StarTalk Radio - StarTalk Live! Citizen Science from San Francisco (Part 2)

Episode Date: July 28, 2017

Bill Nye, co-host Eugene Mirman, space activist Ariel Waldman, SF Sketchfest co-founder Janet Varney, and comedian Claudia O’Doherty are back to finish their chat on citizen science, space exploration, Science Hack Days, and more, recorded live at SF Sketchfest 2017.NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Find out more at https://www.startalkradio.net/startalk-all-access/ 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. Welcome back to StarTalk. I'm here with Eugene Merman, Claudio Doherty, Janet Varney, who started SketchFest. We're in San Francisco for the 16th annual SketchFest. And our science activist this week is ariel waldman and so she's talking about how we are going to hack our way into the future we're going to hack our way into space exploration and uh you think that people who show up at Science Hack Day, for example, are going to do this?

It's going to be like citizen science. Yeah, absolutely. So through Science Hack Day, we have people who are artists and technologists and scientists coming together to see what they can rapidly prototype. How do I find out about Science Hack Day? Sciencehackday.org. Whoa. Whoa. Yeah. Anyone can create a Science Hack Day in their city, and we are now in 25 countries.

I'm the global director for Science Hack Day, and so I happily help people create them in their cities. Global director. All right, people. 25 countries. And, yeah, it's just awesome because it's really about growing Budding's science enthusiast communities,

but also getting scientists to learn new things as well, getting them to prototype with Arduinos and design and a lot of things that maybe they don't have experience with. So what do people do? They bring stuff to Science Hack Day. They bring an Arduino. Bring your own copper. Yeah, no, it all takes place over a weekend, and people bring their own materials. They

organically form teams. You know, you get biologists teaming up with rocket scientists, teaming up with marketers, teaming up with artists to create weird, you know, things, and sometimes they don't know, don't know what exactly they're creating until after it's been created. My favorite story, all-time story with Science Hack Day is someone who wanted to create a device that would detect when he needed to shave.

A mirror. A device that would detect when this guy needed to shave. So it was like a beard detector. And like a mirror was out of the question. I would use, what about the back of your hand? It was a mirror. This is what I love about it. I have no idea what this had to do with science, but this guy took this USB microscope and

he held it up to his face and he wrote some basic code and used an open computer vision library so it could see the stubble on his face and draw lines around the stubble on his face and tell him when he needed to shave. And I was like, well, this is amusing, but I'm not really sure where this is going. But sitting in the audience and seeing this hack was a particle physicist. And when the particle physicist saw this hack, he said to himself, wow, it's actually a genius way for how to detect cosmic rays in a cloud chamber. Which I'm sure you can all relate to.

But, you know, following Science Hack Day, this particle physicist ended up creating this multi-year research program around detecting cosmic rays in a cloud chamber based on the original code someone used to detect whether or not he needed to shave. That's amazing. That's pretty cool. That's like the scene in a movie that you get mad at where you're like, he didn't solve the murder just because he saw the person doing the thing and then, oh, somehow that reminded him of his thing that he had to solve. That's a real thing.

Yeah. That really happened in life. I feel really bad about being critical of all those movies. Yeah. A lot of movies are much more realistic now. Right? So then I'm seeing here we have the strawberry DNA cocktail. The DNAcory.

Yeah. DNAcory. So this is where you extract strawberry DNA? Yeah. So extracting DNA is surprisingly simple, but sometimes it requires using materials that aren't entirely edible. So someone wanted to create an entirely edible way of extracting strawberry DNA, and so they created literally a DNAcory.

And so you can actually see in this cocktail the long polymers of DNA clumping together as it extracts it, and you can drink it. And the recipe is up on Instructables, but it tastes absolutely disgusting, so I don't actually recommend it. No, because that's traditionally done in science education. We use soap, dish soap. Yeah.

And then I don't know how much time you spend with that. You don't normally drink that. Yeah, so. Yeah. What can you do with dishrope other than drink it? You can mash strawberries with it and then mix some... It works better with cold alcohol.

I'll have to tell you. And then these white strands will form this little pool and you can twist up your strawberry DNA. Why strawberries? Then these white strands will form this little pool, and you can twist up your strawberry DNA. Why strawberries? Like, did they try? It's just accessible. It works, is what I would say.

And when you do that, you're like, now I have strawberry DNA, or then you're like, now I have the... Strawberry DNA, and then you go, that's cool. Yes. Agreed. Yeah, yeah. But somebody must have found a way to substitute something for the soap. DNA and then you go, that's cool. Yes. Agreed. Yeah, yeah. Just checking. Somebody must have found a way to substitute something for the soap.

Yes, so yeah, I haven't looked at the recipe actually for a few years now, but it's still up in Instructables. The important thing is it still tastes bad. Yeah, yeah. Worse than soap. It's highly alcoholic. Highly alcoholic.

This is a lot of supporters. You can find other ways to hook up than this hack day. So you run around, you set up the hack days. How much of your time does that take? So I work on Science Hack Day year-round, but I work on a lot of different projects throughout the year as well. So there's never really not a time

that I'm working on Science Hack Day, but I am always bouncing around between a lot of different interesting things. When's the next one? So the next Science Hack Day in San Francisco is going to be in September or October, but about 20 events or so happen around the world every year. So on the Science Hack Day website,

you can go and see when the next one in your city is. And if there isn't one, you can go create one. And can you just go and attend? Yeah, that's my question. Like, I don't know that I'd be able to hack something, but I'd love to go. So you don't need any experience in science or hacking to attend a Science Hack Day?

Do you have to look like a hacker? No. Do you need, like, a long leather coat or maybe dreadlocks even though you're white or for example? No, no, it's for all ages, all backgrounds. You don't need any experience. You know, I'm a perfect example. You know, I'm not a programmer, I'm not a scientist, but I participate in these science hack days and I create awesome stuff. It's really just about collaborating and prototyping things to whatever fidelity level you can, even if it's cardboard. Is there a sort of, you said that people organically kind of form teams, is there a sort of

good-natured competitiveness that also arises, that it may be a healthy competitiveness, like, or is it just everybody sort of celebrating, even if they're off doing their own thing, and then bring it back together to show what they've done? I think that's one of the things that makes Science Hack Day really unique, is that it is actually highly collaborative. And a lot of hackathons, I think, are very intimidating for people because it's seen as you need to have certain skills. And yeah, it's about competing for a cash prize. And Science Hack Day, we don't have cash prizes. It's really just about celebrating and working on things. A lot of people join multiple teams,

so you might have people who are working on three or four teams throughout the weekend. So that's one of the things that definitely sets it apart from, I guess, a lot of the typical hackathons. It's really about all backgrounds and collaboration. Nice. Do you pay a fee? No, it's all free.

And all the food is provided for free, thanks to sponsors. How do pay a fee? No, it's all free. And all the food is provided for free. Thanks to sponsors. How do you fund this? Do you write grants kind of thing? Occasionally I get grants, sponsors. Each city has to look for their own sponsors. What's the worst company you've ever gotten? No, I mean, we look for sponsors, you know, from the design and technology and science industries.

And really, the majority of the sponsorship money goes to all of the food because these are all volunteer run. So it's volunteer run, a free event to attend. Food is provided for free, so you don't have to worry about going and getting food. Is it mainly like copper and food? You don't have to check the toilets, I guess. I will. And there's algae in bags. Yes, algae in bags.

These crackers are too fast to eat. We're throwing glitter on everything. Yeah. All right, all right. Hang on now. You are a space activist, right? And you have written a book. What's It Like in Space by Ariel Waldman.

And what you did is interview a bunch of people who've flown in space, yeah? Yeah. And what did you learn about it? You know, the thing that I loved the most, so I interviewed a dozen astronauts for the book, and then I also researched historical interviews with astronauts, and the thing that I loved is that, you know, space exploration is very slowly becoming more accessible, but extremely slowly, and there's often this sort of emphasis on the early astronauts and what astronauts are

typically like and what they look like and what they sound like. I mean, our dudes. Yeah. They're a bunch of cats. Yeah. And the thing I loved the most was just getting to hear that not everyone has the same sort of experience in space.

Not everyone is, you know, saying, oh, it was the best thing ever. Some people are talking about how, you know, they have to work on managing their mood a lot day to day. Managing their mood? Yeah, if you're on a long duration flight. You're saying they're angry and miserable. I'm saying that, you know, I talk to people who said, you know, when you're in space for a long time, that's really when you're at home and you're relaxed and it's great. And then I talked to other people who said, you know, long duration space flight, I have to worry about, you know, really focusing on not letting my mood drop and not, you know, getting down and not getting frustrated. And I really prefer shorter duration space flights. And this is what I sort of loved is that there's no one

size fits all to space exploration. And I think the more we can do that, the more we can really show how space exploration is for everyone and you don't have to fit into a certain mold. I love that because I do feel like most of us are like, I'm not the kind of person who could ever do that, you know? And I love the idea of making that not true. Three days in space sounds nice. Yeah. Three weeks sounds like, no, I get it.

Second prize, six days in space. Yeah. Older reference. Nice. Ariel, did you ever want to go in space? I get asked that question all the time well here's another time honestly for me only speaking for myself

as I learn more about it I'm not so sure I might be okay with doing a suborbital flight or something like that but spending a lot of time in space often just sounds like a camping trip from hell. What's hellish about it? You're up there with a set number of people

and you're dealing with toilet systems that aren't really that elegant and you're dealing with a lot of health issues also that aren't very elegant. You're throwing up. What's a health issue? Oh, throwing up. Yeah, throwing up.

Meaning it's just a bunch of people in space pooping. You know, throwing up. What's a health issue? Oh, throwing up. Yeah, throwing up and, you know. Meaning it's just a bunch of people in space pooping on each other and throwing up? Because that has been left out from many of the stories. Well, so maybe not on each other, but maybe even on yourself. Because, for instance, when you go to, like, throw up in space, if you just throw up into a bag, guess what?

That barf is going to bounce back into your face because you're in space. So you always need to carry a towel around with you so that you don't barf on yourself by accident. Should we get longer bags to give a little more time to close? You're welcome, Mike Messamino. That's just the kind of question that has to be figured out. Those are some of the stories that I explore in this book. I can't wait to invent the longest space barf bag.

I feel like I was in, when I went to Cape Canaveral, part of the museum is this whole exhibit that sort of explains that they're really still hoping someone will come up with this great space hack for the toilet. Eugene did it. Right? Like, we're still looking. Where are you, person who's going to solve all our problems?

Eugene Merman, you've been right here the whole time. I mean, a longer toilet. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's better than the early days because one of the stories that I cataloged in the book that always just makes me laugh is that in the early days, you know, you didn't have space toilets. It was all men and all they had were, you know, these condom catheters to pee into in their spacesuits. And all of their spacesuits were leaking. So they were spending all this time looking into, like, what's wrong with the spacesuits?

When a spacesuit leaks, why doesn't the person die? Because... They're inside the... Well, it's not like going up into their face, but it's in their sort of body, I guess, cavity. Oh, it's internally leaking. Inside the spacesuit. Not externally.

Yeah, no, it's not externally. It's like inside the spacesuit, it was like leaking urine. And so they were trying to figure out... I think Trump would love space. NASA is safe. Wow. But, you know, they were trying to figure out in these spacesuits, you know, what was wrong with the design. And it was the early days of space exploration with these, like, men.

with the design. And it was the early days of space exploration with these, like, men. And what happened, they discovered, was when the guys were going to their doctors and trying to get sized

for everything, the doctor would say, well, what size condom catheter do you need? And they all said, large. That is awesome. That is a true story.

That is an awesome piece of information. If they were just a little more honest, they wouldn't have floated around in their own pee. I told you they were cads. That seems like a solvable problem, though. Well, I mean, it was once they discovered what the problem was.

They didn't have as much, I guess, double-checking on what the astronauts were telling the doctors is one of the issues. You get the impression the doctors were checking everything, wink, wink. Well, except for the wink, wink. They were all a bunch of guys, you know, it's locker room talk. Yeah, a bunch of guys.

What? You people, I am just shocked. So what else you had in the book? You're sneezing in space. Difficult. Yeah, you've got to aim down while you're in a spacewalk when you sneeze because if you don't, you could end up accidentally blinding yourself from obscuring your helmet.

And if it gets in your eyes, your hands are in a suit. You can't, you know, just open your helmet and clear out your eyes. There's no windshield wiper on the inside? Well, so they're trained. If you feel a sneeze coming on, like, aim down so that you sneeze into essentially your chest and not, you know, actually blind yourself. Yeah. No, I've worn a spacesuit on the TV, and they have a nose scratcher inside the helmet.

And it's tricky. And by the way, for those of you just all hot to go to Mars, well, I'm going to go outside. You're going to be in a spacesuit. You're going to be in another dome just outside of the dome that you're in and apparently you can't even sneeze properly so it's going to be inconvenient

but will you be soaked in your own urine yeah so it'll all be in your anus can I change my I'd spend three days in the space to like one or two there's diapers nowadays. There's diapers. Oh, cool. Alright, back to three.

Dignity in tact. Diapers. So, the whole thing sounds, you looked into it. Were you surprised by these troubling stories or were you, you saw it coming? I, well, I mean, I love these stories. I mean, it's one of the reasons why I created the book is because, you know, it's meant to document, I guess, the stories that astronauts tell you over a cup of coffee or a glass of beer or something.

You know, it's the stories that are kind of more embarrassing and awkward and silly and fun, but, you know, sometimes also awe-inspiring as well. And to me, I wanted to sort of cut past both the romanticism of space and the mundane side of space and go into sort of more the silly stories that you tell when you get back from space and and you know are just hanging out with friends so what are the mundane stories from space you didn't include any i mean you know i think the mundane stories are just kind of i mean those stories about how astronauts give each other privacy and you know you don don't have doorknobs in space. You have, you know, or anything like that.

So you can't really put like a sock over a doorknob to say, you know, give me some privacy. You know, I'm getting dressed. None of that other business. Do they just turn around constantly? Well, so, you know, some space crews have been able to devise, like, okay, when there's a towel over the airlock, that means, you know, give me some privacy. There's stories like that, which are, you know. Do they take ties, like, you know, from their college or something? Are we just sending space perverts? Well, you know, sometimes you're in situations where...

They need to jerk off. No. No. And the International Space Station, a lot of times, because, you know, because diversity isn't what it should be on the International Space Station just yet, a lot of times there will be only one woman crew member when there's a bunch of guys. And so, you know, they want to be able to figure out how to give each other privacy and not to be a creep.

Give each other what? Privacy. And not to be a creep. Not to be a creep. Underline, underline. That seems very reasonable. And they do it by all turning around or putting towels on each other. One crew said,

whenever you see a towel over the airlock that's you know that means like you know don't go into this section you know someone's changing or something it's a big thing though right but i guess that they're all end up in the same places at the same times maybe yeah i mean it's it's just this is what i meant by the mundane stories it's just like figuring out socially how to how to interact with one another to sort of respect each other's space and respect each other's boundaries as needed. But you would go on suborbital, you said, right?

Well, you know, I think it's just because... This would be not going in orbit, just up and down. You go up, you go into space, you're up there for six minutes or so, you come back down, you don't have to deal with a lot of the health issues that some of the astronauts face with, you know, ocular issues or... Their eyeballs change shape, right know, ocular issues. Their eyeballs change shape. Go on.

Wait, what happens? Your eyes change shape with enough zero gravity. To what shape? So a lot of astronauts who go into space for a long duration will come back. Come back with rhombus eyes? They'll come back and they'll

need a prescription. They'll need glasses for the rest of their lives. And they went up with perfect vision. And so they're still trying to figure out why that happens and why it only happens to some people and not others. And it's something that people take very seriously because it can affect some people

in a more extreme way than others. But there's that and then there's losing muscle, and there's losing bone density, and, you know, it's a big health consideration to go into space for a long duration. Is it really like a young person's game, space exploration? I don't think so.

Yeah, tell it to space cowboys. Well, you know... The movie. Some of this is actually supported by science. You know, people who have less of a, I guess, radiation cancer risk are people who are older. So men over 55 have some of the lowest cancer radiation risk when you're thinking about sending people into space for a long time.

So if you were to only look at the data, then you would say, okay, we want to send people over 55 into space. I got a shot again. Yeah. No, I applied. I applied four times. But when NASA started, what was the average age of people who worked there? 26.

26. And then what's the average age of people who work at? 26. 26. And then what's the average age of people who work at SpaceX? I think it was late 20s, maybe. Yeah, I think it's 27. Yeah. And I've been there, and the people are quite young, and they are enthusiastic, man, because space just gets people excited. People just love it.

And you guys love space, right? That's why you're at StarTalk. That's why we're having the times of our lives. And who knows what will happen in the coming decades. You know, we're going to have more science hack days. We're at over two dozen now. We're over 60 events and, yeah, in 25 countries. Can I guess which countries?

Sure. So if people in the audience want to go to a Science Hack Day, they go to your website? Yeah, go to sciencehackday.org. And, you know, also with NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts, anyone can actually submit a concept to NASA. That opens up yearly around August. You can go to nyackfellows.org.

nyackfellows.org, and somebody will read it. Yeah, so nyackfellows.org, you can go learn how to submit a concept. And yeah, it's a three-page white paper due in August each year. And I think the thing that's really exciting is you can come from biology or neuroscience or design or sort of any background.

Could you come from comedy? Yeah. Can anyone submit? Anyone can submit. So garage hackers to, you know, scientists to people from all different disciplines. To longer barf bag enthusiasts. Yeah. Anyone can do it.

Exactly. You've got a concept already. I can't wait to write a three-page white paper about the longest barf bag in the world. One word per page. You absolutely can. This is what I love. NIAC and the niacfellows.org website, it's really about getting different ideas

into the mix at NASA. And so this both helps people outside of NASA actually potentially influence the future direction of NASA as well as getting people within NASA, they can submit if they've had their work overlooked by the larger bureaucracy. So it's really helping make concepts that should be more accessible to NASA. Also, I'm just fast-forwarding to you submitting your three-page barfag idea, middle page somewhere in the, like, it's so so so so so so so

so long, etc. But then someone calls you and is like, Eugene Merman, your horrible idea about the long barf bag gave me the information I needed to realize how to use a wormhole to travel us through time.

Yeah. And space. That's what StarTalk brings to the party, people. That sort of innovation thinking. It won't be a barf bag, but I will definitely submit something. Fabulous. Fabulous. Thank you all so much!

This is the part of our show when we come to the microphones. And so please, ask your question of anyone up here. Preferably to do with space and activity and inventions and space hacking. So Eugene, you go ahead and call on people. Well, we can start right over here. Yes, my question was for Ariel. So the shaving device thing was an accident, but what was the thing you saw at a hack fest

that really impressed you or struck you as particularly unique? What was your favorite? at a hack fest that really like impressed you or struck you as particularly unique? Like what was your favorite? I mean, I think a lot of times they are things like the beard detector that where I don't really know what they're good for until other people sort of join in. So one of the weirdest hacks we had was a mask called synesthesia that tried to simulate a type of synesthesia. And it was just a really creepy looking mask. And what it did was like, as you navigated different parts of the room with this mask on different

parts of your face would start vibrating depending on how light and dark the room was. So you could sort of navigate the room through vibration. And, you know, the team who did it, did it for fun. It was a molecular biologist and a journalist and a few other people teaming up. But afterwards... Well, sure. Yeah. Yeah, well, this is what I mean. Like, all different people, you know, from backgrounds get together.

But following the event, a group of researchers reached out because they were developing a suit for toddlers who had experienced extreme brain damage and trying to sort of use body suits to help these toddlers learn how to crawl in sort of unique ways. And so they actually wanted to then collaborate with that team as sort of a way of figuring out how to encourage toddlers to learn how to crawl

who otherwise might not be able to. So I don't think, I have less stories of someone having an exact idea and it coming to fruition and more stories of people developing things just to see what they can create and someone sort of using that as a really divine sort of inspiration for something else. Excellent. Thank you. Are you going to go to Science Hack Day? I plan on it.

And I was going to tell you that your socks are dope. Thank you. They were a gift. These socks are dope. Thank you. If you or anyone else wants an early invite to Science Hack Day when we announce, just email me. I'm very findable

on the interwebs, so I will give you an early invite. Nice. Hey, guys. My name's Nick. It's not necessarily a science question. A little closer to the microphone. Okay, here we are.

Are we here? All right, cool. So we're having this kind of convergence with pop culture and science where we're both exploring AI. We have Westworld this year that explores AI in like a pleasure sense and other ways that I won't spoil the show for you. And then we have like Google,

like with like driverless cars and like Uber is kind of doing the same thing. My question for you guys is, what are the applications of AI that you feel like these things are not questioning or the questions they're not asking? you feel like these things are not questioning or the questions are not asking? Just some more about me.

There's going to be a Netflix show coming out called Bill Nye Saves the World. Nice. Netflix, does anybody work for Netflix? They're very secretive. They're very secretive. They don't tell you who watches or how many people or stuff. So all they're saying is spring. That's the date. Spring.

And we've shot 13 of them. And one of them is about artificial intelligence. So we had these, what you would call panel of experts and the big thing is that artificial intelligence is anytime you have a device or a system that shakes the past and then makes decisions for you in the future that's what people are calling artificial intelligence so driving a car for example but I think it'll'll be, almost everything will have this anticipatory quality. Does anybody here have a Nest brand thermostat? Yeah. So this is where it uses the past to change what it does in the future. I'm not saying it's all about thermostats,

but I think that'll become more and more. Well, it's kind of an obvious idea where people will look back. You mean you had to get up and build a fire to keep warm? Bunch of assholes. Yeah. So I think it'll be fine. But what we want from the science education world

is to have people who are comfortable with computers and computer code and keeping track of things. What's your business, sir? My business? I don't necessarily have a business. Well, good luck.

Yes. Just for the good old days, I want to start with this. Bill Nye, the science guy. Bill Nye, the science guy. Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill. Thank bill bill bill thank you yes oh man that show holy cow it inspired me so much i love you man right on uh so you guys are uh basically doing one of the coolest things possible right now which is science communication uh all of you and you know putting on the festival itself is again again, art and bringing science communication

here. I'm sure that's why we're all here. But I also do, I host a science comedy show myself called Eureka, but I really wanted to ask you guys this question. It's part of Sketch Fest, but this question is about science communication. How do we bring more science communication and experiential learning, hands-on learning, to the world? Can't do it.

You go to Science Hack Day, man. That's what you do. You join the Planetary Society at planetary.org. That's what you do. So, you know, what we say all the time is we want science every day in every grade. So there's a big emphasis, for example, on Science Hack Day, where people want hands-on learning outside of the classroom.

But what I think we still need, especially in the United States, is hands-on learning in the classroom. Like in many U.S. school systems, you don't get any science until you're in middle school. And that's inappropriate. Everybody who works at NASA got interested in science before they were 10, right?

When they were in elementary school. I mean, pretty much. A lot. Yeah, you're not going to, for example, you will not meet a professional baseball player who just turned 18 and thought, I think I'll try this. No, I mean, maybe turn 12. It could be hard. So anyway, what we want to do is get in the formal

school curriculum, have science incorporate, since you asked. And what I used to say until a couple months ago, I used to say the most important thing you can do about something like that is vote. It's still important. But now I'm not so sure. It's still important. So, vote. Encourage your school systems to have science every day, in every grade.

Right on. Thank you. Keep inspiring. Let's change the world, people. Hello. So, two things. You talked about the laser wafer propulsion system to Alpha Centauri. What's so weird about that? No, no, nothing weird. Do you know anything more about the electromagnetic warp drive

that's been being tested, not tested? I'll take this one. Thank you, Ariel. No, thank you. No, you go ahead. It's all you. No, I don't know anything about it, but I'll just tell you,

as soon as you say warp drive... I know, I know. It's this you. I don't know anything about it, but I'll just tell you, as soon as you say warp drive... I know. It's this whole idea. When you've got a science fiction show, they're going to show up on planets, and everybody's going to speak English. And they're going to have a thing that allows you to dissociate your molecules and go down to the planet.

But that's not the same as actually having warp drive. I saw it, I know, but there's more to it than that. So I don't know anything about that. But for many years, people have talked about nuclear drive, you know, where you explode nuclear weapons behind your spacecraft and push them along. That sounds bad. And it would work, I guess, but, you know, you can't even get... I mean, one of the things with the warp drive thing to understand

is that it is, in a sense, asking to sort of break physics as we know it through an application. And, you know, this is sort of the difference with the NIAC stuff and the breakthrough star shot using lasers as propulsion systems is they're not actually trying to say that physics is broken. They're actually using physics as we know it. And with NIAC projects in particular, the two really important things are

don't propose something that asks to change the laws of physics as we know them, and then don't submit something that requires a budget that's unrealistic. So, like, as long as I have $2 trillion, I can totally build this awesome spacecraft that gets us to Mars in two days. So things like that.

So the warp drive, I think, I'm always skeptical of things that ask for the laws of physics to be broken in order for an application to work. Why? Because I think we need to work on the fundamental research first before we think about the application.

Before we go on, by the way, where would the laser be? I think that's something they're actually prototyping and testing out. So I think they're looking at sort of both what happens when you use space-based and ground-based lasers and what are the pros and cons of that. Yeah, so you put one on the moon maybe and shoot it at the spacecraft

and, yeah. So we'll keep you posted on the warp drive. And then the second piece, you mentioned astronauts, that's the word I'm looking for. Astronauts controlling their mood Just keep your post on the warp drive. And then the second piece, you mentioned astronauts. That's the word I'm looking for. Astronauts controlling their mood on long flights. I'm a psychology major.

Is there any hope for me being on a mission to Mars as a therapist to keep... I mean, I hope so. I hope so. I think that's great. Yeah. Why not? Stick with it.

So on this upcoming Bill Nye Saves the World show, we have artificial intelligence where the robot coffee maker wants to kill all humans. And the voice is Neil deGrasse Tyson. Turn it up loud. It's funny. It's funny. Bill, you actually preempted my question a little bit. I have been... A coffee maker.

Yes. Terrible coffee. Quite rude. Quite rude. I read a lot of speculative science fiction. yes terrible copy quite rude quite rude I have I read a lot of speculative science fiction and one of the

trilogies that I read this year was or last year was The Three Body Problem The Three Body Problem I also like it so everybody The Three Body Problem

is complicated where you have the Sun and the earth and then you're a spacecraft how do you keep track of all of the gravity of all three objects or the moon and they're all going around each other it gets there's a lot of mass it's complicated it was Lagrange right worked a three-body problem in the Hamiltonian. But yes, go on, please. This question is specifically about a type of propulsion that they proposed in the three-body problem, which was using all of the Earth's nuclear missiles

to explode behind a solar sail, or not a solar sail, but a sail to propel a very small package at near light speed. Now, my question is do you think that that would work both in getting us to near light

speed and also in convincing us to do nuclear disarmament? So, I would say it doesn't sound like it would work because those missiles were made to fall on other countries. You know this expression, ballistic missile. You shoot it up and it falls. Ballast, weight.

It falls on your enemy. So they're not really made to go into deep space. And then in getting everybody to shoot his nuclear missile and trusting that it's that it's really going to go into space it's just probably i think the political issues might be troublesome and then uh making a spacecraft durable enough to withstand nuclear explosions behind it is probably all our missiles yeah yeah and now for those of you don't know the uh department of energy in the united states controls much of the nuclear material yeah exactly and so uh i don't know what's gonna

happen with the department of energy. I just don't know. So, no, I would say no. But when it comes to nuclear material, to do almost anything, the political problems are generally much harder than the technical ones. I mean, nobody, this is what's, why don't we have nuclear power plants everywhere? Because there's all these problems with them. And, for example and you know if you if you start just even a small nuclear war it's really bad yeah so

uh lead on lead on yes guy in dallas cal person hello yes um yes um first i just want to say that you and dr tyson are two of my heroes i love you man Dallas Cal person. Hello, yes. First, I just want to say that you and Dr. Tyson are two of my heroes. I love you, man. You guys are both brilliant, but much more important than that. You do great and very valuable things

with your smarts, so thank you for that. I love you, man. I am studying to teach, and you've been very vocal in, for lack of a better term, the curriculum of creationism in classrooms. And I just wanted to know, is that still a growing movement?

Oh, heck yes. Yeah, and is it as difficult as I hope it would be to be adding that into our classrooms and history books? Adding what? Creationism? Creationism, yeah. No, you mean people try to put creationism in classrooms right so speaking of the guy that's been hired to run the department of energy former governor rick perry he also if you recall wanted to uh abandon the department of education and in general and this is being recorded, and this will end my career, and so it goes,

but the reason people want to do that is they want to teach, they don't want to teach evolution in schools. That's sort of what starts that whole thing. That's the whole deal. That's the fundamental idea in all of life science and all of biology. They don't want to teach it in schools.

And Claudia, we're so happy that you sent Ken Ham from Australia. You're welcome. Yeah. Is anybody from Kentucky, the Commonwealth of Kentucky? Nobody, really? No, I'm sorry. No, no. It's really an extraordinary thing this guy was able to do. He's got what's called a tax increment funding scheme, tax increment financing, TIF. So everybody in the Commonwealth of Kentucky pays for his replica of Noah's Ark, which is this huge thing. I've been there. It's just, wow. And so if you're a kid brought up in that culture where people believe that the earth is 6,000 years old. It's more like 7,000, right? Yeah, you're right. It's twice that.

Yeah. It's really hard to overcome. If you're a kid brought up in that, it's really hard to get over it. So this is a fight we've got to fight. Yeah. I would say to also be sure to support school districts on the local level so i grew up in kansas which is always like every i don't know five years or so in headlines for being the most backwards state about you know wanting to teach creationism in schools and i would go to high school in a suburb of kansas city where it's kind of like a liberal oasis but you know i

i remember back to school night and the teachers all wrote on the blackboards, like, we teach evolution. It's sort of like, you know, it's ridiculous that it has to come to that, that, you know, teachers on a local level have to stand up and say, no matter what the Kansas Board of Education says, we're not going to teach that, and we're going to teach evolution. But, you know, put pressure on the federal level, but also support your local school districts that are against whatever the statewide committees try to say, because I think you'd be surprised on the local level

that there are a lot of schools in these states that often get bad headlines where they are trying to actively fight it, but they need support. So you pick, Eugene. I can't... Claudia, you pick. Claudia, you pick. I fight it, but they need support. So you pick, Eugene. I can't. No, Claudia, you pick. Claudia, you pick. I think it's this line's turn. Yeah. It is.

Flat on back. That's okay. Okay. First of all, thank you guys very much for this show and for Sketch Fest. My question's really for Bill and Ariel, and it's kind of nerdy. Sorry. That has no place here. You're a StarTalk audience, but you're nerdy?

It happens, I guess. That's so weird. So I wonder why we don't use electromagnetic propulsion regularly in launches, spacecraft launches. Oh, in launches? Yeah. We use electromagnetic propulsion for station keeping. You know, you guys, you can use these big long tethers in deep or high orbits to hold spacecraft up.

It's very cool. But you're talking about like a rail gun? Basically, like a rail gun. And I know launches have actually been conducted with that tech, but I wonder why we don't use it in conjunction with chemical propulsion because people talk about all the time and then so anyway this is where you guys you have two railroad tracks railroad rails I guess a single track and you run the and then your spacecraft sits on slides on this track and you run the right current through it and it's

inherently repelled it's a fabulous physics thing and so you could shoot it through it and it's inherently repelled. It's a fabulous physics thing. And so you could shoot it really fast, but it's got to go straight up and it needs a lot of electricity from electricity co. So I mean, I guess it's somebody, people fooled it. And then the other just wacky thing is to have the fuel on the spacecraft and then beam microwaves into it to boost it. Whoa. And so people talk about that all the time. And if you want to solve a problem, getting to low Earth orbit would be a great one.

So get her done. I think it's just a lot harder than it looks. All right, you guys, this has been a great show. Thank you so much. Let's give it up for Eugene Merman himself, Claudio Doherty from Netflix's Love, Janet Varney from FX's You're the Worst and IFC's Stand Against Evil,

and of course our heroine for this episode, Ariel Waldman, space activist. I've been your host, Bill Nye. This has been StarTalk. Keep looking up. Let's change the world, people. Thank you.