StarTalk Radio - Selling Space, with Bill Nye

Episode Date: September 7, 2018

Bill Nye the Science Guy and comic co-host Iliza Shlesinger answer fan-submitted Cosmic Queries about the politics and privatization of space including renting the International Space Station and ownership of the Moon.NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/selling-space-with-bill-nye/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. Greetings, Bill Nye here. Welcome to another episode of Star Talk All-Stars. And I am joined today by my co-host, Eliza Schlesinger. Her special, Elder Millennials, is streaming now on Netflix. Yeah. Turn it up really loud and your life will be redirected forever and you will be so much happier. And that's good for you.

Just like this show. It's really good for you. It's really good for you. Just like the show. It's really good for you. It's really good for you. So Eliza, let's start with a question. All right. Speaking of things that are good for you and things that make our viewers happy, we've got our first question from Renee Douglas. She says, hey, she wrote it that way. What's the rule on who owns what as far as asteroids, moons, and other planets go? Is it finders keepers? Kind of. Right now, this is

being discussed, outer space treaties. There's been discussion that no one can own these bodies like no one could own the moon. Right. But let's face it. It's going to be us. Well, not that so much. It's going to be China. No, but if you get out there, if you have a spacecraft that can get there and get the ice off an asteroid and use solar energy to make electricity and turn the ice into hydrogen and oxygen, you know, H2O, and then use that for rocket fuel, who's going to stop you? A crashed asteroid or a moving asteroid? That's the trouble. Moving. Super moving.

When it comes to crashed asteroids, there's a couple of issues. Yeah. For those of you who have not been to Beringer Meteor Crater, Meteor Crater, Arizona, here in the United States, it is amazing. It's like this. It's amazing. What's it like? It's because you're in space, there's no sound?

Well, it's just because it's jaw-dropping. Yeah. It also could be forehead slapping. Like, I forgot the crater. No, just you look at it and you're amazed. And so the guy, Berenger, who first found it, thought, I got an idea, as you might, that there must be a big rock at the bottom of this crater. That caused the crater.

Yeah. And so he started drilling for the rock. cause the crater yeah and so he started drilling for the rock but it turns out that the asteroid is made of kind of the same material as the earth so you couldn't find it well so it shattered right when it hit the hit the earth it disintegrated and so you don't get us like you don't get a lump you have dust dust within dust particles particles that are very very hard very tough like trying to straighten a paper clip you can never quite get it straight so the earth is quite hard and trying to drilling it drill and it was hard and the other thing that makes the crater you all we might think it would be this ball going in, but it's a shockwave that disintegrates the Earth's crust, the material that is the Earth.

And so it's really hard to recover that material. Yeah, I watched Broken Arrow last night, and the bomb went off, and a shockwave is what disrupted it. A shockwave is trouble, people. And so you're going to catch up to a moving asteroid. And then who's going to stop you? The Earth. Treaty Schmiede. Treaty Schmiede asteroid. And then who's going to stop you? The Earth. Treaty Schmiede. Treaty Schmiede.

The answer is who's going to own it? Probably Time Warner. Maybe Lockheed Martin. Just a giant company. General Electric. What about SpaceX? I don't know what that is. Is that who's paying for this?

Hold it. Aren't you a Los Angelino? No. I mean, yeah. What is it? Hold on. Oh, Elon Musk. Sorry. Don't you have a sort on. Oh, Elon Musk. Sorry.

Don't you have a sort of a crush on Elon Musk or a thing for him anyway? I mean, no. No. Okay. But, you know, if he wants to like come to a party or come to a show. He should go to your show. I'm at the comedy store a lot. You can check me out on Twitter.

Yeah. Yeah, I'll space out. So you should do that. Check out her show. Anyway. I knew what the fire triangle was, by the way, in the last episode.

That was cool. Sorry I didn't know Elon Musk and his dalliances. No, no, but you did. You just, it was a lot to ask. So what I mean is a private company

may go out to an asteroid someday and get some material from it. Yeah. But the idea of mining platinum or whatever your beautiful white gold rings are made of, it's really difficult to bring that back. There's a lot of platinum on the earth, if you know where to look.

I think the question everybody wants to know is, would you rather have it be privatized or run by the government? Long lines of the DMV, folks. I'm just saying, if you want more government. Long lines of the DMV, folks. I'm just saying, if you want more government. Yeah. But as we say, there is no business for, let's say, exploring Europa, the moon of Jupiter with twice as much seawater as the Earth. Nobody's selling tickets to go to Europa. Yeah. So you use the government, the public sector, to do this extraordinary exploration. So you use the government, the public sector, to do this extraordinary exploration.

And then the private sector can, if I may, do what it wants within reasonable regulations. Not everybody's allowed to launch rockets anywhere they want all the time because what if they land on somebody else? You hear that? By accident. That's a drag. Other people? Well, this is tangentially related to that. tangentially related to that, Ashley Aaron of Facebook,

you know, of the Aarons of Facebook, ultimately, would people with the ability to reach space, millionaires, corporations, etc., be able to claim uncharted territories as their own? For instance, Amazon claiming part of the moon for commercial travel, or Virgin claiming parts of Mars for colonization, would this be a good or bad thing? So there's a treaty about the moon.

What's it called? You can't, nobody, I think it's called lunar or outer space treaty of 1967 you can't own the moon sorry about that yeah but what is it despicable me and so we also don't we want to de-emphasize we want to no longer use the expression colonize because colonies very white it's a very white thing it's got a bad rap yeah so we want to say settle i want to settle the same thing uh but well so the trouble with settling on these places is there's nothing to eat or drink and nothing to breathe that third one it's the last one that really it's really you're really going to notice trapping's going to get you through that and so speaking of european people and their tradition of wandering around the world

and settling, we all have, many of us in Western Hemisphere, like we're in the US or Canada, have this come from, or South America, we come from this tradition where people from Europe

showed up with superior technology and germs, smallpox, and just started taking over. Well, when you go to Mars, and they lived off the land. They showed up, you know, my old 44. God, glory, and gold. Yeah.

But on Mars, there's nothing. There's no salmon. There's nothing there. There's no food. There are no nut trees. There's no, yeah. You can't soil. You can't till the soil.

You can't farm. It's really hard. Yeah. You can't soil. You can't till the soil. You can't farm. It's really hard. It's like Arizona, the whole thing. Well, it's like Antarctica. It's like Antarctica. That's really a good model. But red. If you want to think about it.

There's no—you've got to bring everything. Is it its own country? Antarctica? Do we own it? No, there's slices that have been—treaties have been acknowledged. But it's just like its own thing. Is there a capital of Antarctica? No, not right now.

No one, like, people don't know that. It's an opportunity. It's an opportunity. It's a gold rush. If you live in LA and you're annoying, please move to Antarctica. But it's, you guys, the word gold rush is quite relevant. Is there gold in Antarctica? If there were.

We'd be there. Yeah. Right. So here in California, the name of the National Football League team, if you're listening to this podcast somewhere 30 years from now, we used to play football. This is getting to someone in space right now. With helmets, yes. Far away.

With helmets and there were brain injuries. We used to play football, period. And kids were now, no parents let them sign up. But that aside, the name of the football team is the 49ers, named after the gold rush. Of 1849. Yeah. And this tradition is still with us.

So California is so out of hand. Do you know the state motto? That's not a parking space. That could be. Of Californiaia that could also be manhattan yeah no one drives uh the state motto is eureka i found it which is what who said well i did say it eureka i found it and so people came from Europe across North America, shooting everything, eating everything, growing food and farms in the Midwest and got to California. And there's nuts on the trees. Oranges grow like weeds.

Salmon come up the river bigger than your arm. And there's protein everywhere. And it's fabulous. And then it got so out of hand, the rocks are made of gold. Like, it's fabulous uh and then it got so out of hand the rocks are made of gold like it's just nuts yeah anyway the gold thing kind of is done but the 49ers are still a team we saw just like oklahoma has the sooners which is a little derogatory but it was like a land grab and sooners were ones that went to like uh they went before the before the gun i've had some great times in oklahoma some disclosure i'm just saying that's the name.

I'm from Texas, so I can't say I like Oklahoma. No, in fact, I think a lot of what keeps you all going is the knowledge that Oklahomans really are not that great. That's a lot of what keeps a Texan going. But then when you meet one, you're like, it's fine. Oh, it's really, it's fine. It's the main. Talking about that great experience. It's the main export of texas is what hatred for oklahoma oh yeah it's our understandable

you know i used to work in the oil patch in an oil patch in the oil field oh snyder i did know that big spring midland odessa uh the texas cross Victoria. But that aside, let's take another question. Okay. We already said this one about the millionaire. So moving, and I feel like this is kind of going back into it, but just so we can, people can get their questions answered. How would private companies, everything physics on Instagram says, how would private companies help keep space travel affordable to the common man,

assuming interplanetary colonization and travel becomes a common desire? Before the interplanetary travel and settlement, Elon Musk, by way of example, went to what we call the community and said, I want to go to Mars. How do I get to Mars? And scientists and engineers told him, told everybody, is we're going to lower the cost of getting to low Earth orbit. Because everybody thinks that the best way to go to Mars or any place, another planet, is to get fuel in orbit around the Earth, go up there with your other spacecraft, refuel, and then go the rest of the way. But?

Well, not but. So that's what SpaceX is working on, ways to lower the cost of getting to low Earth orbit as a step to go to another planet. To bring it to you, the consumer. And I flew the flight simulator of the Spaceship Two, the Virgin Galactic fabulous machine just a few weeks ago. It's going to be wild. People will be able to go to space for a few minutes and come back and apparently everybody who sees the

earth from space is changed forever the way you feel about our home planet i'm thinking about that it is cool perspective yeah that's everybody talks about all right well uh related to that sean underscore falcon on instagram says do you feel that spacex is working toward the interest of the american people and of this nation compared to nasa hold it so everybody spacex sells rockets to nasa it's not one or the other it's not their big business is nasa and the air force the u.s air force who else is going to buy? Well, once in a while, a company like the Planetary Society comes along. With donations from people like you. Yes, thank you.

And we are flying a spacecraft. But it's a consortium of us, NASA, the National Air and Space Administration here in the U.S., and SpaceX. It's a business. All the money spent in space is really spent on Earth.

So SpaceX sells rockets to NASA. It's all good. It's all good. It's all part of a big machine. It's commerce. It's what we do. So piggybacking off of that, BlueJade127 of Instagram says, as space travel increases, how will pilots cope with the growing cloud of space debris from old satellites that remain trapped in Earth's orbit? Also, who will be responsible for the cleanup efforts? The polluters, governments, private enterprises, or volunteers? Jade Tullis from Ringwood, New Jersey. So that's a great question. Space debris is a big issue. If you can solve this problem, we love you, man. So people have talked about sending up spacecraft to catch debris and burn it up in the atmosphere. Easier said than done. I mean, everything's going in English units at 17,000 miles an hour, 10 kilometers, 12 kilometers a

second, seven or eight miles a second. It's very hard to catch these things. But when you run one into the other, all this debris gets spread all over the place. And there have been a couple major accidents. Air Force booster blew up many years ago, and the Chinese Space Agency ran things into each other on purpose and created a mess. What is their problem? Well, it was just trying to show their capability. And then the U.S. or the Navy shot down another UCAR satellite to show how this is how you really do it. This sounds like us. It's a complicated issue. So let's have a big net and catch the stuff.

I was going to say a net made of a clay polymer. Yes, the net has to be going really fast. And so we have treaties in communication industry especially to de-orbit satellites after they're wore out. To bring them back home? You burn them up. You burn them up. Burn them up in the atmosphere and then we inhale whatever's in that atmosphere. So keep in mind the Earth is hit with hundreds, maybe it's a thousand tons of space dust every

day. So a few... Is that why I feel nauseous? Yeah, a few kilograms or pounds of spacecraft is kind of lost. Interesting. You don't even notice it. Burn it up. Burn it up.

Justin Stewardson of Facebook says, How far could we advance our race? Okay. If we bring asteroids full of exotic materials to earth with the with space mining so every this is a romantic idea that you'd go catch an asteroid and drag it into earth orbit and then lower it onto the earth and get platinum or whatever the heck you want to make your wedding ring out of but uh i'd be overseeing this project well it would be cool to have a space metal thing.

Like I have a pin made of an asteroid. It's kind of cool. My heart stops every once in a while, but it's cool. No, no, no. The thing is asteroids are made of the same stuff as the Earth. So why bother? We have the Earth. I mean, it's cool, but it's expensive.

The idea is romantic, but it's very difficult. These things are going very fast. They're very far from the Earth. And bringing them back here is rocket science turned up to 11. So I'm not saying it can't be done. Why? Well, the big why now is take your rocket to an asteroid, and many asteroids have a lot of ice.

Where do they get that ice just from being primordial solar system well that's the obvious answer so one of the questions is where did the ice come from in the primordial solar system what are we doing here what is primordial solar system means an old solar system that's no means four and a half billion years ago that's old our solar system because i think of primordial ooze is what like lizards crawled out of. Yeah, that's three and a half billion. Probably three and a half billion. So recent.

So since MySpace has been around. Yes. I had to think that's an older reference, MySpace. Lost on many of the younger listeners. So it's just not so easy. But it's a cool idea. So we'll see. There are companies involved.

And what they want to do is go to an asteroid that's got a lot of ice, use the ice for rocket fuel. Is that a thing? Are we deciding that ice will work as rocket fuel? Well, water works as rocket fuel. Oh, well, there's your answer. If you break the water into hydrogen and oxygen and recombine it really fast, you're going to fire.

In that order? Yeah. Okay. And then you could, it's a lot of energy, but you'd convert sunlight into electricity, into chemical energy,

into rocket fuel. So what you're saying is we have all that we need right here in this room to make a rocket. Yes, we do. If you had an unlimited

supply of energy, yeah. Well, I don't know. I drink a lot of coffee. Somebody wants, this is kind of a whimsical question. This is from John Tweak. It's rocket fuel. Now that I've tried it, I don't think I could live without it. Is that rocket fuel like an energy drink?

Or isn't it like Red Bull and gin? It's like, okay. John Tweak of Instagram says, if you could purchase land, this is to you, obviously not me because you don't know me. If you could purchase land on any other world you, obviously not me because you don't know me. If you could purchase land on any other world simply to brag about

your real estate, which I don't think you would do, so it's not really for Bill Nye, but if you were a megalomaniac, simply to brag about

your mad scientist, simply to brag about your real estate, which world would you choose and why? World meaning planet, I'm assuming. It would probably be Mars.

It would probably be Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system. From there, I could see the world. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. This is StarTalk All-Stars. I'm here with my guest, Eliza Schlesinger. We'll be back right after this. World, because world could be... Oh, no, we love world.

I'm not saying it's world. Okay, so wait, wait, wait. It's Bill Nye with Eliza Schlesinger. You're welcome back to StarTalk All-Stars. We have a little issue that we are discussing. Eliza, your concern. My concern was in the last question, he said, any other world. And I said, well, it's really a planet.

World is sort of a fluid concept. Like my world is this room right now. He meant planet. But you said, we love world. I love world. I said, I'm sorry I showed up in Pasadena at 9 a.m.

to do your show. I'm sorry. No, you're not. No, I get paid to be here. So anyway, but that's not the only reason.

We're having fun. So the thing is, world is not bad. One of the striking things that strikes me, I am struck when I look at a picture from Mars. Yeah. It's a place. I mean, you can walk around if you were dressed properly. Yeah. And so it's a world.

It's a world. I'm sorry. It's romantic. The moon is a world-like thing. You know, Buzz Aldrin, the the second guy said magnificent desolation meaning it's just it's amazing because it's a place but of nothingness it's amazing and it's out of our everyday experience most of the places no no here's the difference well there's a lot of people on the moon when he was

there there were very few people just one other yeah all right it makes a somethingness uh j rice apr on instagram says hi bill in your opinion what should take priority budget-wise planetary exploration or extra solar system exploration? If planetary, where would you head first? So that's a great question. This is what we do at the Planetary Society. We work very hard to advocate for what we believe are reasonable uses of our resources, our intellect and treasure. Our money and thankfulness.

Yeah. So planetary, I claim planetary science is where you get these extraordinary returns on investment. If we were to discover life on another world, like Mars or Europa, the moon of Jupiter, twice as much ocean as the Earth, it would change the course of human history, which would be cool. Furthermore, you're living at a time where we have telescopes that can observe atmospheres of other planets orbiting other stars, if we were to find evidence of industrial pollution in an atmosphere on a so-called exoplanet, a long way from here planet, it would change the world. It would change everything. So what you want to do is evaluate the NASA, ESA, European Space Agency budgets,

Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA. Evaluate those budgets and allocate your resources appropriately. Here at the Planetary Science, we want planetary science to be at least over $2 billion a year, $2 billion U.S. Get those Patreon contributions. 2.3, 2.5, 2.7. I mean, all it costs is like $5 to ask a question here. So you guys got to pick up the pace.

No, it's great. Thank you. It's not enough. I'm trying to get to Mons, Europa, whatever. Olympus Mons? Olympus Mons. Largest volcano in the solar system. And Europa, the one that's got all the ocean.

So are there Europanians? No. We don't know. Maybe under the surface. Swimming under theians no we don't know maybe under the surface swimming under the ice we don't we won't know unless you donate are there europanian comedians definitely not there's barely any comedians in this country do we have europanian maybe they're full of europanian comedians talking hilarious europanian fish person jokes maybe maybe they're the funniest species in the galaxy. Yeah.

We won't know because you're not donating enough. But. They hired me to come in and be the hammer and let you guys know. He doesn't want it, but. It's like public broadcasting. I'll play the bad guy. Yeah, we kind of beg for it.

Okay, this question. This is the big one. Here we go. It's time for a cosmic query presented to you by my radar. Bing, bing, bing, bing, this question. This is the big one. Here we go. It's time for a cosmic query presented to you by my radar. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. This one's from Mike B. And Mike wants to know...

Did I already read this question? See, they sound alike. Go for it. Go for it, Eliza. Go for it. This question is from Mike B. And Mike B. wants to know whether asteroid mining is really possible or only science fiction. He also wants to know if we are exploring the solar system, will we need to bring our own water,

or will there be enough water out there for us to mine? Don't forget Europa, the moon with a lot of water. And that's right, which is water like on Earth under a shell of ice, and the liquid water is maintained by the gravitational action of Europa going around Jupiter. Woo, woo, woo, except it's in space. And so some asteroids have a lot of water. So people speculate. There's a company, Planetary Resources, believes there's enough water, ice, on asteroids.

You go there and mine it, use electricity to make it into rocket fuel. fuel so that's possible but I don't know if it's gonna happen in our lifetime and then along this line Mars has water if you can dig down deep enough and somehow harvest it it's an extraordinary future Eliza yeah it's extraordinary do you think the world did I say this the real the realio 3 on Instagram do you think the world can agree on non-privatization of the moon and similar objects treating them like national parks, or better yet, international parks? The thought of advertisements on the moon terrifies and disgusts me.

I think so. I think we can work that out. This idea, oh, let's just go to the moon, you know, set up a tent, it'll be great. It's not that easy. You need billions of dollars or euros or yen or yuan to try this yeah and then once you're there what exactly are you going to do it's not like going to the beach it's not like going to the beach what do you do at the beach well i have watched the ocean yeah i watched the ocean and i like to jump in the ocean or walk into the ocean. I like to surf in the ocean. Really? I watch all the garbage come in.

And that's fun too. All right. But in other words, it's not so simple. So yes, I think we can work this out to your question. This is related to the last couple questions because if you're talking about colonizing, you're talking about funding, obviously politics come into play. Nataraj of Instagram says, If we already underfund the space budget in the USA, what are the chances that politics will actually affect the progress of space travel for independent companies?

These are all related. And when you say underfund, it depends. There are some people who resent the heck out of NASA spending $18 or $19 billion a year. Other people think it should be twice that. billion a year. Other people think it should be twice that. And so this is why we vote, everybody, is to figure out what's the best thing to do with our resources, our intellect and treasure. And so when it comes to is it private, is it public, it's both. When NASA sends a space probe to Jupiter, did you see the amazing pictures of the swirling atmosphere of Jupiter? It was all over the news, the spot.

And then nearby the spot, the word nearby a few earth diameters away are more swirling, amazing swirling. This is Jupiter is a gas giant. That's right. And we discover this because we sent spacecraft there and the spacecraft was sent there on rockets and with equipment and materials and technicians and engineers and scientists who work for private companies. This is going to be – I don't mean to politicize this, but I think this is an interesting question.

I want to ask you. You ready? Yeah. Roger Warren of Facebook says, how do you feel about this administration – you have to be more specific. No, about this administration's gutting of all things climate-related, including low-Earth orbit observation? So I don't think it will last. Because the administration is only four years? Well, the administration is only four years. In fact, I've spoken a couple times with Jim Bridenstine, who's the new administrator of NASA.

He's a controversial guy because he was nominally a Trump supporter, but he is a Navy pilot who wanted the job of NASA administrator. Turn it around. Well, and he got, well, NASA does pretty well, everybody. Everybody just wants to go to the moon for free.

And okay. So Bridenstine is there. It's just you have to have somebody in charge just to sign checks by law. All right, that aside, I think when you – if you look at the U.S. Constitution, we are here in the United States. That's what we're broadcasting. The U.S. Constitution was to become a model for progressive democracies around the world the last couple centuries. Right there, Section 8, Article 1. Article 1, Section 8 refers to the progress of science and useful arts. Useful arts. So useful arts to me was an 18th century word for engineering.

Or paintings of Christ. Because that was like all you could paint for a very long time. But by these guys, I know what you mean. The founding fathers were... I'm just kidding. I know. It's pretty funny. But they were nominally a-religious. I know that. Thomas Jefferson. Yeah. His old Unitarian... Wasn't into it. Yeah. Okay. And so they realized the value, the economic value of investment in science and protecting so-called intellectual property, patents and trademarks. They realized the value of that in the 1700s. They knew back then, before they even knew how to cure polio, how come we can't get a grip?

That's right. They were also geniuses. Well, here's my claim, Eliza, that they were nerds who sat around thinking about how to design a very good government and built in, just like science, built in to the U.S. Constitution. The provision. Is change. Change. Change is built in. I don't know if they were nerds because I've seen paintings of those, and they look pretty in shape. So you're saying nerds are out of shape?

You can send your hate mail to my Instagram. So, you know, I consider myself— Pretty in shape. Pretty live. Pretty nerdy. You're very nerdy. And I'm okay in shape, especially a guy with this many decades. So you can't stay economically competitive in the world today without science.

You will not be able to maintain your economy. So I think this anti-science movement is going to go away pretty quickly. Furthermore, as the old joke goes, I am not the first guy to bring this to the microphone. Science advances one funeral at a time. It's true. Trial and error. Well, not just that. The old ways, the earth is flat.

Is that old? I feel like a lot of people still think that. Actually, that's come back. Yeah, it's a bad example. Good point. You can't maintain your international commerce presuming the Earth is flat. Right. If you get on a boat or a ship or an airplane and think the world is flat, you will get lost and die.

Can I say one thing to those flat Earth people? Please. If you want to prove to yourself that the Earth is not flat, all you have to do is watch a ship disappear over a horizon. If the Earth was flat, you would watch it go on forever. But by virtue of the fact that it disappears, it's not flat. Eliza Schlesinger, ladies and gentlemen.

That's it. That's it. Because I was like, oh, it's totally flat. No, I'm just kidding. I never thought that. So you will not be able to compete economically

if you don't embrace science. And so people will realize that pretty soon. And the anti-science movement will disappear. Along that line about climate change, not always, but almost all climate change deniers or contrarians or extreme skeptics, whatever you want to call themselves, are old. Really?

Interesting. Yes. And stupid. Well, very few young people are climate deniers. Once in a while, you meet one. So when these people, the example I think about these days, you know, Stoneman Douglas High School, his kids, students live through this extraordinary experience. Though when people of that political motivation come of age and become part of the voting cohort, as it's called, things will change. Three presidential elections elections things are going to get done the war the future

everybody shoot the messenger but the future is much more likely to be a progressive democracy than a regressive totalitarian thing those totalitarian governments are just not going to stay in business they're surrounded by the internet they just can't they can't it's not going to last we Will not sustain. So then this is kind of a fun one. You don't have to answer it. Daniel Junius from, Daniel, sorry, Junius, I made you a girl. Now you're a boy from Facebook says,

when do you think President Donald Trump will claim Mars? Is that a waste of time? Should we ask a real question? Well, what do you think? What do you think? He's not, I mean, I claim it right now. Like whatever. Done. I heard it here.

And who's going to honor that? No one. They're changing the name from Mars to Schlesinger. To Mars-a-Lago. You get it? Huh? There you go. I don't know which camera I'm supposed to be looking at.

Okay, here's a real question. And the question for you is, in your opinion, this is from Eric Varga from Facebook. In your opinion, what is better for the future of space exploration? Countries and their governments working together to explore space, like currently on the ISS, or private companies competing against each other? In other words, competition or cooperation. So it's both.

The answer is it's both. A space agency buys rockets that perform the best for the least amount of money. As the old saying goes, and I think it was Alan Shepard who's credited with this quotation. If I'm getting it wrong, I apologize. He's an astronaut standing on the moon. Yeah. He said, you know, it's sobering to realize that we got here on equipment built by the lowest bidder. That's a charming insight. It's boring to realize that we got here on equipment built by the lowest bidder.

That's a charming insight. Yeah. So space agencies buy rockets and spacecraft and support, ground support, from private companies. I mean, that's how it works. That's how we buy everything. When NASA buys electronics, they're from a company. It's not a bad thing. When we buy weapons, it's from a company. That's how we buy everything. When NASA buys electronics, they're from a company. It's not a bad thing. When we buy weapons, it's from a company. That's right.

It's true. It's a thing. It's a feature. How else would you do it? And so it's not one or the other. And just I'll tell you as the CEO of the Planetary Society, the world's largest non-governmental space organization empowering you. You can donate.

To be connected with space. empowering you to be connected with space. The fundamental thing is it's not one or the other. It's everybody working together. And when you use international cooperation, you in general raise the cost of the overall project. of the overall project. Let's say sending spacecraft Huygens into the atmosphere of Titan, moon of Saturn. Let's say you work together. You raise the overall cost but you lower the cost for each space agency. Each space agency has to contribute less and so that's of great interest. International

cooperation. As I like to say, space exploration brings out the best in us, Eliza. Well, I think what you're also talking about here, Bill, is basic economics. I am. So working together,

we can do wonderful things. A lot of these questions sort of circle around the idea of is space exploration, is it a good thing? Brett, Gabe's dad, I guess you're Gabe's dad, from Facebook says, what will be the consequence of privatization of the space station so if we could privatize

the space station in our space station that would free up let's say around three billion dollars to do something else and the private space station owners or leasers, leasors would maybe do extraordinary things that aren't being done right now. The big value of the space station that came up early is really diplomatic. When you get people from all these different countries working together, it's extraordinary. So it would be great if we could sell the space station

to somebody like you, Gabe's son. Gabe's son. It would be a fantastic thing, and we could change the world. And then with that money and refocus of the world's largest space agency, perhaps we could get to Mars in my lifetime and find evidence of life that would change the course of human history. Yes. That'd be great.

I feel like we're right on the precipice of doing that. Yes. So close. What makes you feel that way? Just because we talk about it a lot. It right on the precipice of doing that. Yes. So close. What makes you feel that way? Just because we talk about it a lot. It's in the ether. There you go. Yeah.

It's an idea. Speaking of the ether and radio and electronic internet, you are watching StarTalk All-Stars, and we'll be back right after this. Greetings, greetings, everyone. Bill Nye here. Welcome back to Star Talk All Stars. I am joined by my co-host, Eliza Schlesinger.

Hey, guys. We're having the time of our lives here. If it's on or before July 24th, please watch her special Elder Millennial. And that's you. That's me. And please rate it five stars, even if you don't watch. Five stars for Christmas. Is that asking so much?

Is that so hard? Now, hold on a second. You said for Christmas? I was just trying to do a pathetic voice. It was. It was pathetic. For Christmas, please. Five stars.

So do you have a Christmas tradition in your family? No, because I am fully Jewish. Yeah, that's what I thought. Not that it's a bad thing, it's a thing. But that being said, I love Christmas and I have a Christmas party every year. And so what we do here in the non-believer community, we have Isaac Newton's birthday, also on the 25th of December. Newton-less. What's that party like? Just apples being thrown? We have Isaac Newton's birthday tree. We have Isaac Newton's birthday decorations.

We have Isaac Newton's birthday gift exchange. I mean, technically, the main decoration would be gravity. Well, it's always there. It's always there. Every Christmas I've been to. And so it's just something to think about. So Isaac Newton was born on the 25th of December as reckoned in Britain. Really?

Yeah, as reckoned in Britain. So I'm not just jamming here, GF. You're not just jamming here gf he's not just jamming here what'd you call me jif girlfriend oh gf yeah so oh a book of the laws of physics you shouldn't have and so uh but he was born on the 4th of january as reckoned in italy so no one knows for sure well yeah we do so okay It's a cool and amazing thing, and I know it's come up on the show in the past, that it wasn't that long ago that people weren't exactly sure exactly how long it took the earth to go around the sun. Yeah.

We all take it for granted. You go to the office supply store, you buy calendar with puppies, calendar kittens puppies and kittens no firemen whatever with their that sort of thing yeah that kind of thing and you all trust everybody's a calendar you're like but you've seen them i've seen them yeah uh anyway i've posed for them Yeah. Anyway. I've posed for them. Really?

No. Comedian calendar? It's a lot of, it's 12 months of gross outs with issues. Wow. Great. Because then you feel better about yourself looking at the calendar. That's why I do it. It wasn't that long ago that people didn't know how long a year was. And so Pope Gregory XIII commissioned some very skilled astronomers to re-reckon the

calendar, and they did. And we use it to this day. People say, well, Isaac Newton was not born on the 25th of December. That's wrong. It's totally wrong. It's born on the 4th of January. Here's my claim. His mother thought it was Christmas Day. And so you're wrong. No, you're right. It's all human construct anyway. And as far as changing the world, the discoveries of Isaac Newton, which we've all embraced, have changed the course of history.

All right, so you were saying, read a question, Eliza. Big question for you. John L. Marie McGee from Facebook says, what are your thoughts on the Space Force? Oh, so everybody... And what is it? So it's been proposed by a certain congressman here, member of Congress rather, here in the United States to

add a sixth branch of the U.S. military. So you'd have the Navy, the Army, or let's start with the Army, the Navy, and the Marines, the Coast Guard, and the Air Force. He wants to add a sixth one, the Space Force. Now, we're not supposed, as the head of this, CEO of the Planetary Society, it is not recommended that I express my political views in this regard. You kind of already did. Well, the thing is,

the Mars question. Well, the space, if you go to, you don't go to the Air Museum here in the U.S. The second most popular museum on Earth is not the Air Museum, nor is it the Space Museum. It's the Air and Space Museum. And so what the U.S. Air Force does now is largely space. So maybe you could think of the U.S. Air Force as the U.S. Air and Space Force. Just add it onto the badge. And we'd all move on, maybe. I mean, I'm not in charge. But what is clear

is Russia's having a space force. And so that's probably what's motivating somebody thinking we need a space force. But it would be new stationary, new uniforms, a new song, a new everything. I think that's the big hiccup, is the new song. And so BT Dubs, from my personal experience, myself personally speaking for myself, Eliza, I worked briefly on what's called the Joint Strike Fighter. This was an airplane, as an engineer, this is an airplane that was going to be bought by the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marines. And it was going to do all these great things. And the great things it was going to do was lower the cost of fighter planes.

That was going to be the great thing it was going to do. What happened? Well, it didn't. I mean, instead of 70%—this is a great noun—70% commonality, the parts would be interchangeable between the Air force the marines and the navy okay it ended up to be about 30 percent in other words instead of 70 common it ended up 70 uncommon right so it was you guys i'm all for it but the what everybody's trying to do is integrate the services not add another one but i want you to be happy congressmen and senators if you can show voters and taxpayers that you're

saving money and doing a great thing and knock yourselves out see the Venn diagram let's see that commonality show it let's see the Venn diagram let's see the Venn diagram because I will believe anything on a Venn diagram really yeah yeah yep so give me an example. Okay. Uh, um, uh, reasons I love puppies and reasons I love small dogs and they overlap, um, because they're both dogs. So, so you're, is the ultimate a small dog puppy or is that taking it too far? You can't have a small, uh, well, I guess all puppies are small to start. So that's the ultimate.

That's the goal. So, I mean, the so-called teacup Yorkie? Yeah. What about it? I don't know. It's too small. I changed my mind. It's too small.

It's too fragile. So let me talk briefly as a guy who's written a book about evolution. I wrote a book because I was concerned about people's literacy with respect to evolution. So you wrote a book to taunt them? No, to enable them to understand the most, the fundamental idea in all of biology. Okay. Or at least discuss it. They're all dogs. Yeah.

If you're Blanche. You're a dog. Interacts, Blanche is a dog. Hold on, I'll give you an example. you're a dog interacts blanche is a dog hold on i've spoken with her yeah if blanche who is not especially big and we're talking about science and space but she is dense okay if blanche were to interact can i say interact with a great dane oh yeah all you're gonna get is a dog you're not gonna get some new thing you're still gonna get a dog it's all you're gonna get is a dog you're not going to get some new thing you're still going to get a dog it's all you're going to get is a dog fun fact yeah did you know that a baby horse is not a pony it's a it's a colt yeah most people don't know that yeah it's a colt a pony is a pony it's

its own thing yeah it's not the indianapolis ponies by way of example it's indianapolis colt so it's baby horses. That's your team. Yeah. And Colt 45 is a baby beer. Well, the other thing about a Colt, I've spent a little bit of time with Colts. I have. I thought you meant like got brainwashed. No, no, no.

They're rambunctious. As babies are. Yeah, and so that's not a totally unreasonable name for a football team. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Frost Jarvinen on Facebook says, as much as I love NASA, and it's a lot, he wants you to know, it seems as though they're beginning to fall behind private enterprise

in terms of pushing the envelope, so to speak. I'd love Bill's thoughts on this, hopefully to ease a bit of my doubts about the challenges NASA might be facing now and in the future. So I think what you're talking about is SpaceX and Blue Origin. So these two crazily rich guys, Elon Musk, who invented PayPal or was involved very early on in PayPal. And Jeff Bezos, who— Invented Amazon. Yeah.

These guys are so wealthy. How wealthy are they? They're so wealthy they want to make rocket ships. But bear in mind, NASA buys rockets from these companies. NASA is building an even bigger, bigger rocket because it was believed that there wasn't a business model to make a bigger, big, big rocket called the Space Launch System, the SLS. And whimsical wags, I think, is a political term. It's not wives and girlfriends like that show. No, no.

Unless they all are critical of Congress, then they'd be wag wags i doubt they have opinions yeah uh anyway uh they called it the senate launch system because it seemed like it was a political thing however if the space launch system can be built successfully this big rocket it will lower the cost of going to deep space and that'll be good and this is something you're touching on for all of these is like the more we funnel our energies into this and the more there is, then we can trickle down and there's less of a cost. And let me say, it's very cool and showy that SpaceX is landing the rocket boosters and reusing rocket boosters and trying to catch the drogue, the block the wind mobile nose cone on a ship.

It's all very cool. But it's not clear that you're not losing money doing that. Not clear yet. So if they can get up over 30 launches a year, it'll be economical. That's what people speculate. So we'll see. It's competition's good. And just remember, the space agencies buy stuff from contractors. It's not one or the other. It's competition's good. And just remember, the space agencies buy stuff from contractors.

It's not one or the other. It's all at once. All the money spent in space is spent on Earth, as I like to say. Eliza, take it. That's where we spend our money. And you should watch her special. Because it covers all of these topics. It does.

She is the elder millennial. Yes, I am. So my question, Matthew McDaniel says, my question is if Space Force becomes a workable branch of the military, would you prefer it not be a thing? Well, I mean, if somebody can show it's worth it, I'm in. If it's worth it. Scientific proof.

Could the first step to actual colonization of the moon and possibly, could it be the first step in colonization of the moon and possibly Mars or at least manned orbital observation posts? So a couple things. No. Great. We'll be right back. So a couple things. No. Great. We'll be right back. Because it's military.

That's not the military's business. The military doesn't go to established colonies. In the good old days, you hired like General Custer, George Custer. We all know what happened there. Well, here's what happened. He was defeated because the natives had better weaponry strangely enough they had traded for better guns but after that happened that's when the u.s said okay that's it we're taking over we're knocking we're we're wiping these people out of here and so there was an example where

the u.s military was involved in colonization that wasn't good, probably. Historians generally think that was unfair and troubling. So you will not use the U.S. military to establish settlements on other worlds. The way to think about it is NASA, ESA, European Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency, Australian Space Agency, they look up and out. The military looks down and in. Oh. Two different jobs. Two different things. Yeah, different perspectives. Looks down and in to keep the peace.

Well, what we call situational awareness. We used to call spying. Oh, I like that term. That's interesting. Situational. So it was situational awareness that helped you find out your boyfriend was cheating on you. Well, that's right. And situational awareness also helped you find out your boyfriend was cheating on you. Well, that's right. And situational awareness also tells you where the weather is.

It's not bad. I got a little edgy there. I felt it. Yeah. Yeah. I'll pull back. Rated R. Thank you for tuning in here to Star Talk All-Stars Edition.

I want to thank especially the wonderful insights of my co-host, Eliza Slesinger. Thank you for letting me answer all your questions. It was fun. Her special, Elder Millennials, is streaming now on Netflix. Yeah, you can catch it now, right now. Next click. And turn it up. Thanks for watching, everyone.

I'm Bill Nye. We'll see you next time on Star Talk. Keep looking up.