- Ro, from Nerdy Nummies,
she's got a question! - Oh! - Hi I'm Rosanna Pansino,
and Neil, first question, when are you gonna come
bake with me again? Second question, what is your favorite star
constellation, and why? - Very nice [Chuck] - Oh interesting - What she hinted at, I was on her show. - Ah
- I helped her bake a cake! - Nice! - It was fun - Yeah, and how was the cake? Never ate it, tell the truth. - I'm trying to remember, cause
it was more fun making it. - Right. - It's the journey [Laughs] On Nerdy Nummies. - Nerdy Nummies. - Yeah it was very fun to be on her show, and she wants to know
when I'm coming back. - Right, when are you coming back? - You don't call, you don't
text, you know. I'm here. I'm here! But anyway, what is your
favorite constellation, and why? - So my favorite constellation, is Orion. - Oh Orion. - Orion the hunter. - [Chuck] Uh huh. - First, he sort of looks
what he's supposed to be. - Kind of yeah. - He's got a belt, there's shoulders, there's kneecaps, there's a
shield, he's got a shield, he's defending himself
against Taurus the bull, which is right up above
him off to the side. And so he kind of looks like
what he's supposed to be. Unlike the other 87 constellations, maybe about five of them resemble what they're supposed to be. Leo is one of them, Scorpius is another - Yeah, Scorpius kind of
looks like the yeah... - It looks like a scorpion,
it's got a stinger, but you look at things
like Gemini or Pisces, - Yeah, first of all. - You're stretching it - Those are some ugly
twins if that's Gemini. (laughing) - So, most don't look like, you need seriously enhanced
imagination to get that. So of the 88 constellations Orion, smokes the rest, in terms of it looks like
what it's supposed to be. In addition, the celestial equator. So take Earth's equator and project it out onto the sky, correct. So what that means is, do that again, (Chuck mimes equator with whoosh) I didn't need the sound effects but fine. So what that means is, all the part of the sky above that, sit above the Northern
Hemisphere of the Earth, and the sky below that sits
above the Southern Hemisphere. - Oh right I gotta keep it. - Orion flanks the north and the south, so everybody gets a piece of Orion. - Oh. - Exactly. - It's the equatorial constellation. - It's the equatorial constellation - That's very cool. That's very cool. - Yeah, so a little known fact here, when we renovated the Hayden Planetarium, I just floated the idea, don't judge me, I floated the idea that we might update all the constellations, to things that mattered to us today. - Oh. - So if it's gonna be Orion the hunter, it could be like Orion the... - The butcher? (laughing) - No Orion is like a warrior,
I mean he can fight, so - Orion the predator drone. - Not the predator drone - Orion the predator drone! (laughing) - Or just the Predator from the movie. No just some hunter,
some modern day hunter and other constellations
like Pegasus you know, that's the upside down flying
half a white horse in the sky. - [Chuck] Right. - In case you missed that. - Yes exactly. - It actually has a box of stars that looks very much
like a baseball diamond. So that would just be the baseball five. - The baseball constellation.
- So I had this idea it lasted about three
minutes in the committee, and then we went on to other things. - I like the idea of renaming
the constellations though. - Just to give it updates. - [Chuck] Yeah. - There are no centaurs anymore - Yeah, and also it would be a great way to get kids interested in looking up. - Exactly. I said there no centaurs anymore
like there ever once was. - I was about to say, however in my mind there
were centaurs at one point - But today we have other stuff that doesn't exists but exists. - Right like Minotaurs. (laughing) - No, we have, we have like, what do we have, we have characters from the walking dead, we have zombies. - Zombies, right. - Zombies, they exist but don't exist. - Exactly, right right. - We have Xena, do you know
about Xena the warrior princess? - Uh yeah yes. - Throw her up there,
put some of her up there. Put Captain Marvel up there,
put Superman up there. This other culture that
we care about today. That's all I'm saying. - [Chuck] Cool. - You know what we could do, there are enough shapes of stars up there, that maybe there could be
a Nerdy Nummie cookie logo. - You know that would be
the best advertisement ever, I'm just saying. (laughing) The Nerdy Nummies of the cosmos. - Well anyway Ro, I can't wait to get back on your show, thanks for that question. So Ro, you got more
questions? Bring it on. - What is the closest planet to me that is most similar to Earth, and when can I go there? - Oh, okay. So here's the thing. The closest planet to Earth, that is the planet that gets the closest, cause everybody is doing their thing. Sometimes they're over there and you're over here, so you want to check it
out when everybody is on the same side of the Sun. The planet that comes
closest to us is Venus. - Wow. - The goddess of love and beauty. - Oh that's so romantic. The goddess of love and
beauty for the planet that... - The planet that is
900 degrees fahrenheit. - That's what I was gonna say, well actually that is kinda
love and beauty in a nutshell. - You'll be vaporized. - There you go, that's love in my life. - That's how love ends.
All love ends that way. - That's how love ends, in
vaporization there you go. - Yeah, so it's a runaway
greenhouse effect, with a very dense carbon
dioxide atmosphere. Note to Earthlings, Venus has
a runaway greenhouse effect. It's 900 degrees, so it's the closest but it's
not the most like Earth. What you really want is the next closest, which is, Venus is on one side of us, on the inside of us
between us and the Sun. Just on the outside of us is Mars. Little farther but we can
get there, we've been there. We got probes and rovers there now. Okay, so Mars rotates
once in about 24 hours - Nice. - It's tipped on its axis,
which means it has seasons. - There you go. - It has polar ice caps. - Look at that! - We still do for now,
have polar ice caps. - Call your travel agents. Let's go, what are we doing,
why are we still here? - But it's still hostile to life. All right, there's ultraviolet
radiation from the Sun. It's not shielded by the
ozone in an atmosphere. So, it sterilizes. Ultraviolet and life, don't play well together in the sandbox. The high energy ultraviolet photons break apart molecules that are
organic, so they don't mix. So if there's life,
it's under the surface, or if there ever was life it would have needed
this kind of protection, life as we know it. So yeah it would be Mars. And
how soon can she get there? She could sign up to be
the first astronaut class to walk on mars. - Making cookies. First astronaut making
cookies on Mars girl. (laughing) - You could make cookies fast. Cookies are fast anyway in the oven, you ever made cookies in the oven? - Yeah of course. - They're one of the
fastest things you can make. You know why? Because even at high temperature, they're thin enough so that the heat doesn't have to wait a long
time to get to the middle. Atom by atom communicating, you would end up burning the outside but the inside wouldn't get cooked. - Which is by the way how
all my cookies come out. - So thin flat things, can cook in very high
temperature gradients. So if she wanted to cook a cake on Venus, you would burn the outer surface and the inside wouldn't even get touched. But if you wanted to bake
cookies on Venus, seconds! Put it out there on the window sill - Right and it's done. - Done, cook a pizza? Done. Put it out, pull it in. There you go. So not Mars, Mars is several hundred
degrees below zero. - Oh, so you know what I'm
learning from this conversation? - What? - Earth is really cool.
It is good to be here. - I used to say Saturn
is my favorite planet, but it's really Earth.
Saturn is my second favorite. So anyway, thanks for that question Ro. - Are we ever gonna have a space elevator? - Oh. - I am not familiar with
the term space elevator. - It's cause you're not as geeky as Ro is. - Oh! - Ro is on the case. - She is on the case
huh, she knows the deal. What is a space elevator? - Even though her show
is named Nerdy Nummies. - It should just be Nerdy. - Nerdy everything. - Nerdy everything. - So space elevator, here's
how it works. You ready? - [Chuck] Go ahead. - There's such cost launching
you into orbit, all right? You need the rocket,
you need the launch pad, you need all of this. You gotta get up to 18,000 miles an hour This is like what are we doing. - There's a lot going on there. - Lot going on, okay. Did you know, that the farther
away from Earth you orbit, this will make sense when I say it, the longer it takes to complete the orbit. - That makes sense, it's
like a record player. - Like a record, well no. The entire record it
moves at the same time. - It moves at the same time. - So it's not like a record player. - No I'm saying when you're... - So it's exactly not
like a record player. (laughing) All parts of a record complete one loop. Whereas orbits, the outer
orbit travels slower and takes longer to complete an orbit. So just above Earth's surface,
takes about 90 minutes. So low Earth orbit, is close enough, takes about 90 minutes. Space shuttle, 90 minute orbit. Go higher, it could take two hours. Little higher, three hours, four hours, five hours, six hours, 12 hours, 15 hours, 18 hours. There is a distance that you
could put a satellite in orbit, where it takes 24 hours, to orbit the Earth. - Okay. - So what does that mean? It means if you put a
satellite up at that orbit, it stays with you. - All the way around. - It is always hovering above your spot. - I have the best cell phone service ever. - This was the idea, put forth by Arthur C. Clarke, 1947 was it? 1946? Just
after the second world war, he thought that if you put a
satellite at that distance, which is about 23,000 miles up, you could park one over the Atlantic, between Europe and the United States, and beam communication signals. - Right. - He came up with the idea of
the communication satellite. - Nice. - That ring around the Earth, is filled with communication satellites. Cause we all know about this. Now, wait a minute, if
it hovers above a spot, let's put a platform
there. A space platform. A space station. - Okay. - And dangle a rope, and just put an elevator there. (laughing) And just take the elevator. - Instead of the 18,000 pounds of fuel. Wait so what do you do? - You don't have to gain
speed to have orbit, to sustain orbit in lower Earth. - Just give a yank. - No you don't want to yank it, leave that up there but
just you have an elevator. - No I'm saying to let
them know to pull you up. (laughing) - I think we'd have
more sophisticated ways. - Yank yank yank, I'm ready! - This is not a Treehouse
with a bell attached, no. We got sophisticated ways
of like okay "let me up", or some kind of room. Now it'd take a long
time to go 23,000 miles. - That's a long ways. - It's a long way. There's a friend of
mine who composed music called 'Space Elevator music'. (laughing) - That's pretty funny. - Yeah she composes music
under the name 'Zia', and her name is Elaine Walker. She's got a whole album
called Space Elevator music, just in time to keep you
busy for a 23,000 mile trip. - [Chuck] Right. - Exactly. So, problem is, we know of no material
that is strong enough to even hold up it's own weight in cable, dangling below such a space station. Much less than attach an
elevator to it, to ride up. Though there is a
substance, that can do it. - What is it? - Okay, do you remember Buckyballs? - No. - This is carbon, a new
form of carbon. Carbon 60. You take 60 carbon atoms, and they make a sphere
that are all the nodes that are on the classical soccer balls. - Okay, right. - And it makes a round thing, okay. And it turns out, you
can cut it in the middle, and extend it also with
carbon atoms, and make, a Buckytube. It's hollow, but this
is really really strong. It is strong enough to
hold up it's own weight. The problem is generating these
thing, and last I checked, and I don't have the latest on
this, but the last I checked, the longest we've made, the
longest tube we've made, cause these are on a molecular
scale, is about a centimeter. - About a centimeter, right. - So we got a ways to go. - Yeah, so only you know, 22,999.9999999, miles to go. - So Ro, we're far away technologically from making a space elevator. But the idea continues to tantalize those who want easy access to space, easy and cheap access
to space going forward. So we're not there yet. I don't think it's gonna
happen in our lifetime. By the way, the day we perfect carbon, they're called nanotubes, that
would transform construction. - [Chuck] Everything. - Everything, cause it's
really light and really strong. Way stronger than steel, you could make really tall buildings that don't weigh anything. - Tall skyscrapers. And they wouldn't even
need the foundations. - Structurally you don't
have to, that's right. - [Chuck] Wow. - Exactly. - [Chuck] That's pretty cool. - You just gotta watch out, you don't want people
just pushing them over. - I was gonna say. - You do wanna anchor
them down somehow Chuck. - That's pretty cool, I just want to see the
person who gets stuck in the space elevator. - Oh yeah, we're coming
for you eventually. (laughing) So there you go Ro. - Why is Star Trek the
best show ever made, and why is Voyager the best season? He disagrees, I think he
likes a different season, but we're still friends
because we both love Star Trek. - Yeah she got that right. - Okay, well I'm with you too, if you disagree that
Voyager is not the best, because it's not. (laughing) - Objectively of course. - Objectively, I'm just saying, it is not. - It could be, when did you come of age? Right, you know. There's a Star Trek at every
turning point of people, you know there's the 60's, then I think we had to
wait until the 80's. - So I'm next generation. - Yeah there's next gen - Star Trek next gen, but then after that
there's Patrick Stewart. That's right, number
one. Engage. I love it. - Warp one engage. Wait, how does he, he's got a French name, with a British accent. - Right! - And he's 60, but he has
the body of a 20 year old. - "I'm Jean-Luc Picard,
captain of the USS Enterprise" - What's up with that? - "I'm actually 42 years old" - So, she got me right to where
I think deeply about this, so I'm a fan of the first
season, first I'm old enough. - Well everybody has to be
a fan of the first season. - You don't have to no. - Yeah, or you're not a true fan. I mean you may not like
it best, but it's... - I'm not gonna hold
judgment on people okay, the Borg was a great idea
you know, and the visor on... - Geordi, yeah. - There's some good stuff happening later, we finally got Janeway, got
a female captain on there. So stuff had to happen later
on, what I'm saying is, in the original season
as was carried through, that spaceship, the USS Enterprise, was the first ship that I
know of, and I've looked, that was not designed just
to go to another place. But was simply conceived to explore. - Explore, that's right. - Every other spaceship in
every other Sci-Fi thing, was okay we're using this to go to Mars. - [Chuck] To a destination. - And the show was about being on Mars. - This was just made to
seek out and discover. - [Chuck and Neil] New
life and new civilizations. To boldly go, where no person, has gone before. - And if you were to correct the grammar, it would be to go boldly.
No split infinitives. As your Mamma would say if she were here. - Absolutely. - So I like the fact that it pioneered a new understanding
of what it is to be in space, A. And B, the Captain actually
fought his own fights. - Yes he did! - Okay?! - And he beamed down
on every away mission. - He beamed down and would fight, and you can't expect your crew to fight unless you're gonna fight too. I just thought that was, not
that fighting is a good thing, I'd rather no one fought,
but if you gotta fight, you don't send someone
else to do your fighting. - [Chuck] That's right. - Okay!
- He went down there to fight, but he also made sure that he was always gonna bring a black
crewman who he knew would die. (laughing) - No the crewman just
had to have a red shirt. - That's true! - Whether or not their skin was dark. - That's true, you're right. - C, every show was a morality tale. - True. - And I just thought, who's doing this? Maybe Twilight Zone at the time, but otherwise those three things combined, made the original Star Trek for me, one of the greatest mirrors to our own civilization
that has ever been put up. Under the guise of, oh this
is just Science Fiction. You get to learn about yourself, without knowing that in fact,
the lesson is being infused, through your eyes and ears. - Who is that in the mirror? Who is that in the mirror? Neil? (laughing) - So, that's my answer. So I'm not gonna fight anybody who has a more favorite
season than the first one, but I just want to say that the first one was groundbreaking in all
those fundamental ways. So there you go. - Okay, listen I'll accept that. - So, there you have it.
Star Trek, first generation. Captain Kirk. Plus! Captain Kirk would use
seat-of-his-pants reasoning. I liked that. - Right, and Spock was
always there to let him know that everything he was
doing was illogical. - Illogical, it means Kirk would beat Spock at Poker, every time. - That's basically it.
- They didn't play the game, but this is like you've gotta
bluff, I know how to bluff. - Exactly. - And you don't. One of my favorite episodes of Star Trek, from the original series, are you ready? - [Chuck] Go ahead. - Okay, I don't remember the details and real aficionados would
like know chapter and verse, but here it is. There's some enemy vessel
out the front window, okay. And Kirk's shields have a problem coming back up, and so they're kind of susceptible, okay. And, Kirk tells Uhura... - "Open a channel!" - Open a channel yes thank you. (laughing) "Open a channel to Starfleet command, use the secure channel 3156 okay? Tell them we are going to execute
executive order whatever". Okay, so here's the thing, that channel that 'secure' channel, has been decoded by the enemy. - Right, and they know that. - Okay all right, but the enemy doesn't
think that Kirk knows this, and this executive order is
self-destruct of the ship. Which would also destroy the ship that's ready to attack them. - Right. - Okay, so Spock hears this and knows that the channel has already
been compromised, and said "Captain, you realize that's
no longer a secure channel? This is no time for a game of
chess." And he says to Spock, - "I'm not playing chess." - "Spock this is not
chess, this is poker." - "This is poker!" - That is so good, you staring
somebody down and you bluff, and they don't know you're bluffing. - Right. - And you got a really bad-ass bluff, you're sending a secret
message over a decoded channel. - That they don't know
that you know is decoded. - You know that he know that you know. - "Norton, I know that you
know that I know, Norton." (laughing) - I've seen that episode, but no one under 50 has seen that episode, of the Honeymooners. So I liked the fact that
Kirk could use his intuition, that would not be anchored in logic, to make a decision that
was in the interest of the safety of the crew. - It sounds to me like Captain
Kirk is just very reckless. Spock was like, "are you
bluffing? Like, you we die? We die man you don't get it" - Not a time to bluff! - Exactly, you don't just lose a pot. That's funny. - Now I don't mean to
brag, but I was quoted on the latest iteration
of the Star Trek series. - Discovery. - Star Trek Discovery on CBS. - That's right. - I was quoted by Spock. - Get out! - Yes I was, I'm just
saying, I don't mean to brag. Okay, so here it was. Spock is having this moment
of existential angst, and you're hearing his thoughts. - Right. - And he says, "do I exist? And how do I
exist, in a quantum multiverse" and could I, he's having a moment, okay. And in there he says, I'm paraphrasing, "as an ancient Earth scientist once said, "the universe is under no
obligation to make sense to me."" - Oh my God I saw that! - You did see that! - Yes he did say that!
- He didn't use my name, I'm just some 'ancient Earth scientist', but that's my quote. - That is very cool man. - So I don't mean to brag,
but that's what happened. So Chuck, I was on Nerdy Nummies. - Oh! What'd you do? - Ro and I baked a cake. - Oh that's very nice. - It was very very fun, it was inspired by a single
episode of Star Trek : Voyager. - Cool. - Oh yeah, you gotta go click
on it if you want to see. - Yeah, I want to eat it
how do I click on that? (laughing) - That's the next generation internet. Click on it, bada-bing,
cake shows up right there! Anyway Ro, thanks for those questions.
