Bill Nye is all about harnessing power these days : the power of the Sun , the power of human geographic expedition , the might of clime alteration , and the might of the citizenry .
“ Science is the best idea humans have ever had , ” say Mr. Nye . A bold claim but not an entirely unexpected one from Bill Nye “ The Science Guy . ”
He may have begun his career as the whacky teacher small fry sleep together to watch , but nowadays Nye is a bright and louder banger for “ controversial ” skill . “ Controversial ” in quotation not because what he says is scientifically controversial , but because it is politically .
In the last tenner , Nye has become an fervent crusader for The Planetary Society – which celebrated its35th anniversaryover the weekend – and forclimate variety action at law . To delve deeper , “ The Science Guy ” sit around down with IFLScience to talk climate alteration , the next generation , and space exploration .
The Power of Climate Change
His new bookUnstoppabletackles that very topic . “ It ’s the most of import book ever save , ” he enjoin in a deadpan voice , before cracking a grinning and getting serious . “ My premise is that climate change is the most serious problem we have and it ’s daunting . Part of the reason that there are so many denier being heard is because the problem seems intractable . ”
If that ’s the exculpation , Nye has decided to do what he does best : Make it understandable . He packages it direct , simple , and alarming : “ clime change is number , and it is coming right at you . ”
Although this voice like a musical phrase a pessimist would throw around , at its heart the rule book is affirmative – a call to the public to help because he believe , “ If we just agree to get to work on this trouble , we would solve it . ”
That ’s not to say it ’s going to be well-fixed . There are definite hurdles to combating climate change , not the least of which is political . And just because you could diagnose the job , does n’t think of you could process it . There is the job of harness huge amount of energy , inventing transportation that is both eco - friendly and pocketbook - favorable , mitigating agricultural donation to global thawing , and so on .
However , his passion for mood change action has also shinny over into his piece of work for interplanetary infinite . One model of that is theLightSailproject – a small spacecraft that hitched a ride on a rocket , was lifted into small - Earth orbit , and then actuate along by photons from the Sun .
The Power of the multitude
If we can harness the tycoon of the Sun on Earth , why not also harness it in place ? That was the interrogative sentence firstproposed by Carl Sagan , laminitis of The Planetary Society , and continued by dedicated professionals within the establishment .
The LightSail project was a long prison term coming , to say the least . load down andready to usefor almosttwo years , the space vehicle ’s solar sails stayed hive away away until earlier this class . TheKickstarterfund for LightSail garnered more than 23,000 backer who contributed over$1 million dollars(£650,000 ) toward the solar sailing endeavour – a powerful statement by the public , who will help set up the primary mission in 2016 .
“ Seeing if it would deploy was a really big question , and will the television camera lick and will the telemetry oeuvre , ” said Nye , consult to the tryout flight in June 2015 . “ So we used it as a trial trajectory to show that this would puzzle out . ”
The aim of LightSail is to apply the Sun ’s light beam to glide through blank space in a similar direction to how sea dog once harnessed the power of the wind to navigate the seas . Of of course , the Sun is n’t pushing the space vehicle with the same amount of force as an ocean blast by blow of wind .
rather , the force of photons from the sunshine pushing on the spacecraft is about the same as the power of a housefly sit on one ’s hand . For a few resplendent calendar week , the ballistic capsule sailed by the sparkle of the Sun .
Image : On June 8 , 2015 , LightSail take this image of its deploy solar sail . Credit : The Planetary Society
The Power of Human Exploration
land may be a spinning lump in the universe , but it ’s not a specimen that scientist can pick up with pair of pincers and study in the lab .
“ Keep in nous , clime change was really find out on Venus , ” said Nye . “ Do n’t want to be Venus . Do n’t want to be Mars . And you would n’t jazz that if you did n’t explore Venus and Mars . ”
At its essence , it is a written report of comparisons . To realise spirit on Earth , sometimes you have to explore what life off Earth is like . That proved in part to be the character withVenus , Mars and the burgeoning climate changerevelation .
In the fifties and sixties , these two planet appeared to be similar to Earth . That is , until scientist learned of theirvastly differentatmospheres . Venus was actually a hot worldwide furnace , spurred on by the greenhouse gist . Mars , on the other hand , could stiffen limbs in a cold halt . We cursorily read as Earthlings that the standard atmosphere and clime is a delicate matter to mess with – and it just so happens , we are mess around with ours .
Nye , however , is not mess around … at least , not when it come to climate alteration action and getting humans – not just robot – to Mars . He ’s recently been anoutspoken advocateof a human being - ride Mars mission , rather than a solely robotic one .
“ From a scientific viewpoint , if you had humans in the neck of the woods of Mars , they will be able to tele - function robots on the surface , ” said Nye . “ In the bigger pictorial matter , if world were out there , they would be explorers . And when you explore , two things happen : You make discoveries , which you’re able to do with robot , but you will also have an risky venture , and there ’s no substitute for that . What gets multitude frantic is when humans are in space . ”
icon : The stratum at the foundation of Mount Sharp on Mars . The image was taken by NASA ’s Curiosity rover . Credit:NASA / JPL - Caltech / MSSS
The Planetary Society latterly released a account on “ humanity Orbiting Mars ” by 2033 , demonstrating a possible mean value to get to Mars quicker and within the same budget as other , longer - term architectural plan ( after conform for inflation ) .
But , of course , there are other architectural plan churning out there too , one of which isMars One – the extremely publicized , highly criticizedgoal of Bas Lansdorp to create a human settlement on the Red Planet , with the first crew military mission to start in 2026 .
Nye had a few choice dustup for this go-ahead : “ Mars One is absolutely not viable . whisker - brain , you ca n’t do it . He want to do it for $ 4 billion clam , which you ca n’t do . ”
“ If you require to try it , go to Antarctica for a couple year and do n’t even suspire the air . Take your own air for two eld and see how much sport it is , ” he add . “ I consider people are a little confused by the model , or the story , of European settler coming across North America . Much more correspondent is thescientific basewe have in Antarctica , where there are a duad hundred people there all the clip . Not thousands of people having babies and raise crops and stuff . It ’s a bitterly cold , hostile place . But scientifically of great importance . ”
So what does this all mean for space geographic expedition ?
“ We have to keep explore quad . It is not a enquiry of pursuing this applied science or that technology , meliorate the lives of these people or those people . You want to do everything all at once . If we did not keep await up and out , what would that say about us ? ”
He pause for a second and add : “ We are made ofstardust . There are some other rogue dust , but mostly stardust . And we can understand that . So you and I are at least one way the universe have sex itself . That is make a motion . It fills me with reverence . ”
