 What do we need to do to get people in power to take things like Space exploration that this seriously once again, well the two easy ways One of them is we go to war with China because they want to put military bases on Mars. Oh, I guess we have to go to Mars and then we go to Mars because it's a military project as was the entire founding of NASA You so method one go to war with China. Yeah. Yeah, that would happen Oh, no, so another way so I joke about this you go to China and say could you please go to the head of China? I say could you please leak a memo? That says you want to put military bases on Just leak one that had to be true. Just leak a memo then we're on Mars in 10 months Elon So, of course, I presume most if not all people don't want this to happen as the consequence of a Military engagement. I'm simply being frank and saying that's how we went to the moon That's how we light a fire under bucks That's how and why we went to the moon even though we've cleansed that memory as well You go to the Kenny Space Center of Florida. There's a bus to JFK and there's a whole granite wall behind And chiseled into the granite. There's this famous line from a speech You know, I pledge or whatever it is that we'll put a man on the moon and return seven safely to the earth and You know, I can hear his voice as I read those words and it's stir it's stirring What they left out and there's plenty of room on this granite wall to have included it of that same speech He says the following if the events of recent weeks This is almost verbatim probably paraphrasing a little Because the speech he gave six weeks after Yuri Gagarin We didn't yet have a spacecraft that wouldn't explode much less A a spacecraft worthy of putting a human being in it It would still be the next year before John Glenn would fly after many failed experiments with our rockets. So In that same speech a few paragraphs earlier He says if the events of recent weeks wouldn't utter the man's name The events of recent weeks are any indication of the impact of this adventure of the minds of men everywhere Then we need to show the world the path of freedom over the path It was a battle cry against communism Once you say that nothing else matters in the speech We can cherry pick it and put it on granite and make and Say to ourselves that we were explorers and discoverers and were americans But that's not the reality of how that stuff went down and When you feel threatened money flows like rivers But I would say and I wrote this in a whole other book not this current one that There's another way to do it one of the great drivers of investment is economics the promise of economic return so if if you can construct our Exploration of space is something that ultimately pumps the economy Then it would be trivial to justify doing so And when I say pumping the economy, I'm not talking about spin-offs or any traditional it will be but that's not what I'm talking about I'm talking about a cultural shift A firmware upgrade in our mind body and soul related to how we value exploration innovation discovery When you go into space in a big way you have to invent stuff patents get awarded records are set headlines are written And it reaches us in all of our social fabric Especially in the k-12 pipeline so economically We go into space. It could be transformative on our civilization Certainly on the american culture and possibly the entire civilization unless you have some other more potent way to do it I'm all ears. Yeah. Well, hopefully in the near future. We'll see a resurgence in this because of this stuff You began by saying we by Re-reciting that we sleep on our backs and we look up and wonder about the night sky so space exploration I think is There's a little piece of that in everyone Hey everyone, thanks for watching if you want to see the full episode with neil de grass tyson I invite you to click the link in the description for more awesome interviews with incredibly fascinating people or inside knowledge from the best In influence persuasion negotiation and nonverbal communication. Please hit that subscribe button