Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist, director of New York's Hayden Planetarium and author of 14 books about space.
For decades, the 58-year-old has captured imaginations with his research on the Milky Way galaxy and star formation - some of which features in his latest book, Welcome to the Universe. He has also played adviser to Nasa as part of a team to implement the United States' vision for future space exploration.1 Today, Tyson spends a large part of his career communicating science to the public.
WIRED met deGrasse Tyson to discuss his role, the mathematical likelihood of other civilisations in our galaxy, and why space exploration could power Earth's nations towards economic prosperity.
WIRED: Why do you spend so much of your time communicating science?
Neil deGrasse Tyson: I have a slightly unorthodox answer. I do it because I'm asked to, in a sense. I don't wake up in the morning and think, "How can I bring science to the public today?" What happens is people call me - the press, documentarians, publishers - and that's when I'm alerted that there's an appetite out there for what I have expertise in. I see myself as a servant of the public's appetite for the Universe, not so much a leader of their interest.
What do you see as the most important venture in space exploration right now?
I like that there's a desire to want to send people to Mars. I have my scepticism about how and when that will happen, but I will not stand in their way because somebody's got to dream like that. You can live in a country where everything is stable, but if it's a place where no-one dreams about a different future, then I don't know that it's where I would want to live. I admire the people who have the tenacity to send others to Mars.
What makes you sceptical?
The money. To go to Mars because you want to, my reading of history says that doesn't work. We didn't go to the Moon because we wanted to. We may remember it that way, because it serves a certain self-image – we're Americans, we're explorers, it's in our DNA, so we went to the Moon. That's just assuming it's a thing you do, without asking what's driving this, what's allocating the money for this? When you do that, you find that war and economics are the big drivers of major expenditures. I think there are many drivers for sending people into space – touristic, militaristic; these are very potent drivers of human conduct and the expenditure of financial capital. I imagine tourism, mining of asteroids as a frontier space activity. I'm sure the world's first trillionaire is the person who learns how to mine asteroids.
Yet at the same time there's an ongoing debate about whether space exploration is really worth it - and some of it focused on Nasa.
There's been a lot of buzz: one question was, should Nasa stop monitoring Earth? There are members of Congress who want to remove that from the Nasa portfolio and have Nasa focus only on places other than Earth. Nasa is uniquely qualified to study Earth: that, in particular, is Nasa's expertise, because at Nasa we study all the planets, and you can compare and contrast to see what you might be doing right or wrong2. To remove that from its portfolio will have unclear consequences on our ability to monitor global warming and other global phenomena. More people need to understand the value of exploration, and I don't think they do.
What else do people overlook?
When you explore space you'll make discoveries related to geology, chemistry and engineering. There's a whole frontier of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields that are represented in space adventures. To make discoveries, you have to innovate, and innovations in those fields are the engines of tomorrow's economy. So if you want to ensure an economically vibrant nation, investing in space exploration will go a long way towards that. I think if people fully understood what role it plays in their health, their wealth and their security, I think they would be jumping all over it.
In your book Welcome to the Universe you explore the idea that other civilisations likely occupy our galaxy. Is there a theory behind this?
We go over a famous representation of that question called the Drake Equation: it's a way to organise our knowledge and ignorance about the search for life in the Universe3. In the book we use it to estimate that there are between 100 and 200 civilisations with technology that we can communicate with today in the Milky Way galaxy. That's a nice number: not really low, not ambitiously high, but it's enough to say, let's keep that in mind, so that the first time we launch a rocket into space, maybe there's an inventory of planets that have a chance of having civilisation on them.
Do you sense that science literacy is coming under threat?
My contrarian view is that I focus on adults rather than kids with this question. The battle cry is let's make the kids scientifically literate to assure our future. Well, that won't work if adults outnumber kids and you have adults in charge who lack science literacy: then there is no change. They don't even know why it's important to change. I claim that people aged 30 and under are a moving frontier through the demographic distribution in the west, and that community is and will continue to be scientifically literate. I have hope that this next generation can take the mantle and make administrative and political decisions that can make us all proud.
What's next for you?
I have a fantasy that in a few years I give up all my public exposure and just go back to the lab and lock the door: my educational roots are as a practicing scientist. But like I said, I do the rest of this because it's a duty for me. I have a few more books I want to write, and I've had many requests to do voice-overs for things. I'm very honoured by that. I've done the voices for some cartoon characters, some cameos of me in an animated series: I do this only if the request has some kind of science associated with it. I'm delighted to be a servant in that capacity.
Welcome to the Universe: An Astrophysical Tour by Neil deGrasse Tyson and Michael Strauss (Princeton University Press) is out now
- haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/media/pdf/MoonToMarsFinalReport.pdf
- climate.nasa.gov/nasa_science/missions/
- seti.org/drakeequation
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
