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Tag: Neil deGrasse Tyson

  • William Shatner and Neil deGrasse Tyson: When stars collide

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    Not long ago in Seattle, an astronomical event of sorts happened: Two superstars collided. William Shatner, of “Star Trek” fame, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, America’s favorite astrophysicist, took to the stage to explore the nature of exploration. Think of it as sort of Martin & Lewis, but with more quantum mechanics.

    “It’s a bromance,” said Tyson. “I think what Bill Shatner and I have together should be the textbook definition of the bromance.”

    “If we have a bromance,” said Shatner, “I’d be very privileged.”

    The two grew close last year on an upscale cruise to Antarctica, where they ended up being the after-dinner entertainment. “The organizer said, ‘Why don’t we put the two of you on this mini-stage that they have on the ship, and we just chew the fat?’” said Tyson. “And then the organizer said, ‘Why don’t you guys take this on the road?’”

    Their first port of call? Seattle, where they debuted a wide-ranging, sometimes meandering, but always intriguing stage show they’re calling “The Universe Is Absurd!”

    William Shatner and Neil deGrasse Tyson, on stage in “The Universe Is Absurd!,” in Seattle. 

    CBS News


    When Shatner asked his partner for a sound bite, deGrasse Tyson solicited a suggestion from the audience: “Pick anything out of the universe. Go. Anything. Doesn’t matter.”

    “Pluto!” yelled one enthusiastic audience member.

    DeGrasse Tyson obliged: “More than half of Pluto is made of ice, so that, if it were where Earth is right now, heat from the Sun would evaporate that ice and it would grow a tail. And that is no kind of behavior for a planet!” Mic drop. “That’s a sound bite!”

    For deGrasse Tyson, director of New York City’s Hayden Planetarium, and an authority on just about everything we know about the universe, it’s a chance to get inside the insatiably curious mind of the 94-year-old Shatner. “What kind of magic potion is he drinking?” deGrasse Tyson laughed. “By the way, you can do the math, he’s been alive for three billion seconds, okay? I did the math, you don’t have to. So when Bill Shatner speaks, it’s coming from a place way deeper than any of the rest of us can possibly match.”

    And for Shatner, who never formally studied astrophysics, it’s a chance to make up for what he sees as lost time. “I feel bad about it, because that knowledge of what constitutes the construction of nature, we know so little, but the little we know is so awesome, it’s so spellbinding,” he said. “The fact that I wasn’t conscious of how spellbinding it is as a youth, I could have been much more educated about it.”

    william-shatner-neil-degrasse-tyson-luke-burbank.jpg

    “Star Trek” actor William Shatner and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, with correspondent Luke Burbank.

    CBS News


    Four years ago, Shatner became the oldest person ever to go into space, and he’s been globetrotting ever since.

    Shatner asked deGrasse Tyson, “Do you still scratch your head in awe?”

    “Every night I look up,” he replied.

    So, is this the dynamic between the two – Shatner with questions, deGrasse Tyson with answers? “Unfortunately, that’s the way it is,” Shatner replied.

    “No, but he’s got wisdom and life experience that I value, and I respect,” deGrasse Tyson added. “So, I’m here to grab some of that.”

    As for Shatner’s take on deGrasse Tyson, “He has access, both because of his mentality, and the books and the studies, so he’s into modern-day mysticism, which is the study of the stars and how it works and what goes on.”

    “You call that modern-day mysticism?” deGrasse Tyson asked.

    “Because you don’t know for sure that what you’re saying is absolutely truth until more experimentation.”

    “That’s the frontier. We’re scratching our heads.”

    “Exactly,” said Shatner. “So, he is an explorer. He is an explorer. He is on that verge. He teaches that. And it is mystical in every sense of the word.”

    I asked, “This is where I think you are politely and respectfully in disagreement, because Dr. deGrasse Tyson will say something like, ‘We know what the speed of light is and what the fastest things can move is.’ And you say, ‘Well, we’ll see about that!’”

    “Yeah, we’ve had that argument,” said Shatner. 

    DeGrasse Tyson seems just fine not knowing everything – for example, what was going on before the Big Bang, and the profound idea of somethingness coming from nothingness. “We don’t know. Next question!” he said. “No, as a scientist, you need to be comfortable in the presence of a question that does not yet have an answer.”

    Of course, the ultimate question, the one we really don’t know definitively, is where we go when we die, something that Shatner, as he loses friends and colleagues, finds himself considering more often. “You know, I vary between the fear of death, my fear,” he said. But, “I have so much love around me. I have a wife, and children, and grandchildren. I even have two great-grandchildren. And I have two great dogs. I’ve had dogs all my life, all my adult life. And so, all my life is fertile, is vibrant. And I don’t want to leave it. And that’s the sadness. I don’t want to go.”

    “Are you curious, though, about what you will find out?” I asked.

    “Not enough to die!” he laughed.

    “Even your curiosity has a limit?”

    “Right. It stops right there!”

    So, William Shatner’s famous curiosity bumps up against the edge of his universe. And as the show wrapped up in Seattle, Shatner closed things out with one of his unique spoken-word songs, accompanied by trumpeter Keyon Harrold. 

    Do not grow old
    no matter how long you live.
    Do not forget pain
    but somehow learn to forgive.

    The universe, it turns out, might be a bit absurd, but what an interesting ride!

    WEB EXCLUSIVE: Watch an extended interview with William Shatner and Neil deGrasse Tyson (Video)



    Extended interview: William Shatner and Neil deGrasse Tyson

    32:17

        
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    Story produced by Anthony Laudato. Editor: Karen Brenner. 

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  • Let's Send All Billionaires to Mars! – Jim Hightower, Humor Times

    Let's Send All Billionaires to Mars! – Jim Hightower, Humor Times

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    Why not just send our “genius” billionaires to Mars, and let them report back?

    Unfortunately, in the short time we homo sapiens have existed on this 4.5-billion-year-old Planet Earth, we have trashed the place. Climate change, deforestation, desertification, plastics in everything, etc.

    Fortunately, though, we large-brained hominids have evolved an almost-magical resource that promises to be our salvation: Billionaires!

    One of the priceless benefits of amassing a multibillion-dollar, self-regenerating pile of wealth is that it automatically establishes you as “a Genius.” Never mind that you’ve most likely acquired your stash through some combination of inheritance, grift, rank exploitation, tax dodging and such; you’re suddenly treated as a savant whose most fanciful nonsense is now taken seriously by the establishment.

    Thus, we presently have two overstuffed money hogs, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, preaching that Earth is a lost cause. But, no problem, for they are designing space technologies that will let a cadre of select humans escape doom by colonizing the Moon and Mars. Using untold billions of our tax dollars, the two are in a PR race to land their spaceships first. But — hey, bozos! — what then? You think our blue-green planet is hell, try living with no air, water, soil, little gravity and zero protection from the incessant bombardment of cosmic radiation.

    Well, postulate the billionaire space cadets, “we” (actually meaning us taxpayers) will just geoengineer Mars and the Moon, terraforming them into an Earthlike oasis. But, wait — as astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson pointed out a decade ago — “If you had the power to terraform Mars into Earth, then you have the power to turn Earth back to Earth.”

    Tyson later said he’d only go to Mars if the designer of the colony “had sent their mother first.” Nice… but I have no doubt Musk and Bezos would gladly sacrifice their moms to advance their egos.

    Forget Millionaires. A Few Billionaires Are Now Stealing Our Country

    In the serious business of politics, a little humor can be your best friend.

    I saw its impact 30 years ago in Austin when a group of young, irreverent democracy activists decided to try limiting corporations that were drowning our local elections in their special-interest campaign cash. The upstart group named their grassroots effort a name that was a bit whimsical, yet pointed: “Austinites for a Little Less Corruption.”

    It caught on. Even though the entire corporate, political and media establishment united in furious opposition to the reform, 70% of voters rather joyously shouted, “YES!”

    Now more than ever, we need to rally grassroots Americans in a high-spirited, openly rebellious campaign to save our people’s historic democratic values. An autocratic coterie of plutocratic supremists with unlimited corporate funding already dominates our elections, public policy, agenda and our highest courts. It’s not a secret conspiracy; they’re quite open about it!

    But forget the days of million-dollar donors; the arsenal of the systemic corruptors has now been nuclearized. For example, Charles Koch has just injected $5 billion in his 2024 political operation. Tim Dunn, an ultra-right-wing Texas oil baron and extremist GOP sugar daddy, has just sold his fracking empire for $12 billion, gaining a new gusher of cash to weaponize his intention to impose laissez-faire rule over America.

    It’s hard to visualize how much more anti-democratic firepower one gets by spending billions instead of mere millions. Think of the difference not in terms of dollars, but time. If you have a million seconds, that’s 11 days. But a billion seconds — that’s more than 31 years!

    We can have no progress — no democracy — without getting corporate money out of America’s political system. For info and action, go to citizen.org.

    Jim HightowerJim Hightower
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  • The first crop of space mining companies didn’t work out, but a new generation is trying again

    The first crop of space mining companies didn’t work out, but a new generation is trying again

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    Just a couple of years ago, it seemed that space mining was inevitable. Analysts, tech visionaries and even renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson predicted that space mining was going to be big business.

    Space mining companies like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, backed by the likes of Google‘s Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, cropped up to take advantage of the predicted payoff.

    Fast forward to 2022, and both Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries have been acquired by companies that have nothing to do with space mining. Humanity has yet to commercially mine even a single asteroid. So what’s taking so long?

    Space mining is a long-term undertaking and one that investors do not necessarily have the patience to support. 

    “If we had to develop a full-scale asteroid mining vehicle today, we would need a few hundred million dollars to do that using commercial processes. It would be difficult to convince the investment community that that’s the right thing to do,” says Joel Sercel, president and CEO of TransAstra Corporation.

    “In today’s economics and in the economics of the near future, the next few years, it makes no sense to go after precious metals in asteroids. And the reason is the cost of getting to and from the asteroids is so high that it vastly outstrips the value of anything that you’d harness from the asteroids,” Sercel says.

    This has not dissuaded Sercel from trying to mine the cosmos. TransAstra will initially focus on mining asteroids for water to make rocket propellant, but would like to eventually mine “everything on the periodic table.” But Sercel says such a mission is still a ways off.

    “In terms of the timeline for mining asteroids, for us, the biggest issue is funding. So it depends on how fast we can scale the business into these other ventures and then get practical engineering experience operating systems that have all the components of an asteroid mining system. But we could be launching an asteroid mission in the 5 to 7-year time frame.”

    Sercel hopes these other ventures keep it afloat until it develops its asteroid mining business. The idea is to use the tech that will eventually be incorporated into TransAstra’s astroid mining missions to satisfy already existing market needs, such as using space tugs to deliver satellites to their exact orbits and using satellites to aid in traffic management as space gets increasingly more crowded.

    AstroForge is another company that believes space mining will become a reality. Founded in 2022 by a former SpaceX engineer and a former Virgin Galactic engineer, AstroForge still believes there is money to be made in mining asteroids for precious metals.

    “On Earth we have a limited amount of rare earth elements, specifically the platinum group metals. These are industrial metals that are used in everyday things your cell phone, cancer, drugs, catalytic converters, and we’re running out of them. And the only way to access more of these is to go off world,” says AstroForge Co-Founder and CEO Matt Gialich.

    AstroForge plans to mine and refine these metals in space and then bring them back to earth to sell. To keep costs down, AstroForge will attach its refining payload to off-the shelf satellites and launch those satellites on SpaceX rockets.

    “There’s quite a few companies that make what is referred to as a satellite bus. This is what you would typically think of as a satellite, the kind of box with solar panels on it, a propulsion system being connected to it. So for us, we didn’t want to reinvent the wheel there,” Gialich says. “The previous people before us, Planetary Resources and DSI [Deep Space Industries], they had to buy entire vehicles. They had to build much, much larger and much more expensive satellites, which required a huge injection of capital. And I think that was the ultimate downfall of both of those companies.”

    The biggest challenge, AstroForge says, is deciding which asteroids to target for mining. Prior to conducting their own missions, all early-stage mining companies have to go on is existing observation data from researchers and a hope that the asteroids they have selected contain the minerals they seek. 

    “The technology piece you can control, the operations pieces you can control, but you can’t control what the asteroid is until you get there,” says Jose Acain, AstroForge Co-Founder and CTO.

    To find out more about the challenges facing space mining companies and their plans to make space mining a real business watch the video.

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