StarTalk Radio - Extended Classic – Cosmic Queries: The Space Race

Episode Date: December 21, 2018

Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice answer fan-submitted Cosmic Queries on the Space Race, the global impact of the Apollo program and John F. Kennedy’s political influence. Now extended with more questions on time travel, wormholes, asteroids, and more. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/extended-classic-cosmic-queries-the-space-race/Photo Credit: NASA. 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. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And this is StarTalk. And for this episode of StarTalk, we're doing what we call cosmic queries, where questions come to me from our social media. But I don't read them, I don't even know what they are until I walk in and sit down at this microphone and I get help.

Today, from Chuck Nice. Hey, Neil. What's happening? Chuck. Good to be here, man. Welcome back. Thank you, sir. Always good to be here.

So you're going to read. What are these questions? What is today's topic? Today's topic is the space race. Okay. I think I know a little bit about that. A little bit about that. I hope so. I got this. I think I know a little bit about that. A little bit about that. I hope so.

I got this. I hope so. But actually, just so you know, this may sound like a cheap plug, but it's just, so I wrote a book called Space Chronicles. Right. Facing the Ultimate Frontier. It came out two years ago. Do you know why I write books?

Because you can. I'm going to tell you why I don't write books. Because you can't? There you have it. And I know my limitations. No, I write books so that I never have to talk about that subject again. Really? I compile it all in there. And someone said, tell me about that. I just hand them the book. Here's a book. Yeah. And I walk away. Oh my God. So now you're just, you're resurrecting this in me when I'm trying to think about other stuff, but fine. Sorry. I'm sorry to do that.

Oh, my God. I can't believe you just said that, that you write a book so you don't have... You remind me. This is the household I grew up in. So I would ask my mother or my father, what does this mean? And they would say, go look it up. Whoa. Whoa.

And I'm like, yeah, that's what you're for. So what may have looked like evil parents at the day turned you into an independent researcher. Actually, yeah. You know, I'm kind of, and now it's funny because I do the same thing to my children. They're like, you know, my son, he'll say, Dad, do you know? And I'm like, yeah, I do know. Do you? So we'll find out and come back.

So that works whether or not you actually know it. Exactly. There you go. See? All right. Let's jump into our Cosmic Queries. And, of course, we always start off with a Patreon patron question. And if you support us on Patreon, we will give your questions priority here at Cosmic Queries.

Okay? Patreon. Okay. Where we basically buy your loyalty. Okay. Here we go. Matthew Massonon from Calgary, Alberta says, In your opinion, Dr. Tyson, what was the most significant thing that the Apollo program achieved with the exception of landing on the moon? Wow, that's a good question when you think about it.

Because everybody, you say Apollo program, it's moon landing. Bang. That's the end of it. That's it. But he's saying, give me something that is just as significant that we don't think about. Tang. No, I'm just kidding. that we don't think about?

Tang. No, I'm just kidding. So, beginning in 1970, a little earlier, but in 1970 was the first Earth Day nationally, and then it became a rapid international hit, if you will. Yeah, because Earth Day is global now. It's global now, and it's a significant global celebration of our home planet. And around that same time, so what else happened? 1971, 2, and 3, we would see the passing of the Comprehensive Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act.

In 1970, NOAA was founded, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to monitor our climate and our oceans and our weather. And not only that, the Environmental Protection Agency was founded in 1970. By the time 1973 came around, leaded gas would be banned. DDT would be banned. The catalytic converter would be introduced. All of this happened during the years we were going to the moon at a time when we had a whole lot of other stuff distracting us, like a cold war with the Soviet union and a hot war in Southeast Asia and campus unrest from anti-war protests and the civil rights movement and

assassinations. 1968 would see two assassinations on domestic soil. And so why am I saying all this? Because while we had all these other potential distractions, we nonetheless paused to reflect on our relationship to our home planet. So I submit to you that though we went to the moon to explore the moon, upon getting there and looking back, in fact, we would discover Earth for the first time. Wow. So it's like I've been to paradise, but I've never been to me.

It's exactly that. So can you put a dollar figure on the fact that seeing Earth in the sky from the moon was like a firmware update in our sense of awareness? And who we are. Of the importance of Earth and our relationship to it. Right. of awareness and who we are of the importance of earth and our relationship to it right okay that's that's actually uh that's a bit more existential than i was expecting for an answer okay i have to say that's a damn good answer because it's more of um the the it's more of a collective conscious enlightenment yes and i don't think anyone started the program with that expectation.

Right. But that is clearly a consequence of it. Right. And so, remember that TV commercial with the Native American standing on the, and there was a tear in his eye. Single tear. The single tear and people throwing garbage out the window. That didn't happen until this period, until we were going to the moon.

We were total garbage out the window people for long before that, right? I never got that about us. I mean, seriously. Garbage out the window pretty much all through human history. All through human history. And, in fact, that was great for anthropologists. They can find stuff along the Roman via that people, oh, a McDonald's cup. What did they do?

Boy, McDonald's would have been around. No, but we didn't start thinking of it as a cultural environmental problem until that period. Wow. Okay. Wow. Hey, Matthew, I hope you're satisfied with that answer because it was a complete curveball with that answer. And then there's Tang. That and Tang, a close second.

Very close second. There you go. All right. Okay, here we go. Our next question. Uh-oh. Abhijit Mané. Mm-hmm. Let's hope. I'm question. Abhijit Mané. Let's hope. I'm sorry, Abhijit. I'm sorry.

From Facebook, wants to know this. The space race was in a way an extension of the Cold War arms race, but also the resolve of President John F. Kennedy, who pledged that we'd get there in 10 years. Do you know anyone today in the political sphere who could do the same? What kind of politician would be ideal in this regard? We go to the moon because we choose to. It's that and the other thing we do because.

Never mind. Forget it. Chuck, that was your worst impression ever. It really is. And normally you're good. I know, but you know what? I'm not even doing Kennedy. I'm actually doing Mayor Quimby from The Simpsons, you know?

Vote Quimby. I mean, you imitate a TIE fighter from Star Wars. Right. I thought Kennedy would be easy after that. Yeah, yes. Okay. I thought Kennedy would be easy after that. So there's an assumption built into that question that the political will and charisma perhaps of Kennedy was a significant force operating in how and why we got to the moon. And this is commonly thought, but I'm contrarian in that regard. Well, good.

Right? No doubt Kennedy had charisma. No doubt he had a sort of way with rallying people behind an idea. No doubt about that. But I submit that if we were not at war, all of that would have just been empty rhetoric and nobody would have signed the check. Congress, because Congress is not as swayed by speeches as the public is. Absolutely.

All right. And so it's Congress who writes the check. That's right. At the end of the day. So consider 1989, the 20th, July 20th, the 20th anniversary of the moon landing. Who was the then sitting president? I don't know. Herbert Walker, George Herbert Walker Bush.

He goes to the steps of the Air and Space Museum, delivers a speech not fundamentally different from Kennedy's speech. We're Americans. We're explorers. Columbus set sail. This is our time. We will put men on Mars and have a space station. We'll have us build a space station and we will. He was trying to give a Kennedy speech. Right.

Okay. Fell flat on his face. Now, why? People said, well, because he's not Kennedy. I beg to differ. Okay. Not that he isn't not Kennedy. Right.

That sentence make sense? That's correct. Because he isn't not Kennedy. No, he isn't not Kennedy. Right. That sentence make sense? That's correct. He isn't not Kennedy. No, he isn't Kennedy. It didn't work not because he isn't Kennedy. Right. I claim it didn't work because, do you remember what happened in 1989? I don't know.

Peace broke out. Wow. Peace broke out in Europe. That's a terrible thing. That is the collapse of the Soviet Empire. That's right. That is the tear down the wall. The wall came down in 1989.

All of a sudden, our motivation for our military might, the very thing that drove who and what we were as the carriers of freedom and the American way in the face of evil communists. It all evaporated that year. And he's trying to give a speech to get people to go to Mars in the absence of a mortal enemy. Right. So we would have either needed Martians. That would be the best.

That would have been the best. The best. Right. We either needed Martians. Evil Martians. Evil Martians. Not. That would have been the best. The best. Right. We either need Martians. Evil Martians. Evil Martians. Not E.T. Like E.T.

Exactly. Would it be cool if E.T. came out, guns drawn? That would be awesome. And he shot Elliot or whatever the hell that was. That's the way it ends. You know what I mean? E.T. go home. But first.

We must test our ray guns on you. Right, exactly. So, yeah, really the competition. No competition. No, it's not only competition, because you can do that, yes, and still succeed, but the greatest competition our species knows is the threat of death from someone who might out-compete you in a way that would kill you So I claim that the biggest reason that failed was not because Bush Lacked the charisma of Kennedy what he happened is he lacked the Cold War right?

And by the way he proposed you know what it was you know what he said this will be a 25 year I forgot the exact time interval, 25-year plan. And it would be a 25, 30-year plan. And it'll cost a trillion dollars. Whoa. Okay. So people freaked. Right.

And that was the end of that right there. Okay. Or half a trillion dollars. Half a trillion dollars. Okay. Oh, that's better. No, listen. Half a trillion.

I'm like, all right. Okay. We can work with that. But here that's better. No, listen, half a trillion. I'm like, all right, okay, we can work with that. But here's the thing. If you took NASA's budget at the time, which is between $15 and $20 billion in today's annual budget, and then you multiply that over 30 years, you get half a trillion dollars. So we already are allocating half a trillion dollars to NASA over that same amount of time. Right.

So to say That's doa because it's too much money. That's a false argument right that's it was all right You might have to retool NASA with its budget, but it was a false argument to think it's too much money. That's all So so so I'm unconvinced by people saying that George herbert walker bush Was absent the charisma of Kennedy. So, I mean, I don't think it has anything to do with politicians. It has to do with whether we think we're going to die.

Okay, and there you have it. By the way, just to let you know, you are going to die. Okay, sorry. So we should do it irrespective. I think that if we really want to go to Mars... Die by unnatural causes. There you think that if we really want to go to Mars. Die by unnatural causes.

There you go. If we really want to go to Mars, we should, scientists should get together and in a somewhat conspiratorial way, tell the world that there's oil on Mars. Yeah, but then we'd be lying. conspiratorial way, tell the world that there's oil on Mars. Yeah, but then we'd be lying. Yeah, but we'd go to Mars. Do you know why there's oil? Or that there's terrorists on Mars. Do you know why there's oil on Earth?

Because we have life on Earth. Right. Okay, maybe there's an episode of Mars where there was life. Right. All that life sunk down, and then it made oil. So that'd be cool. That would be cool. Go to Mars and get oil. And we'd be there was life. All that life sunk down and then it made oil. So that'd be cool. That would be cool. Go to Mars and get oil. And we'd be there

next week. But what I joke about is we should go to China and go, psst, go tell the leaders of China, psst, can you leak a memo? Don't be true. It doesn't have to be true. Just leak a memo saying you want to put military bases on Mars. Boom, that's it. We're done. There you go. We're on Mars. We're on Mars. In ten months.

Ten months. One month to fund, design, build the spacecraft. Nine months to get there. We go to Mars not because it is Mars in 10 months. 10 months. One month to fund, design, build the spacecraft. Nine months to get there. We go to Mars not because it is easy, but because it is hard. And the Chinese. Once again, awful, awful impersonation. All right, let's move on. Well, that's pretty cool.

I agree with what you're saying. It's not about. I think people put too much emphasis on the importance of the presidency, and they're unaware of how much power the president really has. Has or does not have. Right. Our whole system of government is designed to keep power out of the hands of the president. Precisely. So the president doesn't run away like a dictator. Right.

Right, right. So, you know, people often overestimate what the president can and cannot do. Exactly. You know. All right, cool. Let's move on to what the president can and cannot do. Exactly. You know. All right, cool. Let's move on to. Time for a couple more questions. Okay.

In this segment. Go on. In this segment. Here we go. Isaac J. Kim of Facebook. Thank you, Isaac. Isaac has a pronounceable name for you. Thank you, Isaac.

From NYC. This is what Isaac says. Hometown boy. That's right. What kind of computing power did Mission Control and the shuttle have during the Apollo era? I can only tell you what I've read about that because I didn't calculate this myself. But there have been comments that the computing power, I don't believe this, but it was fun to read it and say it. The computing power of a singing greeting card.

No. I heard that because there's a card? No. I heard that. Because there's a chip in there. It's hilarious. You open it up. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. So it had to have been a little more than that.

I don't know the answer for sure. Because, again, I don't know these questions. But I could have researched it, of course, before. Well, you don't get the questions, I don't know these questions, but I could have researched it, of course, before. I don't get the question. But what is no doubt, no doubt, anything we're carrying in our hip pocket is greater than anything that was going on when we went to the moon.

Wait a minute. Now, okay, I do believe that because of the microprocessors that we use in order to run our phones. But by the way, by the way, the miniaturization of electronics is entirely driven in its initial stages by NASA.

Okay. We had electronics filling... So our parents, our grandparents, had radios the size of furniture in their living room. Correct. Where they would gather around and listen to radio shows. Listen to radio shows. And was any of them saying,

gee, I want to carry this on my hip? It's just a non-thought. Right, exactly. Doesn't mean they might not welcome it, but no one is even thinking that way. Oh, my God, you're right. NASA is saying, we need this technology, and we need to launch it,

and it costs $10,000 a pound to put anything in orbit. So we got to shrink this stuff. Shrink this down. We got to shrink it orbit. So we got to shrink this shrink this down We got to shrink it this to the lab and shrink it down right now Okay, so this this miniaturization drives a whole frontier that then becomes commercial commodities Absolutely. I just had it's fascinating what you just said because about Grandparents and radio sitting around radio, listening to their programming. When I was a kid, we sat around the television.

I never once thought, I want to carry that television on my hip. And guess what? I do. My phone is a freaking television. I can watch the internet or any TV show I want on demand on my phone. I am carrying a TV on my hip. Exactly. Amazing. Exactly. Amazing.

Yep. That is so cool. And if you don't think about it, it's just TV is the thing you do when you get home and you turn it on. Right. Right, right. Yeah, but no longer. So, yeah. Oh, man, that's super cool.

So, basically. I would say, yeah. So, do you remember the movie Apollo 13? Right. They're trying to save the guy's lives. And they said, here is the only thing they have available. They dump out this bag onto the table. Okay, engineers save their lives.

And they said, okay, but wait a minute. They said, oh, we need this. The slide rule. Now we got it, okay? Now we can do this. Slide rule to the rescue. Hey. Anybody got an abacus?

We got to save a life over in... Okay. So, anyhow, yeah, yeah, so it would blow it away. You're listening to StarTalk. Here's more of this week's episode. So you still doing stand-up? All the time. Pretty much every, you know, so here's the thing.

I don't travel as much to on the road, which I get a lot of requests, but two reasons. One, I have a small child, and so I'd like to be home. More than one child. One of them is small. One of them is very small because I'm an idiot, and we just had a new baby two years ago. Did I say new baby? Like there's such a thing as an old baby. We had an old baby five years ago.

Yeah, I gave birth to Benjamin Button. as an old baby. We had an old baby five years ago. Yeah, I gave birth to Benjamin Button. Anyway. But I always do stand up in New York City and surrounding area pretty much every weekend. I love your work and that's why we have you here. Thanks, man. I always love being here.

Affirm that. Alright, so what do you got? Okay, let's get back into our queries. Aiden Astronomy from Instagram says. Astronomy is in his handle. Yes, it is. I love that. You like that?

People loving the universe and they can't help not tell people. They got to let people know. So he says, what was it like for the command module pilots when they went around the backside of the moon? And why did the Soviet N1 moon rockets all blow up? So instead of what was it like, let me just say, on the backside of the moon, what are you experiencing on the backside of the moon that you're not experiencing on the front side of the moon? All right. So first, as you may remember, the Apollo missions all sent three astronauts to the moon.

Two of them deployed down to the surface. One did not. Stayed in orbit around the moon, eating their lunch, waiting for them to finish driving a golf cart. Better known as the Uber driver of Apollo. Okay. So I'm wondering if I would have just snuck in

and crammed three people into the lander. And, you know, I don't know. You're gonna travel that far and just not. And have to sit in a... Hey, man, wait in the car. We'll be right out. We're gonna walk around on the moon. We're gonna walk around on the moon. Do me a favor. Can you just keep the car running?

Keep the car running. Keep the car running, buddy. We're just gonna take a little stroll on the moon now. On the moon. Yeah. So, here's the thing. When you go to the backside of the moon, you are one moon diameter away from the other two astronauts.

Okay. Okay? Okay. That is the record for the loneliest person ever. Oh, that's so cool because you're farther out than you're by yourself. The next closest person in that moment is one moon diameter away. And that is farther than any other solo person has been. Wow.

Yes. Right. So just one little fact, that is the loneliest place we have ever found ourselves. Oh. Yeah. That's pretty cool, a little factoid. What makes it extra lonely is when you're behind the moon, then the moon is between you and Earth. Right.

And the radio signals don't penetrate through the moon. between you and Earth, and the radio signals don't penetrate through the moon. So you're also radio silent. Oh my God, you're alone and alone. Yes, you're double alone. You're double alone. You're alone squared. You can't communicate with anybody either.

Correct. This is why in the future when we're thinking of moon colonies, and you want to inhabit the far side of the moon, the far side never faces Earth. The moon, its rotation is what's called tidally locked, where it's actually rotating, but at the exact rate that it takes to go around the Earth. So it's always turning its one face towards you, no matter where it is. It happens, it's a very natural thing in the universe. Don't think too much about it. Okay, I'm thinking about it. Let me tell you something.

Oh my gosh, what a coincidence. Is that just for us? I'll do that? No, just chill. It's a natural thing. So when we're thinking about moon colonies, if you're going to pitch tent on the far side of the moon, you're going to still want communication channels opened up. So there's a whole separate conversation about radio transmitter repeaters that are on the edge of the moon where signals can come from the backside and then work their way back over to the front side and then make its way back to the earth. So you send the signal to the booster, the booster sends it over. Exactly, exactly. And so it's a repeater, whatever is the mechanism.

Right. So, so... Can you hear me now? I'm sorry. Let me move over here. Sorry, I'mater, whatever is the mechanism. Can you hear me now? I'm sorry. Let me move over here. Sorry, I'm on the backside of the moon. Let me just move over. Can you hear me now?

How's that? Ah, Jesus, I'm roaming. I can't believe this. I'm roaming, dude. I'm sorry. I'm on the moon. I can't talk, man. This is costing me a fortune.

Okay, sorry. Can I give a weirdly perverse version of that? Go ahead. So I was on a presidential commission to study the climate of aerospace around the world relative to here on Earth. Climate, I mean the business climate. Right. And so in one of our trips, we go to China. And China has these, they've got plans to go to space.

This is before they launched their first Tychonaut. Okay. Which is what they call their astronauts. Their astronauts or Tychonauts. Their Tychonauts. And so there's this underbelly of advanced technology that we're reading about and hearing about. And I always wondered, you know, is it real? Is it there? So I'm on the Great Wall of China.

Sweet. And there it is, just like the photos, going to the horizon into the mist. Right. All right? You can't, there's no end in either direction you look. I do not see any technology at all. In any, there are no antennas there's no nothing made of

metal there is just the wall Wow and I said let me try something I pull out my cell phone okay there's a flip phone at the time I call my attack I call my it was in fact the Motorola StarTAC and I call my, because it's good. Of course. Yeah, thank you. Come on. I call my mother in Westchester, New York. She said, oh, hi, Neil. Are you home already? That's how good the connection was. Nice. It was crystal clear connection.

You certainly didn't have Sprint. It was one of the best connections I've ever had in a cell phone ever from the Great Wall of China with no visible cell phone towers. And at that time, you would walk past a tree in the United States and say, I'm sorry, I lost my signal. Exactly. Let me get out in the open here away from the blades of grass, whatever. So that's how I knew China was going to make whatever they want happen, happen. Wow. In that moment.

That's pretty wild. In that moment. That's pretty wild. In that moment. Right. That's actually a very good story and really telling because it makes sense. Right. You don't see anything and... It's there. Why did I even say that?

I was supposed to somehow relate it to this question. Well, no. We were talking about just the dark side and the actual repeater and all that kind of stuff. No, no. But the guy with the command module pilot, there was a question. What was the question? Oh, no. It's just like, you know, I'm sorry.

Now I lost. I don't think I answered the question. I'm sorry. All right. So what is it? Oh, God. Jesus Christ. You just mentioned God and Jesus in the same sentence.

You must be in a really bad situation. Okay. Oh, God. No, you did answer the question perfectly. What was the question? I wanted to know what it was like for that pilot. Oh, the pilot. Yeah, that's what it was like.

And that's exactly what it was like. Eating a sandwich, waiting. And by the way, I'm going to say that is the lonely existence ever. Not just because of where he is and not just because of his isolation, but because of the context of that isolation. Yes.

You are alone and your friends are walking on the moon. It's triple. It's like I'm alone, I can't communicate with anybody and I'm keeping the car warm and they're on the moon. Yes. Getting all the glory. All right. Chuck, time for Cosmic Queries.

Lightning round! All right, let's do it. Let's do it. Here we go. I'm going to give soundbite answers. Soundbite answers. Okay, here we go. Chris McManara, 97, from Instagram. What is the biggest thing the moon taught us about Earth? For me, I have my personal list of that. I think going to the moon taught us about Earth? For me, I have my personal list of that.

I think going to the moon and getting direct measurements of its mineral content and soil content, for me, the coolest thing was discovering that the moon is the product of a collision between a Mars-sized protoplanet sideswiping Earth's crust in the early solar system, having that material that had been sideswiped gather into another cosmic body that orbits Earth

that we now call the moon. The moon for its size should have much, much more iron in it, but it doesn't. The iron has already been sifted out. Well, how do you make that happen? Well, on Earth, the iron all went to to the core most of the iron went to the core So the crust has hardly any iron in it if you're gonna make a new cosmic object out of the crust You're gonna have hardly any iron

In your substance, so the moon has suspiciously Oh low iron and it is completely consistent with this scenario Nice and and people ask me if I wanted to go back in time and see something happen, I'd want to see the collision of that Mars-sized protoplanet with Earth and watch the moon get formed. We think it would have formed within a few months. That quickly? Yes, that quickly. Wow. That would have been a badass collision.

Yeah, that's a nice collision. Okay, quick. That was too long. I've got to answer faster. Alright, here we go. AtSeabass621 wants to know this. Fisherman there. He just loves to eat some Seabass. All right. Who do you think won the space race?

Oh, so I call it a tie. Really? Between the United States and Russia. Okay. You know why? Why? Because they were the first to put anything in space, A. They were the first to put a living creature in space. They were the first to put a human in Russia. Okay. Yeah, you know why? Why? Because they were the first to put anything in space, A. They were the first to put a living creature in space. They were the first

to put a human in space. They were the first to put a woman in space. They were the first to put a black person in space. They were the first to have a space station. They invented the rocket equation that enabled all this to happen in the first place, and we went to the moon first. There you go. So. Okay, so to me,

I'm saying, you know, we didn't do any of that other stuff first, and we got to them and said. There you go. To me, I'm saying, we didn't do any of that other stuff first, and we got to them and said, we win. I'm saying, give the people some credit here, please. That was a great answer, man. Since the moon is loaded, I'm sorry. By the way, that black person was a Cuban. So Brentrow,

at Brentrow, wants to know this. Since the moon is loaded with helium-3, which is useful for alternative energy, how do you think laws will form in retaliation to mining the moon? Assuming that we're going to mine the moon. Nice. So helium-3 is a version of helium missing one proton. Helium usually has two protons, two neutrons. That would be helium-4.

Take away a neutron, you get helium-3. That's what it's called. Okay? Helium-3 is one of the things that is emanated from the Sun in the solar wind and it comes through space It gets lodged in the surface of the moon and it sits there and there are whole books given unto mining Quite simply scooping up the topsoil of the moon collecting collecting this helium-3 and using it for nuclear fusion reactors. So there's a whole plan that people have for this. And there's been some rebuttals.

Will it really recoup the cost, whatever? But helium-3, yeah, we need laws going into the future. Who owns the moon? Who owns asteroids? Who owns the mining rights? Do they have to be shared? Who paid for it? There are some laws related to this, but for me, it's still undiscovered territory.

And this is why the future in space is not just about astronauts, scientists, and engineers. There's the rest of what life is. The lawyers, the artists, the politics, all of this has to come together if we are going to turn what is sitting there above our head that we call space into our backyard. You're listening to StarTalk Radio. Stay tuned. More up next. Welcome back.

Here's more of StarTalk. So, Neil, you're beaming in from Vegas, huh? Yeah, I got a gig tonight. I'm giving a public talk on astrophysics. There is some learning that goes on in the town, apparently. I was going to say, that's the most exciting thing I've ever heard happening in Vegas. Well, one thing is for sure, we know we always win when we bet on Neil deGrasse Tyson. Are you really betting on the universe when you bet on me?

Because all I am is a conduit to it. Oh, I meant bet on the black. Anyway, Annalisa SC Katrina Lee says, "'My daughters, ages eight and 11, want to know, would it actually be easier to travel forward in time rather than backward, and what would that require? Oh, we can easily travel forward in time, and we've known how to do that since 1905.

Einstein's special theory of relativity lays out the whole recipe of how you can move into the future. And all you have to do is go into sort of a lower gravity field relative to other people or just travel very fast. And your clock will tick slower than that of everybody else that you've left behind. And then when you return, you'll be younger than your twin, for example, if you had left your twin back on Earth. So in that sense, you are traveling into the future. That's easy to do, and we've known how to do that. Traveling backwards, that's the problem. And it takes, we think we can do that. I have some colleagues who've made

some calculations that assert that depending on a trajectory you take around a black hole, you can come out and end up in the past of when you started. So, but that takes extraordinary setup to make happen. But right now, no problem traveling into the future. So it's either lower gravity, travel faster than the speed of light, or very good moisturizer. than the speed of light or a very good moisturizer. And not only that, the GPS satellites, which are farther away from the center of the Earth than we are,

they experience less gravity than we do. And GPS clocks tick faster than our clocks. Yet we're getting our time from them. And so they know this in advance. Rather, we've programmed in the relativity correction to compensate for this fact so that when they do give us the time, it's the right time, not the relativistic time that it wants to keep by being where it is in orbit. Awesome! Alright, Neil, you ready for the next question? How, theoretically, might time travel be a wormhole work?

Whoa. Oh, yeah. So a wormhole enables, by the way, if you manage to travel someplace faster than light, you have the capacity to move backwards in time. We've got that one established as well. We just don't have any easy way to travel faster than light. But one way that's been celebrated in science fiction, and you can write it out on paper legitimately, is a wormhole. A wormhole, I'm over here, and I want to get over there,

and I want to get there quickly. I want to get there before the end of the commercial break. Okay, so you can travel through a wormhole that changes the effective distance between where you are and where you're going. And then you sort of look around when you get there and you find oh my gosh I've traveled a hundred thousand light years in a matter of a moment okay when you do that you have the capacity to move backwards in time relative to when you left now you don't get to visit yourself. You're in a sort of a different space-time trajectory. So you can't shake hands with yourself before you left. So if that's what you're thinking of doing, no. And there's a huge paradox that people worry about.

And many people, including Stephen Hawking, the late Stephen Hawking, worried whether this paradox would prevent backwards time travel completely. Because if you go back in time and prevent your parents from meeting one another, then they wouldn't have ever given birth to you to go back in time to prevent them from meeting one another. First of all, let me just say, I stopped listening when you said, I can't shake hands with myself. Eric Varga wants to know this. What would you say is the most accurate time travel show or a movie and why? It's really hard to do an accurate movie

and still have interesting plot lines. So given that they take some loosey-goosey steps with time travel, I have to say that Doctor Who, as a TV series, is the most invested in the authenticity of their time travel storytelling. And so they thought about the contradictions and the paradoxes,

and they have their own solutions to all of that. Now, on the state side, I would say there's nothing like the original Back to Future movie, the first one. That one, they thought it through. They imagined consequences. first one that one they thought it through they imagined consequences they uh so i give both of them sort of equal high ranking and as a special mention you gotta love bill and ted bill and ted's excellent adventure come on i mean that's that's a special runner-up, special mention for time travel exploits. All three, very good.

The most disturbing of the three, definitely Back to the Future, where you have to make sure that your parents smash so that you can be born. All right, Neil, you ready? Daniel Junius wants to know, what happens when we fall into a black hole? Before we get into it, can you just let the people know, what is a black hole? Black hole is a region of space where matter has condensed to such a high density that the gravity at its surface, the surface gravity, is so high that you cannot escape it, even at the speed of light. You are forever trapped. It is the fabric of the space-time continuum

warped back on itself. And once you fall in, you are never coming out. It is the human version of the Roach Motel. You check in, but you don't check out. A black hole. That's why we call them black. And when you fall in, you don't come out. That's why we call it a hole. Because we tell it like it is in astrophysics. black hole. That's why we call them black. And when you fall and you don't come out, that's why we call it a hole. Because we tell it like it is in astrophysics.

Black hole. But if you happen to fall in a black hole, which is my preferred form of death, it's better than getting hit by a bus, right? So if you fall in a feet-first dive to this cosmic abyss, you will not survive because you will not miss. The tidal forces of gravity will create quite a calamity when you're stretched head to toe are you sure you want to go those tidal forces will increase to the point where your body will just snap into likely at the base of the spine. Then each of those two pieces will snap into two. So you become one to two to four to eight to

sixteen until you bifurcate all the way down to the center of the black hole and you become a stream of atoms. And that's not even the worst part. The worst part is you are funneled, extruded through the fabric of space-time. So that you used to be this wide, now you're this narrow. And so this phenomenon, this extrusion like toothpaste through a tube, we have a word for it. Death by black hole is called spaghettification. Spaghettification. Sounds like a meal to die for. See what I did there? Kill me. But give this video a like for a dad joke. Alright, Neil, you ready for the next one?

Ivica Cern wants to know this. There is a black hole in the middle of our galaxy. Is there a giant black hole or something giant in the middle of our universe? And something in the middle of our universe and something in the middle of the multiverse if we follow that logic? No. And that's all we have time for. No. What do you want from me?

It's a no. No. No. There is no center of the universe. All the universe was in the same place at the same time nearly 14 billion years ago. Then you could think of it sort of as a center. But after that, we're expanding and all pieces expanding away from every place else. It feels like we're at the center, but we're not.

Any more than when you're a ship at sea and you are in the middle of your own horizon. You're equidistant from every edge of your horizon. That doesn't mean you're in the middle of your own horizon. You're equidistant from every edge of your horizon. That doesn't mean you're in the center of anything. So, no. There's no known center of the universe, and therefore I can say with some confidence there's no black hole there. Okay, Neil, thanks for making me feel less important

than I already do, knowing that I'm not the center of the universe. But wait a minute. How about black holes at the center of our galaxy? We've got one. Andromeda's got one. Except theirs is bigger than ours. We have black hole envy, but that's another show.

Long ago, we didn't know if black holes would be common in the centers of galaxies with the help of the Hubble telescope, which has good, precise ways to look down in the center. Every galaxy we've had the capacity to check has revealed a black hole to us. Thus, we will extrapolate and assert that a black hole is a natural phenomenon

in the center of all galaxies of the universe. All right, Neil, it's time for another question. Dan Birmingham wants to know, what's the most exciting thing we don't know about black holes? There's good theoretical ideas about what would happen if you survive a trip through the black hole and come out on the other side. All of our equations tell us that an entire new space time opens up for you.

Once you've left the universe you were just in, you will never return to it, but you'll enter another domain. Our equations tell us it's there, but there's no way to test that and come back and tell anybody about it. So that remains for me one of the most intriguing mysteries of the universe. Is each black hole a universe unto itself? Chuck, back to you. Damn, that is super cool. I'm going to call that a black rabbit hole. All right. It's time to talk asteroids. Are you ready, Neil? I'm ready, Chuck. Daniel Tickner wants to know, what is the easiest way to defend the Earth from asteroids?

I didn't even know they were trying to attack us. What you want to do is first find out that it's headed our way. Then, as early as you possibly can, slowly deflect it out of harm's way. Because the earlier you get it, you don't have to deflect it by very much, and that angle accumulates and gets wider and wider and wider so that it completely misses Earth. The later you do this, the more significant you have to deflect it so that it does not hit Earth.

And if it's headed right at us, you have to deflect it the entire diameter of the Earth just to avoid collision. So the earlier the better in all cases. So how would you do that? Well, one way is you can paint one side of the asteroid jet black, and that'll absorb more sunlight than the other side. And when that happens, it radiates at a different, different rate from one side to the other.

And that difference in radiation rates has a pressure that pushes it into a new orbit. But there's still issues at how, how much spray paint do you need for this? Or what, what would you actually take out there to accomplish this? And these asteroids are large. The, the ones we're worried about are miles across, okay? And if you're European, kilometers across. But that's a lot of spray paint. So, is there another way to do it? Yes. You can send a spaceship out there and have it, a space probe, and park it near the asteroid. So here's the asteroid and here's the space probe. Just park it there.

Now what's going to happen is the gravity is going to want to attract them to one another, but you don't let that happen. You fire little retro rockets. So that pulls the, the, the spaceship a little farther away and then the asteroid falls towards it. And it's very steady. But it is in effect a gravitational tractor beam. It's like a gravitational tether. And that way you can measure how effective it is and how long you should do it. And so that's

clearly the best way to protect Earth from asteroids. So blowing it up Armageddon style, that's not a good choice? No. In America especially, we're really good at blowing stuff up, but we're not as good at knowing where the pieces will land. So you don't know what effect exploding it will have after you've blown it up. So what you're saying, Neil, is Bruce Willis is a fraud? No, no, no. The way I put it is, if we are going to blow it up, for whatever reason, I'd send Bruce

Willis. All right, Neil. It's time for another question. Matthew Vincent Liberto wants to know this, how did all of the asteroid belts form? I'm genuinely curious. Also, if there were an asteroid headed towards Earth, how would it be known to the public? Well first let me say where they are. Most of them are between the orbit of Mars and Jupiter, hundreds of thousands of them.

And they're craggy chunks of rock left over from the formation of the solar system. And we think many of them tried to become planets, like planetesimals. And the solar system back then was basically a shooting gallery. And as they're trying to become planets, they get broken up into bits and pieces. So they're really the vagabonds of the solar system. So what you're saying is it's space garbage like Pluto. Chuck, don't get me started. Okay, I'm joking, I'm joking. Okay, how about the second half of Matt's question, how are we going to know that we're all going to die?

Well, all the movies always show governments detecting the asteroid with some special telescopes and then keeping it a secret. Excuse me. You cannot keep the sky a secret. It is above all our heads. And there are countless thousands of amateur astronomers with backyard telescopes that look into the universe and find these things. And so you realize that most comets, up until recently, most comets were found by amateur astronomers and asteroids too. So now we have specialized telescopes, but they're controlled by us,

not by the government. So, yeah, if we find one, you're going to know the next day, the next day, because that stuff will go public, and then everybody will find out at the same time, very likely via the internet. And it is no secret anybody can keep. Sorry, Neil, I don't believe you. I got a feeling they're not telling anybody anything,

and then they're gonna take that information and escape on their own. Or maybe that's just what I would do. I'm an awful person. All right, now, on a serious note, I actually saw this comment in the Facebook group comments. Ray Parker said this, "'I don't care or wanna hear about asteroids.

"'If we get hit, so be it. "'Nothing we could do about it. "'There are other things that are a lot more important "'than rocks.'" Neil. This is why you want scientists and engineers in your midst. Because when something that might render you extinct arises, is on its way towards Earth, they will look up and say,

how can we prevent that? And they'll use methods and tools and ingenious ideas. And that can be the difference between you being alive saying you don't care and you being extinct where your thoughts then wouldn't matter to anyone. Wow. There you have it. Thanks for listening to StarTalk Radio. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Many thanks to our comedian, our guest, our experts,

and I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Until next time, I bid you to keep looking up.