? Right, sure. Right? Why is space different?

You're humans and we're human, right? We kill each other from limited resources. We kill each other because your skin color is different, because you worship a different god, because you live on a different side of the line in the sand. Why do we think, and if you can't accomplish it up there, let's do that here. Let that be evidence that you could do it in space.

That's my cynical side of it. So we have that. But you're right. I mean, you are right. I'm just saying. We don't allow greed on rocket ships. No, no. In addition, NASA has a branch of itself called Planetary Protection Office.

itself called Planetary Protection Office. And this protects contamination in destination places of Earth life. Okay. And it protects Earth life from what could be a contaminant brought back from space. And there are regulations about that.

And what level contamination and sterilization is allowed for different kinds of objects. So Europa, that one has the highest chance of their having life. So you want the most sterile objects going there to minimize the risk of contamination. The moon itself is kind of sterile.

We're not worried about contaminating life that's there because it's got no atmosphere, the ultraviolet light, which is hostile to life. The molecules of light just breaks apart the molecules. So there's asteroids hitting all the time. So we're not worried that if you go to the moon and sneeze, you're going to contaminate a future experiment that we're conducting. So there's a lot written on it but no nobody gets punished there's you you

look bad on the international stage but there's no there's no punishment it's no go back three spaces so you're saying so so china will not be penalized for uh bringing uh 50 children on the on that mission so they could make sneakers on the moon too soon how did how how did seeds breaking open to the thing to bring that'd be very costly very costly and child labor historically had been through there's no child labor laws on the moon yeah so that's another question yeah what what what is a crime in a place that's not within a municipality? Correct. Right.

Yeah. Right. And don't get me started. Like, if an alien more intelligent than you lands and you kill it, is that murder? Right? There's the whole thing. Right. There's a whole legal frontier here. Well, you could argue.

I mean, he reached for his… He? It's a male. Or she or it. It's a male. Yeah. I don't know why I made it male. You're right.

You totally made it a male. That's terrible. The Yeah, I don't know why I made it male. You're right. You totally made it a male. That's terrible. The alien reached for its phaser. Reach for something. I like that. I have the alien from 1960s television. That's a 1964 alien. Yeah, so there's a whole frontier there.

And it's a great question. But no, there's no penalties other than maybe we won't invite you on our next mission that's probably penalty enough that's a that's a big penalty we gotta take a break uh star talk cosmic queries the next space race edition when we return This is StarTalk. This is StarTalk. We're back. Cosmic Queries. This is the next Space Race edition.

And I have a newbie as my co-host, Ray Allen. Ray! He's just a newbie as my co-host, but he's been in the comedy scene forever. And in fact, you have your own comedy, like Ray's Comedy Club. I have it on the island of Aruba. That's crazy, dude. When are you flying us all down? You are. The whole Star Talk crew.

Oh, that'd be fun. I'm heading down tomorrow, and I expect everybody to be joining me March 1st. In Aruba. In Aruba. Very cool. Very cool. We got to, well, maybe we'll go on a cruise, and that's a port of call. You could, sure. That'd be great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In Aruba. In Aruba. Very cool. We got to, maybe we'll go on a cruise and that's a port of call.

You could, sure, that'd be great. That would work. Okay. I'd love it. All right. I'd love it.

I'm bringing you up on stage if you come down. So bring me some questions here. Okay. This is, Cosmic Queries. Cosmic Queries is from Woody from Adelaide, Australia.

What is the goal line for scoring in the new space race? Last time it was boots on the moon. A badass station on Mars would be cool. Yeah. That's a great question. I can't speak for everyone, but I can definitely list certain things that have not been accomplished yet. Okay?

So, if you go to the moon and set up a colony, whether it's a permanent colony or a place that you visit seasonally, you want to be able to use local resources to make stuff. And in NASA abbreviation lingo, it's ISRU. In-situ resource utilization. So, it's better discussed with regard to mars you go to mars are you bringing all the water with you that you'll ever need no that's kind of stupid if you're driving to los angeles you don't bring all the water you need you're gonna stop places yeah and pick up some water and you'll refuel tank. You're not going to go with one fuel tank. Yeah, it's got to be bigger because you've got to make it to Los Angeles.

No, they're filling stations along the way. Sure. So one goal is that space becomes, space itself becomes a self-supporting commodity, if you will. So you don't need a huge rocket. You need a half-sized rocket and refuel halfway there. You don't need all the water you're ever going to drink. Get to Mars, sift the water out from beneath the soil,

beneath the surface, and melt that, and now you have water. Oh, by the way, water also serves as rocket fuel. Build a factory, separate the two molecules, the two atoms. What are they in water? What's the molecular form of water? Hydrogen and oxygen. Thank you.

H2O? Yeah. H2O. For some reason, when you ask me a question, I think you're trying to trick me. No, I'm not a trick question guy. No. Not a trickster. No.

I ask very simple questions. Well, thank goodness for that. Okay. So H2O, if you separate those two atoms and put them in separate liquefied tanks, so liquefied hydrogen, liquefied, very cold, you cool it down, it liquefies. And then have a nozzle that connects them.

It's a highly exothermic reaction. Exothermic means. Endothermic means the reaction absorbs energy around it. Exothermic means it releases energy. You bring hydrogen oxygen together, it's rocket fuel. So you can have water there that you can drink, water that can serve as a

rocket fuel, and so then you don't have to bring it. Okay, well, how about food? Well, Mark Watney solved that one. Yes, he did, yeah. He grew potatoes. He grew potatoes, yeah. So you got to grow something first.

Yeah. Figure that out. Are there going to be greenhouses, this sort of thing? So one of the goal lines or high bars for us is in-situ resource utilization. And now that we have 3D printers, if something breaks, I need a nut, a bolt, a fan blade, print it.

Send in the CAD. Load up the CAD from Earth. The computer assisted design. Load it from Earth. Because I'm not going to design it on Mars. I don't have that talent. Get somebody to design it. Oh, here's that new part you need. Bring the designer with you. No, not if they wouldn't

have to. If you just bring the machine. Yeah, there's a time delay of like 20 minutes, but that's fine. What about long-distance energy transfer? Is that something that we're sort of… You mean, oh, well, so, no, our rockets, we're still using chemical fuels in our rockets. Well, you know what we need? Warp drives.

Warp drives. We need phasers and warp drives. We need phasers and warp drives. And we don't have flying cars yet, but we need the warp drives. We need phasers and warp drives. Phasers and warp drives. And we don't have flying cars yet, but we need the warp drives, like, real soon. Then you could cross the galaxy during the TV commercial. Otherwise, you're dead. The time it takes to travel star to star

is incommensurate with the life expectancy of human physiology. Is that right? Yeah. So, going the fastest we've ever gone sent anything. If I aim for Alpha Centauri,

the nearest star to the sun, ask me how long it takes. How long does it take? I mean, depending. If there's a tailwind. With a tailwind, 50,000 years. Wow.

I find that... It's sad. I was going to say, I find that depressing. It's sad. It was going to say, I find that depressing. It's sad. It's very depressing. So you're not going to Alpha Centauri. I'm not going to Queens.

What are we talking about here? I'm going to Alpha Centauri. And then he said, do you want a generation ship? Are you going to commit future generations to live out their entire lives just to make more babies on a ship so that some generation,

a thousand generations down, lands, you know, enters the space of a, the sector where you have the nearest star, this is not sensible. Right. It's really not practical. Yeah, yeah. So we need warp drives.

We need warp drives, yeah. Can you work on that, please? Yeah, I'll work on it. I got people. I got men. Time for one more question before the break. Time for one more question before the break. Okay, one more question before the break. Okay, how about this?

This is nice. This is from Uma Claire on Instagram. She said, hi, my name is Uma Claire. My family and I always listen to you on our way to school. I certainly can't wait to hear this episode. Of all the countries likely to be involved in the new space race which is the closest to bringing people to mars calculations and testing wise oh good question oma oh uh nobody is close to doing that now but when china says they want to do something

in space or technologically they just do do it. Because they have that power over their resources in ways that democracies don't. We have to kind of all agree, the population has to agree, not so in China. China just decides as a country, this is our next mission. We're doing it, we're doing it. So, all they have to do is say, we're going to

put a Tychonaut on Mars, or orbit Mars, and then they'll just do it. In the time frame established for it. So I have no doubt that that resolve is real, even though it's not a stated goal at this moment. Of course, Elon Musk is a stated goal. He wants to put people on Mars, but there's no business case for that. He could do it as a one-off. He can get together with Jeff Bezos and get the multi-billionaires. So let's just put somebody on mars right but if you're an investor in that company and you say well like i say it's a short meeting it's uh so what are you going to do elon i don't put

humans on mars how much does it cost trillion dollars i don't know probably more is it dangerous yes will people die probably what's my return? Nothing. That's a five-minute meeting. I say this all the time. That's a five-minute meeting. So unless we discover oil on Mars, diamonds, but China can do it for no other reason but that they want to do it. Right.

Because if you're not a completely free society, then you just decide to do it. Like the pharaoh said, make me the biggest tombstone ever. And so they make pyramids. And they just do it because it's commanded. I think we should spread a rumor

that there is oil on Mars. No, no. Spread a rumor that China wants to build military bases on Mars. Ooh. They just have to leak a fake memo.

Right. And have the CIA discover it. Fake it. Just do it. And then we're going to Mars. That's a great premise for a movie. For a movie. Oh, yeah. Fake it. Just do it and then we're going to Mars. That's a great premise for a movie. For a movie. Oh, yeah. Love it. Oh, yeah. That's the next Will Smith movie.

Yeah. So, I think here's a scenario that I can imagine. China builds up their interest in Mars and they want to send people, even if they want to do it peacefully. Forget war. But we still will get a little bit spooked by that. Sure.

Right? We'll react. Yeah. We'll say, we're going to Mars. Right. Oh, NASA doesn't have a spaceship to do so. We have one that kind of works, but does anyone else have a spaceship? And Elon raises his hand.

I got one right here in the warehouse. Right. So then. Right here next to the pool and the tennis court. house right so then right right here next to the pool and the tennis court so we end up using an elon spaceship that he diligently built research designed and built and that's good but that's not elon landing on mars that's the american taxpayer landing on mars that's the difference right selling so long and privatized it's not a business model. Right. We're doing it. Yeah. There it is. Thanks, Uma.

All right. We got to take a break. When we come back, more of the next Space Race on StarTalk Cosmic Queries Edition. Bringing space and science down to Earth. You're listening to StarTalk. We're back on StarTalk, Cosmic Queries edition. The next space race is the subject. And I got Ray Allen with me. Hello, Neil.

All right. Ray, you have a TV show now on Comedy Central? Yeah. That is very cool. Yeah, it's very cool. Because you're all calm and cool here in my office, but you're a badass outside of the... I'm a very humble dude.

I really am. It's called This Week at the Comedy Cellar. It's on Comedy Central Friday nights. We just wrapped season one. Nice. Season two should be starting up probably... This week. So it's like John Oliver This Week Tonight?

Yes. A review of the... It's a weekly topical stand-up show. We have about 20 different comics come on every episode. Every episode? Yeah, every episode. We have a great number of comedians. It's fantastic.

Nice. So how does a listener find you? Go to ComedyCentral.com. Yes. And you can watch every episode that's been archived. Nice. Nice. All right.

Good. Yeah. See, I thought we were your only gig. And now I'm happy and sad. But you know what, Neil? You are my favorite gig. Oh, there you go. That makes up for it.

Comedy Central is not blasting me into space. I don't know if you will, but. All right. What questions you got? All right. Here we go. This is from Almatastar from Instagram. When will the Space Force start cleaning up space?

Or is there another program that's already working on space cleaning? Sayudos de Puerto Rico. Greetings from Puerto Rico. Space Force. So a lot of talk about Space Force because Trump said he wants a Space Force. He sure does. But let me just say unequivocally that just because Trump mentioned it does not mean it's a crazy idea. Just for the Trump naysayers out there. Sure.

Just want to just. Right. The moment they hear that word Trump, they immediately just. Yeah. They can't listen to anything else that comes out of their mouth. Space Force is. You think it's practical? Reasonable?

Reasonable? I don't care, really. But I can tell you the benefits of it. It will focus attention that is already allocated to space within the Air Force. The Air Force has the United States Space Command. The Air Force has been thinking about space ever since we've had access to space. You know who else is thinking about space? The CIA

and other reconnaissance agencies, because space is the high ground. So when you think of space force and you want to think of space war, the urge is Star Wars with lasers and weapons and phasers and weapons and phaser. So phasers. You need the photon torpedoes. But it turns out it's very impractical to attack Earth targets from space. Right. Because you're moving 18,000 miles an hour in orbit. And that's just really fast to then aim and do something on Earth. It's just,

when we can send an intercontinental ballistic missile and hit a target any place on Earth within 45 minutes to say, oh, we got to wait until the satellite is in position. So no, no, you just threw it. So we already know how to kill each other from surface-based weaponry. We already know that. So space is not improving that, okay?

Quote, improving that. So space is not improving that okay quote improving that so what so space is a place for reconnaissance and by the way the air force no one questions why do we have an air force they used to be a branch of the army it was the army air force throughout the whole second world war but but the notion of space force to be sort of but let me say oh my bad telling you yeah i got you the engineer that fixes the tank is that the same engineer that fixes the airfoil on an airplane no no the the grunt on the ground who's carrying the weapon is that the same soldier training as the pilot of the jet fighter no so you you branch off air force from the Army. And no one is really questioning that, the value of that.

So to branch off Space Force from the Air Force, why are you going to have an issue with that? And by the way, if you're going to do that, let's add priorities to whatever it is they were doing before. And one of them would be, let's clean up space. Right. Space debris. Space litter.

Oh, it's litter. Oh, I think that's why we haven't been visited by aliens. Too many balloons up there? No, no. They just looked at it and said, you guys are nasty. You're slob. You're just slob. You're dirty, filthy people.

You're dirty, filthy. So NASA tracks space debris so that when they launch the next thing, they don't slam into it right alright the space station has limited maneuverability

power in case something is headed its way so yeah another one what I want them to do is deflect the asteroids

yes I don't want to be like the dinosaurs going extinct because we have a space program and the dinosaurs didn't right if they had a space program and the dinosaurs didn't. Right.

If they had a space program? No, they didn't. I'm sorry I didn't tell you that before the show. I thought all the pterodactyls had a... Oh, they would lead the... They're the flying ones. They're leading the space force. Yeah.

They're the front men and women. The front men. And plus the badass one was Rodan. Rodan was, yeah. The supersonic pterodactyl. Sure, supersonic. Yeah, definitely. So what am I saying?

So yeah, I think you'd want to add to their portfolio. But wouldn't Space Force sort of be, because it's all of space, outer space, wouldn't that need to be an international organization? You know, that's a really good, that's good. That's like saying the air molecules above this country belong to the United States. Correct. That's kind of, no.

It's insane. Air moves, it's insane. Yeah. Right, it's insane. You can say, I don't want you over this country, but to declare ownership of air when air travels around the world. Yeah, it's that kind of thing. I own space.

No, you don't. No. You can't own space. I like to dispute air rights on top of my apartment building. Never mind. Never mind out in the atmosphere, all over the world. So, yeah, ownership is a thing. So, I think any discussion about ownership is about who owns the moon, who owns an asteroid.

You go to an asteroid to mine its natural resources, do you own it? Or who owns it? Finders keepers, man. No, but it's a great point. I mean, that's like saying, do we own the moon? We put a flag on the moon. The moon's us. It's U.S. light.

Yeah, we didn't put the U.N. flag on the moon. We put the American flag. Oh, we put the U.S. flag. So it's U.S. light. Yeah, we didn't put the U.N. flag on the moon. We put the American flag. Oh, we put the U.S. flag. So it's U.S. light. It's the United States. It's our, you know what I'm saying. It's our island, so to speak. By the way, you cannot see that the flag,

the flag that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted on the moon, you cannot see that with any, the Hubble telescope can't capture that. It's too small to resolve with ground-based telescopes or the size of telescopes that are in orbit. But you can see the flag from satellites

that orbit the moon. So we have an image. You can see the rover tracks. It's kind of cool. Oh, that's cool. That's awesome. You know what they got wrong in, what movie was that?

Was it... Interstellar? No, no. Transformers. I think it was one of the Transformers movies. They show one of their craft passing by the moon. And you see the landing spot for the Apollo astronauts. But it still has the...

It still has the limb on it. Oh, is that right? Yeah, because that departed from it. It just had the spidery legs at the bottom. Yeah, so they left the whole thing. Because you wouldn't recognize it as anything if it's just a platform. Did you ever tweet that at some point? No, it was a little obscure.

Well, you have too many Game of Thrones tweets to get through, so you know. But anyhow, yeah, it just looks so naked to just have the base and these four legs. So they left the whole module there that the astronauts occupied just so it looks like a landing spot. Is it understood that if China were to land right where we had landed, the U.S. had landed, that they're not supposed to tamper with any of that, the flag, the tracks? When has the history of human

conduct fulfilled anything that was supposed to be anything? Yeah. Yeah, if they went up and, like, broke the flag... Yeah. Technical foul! 15-yard penalty! So, yeah, I mean, that would be...

I don't want to say that was an act of war I would say it would be a profound act of disrespect and there would probably be repercussions on Earth certainly with this administration disrespect especially since it would be a moon tariff

especially since even though we planted an American flag Neil Armstrong laid a plaque that said, we come in peace for all mankind. Didn't say we come for America. Right. For Americans. Right.

And I don't know any act of exploration where upon planting a flag, the next words uttered were, we come in peace for everyone, all of humanity. The history of that exercise, especially Europeans leaving Europe, is I put a flag here now, we own it. And we have warships to back up that statement. No matter who you find living there.

So it was a fundamentally different act. And so we'll see what the future of this is. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. We've got time for a couple more. Give me a couple more. All right.

Alexis Wojl of Instagram. Alexis from Hong Kong here. When do you think we'll start sending world leaders into space? And if we could do that now, who would you send? Oh, did I do this on another episode? I can't do it too often, but I'm going to do it again now. Okay, are you ready for this? Right, you're not ready.

Are you ready? I'm ready. I am so ready for this. Hold on a second. You feel that? I'm ready. You're feeling feel. Hold on a second. You feel that? I'm ready. You're feeling it. Okay.

You ready? Which world leaders should we send into space? Okay. So first, we should send all the flat earthers into space. Okay. Okay. I think they wanted that anyway. So Kyrie Irving, not a world leader, but he can go.

No, just so they can orbit the earth and see that earth is a sphere. Okay. And then you bring him back and say, you happy now? Oh, for education. Yeah, I'm an educator, dude. Yeah, that's true. I'm not trying to get rid of him.

I'm trying to help him out. You're trying to get rid of him. No. What are the dumb ideas you have? Get out of here. You demonstrate the roundness of earth. Okay. Next, you send all world leaders. Okay. Next, you send all

world leaders. It'll be like a people mover van. Okay. We have to be big on that. How many world leaders? Hundreds of world leaders. Hundreds. Okay. You ready? Thousands if you count the islands. This is a quote. Exactly.

But if leaders of established nations, it's a hundred and something. How many countries are there? Is it 174 established nations, it's 100 and something. How many countries are there? Is it 174? Yeah, it's between one and 200 countries. We got our crack team researching this now. How much? 195.

So 200 countries. So 200 world leaders. Okay. Okay? Here we go. Did I get a plus one? Okay. 400 world leaders.

I'm going to read a quote from Edgar Mitchell. Okay. Apollo. Three. Apollo 14. 14. That's right. Apollo 1 through 6 were scrapped after we lost the three Apollo 1 astronauts.

Oh, okay. So the next Apollo was Apollo 7. That's another question again. Okay, so here we go. Edgar Mitchell. Edgar Mitchell. Apollo, is here we go. Edgar Mitchell. Edgar Mitchell. Apollo, is he 13 or 14? 14.

14. You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it.

From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter million miles out and say, look at that, you son of a bitch. That's great. That's juicy. Juicy.

Just give a cosmic perspective reality check to every politician and then bring them back down to Earth. I think they'll be changed. Yeah. That's what the universe can do to you. When you see Earth as only nature can present it to you, with oceans and land and clouds. No color-coded national boundaries. No, none of the usual trappings of who owns what part of what section of the world.

It's just a planet. Our life-giving planet. You can't make peace on that planet with fellow human beings. You don't deserve the power that science has given you to serve as a shepherd of our future survival on this planet. You don't deserve it. You should just go somewhere else.

Put people in power who understand what earth is what it means to us and all the other life on earth and what steps they need to take to cherish this place that we have borrowed from our descendants i think that that would be a great uh unifying experience i, if you could do that. If you could send those 200 people up together. Yeah. I really think it would. After you send up the flat earthers. Yeah.

I actually would like to become a flat earther just so I can get that trip. Just to get the first trip. That's a nice trip. It's far better than getting a freebie to Cape Cod. So, Ray, we got to wrap. We got to call it quits here. Well, before we go, I just want everyone to know I came across Neil's book, Accessory to War. Well, you're in my office, so the book is there.

Well, that's how I came across it. I was snooping around his office and in between all the bobbleheads of him and all the Campbell soup, the Star Wars Campbell soups that he has up there on the shelves. But this one is primordial soup. Get your soup straight here. Primordial soup. Get your soup straight here. Primordial soup. On that shelf over there, you have

Star Wars Campbell soups. But this is Accessory to War. It's the unspoken alliance between astrophysics and the military. This is a book a few months ago? It came out, yeah, last September. Co-authored with ava slang a major it's like 500 pages so my my book before that was astrophysics for people in a hurry yes

this is astrophysics for people not not in a hurry yes make that clear yeah the the other book i read on a on a subway ride this one's going to take me a subway ride with four stops it's going to take me a little more extra time but again you are you are so... Well, thanks for that plug. Thanks for the plug. That's another labor of love. The history, because science is not untouched by war. And the funding for it, that enable it,

that empower it, that feed it. And so this is just a candid review and assessment of what that relationship has been between the history of astrophysics and war itself. I'm excited to try to tackle this.

You are the most prolific non-comedian I've ever met. No. Like there's some comics I know who just write endlessly. Oh, yeah? And of all the non-comics,

this is unbelievable. Okay, well, thank you. 15 books and... There's a new word for being a non-comic. It's called non-comic. Okay, fine. A civilian.

A civilian. We got to go. Ray, thanks for doing this. Thanks, man. Dude. A lot of fun. Okay, we're going to get you back again. Love it. And the invitation to Aruba stands. Civilian. We got to go. Ray, thanks for doing this. Thanks, man. Dude. A lot of fun. Okay, we're going to get you back again. Love it.

And the invitation to Aruba stands. Wide open. All right. You've been listening to, possibly even watching, this Space Race episode of StarTalk. And I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. And as always, I bid you to keep looking up.