These elements scatter into gas clouds that then collapse and form nextgeneration star systems, one of which was ours. So the very ingredients that comprise life are traceable to stars. So they gave their lives billions of years before we arrived. Rose so we are stars . So we are not only figuratively but quite literally star dust. Let us consider that human beings are above all a biological species in a biological world. We live in a razorthin layer of the atmosphere within which life can exist and to which we as a species are exquisitely welladapted. So if, when we get this understanding of where we are and what we are and where we came from, well be better prepared to decide where were going. Rose Neil Degrasse tyson and e. O. Wilson, when we continue. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by rose additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose Neil Degrasse tyson is here. Many know him as the most powerful nerd in the universe. He calls himself simply a servant of science. She the long time director of the Hayden Planetarium in new york and host of a new talk show on the National Geographic channel called star talk, it combines science, culture and comedy to help bring the universe down to earth. I am pleased to have Neil Degrasse tyson back at this table. Welcome. Thank you, charlie. Rose when did you know what you wanted to do is be an astrophysicist. At age 9, the first visit to the hand planetarium. Rose that did it for you . That put it in my veins. I think the universe called me and not i that called it. I thought, wow, of course, growing up in the bronx, there arent many stars visible anywhere in new york, especially not the bronx at the the time. So the sky and the planetarium was magical. I thought it was a hoax. Ive seen the sky from the bronx, and this is not it, therefore it must be a hoax, not knowing, of course, its portraying the real sky. By age 11, then i had the answer that i had the answer to that annoying question that adults ask children, what do you want to be when you grow up. Rose and your answer was . Astrophysicist. That ended the conversations pretty quickly. Rose have you ever wanted to write a Science Fiction novel . Yes. However, i dont have talent writing. I wish i did. Rose but off story . I have a story, its ready to go laughter rose it just needs a good writer. Ive got a good story and i could advice on such a story but in terms of Character Development and emotions, i dont have tex persons, t you know a story that would be compelling . I have one in mind right now. Im happy to tell it. Rose okay, tell me. Okay. The world is at war. Rose the world we know is at war . The world we know is at war and, in some very disruptive way, not with large weapons, but regional battles everywhere, and people are choosing sides. Then an astroid is decovered. Rose tell us what an astroid is. An astroid is a craggy chunk of rock varied in sizes, countless tens of thousands of them, probably hundreds of thousands of them. In the orbit between mars and jupiter, most of them, some have wayward orbits, they cross the orbit of the earth, some in thousands. You learn earth and the astroids will collide with one another guaranteed eventually. So we want to keep track of all the earthcrossing objects and monitor them. Ideally, you want to put lojack on them. Its 10 00 p. M. , do you know where your killer astroid is . Once you do that, we learn there is an astroid that could render us all extinct. As that moment, everyone who sees other humans as their enemy come together and see the astroid as their Common Energy and the technology that has been developed around the countries in the world, countries are now technologically able and they have been developpic technology to fight wars rose they develop a common front against the astroid. Not only that but we need different pieces of technology for the deflection device. Rose you could make this as a real possibility. Yes, so the science would not only be in the threat of the astroid and finding and searching it, the Space Mission to deflect it, the tools to use to engage that deflection, if something doesnt exist, you can go into the laboratories, you can see the pressure on them to invent something that works, you find out i have a piece of this but i have to go to my enemy who invented another piece for it to come together and make everything work. So it can be quite dramatic. Maybe we can have a little piece of the astroid to work, you have to flood the city, otherwise hollywood doesnt buy it in. Armageddon, they managed to save earth but pieces hit the earth. The astroids have good aivment one decapitated the chrysler building. They were aiming for human monuments. They will probably hit the ocean. You probably get to destroy the cities with a tsunami. Rose the last big astroid that hit the earth two years ago, one the size of this studio traveling 40,000 miles an hour collided with earths atmosphere above a town in the euro mountains. Rose what happened if it hit the center of Manhattan Island . Well, so that that happened to explode about 20 miles up, okay, 20 or 25 miles up, and thats high enough so that energy gets deposited into the atmosphere and dilutes before it reaches earths surface. But even so, that was enough shock wave to shatter essentially every single window in the city, while people were looking out the window to wonder what the light was they had just seen. Light travels father than sound. So they see the bright light, the light of the explosion, look out the window, the shock wave comes, lacerated faces, hands, skin, 1600 people injured. That was a shot across our bow, the universe asking us, hows your Space Program coming . laughter so if that happened over manhattan, it would have, now, in manhattan, you have a different problem when you shatter windows because they fall and become these sabers, sharp sabers descending to the street, possibly hurting or killing people, pedestrians. Rose have the United States or any other country done a lot because theyve learned the lessons from the astroid two years ago . More people are talking about it burks that astrode we didnt know was coming till it was too late. You might have three minutes evacuation time. That one is not large enough to catch it far away. Rose and if we detect one far enough away, we shoot it down or something . No, thats macchio. Are you a macho man . Rose no. Blow theer ou sucker out of the sky laughter rose how do you deflect it . There are interesting plans. Knot hack funded to make it happen. One thing is you take your spaceship, and if thats the astroid, you can bring your spaceship nearby and park it there and theyll feel one another and want to drift towards one another because of mutual gravity but you dont let that happen. You fire retrorockets to prevent that and the act of doing that slowly tugs the astroid out of harms way. Yousdont have to destroy it. Just make sure on its route it doesnt hit earth anymore. Its there to hurt you another day, but if you get good at this, its like shooting pool cues. You knock them out of the way. Rose so thats one of the theory shthetheories . Thats one way. You dont just go and blow things out of the sky. Here in america, were good at blowing stuff up and let good at knowing where the pieces will go when youre done. So its very messy to try to explode the astroid. What you dont know will break into two pieces now you have to evacuate both coasts . Its a challenge. The the engineers have worked this out, but there is no plan in place, no International Collaboration in place to fund. This suppose it head ford the indian ocean. Do you tell all the indian ocean countries, oh, you have to defend yourself . If we have the most advanced Space Program at the time, should we pay for it . Do you tax everyone as part of their gdp, the way the membership at the u. N. Is taxed, and hand the money to the most able country who can deflect it . Heres another one, lets say it heads for the United States and we deflect it, it fails and now its going to hit europe. Now what do you do . So all these problems. Rose we could put this in the movie, couldnt we . Exactly. Youre still thinking hollywood. Rose no laughter whats the most important question thats unanswered glare. Thats a great question, and i have an unorthodox answer for you, okay. For me, the greatest question and it will sound like a copout, but its not. For me, the greatest Unanswered Questions are those questions we dont even yet know to ask because they only manifest upon reaching some next frontier of ignorance. So, yeah, i want to know what dark matter is, its 85 of the gravity of the universe. We have no idea whats causing it. We shouldnt even we dont even have the right to call it a dark matter. We have top people working on this with top equipment. So i get that, but at this moment, we dont know what it is, and it doesnt interact rose and whats the most likely answer . I have a preferred answer. Rose whats the preferred answer . Thats my preferred answer. Particle physicists, they want to say its a particle because the particle physicists if you want to be a particle you grant mass to other particles. I grant the mass you will measure for it. So theres dark energy, the universe is accelerating in expansion against the wishes of gravity, we dont know whats causing that. We dont know how you went from organic molecules in the early earth to animated life. Thats a transition thats on the frontier. Rose say that again. How do you go lifeless organic molecules. Rose which is chemistry . Yeah, organic chemistry, to selfreplicating life, based on the organic molecules. Molecules. Were not there yet and we dont know what was around before the big bang. So we have top people working on it. And ill put you on my speed dial if you want to know the latest. Rose what is dark matter. We dont know. Rose we dont know that. We should call it dark gravity. Rose thats one of the Big Questions, though. Yes, it is. Rose and the other one dark energy, we dont know what that is. Rose okay. It was around before the big bang. Rose what was the big bang . Well, the beginning of the universe. Duh. laughter if you turn the clock back, what you will notice about the universe is that it was smawrnlr and hotter, for every day you turn the clock back. So you run the clock all the way back and you learn that the entire universe was in the same place at the same time, and at extremely high temperatures, in the trillions. You know, trillion is the highest number anyone has any comfort with, but temperatures much hot than that. So when you have these temperatures, the thing is unstable and it explodes, so you have the birth of our universe. We dont know what was around before that. Rose so from the university we have to know what happened in chemistry to make dna. Yeah, because im an astrophysicist. I know we have life and ive got that but all those are very real questions we ask today. If you can answer that, dish out the nobel prizes. I want to know what questions were not even intellectually ma chiewf enough to ask yet. They will reveal themselves after weve answered the questions we put on the table. Rose has a new question revealed itself in the last 15 years . Yeah, dark energy was discovered in 1998, 17 years ago burks its still a big mystery. Rose who discovered it . Two teams. Theyre measuring super novae. A particular species of super novanova, theyre potent to meae the expansion and size of the universe. Two teams, one in california and one on both coasts were working on the answer and shared the nobel prize for that recently. Rose are we alone . My best guest is the universe is teaming with life, and our galaxy, in particular. Our galaxy is sort of proxy for other galaxies, is teaming with life, but that complex life might be much rarer. Rose why is that . Well, heres the argument. You have the time line of the earth. Earth is born. This is today. Thats 4. 5 billion years. Put this planet out there, some are born yesterday, some at the beginning of the universe. You dont know when in the time line of the planet you will land there. Heres earth. Throw a dart at the time line. Most the time the dart hits earth, there is only singlecelled life. Then we have the cam bringian explosion of life. Oxygen is rocket fuel for complex life and life now has the Carte Blanche to become complex because the system can support it, and you get limbs and detecters like, and sensors and its a Stunning Development in the fossil record of life on earth. Then you have complex life. So thats a smaller piece of the title timeline. You ask when do you find intelligent life . Thats this last little bit that we define as intelligent. So if earth is any measure of anything, throwing darts at planets that we might land on, who is to say that were going to land right at that moment where what we call intelligence has arise noon whats on mars . The rover is on mars, im happy to report. The curiosity rover is the size of an suv. Rose so whats up there . Well, mars is curious rose water . Well, the martian surface has rampant evidence of there once having been running water. Rose so that says something. Yes. What i mean by evidence, i mean really awesome evidence. Like there are river beds that meet dried, meandering river beds. The things, if you fly over the midwest and you look at the things that flood waters have done and longtime rivers have done, cut into the landscape, the grand canyon kind of things you see all the telltale features. Rose when do we see them . Anytime we take a photograph of its surface. Rose we could have known that without going there . Uh. The resolution is very hard to pick up. Thats hard. You want to get close, then you can see ridges and valleys and mountains rose so that tells you water was there . Yes, or a liquid. Were pretty sure it was water, but it certainly was a liquid. To meander a river means the river was there a long time. You dont meander overnight. And dry lake beds with salt deposits at the bottom. How do you get salt deposits . From standing water that had minerals in it. When theres no water left, youve got a salt lake. You fly over utah, thats what Salt Lake City is sitting next to. Rose should we go to as far as. Yeah, why not . Rose if its feasible and doable. People say, oh, the radiation we have clever engineers. I have no doubt theyll figure out all the technological problems. Its just money. Rose really . Its only ever money at all times. Rose are you extremely disappointed we dont donor in space . The curiosity part of me is disappointed, but the politically astute side of me fully understands why thats the case. Rose because we have other priorities . No. Weve always had other priorities. Thats a false excuse. When we went to the moon, we had plenty of other priorities. There was a civil rights movement. There was the hot war in southeast asia. The cold war with the soviet union. The campus unrest rose we did it for p. R. We did it because we were at war with the soviets. That was an act of war, essentially, without the weapons, and if we were not at war, the motivation to go to the moon, we would tell ourselves, oh, we went to the moon because were americans and were explorers and its in our dna okay, that might be true but the people who write the checks dont care about any of this lofty speech. Its is your security at risk . We will spend any amount of money to protect that, and thats when money flows like rivers and we went to the moon in that climate. Rose but should we create that urgency again for Something Like going to the moon . You know what i joke about . Rose no. I say, let me go visit china and whisper to the head of china, pssst u want to put military basess on mars . Dont tell anybody then that memo shows up in the pentagon, we will be on mars in ten months, one month to design, build and fund a spacecraft, and nine months to get there with the astronauts. Thats how motivated we will be because i think thats how note violated we were in the 60s. I want to go to mars for military reasons. Its more subtle and takes slightly long than the proverbial elevator ride you have to save up for your member of congress. This takes maybe twice as long as an elevator ride, and im thinking i voted for my representation in congress, i want them to listen to me for longer than an elevator ride. So its simple if youre going into space in a big way, visiting astroids, mining astroids, tourist jaunts to the moon, science on mars, youre doing all these activities, might be military activities, all of this, to accomplish this will require advancing a space frontier. You will be inventing, innovating, patents will be granted and you will have these discoveries weekly if not daily in your newspapers that that infuse as culture of inquiry, of exploration, of innovation, and when you come from a culture of innovation, stuff gets solved because your whole mindset is different. Rose do you believe weve lost the culture of innovation . Yes, its been gone since we stopped going to the move. Rose Silicon Valley is a great culture of innovation. Yes, it is a great culture of innovation burks i was misrepresented in headlines when i said i gave a talk and in response to a question, someone says what do you think of them . And i said the world has problems that are bigger than can be solved than waiting just for your next app. We have problems in transportation, housing, poverty, disease, energy, climate, and, so, these are huge problems, and if we all sit down and play with our apps, theyre not going to get solved. Thats what i head. The headline was tyson attacks entrepreneurs saying theyre like cave men. Rose what did you mean . What i mean is, to bask in the measures of your next app will hide from you the fact that there are larger problems that need to be solved. Rose which raises the question of all these people like jeff basos and elonmusk and Sir Richard Branson that want to create some kind of vehicles in space dont laugh at me. No, no, im not. Somebody has to do that. Whether or not they will succeed you want somebody there doing that, and they affect how other people i think. Ive had students in my classes saying one day i want to work for spacex not wall street and get rich.