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Out of this world neil degrasse tyson, an astrophysicist. he's also co-author of a new book, because he's got a lot of books, this one "a brief welcome to the universe." neil, so good to see you. >> yeah, thanks for having me. i just want to say up front bruce willis is not part of this mission. [ laughter ] >> darn, i'm sure he is disappointed though. so, help me understand this because, first of all, i didn't know an asteroid could have a moon, but of course you knew that because you're an astrophysicist. but tell us about this asteroid, which is roughly the size of three aircraft carriers, ...

Discover have our name on it. >> wow. and so any kind of pieces that might come from, you know, chipping away of that moon that you said is like a football field size, certainly much smaller than the aircraft carrier size of the asteroid. so tell me about the spacecraft that does that, could do this deflection. >> this is a spacecraft, it's electrical ion propulsion. so, this sounds very science fictiony, and the engineers have been working on ion propulsion for quite some time. there's been good tests of it. so what you have is you have sort of an ionnized gas and you direct charged particles...

The galaxy if we humans who had a space program went extinct because we couldn't get our act together and deflect an asteroid that took us out of the equation. >> well, let me ask you about somebody else who is very smart and admired. actor william shatner of "star trek," he'll be flying into space this week. and in your view, does putting a celebrity into space help spark more interest or keep the interest going with space exploration? >> by all means. and any celebrity, because celebrities have followings. >> what about you? >> i think we should send journalists. [ laughter ] we should send ...

Up because we have no end of weaponry to do this. but that's not the wisest path. all engineering calculations tell us. because if you blow something up, while we're good at blowing it up, we're not as good as knowing where the pieces will end up. so it's safer and it's more controlled to deflect an asteroid from harm's way. and what we found is a double asteroid, so the d.a. in the d.a.r.t. stands for double asteroid redirect test. and we know the orbit of the moon. that's about the size of a football stadium. and it's in orbit around its host asteroid. and we know that orbit with good enough...

Firefighters were hurt by a falling tree in the national park there, and they were hospitalized. can you give us an update on them? >> well, fortunately they are in real good condition. they were working around a giant sequoia grove and securing a line to help protect a community right adjacent to that area, but a very scary day for all of us, but those firefighters are doing very well. >> oh, my goodness. well, clayton jordan. thank you so much for having the time to talk with us again and give us an update. we certainly are, you know, are thinking about you all out there, and we hope that th...