StarTalk Radio - The State of Space Exploration Now, with Bill Nye

Episode Date: July 20, 2018

Discover new ways we’re exploring our universe. Bill Nye the Science Guy and comic co-host Iliza Shlesinger answer fan-submitted Cosmic Queries about LightSail 1 and 2, artificial intelligence, Breakthrough StarShot, and much more.NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/the-state-of-space-exploration-now-with-bill-nye/Photo Credit: Josh Spradling / The Planetary Society, via Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. 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. 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 as...

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. a couple of issues. 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. caused 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 just 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 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 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, but you did. 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. Yeah. We all have, many of us in Western Hemisphere, like we're in the U.S. 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. Yeah.

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. It's no nut trees. There's no Starbucks. 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. It'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? 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 California. That could also be Manhattan. Yeah. No one drives in Manhattan. 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, really, it's fine. It's the main... He's talking about that great experience. It's the main 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 2 The virgin galactic Fabulous machine just a few weeks ago

And it's going to be It's going to be wild People will be able to go to space for a few weeks ago it's going to be 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 interests 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 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? Jay 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 17 000 miles an hour you know uh 10 kilometers 12 kilometers a second

seven or eight miles a second it's very hard to catch these things yeah but when you want 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 that their 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 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 uh google it 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 like 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

in a fire in that 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 he doesn'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 to world to me. Oh, no, we love world. I don't know. We love world. I'm not saying it's a 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 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 uh world is not bad. One of the striking things that strikes me, I am struck, when I look at a picture from Mars, 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 second guy, said, magnificent desolation, meaning it's just amazing because it's a place, but of nothingness. It's amazing. It's out of our everyday experience. Most of the places—

Like Hollywood. No, no. Here's the difference. There's a somethingness. Well, there's a lot of people. On the moon, when he was there 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. 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 patrons. 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 the ice? We won't know unless you donate. Are there Europanians? No. We don't know. Maybe under the surface. Swimming under the ice? 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'm i'll play the bad guy yeah we kind of beg for it um okay this question this is the big one here we go it's time for a cosmic query presented to you by my radar this one's from mike b and mike wants to know did i already read this question see they sound like go for it go for it eliza go for it this question is from mike b and mike b wants to know uh 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, except in space. And so if there's 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. So that's possible.

But I don't know if it's going to 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 Relio 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, 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. Although, what do you do at the beach? Well, I watch the ocean. Yeah, I watch 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 of 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's some people who resent the heck out of NASA spending $18 or $19 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 swirlingnesses.

Jupiter is a gas giant. That's right. And we discover this because we sent spacecraft there and the spacecraft were 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, are 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. 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 from. Yes.

The U.S. Constitution has 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 areligious. I know that. Thomas Jefferson. Yeah.

This old Unitarian— Wasn't into it. Yeah, 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 for 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 flat eliza schlesinger ladies and gentlemen that's it that's it because i was like oh it's totally flat i'm just kidding i never thought that um 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, things are going to get done. Pre-presidential elections, things are going to get done. 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 can't – it's not going to last. 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. 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? 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. 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. 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 right. It's true. It 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 it's a thing it's a feature how else would you do it and so uh it's not one or the other and just i'll tell you as the ceo of the planetary side world's largest non-governmental space organization empowering you can donate to uh 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.

Let's say sending spacecraft Huygens into the atmosphere of Titan, moon of Saturn. It's the 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, that would free up, let's say, around $3 billion 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 earlier 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 would 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'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 StarTalk all stars i am joined by my co-host eliza schlesinger 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 write 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 like she 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 um on the the non-believer community we have isaac

newton's birthday also on the 25th of december newton was that was that party like apples we have a isaac newton's birthday tree we have isaac newton's birthday decorations we have isaac newton 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. What did you call me, Jif? Girlfriend. Oh, GF. Yeah. He's not just jamming here. What did you call me?

Jif? Girlfriend. Oh, Jif. Yeah. Oh, a book of the laws of physics you shouldn't have. And so, but he was born on the 4th of January as reckoned in Italy. So no one knows for sure. Well, yeah, we do. Okay.

It's a cool and amazing thing, and I know it's come up on the show in the past, 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 with 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 really no comedian calendar it's a calendar? 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. 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 US 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 US Air Force does now is largely space so maybe you could think of the US Air Force as the US Air and Space Force just add it on to the bed and we'd all move on maybe don't Don't, 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%. In other words, instead of 70% common, it ended up 70% uncommon. Right. So it was, you guys, I'm all for it. But 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.

Let's 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. Reasons I love puppies and reasons I love small dogs and they overlap because they're both dogs. I believe it. So is the ultimate a small dog puppy or is that taking it too far? You can't have a small. 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 in 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. If Blanche, who is not especially big, and we're talking about science and SpaceX.

But she is dense. Okay. If Blanche were to interact, can I say interact with a Great Dane? Oh, yeah. All you're going to get is a dog. You're not going to get some new thing. You're still going to get a dog. 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 colt. 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 the 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. Anyway, 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 that 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 the block the wind mobile nose cone on a ship it's 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 all at once. All the money sent to 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. 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 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. 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 tells you where the weather is. It's not bad. I went a little, 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 Schlesinger. 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 loud thanks for watching everyone I'm Bill Nye we'll see you next time on Star Talk keep looking up