Neil DeGrasse Tyson - Keynote Speech - 28th National Space Symposium

we make sure we're all on the same page of course we are but just to confirm it space it's a 300 billion dollar industry worldwide NASA is actually a tiny percent of that interesting how small a percent NASA is to the total world spending of space that little bit however is what inspires dreams every corporation in here with representatives to this conference if you ever even touched a science mission you lead off with that in Europe in your quarterly reports in your annual reports because it inspires it is the act of discovery that empowers nations and the world to undertake these activities we know this here's the problem here's a problem as best as I can judge people outside of the space community view the space community by and large as a special interest group special interest and in the following way alright so monies get distributed to districts so representatives fight for those monies so they can have the jobs in their district how much fighting do other representatives do for NASA or for space industry if they don't have space industry or a NASA Center in their district hardly at all hardly at all so NASA is actually lucky that it's got ten centers scattered across eight states lucky it's not clear how what NASA's survival factor would have been over the decades if it didn't have that breadth of representation not only that those states in which it's represented typically flip back in forth between Republican and Democrat typically or if you look at the balance if they don't flip you look at the total balance between the parties among those eight states it's about 50/50 over the years so there is even part the partisan balance to the support for NASA when it's there but nonetheless it's by and large thought of as special interest and here's what's interesting I think there's space tapped heavily in the service of the military this space tapped heavily in the service of weather satellites communication but you know something if you do your job perfectly it's the kind of job where nobody notices if we are protected by a web of space born military satellites and we are not attacked that gets unnoticed we're driving down the road running our GPS it is working we find our destination nobody's thinking about satellites they're just thinking did they get to their destination in time it's like shaving no we'll come up to you and say hey you shave real good today the act of doing it perfectly is the measure of it going unnoticed mowing your lawn you can mow your lawn perfectly that means no one's going to notice it so there's a hidden dimension to the role that space plays in our culture that when it's done perfectly it goes unnoticed or at best is just taken for granted all right I have more evidence of this I recently delivered a testimony to the Senate the Subcommittee on Commerce transportation and science it's about NASA really about space and our ambitions that committee has two dozen senators three showed up that's a that's in my expectations I'm not that's not a complaint that I'm lodging here it's an observation I'm sharing with you okay who are those three senators senators with important NASA properties in their states we had representation from Texas representation from Florida the two big ones right there sorry headquarters we got Kennedy in Johnson's but with their their senator from New Mexico I think trying to make sure New Mexico doesn't miss out on something that could be happening in the future of space that was it to me that's a measure of the fact that the Senate thinks of space as special interest because only those senators that had direct interest in their states were there for the hearing and I kept thinking to myself really that's not who I should be speaking to I want to speak to what you guys stay home bring me everybody else who doesn't understand what the role of this epic adventure is I was hoping c-span would be there to film it they were not so I said you mean this testimony is just going to get deposited in the congressional record and and but there was a camera there and it in fact was filmed and somebody posted it on YouTube it's there it's there fortunately it is reaching the people for whom the Senate Congress and the president work okay president works for us Congress works for us so when people say oh do you want access to a senator so you can try to convince him or her of some might I want to I want access to the people in a democracy that's supposed to matter and however delusional I might be I still think it does matter a little bit more about this special interest bit we all remember the exact instant you might even remember where you were in your life when Newt Gingrich said he wants to put moon confidence he's in Florida he said I want moon colonies okay by the way that ambition is not as ambitious as Kennedy in 1961 saying let's walk on the moon we didn't yet have a vehicle that wouldn't kill an astronaut for being launched so I found it curious that certain sectors criticized Engrish for wanting a moon colony in fact it was a partisan divide because I got interviewed when he made that statement so I analyzed it I said moon colony it's alright I think is his plan to enable that need some work I might have chosen different words for that but his plan could use them but basically he's trying to jumpstart our space ambitions the liberal press reported on my commentary by saying Tyson shoots down Gingrich's moon proposal the conservative Press reported on the same words that I had spoken reported Tyson sympathetic with Gingrich's moon proposal so there's a lens that has split a partisan lens split into two parts that in my judgment and from my view is interfering with the consensus that needs to be driven to make real decisions happen so that's actually not what I came here to talk to you about I just wanted to just put us all on the same page I want to talk about space not as spin-offs not as industry not is whether sad no no I want to talk to you about space as culture space as culture you know the first hunk of hardware that had the power to exit Earth's atmosphere as the v2 rocket of course everybody knew Verner von Braun all the way down everybody knew that if we have any future in space it's going to have to borrow some of that technology if not all of it the 1950s descends upon us you remember the v2 rocket it was kind of bullet shaped had these huge fins fins cars had fins in the 1950s what do you think those fins came from all right I propose the experiment you you if you you could probably dig up the designers of those cars and let's say well fins just kind of look cool they're probably not even thinking about the fins of the v2 rocket they're probably not even thinking about it all right and if it's there maybe it's just not in their frontal lobe but our cars had fins when did the fins go away after we learned that the v2 shape and those fins that's not quite the rocket we're going to need to get to the moon a rocket start looking like the Saturn 5 rather than the V 2 by the way that v2 rocket shape that if that that was the rocket and every science fiction story told in the 1950s just go back rent any movie on Netflix from that era their Rockets got fins I have two books Babar goes to the moon and Tintin goes to the moon they're in rockets with fins I collect stuff like that Saturn 5 emerges the Finns go away what happened to those thins on the Bel Air and on the 57 Chevy all gone oh so maybe the designer just felt oh it's played itself out or maybe deep down inside space was operating on their creativity so what happens the 60s are underway we're going to the moon in a big way everybody knows it we are innovating we have an innovative culture you know it's an innovative culture because every week every month a new advance in space Garner's the headlines because a space frontier is being breached a space frontier and when you breach a space frontier there's something new to talk about in that day's paper something new to talk about every next Gemini mission more ambitious than the previous one typically redoing what did before then and win a little extra a little farther little extra docking maneuver we're ready to transition out of Gemini to Apollo let's do let's launch the Apollo rocket minus one of the stages now let's put in all three stages let's actually go to the moon don't land yet because we would still work in that well when was that that was 1968 I'll get back to that in a minute what else was going on in the 60s everybody was dreaming about tomorrow everybody that's what the World's Fair was all about it wasn't about yesterday it wasn't about today it was about tomorrow the kind of tomorrow that could only be brought into the present by the ingenuity of scientists and engineers and people knew this how else is space influencing okay how about the Unisphere gorgeous steel earth sitting there it's got three rings around it okay go to the designer and they'll say well I just put on the ring well did the three orbits of John Glenn influence oh I don't know I don't think so but it's got three rings not two not four and the Rings are not going polar the going equatorial hmm three rings around an Earth 1964 New York World's Fair the 1960s is the bloodiest decade in American history since the Civil War since the 1860s servicemen killed weekly reported in the weekly papers campus unrest civil rights movement playing out in the weekly news that's the 1960s the bloodiest year in that bloodiest decade 1968 the Tet Offensive in February of that year Martin Luther King assassinated RFK assassinated yet somehow we managed to still dream about tomorrow it was still in us it still mattered it's what births the Star Trek television series in my my measure one of the greatest television shows ever The Twilight Zone was heavily influenced by space themes every third episode there's some space concept being delivered to you telling another story through the lens of a space story our presence in space is affecting not only the engineers and the mathematicians and the scientists it's affecting the creative dimension of that which we call culture we are living it at every turn hardly what I call a special interest what happens December 1968 how do you cap off that year Apollo 8 an underappreciated apollo mission not by this audience but by anybody else most people never heard of it Paolo eight what's that excuse me that was the first time anybody ever left Earth with a destination in mind yet figure eight it around the moon photo of Earth rising over the lunar landscape the photo is really miss named because the moon is tidally locked to earth so earth is always in the sky on the near side of the moon always so it only was rising because in fact they were figure eating around the moon and earth rose up that photo we all know it earth rise over the moon there was earth seen not as the mapmaker would have you identify it know the countries were not color coded with boundaries it was seen as nature intended it to be viewed oceans land clouds we went to the moon and we discovered earth I claim we discovered earth for the first time how does that affect culture I got a list you could you could take apart this list and come up with an explanation that does not directly reference space for everything on this list you could probably do that but I take a step back and I look at that list and I say wait a minute wait a minute how is it it's back up to 1962 briefly Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring the green movement typically credits that as the birth of birth of ecology the birth of caring about the environment it was a best-selling book I have a different view maybe it planted some seeds maybe it tilled the landscape but stuff didn't really start happening until after that photo of Earth rise over the moon was published 1968 the Whole Earth Catalog is published there's a version before that photo is printed the instant that photo comes out that is the identifying cover picture of the Whole Earth Catalog thinking about Earth as a whole not as a place where a nation's war as a whole seven months later 1969 we land on the moon 1970 we're still going to the moon we go until 1972 so watch this sequence of events 1970 the comprehensive lene Air Act is passed there were two other versions of that in the 60s 1963 and 67 but the most important rendering of that act came in 1970 Earth Day was birthed March 1970 the Environmental Protection Agency was founded in 1970 there was a film called the hellström Chronicle it was one of the first documentary pseudo documentaries to actually get first run in the theaters it was all about insects kind of it was a scare movie about insects and what role they might play on our food supply as we go forward but it got us thinking about nature the organization Doctors Without Borders was founded in 1971 where do you even get that phrase from no one thought of that phrase before that photo was published because every globe in your classroom has countries painted on it Doctors Without Borders 1971 DDT gets banned not right after Rachel Carson's book gift ban in 1972 which still go into the moon we're still looking back to earth Clean Water Act 1971 1972 Endangered Species Act two versions of that in the 1960s the the most comprehensive version 1973 the catalytic converter gets put in in 1973 unleaded gas 1973 we're still at war in Vietnam there's still campus unrest yet we found the time to start thinking about Earth that is space operating on our culture and you cannot even put a price on that that is that is a nation that is a world reacting to a new perspective on what it is to be alive on this planet that we all share and out of that era an entire generation of people they think they feel the intellectualize about space we see it in the art we see it in Hollywood we see it in television productions storytellers that's because the space frontier was crossed weekly you know back then you didn't need special programs to convince people that science was a good thing in school you didn't need special programs to show people that engineering and math the STEM fields that these are useful to society to our identity as a nation because the headlines that were writ large over that era had built into them the fact that innovation created those headlines innovation brought to you by an ambitious community of scientists technologists engineers and mathematicians so what happens mid-1970s come it all ends by the way I have a collection of magazines look life-time even Colliers going back into the 1950s they all talked about tomorrow how many how many issues did you have to wait to before there was an article about the city of tomorrow the home of tomorrow transportation of tomorrow it was in our culture was in our mindset it was in our zeitgeist 1970s come around that all ended the space frontier stopped being breached we did other things by the way there was an engineering frontier that we took on how do you make a reusable spacecraft how do you build something in zero-g something big like a space station all this comes in the next 10 to 20 years that's advancing an engineering frontier it's not advancing a space frontier and if I may put some of this in perspective remember that school room globe I was telling you about take Earth shrink it to a school moon grow up school room globe and ask how far away is Mars on that scale it's a mile away how far away is the moon 30 feet away most people get that distance wrong because in textbooks they have to fit the moon on the same page as the earth so you think moon is much closer than it actually is we've been lied to over all those years if you do earth as a natural three-inch size circle on a textbook page the moon would have to be several pages back from that you need a fold out to check it out Mars is a mile away the moon 30 feet away the International Space Station Space Shuttle orbiting Earth 3/8 of an inch above its surface that's not advancing a space frontier some other kind of front not space frontier I assert by the way the thickness of Earth's atmosphere on that scale it's the thickness of the lacquer on the globe that's how thin this air is that we breathe that we think of as an ocean of air it is as thin to the earth as the skin of an apple is to an Apple as the lacquer is to a schoolroom globe so you got to love the space entrepreneurs who were taken tourists up above the atmosphere but we're kind of telling them that that's space and I look at Earth and I come to it as an astrophysicist and I see the rest of the cosmos and I say you got some more work to do on that one okay keep at it guys I get just a couple no I'm almost done here sorry taking so long plus if we have time for Q&A I'd love to hear what's coursing in your minds especially this audience all right so what are the current problems here in America not other parts of the world here in America what are our economy is in the toilet hardly anybody's interested in the STEM fields our jobs are going overseas and you have politicians that are pretty sure they have a solution to that oh you need more science kids in the school let's make better science teachers as a band-aid for you put that right there throw a couple of dollars on that one that ought to fix that how about our jobs going overseas okay let me think about that all right how about put in some tariffs and make some tax incentives in the community we'll keep the factory right they're not a band-aid people aren't innovating so we have to so we put money in sort of innovation businesses okay these are all band-aids people they're band-aids here's what we got to do and I said this a billion times you double NASA's budget right now it's a half a penny on a dollar half a penny that pays for everything Space Station debate you know every this astronauts all the center's the Hubble telescope the James Webb the the Keppler everybody is out of that half a penny you double it double it to a penny that's all I'm going to say double it and here's what you do I'm a little unorthodox in this vision statement I'm not going to twist people's arms let me just put it out there I don't want to be driven by one destination or another I don't want to say our next thing we're going to do in space we're going to go to Mars it's like excuse me how about all the rest of space you know what I want to do when you double the budget let's create a suite of launch vehicles we're kind of sort of doing that now but let's do that as the focus a suite of warren's vehicles with strap ons whatever you need one configuration will get you to the moon another will get you to a lagrangian point another will get you to Mars another will get you to the earth earth-sun LTL to another lagrangian point maybe there's an asteroid headed our way we want to do something about that we got another special configuration of rockets that will get us there so we create a suite of vehicles that gives us access to space when Eisenhower came back from Europe after he saw the Autobahn and how it it survived heavy climactic variation and troop maneuvers he said I want some of those in my country all right so he gets everyone to agree to build the interstate system did he say you know I just want to build it from New York to LA because that's where you should go no the interstate system connects everybody in whatever way you want that's how you grow a system and I'm not going to discriminate if there's a military reason to do something on the moon we got the launch vehicles to do it if there's a tourist reason to go to the back side of the moon well that's another configuration you want to mine the moon we that's another one scientists want to study see if there's life on Mars we'll do that too everybody's space interest gets served by this capacity and when you do this you guarantee that you are advancing a space frontier every week and I can guarantee you every week there's going to be a new headline astronauts engineers found a way to extract the water from the soils of Mars separate the hydrogen and oxygen we now have a supply of rocket fuel on Mars a filling station so you'll have to carry all your fuel with you we're mining helium-3 on the lunar surface I don't know if it's cheap enough to bring it back here to earth set up some other nuclear reactor somewhere else in space whatever are the needs or urges being a geopolitical military economic space becomes that frontier and you know you know every week some new invention is going to be granted some new patent is going to be offered because space is hard space is dangerous space is exciting not only do you innovate these innovations make headlines and those headlines work their way down the educational pipeline and everybody in school knows about it you don't have to set up a program to convince people that being an engineer is cool they'll know it just by the cultural presence of those activities you do that it'll jumpstart our dreams that's what it'll do and you know innovation drives economies it's especially been true since the Industrial Revolution you double masses but it's not a handout that's what it is today that's what everyone thinks it is it's a handout for special interest you know Mitt Romney got wrong when he criticized Newt Gingrich for pandering to Florida the Florida constituency by saying he'll do all these nice things for NASA Romney said you're just pandering to Florida if you go to you go to New Hampshire you'll tell them something else about some bridge that they want there's a deep misunderstanding there the very statement that talking about NASA is pandering omits omits the fact that NASA drives our economy that the culture of NASA drives the culture of innovation and it's the culture of innovation that drives of the economies of the 21st century that's what it's missing even if there's pork spending on NASA even if there's pork what comes out of that spending benefits the nation in ways that a power plant or a bridge or a local Road does not I'm just I can be honest about that even if some of you can't because you're in it you're too close you got I can say it and I'm saying it and you know what happens the jobs do not go overseas you don't have to set up tax benefits it'll go overseas because we're innovating and haven't figured out how to do it yet it has to stay here in America and you have to keep innovating you'll eventually catch up I hand it to him you can't simultaneously assert that we are a global economy and then cry foul if a corporation takes a plant overseas with a Labor's cheaper that's kind of part of the how that works so the solution is not trying to just prevent that with laws you innovate so that it doesn't happen in the first place teacher training we need that it is a necessary but insufficient condition to make this happen you can have an awesome teacher in middle school high school now you want to become a scientist you come out the other end of that educational pipeline what do you do we lost the entire generation of these smart people they became like investment bankers or lawyers out of the 1980s and 90s there's no place for them to take their interest in science you have big bold ambitious projects you get them all especially since the NASA science portfolio involves biologists we're looking for life it's got chemists geologists astrophysicists physicists the NASA portfolio touches all of these not only that we need the electrical engineers the mechanical engineers the structural engineers NASA is a one agency showdown if we have an innovation culture will resurrect some of that attitude we all had in 1960s except this time it'll be without the tandem expensive war that was conducted by the way if China wants to put military bases on Mars on Mars in ten months you know that okay did you have to leak that memo then even have to be true we'll take one month to fund design and build the craft in nine months to get to Mars we'll be on Mars in ten months we already understand our resolve when we feel threatened that aspect will remain that capacity to react will remain the difference is we need to look at NASA not as a handout but as an investment because I can tell you that as the health as goes the health of space varying ambitions so two goes the spiritual the emotional the intellectual the creative and the economic ambitions of a nation so goes the future of America thank you all pressure thank you sir that was great but you collected some got some questions got questions okay thank you to your point about doubling NASA's budget just just a penny it's a nice round number I could have said you know double it by you know I could have said up it by you know eighty nine percent I mean it's a round number sure it's a very clean round number and it takes adjust to a penny penny on the tax dollar yes we got a bunch of questions about how what do you think space advocates can do better to effectively communicate with elected officials who are already not in favor of space activity thank you thank you for that question I spent many years grappling with that very point what I came to learn is that the space can by the way I would forgive what sounds like a cheap plug but recently I published a book titled space chronicles facing the ultimate frontier the original title of that book submitted to the publisher which they nixed claiming it was too depressing the original title was failure to launch the dreams and delusions of space enthusiasts here's what everybody's doing wrong they think that non space people will feel exactly the way we do about space we are sweet we assume that they're going to look up it all that I want to do that oh that's great oh it's in our DNA oh we are explorers we are American there's a whole list of arguments given do it for this spin-offs and we do with every dollar in space is spent here on earth these arguments are tired not only are they tired they work for us but if you want to step out of this community need a different kind of argument you need to compel the nation to value space exploration on a level so deep that it transcends the wins of political course in just the same way Veterans Benefits is not on the table in a presidential debate because we mandate that that's important you don't even debate that so you get into the culture the value of what it is to explore not only psycho emotionally but economically because there's a percentage of the public that doesn't care about this psycho emotion they care that they have a healthy economy it's the economy stupid that's the phrase and so the transition is NASA as a hand out to NASA as an investment and when you think of it as an investment it's cheap you do it because the discoveries of NASA will lead that exercise in just the same way as I earlier asserted in your annual reports you lead with your space missions because you know it's cool plus typically they're not classified so you get to talk about it on the cover so so what do you do I'd like to believe that I've assembled some messages that have leaked out of our our community and have resonated with others the opening chapter of that book was excerpted for Foreign Affairs magazine I don't know how many scientists they ever got something in foreign affairs magazine that got into foreign affairs magazine and for I would later learn because I'd never even read Foreign Affairs magazine that I'm looking against it's just not my journal right I would later learned that that lands in the lap of every member of Congress and it was two days after that landed in their lap that I got the invitation to testify in front of the Senate had it only been the book that invitation surely would not have come it's just another space book as far as that would be concerned so the geopolitical implications the the economic implications got me interviews on like on on business business news because we're in a dulled room in our economy people looking for anything that could help and so my suggestion is you talk about ways that space matters to people who actually don't care about space then it becomes deeper into people's motives and the economy is number one by far and the end and you get there it's by the way it's not just a goes to B the a goes to B is need better kids get better science teacher that's a to be thinking some solutions take a few steps a to B to C to D you double NASA's budget you innovate you there's a call for all the scientists and engineers and technologists they then become these fields patents are rewarded industries are created the economy booms that takes a little longer than an elevator ride to explain not from New York our elevator rides are a little longer I could do that in a New York elevator ride not in Rayburn office building okay so yes it's a challenge but if we don't rise to it we will regress back into the cave because that's where we're headed as the rest of the world passes us by next question sucker that was great next so we got about 15 minutes left there was a number you could text questions to you tuck you talked about this a little bit your rationale is obviously passionately about the inspiration and emotional power of exploration do you think for some that's sufficient it's not so it is not sufficient to write the check and so Columbus was an explorer Queen Isabella no she wrote the check by the way there were some private monies mixed in with those public monies but basically was a mission of the state Columbus was an explorer but when Queen Isabella said Columbus Crew Queen Isabella didn't say Oh Columbus go explore and come back and tell us all the things that you found and draw pictures of the flowers and of the natives there and and give lectures on on these discoveries no she said here's a satchel full of flags of Spain wherever you land declare the land in the name of Spain find a shorter route to the Far East so that we can trade more efficiently there were geopolitical and economic drivers behind that even if even though Columbus himself was an explorer I submit to you that we can talk exploration as a pure urge forever but at the end of the day the checks get written for different reasons and the history of the world bears that out persistently next question are you planning on taking a trip on a suborbital flight in the near future I rather it went somewhere other than here's my issue with suborbital I'm not going to get in the way like I said you gotta love them have them keep at it okay but I have an issue with that hundred kilometer definition right that's 62 mile a year in space definition my issue it's just it it's a professional issue it's not a cultural one it's and we know why that that elevation matters because there's the atmosphere is so thin above you there's still some molecules there but it's so thin you can see stars in broad daylight with with the Sun in the sky okay so the sky that the atmosphere is not lighting up your night sky it is night at all times okay I understand that but what it means is that the altitude where we define you for having gone into space is a function of the thickness of our atmosphere for our mystery were half as thick that number would be 50 miles I mean sorry would be 30 miles if it was half that thickness it'd be 15 miles if we didn't have an atmosphere at all you could just stand there and say you were in space what kind of what kind of argument is that so so I have issues for me orbit that's a nice for me that's why I draw the line and orbit is really different from suborbital all right this kinetic energy going on there we're coming back is an issue whereas if you go suborbital you can just put out your wings and coast back down to earth this is something that's not always captured accurately by the way in the Star Trek film where they had that drilling station where they're going to insert the red matter to make the planet a black hole don't ask so there's a platform there hovering above the planet and there's a fight that they're having on the platform and one person gets punched off of the platform and you see him fall and what happens as he comes in contact with the atmosphere he burns up it's like no no just the act of coming through the atmosphere doesn't burn you up it's it's it's the speed that matters the orbital speed five miles per second going to zero that Energy's got to go somewhere that's got to go somewhere that's a whole other you know all other challenge of space exploration this is going suborbital so maybe I'm going to save my money and wait for the first orbital Taurus flight I'll be first in line for that okay so that's a no that's enough International in these times of international collaboration how important is national pride for the success of space programs at the in the United States and and for other countries I think we tell ourselves it's important and occasionally we tell ourselves it's not important that cooperation matters of course cooperation does matter the international space station is the greatest expression of international cooperation outside of the waging of war that there ever was so there's a lot to be said for cooperation I didn't have an issue that might have had some issues but not as many issues as others had with our astronauts taking Soyuz to station because their partners and so we did that during the downtime after after Columbia so so I don't fear collaboration I don't have an issue with that typically collaboration is invoked when we say it's expensive so we need some funding partners I'm saying if it's an investment the partner becomes an investor not someone else who simply shares the cost of the mission so all the conversation about International Cooperation gets supplanted by who's got the money to invest and when you do that whether the government has to come first the government the space frontier but I'm going to answer a question you haven't asked yet I don't know if it's there but I get it asked all the time will space entrepreneurs lead the frontier in space in rather than NASA the answer is no that cannot happen it will not happen because space is expensive it is dangerous the risks are unquantified you put all three of those together you can't say okay who's in it doesn't work that way there's no business model for a corporation to do something expensive with uncertain risks where you might die governments have historically taken on those first steps when the government does it as Spain did with climbers then the maps are drawn the trade winds are established you learned that there are demons at the edge of the earth that will eat your ships you bring these back then the investors take a look at it and say I can now quantify the cost of this you took the nation burden took the risk the initial risk I will now take the quantifiable risk and now I get my venture capitalist to make this happen so the history of it is that they come in afterwards not up front and that's kind of what's going on now with private enterprise trying to gain access to low Earth orbit in the 1960s low Earth orbit was a frontier for the nation it is not a frontier anymore so sure let private enterprise have at it provided NASA still gets to go someplace beyond otherwise we're just closing shop because we need we need that percent that ambitious percent like I said that part that you put on the cover of your annual report next question all right five more minutes left so five more milk a Lancer them faster I'll go into evening news soundbite mode Ok Go so obviously in these times of fiscal challenges do you see a way to tweak what we have now in terms of budgets space program to have something as inspirational as I think you're talking about an alluding to with you I'm not even going there what you're telling me is ok if I were head of NASA and I get the crumbs that the nation handed me how would I spend it to prioritize and make an exciting program no it's the wrong question that's been asking for handouts that's that's just trying to make NASA this vanity project for engineers that's the wrong attitude it's the wrong understanding of its actual role in our society so I don't want to lead anything I want to convince the public that the right NASA budget will get us out of these economic doldrums because at the end of the day it's not what the president feels like or what Congress feels like is what we feel like doing because the president works for us next this is from someone who said I saw his land on the moon as a kid where can i realistically expect us to be in the next 40 years next 40 years if we double the budget we're everywhere we're on asteroids we're on Mars run Phobos and Deimos we have sample returns on the near side of the moon the far side of the Moon which is in a radio shadow from Earth Earth is radio noisy for conducting sensitive scientific measurements we would stop that asteroid headed our way that's kind of important thing to do as well all right military has whatever their needs are we have tourists jaunts to the moon we're doing all of this and we'd be doing that within a couple of decades a couple of decades that's why I was frustrated I was at the Obama speech and Kennedy Space Center April 15 where he said moon we've been there done that let's go to Mars salad played well in the audience because it's right we've been to the moon alright by then I thought about it I said wait a minute okay that means we're not going anywhere until we go to Mars so what is that gap oh it's 20 years 20 years wait we'll stop the presses you mean mr. president you are committing this nation to go to Mars under the leadership of a president to be named later on a budget not yet established that's not a promise anybody could have gone up there and promised that I ain't even have to be president when Kennedy in 1961 said we're going to put a man on the moon before the decade is out he's thinking we're going to land on the moon basically under his watch so he can marshal the political will and all of the forces that were present in 1962 through that decade and the budget tracking that that required so I'm worried that we're dependent on what a president wants to do that was my earlier point that going into space should not be about what the president wants to do shouldn't be about the whims of Congress it should be about the electorate and how the electorate feels about this and the future of our country see if I get two more in there go this is something I think you talk about I find that young people are excited about STEM careers but their parents are often not blocking these dreams for their kids what's the answer yeah because kids are born scientists they're always turning over rocks and plucking petals off of flowers they're always doing things that by and large are destructive and that's what exploration kind of is if you you take stuff apart whether or not you know how to put it back together this is what kids do a an adult scientist is a kid who never grew up that's what an adult scientist does so what happens at home is the kid reaches in the refrigerator pulls out an egg and starts juggling it what's the first thing you do as a parent stop playing with the egg it could break put it back excuse me this is an experiment in the material strength of let the kid find out that when it drops it breaks that's that's this this is a physics experiment rapidly turned into a biology experiment okay the yoke loses as you hey that becomes a chickie one day okay wait how does this gooliope become a chicken well that's biology check that out and what did the egg cost you 20 cents president of Harvard once said if you think education is expensive you should try the cost of ignorance so we don't have enough parents who understand or know how to value the inquisitive nature of their own kid because they want to keep order in their household kids go in into the kitchen and pull out all the pots and pans and start banging on it what's the first thing you say is a parent stop making all that noise stop the racket you're getting the pots and pans dirty you just squashed an entire experiment in acoustics so I'm not worried about kids people say what can I do to get my kids interested in science they're already interested in science you're the one who's the problem so almost my entire professional energy is focused on adults because they outnumber kids they vote they run the world they wield opportunities kids will be fine that's it give me one more one more one one I'm sorry but I'm I'm feeling it now one more all right make it a good one you can make it a bad one that's why what do you see in terms of the countries involved private-public the crew makeup of the first human mission to Mars i we have built into our culture this concept of the right stuff I think it's a great bit of iconography of that era i we milked it quite well I think and a hero's are made out of this I think that first crew whatever it numbers by the people worried about boredom and things no no if you ever see kids play with video games just give them like ten video games they'll play for four years you know because if they're adults who never grew up they'll be happy with the video they're playing Angry Birds the whole time give it a Netflix account they'll be fine the whole way alright I'm not worried about boredom of astronauts going to Mars so so I think that first class is a special class they're doing what no one has done before you want you know this is not a lottery you want people who you want to emulate you want people who did well in school you want people who ate healthy you want people who are moral you want people who who can become that next generation of heroes because if they make it to Mars and even if they don't there are heroes there are heroes in life and in death so who is that astronaut class now that I think they're in middle school maybe we should start now select the middle school group of kids who would serve as the astronaut class in 20 years for the first Mars mission we select them newspapers will write about them what's a little Johnny eating today what's he having for breakfast they'll be on Wheaties boxes the next astronaut class oh well one of them reached puberty and it didn't quite work out not on the list anymore okay had other hormonal priorities that replaced his math homework okay little Johnny got kicked off of that list we have it'll be the next mercury seven I I think it's it's a hard choice but we know how to pick the best and the brightest and the strongest that we've been doing that since the beginning of time and not everyone is going to want to do it as I said in one of the clips not everybody wants to leave the cave fortunately some of us do and not all of them come back but whether or not they come back we build statues to them to heroes that's another dimension of the culture that so many of us take for granted that was rampant in our society that transformed how we understood the world in the 1960s and early 1970s and I see no reason why that cannot be resurrected once again again thank you all for your time and attention

Channel: Eventide Visuals

Views: 150,442

Rating: 4.8630881 out of 5

Keywords: Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Space Symposium, Space Foundation, NASA, Space

Id: Zt4h8_N4OA4

Length: 60min 45sec (3645 seconds)

Published: Fri May 18 2012