expecting this year to be another significant one in
space. Private companies are driving development.
They're not only launching satellites and supply
missions to the international space station but also
allowing tourists to live the life of an astronaut.
Even just for 10 minutes we want to welcome Neil
Degrasse Tyson to our show. He's an astrophysicist wi
a lot of insight and expertise on space and science.
Thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, thanks for
having me. Thank you. So you promote science and space
exploration. This might be a bit of a broad question
but let's start with why continuing to explore space is
important for humanity and for our planet. Yeah. I
don't know maybe I'm delusional but I don't think of
myself as promoting anything. What I do again. This
could be delusional. What I do is I alert people of the
cost of not doing it Alright. I alert people that
however they're thinking about the problem could
benefit from a more enlightened posture before they
then arrive at their opinion When I hear someone say
why are we spending money up there when we have
problems here on earth when up there is the entire
universe and here we are on this, on this moat that
we've given the name Earth to. And, and we're trying to
claim is that we should not go anywhere else in the
universe until Earth's problems are solved. I have some
news for you, every single problem that earth faces now
that that culture, society, poverty, hunger, war, all
of that predates the very first attempt anyone ever
made trying to go into space. So, uh, to believe that
all of a sudden these problems would be now solved if
we didn't go into space. I think it's very a narrow
view of the history of civilization. So I just try to
put this kind of sort of cosmic perspective in the mi
of what it is, people say and think, yeah, and I like
how you put that to the cost of not doing it. I think
that allows people to open their minds a little bit to
the consequences of taking that road you've called the
private space movement, the billionaires Boys Club,
we've seen private missions to space that most people
think is something they'll neve be able to afford. Is
it important that space become accessible Not just to
the rich but to the average person. Well, if you lo
at the history of this kind of exercise. Um, if you go
back to the dawn of aviation, much less costly
operation by the way. But it's still technologically
challenging given the day in which people were trying
to think this up. The first people to go on plane
flights were the rich and famous and they get to talk
about it at their cocktail parties. So almost eve
important, high tech thing that lands in civilization
is always done first by the rich people. Generally the
first out of the box are not the most accessible and
they're not the most affordable. That usually comes
later. And I'm okay with that. Let's talk a little bit
about why it's so expensive to go to space. For those
of us who aren't science experts and space exper
We've been pursuing space flight for more than a
century. Why is it so hard and so expensive to contin
space exploration Yeah. So it's, it's pretty simple.
And I think Elon musk has his finger on the pulse here,
up until Elon musk. Well, the space shuttle was
reusable, but not in the way that had been imagined.
Ellen is really putting the money where the claims were.
And that is, we're gonna reuse the booster, We're gonna
reuse the capsule. We're gonna reuse it all. Well, all
that we can, that doesn't burn up in the atmosphere.
And by doing so, you bring down the cost as you bring
down the cost more and more people businesses,
industries, entrepreneurs will then have access to
space for every next day. The price drops compared to
the day before and that can be transformative to an
industry. So yeah, it'll take time. It's not immediate.
But we're witnessing in this billionaire which boys
race. We are witnessing the birth of an entire economic
sector. We should be celebratin that. I hear so many
critics of it and I'm thinking a new economy. Is that
what you want Isn't that what And they only see the
rich people doing it. At first I said, we'll give it a
chance. Give it a chance. So you come into my final
question though. I'm curious to get your thoughts on
what's next then for space exploration. What do you
think Spaceflight will look like decades from now Say
50 years or 100 years. That's too far. Let me say 30
years. Okay, I don't know what 100 years is but 20-30
years. What would be nice is if the solar system I
think became our backyard, a backyard. Oh, where are
you going to Oh I'm using a few vacations savings a
using that to go visit the near side of the moon.
There's a, there's an amusement park there in lower
gravity and we take the whole family. Okay, well I'm a
scientist and I want to study possible origins of life
origins of life on the surface of mars strapped
together, a different configura of rockets, wait a
minute. I'm an entrepreneur and want to mine an
asteroid, the first trillionair on earth. I'm certain
of it will be the first person who mines asteroid
in fact Nasa has a mission coming up called psyche
because that's the name of the asteroid they're gonna
visit. That asteroid is entirely metallic. It's, it'll
have platinum, iridium, gold, nickel, iron and because
most other asteroids are rocky, less interesting to us.
So you know, I look at all this that we could be doing
in space fully using the resources that are availabl
to us and things that are rare on earth are common in
space. So here's a thought, I imagine in the distant
future with the solar system does become our backyard
And if we find an asteroid headed our way, we get on
the phone to the asteroid miners and say, oh, can you
swing over to that other asteroid and deflect it while
you're up there. And, and just to say, oh sure we got,
this will happen in the next three weeks. What else
could happen We need more fresh water. Oh, there's a
comet coming by, let's last suitt. Okay, melt the water
here is fresh water from a comet. A lake's worth of
water in a comet since space has basically unlim
resources. If space becomes our backyard, it will
remove an entire category of conflict from the annals
of civilization going forward and for me that's worth
it all. Well that's a vision. You've certainly pain
for us. I love that space as our backyard Neil Degr
Tyson. Thank you so much for coming on the y with us.
I'd be happy to serve. Coming up. We'll shift our focu