StarTalk Radio - Space Chronicles (Part 2)

Episode Date: May 19, 2013

How much do politics, economics, competition and fear impact NASA? Find out when Neil deGrasse Tyson and Prof. John Logsdon discuss the space program, from the Cold War to the present day. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm an astrophysicist. Your personal astrophysicist. I serve as director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, which is part of the American Museum of Natural History. And I've got comedian Chuck Nice in the studio here with me.

Good to see you, Neil. Yeah. As always. Good to have you back. So good to be here. You already did one of these programs with me on space. Yes, we did. And I got you back in because you were like rolling it.

I love it. Yeah, we did Chronicles of Space, which is, Space Chronicles is your book. Yeah, thanks for that plug. You'll get, you know, I'll make it up to you later. Add another dollar. No, no. I wrote a book that came out a year ago. It just came out in paperback like seconds ago.

Space Chronicles, Facing the Ultimate Frontier. Facing the Ultimate Frontier. I know. It's a kind of lame-y title, but I really had a different title in mind that I submitted the manuscript with. And what was that? Failure to Launch. The Dreams and Delusions of Space Enthusiasts. Oh, my God. That's awesome. I thought so. Who told you what was that? Failure to launch the dreams and delusions of space enthusiasts. Oh my God. That's awesome. I thought so. Who told you to change that? No,

don't get me. Don't get me. Don't, don't. All I'm going to say is this. Don't get me started. The publisher said, wait a minute, failure to launch. Isn't that the title of a movie? Oh, shut up. It's like, shut up. Of course it's the title of a movie, except they use the phrase figuratively. That's right. I get to use it literally. Exactly. Okay, I don't know who your publisher is, but here's what I'm sending out over these airwaves right now. Smack. That's for you.

An acoustic smack. An acoustic smack. That's ridiculous. That's an awesome title. Well, thank you. It's every thought I've ever had about our past, present, and future in space. But there are other folks out there who've also thought about space, including John Logsdon. And John Logsdon, he's a professor of, well, I think of him as the founding director of the Space Policy Institute.

And where's that at? This is in Washington, D.C., George Washington University. But he's professor emeritus of political science there. And he knows everything about space. So, I don't write anything about space unless I talk to him first. And so we're going to feature clips of my interview with him that took place in my office about his views of the space program. And by the way, he's not only just an academic historian. They tapped him when the Columbia Space Shuttle broke up on reentry and we lost seven astronauts.

A board was set up to investigate that disaster. These can be turning points in the pathways of a mission statement for an agency. Would we stop going to space? Would we continue with a vengeance? Would we reshape it? So let's find out his reflections on serving on that board. Did your report change NASA? I think it changed the space program.

It may not have changed NASA. I have no idea what that sentence means. The Bush administration, this was George W. Bush now, read the report which said the country needed a national goal. The shuttle was a means, not a goal. Oh, okay. Because for 30 years, that's all we were doing. It was essentially a... It was a goal.

Flying the shuttle became the goal. Yeah. So Mr. Bush, January of 2004, said, let's go back to the moon by 2020, then on to Mars, the so-called vision for space exploration. That's when I got the call, and I ended up on that commission. That's right. So I think that was the biggest impact of our report was to lead to a declaration of a national goal, but that didn't change NASA's ability to

operate to meet that goal. So it matters. Everything has to change. You can't change one piece if you want to sort of alter the direction of an agency. Right. Yeah. So, however, the only thing I heard there is that you served on a commission for the Bush administration. That's all I heard. Chuck, it was surreal. I'm watching Bush give a speech. This is after the Columbia disaster and the report gives a new, offers a way to redirect

how NASA operates and what direction it should go in. And Bush goes to NASA headquarters, gives a moon mars and beyond speech saying we'll go back to the moon and onto mars and beyond and he said i will appoint nine commissioners to study the path by which this should be uh executed then my phone ring it was i mean it was a little delayed but nonetheless the phone rings and said we want you to be one of these nine commissioners that is cool that was kind of that was surreal surreal. It was like, oh my gosh. So I get the call. And so I was privileged to serve.

And you never know if what you do is going to actually make a difference. But you bring in all of your powers of reason and academic prowess. And for others on the commission, their sense of the business world, the cultural world. And so that's what it was. The important thing is NASA was created in a different climate, in a Cold War climate. And now since 1989, since peace has broken out in Europe, it's a different world. But NASA has baggage, luggage left over from that period. And so you've got to wonder, how does geopolitics matter to the mission statement of NASA? And let's go back to my clip and see what John Logsdon says about that.

If I remember correctly, China put up their first astronaut just before Bush announces this new commission to go back into space in a big way. So are you confident that the geopolitics wasn't what was driving that? Yes, I am, as a matter of fact. Why? I know you think differently. Because I don't believe you. I deal in the minutiae of what really happens. I know.

The minutiae is sometimes you get lost in the minutiae. There's a marionette or a puppeteer. So the White House decision to do something new and big was made in September of 2003, a month before the Chinese. You don't think they had inside information about this launch? No, I don't think they had enough inside. Intelligence information. They knew it was coming. And the Chinese said it was coming.

The Chinese have never been secretive, by the way. Yeah, yeah. They just say what they're going to do. And do it. And do it. That's good. I mean, sure, there's always a competitive edge in what the U.S. does. I mean, always. But to say that the 2004 vision for space exploration was driven by

competition with China, I think is an overstatement. Even though when Challenger blew up on launch and we had to ground the shuttle program, there was no equivalent vision that came out at the time. and we had to ground the shuttle program, there was no equivalent vision that came out at the time. Nobody else in the world was going into space at that time. Well. I'm just saying, it's suspiciously circumstantial evidence that we come out with a report coincident with when China wants to go into space,

and there's no report around the Challenger disaster. Two things there. One is the reaction to the Challenger disaster was, the shuttle is key, let's just get back to flying shuttle. We don't need anything new. Okay, so just fix the problem and move on. Forgotten was if you went back to Time Magazine, October 4th, 1987, after Challenger, there's the launch of the Energia rocket by the Soviet Union saying the Soviets take the lead. So there was competition.

We kind of ignored it. Yeah, I don't know if I'm with him on all this. Absolutely. Chinese put a boy in orbit and then we say, oh, we're going to have a new vision for space. And you know why? Because we did not want them to be able to deliver things in space before we did. Before we did. And all I wanted them to say, let's go to Mars, and then we'd be on Mars 10 months later.

No, no, no. Let's put military bases on Mars, and then we're there all right, snap of a finger. When we come back, more of my interview with John Logsdon, space historian, and I'm here in studio with Chuck Nice. A half a century ago when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik, we had no idea how we would beat them to the moon. The science wasn't even there yet. NASA didn't exist. But after investing in better research and education,

we didn't just surpass the Soviets. We unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs. This is our generation's Sputnik moment. We're back on StarTalk. That was Barack O's State of the Union address. Yeah. 2011.

Talking space smack. Now, space smack? What's up with space smack? You know, I had an issue with that speech. Now, why is that? Because, you know, everything he says sounded great. You know, oh, Sputnik moment. He said, now is a Sputnik moment.

That's good. How did we react to the original Sputnik moment? We went to the moon. That's correct. Now, what I say in my book, Space Chronicles, I talk about him in Space Chronicles. Okay. I excerpt that part of his speech. Then I talk about the man.

All right. And so I said, he says, we have a new Sputnik moment. When the first Sputnik moment, we went to the speech. Okay. Then I talk about the man. All right. And so I said, he says, we have a new Sputnik moment. When the first Sputnik moment, we went to the moon. Okay. He says, with this Sputnik moment, we will have higher speed internet in 90% of the homes. We will have high speed rail. We will have energy independence in 20 years. I'm thinking.

It's like kind of like, I don't know, down to earth Sputnik. I'm saying, I'm saying we should have everything you just listed anyway. A Sputnik moment is let's go someplace we never dreamt of. Let us create a future that could only have been assembled out of the dreams of our greatest visionaries. And having high-speed internet, no! Having light rail,

no! Yo, man, I'm my own hotspot. That's my Sputnik moment. See? Don't... I'll give you that. Now, I have to say, that is a very valid criticism I was all

call it some other moment don't be taking Sputnik and telling me that's why you're gonna give me high speed internet I'm with you on that and why you're gonna

have light rail to reduce the commutes don't go there excuse I'm sorry yeah that's not a Sputnik moment I don't play that I'm gonna give you that

I'll say your criticism is well received thank you that's all in the book in Space Chronicles I love me some Obama don't get me. I'm going to give you that. I'll say your criticism is well received. Thank you. That's all in the book in Space Chronicles. I love me some Obama. Don't get me wrong. But that doesn't mean he's without my criticism. That's all I'm saying.

Okay. So, but there's an interesting challenge that this raises. Every president has tried to shape a vision statement for our space agency. Right. But if the presidents are slightly different politically or have slightly different mindsets, then NASA is this ping pong ball. Right. Or a, you know, it's this ball that's being batted back and forth depending on the whims of the age. Right.

And whereas in the Apollo era, from Kennedy to Johnson to Nixon, we went to the moon. Under each of those leaderships, the vision statement was strong and steady. From Kennedy to Johnson to Nixon, we went to the moon. Under each of those leaderships, the vision statement was strong and steady. So this is a challenge that we all face. And then you can ask if it's really expensive, then do you do it alone? Or do you bring in some other people? Yeah, do you bring in some other people? And that's a huge problem, a huge challenge. Yeah, you bring in some other people. And that's a huge problem, a huge challenge. And I say, all right, if you bring in other people, now you're subject to the vagaries of their politics. Now you have two wiggly forces operating on your mission statement. So I don't know that that will always work. It'll make it a little cheaper for you. But when do you have greatest resolve? When you're holding hands and cooperating or when, I'm going to beat that sucker.

Right, right. Well, yeah, unfortunately, it's the latter. Right. Exactly. And so what happens? We stop going to the moon. We build the shuttle. We build the space station. And you can.

Why do we build a space station to begin with? Was it to do science? No. It was because the Russians. Once again, we were. Competing. Reacting. Reacting. We are reacting. We're reactors.

We are reactors. We're reactors. Human reactors. And so in my interview with John Logsdon, we chatted about the motivation, the modern day motivations for going into space. And the space station was born at the tail end of the Cold War. Yeah. The Cold War was just kind of fading, but it was still there, and we still thought about the Russians as our enemy. So I asked him about the space station.

Was it really for space? What's behind it? And he told me. Let's find out. One of the arguments made to Ronald Reagan as he considered approving this station was that the Russians had one. Right. There was a competitive edge to it. A geopolitical dimension to this.

And that the right way for the- Once again, we're reactive to Russia, not proactive. Well, but it wasn't the primary reason. I think a major reason was the way to be a leader in space after Apollo is to bring other countries to work with us. And Station, from its start, was going to be an international project with the U.S. as the managing partner. start was going to be an international project with the U.S. as the managing partner. And yes,

there is a hypothesis yet to be proven or disproven that there is good science to be done in the environment in the absence of gravity, microgravity environment. So I can tell you, there is good science. The question is, if you tell a scientist, here's $3 billion, would you do science on the International Space Station or would you build labs on Earth? No one would choose the space station. No, of course not. To spend their $3 billion. But given that you already have a space station, sure, you throw up some zero G. Well, and you have an agency dedicated to using it. So it's not fungible money. It's money dedicated to that particular use. Now, I remember watching a TV commercial. It might have been during a football game, one of these high-profile television events.

This was back in the 80s. There's a space station flying overhead. Oh, no, I know the one you're talking about. It's a huge ship, and you then become shadowed by the ship. And then you see the Russian CCCP, or whatever they are in Cyrillic pronunciation. Right. And you say, it's not me. It's them. I felt that.

There was a tagline to that commercial. What was it? Shouldn't we be there too? So they were appealing to fear factors just as it kind of worked with the commies, right? In the 50s and 60s. Well, it's strong enough to get the program started. But then we brought in the commies, the Russians,

as partners. Oh, wait, let's back up. So we brought in the Russians after the Cold War ended. After the fall of the Soviet Union. So now we have these wayward space scientists. Who we did not want going to Libya or Syria or North Korea or Iran. So now the motivation for the space station is different. It has evolved.

But still geopolitical. It has morphed. Right. Still geopolitical, but it has now morphed. Oh, we now want the space station to get all the people who would go to the dark side. Right. All the former members of the Russian space program, we wanted them to stay in Russia and work with us. Okay.

Then they'd be on our side, not their side. Their side. Okay. And did that succeed? Yes. It did succeed. I think it did. In the critical path of the station, and thank heavens we did.

Apparently. How are we getting the space station now? Right. Russia. So, I mean, there was a geopolitical calculation that the risks of having another country necessary for success were worth the benefits of bringing them together with us. So it also means that we no longer had an enemy that we were racing against. Everyone was friends. Right. So we can spend money even though we're not at war. Oh, I think there are other reasons. I mean, you and I differ a little bit on this because it's not religion.

So we can take this outside. Yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, the domestic politics of space are strong enough to keep a program going at a certain level. At a certain base level. And I think that's what sustained the station and the shuttle program for a long, long time and continues even to today. I think the lesson is you need an enemy. Exactly. I mean, that's really how it's going. I like the fact that he's very kumbaya because in my heart, I'm the same way.

But the fact is nothing gets done without competition that's all that's what it is we're a competition driven society kidding me and so so so now we had actually cooperated before with uh uh remember apollo soyuz we had the apollo we stopped going to the moon but we still know, what do you do with the craft? And so we docked with the Soyuz missions. It was quite a bit of forward thinking at the time. You felt very United Nations. Yeah.

You know, and so it's not like there were not experiments at doing this. But I will note that that Apollo-Soyuz sort of project, I don't know that it was advancing a space frontier. It was just sort of cooperating within the space environment that each country had already created. I think it was more like the ranks were closing in on the space community. Like, we better get together

because pretty soon we could be extinct. Yeah, you mean in terms of the... Yeah, like, you know know because when you think about it now that there isn't competition cold war's over you got to kind of band together and work together because the uh impetus for you to do your job has pretty much been taken away from the people who write the checks yep yep and now here's what's interesting everyone complains about how expensive nasa is right and should we spend the money in a different way down here? You know, in 1958, when it was born, it was one-tenth of 1% of the federal

budget. All right. But then, of course, you're building your capacities and you're building the ships. And so, it peaked out. It topped at 4% of the federal budget in 1966. It topped at 4% and then it fell back again. But 4%? Oh, my gosh. Yeah. 4%. No, actually, that's still small compared with military. Yeah.

Military. So right now, the budget in the military, the entire annual budget of NASA is spent every 11 days by the military. Look at that. That's what it is. That's how it rolls. When we come back, more on the past, present, and future of our place

in space. We're back to StarTalk Radio. Chuck Nice in house. Yes, yes, yes. I got a nice in the house. Tweeting at Chuck Nice Comic. That's correct, sir. That's cool. Thank you.

I love following you. I must confess, I follow other comedians as well. Oh, that's fine. Just in disclosure here. You know, I'm not possessive that way. I'm just saying. You know? So we were talking about the space station, International Space Station, and how the reason for having it kind of morphed.

It was a product of the Cold War, and then the Cold War ended because peace broke out in 1989. And then, oh, we want to get the Russian scientists so they don't go to our enemies, North Korea and Iraq or whomever. We want their scientists so that way they don't build bombs for our enemies. That's right. This is strategic and I understand. Smart. But then when that was clearly no longer necessary, then, oh, we need it to maybe we'll do science on it. And then so what's interesting is you're stuck with something that had a Cold War foundation.

And now you see people sort of shoehorning in ways and means and reasons to try to still justify it. But that poses the question, what might the future of the International Space Station be? Will there be some other reason to justify? Because it's expensive to keep that puppy going. And we only have a handful of people up there. It's not a city. So my interview with John Logsdon, and he's an expert on everything space, I spoke to him at length about the International Space Station and its future.

Let's see how that goes. Right now it's an official national lab to do science on it. And is that just our section or is it the whole? No, it's just ours. Our section. And other countries do whatever they want with their section. Well, we have 49% use of the European and Japanese laboratories. Okay.

So there's the Russian section and then the allied section, if you want, or the original partners. So Russia is 100% Russian. Right. Our section is 100% us, and everybody else is 51% them. Right. So we're quite the landlord then, right? Yeah, we are the managing partner.

So now you can have other countries going to and from the space station without any reference to us because they can go up and back on the Russian Soyuz. No, we fought all the seats. We control the seats that Europe or Japan would use. They have access to the space station. They can't independently buy a seat. Why? Technically because it's our responsibility to transport.

The astronauts back and forth. Of our partner countries. I didn't know that. That's part of the deal. So therefore, we're not only the landlord, we drive the bus. That's right. We provide the taxi. We pay for the bus.

Yes. In this case, we're paying Russia to be the taxi service. Right, right. And so they're going up and back. Do they pay us rent? In kind. In kind. The original agreement and back. Do they pay us rent? In kind. In kind. The original agreement is they were going to pay us money.

And then their parliaments woke up, their governments saying, well, that's not a very good deal. So they launched supply vehicles, both Europe and Japan. And a certain number of those vehicles is equivalent to the value of the money they're supposed to pay. So it's all border. That's the in-kind donation. That's right. So how long do you think the space station will last in orbit? Well, we're committed to at least 2020.

The hardware is qualified to 2028. You mean stuff starts breaking after 2028? Well, probably, and probably beforehand. Starts falling out of the sky. Or at least not working. I mean, you know, the toilets are bulky anyway, oxygen, all that sort of stuff. But it costs $3 billion a year. How is it that a toilet can't work in space? You have all the universe for all your stuff to go.

One of my areas of expertise is not hygiene aboard. It does not include hygiene. Okay. So after 2020 to 2028, do we just drop it in the Pacific? What happens? Yeah, we'll probably have to break it up. It's not going to come down in one piece. It's too big. Too big. So it would have to be separated and deorbited.

Deorbit. And so that's the code for crashing into the Pacific. Well, let's hope. How fortunate we are that a third of our longitude is an ocean. Right. So that you don't even have to be. Which is full of spacecraft, by the way, on the bottom. On the bottom.

We douse lots of spacecraft. All our spy satellites are down there. Really? Yeah. I'm going to go pick one up. Well, we've tried that. Who's the we? The U.S. tried to recover a Soviet nuclear submarine out of the Pacific back in the 50s or early 60s. And what happened?

They failed, as far as we know. Too heavy? Too confined? No, they found it. Too hard to get up. Oh, wow. But satellites should be easy. Well, but what's left of them by the time they actually hit the ocean, and then the

impact of hitting the ocean, probably there's not much left. Okay. So it's our trash bin. Yep. The fishers probably wonder, what the hell's going on? Well, it's better than having up in orbit is debris. Yeah, yeah. Bumping into things.

Yeah, you want to get it all out of orbit. Right. So it kind of feels like we're stuck with the space station inventing things to do for it. Well, and... Given the geopolitics that birthed it and given how we're currently using it. It kind of feels that way. I mean, we really have just... On Earth, you don't expect a laboratory

to be productive until you finish building it. Right. We just finished building the station. Yeah, I mean, an important point there is you got a station that's $3 billion a year and you hand it to a scientist, I think you can do some really cool zero-g experiments there. But no scientist in their right mind is going to say, oh, you just gave me $3

billion. I'm going to build a space platform to do zero. They're not going to, that's not how they would spend the $3 billion. They're just not. Why not? They just wouldn't. They have better things to do with their money. You know, whatever is the cost of your lab on Earth, it'll cost 100 times that to put it in space. Gotcha. All right. So you can essentially build 100 labs on Earth for the one lab. Well, I don't know what the exact number is, but it's about that. And you're not going to have to worry about a toilet backing up in space.

A non-working toilet. Right. I guess, you know, that'd be a shame if we had to de-orbit the space station because the toilet backed up. That would be embarrassing. I mean, in the history of technology and society. You're listening to StarTalk Radio, and we're featuring my interview with Professor John Logsdon,

who's a historian and an expert in space, everything about space and culture. When we come back, more from that interview. I'm here with Chuck Nice. See you in a moment. We're back on StarTalk Radio.

I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, and we're talking about the past, present, and future of our place in space. Chuck, nice. I got you here, too. Thanks for helping me out on this. It's great to be here. Part of this is like the paperback version of my book, Space Chronicles, was just released. Yes. And as awkward as that plug is, the fact is I've thought a lot about this. And in my interviews with John Logsdon, we're sort of merging our perspectives for your benefit.

And I am benefiting. For you, the listener. And just a quick note, while no scientist would say, let's spend $3 billion on a zero-g lab, if they're handed a zero-g lab, that changes the money equation. And the government declared the space station as a national lab like brookhaven or fermi labs or or lawrence berkeley labs these are labs that are under the the management of the government to do research in the interest of the greater good of the country be it for security military or for anything else and so in in zero G, there's like, there are valuable things you can do with the creation of medicines,

with possible cancer treatments that can come out of it, studies on aging. And so there's a lot of sort of human physiology things you can do in zero G. And I look forward to the results that could come out of that, provided the scientists don't pick up the $3 billion a year debt.

Now, a big question that everybody's wondering about what's it does the future of space embrace commercial activities when can i go when can you go and i spoke with john loxton about it and he had some views on that i'm very opinionated on it and you're going to hear it before we done okay but let's get john loxton's view on the table before we continue. I think there's a gross misunderstanding of what the term commercial space means. Because for me, NASA's always had a commercial dimension to it, right? They've always been buying materials and partnering. Well, 85 to 90% of the NASA budget goes to profit-making firms or universities.

Through contracts, grants, all that sort of thing. So it's already that way. It's commercial in a particular sense. Okay. What is being proposed, first with cargo to the space station, and then to replace the shuttle with crew to the space station, is a different kind of partnership where NASA and the private sector share the risks, share the cost burden. The private sector designs and develops

the systems and NASA buys the services. Okay, so because it's private sector, the premise is that they'll do it cheaper, more efficiently, and the economies of scale exactly all the normal sort of business trappings that is expected to all all the american ideology that the private sector is more efficient than government whether or not that's true that's the premise i don't have a problem with that you have a problem with that why do some people have a problem with that well because it means nasa loses a bit of control and they're just trying to get to low earth orbit who cares if you could what what control do you need? You're on Earth. Put me in orbit. We're done.

It's like, put the letter on the airplane. Take the letter off the airplane. I don't need to know anything else. Unless somebody gets killed in the middle of it. Okay. Well, not that people haven't been killed before. So, you're worried that maybe a NASA astronaut will be killed

on a commercial flight? There are people that are worried. I'm not one of them. Why? People believe that only NASA... Because the lowest bidder is not going to have the best action. Well, and that NASA won't have enough control to certify the safety of the vehicles. There is a belief deep in the NASA culture that only NASA knows how to do human spaceflight.

Now, suppose they end up doing it safe to everyone's standards. We're ahead of the game. We're ahead of the game. If there's enough money to get it done, you know, it's not snapping a finger and overnight you've got a rocket system. Hmm. Yeah, so you didn't know that NASA's,

most of NASA's budget goes to corporate entities. I was flabbergasted. Yeah, yeah, because NASA doesn't do everything that it does. Right. Which is the kind do everything that it does. Right. Which is the kind of perception that you get. I guess it is a little bit of that perception,

but there's all of the aerospace industry serves NASA. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Grumman, all of these folks. And for example, the next generation space telescope, that's being built

by Northrop Grumman, for example. It'll carry NASA's logo as the biggest one, but you part the curtains there, there's going to be a Northrop Grumman logo sitting somewhere near it. Sitting somewhere inside of it. Yep. Yep. And so I think commercial space is great, but the difference is commercial space will

never lead a frontier. They can help us out and they can do our cargo transport. They never lead a frontier. They can't. It's a really bad business model to be first exactly that's all there is to it precisely what do you say okay take me to mars first no one's ever been there before it has unknown costs unknown risk and you might die exactly who are my investors at that point so yeah you could like do make it a vanity project and use corporate

money to do it but it's not a business model no right and you want to turn a space program into a space industry. So the government charts the way and draws the maps and find out who the friendlies are and who the enemies are and what the trade winds are. Then once that's established, the private enterprise can come in afterwards. And that's how Columbus started. And the Dutch East India Trading Company came in afterwards. Right.

They weren't the first Europeans to. It was Columbus. That's right. So there you have it. I'm all for it. Let's run with it. When we come back, more on StarTalk Radio's Space Chronicles. See you in a moment. We're back on StarTalk Radio.

Neil deGrasse Tyson here. Chuck Nice Nice. Yes, sir. Chuck Nice Comic. Chuck Nice Comic on Twitter. That's my handle. You're on Twitter, and you've got some TV crazy TV show I heard about. It's called Home Strange Home on HGTV. Check it out. You bust into people's home and talk about it. That's exactly right. You're on Twitter, and you've got some TV, crazy TV show I heard about. It's called Home Strange Home on HGTV.

Check it out. You bust into people's home and talk about it. That's exactly right. And they call that television. Okay. You ain't coming into my place just to let you know that in advance. I don't know what you're going to say. You're coming 60-minute style.

We're going to do a report on what to- Actually, I've been meaning to talk to you about that, but we'll do that off the air. We'll take that outside. So, we're talking about the past, present, and future in space. I've been featuring clips from John Loxton, a friend of mine and a professor, historian of space. And we got on the topic of space, privatization of space. And so you want to go to space? You want to be a tourist?

To tell you the truth, I would love to be a space tourist. Me too. But you know what I really want? I want a whole suite of launch vehicles. And you just set up the reason why you want to go into space. And you strap on whatever rockets will work for that. And then you go. Yeah.

And so I want to go to the moon. That's one combination. I want to tour an asteroid. I want to go to Mars and do science. The military might have a geopolitical reason for doing it. Going somewhere, that's a different combination. Space becomes our backyard. You're talking about a whole space tourism industry. An industry. And I brought that up with John Lockson. Let's see what he says about that. Virgin Galactic, a Richard Branson company, is going to be taking people up above 100 kilometers.

Right. 200k a pop. But that only requires going three and a half times the speed of sound. Yeah, it's nothing. You just go up and back, right? You're not going to orbit. And you come back where you took off. Right. And you don't need any heat shields. None of that.

So to get to orbit, you have to go 25 times the speed of sound. That's technically a much, much tougher thing. I think there's a whole community of people who are deluded into thinking, oh, we go up and back today. Tomorrow, we're into orbit. These are completely different. They are qualitatively different tasks. Tasks, exactly, for the machine and the fuel and everything. Everything.

And getting back. Reentry, all of that. Yeah. So I want to go back to the moon. The moon is not in Obama's plan. Where do you want to go next? Moon. You're a moon guy, too.

I think the moon is three days away. That's right. Offshore island. Offshore island. There's a new thing that's emerged just in the past couple of months of building a gateway at a particular point in space called the Earth-Moon L2 point. Nice. The other side of the moon. Yes.

From which you can go all kinds of places. Right. So it's a balance point of centrifugal and gravitational forces. All that sort of thing. Yeah. So it doesn't take much energy to leave that spot and target anywhere else. Right. Asteroids don't ring my bell very much. An asteroid that would render you extinct does not concern you? Well, sure. But those are not the ones we're talking about going to. Oh, you want to visit some. Oh, as a target.

Obama, you were there, I was there, said asteroid by 2025. Right. To me, that's not an inspirational goal. But is it real? Is he going to do it? Well, that's what's driving NASA's plan. Yeah, except that 2025, that's under a president to be named later. That's right.

On a budget not yet established. We've started to build the rocket. We've started to build the rocket. We've started to build the spacecraft. Whether we can continue this time to follow through on a program is TBD. We're already kind of not in a good situation right now. Will that get worse, or will that stay the same, or will it not matter? Well, I think that... Plenty of countries don't have space programs, and they're doing just fine. Germany, for example. First of all, I think there's enough political support to keep a program at some level.

I mean, one of the things that people forget about Apollo was that it was a massive mobilization, a war-like mobilization of resources. We're not going to do that again. Why not? If it can boost the economy, why not? Why not convince people NASA is an investment in our economy? Then venture capitalist money should flow like rivers.

Why not? Well, you'd have to prove the point. Okay. Not to state the point. Well, it's hard to prove the point because it's an experiment on a huge scale. Yeah. And we should only have one previous example of it. Right. But in that era, it birthed all of our modern understanding of identity as a nation, the miniaturization of electronics. It had a remarkable effect across wide segments of society. I think of NASA as a flywheel, and we tapped ideas and energy from it. You know, not enough people feel that way. That's the job you're doing.

So I go on the street and grab people by the lapel and say, here's what you're missing. Right. Here's what will happen. Here's an investment you could make that your children, your grandchildren would really benefit from. Wow. That's the message. That was depressing.

I'm sorry, but that exchange you two just had was depressing. You know, there's a little, there's a hidden text here where Obama's speech, where he said, let's go back into space. Under Bush, on the commission that I had served on, it was we would return to the moon, go on to Mars and beyond. Obama gave a speech just more stirring that said, look, we've been to the moon. Let's go to Mars and asteroids. And everyone applauded. And then he would say, wait a minute.

Everyone who was tasked with getting us to the moon, where do they go? Right. We're done with you. We're done with you. Basically, you know what Obama just said? because 2025, let's be for real. He's not here, okay? He doesn't care anymore. He's back in Hawaii, okay?

And here's what it comes down to. Hey, kids, we're going to get a PS3 when you graduate from college. Daddy's going to get you a video game when you get out of college. So I'm trying to work it. That's the whole point of my Space Chronicles book. And the struggle continues. Yeah. I like his idea of you going out, grabbing people one by one by their lapels, and just shaking some sense into them.

10 today, 7 billion to go. Well, just Americans, 330 million to go. There you go. We've got to close this one out. Chuck, always great to have you on the air with me. You're listening to Star Talk. You've been listening to Star Talk Radio, brought to you in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. Thanks for joining us.

As always, until next time, I bid you to keep looking up.